You searched for feed | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/ Thu, 25 Sep 2025 12:45:45 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.2 https://www.mindtickle.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/MT-Icon-Alternate-150x150.png You searched for feed | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/ 32 32 How an AI Coach Takes Your Sales Team’s Performance to the Next Level https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/ai-coach/ Fri, 19 Sep 2025 05:00:33 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20712 By now, it’s no secret that sales coaching moves the needle. In fact, 91% of sales managers say coaching positively impacts their team’s performance.  But today’s sales managers are stretched thin – juggling larger teams, longer sales cycles, and constant context switching. They know coaching works, but often lack the time to deliver the tailored, …

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By now, it’s no secret that sales coaching moves the needle. In fact, 91% of sales managers say coaching positively impacts their team’s performance. 

But today’s sales managers are stretched thin – juggling larger teams, longer sales cycles, and constant context switching. They know coaching works, but often lack the time to deliver the tailored, timely support every seller deserves.

With an AI sales coach, sellers get targeted guidance they can apply immediately – no manager bandwidth required.

If you’re ready to bring AI into your sales coaching strategy this year, you’re in the right place. In this post, we’ll unpack what an AI coach is, how it differs from traditional sales coaching, and why it’s the most scalable path to better behaviors, stronger pipelines, and bigger wins. 

What is an AI coach?

Perhaps you’re not quite sure what an AI coach is. Or maybe you have some ideas – but could use some clarity on the topic. Whatever the case, let’s start by defining what an AI coach is.

An AI sales coach is a sales tool that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to deliver personalized feedback and guidance to sales reps. When sellers apply the feedback from an AI sales coach, they can improve their skills and behaviors and boost their sales productivity and performance.

How AI sales coaching and training is different from traditional sales coaching

Now that we’ve shared a definition of the term “AI sales coach,” you may be wondering how it compares to more traditional sales coaching methods.

AI sales coaching and traditional sales coaching are both methods for delivering personalized feedback and guidance to sellers that help them be more successful in their roles. AI- and human-powered sales coaching can both be good ways to deliver:

  • Deal coaching: Guidance to improve the likelihood of a specific deal closing.
  • Skill coaching: Coaching and support to improve the skills and competencies needed for success in a specific sales role. 

Ideally, both AI coaching and traditional coaching should be rooted in data. That way, coaching will be relevant to each sales rep’s specific strengths and weaknesses. Data can come from a variety of different sources, including:

  • Performance metrics: Some examples include conversion rates, sales cycle lengths, and quota attainment. 
  • Readiness scores: How well a sales rep stacks up against your what your ideal rep looks like
  • Role play performance: AI can analyze performance and provide insights on what’s happening in the field.
  • In-field performance: This can be analyzed by sitting in on sales calls or using a conversation intelligence tool. 

There are some similarities between an AI coach and more traditional sales coaching methods. However, there are also some key differences. Let’s look at some of the top factors that set an AI coach apart from traditional sales coaching methods. 

Factor #1: Who delivers the coaching

Perhaps the most obvious difference between the two types of coaching is who delivers it.

A sales rep’s manager most often delivers traditional sales coaching. In some organizations, sales coaching is also delivered by:

  • A level-up manager (in other words, the manager of the manager)
  • A sales enablement professional or sales trainer
  • A peer mentor

AI training and coaching, on the other hand, is delivered via artificial intelligence that’s embedded within a specific tool or platform. For example, a revenue enablement platform may build an AI sales coach into the tool.

Factor #2: What channels are used for coaching

Traditional and AI coaching occur through different channels.

Traditional coaching can happen face-to-face if the seller and their manager happen to be in the same office. It can also happen via digital channels. For example, if a sales rep and their manager aren’t in the same office, they might have a regularly scheduled video call in which the manager delivers coaching. Or, a seller could record a role-play and share it with the manager, who could then provide feedback via email or a sales coaching tool.

AI training and coaching happen exclusively via digital channels. For example, an AI assistant can provide feedback while a sales rep interacts with an AI bot in a virtual role-play exercise. 

Some revenue enablement platforms also leverage AI to guide next steps for a deal based on factors like the deal’s stage, buyer engagement, and data on what has worked in similar scenarios in the past. For example, an AI can help the seller surface a specific piece of content that is likely to propel the deal forward.

Factor #3: Coaching timing

Another key difference between AI coaching and traditional coaching is when it is delivered.

When it comes to traditional sales coaching, reps are typically at the mercy of the manager’s schedule. Sellers may have to wait for a scheduled meeting to receive coaching. They can also reach out to a manager if they need guidance in between meetings. However because managers have busy schedules, the seller may be waiting for a while, which can slow down the progress of a deal.

An AI coach delivers feedback in real-time. That means sellers can get the feedback and guidance they need whenever and wherever they need it. For example, an AI coach can deliver feedback to a seller immediately after a role play.The seller can immediately implement this feedback to improve their performance on the next call and accelerate the deal.

Top benefits of AI-powered sales coaching

One-size-fits-all sales coaching isn’t effective. Instead, sales coaching must be personalized to be effective. 

But it’s not always easy to deliver timely, relevant feedback that addresses the needs of every buyer. 

Increasingly, revenue organizations are embracing AI coaches. Why? Incorporating an AI coach into your overall sales coaching strategy can deliver some significant benefits. Let’s take a look at a few.

Real-time feedback to improve behaviors and outcomes

When a seller has access to an AI coach, they don’t have to wait for their sales manager to have free time in their schedule. Instead, sellers can access relevant feedback and guidance any time they engage in an AI-powered role play. 

Sellers can immediately put AI-driven feedback into practice, adjusting their approach in real time to boost performance and drive better results on sales calls.

Customized coaching for every seller

Traditional sales coaching methods are often one-size-fits-all. In other words, the same coaching is delivered to every seller, regardless of their unique strengths and weaknesses. This approach doesn’t work, but it continues to be common because personalized sales coaching requires a lot of time, and most sales managers are stretched thin.

AI coaching is customized to the seller’s unique needs. For example, an AI coach can deliver tips for improving objection handling if that’s an area where a seller struggles. It can also provide content recommendations based on how a buyer has engaged with other content they’ve received. 

Scalability as team sizes change

The size of a sales team can fluctuate – a lot. This is especially true in today’s economic environment. If you’re solely using traditional coaching methods, scaling coaching as your team grows can be impossible.

When you incorporate an AI coach into your sales coaching strategy, you can provide effective, consistent coaching across your entire sales team – no matter how the team size fluctuates over time.

Judgement-free guidance

A seller might have a question for their manager. But they’re afraid to ask it for fear of being judged. Or, they might record a role play but worry their sales manager or trainer will be overly critical.

With an AI coach, sellers can get the coaching and guidance they need—judgement-free. For example, sellers can engage with AI-powered role plays to practice their skills as much as they want. An AI coach will deliver feedback to help them improve their behaviors and performance.

Or, a sales rep can pose a question to an AI coach and get a judgment-free answer. For example, a seller can ask Mindtickle Copilot a question about a product – and AI will deliver an answer, along with supporting content.

More time for managers 

Many sales managers are stretched thin. They simply don’t have the time to deliver personalized coaching to increasingly large sales teams.

AI coaches can ease the burden.

Consider the fact that it takes a human 17 minutes to review a role play. An AI coach like Mindtickle Copilot can do it in 60 seconds. A recent analysis found that Copilot received a total of 7,000 role play submissions during 2025. If a human was tasked with reviewing those submissions, it would take 50 work weeks!

Of course, that doesn’t mean sales managers should no longer be involved in sales coaching. However, when AI coaches can deliver ongoing, routine feedback and coaching, sales managers have more time to engage in strategic coaching conversations and deliver expertise that’s only available from a real-life human.

Features to look for in an AI sales coaching platform

Not all AI sales coaching tools are created equal. It’s important to find a solution that aligns with your team’s needs and truly drives measurable improvements in performance. 

While there’s no one-size-fits-all AI sales coaching platform, there are some core features that any effective solution should include.

1. Real-time feedback

Sales reps can’t afford to wait days (or even hours) for coaching. Choose a platform that delivers immediate feedback after calls or role plays so sellers can immediately fine-tune their approach. For example, platforms like Mindtickle provide in-the-moment insights right after a call or role play session.

2. Personalized coaching at scale

Each seller is unique, so one-size-fits-all sales coaching doesn’t work. Look for an AI sales coaching platform that tailors recommendations to each seller’s strengths, weaknesses, and deal context – whether that’s refining objection handling, sharpening discovery questions, or suggesting the right piece of content for a prospect. 

3. Role play simulations and practice

Great sellers aren’t born – they’re made through practice. The best AI sales coaching platforms offer adaptive, AI-powered role plays where reps can safely practice their skills and get judgement-free feedback before engaging with real prospects. Research shows that reps who regularly engage in structured role plays ramp faster, close more deals, and build stronger customer engagement skills. Plus, when sellers act on AI feedback and adjust their submissions, their average scores improve by 10-70% – proof that immediate, iterative practice drives measurable results. Platforms like Mindtickle make practice even more effective with interactive, two-way AI Role Plays that adapt in real-time to sellers’ responses. 

4. Data-driven insights

Effective sales coaching is rooted in data, not gut feelings. Choose an AI sales coaching platform that integrates with conversation intelligence and performance metrics to deliver actionable insights. This ensures coaching is relevant, measurable, and tied to business outcomes like conversion rates and quota attainment.

The future of AI sales coaching 

AI sales coaching is already reshaping how sales teams operate. But this is only the beginning. As technology evolves, coaching will become even more contextual, personalized, and seamlessly embedded into the flow of work. 

But while AI becomes more powerful, human managers will remain essential. AI can deliver scalable, real-time feedback, but it can’t replicate a human manager’s empathy, intuition, or ability to coach the “whole person.” The future isn’t about choosing either AI or human coaches. It’s about blending the strengths of both to ensure every seller has the support they need to reach their full potential.

Embrace AI coaching with Mindtickle

When done well, sales coaching can significantly impact sales performance. A Mindtickle analysis found that top-performing sellers receive significantly more sales coaching than their lower-performing peers. That’s no coincidence.

But it’s hard to consistently deliver sales coaching that meets the needs of each sales rep.

By leveraging an AI coach, you can start delivering consistent, effective coaching that positively impacts performance across your entire sales team. With Mindtickle, it’s easy to incorporate an AI coach into your sales coaching strategy. 

Mindtickle is an award-winning revenue enablement platform that’s enhanced with AI features to ensure your sellers always have real-time feedback and guidance to conquer any sales scenario. 

With Mindtickle Copilot, sellers can ask questions and get real–time answers and guidance. Mindtickle Copilot also delivers real-time feedback and advice based on a seller’s performance on sales calls and role-plays. Sellers can even engage in two-way, AI-powered role plays to practice their skills with an adaptive AI buyer.

In addition, Mindtickle Copilot helps sellers excel at every customer interaction. For example, Mindtickle Copilot can analyze data and use insights to recommend what step a seller should take next to move a deal forward. For example, Mindtickle Copilot can recommend that a seller share a specific piece of relevant content that’s known to improve outcomes in similar scenarios. Copilot can even draft a contextual email to accompany the sales content.

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help you tap into the power of AI coaching to start improving seller performance?

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Conversation Intelligence https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/conversation-intelligence/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 06:41:15 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24638 Everything you need to know about conversation intelligence.

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REVENUE HUB > Conversation Intelligence

What is Conversation Intelligence?

Conversation intelligence is software that uses AI to transcribe, analyze, and provide insights into the performance of sales calls.

The insights provided by conversation intelligence are generated by recorded interactions between sales reps and prospects, including calls and emails. Essentially, conversation intelligence scores and records key moments within an interaction to grade sales reps on their product knowledge, pitches, and overall sales approach.

Conversation intelligence can pinpoint what sales skills need to be developed, or if the rep’s overall sales approach should change to match the behavior of top sales performers.

For example, conversation intelligence can analyze a failed sales call and highlight moments when the sales rep didn’t have enough product knowledge or if the seller’s tone was off, then it provides resources to improve the sales rep’s approach for the next prospect interaction.

Sales reps are informed of the root causes that led to failed negotiations. This knowledge can then be used to dedicate coaching and resources to fixing ‌sales skills.

Why should you use conversation intelligence?

Studies have found that 89% of teams using conversation intelligence have seen an improvement in team performance.

Here are a few ways conversation intelligence helps to make that happen:

1. Improve your customer understanding

Conversation intelligence identifies customers’ needs and pain points through transcribed conversations.

This is achieved by picking up on the keywords, themes, queries, and questions that customers consistently raise. The patterns in keywords and themes identify the customer needs at each buying stage.

Once the customer needs at each stage are identified, the recurring themes are compared across the entire company to deliver insights into which sales approach best handled the theme and why.

For example, conversation intelligence can pick up when a competitor’s name is introduced into the conversation. With the help of conversation intelligence, sales reps can focus on why a competitor’s name was introduced, for example, if the sales rep didn’t answer the customer’s question satisfactorily or failed to enforce the main difference between the competitors.

Conversation intelligence is then able to provide the sales rep with action items for future interactions that remove any hesitation or comparison with competitors.

Once the call is finished, conversation intelligence gives insights into the customer’s needs based on the customer’s questions, requests, and keywords regarding the product’s performance.

By doing so, conversation intelligence removes sales reps’ biases and personal perspectives and instead offers data-driven insight. In fact, 37% of organizations say using speech analytics has helped them support “root cause” trend analysis, understanding the “why” behind each customer’s needs.

2. Increase close rates

Conversation intelligence can identify buying signals and deal risks within interactions with customers that reveal certain keywords or phrases, like “What are my payment options?” or “Is there a free trial available?”

For example, conversation intelligence can pick up on deal risks if a buyer starts to ask lots of follow-up questions or speaks hesitantly when the sales rep brings up pricing. This alerts the sales rep to work on their sales skill around pricing to improve delivery in the next iteration and win deals.

And with insights on deal risks, sales reps can effectively prepare for their conversations and react proactively with the right sales approach, content resources, and tone in their next interaction.

When conversation intelligence finds prospects who indicate interest, it helps sales reps keep a closer eye on these prospects and get them moving through the pipeline.

In fact, studies of conversation intelligence insights show that when all sales conversations are evaluated, 75% of sales reps considered the insights to be “very effective.”

By understanding customer needs and their purchase intent from conversation intelligence insights, sales reps can accurately define their next step to win more deals.

3. Coach sales reps with individual insights

In sales coaching, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. If you want your coaching to be impactful, it needs to be individual and data-driven.

Personalized training ensures that sales reps are engaged and motivated to learn, as the skills are relevant and actionable. In fact, a study found that 94% of respondents agree that conversation intelligence enables better coaching.

Here are some key metrics conversation intelligence can keep track of:

In sales coaching, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach. If you want your coaching to be impactful, it needs to be individual and data-driven.

Personalized training ensures that sales reps are engaged and motivated to learn, as the skills are relevant and actionable. In fact, a study found that 94% of respondents agree that conversation intelligence enables better coaching.

Here are some key metrics conversation intelligence can keep track of:

4. Change sales reps’ behavior

With conversation intelligence, sales reps can change their behavior by understanding their own personal approach to sales and how it affects their overall quota attainment. In fact, 82% of companies with top sales performers already use conversation intelligence for sales improvement.

Conversation intelligence provides firsthand data that analyzes a sales rep’s behavior. It informs sellers if their message is landing based on the customer’s reaction. It also compares each rep’s behavior with colleagues to identify the best traits and skills that affect the outcome of a successful deal.

By having their behavior recorded with each sales call, sales reps are able to continuously track improvements and witness an increase in their quota attainment.

Conversation intelligence also reduces the risk of delayed follow-up by coming up with designated action items after a call. In turn, this reinforces a sales behavior from sales reps to follow through with an appropriate follow-up action.

For example, conversation intelligence captures promising terms such as “I will send” or “the next step is…” and automatically creates action items for the sales rep. In doing so, it reduces the chance that sales reps will forget or not follow through on promises.

5. Accelerate onboarding

Conversation intelligence allows new sales hires to listen to real conversations from top-performing sellers and learn winning behaviors from the start. And it allows new hires to practice their sales skills before they take on live calls with prospects, which helps new hires discover and work on weaknesses in their sales delivery.

By doing so, new sales hires can effectively improve their skills and confidently prepare for their next sales interaction.

With conversation intelligence, new hires are 10x more likely to feel prepared for future interactions. Conversation intelligence allows past sales calls to become a learning resource. In turn, the exposure to relevant sales calls helps new hires improve their confidence early on as they are shown real-life scenarios and conversations.

New hires can also listen and understand the customers’ voices early on.

6. Improve the product offer

Conversation intelligence can analyze recordings to uncover product insights that have implications across the entire organization.

For example, conversations between sales reps and prospects can offer insights into your product’s weaknesses.

This is possible as conversation intelligence listens for positive references to features of your competitors’ products that your product lacks or for specific pain points that are brought up by customers that your product can’t resolve.

By learning about missing features or competitors’ benefits, product managers can develop plans that improve a product offering to better suit the customer’s needs.

How can you use conversation intelligence in your sales strategy?

Use conversation intelligence at each part of the sales cycle to prepare your sales reps to meet prospects at the stage of their buyer’s journey.

This is because conversation intelligence provides both sales reps and sales managers with insights and best practices for each stage in the sales pipeline.

Sales reps can also prepare using role plays and scenario navigation with coaches who build their confidence for their next call.


And with recorded conversations, sales reps can share snippets from past conversations to highlight what tone, words, and products to include in their next sales interaction that helped customers gain value from the solution.

Conversation intelligence use cases

There are several scenarios where you can use conversation intelligence within your sales team:

Sales managers

Sales managers can leverage data to study top performers and support their teams to learn resources and skills that mimic top-selling strategies

Pipeline management

Instructs sales reps when to incorporate specific strategies, sales-enablement content, or counteroffers, depending on the stage of the buyer’s journey.

Sales improvement

Improve sales call outcomes and navigate deal risks with data insights, and react proactively to mentions of competitors.

Team sharing

Improve teamwork by enabling access to previous calls for feedback and expert advice.

Identify non-compliance​

Identify when and why sales reps veer from company guidelines and values. Conversation intelligence ensures sales reps follow brand tones and represent the company’s offer appropriately.

Apart from the sales team, conversation intelligence also helps product development and customer success teams understand the needs and worries of the customer. In turn, the insights from conversation intelligence help fine-tune the overall product to better match the needs of the market.

What are the essential features of conversation intelligence software?

When looking to incorporate conversation intelligence within your sales teams, there are several features to keep in mind that’ll make all the difference to their overall success.

1. Real-time transcription of emails and call recordings

Conversation intelligence should automatically transcribe past interactions and create call notes to summarize key points. And your solution needs to be able to distinguish between questions and statements, as this affects the direction of the next steps and improves customer understanding.

With real-time transcription, teams can leave public comments to collaborate and close a deal. And with access to call recordings, the conversation can be used for team feedback and team learning sessions.

Coaches can use email transcripts and call recordings to work with sales reps to skim through and discuss the highs and lows of calls. This helps sales coaches integrate relatable real scenarios with sales reps to improve their delivery.

The transcription from calls allows sales reps to track action and tonality throughout the call, ensuring they stay on brand and represent the company effectively.

2. Sentiment analysis

Conversation intelligence can understand the sentiment of prospects and help sales reps navigate positive or negative reactions. By doing so, sales reps get a detailed overview of the customer’s health and provide actionable next steps to secure deals.

Customer sentiments are gathered from call interactions by understanding the words and trends in questions that lead to a negative or positive outcome. And conversation intelligence also provides sales reps with the trend of customer sentiment throughout the sales cycle. This highlights areas where extra caution is necessary or how to introduce features and pricing so the recipient has a positive sentiment.

The main benefit of using conversation intelligence is to remove the risk of human bias when rating prospect sentiment and giving an accurate sales forecast with effective next steps. And it provides the data to sellers instantly, without reps spending time looking through transcriptions. Instead, it allows sellers to focus on what truly matters, addressing any negative sentiment before it results in a failed deal.

3. Analytics

Conversation intelligence should offer comprehensive analytics that creates reports and insights to guide your team to continuously improve their sales quota.

Your conversation intelligence should offer analytics around:

Each conversation and interaction is stored and used to update suggestions that will optimize the sales team’s approach and improve sales forecasts and deal outcomes.

4. Integration with sales enablement and content management systems (CMS)

With so many tools and platforms used daily, it can be hard to fully optimize each platform if they don’t share information with one another. Therefore, your conversation intelligence should integrate seamlessly with your sales reps’ day-to-day platforms to fully reap all the benefits the tool can offer.

By using conversation intelligence integrations, you ensure the tool provides accurate and comprehensive insights into each customer account. This is because each customer interaction, sales touchpoint, and sales approach is recorded and analyzed against calls. In turn, the analyzed sales rep’s behavior can be used to pinpoint strengths and weaknesses throughout the buyer’s journey.

With a holistic approach to sales enablement using conversation intelligence, you empower relevant sales training, personalized sales coaching, improved use of content resources and distribution, and updated sentiment on customer interactions.

When conversation intelligence integrates with sales platforms, it helps sales reps continuously improve their selling skills with data-driven insights that’ll lead to improved sales results.

Your conversation intelligence is only as powerful as your readiness platform

In order to truly reap the benefits of conversation intelligence, you need a platform that will complement insights with tracked coaching, centralized content distribution, and a CRM that holds all prospect information and behavior.

We’ve created a comparison list of the 10 best conversation intelligence tools to help you navigate your choices.

Mindtickle provides a 360-degree approach to your prospecting customers, giving your team all the tools they need to close a deal. From training courses and content tracking to benchmarking sales performance, sales reps can continuously improve their sales quotas with evolving real-time data.

Learn more about how Mindtickle can help your sales team achieve more, or schedule a demo to discover how the platform can work to reach your company’s goals and needs.

Ready to get Started?

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Revenue Productivity https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/revenue-productivity/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 06:33:49 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24636 Everything you need to know about revenue productivity.

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REVENUE HUB > Revenue Productivity

What is Revenue Productivity?

Revenue productivity is a strategy to maximize the performance of teams using seller data, revenue analysis, sales training techniques, and front-line coaching. An emerging discipline, revenue productivity combines the sales enablement and revenue operations functions under one umbrella. It can also be used as a framework for business transformation projects, helping revenue leaders understand, predict, and adapt the in-field behavior of their teams to support their growth goals with greater reliability.

 

Revenue productivity touches virtually every aspect of the revenue organization. Chief revenue officers (CROs), chief sales officers (CSOs), heads of revenue operations, heads of training or enablement, and marketing are all involved in its inception and ongoing optimization. When implemented properly, it can increase the number of sellers that attain their quota, enhance the efficacy of sales management, and provide more predictable revenue forecasts and results.

What are the benefits of revenue productivity strategies & projects?

While revenue productivity can be a massive, ambitious transformation project, it’s also possible to start small with targeted, achievable use cases to demonstrate value. Revenue productivity benefits include:

  • Getting better alignment between your revenue operations and revenue enablement teams to optimize seller performance
  • Improving the accuracy of your revenue forecast by combining both seller data and deal data in your daily analysis
  • Creating more relevant sales enablement programs and content recommendations based on each seller’s individual needs
  • Providing more prescriptive coaching between frontline sales management and individual sales reps
  • Get a scientific understanding of how customer-facing skills – such as messaging comprehension, delivery, and buyer engagement – translates in revenue performance.
  • Identifying the key strengths and weaknesses of every revenue team and employee
  • Optimizing key value and product messages to resonate better in-market
  • Empowering sellers to easily customize their buyer experiences

What is a revenue productivity platform?

A revenue productivity platform helps companies analyze, train, enable, and coach their teams to better business outcomes. Built on one, integrated tech stack, it includes a variety of revenue applications that surround today’s CRM environments, including, but not limited to, sales readiness, sales forecasting, sales content management, conversation intelligence, sales coaching, and digital sales rooms. By utilizing a revenue productivity platform, companies can more reliably predict future outcomes, and eliminate several redundant applications across their organization in one investment.

A revenue productivity platform should allow a revenue organization to:

  • Build unified seller profiles for each team member, federating data about them from CRM deal data, sales meeting and buyer interactions, and their content usage externally
  • Analyze specific gaps of each revenue team and individual based on their skills, behaviors, and interactions with customers
  • Build a sales forecast based on both seller data and the CRM opportunities (deals) they’re working
  • Enhance performance through sales enablement, sales readiness, and sales coaching applications
  • Provide a centralized sales content management system for sellers to access and utilize relevant content
  • Empower sellers to orchestrate customized buyer experiences with digital sales rooms

Essential features for a revenue productivity
platform

Unified seller profiles

The basis for all the workflows in a revenue productivity platform starts with understanding all the data you have available about each seller, and unifying it around a single identifier, or a unified seller profile. A revenue productivity platform should be able to build these profiles by pulling in data about each seller from the following systems:

  • CRM data for deal and opportunity data
  • Sales engagement platforms for email and call interactions
  • Sales enablement and readiness applications for key skill, behavior and competency data
  • Call recording and conversation intelligence platforms
  • Sales content management for access and usage statistic

Revenue enablement features

Revenue & sales readiness

Revenue readiness applications provide a deep set of engagement mechanics to enhance seller knowledge, skill sets, messaging delivery, and product comprehension. These tools should include, but not be limited to:

  • Sales onboarding modules to ramp up sales reps on key concepts, industry knowledge, product and messaging comprehension
  • Guided paths for sellers to build knowledge, including quizzes, missions, leaderboards, and live challenges
  • Bite-sized learning quizzes and questions to reinforce key topics and enhance knowledge retention

Sales content management

These applications provide a central portal to manage, post, and access content to be used in external customer-facing interactions and internal sales training. These tools should include, but not be limited to:

  • Ability to post, curate, and organize content for sales’ usage in the field
  • Enable sales to easily share that content externally, and track how buyers engage with it
  • Have a single, unified data model to access content properly between externally-facing customer interactions and internally-facing training usage
  • Integrate with digital sales rooms, where sales can orchestrate a tailored experience for each customer

Sales coaching

Sales coaching applications provide a method for front-line sales management to give prescriptive feedback to every rep on their teams. These tools include:

  • Coaching forms and scorecards to document skill gaps for every rep
  • Ability to analyze sales rep interactions in calls and provide deal-level coaching to improve close rates
  • Governance features for revenue leadership to make specific asks of front-line management in their coaching plans

Revenue operations features

Conversation Intelligence

Conversation intelligence applications record calls between sellers and buyers, and provide deep analytics to understand the efficacy of those interactions. These tools include:

  • Automatically recording and scoring sellers on their buyer interactions
  • Leverage artificial intelligence and other analytics capabilities to understand the themes, messages, and signals from each meeting
  • Utilize call recording data to understand what deals will accelerate forward, and which will stall, and inform your sales forecast

Sales forecasting

Sales forecasting applications provide analytics and insights based on a combination of deal data and seller data to help you more accurately predict revenue outcomes by rep, P&L, business unit, or however you organize your revenue function. These tools should include:

  • Seamless integration with your CRM system to leverage relevant deal data
  • Usage of individual seller data to inform the forecast (many forecasting tools only use opportunity data, so this is important to evaluate)
  • Score deals based on real-world buyer interactions, such as buyer reactions in sales calls or their consumption of key content assets

Digital Sales Rooms

Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs) applications provide an easy way for sellers to orchestrate a specific buyer experience for every individual buyer. These tools should include:

  • A client-seller portal where a sales rep with no technical or coding experience can easily build a compelling experience for their customer
  • Ability to access all of the content within your sales content management system and recordings from your conversation intelligence tool
  • Analytics that help sellers and revenue leadership understand buyer engagement with the content delivered

How do you measure revenue productivity?

Revenue productivity strategies and initiatives hit virtually every part of the sales, ops, marketing, and sales enablement functions. As a result, there are several ways to measure the efficacy of the programs. Here, we break them down into four categories by specific department.

Sales rep performance

  • % of sellers hitting 100% of their quota
  • Conversion rate at key stage of sales & marketing funnel
  • Overall sales cycle length
  • Average deal sizes
  • Time to productivity
  • Win rates

Operational efficiency

  • Accuracy of sales forecast on weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis
  • Reducing number of sales tools surrounding CRM system
  • Percentage of teams adhering to process

Org readiness

  • Accuracy of sales forecast on weekly, monthly, and quarterly basis
  • Reducing number of sales tools surrounding CRM system
  • Percentage of teams adhering to process

Marketing & content ROI

  • Resonance of seller interactions and content in sales meetings
  • Acceleration of sales cycle based on content usage
  • Sales usage rates of content assets

Management efficacy

  • Team win rates
  • Customer and buyer satisfaction with reps
  • Sales cycle length per rep
  • Call scores by rep
  • Skill scores by rep

What stakeholders need to be involved in a revenue productivity strategy?

Regardless of the size of your business, revenue productivity is a business transformation project that should be driven by the office of revenue leadership. It then requires tight alignment across sales, marketing, sales, and revenue operations, sales enablement & training. Below is an overview of their roles.

Executive leadership: Chief Revenue Officer, Chief Sales Officer, and Head of Sales

The head of revenue or sales should set the direction for the overall business outcomes to drive from a revenue productivity project. They should use their overall influence to force some critical business decisions over a revenue productivity project, such as:

  • Establishing key business objectives for revenue productivity, such as overall revenue growth and individual seller productivity metrics
  • The decision to consolidate technology and data under one revenue productivity platform versus integrating point solution products, or some version of each
  • Management cadence for discussing, analyzing and discussing revenue productivity initiatives
  • Holding front-line management, marketing, sales enablement, and ops accountable to overall business goals
  • Creating a cadence around org readiness to be discussed alongside forecasting and pipeline reviews

Analysis & optimization: Head of Sales Ops or Revenue Operations

The sales and revenue operations function is used to manage the bulk of sales’ day-to-day CRM needs across the org. They usually have responsibility for opportunity management, account management, forecasting, deal desk, configure price quote, among many other critical functions. Relative to a revenue productivity project, the ops leader will assume the following responsibilities:

Audit of adjacent CRM applications

While all roads lead to the CRM, the average sales team leverages 10 additional tools to get their job done. Part of revenue productivity is determining where there can be meaningful consolidations of functionality to create greater org simplicity. Ops will help with organizing this audit, and the appropriate vendor management.

 

Overall approach to data unification

In addition to CRM account, customer, and opportunity deal data, RevOps should own the approach for what systems a revenue productivity project will pull data from for seller insight, such as sales readiness apps, sales content management, sales engagement, and call recording tools.

Strategy for analytics, insights, and reporting

Organizational maturity for revenue analytics and revenue intelligence can vary from basic spreadsheeting to sophisticated sales forecasting software. As part of a revenue productivity strategy, Ops will develop dashboards and insights to predict organizational performance by rep, team, and product line, and make that persistently available to revenue management. They should also own forecasting strategy at a weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual level.

Recommendations for optimization

Whether manual or automated, ops should establish recommendations for content, training, and coaching to influence upstream performance. This is a major change related to a revenue productivity strategy, given that most forecasts today are simply based on deal data.

Training & content: Head of Sales Enablement, Head of Product Marketing, and Head of Marketing

Organizations can analyze performance forever, but at a certain point, they need to transform the behaviors of their people to drive better business outcomes. As part of a revenue productivity strategy, sales enablement needs to play a leading role in developing training programs that map to the specific needs, gaps, and opportunities found by their partners in sales operations and management.

A major change to the role of sales enablement in an org embracing revenue productivity strategies is to rethink the approach to the enablement calendar. Rather than having events like kickoffs, weekly internal webinars, and other stand-and-deliver events as core to their planning, it instead puts the sellers front-and-center with a customized program for each one. Luckily, if you work in a big organization, this doesn’t mean literally designing one for each rep. Sales readiness technologies are advancing to deliver content and training based on segmentation, just like marketers do to personalize email for customers, as an example.

Program design by skillset and activity

Sales enablement should be prepared to design programs for key behaviors, attributes, and skillsets identified during analysis. They need to be prepared to use a full set of engagement mechanics to give sellers many different looks at engagement, such as missions, quizzes, leaderboards, and learning series. Ready-to-deploy templates can also help you quickly scale new programs as they’re required.

Personalized training experiences triggered from management analysis

Within the flow of revenue analysis tools, enablement should be able to automatically assign the right content for each seller. For example, if someone exudes strength in the discovery phase of the sales process in their meeting recordings and analysis, there is less need to run that seller through more discovery training. But if they show weakness in negotiations, the system should emphasize a training plan that focuses on that critical gap.

Leverage real-world insight to optimize programs

Tapping into conversation intelligence tools, the sales enablement and training pro will identify key themes and messages working in-market, and adjust their programs accordingly. They will also partner with ops to understand what sales rep behaviors show a higher propensity to close business.

Frontline coaching: Sales Management

Every revenue productivity will fail without the engagement of frontline sales management. They need to actively be a part of understanding the readiness of the reps they manage, and be prepared to make adjustments. Their role includes:

Deal coaching

By listening to calls from their reps, and leveraging analytics to understand key moments and themes, they will leverage a toolset to provide instant feedback to correct the course of an opportunity.

Skill coaching

As patterns are detected across multiple deals, they will choose relevant training and content for their sellers based on the key gaps identified.

Monitoring of key gaps and opportunities

Based on the agreed reports from ops and revenue leadership, they will constantly view and assess the skills of reps within their management purview.

What are the key elements of a revenue
productivity strategy?

When building a revenue productivity strategy, it can be a daunting process to assess every single aspect of your organization. Mindtickle suggests the following four areas to organize your efforts from a team, process, and technology approach.

Data Unification

Key owner: RevOps

It’s critical to understand the critical data points for your revenue productivity project. Your revenue productivity platform will help you federate these around a singular seller ID. But first, you have to suss out the data that matters.

Deal coaching

By listening to calls from their reps, and leveraging analytics to understand key moments and themes, they will leverage a toolset to provide instant feedback to correct the course of an opportunity.

Skill coaching

As patterns are detected across multiple deals, they will choose relevant training and content for their sellers based on the key gaps identified.

Monitoring of key gaps and opportunities

Based on the agreed reports from ops and revenue leadership, they will constantly view and assess the skills of reps within their management purview.

Revenue analysis

Key owner: RevOps

Once you have your data unified around individual sellers and teams, it’s critical to provide a centralized analysis of that data. This can be visualized through revenue intelligence, sales forecasting, and customized business intelligence tools. Ideally, you want to instrument the following components for your analysis:

Develop ideal rep profiles. 

RevOps should plot the critical attributes, behaviors, and engagement by top performing reps, and codify them into an ideal rep profile. Depending on the size of your revenue organization, this may vary based on the business unit, product line, or region. Before even applying technology to this challenge, you should align with stakeholders on the critical points you believe to be anecdotally important, and then begin pulling in data to validate.

Predictive cohort analysis. 

You want to be able to analyze an entire cohort of sales reps by a specific team, such as product line sales or regional sales. By isolating pockets of optimal and sub-optimal performance, you can better predict their likelihood of hitting quota.

Forecasting based on deals, and the personnel working them. 

It’s important to understand what deals are most likely to close based on the attributes of every opportunity, as well as based on the attributes of the sellers working the deal. You want to develop an early alert system of key changes as they happen and their impact on your forecast. This starts with understanding the full spectrum of systems you need to pull that data from for analysis, including CRM, conversation intelligence, and sales enablement systems. You want to be able to sort this for both short-term (weekly, monthly), and long-term (quarterly, annual) views.

Cadence for activity reporting. 

In sales, the quantity and quality of activity still matter. Analyze key metrics for buyer engagement – such as emails, calls, and content usage – to better understand what actions are moving deals forward or stalling them out.

Content analysis by sales stage. For all the content leveraged in seller communications and buyer interactions, it’s critical your team maps how that content accelerates or hinders deals. Content that people “feel” works may not jive with the reality of what works.To work as part of a revenue productivity workflow, it’s critical that, once gaps are identified in your org, you can automatically trigger those experiences as part of your performance optimization tools (reference that section).

Performance improvement

Key owners: Sales enablement, Front-line sales management. Your revenue analysis should yield specific skill and behavior gaps of your revenue organization.

From here, you want to utilize sales readiness and sales coaching tools to begin enhancing the overall readiness of each customer-facing employee. Ideally, these tools should have the following:

Deal coaching

By listening to calls from their reps, and leveraging analytics to understand key moments and themes, they will leverage a toolset to provide instant feedback to correct the course of an opportunity.

Skill coaching

As patterns are detected across multiple deals, they will choose relevant training and content for their sellers based on the key gaps identified.

Monitoring of key gaps and opportunities

Based on the agreed reports from ops and revenue leadership, they will constantly view and assess the skills of reps within their management purview.

Buyer engagement

Key owners: Sales Enablement; Sales reps; Marketing Revenue productivity strategies require that customer-facing employees and sellers can easily pivot their performance improvements into compelling interactions with prospective buyers and current customers. You should have the following tools to assist your approach to buyer interactions.

Sales content management strategy

You need to build a centralized system, process, and approach for sellers accessing, sharing, and distributing content. It’s also critical that the providers of this content – namely, marketing and sales enablement – have the proper governance and administration of this content. Ideally, content should be recommended to the seller based on identified issues with their deal or sales process.

Rep-led orchestration of the buyer experience

Gone are the days of sending content purely over email or linking to company websites. For revenue productivity to be maximized, sellers will require the ability to build customized experiences for their buyer and be able to analyze their engagement with those. This should be inclusive of sales decks, PDFs, RPFs, and guides. It should also include all of the recordings with that customer for both parties to conveniently access.

Getting started with
sales enablement

Mindtickle is a leading sales enablement and readiness platform that helps organizations all over the globe transform their sales enablement processes for maximum revenue impact.

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Digital Sales Rooms https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/digital-sales-rooms/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 06:25:24 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24630 Everything you need to know about digital sales rooms.

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REVENUE HUB > Digital Sales Rooms

What is Digital Sales Rooms?

Right now, the B2B buyer journey is harder than it should be. According to a Gartner report, 77% of B2B buyers rate their most recent purchase as “difficult” or “very complex.”

Why? The typical B2B sales process involves long emails with various links and attachments. This overwhelming and disorganized amount of information is an inefficient way to drive sales.

As a B2B seller, you need to adjust your sales process to align with customers’ virtual selling preferences. About 70-80% of B2B decision makers prefer either digital self-service or remote interaction with a sales rep. A Digital Sales Room (DSR), or a buyer-seller online portal, is the optimal solution to replace the traditional sales process. With a DSR, your sales team can create a customized online space that makes it easy for your customer to take action.

If you haven’t already, implement a Digital Sales Room strategy to increase productivity, keep track of customer communications, and build content resources for your sales team. A DSR will empower your customers to make buying decisions and your sales reps to close more deals.

How does a Digital Sales Room work?

Once a DSR is created, sellers can generate a unique shareable link to give buyers and stakeholders access to the portal. The DSR houses all of the information and resources that a buyer needs to make a purchasing decision. Each DSR acts like a showroom, but rather than being in-person, the online space is designed and built for a personalized buying experience.

Since the sales content is tailored to your customer’s business needs, they can have their questions answered through self-service or by reaching out to the salespeople assigned to the room. From the sales proposal to product demos and case studies, the customer experience is enhanced when all sales collateral is centralized in one user-friendly deal room.

Digital Sales Rooms also help sales reps understand which sales content is more effective at closing deals. When buyer behavior is connected to sales enablement platforms, sales teams can gather insights into how prospects interact with content and determine which content can be used or improved in future negotiations.

Here’s a breakdown of what is typically included in a Digital Sales Room:

  • An opening message greeting the potential new customer
  • Personalized video messages from the seller to the customer
  • Key clickable categories for various content types
  • Testimonials or case studies from previous customers
  • Relevant articles or webinars to educate your customers about your product, service, or other related industry news
  • An option to contact via a chat box
  • A button to schedule a meeting with the sales rep
  • A private, shareable link to share the DSR with other stakeholders

What are the impacts of a Digital Sales Room on sales teams?

A Digital Sales Room allows sales reps to drive more sales by building strong, trusting relationships faster. In many ways, a DSR is like a microsite that acts as both a central source of information and a piece of the marketing and sales funnel.

In your DSRs, make your customers feel supported and valued by providing content that addresses frequently asked questions and includes all information specific to your customer’s needs.

Increases sales productivity

A DSR increases sales productivity by streamlining the buyer journey, saving time and effort on needless back-and-forth communications. With a secure, central location where all content exists, the buyer has everything they need at their fingertips. This empowers the buyer to go through the sales process more efficiently. A less-confused customer frees up time for the sales rep, as they no longer need to clarify or resend information to the customer as often.

 

With a Digital Sales Room, sales reps can build more efficient workflows. Your DSR will help you easily track the buyer journey from proposal to deal approval to the final eSignature. There’s no need to search through countless emails, track down points of contact, or send over a new version of the contract each time it’s updated. Instead, you can update contracts and other documents and quickly swap them out in your DSR. When they’re ready for final approval, your buyers will know where to find them.

Improves understanding of buyer behavior

Another benefit of the Digital Sales Room is its ability to capture data on client interactions and patterns. Effective DSRs include a two-way communication feature or the option to schedule a meeting with a sales rep.

Whenever a customer uses a communication feature, such as a chat box in your DSR, it can be tracked as either a positive sign that the buyer is engaged and wants to learn more or that the content you’ve provided is insufficient.

Sales representatives can review this data and determine:

  • Where buyers might be getting stuck and require more clarity
  • What pieces of content are most important in their purchasing decisions
  • Which products or services customers are most interested in
  • How likely they are to be return customers

Your sales team should use the notes and analysis of the data to improve upon the customer DSR experience either in real time or in future DSRs.

Enhances organization and engagement

The DSR also acts as a content management system that helps sales reps stay organized and increase buyer engagement. Access to the right content is crucial to a successful sales process. Content should be tailored and grouped according to specific stages in the sales life cycle. However, only 65% of sellers claim to have tailored, easily accessible sales content.

It’s important to create an intuitive system that makes it easy for customers and sales reps to find what they are looking for. Tips for building an organized DSR that positively impacts both buyer and seller engagement include:

  • Group the content in folders or hubs, such as FAQs, proposals, contracts, terms of service, etc.
  • Present the content in chronological order.
  • Build a mutual action plan or timeline that automatically updates as you go through the sales cycle.

Once a DSR is created, sellers can generate a unique shareable link to give buyers and stakeholders access to the portal. The DSR houses all of the information and resources that a buyer needs to make a purchasing decision. Each DSR acts like a showroom, but rather than being in-person, the online space is designed and built for a personalized buying experience.

Since the sales content is tailored to your customer’s business needs, they can have their questions answered through self-service or by reaching out to the salespeople assigned to the room. From the sales proposal to product demos and case studies, the customer experience is enhanced when all sales collateral is centralized in one user-friendly deal room.

Digital Sales Rooms also help sales reps understand which sales content is more effective at closing deals. When buyer behavior is connected to sales enablement platforms, sales teams can gather insights into how prospects interact with content and determine which content can be used or improved in future negotiations.

Digital Sales Rooms: Dos and don’ts

A successful Digital Sales Room prioritizes high-quality content that follows specific guidelines. The quality of your sales content should always trump the quantity, as quality content tends to generate more engagement. If you want to provide high-quality sales content in ways that accelerate sales, below are the main dos and don’ts when it comes to designing and organizing your DSRs.

The do's

Do make it personal

Do your research on the customer and their industry. Personalization will keep your customer more engaged. Use persuasive language and terminology specific to their industry (e.g., address the customer by name, position, and/or company and include content that caters to their interests).

Do provide 24/7 customer support

If possible, implement real-time communication options such as a text chat or video chat feature. Make your sales team accessible to the customer whenever is convenient for them.

Do highlight interactive content

Record explainer videos or video introductions, include links and buttons to relevant resources, and include polls or surveys to gain a better understanding of your buyer’s needs.

Do keep content on brand

Use your DSR as another opportunity to strengthen the customer’s relationship with your brand. All visual assets should follow brand guidelines, and all language should align with brand voice and tone.

Do give clear direction

Use call-to-action statements (CTAs) that provide the buyer with clear next steps. Include a buyer checklist to follow or a mutual action plan that updates throughout the process.

Do integrate with other tools

Connect relevant sales software and other integrations to seamlessly link information (e.g., CRM, quote software, contract management software, eSignature software, etc.).

Do include a product demo

Record a product or service demo that is customized to your potential customer.

The don'ts

Don’t neglect the data

Gather and analyze the data from your DSR. The insights you get from data will help you develop better content and close more deals.

Don’t hard sell

Develop sales materials that educate the buyer without hard selling the product or service. The idea is to help the buyer become empowered in their purchase decision.

Don’t make assumptions

Don’t assume the customer will understand everything you present to them in the DSR. (Or even how the DSR works to begin with.) Provide guides and explanations whenever possible.

Don’t limit access

Give DSR access to all support teams and sales stakeholders. This will ensure that everyone stays on the same page and can learn from one another quickly and efficiently.

Don’t skip the planning

Research your customer and devise a custom DSR strategy. When the customer enters the “room,” their first impression should be a positive one. Planning ahead will position your sales team as a dedicated potential partner.

Build the best Digital Sales Room with Mindtickle

At Mindtickle, we offer Digital Sales Room software with all-in-one functionality, including templates to easily build your DSR, unlimited collaborators, and more tools like Call AI or continuous learning programs to leverage and generate more sales. Whether you need to create new content, monitor a deal cycle, or follow up on your team’s performance, sales leaders can improve the entire buying process using Mindtickle’s products.

Use templates for quick and easy building

You don’t need to know how to code or build a website to build a Digital Sales Room with Mindtickle. Instead, choose from a collection of pre-made templates that can be easily customized for each customer deal.

Here are the steps for using templates with Mindtickle:

  • Choose a template
  • Attach the customer deal
  • Generate the auto-customized portal
  • Edit, reorganize, or add additional content
  • Hit publish! (All contacts involved with the deal will be notified.)

Consider testing out a few different templates with various customers. Then, once you have enough data, clone the top-performing rooms and save those as your go-to DSR templates.

In addition to determining the top-performing templates, monitor behavior within each template and make adjustments to improve engagement. Remember to keep your DSR clean, clear, and simple. For example, if you notice that customers aren’t clicking on the news links you’ve included, remove them. The less clutter, the better.

Manage and track high-quality content

Mindtickle’s asset hub makes content management simple and powerful. With one repository for all content, sales reps can consolidate and organize all assets and content to easily and quickly find the right content when they need it.

 

Moreover, Mindtickle tracks and measures how reps engage with each piece of content in the field. Sales managers can take a look at the data on an asset-by-asset level and aggregate it by content type. During this data analysis, managers may discover that valuable content is underutilized but is still capable of providing great ROI. Or they may discover that content that is rarely or never used can be removed entirely, as it has no reason to be replicated in the future.

Update content regularly

An even more pressing issue is when the data indicates that outdated scripts or information are still used. Routine content updates are vital to a flourishing sales team and high-quality sales content in your DSR.

According to our benchmark report, sellers are also more likely to use the content when they believe they can rely on it. Therefore, regularly updating your sales content will also boost your sales team’s confidence and performance.

Our survey of Mindtickle customers also found that teams who updated their key content more frequently generated the most engagement. For the top 10% of organizations with the highest engagement, they updated their content once every 3.25 months.

Here are a few tips on how to prioritize regular reviews and updates of existing content:

  • Allocate content development resources toward reviewing and updating existing content.
  • Maintain consistent communication with sellers to reinforce their confidence and engagement with key content.
  • Generate automated reminders for your content creators and editors.
  • Assign asset-specific updates to team members on a recurring calendar reminder.
  • Time your content reviews and updates around other key milestones like product roadmap developments or field events.

Eliminate knowledge silos across teams

A DSR serves as a collaborative workspace where sales reps can share content with both the customers and other team members. By making all information accessible and transparent, Mindtickle’s DSRs eliminate knowledge-siloing that occurs when sales reps are working one on one with customers.

One unique way Mindtickle’s DSRs remove silos is through the use of Call AI, Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence feature. Call AI automatically records and transcribes calls and web conferences. Call AI also uses AI-driven analysis to produce actionable insights about buyer interactions.

Through a shared DSR, the entire sales leadership team, members of other departments, and even the customer can have access to entire call recordings or to relevant, selected snippets.

Advantages of Mindtickle DSRs within and across teams include:

  • Sales reps can easily and quickly cover for each other when necessary.
  • Sales reps can learn from each other for future customer deals.
  • Sales managers and revenue leaders can monitor rep performance, customer behavior, and deal health to plan necessary interventions.
  • Marketing team members can update and manage templates with the most up-to-date copy and branding standards.
  • Engineers can adjust terminology and add explanations for new features.
  • Sales content creators can track the impact of their content on engagement and provide feedback or make adjustments.
  • All teams have access to insights from customer calls (e.g., a quarterly trends report).

FAQs on Digital Sales Rooms

What crucial content should I include in my Digital Sales Room?

  • Pricing and product information (if possible, implement a Configure Price Quote software (CPQ)).
  • Embedded sales assets (e.g., demos, photos, testimonials, explainer videos, product descriptions, product sheets, personal sales rep messages via video or audio, etc.).
  • Contracts and other legal documents (e.g., licensing agreements, conditions, NDAs, terms, etc.).
  • Customer details (e.g., contact information, purchase history, custom notes, and account history).
  • Resources for sales reps (e.g., scripts, training documents, proposal templates, presentations, etc.).

How do I ensure the Digital Sales Room is secure?

Similar to other websites, accounts, and platforms, there are a few steps you can take to ensure a secure DSR:

  • Get pre-written approval on all the people who should have access to the room.
  • Password-protect the room.
  • Use two-factor authentication/encryption.

Is a Digital Sales Room really worth it?

Yes, a digital sales room will help you close more deals. Here are the top reasons why:

  • It helps everyone involved in the deal understand what’s happening and what’s going to happen.
  • It provides instant access for the customer at any time, from anywhere.
  • It is easy to update with new offers or pricing changes, revise contracts, and add additional information.
  • It is a centralized location that allows all sales reps to track deal progress and learn from others.
  • It is another opportunity to convey your brand values and build new customer relationships.
  • It is multifunctional. For example, demand teams can create Digital Sales Room “events” to attract new customers, track behavior, and determine which are sales-qualified leads.

Deliver continuous learning through Digital Sales Rooms

Sales teams have to deal with constant change. Continuous learning is the key to sales enablement success, especially when implementing a new selling system like Digital Sales Rooms.

Without continuous learning, sales teams forget about 80% of their training within a month. Adequately onboarding a sales rep to a new Digital Sales Room is just one piece of the puzzle. To really thrive in DSRs, sales reps require sales everboarding, a system to repeatedly re-up their skills and apply new training to their work.

Through sales coaching, interactive courses, role-plays, and other training programs, your virtual sales reps will be dominating your Digital Sales Rooms in no time.

Ready to get Started?

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Revenue Intelligence https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/revenue-intelligence/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 06:14:58 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24624 Everything you need to know about revenue intelligence.

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REVENUE HUB > Revenue Intelligence

What is Revenue Intelligence?

Revenue intelligence uses insights from call recordings, email interactions, and customer sentiment to give accurate predictions on deal outcomes. This is thanks to revenue intelligence’s complete visibility into the sales pipeline, which allows consideration of the prospect’s health and sales reps’ performance throughout each interaction.

 

Revenue intelligence gathers data through each interaction and uses conversation intelligence to analyze customer sentiment and deal outcomes. It keeps in mind the traits and skills of each sales rep and analyzes what skills need to be developed to save at-risk deals.This saves your sales team time and centralizes data insights into one platform. Doing so ensures your sales team operates with quality intel and a comprehensive view of what strategy to use for each call.

 

Revenue intelligence’s ability to pinpoint deal risks and attribute skills and content that can increase win rates makes it a powerful tool to boost sales team performance and increase company revenue.

The Ultimate Guide to Revenue Intelligence

Only 43% of sales reps hit their quota. That’s a lot of missed deals and lost opportunities that cost revenue. But the real danger is not knowing why those deals are lost because this allows the same errors to be repeated.

That’s where revenue intelligence steps in. Revenue intelligence prepares your team to navigate deals with greater confidence and improve sales performance by giving them predictive insights and a comprehensive view of deal health.

What is revenue intelligence?

Revenue intelligence uses insights from call recordings, email interactions, and customer sentiment to give accurate predictions on deal outcomes.This is thanks to revenue intelligence’s complete visibility into the sales pipeline, which allows consideration of the prospect’s health and sales reps’ performance throughout each interaction.

Revenue intelligence gathers data through each interaction and uses conversation intelligence to analyze customer sentiment and deal outcomes. It keeps in mind the traits and skills of each sales rep and analyzes what skills need to be developed to save at-risk deals.This saves your sales team time and centralizes data insights into one platform. Doing so ensures your sales team operates with quality intel and a comprehensive view of what strategy to use for each call.

Revenue intelligence’s ability to pinpoint deal risks and attribute skills and content that can increase win rates makes it a powerful tool to boost sales team performance and increase company revenue.

Revenue intelligence and sales forecasting: How are they related?

On the one hand, sales forecasting relies on subjective input from sales reps who attempt to predict sales through qualitative measures. For example, how they perceive customer sentiment or if they believe they performed well on a call.

On the other hand, revenue intelligence considers customer interactions across the whole company and collates the outcomes into quantitative data points. In turn, the predictions made by revenue intelligence are based on these data points and trends, which can then be analyzed and optimized.

As revenue intelligence takes into account each customer touchpoint and analyzes reactions, it can optimize and improve the customer’s journey throughout the sales pipeline and improve win rates. Therefore, revenue intelligence empowers and improves sales forecasting with accurate data and insights to hit sales quota objectives.

What are the benefits of revenue intelligence for your sales team?

Revenue has a big impact on the health of your company. However, research shows that close to 49% of sales teams face revenue challenges because of a reliance on manual data entry and a lack of platforms and tools. On top of that, 52% of sales reps struggle with revenue due to poor-quality data.

Revenue intelligence can remove those errors and improve the quality of data entry, empowering sales reps to hit their goals. Here are some benefits your sales team will notice by adding a revenue intelligence platform to your operations.

Improve close rates with comprehensive insights

Revenue intelligence takes into consideration data from sales, operations, and marketing to remove silos of information and find the most effective strategies that move prospects through a sales funnel.Revenue intelligence constantly learns from sales reps’ interactions. Therefore, it finds the best sales skills and traits that had the biggest impact on closed deals. With those traits and approaches recorded, it builds recommendations for future sales reps to follow and increase win rates.

For example, if revenue intelligence picks up that sales reps who listen 40% of the time in the discovery stage are more likely to progress to the next stage, it can send those insights to sales reps who might be talking too much and losing prospects as a result.

Optimize rep performance

Revenue intelligence uses conversation intelligence to analyze sales rep communication, sales skills, and product knowledge on calls. It compares a sales rep’s skills and traits against the ideal rep profile (IRP), and then, with the data gathered, it pinpoints the sales rep’s weaknesses. This allows sales coaches to recommend personalized training or course material that will develop a seller’s skills in that area.

In turn, sales reps can improve a root cause of a sales weakness and improve their win rates. Reps that receive follow-up on sales training can improve their skills and sales readiness scores by 13 percentage points.

Improve sales predictions and forecast accuracy

Revenue intelligence takes into account industry practices, customer health, and the sales reps’ skills, then improves sales prediction and forecast accuracy based on quantitative data. Most sales teams struggle to make accurate predictions due to a lack of tools or using too many platforms that don’t have centralized data. With revenue intelligence, teams can save around 30 hours per week on manual predictions and help improve their forecast accuracy to 95% or more.

With revenue intelligence, sales teams can also spot deal risks ahead of time and better prepare for calls. This helps improve sales teams’ ability to gain accurate forecasts and sales predictions, which allows them to stay ahead of bad surprises and prepare different approaches and strategies to improve outcomes.

Accelerate onboarding

Revenue intelligence provides new sales hires with relevant deal knowledge and exposure to real-life scenarios. New hires learn from the best approaches from day one, which helps them understand how to tackle different conversations to get the best results. This is because revenue intelligence listens and stores past conversations and feedback from team members. By doing so, the team members teach new sales hires about what worked and what didn’t.

And, with revenue intelligence, new sales hires can put their knowledge to the test with role plays to spot strengths and areas of improvement.

With so much information and knowledge at hand that is directly applicable to real-life scenarios, revenue intelligence platforms can decrease ramp time by 40-50%. That directly impacts the amount of revenue a new sales hire can bring to the company in their first months.

Integration with content, operations, and sales

Revenue intelligence gathers data from across the organization and different customer touchpoints. Such clarity gives your sales reps a 360-degree view of each deal’s health. This is important, as half of all content engagement is generated by just 10% of content. Revenue intelligence can highlight which content customers interact with the most, unveiling what topics or features are the most desirable.

By understanding how prospects interact with content, the sales team can use revenue intelligence to fine-tune the content to send depending on the stage of the customer and the needs that have been identified. In turn, this guarantees that prospects receive relevant and useful content that pushes them further along the buying journey.

Understand your customers needs

Revenue intelligence can uncover customers’ sentiments and predict the outcome of a deal that could have been missed due to human bias or error by using Call AI to spot themes or keywords that indicate a prospect’s sentiment or deal risk. For example, if the prospect is asking questions about competitors or features your product doesn’t have, revenue intelligence can flag it as a deal risk and come up with the best next-step approach to secure the deal following practices from top-performing sales reps.

In turn, this helps your team understand your customers’ pain points and recurring questions, which allows reps to enter each call prepared to address them. By doing so, you ensure the prospect experiences a confident buying journey as all their questions and hesitations are answered and addressed.

4 essential features of a revenue intelligence software

Here are a few things to take to look for when choosing a revenue intelligence software.

Conversation Intelligence

Conversation intelligence records, transcribes, and captures themes in conversations between buyers and sellers. This is a very valuable feature because it spots customer sentiment to alert sales teams to deal risks or upselling opportunities. It also has the ability to surface insights found from calls or emails that help the sales rep know where and how to focus their efforts.

And it’s especially helpful to use conversation intelligence for new sales hire training purposes and inform the sales team about the best communication approach. A study found that 40% of respondents consider the biggest benefit of conversation intelligence to be call preparation, and 37% consider it especially helpful in discovering the root cause of missed deals. With conversation intelligence, you gain insight into recurring themes, listening vs. talking time, sales reps’ product knowledge, and sales behavior. All these insights are quantified, so sales reps can continuously work on skill improvement and optimized sales approaches.

Simplified workflows and integrations

Revenue intelligence platforms should pull data from different touchpoints and automate next steps that take into account all customer interactions and industry best practices. In order to have complete visibility over a sales pipeline, you need each interaction and customer touchpoint to be accounted for and gathered. Therefore, your revenue intelligence software should be able to integrate with your CRM and sales enablement tools to avoid data getting lost or scattered.

By having all your data in one location, your revenue intelligence software can then create simplified workflows and sales approaches that incorporate all the resources your company offers. Sales teams benefit from the guidance of workflows in every stage of the customer buying journey. With simplified workflows, the sales team can analyze areas of improvement, as well as see the chain reaction that follows an interaction and the different approaches that win the most strategies.

Compare sellers against ideal rep profile

Revenue intelligence is able to improve win rates by analyzing individual sales rep behavior against the ideal rep profile (IRP) and pinpointing skills that need to be improved to match it. Due to a lack of tools or resources, less than 1% of businesses have a list of sales traits or skills that have a proven effect on increasing win rates. However, with revenue intelligence, every interaction is recorded and analyzed. This empowers sales reps with the right sales traits to work toward. The average company that uses an IRP identifies 15 competencies per role. These competencies depend on the skills, behaviors, and traits that the revenue intelligence platform picks up from best-performing sales reps.

For example, some of the competency traits revenue intelligence takes into account are product knowledge, tone, assertiveness, sales skills, process adherence, competitor knowledge, customer knowledge, negotiation, objection handling, value articulation, and approach. With insights provided by an IRP, coaches can create customized benchmarks for behaviors and compare their sales reps’ performance to them using sales readiness scores. Revenue intelligence also empowers coaches to adjust sales reps’ training so that it is personalized and customized to every sales rep’s needs.

Pipeline visibility and deal health

Revenue intelligence software should create accurate data graphs and offer insights that highlight deal risks and opportunities for sales coaches to step in if necessary. What improves pipeline visibility is the ability to have automatic data entries from each interaction, as this informs the revenue intelligence software about the state of a deal without relying on human data input. The platform should have a clear breakdown of all the email interactions, phone calls, and content touchpoints a prospect has received. This allows sales reps to understand the current level of engagement and the stage of the prospect’s buying journey.

Apart from showing sales reps a comprehensive view of a deal’s trajectory and past interactions, it must also alert deal risks beforehand, so teams can prepare for the next meeting with the right material and approach. It’s important for your revenue intelligence to accurately forecast sales predictions because your team needs to be able to spot roadblocks in the process and understand how to leverage insights into actionable tasks.

Revenue intelligence is useless without sales readiness

Having revenue intelligence software is a great start to understanding the relationship between sales rep skills and customer behavior.However, for lasting results, you need more than great insights into your sales pipeline.

That’s where sales readiness and revenue intelligence go hand in hand. The insights gained for revenue intelligence are useless if you don’t have a sales team who are able to actively improve on their sales skills and weaknesses. This means that there is a relationship between continual training and improvement.Think of it this way: a football manager may have the best tactical data, but if their team is out of shape, the tactics serve no good use.

Empower your sales team with insights into sales pipelines but also support them with the right sales training and development to see results in the long run.This ensures your team is continually ready and scores high on the skills and behaviors they need to tackle prospect conversation at any stage of the sales funnel.If you want to learn how Mindtickle combines sales readiness with revenue intelligence, schedule a demo to see how to improve your sales team’s win rates.

Ready to get Started?

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Sales Acceleration https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/sales-acceleration/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 06:05:07 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24621 Everything you need to know about sales acceleration.

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REVENUE HUB > Sales Acceleration

What is Sales Acceleration?

Sales acceleration is a strategy that unites different resources and skill sets to deliver impactful experiences to customers. From content and sales enablement assets to data and analytics, go-to-market teams work together to engage with buyers on a meaningful level, thereby “accelerating” the sales process.

 

This approach is based on a book called The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge. The book encourages teams to combine tools, processes, and habits to create the ultimate sales acceleration strategy.

Here’s what that means for you and how you can use your own sales acceleration formula to close more deals.

What is sales acceleration?

Sales acceleration is a strategy that unites different resources and skill sets to deliver impactful experiences to customers. From content and sales enablement assets to data and analytics, go-to-market teams work together to engage with buyers on a meaningful level, thereby “accelerating” the sales process.

This approach is based on a book called The Sales Acceleration Formula by Mark Roberge. The book encourages teams to combine tools, processes, and habits to create the ultimate sales acceleration strategy.

Here’s what that means for you and how you can use your own sales acceleration formula to close more deals.

Why is sales acceleration important for sales teams?

Accelerating sales helps businesses understand and serve their customers — which, in turn, creates numerous sales opportunities and supports key performance indicators (KPIs). Take a look at how much difference a sales acceleration strategy can make:

Different forms of sales acceleration

Sales acceleration solutions come in all shapes and sizes, including:

 

  • Market research: Gathering information about your customers and their businesses.
  • Lead scoring: Determining lead value based on predetermined factors.
  • Lead routing: Distributing leads to different sales reps.
  • Lead qualification: Assigning lead categories based on readiness for a deal.

Notice that each of these approaches helps engage the customer and accelerate the sales process at the same time.

Sales acceleration tools

To make meaningful connections with customers, your teams need the right sales acceleration tools. This can include:

  • CRM tools: Customer relationship management (CRM) solutions help you track, understand, and improve engagements and interactions. Salesforce is an example of a CRM tool.
  • Communication platforms: Communication platforms such as Zoom or Slack help keep internal teams connected to further accelerate sales.
  • BI tools: Business intelligence (BI) tools, including SharePoint, gather data from marketing and sales cycles for analysis, strategy improvement, and sales acceleration.
  • Sales enablement tools: A sales enablement or sales acceleration platform like Mindtickle combines these functionalities for a complete view of the sales landscape and associated data.

How to create a sales acceleration strategy

The Sales Acceleration Formula provides general guidance on building your own strategy. Here are a few similar ideas you can adapt and utilize:

  • Provide better onboarding and training to help reps understand what an accelerated sales process looks like and why it matters.
  • Offer ongoing feedback based on data from monitored interactions to support consistent growth and improvement.
  • Invest in sales acceleration software with capabilities such as call AI and conversation intelligence.
  • Use data insights and revenue intelligence to make key sales decisions.
  • Ensure interdepartmental accountability using tools that track tasks, outcomes, and more.
  • Keep track of sales acceleration solutions to gain insight into best practices.

How does Mindtickle help with sales acceleration?

Mindtickle is more than a sales acceleration platform. It’s a digitized environment for all your sales interactions and content — which means you don’t just accelerate sales; you improve, enable, and support them.

A single, user-friendly platform like Mindtickle makes it easy to monitor sales reps, provide feedback, and improve productivity. Our conversation intelligence solutions empower you to customize coaching, make targeted workflow improvements, leverage different sales acceleration solutions, and close more deals.

Our offerings include:

That means Mindtickle supports your sales reps and other go-to-market teams no matter how long they’ve been with your company. A united platform enables a united approach, and that’s the key to any good sales acceleration strategy.

Schedule a demo today to see how Mindtickle makes sales acceleration simple.

Ready to get Started?

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Sales Training https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/sales-training/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 05:56:02 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24618 Everything you need to know about sales training.

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REVENUE HUB > Sales Training

What is Sales Training?

Put simply, sales training is the process by which you make sellers better at doing their jobs. This means teaching them the information and skills that will help them perform better for the organizational objectives you’re targeting (e.g., quota attainment, revenue targets). While sales training starts with ensuring sellers know more, it’s more than the transfer of information — it’s about translating skills and knowledge learned to real behaviors.

Typically, sales leadership and sales enablement are charged with developing and executing training initiatives and materials. There are various types of sales training processes:

Curriculum-based sales training

Sellers complete predetermined courses and finish with a quiz or certification.

Instructor-led sales training (ILT)

Traditional, lecture-style process where a leader or subject matter expert presents a topic to sales teams.

Virtual sales training

Videos, product fact sheets, presentation decks, and other learning materials are viewed digitally.

On-demand sales training

Materials are available via a training platform for sellers to watch or read up on their own time

Micro-learning

Bite-sized materials focusing on specific topics are provided digitally for salespeople to review quickly as needed.

What is the best sales training?

The #1 sales readiness software tool for enterprises across the globe.

There are so many sales training methodologies and approaches, and there isn’t one “best” that will work for every sales team. Every organization and its teams, people, products, and values are unique, and therefore require a program that is flexible to accommodate those differences.

Whatever sales training strategy you choose, it should be adaptive to the needs of your company as well as each rep’s individualized learning paths. It must be developed to target skill gaps across the team and allow for an approach that can be tailored to each individual seller.

Sales training must also be an ongoing initiative. Continuous learning through ongoing training, reinforcement, and practice is the only way to ensure sales teams are up to date on the most relevant information and retain what is learned.

What is a sales training platform?

A sales training platform is a piece or suite of software that supports training efforts. Rather than in-person training and manual data entry and analysis, training technology brings everything together to create, manage, and deliver training digitally.

Sales training software has been picking up steam in the last several years, but more recently we’ve rapidly moved into the era of inside sales. Sellers aren’t on the road or in one room together; they’re working from their home offices, kitchen counters, and living room couches all over the country. These platforms bring training to sellers — wherever they are — more effectively and conveniently.

What is virtual selling?

Virtual selling refers to the new age of digital sales. We’re no longer selling person-to-person, going door to door or sitting together in a conference room. Instead, we’re conducting the sales process virtually from our machines, video conferencing with people on the other side of the country; sometimes even on the other side of the world.

Virtual selling also includes exchanging information through email and other modern techniques like digital sales rooms and events.

What are some kinds of virtual sales training?

Just like with in-person sales training, there are various methods for training salespeople virtually. Some traditional methods can still be used in a virtual training environment with the help of technology:

 

Curriculum-based virtual sales training

Takes sellers through pre-set courses presented through different forms of media, with a test or certification at the end.

Instructor-led virtual sales training

Leaders and/or experts present on a topic through video conferencing.

Sales scenarios

Records sellers’ role-plays graded by artificial intelligence (AI) or through manager review.

Virtual sales training reinforcement

Distributes micro-learning, videos, quizzes, and other content on a regular cadence to keep reps updated and ensure learning is retained.

Ideally, you’ve got a virtual sales training platform that has flexibility to cater to different learning types.

What is the importance of sales training?

Sales organizations want to be successful and meet their numbers, but they also want sellers to grow individually and build their careers. Sales training is essential for accomplishing both.

When a sales rep goes into a meeting or event unprepared, they will not only fail to effectively engage with potential customers and communicate value — they will also likely feel unsupported and find a job elsewhere. Sellers don’t have time to learn on their own; it’s on leadership to set them up for success.

The benefits of sales training include the following:

  • Empowers your team
  • Aligns reps on objectives
  • Increases productivity
  • Improves win rates
  • Shortens the sales cycle
  • Keeps you competitive
  • Reduces churn

What are some virtual sales training ideas?

There are different ways you can offer virtual sales training:

Sales kickoff (SKO)

This annual event gathers all sales reps, leaders, and members of adjacent teams like marketing, product, and enablement to review performance over the last year and discuss objectives for the year ahead. Most SKOs include a combination of instructor-led sessions, break-out groups, and team discussions to share challenges, best practices, and ideas. All of which can be done with the right sales training platform.

AI-guided role-plays

Assign salespeople a certain selling scenario and have them record their practice pitch. Managers and peers can review and offer feedback, but you can also use AI technology to grade the recording based on keywords used, filler words used, and other criteria. The AI can then recommend ways to improve.

Gamification

Applies game elements to learning, like competitions, leader boards, and badges for completing different training materials or passing quizzes. Gamification is proven to motivate reps to participate in training, build morale, and promote continuous learning with less time commitment.

Using one or a combination of these methods, you can refine your team’s proficiency at skills like:

  • Pipeline management
  • Prospecting
  • Building customer relationships
  • Communicating value
  • Managing objections

What are the best online sales training programs?

Just as there is no “best” sales training strategy, there is no “best” sales training program. There are many options, some methodology based or specific to different circumstances. And since there’s no one-size-fits-all platform, it’s important to do your research to find the one that best supports your needs, whatever they may be.

Generally, you should look for a platform that provides targeted training features that can adapt based on the characteristics of sellers’ skill levels. It must also have capabilities to measure competencies and identify skill gaps to enable that targeted training. And rather than having training as a one-time event, your platform should support ongoing, just-in-time learning that salespeople can access at any time, on any device.

Sales readiness platforms give you the various virtual sales training capabilities and the freedom to create diverse learning materials and formats.

What are the best sales development programs?

Sales training is part of sales development; leadership has the goal of developing sellers by giving them access to the right materials — not just learning, but also the tools they need to be successful. To do so, you must be in tune with what’s happening in the field, both in reps’ performance and buyers’ requests and feedback, plus data that provides quantitative insights.

Using this information, you can offer the most impactful and relevant training materials throughout the year that will allow sellers to grow and offer more effective buyer experiences.

Ready to get Started?

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Sales Enablement https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/sales-enablement/ Sat, 13 Sep 2025 04:53:31 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24609 Everything you need to know about sales enablement.

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REVENUE HUB > Sales Enablement

What is Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is a practice that provides members of the sales team with learning, content, and tools that allow them to succeed at their job. While it’s a relatively new concept for many organizations it has evolved over recent years from a primary focus on learning to a more modern focus on seller skills and behaviors as both business needs and buying experiences have changed.

Yes, training sellers on the industry, products, methodologies, competitors, etc. are the foundation of enablement. But simply knowing this information isn’t enough to get buyers across the finish line. It’s about different teams working together, honing skills, nailing the perfect pitch, using engaging content, and so much more — and all of this is what makes up an impactful sales enablement program.

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement is a practice that provides members of the sales team with learning, content, and tools that allow them to succeed at their job. While it’s a relatively new concept for many organizations it has evolved over recent years from a primary focus on learning to a more modern focus on seller skills and behaviors as both business needs and buying experiences have changed.

Yes, training sellers on the industry, products, methodologies, competitors, etc. are the foundation of enablement. But simply knowing this information isn’t enough to get buyers across the finish line. It’s about different teams working together, honing skills, nailing the perfect pitch, using engaging content, and so much more — and all of this is what makes up an impactful sales enablement program.

🤗 The benefits of sales enablement

Starting an enablement program from scratch may seem tough, but it’s got plenty of benefits:

Improves collaboration between sales and marketing teams

Helps to create a team of top-performing reps

Facilitates personalized, high-quality content

Provides all sellers with a single source of truth

Allows for continuous training and learning

Engages buyers more meaningfully

Increases revenue

🔨 What is a sales enablement platform?

A sales enablement platform combines all elements of enablement — onboarding, training, reinforcement, content — into one tool for sellers and adjacent teams like marketing and product. These tools allow for:

Easy content creation, editing, viewing, sharing, and collaboration

Virtual training and hands-on micro-learning opportunities to reinforce skills and knowledge

Increased visibility between sales and marketing

Analytics for tracking key metrics to identify where reps are progressing and where they can improve

🤓 Sales Enablement Software

For sales enablement software to serve its full purpose, it must have some essential features.

Onboarding

Onboarding is sales leadership’s opportunity to provide new hires with the materials, tools, and support they need to get engaged and have long-term success at your organization. It is also a key component of sales enablement, and your enablement technology should have features that make onboarding more efficient and effective. This means:

Continuous growth and skill development

The sales enablement process is just that: a process. It must be a regular practice throughout the year to truly impact performance on individual and team levels.


Therefore, any enablement platform worth investing in should have features for high-impact micro-learning, spaced reinforcement, individualized learning at scale, live and on-demand training, and role-plays to sharpen skills before going into the field.

Insights and analytics

A lot of resources are invested in sales technology and training, so it’s crucial to have capabilities for measuring the success of those efforts. The sales enablement platform you implement must have data at its core for both correlating skills to business outcomes and tracking key sales metrics. With visibility into individual performance and the effectiveness of different sales activities, you can then make adjustments to continuous learning programs that target where each rep needs to improve.

Integrations

Salespeople use many tools throughout the day to get their jobs done. When these tools don’t work together, it’s not only inefficient but confusing for sellers. Sales enablement tool should have integration capabilities with other technologies like communication and calendaring, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Content Management System (CMS), business intelligence, and more to easily draw accurate correlations between enablement activities and revenue — and to let sellers spend less time navigating apps and more time selling.

🔥How do you measure sales enablement?

As sales enablement includes so many initiatives working together, there are also many metrics to track to ensure for ensuring the program is programs are having a positive impact. We break them down into four categories below.

Knowledge and skills

These sales enablement metrics demonstrate sellers have

Real-world behaviors

These metrics demonstrate how knowledge and skills are applied in actual buyer conversations

Business outcomes

These metrics demonstrate how sales performance correlates to your organization’s bottom line.

Satisfaction

These metrics demonstrate whether sales employees feel supported, valued, and poised set up for success in their roles.

💎 What are the different types of sales enablement software?

Sales enablement platforms come in many shapes and sizes and serve different purposes. Here are just a few examples of different platforms and point solutions that make up a complete sales enablement solution.

🔥What are things to consider for the best sales enablement strategies?

Ready to dive in? Keep these five sales tenants in mind when building your enablement strategy.

Define objectives

The aim of a sales enablement program is to improve the skills, knowledge, and behaviors of salespeople in order to shorten sales cycles and close more deals. But what needs to happen to get there? Establish specific goals that help to determine whether your process is successful. Start by creating your ideal rep profile (IRP) to set a benchmark for rep performance.

Keep buyers at the center

Sellers may know all the details about your company and product, but can they translate it in a way that engages buyers? Providing an exceptional buyer experience should remain the focus of all enablement activities — and that doesn’t mean providing the same experience for every buyer. Different organizations and buying teams have different challenges, goals, and needs, all of which must be considered when going into a conversation with a potential customer.

Create relevant and compelling content

Whether it’s a product one-pager, sales presentation, or case study, any content that is designed for buyers must be of high quality and must be easy to tailor to what the particular buyer is interested in. As an example, a VP of sales is more concerned with long-term business outcomes, while a new sales manager will be interested in features and user-friendliness.

Make sales training a priority all year long

Learning isn’t a one-time event. Products evolve; industries shift; buyers move forward in their sales journeys. And sellers must be agile and prepared to ride the waves. Sales enablement isn’t complete without robust and ongoing training. Providing reps with virtual, bite-sized learning materials and quizzes on a regular basis keeps them up to date and helps learning stick.

Measure, measure, measure

How are all your sales enablement efforts helping to meet objectives? Evaluate KPIs and other metrics on a regular basis to identify where the program is having success and where it could use some work. Adapt the approach as you see fit and continue analyzing over time.

✌WE’VE GOT YOU COVERED

Where can I find a sales enablement guide?

To get started and build an impactful sales enablement program, you first need to have an understanding of all the important components.

 

Search online and you’ll find dozens of comprehensive sales enablement guides, all of which provide lots of information on sales enablement roles and responsibilities, strategies, tools, etc.

 

If you really want to take your sales enablement to the next level to increase productivity across your team, improve performance, and drive revenue growth, Mindtickle can help. As a leader in sales enablement and readiness, we have the expertise to give you the pieces that complete your sales enablement puzzle. While we’ve discussed many elements of sales enablement at length in this guide, check out other sales enablement resources to discover more.

🤝 What is the best sales enablement blog?

To stay updated on the latest trends and practices in sales enablement, follow these top enablement blogs.

Mindtickle

Our devotion to creating sales excellence extends to our blog, where we showcase tips, data, user guides, and more from our team of experts.

Association for Talent Development (ATD)

ATS is a non-profit serving businesses and individuals in training and developing their employees.

Gartner

The world-renowned technology consulting firm offers its research papers and other insights on its sales blog.

MarTech Zone

Focused on digital marketing and technology, MarTech Zone provides content for educating and engaging sales and marketing professionals.

AAISP

The AA-ISP is a global community dedicated exclusively to advancing the profession of virtual sales.

Forrester

The leading market research company consults on various industries, including sales, marketing, and enablement.

LinkedIn

As the go-to site for professionals, LinkedIn’s sales blog publishes insights and musings from leaders across the globe.

Sales Enablement Collective

A global community connecting and empowering sales enablement specialists.

✅What are the best sales enablement conferences?

Sending salespeople to sales enablement conferences is an effective way to both contribute to their professional growth and improve employee morale. Here’s a rundown of events and the 2022 dates for each.

Mindtickle Revenue Reboot
Virtual
Want to close more deals? Of course you do. Mindtickle has partnered with Chili Piper, Vidyard, BoostUp, Baker Communications, and Qualified to develop best-in-class sales enablement content and experiences on a weekly basis. Sign up for access to videos, networking discussions, and much more.

Sales Enablement Collective: Chief Revenue Officer Summit
San Francisco, CA
Revenue leaders from all over the country will come together in the bay area to share wins, challenges, and ideas for driving revenue growth. Leaders from organizations of all sizes are encouraged to attend.

AA-ISP salesDisrupted Boston, MA Practical advice is always useful, but using data is what helps to get sellers get to the next level in engaging buyers. An event unlike any other, salesDisrupted focuses on providing research to help sales leaders and professionals deliver real results.
Dreamforce San Francisco, CA and Virtual Salesforce is celebrating its 20th Dreamforce this year, with over 1,000 sessions and workshops. Reps at any level of the sales hierarchy can attend and return to the office with new ideas for generating success. The best part? You don’t have to make a trip to San Francisco to attend; you can log in from the comfort of your own desk to watch live or on demand.

Sales Enablement Soiree
San Francisco, CA
Focused solely on sales enablement strategies, the Sales Enablement Soiree gathers leaders and individual contributors around the world to learn and connect. Evaluate different enablement and sales readiness solutions to find which will best fit your organization’s needs.

Sales Enablement Society Annual Conference Atlanta, GA A great experience for a personal and professional reset, this year’s Sales Enablement Society conference features inspirational keynotes, informative sessions, as well as a wellness patio, and plenty of parties. With the theme “Take the Leap: Connect. Innovate. Elevate,” attendees will have the opportunity to learn from both experts and peers.
Mindtickle Fall Product Announcement Webinar Virtual Just like sales enablement as an initiative, the Mindtickle sales readiness platform doesn’t take a “set it and forget it” mindset. We learn and take feedback from our customers to continue innovating and making our product the best it can be. This fall, we’ll be announcing some changes and additions to our leading technology. Whether you’re an existing customer or are still in your decision phase, tune in to see what you can expect in the year to come.
Sales Innovation Expo London, UK Designed for rookie sellers, leaders, and everyone in between, the Sales Innovation Expo is a free event that provides both tactical and inspirational learnings to take back to your team.
Chief Revenue Officer Summit London, UK For the first time, London will host a dedicated summit for CROs. Leaders from all over the globe are invited to share insights and ideas for driving continuous growth through the uncertain years ahead.

Copilot is part of our award-winning,
all-in-one revenue enablement platform

Ready to get Started?

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Sales Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/revenue-hub/sales-coaching/ Fri, 12 Sep 2025 11:38:56 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=revenue-hub&p=24607 Everything you need to know about sales coaching.

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REVENUE HUB > Sales Coaching

What is Sales Coaching?

Sales coaching is the strategic process of improving sales performance through building relationships, analyzing activities in the field, and delivering ongoing and individualized plans to improve deal outcomes and build key skills.

The most common type of sales coaching is the manager one-on-one. A manager one-on-one is a regularly scheduled meeting between a manager and their direct report. However, there are multiple other types of coaching, including:

Everything you need to know about sales coaching

In the world of sports, great coaching ensures each player is ready to perform their best and win the game. Similarly, great sales coaching helps ensure each member of the sales team is ready to perform in the field and has what it takes to consistently close deals and meet quota.

In fact, sales coaching is a key component of a sales readiness strategy. When it’s done effectively, it can transform the performance of sellers in the field leading to more revenue and increased quota attainment.

However, coaching just to coach or check a box, doesn’t guarantee great results. Instead, you must build a strategic, data-based coaching program and consistently measure and optimize it to deliver the greatest ROI.

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about sales coaching and how to make sure you are fostering a coaching culture in your organization. We’ll also answer key questions that’ll help guide you on your way to a stronger, more successful sales coaching program, including:

What is sales coaching?

Sales coaching is the strategic process of improving sales performance through building relationships, analyzing activities in the field, and delivering ongoing and individualized plans to improve deal outcomes and build key skills.

The most common type of sales coaching is the manager one-on-one. A manager one-on-one is a regularly scheduled meeting between a manager and their direct report. However, there are multiple other types of coaching, including:

Deal coaching

Deal coaching is also referred to as opportunity coaching. During deal coaching, the manager and rep work together to determine the best plan of attack for moving a deal forward.

Skill coaching

The AA-ISP is a global community dedicated exclusively to advancing the profession of virtual sales.

Peer-to-peer coaching

As the name suggests, peer-to-peer coaching happens when reps give and receive feedback and recommendations to fellow team members, learning from each other and sharing best practices

Team coaching

Team coaching is when an entire sales team is learning from each other and their manager, usually involving a larger group sharing experiences and best practices.

Sales coaching is one of the best, most effective ways to improve sales rep performance. The best sales managers build close relationships with their reps and understand both their strengths and weaknesses. In addition, sales managers have the opportunity to see how reps are performing day to day – and work with them to capitalize on strengths and hone the skills and competencies they need to improve overall performance.

What makes a successful sales coach?

Coaching is a skill itself, that takes practice and experience to hone. Oftentimes, sales managers are reps who were very successful and got promoted. But, they weren’t always given the training on how to be a great coach and mentor others. . So, what sets the best sales coaches apart from the rest?

Successful sales coaches receive ongoing training

For starters, the best sales coaches receive regular training on how to be effective coaches. This starts with onboarding. When a new manager joins an organization or a sales rep is promoted to a sales manager role, their onboarding should include training on how to coach.

In addition, all sales managers should regularly receive training focused on how to effectively coach. At a minimum, ongoing coaching training for managers should be delivered annually. However, many organizations find it’s more effective to provide ongoing training more frequently – for example, during the annual sales kickoff and other key times during the year.

Even more experienced managers need regular training on how to effectively coach. They may have different coaching styles or methodologies used at previous companies. Ensuring you are training all of your coaches on how to coach following your expectations and upholding your company values is key.

Successful sales coaches focus on relationship-building

Great sales coaches are those that focus on building strong, authentic relationships with their sellers. A key part of this relationship-building is understanding sellers’ career goals – and helping them work toward those goals. Sellers should believe that their managers are there to help them succeed.

 

Successful sales coaches build coaching cultures

Successful sales coaches work to build and foster a supportive coaching environment where everyone on the team is encouraged to share feedback and best practices. Great coaches adopt a “rising tides raise all ships” mentality. Rather than every salesperson for themselves, successful coaches foster an environment where the entire team helps each other succeed together.

What are the top sales coaching tips and ideas?

Not all sales coaching programs are created equal. While some drive performance results, others can feel ad-hoc and a waste of time. Here are five sales coaching tips and ideasthat can improve the effectiveness of your sales coaching program.

 

Get leadership buy-in

Oftentimes, the responsibility for coaching falls solely on the shoulders of front-line sales managers. But managers are busy, and often have very large sales teams. With forecasts to create, meeting prep, and fires to put out, coaching can easily fall by the wayside.

The most successful sales organizations are those that focus on building a culture of coaching. Building such a culture requires leadership buy-in. If coaching is seen as a top priority by the Chief Revenue Officer and sales leaders, it will be a priority of the entire sales team.

Check out this video for more tips on building a culture of coaching at your organization.

Real-world behaviors

According to CSO Insights, most organizations (nearly 63%) take a random or informal approach to sales coaching. In those organizations, there’s no agreed-upon plan or structure. Instead, coaching is done as needed – and sales managers are largely left to their own devices.

This ad hoc approach isn’t effective. In fact, it’s proven that more formalized sales coaching programs lead to better results. The same report found that dynamic coaching brings nearly a 28% improvement in quota attainment and 31% for win rates when compared to a random approach.

When creating a formalized coaching approach for your teams, make sure your managers know the expectations of how often they should be coaching, what topics they should cover, and how to track coaching activities. Consider the below as a start to a formalized approach to coaching:

  • Deal coaching: each week during one-on-ones managers should be reviewing deals in flights with reps and covering how to continue moving deals forward and what support they can provide
  • Skill coaching: once a month, ensure your managers come to sessions with each of their reps on key skills that they need to work on to improve
  • Team coaching: during team meetings, have reps come prepared with at least one real-world example where they would like feedback and suggestions from the team on – like a snippet from a call where a prospect asked a really tough question
  • Peer coaching: encourage managers to foster a team that works together, even when the manager isn’t present, sharing calls and best practices with each other regularly

Document your sales coaching program

A successful sales coaching program is one that’s documented. Managers should keep a record of when coaching sessions were delivered to each rep, what they covered, and any action items to follow up on in the next session. That way, sales leadership can ensure managers are adhering to the coaching guidelines. Perhaps more importantly, when coaching is documented, it’s easier to determine how (and whether) it’s impacting a rep’s performance.

Leverage data to inform your sales coaching

Each seller has unique strengths and weaknesses. As such, a one-size-fits-all approach to coaching isn’t effective. In fact, coaching all sellers on skills they’ve already mastered is a waste of their time – and can lead to disengagement.

Instead, sales managers must deliver coaching that’s personalized to each rep’s strengths and weaknesses. The right data can help managers understand where reps shine – and where they need more help. Coaching should focus on those areas of opportunity. Then, managers can leverage data to see how their coaching efforts are (or aren’t) impacting the seller’s performance.

Think beyond deal reviews

Deal reviews are certainly important. This type of coaching can help a seller move a deal closer to the finish line. But on its own, it’s not enough to improve long-term outcomes.

In addition to deal coaching, start delivering regular skill coaching to your sales reps. Skill coaching should be focused on sharpening the individual skills each seller needs to achieve success in the field. Skill coaching drives behavior change – which positively impacts a rep’s long-term success.

What are the top sales coaching strategies?

The most successful sales coaching programs are strategic. Here are a few sales coaching strategies employed by the most successful sales organizations.

Define excellence

If you want to deliver coaching that creates more great reps, you must first define what great looks like. Look at what sets your best sellers apart. The skills and competencies they have are what you want to replicate throughout your sales team.

Of course, each rep has unique strengths and weaknesses. As such, you must measure each seller against your organization’s “gold standard” to see where they’re falling short. These benchmarks will help evaluate the skill gaps of individual reps for targeted coaching.

Reinforce coaching with sales enablement

The best sales managers recognize that coaching isn’t a one-time event. They know that ongoing follow-up and reinforcement ensure skills coaching is internalized. In fact, research tells us that top managers are three times more likely to assign a piece of content, training, role-play, or other sales enablement as a follow-up to a coaching session.

You likely have a trove of enablement topics on your sales processes, methodologies, competition, and success stories. After a coaching session, assign relevant sales enablement to the rep. This will help ensure that your coaching sessions are reinforced to commit new knowledge and skills to memory.

Measure the impact of sales coaching on a regular basis

Without regular measurement, it’s impossible to determine how (or if) your sales coaching program is driving improvement.

Of course, it’s important to measure short-term results. For example, what was the result of that opportunity you provided coaching on? However, it’s also critical to measure long-term results. In other words, how coaching is impacting skill development and a rep’s overall sales readiness. Using your skill and competency benchmarks, you can track the rep’s performance and skill improvement over time.

Tap into sales coaching technology

Some sales organizations take an informal approach to sales coaching. At these organizations, coaching might be documented in disparate spreadsheets – if it’s documented at all. When organizations take an informal approach to sales coaching, it’s nearly impossible to determine how (or if) coaching is impacting key outcomes.

In addition, many sales managers rely on their reps to recount their sales calls. But oftentimes, reps struggle to articulate what went well and not so well. That leaves the manager unsure of how to coach to improve the outcome of a given deal – or drive long-term behavior change.

As mentioned earlier, formalizing and documenting your sales coaching program will improve effectiveness. A key part of formalizing your coaching is to leverage the right sales coaching technology. A good sales coaching tool will make it easy for managers to schedule, conduct, and measure coaching with their reports. We’ll explore some different types of sales coaching technology next.

What are the top sales coaching tools?

There are many sales coaching tools available today that can help improve the effectiveness and efficiency of sales coaching. Some sales coaching tools address a single coaching challenge. However, a complete sales readiness platform like Mindtickle has capabilities that address all key sales coaching channels – all within a single platform.

Sales coaching software

Sales coaching software helps organizations take a formalized, documented approach to coaching. With sales coaching software, you can see firsthand how often your managers are coaching and how (and whether) this coaching is improving rep performance.

A good sales coaching software will make coaching easier for front-line managers. Key features include:

  • Templates or forms to standardize coaching across managers
  • Ability to schedule coaching sessions
  • Opportunity for reps to be involved in feedback on their coaching sessions
  • Coaching analytics for managers to show skill gaps of reps for individualized coaching
  • Coaching analytics for sales leaders to show how often managers are coaching and the impact on rep performance

Good news – Mindtickle’s Sales Coaching has all of this and more! Learn more about it here.

Conversation intelligence software

Conversation intelligence software is another powerful sales coaching tool.

Of course, it’s important that a sales rep completes all necessary training. But what really matters is that they’re using what they’ve learned while in the field. However, sales managers typically don’t have the time to sit in on every sales meeting with every rep.

Conversation intelligence software records and analyzes all sales meetings, which helps managers better understand how each rep is performing in the field. Call recordings can help managers lead more effective deal reviews with reps, which will positively impact the outcome of a given deal. In addition, recordings help managers understand the skill and behavior gaps of each rep. For example, a rep may consistently struggle when handling objections or navigating negotiations. The manager can use these insights to deliver coaching to help improve these skills.

Sales enablement software

Coaching isn’t one-size-fits-all. Instead, managers must be able to deliver personalized coaching that addresses the skill gaps of each sales rep.

Coaching also isn’t “one and done.” The best sales managers leverage sales enablement content to reinforce coaching and drive skill improvement. This is proven to drive results. According to Mindtickle’s 2022 State of Sales Readiness report, reps who are assigned follow-up actions after a coaching session see significant improvements in sales readiness.

Pairing your sales coaching software with an integrated enablement platform helps reinforce coaching with training that can help commit it to memory. For example, a manager might see that a rep consistently struggles with objection handling on recorded calls. After delivering a coaching session focused on objection handling, the manager can assign sales enablement content and role plays to reinforce that coaching.

What is data-backed sales coaching?

As the name suggests, data-based sales coaching is coaching that’s driven by data.

Some sales managers take a blanket approach to sales coaching. In other words, all reps receive the same coaching, regardless of their strengths and weaknesses. A more effective approach is to deliver targeted, personalized coaching for each rep. The right data fuels this approach to coaching.

Data-backed deal coaching

Deal coaching helps reps guide a specific opportunity through the funnel. Effective deal coaching depends on data about both the deal and the individual rep, including:

  • Win/loss of the rep, including stages they lose most in
  • Pipeline stages of opportunities
  • Deal sizes
  • Deal risks of that rep – such as buyer disengagement on their deals, seller inactivity, low call volume, single threading, or poor sales process adherence
  • Low call scores (from conversation intelligence software) Such as volume of questions asked and received, use of filler words, and sentiment

Data-backed skill coaching

Skill coaching helps reps hone the skills and competencies needed for success in the field. The right data sheds light on the skills reps may need coaching on. Key data to tap into for skill coaching includes:

  • Performance on sales enablement content tied to key skills
  • Performance on role-plays tied to target skills
  • Sentiment on calls
  • Questions asked during calls
  • Conversation balance on calls (how much the rep is talking versus how much the prospect is talking)

Data-backed coach the coach

As mentioned earlier, ongoing training on how to coach is essential for sales managers. Sales managers should also receive ongoing coaching to improve their coaching skills. This type of coaching should be backed by data, including:

  • How often managers are coaching reps – and whether that adheres to the organization’s coaching cadence
  • Any feedback from reps, including coaching sessions disapproved by rep
  • Annual reviews from the team (if it includes manager reviews)
    Rep churn by team

How to Implement Data-Backed Sales Coaching?

The best, most effective sales coaching is backed by data. But how can you move from a one-size-fits all sales coaching approach to one that’s backed by data?

Document your ideal rep profile (IRP)

Your reps need certain skills and competencies if they are to be successful at your organization. The first step is to determine what those skills are. Start by looking at your top performers and determine the skills they possess that set them apart. These key skills can be documented in an Ideal Rep Profile (IRP). An IRP generator can help you build yours.

Remember: different roles require different skills. Be sure to define the key skills for every role on your sales team.

The skills documented in your IRP should then be associated with any onboarding and enablement content. In other words, you should tag any onboarding and enablement content related to the skills and competencies outlined in your IRP.

In addition, each rep should regularly be measured against the IRP. That way, managers can easily identify skills for which each rep may need additional coaching. Also, sales leaders can measure how coaching is improving the key skills needed for success.

Leverage revenue intelligence

Another way to implement data-based sales coaching is to leverage revenue intelligence. Revenue intelligence helps surface deal risks. That data can help inform deal coaching that improves the outcome of a deal. For example, a manager can guide a rep on data points or a piece of content that can steer the conversation back on course – and bring it closer to the finish line.

Deal coaching vs. skill coaching: what’s the difference?

Two common types of sales coaching are deal coaching and skill coaching. Which is the better option?

The reality is, this isn’t a case of either/or. The most effective sales managers leverage both deal coaching and skill coaching to drive improvements. That’s because each type of coaching has different goals and procedures.

Deal coaching: improving the outcome of an opportunity

Deal coaching is arguably the most common type of sales coaching. According to the 2022 State of Sales Readiness report, 85% of reps report being coached on closing open deals.

As the name suggests, deal coaching is aimed at improving the outcome of a deal or deals. Deal coaching can happen on a regular basis. For example, a rep might have a weekly pipeline review with their manager. But deal coaching can also happen on an ad hoc basis. For example, a rep may reach out to their manager about their concerns with a certain deal and request guidance.

During deal coaching sessions, managers and reps discuss questions relevant to the deal, such as:

  • What are the buyers’ needs?
  • Who is involved in the decision-making process?
  • What objections have been raised by the buyer?
  • What are the next steps?
  • How can the manager help move the deal forward?

Then, the rep and manager work together to make a game plan to move the deal through the funnel. That might include taking a different approach or sharing a specific piece of content – among other actions.

Deal coaching can be an effective way to improve a single interaction or single deal and often happens on an ongoing basis, typically at least weekly.

Skill coaching: improving key skills for long-term success

Skill coaching is extremely important. But unfortunately, it’s a lot less common. Per the 2022 State of Sales Readiness report, a mere 24% of sales reps report being coached on skills.

Rather than focusing on deals, skill coaching focuses on the sellers. The aim of skill coaching is to ensure sellers have mastery of the skills, competencies, and behaviors needed to close more deals.

What skills should managers focus on? It depends. Managers should measure their reps against their ideal rep profile to identify where each rep needs additional coaching. Then, the manager can measure how coaching (as well as follow-up efforts) is driving improvement.

Unlike deal coaching, skill coaching can lead to behavior change. Improved behaviors lead to greater long-term sales success.

Looking to improve your skill coaching? Check out this video for three tips.

What is the impact of sales coaching?

Strategic, data-driven sales coaching can have a large, positive impact on key business outcomes. In fact, the impact of great sales coaching is proven.

Great sales coaching drives revenue growth

Effective sales coaching leads to higher performing sales reps. Research from Heinz Marketing and Mindtickle found that 8 out of 10 sales teams with effective coaching practices hit greater than 75% of sales quotas.

The more formalized the sales coaching program, the larger the impact. According to CSO Insights, organizations with a dynamic approach to sales coaching achieve significantly higher win rates and quota attainment than average.

In addition, more frequent coaching leads to better results. Research from Sales Readiness Group found that sales managers at high-impact organizations (those where 75% of sales reps reach quota) spend significantly more time coaching than sales managers at average and low-performing organizations. Our own research found that the average rep receives one manager-led coaching session per month. However, managers of top-performing reps complete an average of three formal, manager-led coaching sessions per rep per month.

Poor sales coaching leads to wasted time and rep churn

Great sales coaching helps reps close more deals and improve skills that drive long-term success. So it makes sense that poor sales coaching leads to ill-equipped sales reps who are more likely to miss their sales targets.

In addition, poor coaching can be indicative of a negative relationship between managers and reps. These poor relationships lead to higher churn rates. DDI research found that a staggering 57% of employees have left a job because of their manager. When churn is high, managers must spend more time filling vacant roles – and less time helping their sellers succeed.

Take your sales coaching program to the next level

Sales coaching is a key component of any successful sales readiness strategy. However, sales coaching shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, effective sales coaching is strategic, formalized, data-driven, and personalized.

Ready to see Mindtickle’s complete sales readiness platform in action?

Ready to get Started?

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13 Sales Closing Techniques That’ll Help You Meet Quota https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/10-sales-closing-techniques-thatll-help-you-meet-quota/ Fri, 05 Sep 2025 05:00:21 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20371 You’ve put in the time building a connection with a prospect, digging into their pain points, and showing them how your solution can help them. Now, there’s just one thing left to do: close the deal. In theory, this sounds simple. But in practice, closing is often the hardest part of the sales process. It’s …

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You’ve put in the time building a connection with a prospect, digging into their pain points, and showing them how your solution can help them. Now, there’s just one thing left to do: close the deal.

In theory, this sounds simple. But in practice, closing is often the hardest part of the sales process. It’s where momentum stalls and deals are lost.

The good news? Closing is a skill, not a secret. With the right sales closing techniques, tools, and mindset, every seller on your team can start turning more “maybes” into confident “yeses.” 

In this blog, we’ll break down what sales closing really is and why it matters. We’ll also share some proven sales closing techniques that’ll help your entire team consistently win more deals

What is sales closing, and why is it important?

Sales closing is the process of finalizing (or closing) the sales cycle. In other words, it’s the process of getting your prospect to (finally) say “yes” to your offer so you can officially call it a done deal.  

Why does sales closing matter?

Sales closing is a critical step in the sales cycle. If you don’t close a sale, you won’t earn a customer or hit your sales quota, and all your sales engagement efforts will be in vain.

The bottom line is that when some team sellers haven’t mastered the art of closing a sale, quota attainment will suffer. 

Though closing a sale sounds simple enough, it often isn’t. Research tells us the average close rate for B2B businesses sits around 30%. Furthermore, over a third of sellers say that closing is the most difficult part of their job.

The average close rate for B2B businesses is

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All sellers – from beginners to veterans – can face challenges when closing a sale. 

Revenue organizations must ensure their sellers have the skills and competencies needed to successfully close more deals. It’s imperative to provide the right sales training and enablement to ensure your teams have what it takes to close deals. AI-powered role plays can also help your sellers practice their sales closing skills as much as necessary before money is on the line. 

13 winning sales closing techniques

There’s not just one way to close a deal. And there’s not a single sales closing script that works for every situation, every time. 

Instead, there are a variety of sales closing techniques. Each has its unique style and can be effective in different sales scenarios.

Let’s look at 10 of top sellers’ best sales closing strategies.

Sales closing technique #1: The assumptive close

What is it: When a seller employs the assumptive sales closing technique, they confidently discuss next steps – for example, implementation or delivery – while assuming it’s a done deal. This approach can be particularly effective for veteran sellers who are well versed on whether a buyer is a good fit and truly ready to move forward.

Why does it work: This technique works because it frames the purchase as the natural next step. Instead of lingering in indecision, the sales rep helps the buyer picture what moving forward looks like. This confident approach reduces friction, reinforces trust, and makes it easier for the buyer to say “yes” without second-guessing.

Example: “Our project manager can host your implementation kickoff early next week. Does Monday afternoon or Tuesday afternoon work better for your team?”

Sales closing technique #2: The “try before you buy” close

What is it: In this sales closing strategy, the seller offers the buyer an opportunity to try the product out before making a purchase. Often, this involves a free trial period. 

Why does it work: Making a purchase involves risk. A free trial gives prospects a risk-free way to try out your solution. Once they see the impact firsthand, they’re more likely to move forward with a purchase.

Example: “I understand you still have reservations. What if I allowed you to try out our solution for free for two weeks? That way, you can see firsthand how it works with your other technologies and drives productivity gains/time savings.”

Sales closing technique #3: The opportunity cost close

What is it: Failure to take action has consequences. This sales closing technique is focused on conveying what a buyer has to lose by not purchasing your solution.

Why does it work: This technique helps buyers understand the risk of not moving forward with your company. It creates a sense of urgency, which may help you accelerate the sales cycle and close the deal.

Example: “I know you said your team spends a lot of time on [pain point], costing your company a lot of money. Moving forward with this solution will solve that problem and save you money. Are you ready to take the next step?”

Sales closing technique #4: The “now or never” close

What is it? This sales closing technique creates a sense of urgency so buyers are more likely to act – now. Like the opportunity cost close, this technique can create urgency by conveying the cost of not taking action. Or, sellers may offer buyers a special deal that’s only available if the buyer acts now.

Why does it work: All people can experience a fear of missing out (AKA FOMO). B2B buyers are no exception. When you create a sense of urgency by leveraging a limited time deal or communicating the cost of not taking action, they may be more willing to take prompt action.

Example: “I should mention that we’re offering a special deal right now. New customers who sign up during the month of November receive a 10% discount. We don’t run deals like this often. I don’t want you to miss out!”

Sales closing technique #5: The sharp angle close

What is it: This sales closing technique is all about addressing a prospect’s question or sales objection with another question that moves the deal closer to being closed.

Why does it work: This sales closing strategy helps buyers overcome their objections and come to a resolution that’s agreeable for the buyer and seller alike.

Example: Let’s say a buyer asks for a 10% discount. The seller can say, “I can provide you that discount if you can sign by the end of the week. Does that work for you?”

Sales closing technique #6: The question close

What is it: This approach involves asking questions to uncover additional sales objections. Then, you can address those objections and close the deal.

Why does it work: By asking the right questions, you can get insight into your buyers objections. By successfully overcoming those objections, you’ll be more likely to close the deal.

Example: “What’s your biggest hesitation about choosing this solution?”

Let’s say the buyer says, “I’m not sure my team will know how to use it.” You can respond by saying, “I understand. It’s typically easy for teams to get up and running on the solution. But we do offer onboarding and training to ensure every member knows how to use it. Can I tell you more about that?”

Sales closing technique #7: The commitment close

What is it: As the name suggests, this sales closing technique is all about getting a commitment from your prospect. It involves recapping your conversations – and then asking for the deal. 

Why it works: This simple approach is so straightforward that it can often get a prospect to say “yes.” 

Example: “I’ll be sure to connect you with those references I mentioned. Pending those conversations, are you ready to move forward?”

Sales closing technique #8: The summary close

What is it: The typical B2B sales cycle involves a number of sales interactions.  The summary close is focused on wrapping these conversations up in a bow, by summarizing the value your solution will deliver to your product. 

Why does it work: By reiterating the value of your solution and how it’ll address your prospect’s challenges, you’ll increase their likelihood of moving forward. 

Example: “We’ve covered a lot. Let’s recap. You said your biggest pain point right now is [example]. This is how our platform will solve that pain point and help your team save time and money.”

Sales closing technique #9: The empathy close

What is it: This sales closing technique is about empathizing with your prospect and letting them know you understand where they’re coming from. It involves asking the right sales closing questions to understand the prospect’s perspective and offering support. 

Why does it work: When a prospect feels heard and understood, they’ll see you as a trusted advisor. Buyers are more likely to move forward when they trust the seller. 

Example: “I can see that this pain point causes a lot of stress on your team, and you’re under a lot of pressure from your boss to solve it. Let’s discuss how our solution can alleviate that burden for you and your team.”

Sales closing technique #10: The visual aid close

What is it: When sellers use the visual aid close, they leverage tools like charts, videos, and demos to support their messages. That way, sellers can see firsthand the value your solution can deliver.

Why does it work: Often, showing is more effective than simply telling. When you have the right visual aids to reinforce your messages, the buyer is more likely to move forward.

Example: “I think one of the best ways to understand the value of our solution is to see real-life results from one of our customers. If you take a look at this graph, you’ll see how this company started saving 10 hours per week and reduced their costs by 25% by using our solution. I can send you a video so you can hear directly from the customer.”

Sales closing technique #11: The collaborative close

What is it: For many buyers, a sale can feel like a case of “us versus them.” But with the collaborative closing technique, a seller positions themselves as partner, collaborating with the buyer on the final steps. 

Why does it work: This sales closing technique makes the buyer feel like they’re in control. This strengthens trust and encourages alignment, which is especially important for complex B2B deals. 

Example: “Let’s work together to map out what a rollout plan could look like. If we started this month, what timeline would work for you in terms of getting your team trained and set up?”

Sales closing technique #12: The ownership close 

What is it: This is a sales closing technique that helps the prospect visualize what it’s like to already own your product or service. The sales rep speaks as though the buyer has already made a decision, which helps the buyer imagine the benefits of ownership.

Why does it work: This technique taps into the power of visualization. If a buyer can visualize what ownership is like, they’re more likely to actually commit to the purchase.

Example: “Once you roll out this solution, your teams will start to notice they’re saving time within two weeks. Have you thought about how you’ll introduce the new solution to them?

Sales closing technique #13: The Colombo close 

What is it: This sales closing technique is inspired by a classic TV show about a police lieutenant. It involves ending the conversation, but then “remembering” one last important question or detail. Typically, it’s related to asking for the sale. 

Why does it work: It feels natural, rather than pushy. Also, it tends to catch the prospect off guard, which can help you bypass resistance and get a candid response. It can be an especially effective sales closing technique when the prospect is unsure or guarded. 

Example: “Well, it’s been great chatting with you today. Oh! Just one more thing before I let you go. If I get you those answers we discussed, would you feel comfortable moving forward by next week?”

Sales closing best practices

The sales closing techniques we discussed can help you get more deals across the finish line.

Now, we’ll take a look at some sales closing best practices you can use to improve outcomes – no matter which sales closing technique you use.

Focus on value

All too often, B2B sales reps recite a generic list of features to their prospects. This approach isn’t effective. 

Instead, aim to understand your prospects’ pain points. Then, focus on articulating how your solution will solve their unique challenges. 

This approach will pay off. According to a LinkedIn report, over half of B2B buyers are more likely to do business with a company if the sales rep understands their needs. 

Maintain clear communication throughout the sales cycle

When the buyer and seller are aligned, sales cycles are shorter and deals are more likely to go through. Sellers must be sure to clearly communicate with buyers throughout the purchase journey.

This can get difficult, as B2B sales cycles are often long, and buying committees are large.  According to Gartner, a typical B2B buying group includes up to 10 stakeholders – each with their own needs, preferences, and expectations.

The typical B2B buying group includes

stakeholders
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Digital sales rooms can be a particularly effective way to communicate and collaborate with buyers throughout the purchase journey. Sellers can share relevant content and information that resonates with each buying group member. Sellers can also gauge how buyers are engaging so they can tailor their approach and increase their likelihood of closing a sale. 

Digital collaboration rooms

Ask for the sale

Asking for the sale may seem obvious. But often, sellers hesitate to come out and do so. 

Research tells us around two-thirds of sales reps fail to actively ask for the sale during their interactions with buyers. 

You won’t close any deals unless you ask for them, so be sure to ask.

Automate time-consuming processes and procedures

Recent research shows buyers spend less than 30% of their time selling. There’s no doubt most want to spend more time on revenue-generating activities. But they can’t because they’re bogged down with tedious (but necessary) tasks.

Look for opportunities to simplify and automate time-consuming processes and procedures. That way, your sales reps can spend more time engaging with prospects, increasing their sales closing rate. 

For example, if you sales reps spend a lot of time searching for the right sales content, start using an AI-powered sales content management system. That way, sales reps can surface content and get content suggestions based on past performance. They can also use generative AI to draft contextual messages to accompany the content.

Copilot - Just in Time Enablement (2)

Deliver sales closing training and coaching

You might think sales closing is a skill sales reps either have or they don’t. But that’s not the case. With the right sales closing training, your entire team can master the sales closing skills needed to get more deals across the finish line.

In addition to providing sales closing training, be sure to give your reps opportunities to practice their skills before they take them to the field. For example, AI-powered role plays allow sales reps to practice their sales closing techniques in realistic scenarios with an AI-powered bot. The seller gets feedback throughout the role-play experience, which they can use to fine-tune their sales closing questions and techniques before money is on the line.

AI-Roleplay

Get insight into what’s happening in the field

Providing sales closing training and coaching is important. But it’s only effective if sellers are actually putting their sales coaching skills into practice while in the field.

If you’re not already, consider leveraging a conversation intelligence solution, which records, transcribes, and analyzes sales conversations. Sales reps get a score at the end of each sales call, as well as feedback they can implement to improve their skills – and their likelihood of closing a sale. Sales managers can look for trends to identify which reps might need additional sales closing coaching.

mt-platform-conversation-intelligence-screen

Start closing more deals with Mindtickle

Sales closing is a critical stage in the sales process. Mindtickle helps leading revenue organizations ensure their sellers have the knowledge, skills, and tools to close more deals.

With Mindtickle, organizations across industries can deliver tailored training and enablement to empower teams to master sales closing skills. Sales teams also leverage AI role plays within Mindtickle, which provides sellers with opportunities to hone their sales closing skills.

With Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence capabilities, sales leaders can determine whether or not sellers are putting their sales closing skills into practice. Conversation intelligence delivers real-time seller feedback and helps sales leaders identify which sellers might need additional sales closing coaching. Organizations like Data Axle rely on Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence feature to understand what’s happening in the field so they can deliver targeted coaching that improves their sales closing rate. 

Mindtickle leverages AI throughout the platform to streamline and automate time-consuming, mundane tasks. That way, sellers can spend more time delighting customers and closing deals.

For example, sellers can use Mindtickle Copilot to surface insights from recent sales interactions – without having to listen to call recordings or decipher handwritten notes. These insights can help sellers tailor their follow up for better results. 

Copilot also empowers sales reps to get easy, fast answers to prospects’ questions – rather than waiting on a subject matter expert. This can accelerate the sales cycle and makes closing a sale much easier.

Ready to see firsthand why leading revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to equip their sellers with the training, skills, and information they need to boost their sales closing rates? Get in touch to schedule your live demo today.

FAQs

1. What are the top sales closing mistakes you should avoid?

Some common sales closing mistakes you should avoid include being too pushy, failing to truly listen to what buyers are saying, and not addressing objections effectively. If you rush to close the deal without taking the time to understand the prospect’s needs and address their concerns, you’re likely to lose the deal. Instead, focus on asking thoughtful questions, listening to the prospect’s responses, and aligning the solution to their goals and pain points. 

2. What are the best sales closing techniques?

There’s no one-size-fits-all sales closing technique that works for every deal. B2B sellers must choose a sales closing style that aligns with the buyer’s needs and their decision-making style. The assumptive close and summary close are two common techniques, as they build confidence and naturally guide the buyer towards a decision, without coming across as pushy.

3. What to do after closing a sale?

After closing a deal, sellers should reinforce value, set expectations for next steps, and facilitate a smooth handoff to the implementation or customer success team. Follow up promptly to ensure the implementation or onboarding process progresses smoothly. Continue fostering the relationship to increase retention and open up opportunities for referrals and future cross-sales.

Close More deals With Mindtickle

Ready to see firsthand why leading revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to equip their sellers with the training, skills, and information they need to boost their sales closing rates?

Request a Demo

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12 of the Most Common Sales Objections (and How to Overcome Them) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-objections/ Tue, 26 Aug 2025 16:36:25 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20355 Imagine if every sales conversation went off without a hitch. Buyers would be eager to move forward, sales objections wouldn’t exist, and closing deals would be effortless. But that’s not how B2B sales works. Today’s B2B buyers are more informed than ever, and they come to the table with plenty of questions and objections in …

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Imagine if every sales conversation went off without a hitch. Buyers would be eager to move forward, sales objections wouldn’t exist, and closing deals would be effortless.

But that’s not how B2B sales works.

Today’s B2B buyers are more informed than ever, and they come to the table with plenty of questions and objections in hand. 

The best sales reps don’t see these sales objections as deal breakers. They see them as opportunities to uncover needs, demonstrate value, and earn trust.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales objections are, why they matter, and how to handle them with confidence so you can move more deals forward. 

What is a sales objection and why is it important?

Later, we’ll examine the types and provide examples of each. But first, let’s lay the foundation by defining the phrase and exploring its role in the sales process.

Sales objections, defined

They are the reasons your prospect is hesitant to purchase your product. In other words, they’re the reasons a customer says “no” to taking the next step in the journey or making a purchase. 

Of course, there may be any number of reasons why a prospect may have reservations about moving forward. Later on, we’ll take a closer look at some types of sales objections sellers are likely to encounter.

Why overcoming sales objections is critical

They’re inevitable. There’s no getting around that. Research tells us that 60% of customers say “no” four times before finally saying yes. 

Customers say "no"

before saying "yes"
0 times

Sure, encountering B2B sales objections can feel discouraging. But those “nos” don’t necessarily mean a deal is dead in the water. 

If a sales rep has the right skills, they can effectively overcome sales objections and, ultimately, guide the prospect across the finish line. The best sales reps see them as an opportunity. 

Many sellers throw in the towel when they encounter sales objections. According to statistics, a mere 44% of sales reps follow up after receiving a single “no” from a prospect. When a sales rep is persistent, they stand out from the competition – and it can pay off. 

of reps don't follow up after hearing "no" from a prospect
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When a prospect raises objections, sales reps can ask the right questions to better understand their needs and motives. Then, sellers can use that intel to tailor how they present your solution’s value. Furthermore, while working to overcome them, sellers can build trust with the buyer, increasing their likelihood of making a purchase. 

It’s no wonder why 95% of companies say objection handling is a key competency for their customer-facing roles.

What are the types of sales objections?

There are endless reasons why a prospect isn’t ready to move forward in the purchase journey. But generally, they fall into one of a few different categories. 

Let’s take a closer look at six of the most common types of sales objections.

Sales objection category #1: Pricing

Pricing is one of the biggest objections in sales. A prospect may say that your product is too expensive or they lack the budget.

It’s important to dig deeper into pricing-related sales call objections. Sometimes, a prospect truly can’t afford your product or service. In that case, they may not be a good fit. 

However, these pricing objections often arise when a prospect struggles to see the value in your solution. This is an opportunity to reiterate the value the buyer will realize from your product. They’ll be more likely to purchase when they understand what they’ll get from the investment (for example, cost or time savings). 

Sales objection category #2: Need

Prospects often raise sales objections because they don’t think they need the solution you’re offering. You might hear something like, “We don’t need that,” or “We’re already doing XYZ to address that.”

Overcoming these objections requires strong sales discovery skills. Sellers need to ask questions to understand the prospect’s challenges and determine if they have a solution to address them. A recent analysis found the average discovery call is only 30 minutes long, so sellers must ensure they’re asking the right questions. 

If the prospect is a good fit, the seller must articulate why their solution fits the prospect’s needs. 

Sales objection category #3: Timing

Prospects often raise sales objections related to timing. For example, they may say, “I’ll think about it” or “This isn’t a priority right now.”

Reps can overcome these B2B sales objections by digging deeper into the prospect’s priorities. There may be an opportunity to provide a solution to their more pressing priorities.

Timing-related sales objections also present an opportunity to create a sense of urgency. Sales reps can help prospects understand the cost of not moving forward, which may cause them to rethink their priorities and take action now.

At the very least, you can suggest scheduling a meeting in the future when they feel ready to move forward.

Sales objection category #4: Decision-making power

In some situations, a prospect will tell you they don’t have the power to decide on your solution. You may hear things like, “I’ll have to talk to my boss” or “I don’t make these kinds of decisions.”

You can use this as an opportunity to identify and contact the person who does have purchasing authority. However, continue building your relationship with the initial contact. If you earn their trust, they may end up championing your solution.

Sales objection category #5: Competition 

A recent report found that 57% of all deals are competitive. So sellers should anticipate sales objections related to competitors and be prepared to overcome them.

For example, a prospect may ask why your solution lacks certain features and benefits, or why it’s priced higher than your competitors. Sales reps must become experts in their competitors’ offerings and how they stack up. It’s key to overcoming competitive sales objections. 

Sales objection category #6: Lack of trust

Sometimes, sellers will encounter sales objections that indicate a lack of trust. For example, a prospect may say, “I’ve never heard of your company,” or “I don’t know anyone who uses your product.”

While the prospect may not say, “I don’t trust your company,” that’s the underlying meaning. 

Sellers must work to build rapport and trust with prospects. This is important in every deal, but especially in those deals where prospects raise trust-related sales objections. 

12 examples of sales objections (and how to respond)

Sales objections are extremely common. So sales reps should anticipate them and know how to overcome objections in sales.

A great starting point is to see some examples of sales objections and how to respond to them to maintain a healthy pipeline and close more deals. 

Sales objection #1: “Your product is too expensive.”

How to respond: Empathize with the prospect by saying, “I understand you’re working within a budget. Then, remind the prospect how your solution solves their top challenges. By articulating value, you can convince your prospect that this investment is worth making.

Sales objection #2: “Your competitor is cheaper.”

How to respond: Acknowledge that your prospect is correct. Then, work to articulate how your product delivers more value than your competitors – thus worth the investment. Be sure to articulate that your solution is the better choice, but avoid criticizing the competition.

Sales objection #3: “We don’t have any more budget this year.”

How to respond: Say something like, “I understand. When do you expect funding to return? Let’s schedule a follow up meeting for then!”

Sales objection #4: “We’re already using your competitor.”

How to respond: Ask questions like, “What made you choose [company]?” and “How is [company’s solution] working out for you?”

This will help you understand what they like and dislike about your competitor. Then, you can use that information to communicate why your solution is better for addressing their key challenges.

Sales objection #5: “I’ve never heard of your company before.”

How to respond: Say something like, “I’m excited to introduce our company to you!” Then, provide a short and sweet overview of what your company does. You can also say, “Let’s chat more about your challenges and how we might be able to help.”

Offering to share testimonials and reviews from notable customers is also a great way to build trust.

Sales objection #6: “I don’t want to be locked into a year-long contract.”

How to respond: Empathize with them by saying, “I completely get it.” If there are other payment options, let the prospect know. Say something like, “We also offer some other payment terms. Let’s walk through them to see what would work better for you.”

Sales objection #7: “I’m already in a contract with your competitor.”

How to respond: Addressing this objection can be a great way to get insight into what a prospect likes and dislikes about the prospect and whether they’re willing to switch vendors. This information can help you tailor your approach.

In addition, consider offering a discount to offset the cost of switching. You can also convey how switching to your solution can deliver ROI that makes up for the cost of switching. 

Sales objection #8: “I don’t have the authority to sign off on this.”

How to respond: Ask questions to get in touch with the right question. You can say something like, “Thanks for letting me know! Can you let me know who is authorized to make this decision and how I can get in contact with them?”

Keep in touch with your original point of contact. They may be able to make introductions and even serve as a champion for your company.

Sales objection #9: “This isn’t a priority right now.”

How to respond: Say something like, “Got it! What are your current priorities right now?”

If they’re unable to articulate those priorities, they’re likely just using it as an excuse to brush you off. This is an opportunity to articulate value and create a sense of urgency.

If they do share their current priorities, see if there are ways your solution can help. If not, set a follow-up meeting for when this is a priority. While you wait for the meeting, share helpful resources to keep the prospect engaged and earn their trust.

Sales objection #10: “Your product is too complicated.”

How to respond: Ask your prospect what features seem complicated. Then, work to provide clarity. 

In addition, remind the prospect that they’ll have ongoing support to ensure they get the most value from your solution. You can say something like, “You’ll have a dedicated customer success manager who is an expert at helping businesses like yours solve [pain points] with our solution.” 

Sales objection #11: “We don’t have the capacity to bring on a new product right now.”

How to respond: First, ensure your prospect has a clear idea of what it takes to implement your product and drive adoption. It may not be as complicated as they think. 

In addition, ask questions like, “Can you tell me more about your day-to-day responsibilities?” Then, you can articulate how your solution will help streamline their day-to-day tasks so they can spend more time on strategic initiatives.

Sales objection #12: “I’m busy.”

How to respond: Let your prospect know you’re not looking to take up much of their time. You just want to have a quick chat to determine if it makes sense to have a longer discussion. 

Say something like, “I hear you. I promise this won’t take up too much of your time. Can we have a five-minute chat now about [this challenge] and how I might be able to help?”

If they still say no, suggest scheduling a quick call for a better time.

How to handle sales objections

Overcoming sales objections isn’t as easy as reading off a generic script. Instead, it’s about following a process that helps you understand the buyer’s perspective and respond with confidence.

Here are some key steps every rep should take when faced with a sales objection.

1. Listen fully before responding

Our analysis found that average customer talk time on discovery calls has dropped to 29%. So while it’s tempting to jump right in with an answer, resist the temptation. Instead, give the prospect time to explain their concern so they feel heard and understood.

2. Acknowledge their concern and empathize

Show the buyer you hear and understand their concern. A simple phrase like “I completely get where you’re coming from” goes a long way in building trust.

3. Ask clarifying questions

Dig deeper to uncover the real root of the  objection. Often, what sounds like a budget or timing issue may really be about value or priorities.

4. Restate the objection to confirm understanding

Paraphrase what you heard to ensure you and your buyer are on the same page. This demonstrates active listening and avoids miscommunication.

5. Provide a tailored response

Now that you have a good understanding of the sales objection, it’s time to address it. Connect your solution directly to the buyer’s objection. Highlight benefits, share relevant proof points, and reframe the objection to demonstrate value. 

6. Check for resolution

Don’t assume your response has adequately addressed the prospect’s sales objection. Instead, come right out and ask if your explanation makes sense or if they have additional concerns. This ensures alignment and keeps the conversation moving forward.

7. Confirm next steps

End by guiding the conversation forward. Depending on the circumstances, that might involve scheduling a follow-up, looping in other members of the buying and selling teams, or aligning on priorities.

interactive role-play

How Mindtickle empowers sellers to overcome sales objections and close more deals 

Sales call objections are inevitable. Every seller must master the art of overcoming B2B sales objections.

Delivering sales training and coaching focused on overcoming objections in sales is a great first step. Giving your sales reps plenty of opportunities to practice and perfect their skills is important before money is on the line.

Mindtickle now features AI-powered role-plays that enable sellers to practice their objection-handling skills as much as they’d like in a safe, scalable environment. 

With Mindtickle, sales enablement teams can create realistic role-play scenarios and set the title of a realistic, artificial intelligence-powered bot. Enablement teams can even select levers to set the buyer’s personality – such as “budget conscious” or “extroverted.”

Sales reps launch the role-play and have the opportunity to practice their key skills – including overcoming sales objections – in a dynamic, realistic scenario. The bot raises objections throughout the role-play, which the sales rep must work to overcome. 

Throughout the role-play experience, AI delivers qualitative and quantitative feedback and suggestions for improvement around key factors, including objection handling. Sales reps can use this feedback to give it another go until they feel confident in their sales objection handling skills. Then, they can make real-life sales calls, confident in their ability to overcome different types of sales objections. 

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s AI-powered role-plays can empower your sales reps to perfect their sales objection-handling skills so they can start closing more deals? Schedule a live demo to see for yourself.

FAQ

1. What is a sales objection? 

A sales objection is any reason a prospective customer gives for hesitating to move forward in the sales process. Sales reps must learn to properly address common sales objections in order to keep deals moving forward. 

2. What are the common sales objections? 

Common sales objections fall into categories including pricing, poor timing, lack of need, limited authority, competition, or lack of trust. Knowing these common categories can help reps anticipate sales objections and be ready to overcome them.

3. What are the four P’s of objection handling? 

The four P’s of objection handling are pause, probe, paraphrase, and provide. First, pause to listen fully, then probe with clarifying questions, paraphrase to show you understand, and then provide a tailored response that highlights the value of your solution.

Practice objection handling

Pitch to Mindtickle Copilot in realistic selling scenarios to see if you can handle objections and seal the deal. 

 

Practice with Copilot

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The ROI and Impact of AI Sales Training, AI Sales Coaching, and AI Role Play https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/roi-of-ai-sales-training-and-coaching/ Mon, 18 Aug 2025 14:19:19 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=24301 Today’s sales leaders are under more pressure than ever to ramp new reps faster, boost win rates, and drive consistent performance across the team. Often, they’re expected to do it all with leaner resources.  To meet these demands without overburdening sales managers and enablement teams, many organizations are turning to AI sales enablement tools. But …

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Today’s sales leaders are under more pressure than ever to ramp new reps faster, boost win rates, and drive consistent performance across the team. Often, they’re expected to do it all with leaner resources. 

To meet these demands without overburdening sales managers and enablement teams, many organizations are turning to AI sales enablement tools. But how do you know if these initiatives are actually making an impact? 

By consistently tracking ROI. 

In this post, we’ll break down how to measure the impact of AI sales training, AI sales coaching, and AI role play. We’ll explore why ongoing measurement matters, what to track, pitfalls to avoid, and how to tie it all back to business outcomes. 

Why is it essential to measure the ROI of AI-powered sales training and coaching?

When making any type of business investment, you want to be sure it’s paying off. AI sales training, coaching, and role play – all key components of modern AI sales enablement – are no different.

Traditional sales training and coaching is difficult to personalize and scale. This is especially true today, when 70% of sales managers indicate that they oversee more sales reps now than they did a year ago.

But while 91% of sales managers believe coaching positively impacts their team’s performance, less than half of B2B sellers feel they work within a well-established coaching culture at their organization. 

AI sales training and coaching helps ensure all of your sellers are properly supported and set up for success. 

The potential of AI-powered sales coaching and training is exciting, but it requires time, effort, and resources to implement. That’s why ongoing measurement is key. Without it, there’s no way to know what’s working, what’s not, or how to improve for greater impact.

Tracking the ROI of sales coaching and training helps sales and enablement leaders:

  • Validate the investment: By tying enablement efforts to key outcomes like revenue, pipeline growth, and quota attainment, teams can justify current investments – and potentially secure additional resources. 
  • Win internal support: When stakeholders see clear, measurable results, they’re more likely to get on board with AI sales training and coaching. This will increase adoption, which will drive even greater ROI. 
  • Optimize efforts: With ongoing measurement, you can identify which AI sales training and coaching initiatives are driving the largest impact and which are falling flat. You can use these insights to make improvements to increase impact. 

At the end of the day, you can’t improve what you don’t measure. When you consistently measure the ROI of AI sales training, coaching, and role play, you can double down on what works and optimize what’s not.

How to measure the ROI of AI role play

AI role plays offer a scaleable, consistent way for B2B sales reps to practice conversations, get instant feedback, and build confidence – all without waiting on a sales manager. It’s important to consistently measure the impact of AI role play. 

High adoption rates are a strong start. But like any sales enablement tool, the real question is: Is this making a real impact on sales performance?

Here are five key steps to help you measure the ROI of AI role play effectively. 

Step 1: Establish clear goals

Before rolling out AI role play, it’s important to define what success looks like. Common goals include: 

  • Improving discovery skills
  • Shortening rep ramp time
  • Increasing close rates

Clear outcomes help ensure your AI role play scenarios are purposeful and measurable.

Step 2: Align AI role play with sales and business objectives

AI role plays should support your broader sales strategy. For example, if your team is focused on breaking into enterprise accounts, build AI role play scenarios that help sellers strengthen key skills like:

  • Multi-threading
  • Objection handling
  • Stakeholder alignment

Step 3: Analyze seller performance over time

Use AI role play data to track how sellers improve in key skill areas, like confidence, tone, accuracy, and objection handling. Monitor both individual and team trends to identify high performers, coaching gaps, and areas to refine.

Step 4: Compare performance before and after AI role play

To prove ROI, compare real-world performance metrics before and after reps consistently engage with AI sales role play scenarios. Look at metrics including win rates, deal velocity, and average deal size. If those numbers are trending upward, it’s a sign that practice is translating to better performance. 

Step 5: Collect qualitative feedback

Data is key to understanding the ROI of AI sales role play. But it doesn’t tell the whole story.

Solicit feedback from sales reps and managers by asking questions like:

  • Are reps who use AI role plays better prepared for calls?
  • Are managers spending less time on basic coaching? 

When paired with performance data, this feedback can help you fine-tune your AI role play strategy and understand what’s really working (and what’s not). 

Metrics to track when measuring the ROI of AI role plays and AI sales training

Tracking the right metrics is key to understanding whether AI-powered training, coaching, and role plays are driving real business outcomes. Let’s take a closer look at some of the core metric categories to focus on.

1. Engagement metrics

AI sales training and coaching won’t make an impact if it’s not being used. As such, it’s important to track how (and whether) your teams are actually interacting with AI role plays and training content. 

Some key engagement metrics to track include:

  • Completion rates for AI role plays and AI sales training modules
  • # of practice sessions per rep
  • Frequency of practice sessions
  • Time spent on platform

Often, high engagement correlates with stronger performance improvements.

2. Sales performance metrics

While it’s important to track engagement, it’s even more important to track whether or not AI sales training, coaching, and role plays are actually improving sales execution and deal outcomes.

Some key sales performance metrics to measure include:

  • Win rates
  • Average deal size
  • Improvement of key sales skills like discovery and objection handling
  • Increase in seller confidence  

These metrics help quantify how well AI sales training and coaching translates to real-world sales success.

3. Sales productivity metrics

Traditional sales training and coaching practices require a lot of time and effort from sellers and managers alike. The beauty of AI sales enablement is that it can help every seller improve faster – without draining time from reps or managers. 

When measuring the ROI of AI sales training and coaching, be sure to track productivity metrics like:

  • Time to first meeting or opportunity 
  • % of selling time vs. administrative work 
  • Manager time spent on live coaching vs. AI-assisted feedback

4. Training and opportunity cost metrics

Don’t overlook the operational ROI of AI sales coaching and training. AI can reduce the cost of onboarding and ongoing training, so be sure to track metrics like:

  • Cost per rep trained (vs. traditional methods like in-person training)
  • Reduction in manager hours per rep
  • Number of monthly coaching sessions now versus before
  • Time saved vs. live coaching sessions

These metrics are especially helpful when building a business case for continued investment in AI sales training and coaching.

5. Customer-centric metrics

Reps who are properly trained and coached should be better equipped to deliver outstanding buyer experiences. Keep an eye on metrics like:

  • Customer satisfaction
  • Net promoter scores (NPS)
  • Call sentiment

If these metrics are trending upward as sellers engage more with AI role play, training, and coaching, it’s a good indicator that your efforts are making an impact.

Correlation is key

A single metric isn’t enough to calculate the ROI of AI sales training, coaching, and role play. It’s important to track and correlate a variety of metrics. For example, you can link AI role play completion rates to reduced ramp time or increased win rates. That’s when the ROI of sales training, coaching, and role play becomes impossible to ignore.

Common mistakes to avoid when measuring the ROI of AI role plays

Determining the impact of AI sales training and coaching is important. But measuring the ROI of AI sales role plays can fall short if you’re not strategic about what and how you measure. 

Here are some common pitfalls sales and enablement leaders should avoid.

Mistake #1 Focusing solely on engagement metrics

When you’re first starting out with AI role plays, it’s easy to get stuck measuring surface-level data like completion rates or time spent on the platform. After all, these metrics are typically the easiest to track.

But while engagement metrics are helpful, they don’t provide insight on whether or not AI role plays are actually improving sales rep performance, productivity, and customer experiences.

Rather than focusing solely on engagement metrics, be sure to pair this data with outcome metrics like win rates, average deal size, and new rep ramp time. This will give you a clearer picture of the true impact of AI role play. 

Mistake #2 Not defining success upfront

AI role plays have the potential to transform the way your reps sell. So it’s tempting to just jump right in.

But if you don’t take the time to define what success looks like, you’ll struggle to measure it. Without specific goals – like reducing onboarding time by 30% or increasing average deal size – it’s nearly impossible to prove ROI or track your progress.

Be sure to set clear, measurable goals before rolling out AI role plays. Then, consistently track your progress towards those goals.

Mistake #3 Ignoring qualitative insights 

While quantitative data is essential, it doesn’t tell the whole story. Your numbers might look good on paper, but reps may still feel like AI role plays aren’t relevant, realistic, or helpful in the field. Over time, this disconnect can lead to disengagement, no matter how strong the metrics appear. 

Regularly collect feedback from sellers and managers to ensure AI role plays reflect real-world selling situations and prepare reps for the challenges they actually face. When combined with quantitative data, these insights give you a fuller picture of what’s working and where adjustments are needed. 

Your best reps don’t get lucky, they get ready

Top performers don’t rely on luck to achieve their goals. Instead, they practice their skills, refine their approach, and show up ready to conquer any sales scenario that comes their way.

AI sales training, coaching, and role plays helps make this possible. 

But launching new programs doesn’t guarantee success. Instead, you must consistently measure the ROI of AI sales training, coaching, and role play to understand impact and make optimizations to improve sales rep performance.  

Want to see firsthand how Mindtickle’s AI Role Play can boost seller skills, confidence, and performance?

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RadNet Cuts Onboarding Time by 50% and Increases Sales with Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/customer-stories/radnet-cuts-onboarding-time-by-50-and-increases-sales-with-mindtickle/ Wed, 13 Aug 2025 08:17:06 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=customer_stories&p=24294 We knew our existing model was outdated and we needed a flexible, digital-first approach that met our team where they were. Mindtickle gave us the tools to build a scalable, highly impactful training experience.

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< BACK TO CUSTOMER STORIES

RadNet Cuts Onboarding Time by 50% and Increases Sales with Mindtickle

🏆 KEY RESULTS
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faster ramp up for new hires

Increase in PET CT scan sales with role-plays

Increase in EMR orders with role-plays

The Challenge

RadNet’s static, in-person onboarding couldn’t keep up with the demands of a fast-moving, highly regulated healthcare environment. Reps lacked personalized training, structured reinforcement, and visibility into performance.

The Solution

By centralizing enablement in Mindtickle, RadNet launched a scalable, digital-first training program with role-based onboarding, ongoing training, and real-time updates—reducing ramp time by 50% and driving significant increases in sales.

Overview

RadNet is the largest provider of outpatient diagnostic imaging in the United States, with over 370 centers nationwide. Specializing in MRIs, CT scans, X-rays, and mammograms, RadNet is committed to delivering high-quality, cost-effective, and accessible imaging services to patients. With over 120 sales and marketing professionals on the East Coast, RadNet’s field teams play a key role in representing the brand and educating referring physicians on the company’s imaging services.

Operating in a highly regulated, technical healthcare environment, RadNet’s ongoing sales model requires sales reps to maintain deep knowledge and stay ahead of frequent updates to offerings, protocols, pricing, and compliance requirements. However, RadNet faced challenges in delivering an enablement experience that could scale and evolve quickly to meet these demands. Training was limited to a one-size-fits-all, in-person onboarding program that grouped together reps with varying experience levels and learning needs. They also lacked visibility into content engagement and knowledge retention, had no structured role-play program for skill development, and no way to continuously train reps or quickly and effectively update teams with key information. To better support their reps, RadNet recognized the need for a modern enablement solution.

HEADQUARTERS:

California

INDUSTRY:

Medical Devices

COMPANY SIZE:

10,000+

HEADQUARTERS: California

INDUSTRY: California

COMPANY SIZE: 10,000+ 

Delivering a Consistent, Scalable Training Experience

RadNet set out to modernize its sales enablement approach with clear goals:

  • Deliver role-specific onboarding that aligns to individual learning needs and experience levels.
  • Transition from a traditional in-person model to a scalable, digital model.
  • Provide on-the-go access with mobile-friendly training for a remote, field-based team.
  • Reinforce learning through structured, ongoing training and everboarding.
  • Introduce consistent role-play practice to build confidence and improve sales conversations.
  • Enable fast updates on new offerings, pricing, and protocols to maintain accuracy and compliance.

“We knew our existing model was outdated and we needed a flexible, digital-first approach that met our team where they were. Mindtickle gave us the tools to build a scalable, highly impactful training experience.”

Lindsey Sanford
AVP of Sales & Marketing, RadNet

Solution: Implementing Mindtickle for an Adaptive Learning Approach

To meet these objectives, RadNet adopted Mindtickle as its revenue enablement platform.

RadNet partnered with Mindtickle because it centralized all of its sales enablement and training efforts into one platform. Now, they have a single place for onboarding, continuous training, role-plays, certifications, content, reporting, and more. With a large, remote-based team in the constantly changing medical device industry, RadNet needed a platform that could deliver consistent learning experiences, support on-the-go learning, verify knowledge, and adapt quickly to change.

Personalized, Flexible Onboarding

Moving away from a static classroom model, RadNet implemented a fully digital onboarding experience that gives reps the flexibility to learn at their own pace. New hires now progress through role-specific learning journeys aligned to their experience level and tailored to different learning styles — including videos, one-pagers, quizzes, and scenario-based content.

Onboarding now starts with foundational knowledge of RadNet’s services and expectations, followed by targeted training on individual service lines and selling strategies. This flexible approach has helped reduce ramp time from 6-8 weeks to just 4-6 weeks, enabling new reps to get into the field and start driving impact faster.

“Mindtickle has helped us cut our onboarding time by about two weeks. Before, it took six to eight weeks for new hires to ramp up, but now we’re seeing them fully up and running in four to six weeks — and that’s been a huge improvement.”

Lindsey Sanford
AVP, Sales & Marketing

Continuous Learning and Everboarding

Continuous learning is essential in an industry where regulations, policies, and technology evolve rapidly. Recognizing the need for ongoing learning beyond initial onboarding, RadNet leverages Mindtickle’s everboarding capabilities to keep reps engaged and growing over time. Through automated drip campaigns, knowledge checks, and spaced learning, RadNet reinforces learning so reps not only learn but retain and apply what they’ve learned in the field.

To ensure reps are ready, RadNet uses competency assessments and certifications that give both reps and managers confidence. These checkpoints help reps build the knowledge needed to handle a range of conversations, whether speaking with a primary care provider or a specialist like an orthopedist, neurologist, or OBGYN. Reps can also easily access training on their mobile devices, allowing them to refresh on complex topics before they go into a doctor’s office and keep up with important updates while on the go.

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Redefining the concept of training

Menemsha Group is no longer offering training as an “event;” instead, it takes a completely outcome-driven enablement approach. Some of its clientele were hesitant about this new approach, as they were already leveraging other training libraries available to anyone for free online. “It’s great to have a massive library of content, but you’re basically telling your salespeople that it’s okay for them to adopt anything they want,” said Fisher, “Part of an enablement platform is to get everybody on the same page with the same message following a common methodology.”

By delivering a platform that tracks key competency development, Menemsha Group’s clients can establish benchmarks for what good looks and sounds like, empowering employees to take skill-building into their own hands. Furthermore, preaching the importance of ongoing engagement via Mindtickle to truly impact performance, Fisher is positioning himself as a thought leader in his industry and differentiating Menemsha Group from its competitors.

Real-Time Training to Support Digital Transformation

As the healthcare industry moves away from traditional paper-based workflows, providers like RadNet face growing pressure to go “paperless,” with many federal programs incentivizing electronic medical record (EMR) adoption. To support this shift, RadNet uses Mindtickle to to deliver real-time, flexible training that helps reps become confident in EMR tools and guide referring offices through the transition.

With mobile modules, targeted role-plays, and scenario-based training, the team was able to adapt quickly, even as systems were still being built. This effort led to a significant increase in electronic orders.

“Anyone in healthcare today feels the pressure of going paperless. Mindtickle helped us close the gap and quickly upskill our entire sales team into subject matter experts on electronic viewing and ordering tools. Our EMR portal rollout was very much a ‘building the plane while flying it’ scenario—real-time, flexible training in Mindtickle made all the difference.”

Brian E. Villacis
Associate Vice President

Building Confidence with Role-Plays

RadNet’s sales reps must engage in technical conversations with referring physicians, making it essential that they are well-prepared and confident in their messaging. With role-plays, reps now have a consistent and safe environment to practice and refine their conversations, helping them master key messaging before going into the field.

RadNet builds role-play scenarios for realistic selling situations, mostly centered around new offerings, integrations, campaigns, and other initiatives. For example, one impactful role-play exercise focused on PET scans, a more technical and complex service offering. After launching this role-play, RadNet saw an increase in PET scan sales, showing the direct impact of practice on performance.

Role-plays also played a key role in enabling the shift to electronic ordering, as mentioned above. As part of the broader digital transformation effort, reps practiced guiding providers through the EMR transition, strengthening their ability to handle objections and support offices confidently during a major workflow change.

Additionally, RadNet uses Mindtickle’s Copilot as a reviewer, giving reps immediate AI-powered feedback on tone, pacing, and message delivery. Managers also review submissions directly within the platform, providing personalized, constructive feedback to help reps continually improve.

“We’ve seen an increase in PET scan sales after implementing role-plays and targeted training through Mindtickle. That’s a direct reflection of how practicing those conversations in a structured way leads to better outcomes in the field.

Maggie Goble
Director of Sales & Marketing

Certifications and Knowledge Verification

With Mindtickle, RadNet can now verify that learners are not only consuming but actually learning, retaining, and applying what they’ve learned through knowledge checks and assessments. In-video knowledge checks and quizzes make training interactive and engaging, while spaced reinforcement helps strengthen retention over time. The team also uses certifications following role-plays to confirm readiness.

Accountability and Visibility through Reporting

Real-time reporting and dashboards provide leadership with visibility into rep progress, performance, and readiness. These insights also allow RadNet to establish benchmarks, monitor consistency across teams, and identify best practices from different regions that can be shared more broadly. Reporting on coaching sessions and role-plays enables leadership to see how managers and reps are engaging in development, how reps are improving over time, and where additional support may be needed, creating a more transparent and accountable learning culture

A Cultural Shift Toward Learning and Cross-Team Collaboration

Since implementing Mindtickle, RadNet has experienced a significant culture shift centered around continuous learning, growth, and cross-functional collaboration. Training is no longer seen as a one-time event but an ongoing function that reps actively use to stay prepared and confident. Having one centralized hub for all training, content, and updates has made it easier for sales reps to find what they need, and with Salesforce integrated, they can access critical information without jumping between systems. Sales and marketing now work more closely together, using feedback tools like polls to adjust campaigns based on real-time input from the field. This has created a shift toward a learning culture where learning is expected and supported, and teams work together to grow and improve.

“One of the biggest changes we’ve seen is how much more connected sales and marketing are now. Through Mindtickle, we can gather real-time feedback on marketing campaigns and materials, and that input has shaped how we approach future campaigns to better support reps in the field.”

Maggie Goble
Director of Sales & Marketing

Rethinking Hiring: From Industry Experience to Sales Potential

Given the technical nature of radiology and its steep learning curve, RadNet historically prioritized candidates with prior healthcare experience to reduce onboarding complexity. While effective, this approach came with tradeoffs as it narrowed the talent pool and often meant overlooking strong sales professionals with the business development skills needed to succeed in the field.

With a structured training program that scales, adapts, and verifies learning at every stage, RadNet now takes a different approach. Using Mindtickle, the team has built an organized and thorough radiology sales training program that enables them to confidently hire based on core selling capabilities, relying on enablement to develop the clinical and technical knowledge reps need to perform.

“Mindtickle enabled a complete shift in how we think about talent. As one of the tactical leaders, I no longer feel limited to candidates with radiology experience—now I look for coachability and selling skills, and let the radiology training program we built with Mindtickle close the technical gap.”

Brian E. Villacis
Associate Vice President

Looking Ahead: Expanding Training and Enablement Initiatives

RadNet continues to refine its sales enablement strategy and expand its use of Mindtickle, with future plans including:

  • AI role-plays to enhance interactive coaching experiences, simulating real-life conversations with AI.
  • Readiness indexing to set clear benchmarks for rep progress.
  • Advanced reporting and insights to further optimize sales training and strategy.

With Mindtickle, RadNet has completely transformed how it approaches sales enablement, giving teams the tools and support they need to stay confident, informed, and ready to adapt. The shift from static training to continuous, dynamic learning has set a new standard for how RadNet enables.

The Impact

Since implementing Mindtickle, RadNet has seen measurable improvements, including:

0

Centralized, mobile-friendly platform

Faster Onboarding: New hires ramp up 50% faster.

Higher Sales Performance: An increase in PET CT scan sales after specific role-play training.

Stronger Digital Adoption: A significant increase in electronic medical record (EMR) orders after using focused role-plays for training.

Universal accolades from the field

Leadership buy-in and engagement

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Improvement in online training scores.

Game-Changing Revenue Enablement at Juniper Networks

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🌏 CUSTOMER STORIES

Read more customer stories

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How to Leverage AI Sales Coaching and Training to Supercharge Team Performance and Revenue Growth  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-leverage-ai-sales-coaching-and-training-to-supercharge-team-performance-and-revenue-growth/ Wed, 13 Aug 2025 05:00:40 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20032 Sales training and coaching have always been two key ingredients to sales success. But in today’s fast-moving landscape, traditional methods alone aren’t enough to drive consistent, scalable results. That’s why a growing number of organizations are turning to AI sales coaching and training. Those who do it well are seeing big results. Recent research shows …

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Sales training and coaching have always been two key ingredients to sales success. But in today’s fast-moving landscape, traditional methods alone aren’t enough to drive consistent, scalable results.

That’s why a growing number of organizations are turning to AI sales coaching and training. 

Those who do it well are seeing big results. Recent research shows that companies using AI in their sales training and coaching strategies can see a 95% increase in sales productivity and 50% shorter sales cycles.

AI sales coaching and training isn’t just about automation. It’s about giving sellers real-time feedback, personalized guidance, and the tools to win more deals. 

But how can you start leveraging AI in impactful ways? 

In this post, we’ll explore how innovative organizations are tapping into AI sales training and coaching to boost sales team performance, close more business, and accelerate revenue growth.

What is AI sales coaching and training?

AI isn’t exactly a new concept. But in the past few years, we’ve seen rapid adoption of AI in both the personal and professional realm. The world of sales is no exception. A recent survey found that only 24% of revenue organizations aren’t using AI sales tools

A recent survey found that only

aren't using AI sales tools
0 %

So, what is AI sales coaching and training?

AI sales coaching and training involves leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to create and deliver personalized coaching and training at scale. When revenue organizations strategically use AI in their sales coaching and training, sellers can master the skills they need to be successful in their roles. That means they’ll close more deals, and revenue will grow.

How does AI coaching and training work?

We’ve defined what AI coaching and training is. But how exactly does AI coaching and training work?

Innovative revenue organizations leverage AI in several ways to deliver effective sales coaching and training at scale. Let’s take a closer look.

Data analysis

Data is foundational for artificial intelligence. Fortunately, most organizations have access to plenty of data. But compiling and making sense of that data is another story.

AI compiles data from various sources, including call recordings, reports, and customer interactions – among others. Then, it analyzes the data to provide insights to inform coaching and training.

For example, AI sales training software can help sales leaders pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of each of their sellers. AI can also provide recommended steps for closing skill gaps. 

Sales managers can also use a tool like Mindtickle Copilot to find answers to questions like “Which region is struggling with objection handling?” or “Which managers are coaching their reps the most?”

Copilot - Just in Time Enablement (2)

Personalized training and enablement

No two sales reps are the same, yet organizations often provide all sellers with the same training and enablement.

With AI sales training software, organizations can deliver tailored training and learning paths based on each rep’s strengths and weaknesses. That way, each rep can access relevant resources to build lagging skills. 

In addition, sales reps can ask questions without having to wait for a response from a subject matter expert. AI analyzes existing content to provide an answer and can share additional resources for the sales rep to learn more. 

Speedy learning content creation

Any sales enablement professional knows that launching an impactful program can take time. But with AI sales training, you don’t need to start from scratch.

An AI sales enablement tool like Mindtickle Copilot enables teams to quickly and easily create practice and reinforcement modules that help sellers retain and apply knowledge in the field. 

Real-time sales coaching

When done well, sales coaching can greatly impact sales productivity and performance. However, traditional sales coaching techniques are labor intensive, and sales reps must wait for their manager.

With AI sales coaching, sales reps get real-time feedback they can use to make improvements right away.

For example, a sales rep can record a role-play and get AI-powered feedback immediately on improving their pitch. The rep can use this feedback to practice as often as they’d like without pulling in their sales manager.

AI sales tools also record and analyze sales calls and provide real-time scores and detailed recommendations for improvement. Sales reps can use these AI sales coaching tools to hone their skills and improve sales outcomes. Managers can also look for trends and use this intel to deliver targeted coaching to each sales rep. 

Interactive, engaging practice opportunities

Some sales coaching tools like Mindtickle also feature interactive, AI-powered role-plays. Sales reps can practice their pitch on a realistic AI bot. The rep gets feedback throughout the experience, which they can use to hone their skills before money is on the line. 

Data-driven content recommendations 

Most sales reps have ample content available. However, they often spend too much time searching for the right content for the right scenario and base their decisions on hunches or gut feelings.

AI can recommend the most relevant and impactful content based on data, including past performance and customer activity. A sales training tool like Mindtickle Copilot can also draft contextual emails that sales reps can send about the content. 

Ongoing measurement

Ongoing measurement is key to understanding the impact of sales training and coaching – and identifying areas for improvement. AI sales training software enables organizations to track and analyze the right metrics. This helps organizations understand the impact of their sales coaching and training and make data-based optimizations. 

How does AI sales coaching and training benefit sales reps?

Today, many revenue organizations are starting to embrace AI sales coaching and training. According to a recent survey, some of the top use cases include:

  • Analyzing call recordings
  • Empowering sales reps to get answers to customer questions in the flow of work
  • Serving up recommendations for training
  • Suggesting content for sales reps to use
  • Gaining insight on seller performance 

It’s easy to understand why organizations adopt AI sales coaching and training, as it delivers many powerful benefits for sales reps.

Sales reps only have so many hours in the day. With AI sales coaching and training, they no longer have to waste their time on generic training and coaching. Instead, sellers can easily access tailored training and coaching opportunities. 

With AI, organizations can better understand the skills and behaviors key to success in each role. Then, AI can deliver personalized training and coaching that helps each sales rep build the right skills. 

Sales reps need opportunities to practice the skills they’ve learned. With AI, sales reps can engage in interactive role-plays and get instant feedback. That way, they can hone their pitch before money is on the line.

Sales reps want feedback, but often, their managers are too busy to provide it. With AI sales coaching, sales reps get real-time feedback. AI can analyze sales calls to identify opportunities for improvement. Sellers can then incorporate this feedback to improve the outcome of a deal.

Questions can arise at any time of day. With AI, sales reps can get the answers they need when needed. There’s no need to wait around for a subject matter expert. 

Sales reps spend far too much time searching for the right content for the scenario. With AI, sales reps can get content recommendations that are proven to be effective in similar scenarios. 

Salesforce research found that sales reps spend less than 30% of their time actually selling. AI automates and streamlines many time-consuming tasks, leaving sales reps with more time to engage with buyers and guide them to the finish line. 

Use cases of AI sales coaching

AI sales coaching can be applied in a number of ways to support both sellers and sales managers in meaningful, scalable ways. Let’s take a closer look at some practical use cases where AI is making an impact.

#1 Onboarding new sellers faster

The faster new sellers are onboarded, the sooner they can start contributing to revenue growth. AI sales coaching helps ramp these new sellers by delivering reinforcement, AI role play practice exercises, and on-demand support. This ensures effective, accelerated onboarding – without overloading sales managers and enablement teams.

#2 Call analysis and performance insights

AI sales coaching tools automatically record and analyze calls to identify patterns, strengths, and areas that need improvement. This gives sales managers instant insights into where each seller needs more coaching and support – without needing to review hours of recorded sales calls.

#3 Real-time role play and targeted feedback

Sellers can use AI role plays to practice pitches, discovery, objection handing, and selling skills. AI role play tools provide instant feedback on factors like tone, pacing, and use of filler words. Sellers can use this feedback to refine their skills and improve their performance on calls with real-life customers. 

#4 Just-in-time enablement

Sellers often need support and information outside of scheduled training or coaching sessions. With the right AI tools, reps can ask questions within the flow of work, like “How do I respond to a pricing objection?” They’ll receive immediate, contextual answers and recommended content, which boosts their confidence and reduces their reliance on sales managers or enablement teams. 

How can Mindtickle Copilot improve your sales training and coaching programs?

Ongoing sales training and coaching are key to ensuring your reps are always ready to conquer any deal. With AI sales coaching software, you can deliver effective training and coaching programs tailored to each seller’s unique needs.

Getting started with AI sales coaching and training can feel overwhelming. But with Mindtickle Copilot, it doesn’t have to be.

Mindtickle enables sales leaders to quickly make sense of data and gain insights to make better decisions. For example, sales managers can quickly understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of their sales reps. Then, AI can create personalized learning paths to empower each sales rep to strengthen their weaker skills. 

With Mindtickle Copilot, enablement teams can quickly and easily create enablement experiences that help sellers retain knowledge and build skills. For example, you can ask Mindtickle Copilot to create an assessment that tests whether or not sellers have retained what they’ve learned in a training module.

Mindtickle’s platform also empowers sales reps to access on-demand coaching. AI provides a score for each recorded role-play or sales call and tailored feedback for improvement. There’s no need to wait around for manager feedback.

Mindtickle also allows sales reps to engage in interactive role-plays with an AI bot, where AI delivers feedback throughout the role-play experience. These realistic scenarios prepare sales reps for real-life experiences. 

Mindtickle Copilot also makes it easy for sellers to prepare for any prospect interaction. For example, a sales rep can use Mindtickle Copilot to ask what objections a prospect brought up in their last call. Then, AI can surface the right content to address those objections. Mindtickle Copilot can even draft a contextual email for a seller to send to the prospect when sharing the content, which saves time.

Finally, Mindtickle Copilot can help you track and analyze the right data to understand how your AI sales coaching and training is impacting outcomes – and where there are opportunities for optimization. 

Ready to see firsthand how Mindtickle can empower your business to deliver sales training and coaching that supercharges sales performance? Schedule a live demo today.

FAQs

1. What is AI sales coaching and training?

AI sales coaching and training is the practice of using artificial intelligence to deliver targeted, data-driven learning and practice experiences to better support sales reps. AI sales coaching and training tools analyze data, identify sellers’ strengths and weaknesses, recommend targeted training and role plays, and provide real-time feedback – all at scale.

2. What are the features to look for in an AI sales coaching and training platform?

Look for platforms with features that enable personalized training and coaching at scale, such as real-time call analysis, AI role plays, and immediate feedback on performance. The best AI sales coaching and training platforms also offer content recommendations, just-in-time enablement, and analytics to measure coaching effectiveness and sales impact.

3. What are the best AI sales coaching and training tools and platforms?

Some of the top AI sales coaching and training platforms include Mindtickle, Allego, Seismic, and Highspot. Each AI sales coaching and training platform offers strengths, ranging from real-time call analysis to personalized learning paths – among others. The best choice depends on your team’s goals, size, and existing sales tech stack.

AI Sales Coaching in Mindtickle

Ready to see firsthand how Mindtickle can empower your business to deliver sales training and coaching that supercharges sales performance?

Get Your Demo

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Subscription Services Packages available from 27 February 2024 till 31 July 2025 https://www.mindtickle.com/subscription-services-packages-available-from-27-february-2024-till-31-july-2025/ Tue, 12 Aug 2025 13:01:41 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24278 Subscription Services Packages Description of Subscription Services Packages Readiness Package Comprehensive sales enablement including training, virtual roleplays, coaching, and analytics. Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. Give users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays, simulated customer scenarios, and AI-powered feedback. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to …

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Subscription Services Packages

Description of Subscription Services Packages

Readiness Package

Comprehensive sales enablement including training, virtual roleplays, coaching, and analytics.

Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. Give users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays, simulated customer scenarios, and AI-powered feedback. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams.

Modules included in the Readiness Package:

  • Course
  • Quick Update
  • Checklist
  • Certifications
  • AI Co-pilot
  • Instructor-Led Training
  • Assessment
  • Spaced Reinforcement
  • Virtual Role-Plays
  • Readiness Index
  • Coaching Rooms
  • Analytics

The Readiness package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of one Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Readiness  package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness,  Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

Enable Package

Comprehensive sales enablement including training, content, and coaching.

Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams.

Modules included in the Enable package:

  • Course
  • Quick Update
  • Checklist
  • Certifications
  • AI Co-pilot
  • Instructor-Led Training
  • Assessment
  • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
  • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
  • Readiness Index
  • Asset Hub
  • Digital Sales Rooms
  • Coaching Rooms
  • Analytics

The Enable package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of two Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Enable package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

Transform Package

The complete revenue productivity platform to optimize go-to-market teams.

Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams. Analyze reps’ activities in the field with call recording, transcription, and insights.

Modules included in the Transform package:

  • Course
  • Quick Update
  • Checklist
  • Certifications
  • AI Co-pilot
  • Instructor-Led Training
  • Assessment
  • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
  • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
  • Readiness Index
  • Asset Hub
  • Digital Sales Rooms
  • Coaching Rooms
  • Call AI
  • Analytics

The Transform package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of three  Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Transform package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

LMS Package

Engage and upskill teams with individualized, adaptive, and gamified learning programs at-scale. Create and deliver thematically grouped, visually rich learning paths leveraging depth and breadth of learning modules to keep learners engaged. Modules include:

  • Assessments
  • Certifications
  • Courses
  • Checklists
  • Instructor-led Training (ILT)
  • Quick Updates
  • Readiness Index
  • AI Copilot
  • Analytics

The Readiness package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of one Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Readiness  package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness,  Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

Call AI

Mindtickle’s Call AI solution helps world-class companies be ready to grow revenue by recording, transcribing, and analyzing sales calls for customer insights and coaching. With conversational insights tightly integrated into sales training and content programs, Call AI helps revenue teams achieve a continuous state of excellence and be ready for every selling situation. Call recordings will be subject to applicable laws as set forth at our Privacy Policy.

Asset Hub

Mindtickle aligns sales content around the needs of sellers in the field. Sales organizations get more use and value from their content, without sacrificing security and governance. Automation and streamlined content management reduces admin burden. With Mindtickle’s Asset Hub, sellers spend less time searching for content and more time using it to close deals.

Seller Intel

Mindtickle Seller Intel drives immediate and longer-term quota achievement by combining seller signals with deal signals to recommend winning actions.

Coaching

Mindtickle sales coaching optimizes the performance of sales teams by identifying lagging skills and providing a suite of tools to deliver data-driven, individualized sales coaching. Measure in-field performance and reinforce coaching efforts with customized training and enablement content that drives higher quota attainment and long-term skill development.

Sales Forecasting Revenue Operations & Intelligence (RO&I)

Sales Forecasting Revenue Operations & Intelligence (RO&I) provides forecasting and pipeline analysis. Forecast AI learns from your historical data, applies real-time deal by deal risk scoring of your current pipeline and predicts in-quarter pipeline creation pacing to give you an accurate forecast you can rely on.

Digital Sales Rooms

Custom sales rooms for every opportunity. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, and real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

Asset Hub + DSR

Mindtickle aligns sales content around the needs of sellers in the field and allows sellers to curate sales rooms for every opportunity. Automation and streamlined content management reduces admin burden. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

Customer Success Services

Mindtickle will provide the following Customer Success Services.

  1. Access to newly released product features
  2. Access to an analytics dashboard
  3. On-going communication of best practices

(Cost of Customer Success Services is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

Salesforce Integration

Mindtickle’s Salesforce integration enables Salesforce users to engage with their Mindtickle training experience directly within the Salesforce platform, and access contextually aware training within each of their Salesforce opportunities.

White Labelled Mobile Application

White Labelled Mobile Application is Mindtickle’s Platform related assistance through which Mindtickle assists the Customer to personalize the look and feel of Mindtickle’s mobile application of the Platform to align it with Customer’s brand identity. Mindtickle supports White Labelling of its mobile app which is limited to app branding. Mindtickle does not support app customization, as further described in the White Label Application Description and Scope.

Packages powered by Baker Communications, Inc. (“BCI”)

1) Mindtickle Sales Excellence Series by BCI. This package includes individualized competency-based sales training curriculum from BCI. This module is available only with Premier and Professional Packages.

2) Seller Excellence Foundations Package by BCI. This package includes Ready to deploy foundational seller training program comprised of skill development content, exercises, tools and certification.

Additional terms applicable for Packages powered by BCI:
Customer agrees and acknowledges that it shall not create derivative works based on the material provided by BCI (“Baker Materials”). Customer further agrees that it shall not make the Baker Materials accessible to third parties other than authorized Users, without the prior written permission from BCI.

Support Services

Mindtickle provides Standard and Premium Support as described in the Support Services and as per scope mentioned below.

Standard Support

  1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 business days
  2. Support Channels: Online case submission
  3. Training and Education (in English):
    1. Online/self-paced training
    2. Video tutorials
    3. Comprehensive documentation
    4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

(Cost of Standard Support is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

Premium Support

  1. Designated Customer Success Manager
  2. Initial Response Time: 2 business hours
  3. End-user Support Channels:
    1. Online case submission
    2. Scheduled phone support
    3. 24/5 Live chat (for administrative users only)
    4. 24/7 Critical support
  4. Training and Education (in English):
    1. Online/self-paced training
    2. Video tutorials
    3. Comprehensive documentation

Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

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Best AI Role Play Tools in 2025 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/best-ai-role-play-tools/ Fri, 08 Aug 2025 08:00:51 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=24257 “Practice makes perfect.” That old adage certainly rings true for go-to-market-teams. Sure, sales training lays the foundation. But without consistent opportunities to practice, even the best training won’t stick. Teams need a way to apply what they’ve learned in realistic scenarios that build confidence and skills. Traditional role plays can be effective, but they’re hard …

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“Practice makes perfect.” That old adage certainly rings true for go-to-market-teams.

Sure, sales training lays the foundation. But without consistent opportunities to practice, even the best training won’t stick. Teams need a way to apply what they’ve learned in realistic scenarios that build confidence and skills.

Traditional role plays can be effective, but they’re hard to scale. That’s why more and more revenue teams are turning to AI Role Play tools.

The right AI Role Play platform gives your teams unlimited, on-demand opportunities to practice conversations, sharpen their skills, and get real-time coaching – all without adding to your managers’ workloads.

But with more and more AI Role Play tools on the market, how do you choose the one that’s right for your team?

In this post, we’ll break down some of the best AI role play platforms in the market today. We’ll cover the standout features, pros, and cons of each so you can find the best fit to upskill your teams and drive performance at scale.

The need for AI Role Plays

Sales training is critical. But it’s not always sticky. Per Gartner, B2B sellers forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of sales training. If they can’t remember what they learned, they can’t apply it in the field.

Practice is the missing piece. When sales reps have consistent, engaging opportunities to practice what they’ve learned, they grow their skills and their confidence. That means they’re better prepared to deliver outstanding buyer experiences and close more deals.

Role plays are a popular tool for practice. But while traditional role plays are effective, they’re difficult to scale. They rely on a manager’s schedule and offer inconsistent feedback that may arrive too late.

AI Role Plays make practice scalable 

AI Role Plays solve the challenges of traditional practice tools.

With AI Role Play tools, reps can practice critical conversations anytime, anywhere, in a safe, judgement-free environment. They receive real-time, personalized feedback powered by AI so they can improve immediately and apply their learnings in the field without delay. Unlike traditional coaching, which can vary widely based on the individual manager, AI coaching is consistent, unbiased, and aligned with best practices.

Here’s what Mike Demmert, Head of Global Organizational Development at Signifyd, a cyber security company had to say about using Mindtickle’s AI Role Play software: “What AI role plays do is they make that experience asynchronous. It makes it infinitely scalable. The rep can go through and practice a cold call or a discovery or some pitch with the bot that talks back to them in a way that the manager couldn’t support otherwise.”

G2 reviews also echo the power of AI Role Play software and the ease of Mindtickle’s solution.

  • “…the role play feature helps our team practice real-life scenarios.”
  • “It’s easy to build and deliver content, and the role play capability is outstanding.”

AI Role Play software use cases across the GTM team 

AI Role Play software isn’t just for account executives. Teams across the go-to-market organization can use AI Role Play tools to boost their skills and confidence for key conversations.

For example:

  • Sellers can master their pitch
  • Sales engineers can practice product demos or technical objection handling
  • BDRs can refine cold call intros and discovery questions
  • Customer success managers can prepare for renewal discussions or upsell pitches
  • Sales managers can practice coaching skills and having difficult conversations with a poor performer

AI Role Play software powers better sales performance 

At the end of the day, AI Role Play software helps teams bridge the gap between learning and doing. They make sales training stick, build skills and confidence faster, and empower customer-facing roles to show up prepared – every time.

The 8 best AI Role Play tools in the market in 2025

AI Role Plays are a relatively new technology. But the number of AI Role Play tools continues to grow. It can be tough to know which option is the best fit for your team.

There’s no one-size-fits-all AI Role Play platform. The right option is the one that best addresses the unique needs of your team and your business.

With that said, there are certain AI Role Play tools that stand out above the others. We’ve broken down the top eight AI Role Play platforms of 2025 to help you compare, evaluate, and ultimately, choose the right option for your go-to-market team.

 

1. Mindtickle

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5

Pricing: Custom pricing based on team size.

Mindtickle’s AI Role Play software is built for modern revenue teams that want to drive measurable performance gains through practice. Unlike generic point solutions, Mindtickle is focused solely on the unique needs of go-to-market teams. With Mindtickle, sellers have tailored opportunities to improve while sales enablement teams can create targeted, realistic simulations that drive measurable outcomes, including better win rates and greater revenue growth. Backed by a decade of expertise in role play and 14 years in sales enablement, Mindtickle’s AI Role Play solution brings scale, precision, and enterprise-grade security to every practice and coaching opportunity.

MT1

Top features 

  • Purpose-built for revenue teams: Many AI Role Play tools are generically built for multiple functions. But Mindtickle’s solution is built specifically for sales teams. Mindtickle’s AI Role Play solution helps sellers refine their skills and allows sales and enablement leaders to design targeted, realistic simulations. With advanced skill and competency-based reporting, Mindtickle’s role plays can prove the impact that practice has on real business outcomes like quota attainment and win rates.
MT2
  • Designed for complex enterprise needs: Unlike other solutions, Mindtickle’s AI Role Plays handle advanced enterprise use cases with ease. Sales and enablement leaders can create tailored role plays by role or region, use cut-off scores and custom rubrics to access performance, and manage reviewers across complex hierarchies – including both direct and channel sales. The flexibility of Mindtickle’s AI Role Play solution makes it an ideal fit for even the most sophisticated go-to-market orgs. Customers like Cisco have seen real impact, including a 25% increase in booked deal values and a 31% increase in average deal size. 
  • Proven results at scale: Many AI Role Play vendors are new to the game, but Mindtickle is a pioneer. Mindtickle has nearly a decade of experience in creating and offering Role Play solutions, and in the past five years alone, our customers have completed more than 1.5 million role plays. We’ve also been in the sales enablement space for 14 years, which allows us to bring unmatched expertise and best practices to the table. 
MT5
  • Trusted AI and enterprise-grade security: Data privacy and compliance are baked into Mindtickle’s AI Role Play tools. Unlike other solutions, Mindtickle does not use customer data for model training, nor is it retained or manually reviewed. It meets the highest security standards, including ISO 42001 (the world’s first comprehensive AI system security standard) and the EU AI Act.

Best for: Mindtickle’s AI Role Play software is trusted by enterprise and high-growth B2B companies across industries including:

  • Automotive
  • Medical devices
  • Consumer goods
  • Chemical
  • Technology

Mindtickle’s AI Role Play is widely adopted across GTM teams, including:

  • Account executives looking to sharpen skills and messaging
  • Sales managers refining their coaching and feedback delivery skills
  • BDRs and SDRs honing their cold calling and discovery skills
  • Sales engineers perfecting their product walkthroughs
  • Customer success managers looking to ace their next renewal or upsell conversation

2. Second Nature

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Price: Second Nature does not publish pricing information.

Second Nature is an AI Role Play platform that’s used by sales teams to practice and refine their pitch in a realistic, interactive environment. Second Nature acts as a “virtual pitch partner,” engaging with sales reps and providing feedback so they can improve on their own.

Top features 

Second Nature’s AI role play tools provide a number of powerful features, including:

  • Realistic conversations: Sellers engage with an AI persona using natural language, which allows for an immersive, realistic role play experience.
  • Easy to build simulations: Organizations can quickly launch new role plays based on a template, converting existing content, or starting from scratch.
  • Manager dashboards: Sales managers can track sellers’ performance and pinpoint weaknesses to inform tailored training and coaching.

Pros

  • Highly interactive
  • Supports video and voice-based practice
  • Effective at reinforcing message at scale

Cons

G2 reviews for Second Nature cite a variety of downsides to the platform including:

  • AI doesn’t always understand what the seller is saying and will start talking about something unrelated to the conversation.
  • Caters to limited scenarios.
  • Not as user-friendly as other sales training and enablement platforms.

3. Hyperbound

G2 Rating: 4.9 out of 5

Price: Hyperbound offers three different pricing tiers: demo, growth, and enterprise.

Hyperbound is an AI Role Play platform that enables organizations to quickly launch realistic simulations based on ideal customer profile (ICP) descriptions. Sellers can master key skills and gain confidence, without putting deals at risk or overburdening sales managers.

Top features 

The Hyperbound AI Role Play platform includes several innovative features, including:

  • AI-powered scorecards: Provides instant scoring related to factors like talk ratios and objection handling.
  • Real-time feedback: AI delivers instant feedback and guidance on how to improve so sellers can make changes and improve outcomes – without involving a manager.
  • Gamification: Leaderboards and scoring create friendly competition and encourage reps to improve faster.

Pros

  • Easy-to-use interface with actionable feedback.
  • Encourages frequent practice with low friction.
  • Good fit for SDR use cases

Cons

G2 reviews of Hyperbound mention downsides including:

  •  
  • Relatively new solution, making it less established than other options.
  • Challenging to scale for enterprise organizations.
  • Scenarios tend to be repetitive.
  • Steep learning curve
  • Higher price point than other AI role play tools
  • Lack of customization for reporting and analytics

4. Yoodli

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Yoodli is an AI Role Play platform that helps people communicate with more confidence. Yoodli isn’t designed exclusively for sales. However, a growing number of sellers use this AI Role Play software to practice their skills and get private, real-time feedback to improve their communication skills.

Price: Yoodli publishes pricing information for three product tiers:

  • Start: $0
  • Pro: $8 per user per month
  • Advanced: $20 per user per month

They offer individual, team and enterprise pricing.

Top features 

The Yoodli platform has several unique features, including:

  • Unlimited practice: Sellers can simulate scenarios like discovery calls, product demos, and more – as often as they’d like.
  • AI sales coaching: Sellers can get real-time feedback on factors like filler words, pacing, tone, and more, which they can use to refine their approach.
  • Multi-persona roleplays: B2B buying committees are growing. This feature allows sellers to practice engaging with multiple stakeholders during a single call

Pros

  • User-friendly and accessible
  • Useful for a number of customer-facing roles, including sales, management, and customer success
  • Affordable pricing with free plan available

Cons

Some downsides of Yoodli based on the company’s website and  G2 reviews include:

  • Limited data and analytics
  • Not purpose-built for the needs of sales teams
  • Best suited for self-led practice, not structured team training

5. Letter AI

letter-AI

G2 Rating: 4.9 out of 5

Price: Letter AI does not publish pricing information.

Letter AI is a generative AI revenue enablement platform with a variety of features, including AI role play tools. The platform’s AI role play tools enable sellers to practice and perfect key conversations with AI personas before going out into the field.

Top features 

Letter AI’s AI role play tools have several features, including:

  • Realistic AI buyers: Sellers can practice key conversations with realistic, adaptive AI buyers, including product pitches, objection handling, and pricing negotiation.
  • Detailed scorecards: These assess both product knowledge and soft skills to shed light on opportunities for improvement.
  • Robust analytics: Leaders can track improvement over time and understand coaching efficacy and learner progression.

Pros

  • Alignment with other pillars of revenue enablement, including messaging and content.
  • Effective tool for onboarding new sellers or launching new products.
  • Flexible scenario building and scoring customization.
  • Reinforces consistent messaging across distributed teams.

Cons

Letter AI users cite certain downsides to the platform, including:

  • Challenges with integrating the tool into sellers’ existing workflows.
  • Less robust features than other revenue enablement platforms.
  • May not be a good fit for larger teams.
  • The user interface isn’t always intuitive.
  • Less established company and platform.

6. Highspot

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Price: Highspot offers personalized pricing based on factors including team size and capabilities needed.

Highspot is best known as an AI sales enablement platform, offering robust tools for onboarding, sales training, sales coaching, and content management. Highspot does offer some AI role play tools within its platform, thanks to an integration with Yoodli. Highspot users can now launch Yoodli AI role plays directly within the Highspot platform. However, AI role plays are more of a complementary feature than a core offering.

Top features 

Highspot’s AI role play tools, powered by Yoodli include features like:

  • Real-world conversations: Sellers have the opportunity to build their confidence by rehearsing key conversations they’ll have with real-life customers.
  • Instant feedback: AI delivers instant scoring on factors including tone and delivery. This allows reps to improve faster and enables managers to coach smarter. .

Pros

  • With the integration, Highspot offers training, coaching, and sales content management paired with role play capabilities.
  • Scalable across global sales teams.

Cons

User reviews cite certain downsides to Highspot’s AI role play tools, including:

  • Role play capabilities are more basic compared to more specialized AI role play platforms.
  • Role play functionality is not natively built within the Highspot platform, rather offered with an integration to Yoodli.
  • May not satisfy teams looking for more in-depth conversation practice.

7. Seismic

seismic-blog

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Price: Seismic offers a variety of pricing tiers and add-on features.

Seismic is a popular AI sales enablement platform that helps businesses improve seller behavior and skills so they can win more deals. Seismic announced AI role play functionality, which allows sellers to practice and refine skills and messaging.

Top features 

Seismic’s AI role play tools include notable features like:

  • Real-life scenarios: Create opportunities for your sellers to practice their skills in scenarios they’ll encounter in the field.
  • AI-powered feedback: Sellers get targeted, in-the-moment feedback on things like keywords, pace, and use of filler words.
  • Integration with training and coaching: All aspects of sales enablement are housed within a single platform, which allows for a more holistic approach to enablement.

Pros

  • Good option for organizations already using Seismic to address other areas of sales enablement.
  • Integrates training, content, and practice into one platform.
  • Scalable for global and enterprise teams.
  • Useful for onboarding and new product launches.

Cons

While Seismic announced this feature, its not clear how widely available their AI role plays are and if customers are seeing value.

8. Allego

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Price: Allego offers AI Role Plays as part of its Modern Learning solution. Pricing is per user, per month.

Allego is a popular revenue enablement platform with three core solutions: Allego Learning, Allego Modern Content, and Allego Digital Rooms. Allego Learning recently announced the launch of its video-based AI role play tools, which will allow sellers to practice and hone their messaging and selling skills. 

Top features 

According to information from the company’s website, Allego’s AI Role Play tools include features like: 

  • Live Dialog Simulator: Delivers role play experiences that feel like actual buyer meetings. 
  • AI sales coaching and instant insights: AI scores role plays based on the company’s rubric, which helps the rep improve right away. Sales managers get insight on seller performance and where human-powered coaching is needed.  
  • Customizable tools: All elements of AI role plays – from scenarios to scoring – are customizable to align with your messaging, roles, and goals.  

Pros

  • Strong video-based AI sales coaching tools 
  • Because Allego is a revenue enablement platform, AI role play tools are available alongside training, content, and conversation intelligence. 
  • Scalable for mid-size to enterprise teams. 

Cons

There are certain downsides to Allego’s AI role play tools, including: 

  • Allego only recently launched its role play tools in June 2025, so they’re not as established as other vendors and its unclear if customers are seeing value

Mindtickle: The leading AI Role Play software for sales teams in 2025

AI Role Play tools are no longer “nice to have.” They’re essential for reinforcing training, building rep confidence, and improving sales execution across go-to-market teams. 

Today, there are more AI Role Play tools than ever. But Mindtickle stands apart as the most comprehensive, scalable, and sales-focused solution on the market.

Unlike point solutions that offer one-size-fits-all tools and isolated capabilities, Mindtickle brings together purpose-built AI Role Play, AI coaching, and AI-powered sales training in one unified platform. 

Sales reps can master pitches, messaging, and critical selling skills through realistic, dynamic scenarios, real-time feedback, and coaching modeled after top performer behaviors. Meanwhile, sales enablement teams can design and deploy targeted role plays aligned to real world scenarios – driving behavior change, increasing win rates, and accelerating revenue growth. 

Mindtickle also scales where traditional sales coaching falls short. Organizations can deliver consistent, data-driven feedback across large, complex revenue organizations without sacrificing quality or personal relevance.  

And while many vendors are just entering the role play space, Mindtickle is a proven leader. We have nearly a decade of experience in role plays and 14 years in the world of sales enablement. This unmatched expertise enables us to deliver an AI Role Play solution that helps all customer-facing roles grow their skills and increase revenue growth. 

AI Role Play FAQs

1. What is the best AI tool for sales role play? 

The best AI role play tool depends on the needs of your organization. However, Mindtickle is a highly regarded AI role play tool for sales teams. Unlike generic solutions, it’s purpose-built for sales and trusted by enterprise organizations to drive measurable performance improvement. 

2. What are the key features of AI Role Play tools?

Key features of AI role play tools include interactive scenario simulations, real-time feedback, performance scoring, and AI-driven coaching. Many AI role play platforms also offer customizable role plays, analytics dashboards, AI grading, and integration with sales training, coaching, and content to support consistent, scalable skill development. 

3. How can AI Role Plays help other teams?

AI role plays aren’t just for sales reps. They can be useful for any customer-facing role, including BDRs, sales engineers, customer success managers, and sales managers. AI role play tools can help any customer-facing role practice high-stakes conversations, refine messaging, and build confidence in a safe, scalable environment.

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Top Strategies to Drive Med Device Sales Performance https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/med-device-sales/ Thu, 07 Aug 2025 06:46:09 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=24242 The medical device industry is known for its rapid innovation, consistently introducing technologies that transform healthcare and improve millions of lives each year. It’s also a massive (and growing) market. The global med device market, which was valued at $481.67 billion in 2023, is projected to reach $710.03 billion by the end of 2030, driven …

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The medical device industry is known for its rapid innovation, consistently introducing technologies that transform healthcare and improve millions of lives each year. 

It’s also a massive (and growing) market. The global med device market, which was valued at $481.67 billion in 2023, is projected to reach $710.03 billion by the end of 2030, driven by myriad factors including rising demand and technological advancement.

But alongside these opportunities come real challenges. Med device sales reps face long, complex sales cycles, a strict regulatory environment, and well-informed healthcare professionals with increasingly high expectations. At the same time, digital transformation – particularly the rise of AI – is reshaping how reps sell. 

How can med device sales organizations thrive in this evolving landscape? 

In this blog, we’ll take a look at the current state of med device sales and how AI is transforming the field. We’ll also share some practical, proven med device sales strategies to help you stay competitive and grow revenue in this high-stakes industry. 

The current state of med device sales

There’s no denying that AI is reshaping how med device sales teams operate. For revenue leaders, that’s both a major opportunity – and a growing challenge. 

Sales processes that once relied heavily on seller intuitive and manual effort are now being supported (or even replaced) by AI-powered tools. Today’s med device sellers can use AI to:

  • Identify high-value, high-probability opportunities 
  • Surface the right information and content at the right time to keep healthcare professionals engaged
  • Practice and refine their pitch through realistic AI role plays 
  • Receive real-time coaching to improve skills and selling behaviors

It’s not just med device sales teams that are leveraging AI. Across the entire med tech industry, AI adoption is on the rise. Some studies suggest that over 60% of med device companies have already integrated artificial intelligence into their product development process. In addition, the global AI market in healthcare is predicted to reach $34 million by the end of this year. There’s no doubt that number will only continue to grow. 

At the same time, the med device industry itself is booming. As mentioned earlier, the global market is on track to reach more than $710 billion by the end of 2030, fueled by aging populations, rising demand for personalized care, and constant innovation. There’s more opportunity than ever before.

But success isn’t guaranteed.

Alongside opportunities, there are also many challenges for med device sales reps. Sales cycles are getting long and more complex. Buying committees are getting larger. Healthcare professionals are coming to the table more informed than ever, and the way they want to engage with sellers is changing. 

The strategies your med device sales reps used in the past to connect with buyers and close deals may not cut it anymore. Now’s the time for med device sales organizations to rethink how they engage, enable, and support their reps.  

7 Practical med device sales strategies to drive results 

In the competitive world of med device sales, having a great product isn’t enough. Your med device sales reps must also be properly equipped to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the sales cycle.

Here are seven practical strategies revenue leaders can put into practice to increase performance across the entire med device sales team.

#1 Focus on the most valuable opportunities

It’s important to ensure your med device sales reps are spending their time with the right opportunities. In other words, those who are likely to convert and deliver long-term value.

Start by defining your ideal customer profile (ICP), which is a description of a company that’s a good fit for your products or services. Don’t make guesses here. Instead, leverage data to create your ICP.

Once your ICP is finalized, ensure your sellers know it inside and out.

In addition, consider using AI-powered lead scoring tools. These tools leverage engagement and buying signals to help your sellers prioritize the right accounts.

#2 Rethink your approach to med device sales training

Sales training has always been a pillar of a successful med device sales strategy. In the past, this may have included sales onboarding and perhaps some live training when there was a new product launch or other major change.

But traditional med device sales rep training is no longer enough to keep up with high-stakes sales cycles and the lofty expectations of buyers.

Sales onboarding is still important. But it’s also key to deliver ongoing med device sales training and development to ensure your reps are always ready to tackle any deal. Generic med device sales rep training won’t cut it. Instead, it must be tailored to the role, specialty, and even region that the individuals are focused on selling into.. 

Also, remember that sales reps may need support outside of a formal training session. Use AI to equip your med device sales reps with just-in-time enablement. That way, they have the answers and information they need even when they are on the road. 

#3 Provide safe practice opportunities

Sellers need opportunities to practice the skills they’ve learned in med device sales rep training. If they don’t get those opportunities, they’re likely practicing on healthcare professionals in the field.

Role plays are a great tool for practice. But traditional ride-alongs are time consuming for managers, and with reps spread out across regions, managers can quickly be spread too thin. 

Instead, use AI role plays so your med device sales reps can practice what they’ve learned on their own time, as often as they’d like. With AI role plays, sellers also get real-time, tailored feedback for improvement, which they can use to boost their skills and their confidence before money is on the line.

#4 Centralize your sales content and make it more effective

Healthcare professionals depend on sales content to make informed purchase decisions. Med device sales reps rely on it to engage buyers throughout the purchase journey.

But irrelevant sales content will turn off buyers. That’s why it’s important to develop content that’s aligned with your buyer personas and the different stages of the sales cycle.

Also, use a sales content management system to store and organize your assets so reps always have the most up-to-date and compliant content. Look for a solution that uses AI to help your med device sales reps surface proven content for different scenarios.

Your sales content management system should also come with robust data and analytics to track how reps and healthcare professionals are using different pieces of content and how it impacts sales outcomes. Use these insights to double down on what works and archive unused, ineffective content.

#5 Equip your med device sales reps to build stronger customer relationships

Healthcare professionals are more likely to make a purchase if they trust a rep. It’s important to properly equip your med device sales reps to build strong relationships with buyers and earn their trust. 

For starters, look for opportunities to streamline the sales process and reduce friction. This will go a long way, as 77% of B2B buyers rate their most recent purchase as difficult or complex.

In addition, equip your reps with tools to keep buyers engaged throughout long sales cycles. For example, consider introducing Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs), which serve as a personalized, central hub for all engagement that happens between a buyer and a seller throughout the sales cycle. Med device sales reps can use DSRs to:

  • Share content and information that resonates with every stakeholder
  • Ask and answer questions
  • Align and collaborate around mutual attraction plans. 

Digital sales rooms also provide med device sales reps with engagement insights. Reps can use these insights to adapt their approach – and more effectively engage Healthcare professionals. 

Relationship-building isn’t just a soft skill. It’s a critical part of a winning med device sales strategy that drives both initial wins and long-term growth. 

#6 Audit and streamline your sales tech stack

Chances are, you’ve got plenty of tools to help reps do their work. Around 70% of sales leaders say they have 10 or more tools in their sales tech stack.

Yet, research tells us more than half of sales reps are overwhelmed by the number of technologies they’re expected to use. This overwhelm is taking its toll. Reps who feel overwhelmed by technology are 43% less likely to meet quota than sellers who aren’t overwhelmed. 

Too many disconnected tools can cause confusion, duplicate work, and data silos – especially in high-complexity med device sales orgs. Conduct an audit of your sales tech stack to identify overlap and gaps. In addition, look for inefficiencies – like a seller needing to log the same data in multiple tools. 

Finally, look for opportunities to consolidate disparate point solutions into integrated platforms that improve seller workflows and data flow. For example, consider swapping your sales training, content management, and conversation intelligence solutions for a single, integrated revenue enablement platform. That way, your med device sales reps have a single source for everything they need to be prepared for every customer interaction. Furthermore, all data related to revenue enablement will be centralized in one place so you get a more accurate picture of what’s working and where there are opportunities to make improvements.

#7 Track rep performance and optimize continuously

Without ongoing measurement, it’s impossible to know what’s working and what’s not. Top-performing med device sales orgs continuously measure performance, identify what’s driving results, and optimize accordingly.

Tracking metrics like quota attainment and win rates is important. But it’s also important to determine the “why” behind those numbers. 

With the right tools, you can get real visibility into reps’ behaviors – from what content is resonating with healthcare professionals to what skills make up your top reps. These insights can help inform future content creation for marketing teams and competency frameworks to build into training plans.

Over time, this kind of sales performance tracking doesn’t just improve reps’ skills – it makes your entire sales engine more predictable and scalable.

Drive med device sales performance with Mindtickle

There’s plenty of opportunity in med device sales. But offering a great product isn’t enough to guarantee success.

More than ever, buyer experience matters as much as products. Med device sales reps must be confident, informed, and equipped to navigate long, complex sales cycles and deliver outstanding experiences that resonate with healthcare professionals.

That’s where Mindtickle comes in.

Mindtickle is an AI revenue enablement platform built for today’s med device sales teams – delivering modern, data-driven enablement for med device organizations. From AI sales coaching and pitch practice to on-demand content and performance insights, we give revenue leaders everything they need to upskill reps, engage buyers, and close more deals – faster.

Whether you’re rethinking your med device sales training, centralizing your sales content, or looking for better visibility into what’s working (and what’s not), Mindtickle brings it all together into one powerful, integrated revenue enablement platform.

Mindtickle for Medical Device Reps

See how Mindtickle makes it easy to create engaging, effective training content for your medical device reps.

Get a Demo

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CentiMark Cuts Ramp Time to 8 Days and Scales Enablement with Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/customer-stories/centimark-cuts-ramp-time-to-8-days-and-scales-enablement-with-mindtickle/ Tue, 29 Jul 2025 11:26:15 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=customer_stories&p=24206 < BACK TO CUSTOMER STORIES CentiMark Cuts Ramp Time to 8 Days and Scales Enablement with Mindtickle Optional PDF 🏆 KEY RESULTS 0 % faster sales cycles 0 % increase in win rate on DSR opportunities 0 x faster time-to-close overall The Challenge As CentiMark rapidly expanded, it became increasingly difficult to deliver consistent sales …

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< BACK TO CUSTOMER STORIES

CentiMark Cuts Ramp Time to 8 Days and Scales Enablement with Mindtickle

🏆 KEY RESULTS
0 %

faster sales cycles

0 %

increase in win rate on DSR opportunities

0 x

faster time-to-close overall

The Challenge

As CentiMark rapidly expanded, it became increasingly difficult to deliver consistent sales training and communication across its growing, distributed team. The company lacked a flexible, scalable solution to onboard new hires, reinforce company culture, and enable reps.

The Solution

CentiMark adopted Mindtickle to centralize seller training and enablement across its expanding team. With structured onboarding, asset hub, and digital sales rooms, CentiMark improved buyer engagement and accelerated onboarding–reducing ramp time to just 8 days.

Overview

QuestMark Flooring, a division of CentiMark Corporation, specializes in commercial and industrial flooring solutions, serving sectors such as manufacturing, retail, and transportation with a direct, customer-focused approach.

HEADQUARTERS:

Pennsylvania

INDUSTRY:

Construction

COMPANY SIZE:

1,000-5,000 employees

HEADQUARTERS: Pennsylvania

INDUSTRY: Construction

COMPANY SIZE: 1,000-5,000 employees

A Growing Team, A Growing Challenge

Jeff Johnson, Vice President of Sales and Sales Enablement shares how CentiMark leveraged Mindtickle to scale sales enablement during a period of rapid growth. As a private company, with over 57 years of history and more than $1.5 billion in annual sales, CentiMark needed a solution that could deliver consistent messaging, reinforce company culture, and support a growing sales force spread across regions. Traditional training approaches weren’t scalable, and the lack of a centralized enablement platform created gaps in onboarding and rep readiness.

Equipping Reps with the Right Tools to Win

To solve this, CentiMark adopted Mindtickle to deliver flexible, role-specific learning without disrupting daily workflows. The team used structured training modules and microlearning to onboard reps more efficiently, while Call AI gave managers visibility into performance and enabled real-time feedback. Asset Hub provided the team with a single source of truth for sales materials, and Digital Sales Rooms enhanced the customer experience by allowing reps to share personalized, trackable content. Reps and managers enjoy the ease of use, while customers responded positively to the more streamlined, modern sales experience with the use of Digital Sales Rooms.

Quantifiable Impact and a Strong Partnership

As a result, new hires are now quoting within just 8 days, down significantly from previous ramp times. CentiMark has also launched its proprietary sales methodology, the “Nine Innings of a Sale,” using gamification, certifications, and coaching tools within Mindtickle to drive engagement and consistency. Jeff highlights the strong partnership with Mindtickle’s team, especially during implementation, and sees the platform as a key enabler of performance, cultural alignment, and long-term growth.

As CentiMark continues to grow and evolve its enablement program, the team is building on its success and seeing strong results, including:

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faster sales cycles

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increase in win rate on DSR opportunities

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faster time-to-close overall

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AI Role Play https://www.mindtickle.com/ai-role-plays/ Tue, 22 Jul 2025 05:32:20 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24116 Perfect your pitch with AI Role Play Try out our AI sales simulator for free and see if you can seal the deal. Try it FREE now Give AI a test drive Customize the persona your seller is pitching to, what they are selling, the deal stage, and even the personality of your prospect. Try …

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Perfect your pitch with AI Role Play

Try out our AI sales simulator for free and see if you can seal the deal.

Give AI a test drive

Customize the persona your seller is pitching to, what they are selling, the deal stage, and even the personality of your prospect. Try it out for yourself and see if you can secure a meeting with one of our pre-built selling scenarios. AI Role Plays help with:

AI Role Plays are part of our award-winning,
all-in-one revenue enablement platform

If your teams don’t practice their pitches, they’re doing it on prospects

Teams can’t keep pace with change

With constant market shifts, new products, and competitive updates, GTM teams struggle to stay prepped.

Sellers don’t have a safe place to practice

Whether it’s a renewal conversation or an important discovery call, your reps likely haven’t been able to practice their talk tracks realistically.

Managers are too busy

Whether it’s live or recorded role plays, your managers don’t have time to review every new pitch and provide feedback.

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Cisco saw average deal sizes increase by as much as 30% with the help of role plays.

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Mindtickle Copilot has reviewed over 730K role play submissions.

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Top-performing companies have sellers do six or more role plays per year.

🤙 Why customers choose us

Customer success, supercharged

MetricStream Logo

“What AI Role Play does is they make that experience asynchronous. It makes it infinitely scalable. The rep can go through and practice a cold call or a discovery or some pitch with the bot that talks back to them in a way that the manager couldn’t support otherwise.”
Mike Demmert,
Head of Global Organizational Development at Signifyd.

Customer testimonial

“I’m excited about the persona-based integrated role play. It’s AI-driven, not manager-led, and gives sellers guidance on specific personas they’ll face in the field. The vision is to align practice scenarios with the opportunities and segments the seller is working on. That way, they can sharpen skills before the customer calls. That’s incredibly powerful.”
Ted Sayland,
Global Enablement Platforms Leader at Juniper Networks.

Webinar recording

“As early adopters of AI Role Play, the AI has already shown promise in delivering immersive training that simulates realistic customer behaviors, helping prepare our reps for real conversations.”
Samyak Jain,
Senior Associate, Sales Enablement at MetricStream.

Customer testimonial
cisco-testimonial

“We saw a 25% increase in booked deal values and a 31% rise in average deal size, showing the program’s effectiveness at really delivering something of value to our sellers – and ultimately to our customers.”
Chris Jackson,
Distinguished Solutions Engineer at Cisco.

Customer testimonial

With AI Role Plays, your teams can capitalize on every conversation

Realistic practice scenarios

Create hyper-relevant scenarios and give sellers a safe place to perfect their pitch with instant AI feedback.

Get instant, unbiased feedback

With Copilot, you get consistent and objective feedback without performance or relationship biases.

“Content needs to be digestible, relevant, and punchy. Mindtickle allows the team to customize content to reps’ individual needs.”

Firstname Lastname senior VP of marketing

Alleviate the manager bottleneck

With role plays reviewed and graded by AI, you don’t have to rely on your busy managers.

“Content needs to be digestible, relevant, and punchy. Mindtickle allows the team to customize content to reps’ individual needs.”

Firstname Lastname senior VP of marketing
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Based on a survey of 2,000 users, 72% felt like they were talking to a real buyer and reported being satisfied (74%) with their experience

Trusted by well-known brands

Cisco leverages AI Role Plays to increase deal sizes by 31%

Integrace Health put their reps’ knowledge into practice by developing role-plays.

SecureAuth deploys virtual role-plays and certifications to modernize its sales training

Prep your teams to capitalize
on every conversation

With AI Role Play, your customer and prospect-facing teams
can prep for every conversation and close with confidence.

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How AI Role Plays Elevate Your Sales Enablement Game https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-ai-sales-role-plays-elevate-your-sales-enablement-game/ Mon, 21 Jul 2025 10:00:51 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20042 Sales enablement teams invest time and resources into creating sales training programs. But here’s the problem: B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of training. 87% is lost within a month.  Why? Because traditional sales training is mostly passive – think presentations, videos, or PDFs. It’s not designed for …

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Sales enablement teams invest time and resources into creating sales training programs. But here’s the problem: B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of training. 87% is lost within a month. 

Why? Because traditional sales training is mostly passive – think presentations, videos, or PDFs. It’s not designed for long-term retention or real-world application. 

That’s why leading revenue organizations are turning to AI Role Play to bridge the gap between learning and sales performance

Sellers are embracing them. Reps that use AI Role Plays practice 4-6 times before they submit. And this practice is driving real business impact – including a 31% increase in average deal size. 

In this blog, we’ll dive into how AI Role Plays work, the benefits they deliver, and how you can build and scale them as a core part of your sales enablement strategy. 

What is an AI sales Role Play?

Traditionally, sellers do Role Plays with their managers in person in a pre-defined scenario. Add AI to the mix, and AI can don multiple hats. While there are a few different flavors of AI Role Plays available in the market today, Mindtickle Role Plays use Copilot extensively in three distinct roles:

Copilot helps create the Role Play scenario with just a few simple prompts.

Sellers can practice realistic selling scenarios with an AI buyer that has a distinct human-like voice and personality.

Copilot gives immediate qualitative and quantitative feedback, suggests areas for improvement, and even grades role play submissions.

interactive role-play

What are the benefits of AI Role Plays for sales training and coaching?

AI-powered practice tools transform sales training, offering opportunities for sellers to hone their sales skills, boost deal sizes, and streamline Role Plays. Here are some of the top benefits:

#1. Safe space to practice for sellers

When sellers Role Play with their boss or sales leader, it can be a high-pressure situation that does not always yield the best results. But when sellers practice with an AI buyer, the pressure is off, and they can focus on mastering the sales pitch.

#2. Unlimited practice

Sellers can practice as often as they like with AI because AI doesn’t have any meetings to run, unlike their sales manager. We see sellers practice several times before they submit their Role Play. Practice, not perfection, is the goal.

#3. Immediate feedback

Unlike in old-school Role Plays where constructive feedback may be given in passing or not at all, Copilot gives sellers immediate qualitative and quantitative feedback and even suggests areas for improvement. Copilot assesses your rep’s sentiment, pace of speech, filler words used, and much more.

The scores create a gamified environment in which sellers want to keep trying until they have a scorethey’re satisfied with. This gamification works well for sellers who are, by nature, competitive.

enablement-certification-white

#4. Increased deal sizes

Cisco held the largest pitch contest in its history for its security product line using Copilot and saw some fantastic results such as:

rise in average deal size
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increase in value of booked deals
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average increase in bookings
$ 0 k

#5. Scalable Role Plays

Most enablement practitioners love Role Plays and see their value, but they find extensive exercises across large organizations extremely challenging to execute. It involves coordinating with several sales managers and getting their time to review the recorded Role Plays.

AI can be extremely handy here because it removes this dependency on sales managers. It grades Role Play submissions for you in a matter of minutes and has none of the bias that real managers may have.

Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time by using AI to review Role Plays from 3,500 sellers.

"The pitch perfect program would not have met the deadline without AI."
Teresa Lubeck
Teresa Lubeck
Senior Manager, Strategy and Offers, Learning at Cisco

Test the Role Play

Once you have built out the Role Play, send it to a few internal testers to ensure everything works just how you want it to. These could be folks within the sales enablement team or a few friendly sellers willing to give you feedback.

Allow reps to practice

Once you are happy with the initial results, you can roll this out to your field and allow them to practice the scenario as often as they like.

Examples of AI Role Plays

One of the best things about AI Role Plays is that they’re flexible. You can tailor them to fit a wide range of scenarios, from onboarding new reps to launching new products. 

Here are a few real-world examples of how companies are using AI Role Plays to elevate their sales enablement programs and initiatives. 

AI Role Play example #1: Discovery call practice 

Scenario: Early-stage conversation with a new lead 

Goal: Enable sellers to practice asking open-ended questions to reveal pain points and uncover what really matters to the buyer. 

What it looks like: The AI buyer responds based on a defined role – such as the Chief Marketing Officer. AI scores the rep based on factors like talk-to-listen ratio, clarity, and number of questions asked and answered. 

AI Role Play example #2: Competitive differentiation practice

Scenario: A prospect that is currently using a competitor’s solution. 

Goal: Help reps navigate competitive deals by highlighting differentiators without resorting to badmouthing the competition.

What it looks like: The AI buyer expresses loyalty to a competitor. The seller must ask thorough questions to uncover dissatisfaction and position your product’s advantages.

AI Role Play example #3: Objection handling

Scenario: A mid-funnel prospect raises concerns about factors like pricing, product capabilities, or ROI. 

Goal: Prepare sellers to tackle tough objections and keep the deal moving forward. 

What it looks like: The AI buyer pushes back on things like timing, pricing, or product capabilities. AI provides feedback to the seller on how well they navigated the objections, how persuasive their tone was, and whether they used the right messaging. 

AI Role Play example #4: Onboarding new sellers

Scenario: A new sales rep practices introducing your company’s value proposition to a prospective buyer.

Goal: Help new reps build their confidence early on so they can start contributing to revenue growth sooner. 

What it looks like: The AI buyer is curious, but skeptical, and responds with common objections and follow-up questions. The seller practices delivering their pitch confidently and learns to pivot depending on where the conversation goes. 

These are just a few examples of how AI Role Plays can simulate important moments from real sales cycles. Whether your team is launching a new product, facing a tough competitor, or just looking to sharpen core selling skills, AI Role Plays can be tailored to meet your goals. 

Suited to different roles and verticals

Mindtickle’s AI Role Plays serve different personas ranging from BDRs, sellers, and partners to customer success managers. Our customers have used AI Role Plays for a range of use cases such as:

  • Onboarding new reps
  • Cold calling practice
  • Discovery calls
  • Objection handling
  • Competitive displacement and much more…

It can also be hyper-specialized to your vertical whether you are in pharmaceuticals, med devices, financial services or cyber security. The AI adapts to your industry and products seamlessly. 

As you move forward, consider how AI can be integrated into your sales enablement strategy to meet and exceed your training goals. Embracing this technology empowers your team, optimizes performance, and makes reps more productive.

Test the Role Play

Once you have built out the Role Play, send it to a few internal testers to ensure everything works just how you want it to. These could be folks within the sales enablement team or a few friendly sellers willing to give you feedback.

Allow reps to practice

Once you are happy with the initial results, you can roll this out to your field and allow them to practice the scenario as often as they like.

Examples of AI Role Plays

One of the best things about AI Role Plays is that they’re flexible. You can tailor them to fit a wide range of scenarios, from onboarding new reps to launching new products. 

Here are a few real-world examples of how companies are using AI Role Plays to elevate their sales enablement programs and initiatives. 

AI Role Play example #1: Discovery call practice 

Scenario: Early-stage conversation with a new lead 

Goal: Enable sellers to practice asking open-ended questions to reveal pain points and uncover what really matters to the buyer. 

What it looks like: The AI buyer responds based on a defined role – such as the Chief Marketing Officer. AI scores the rep based on factors like talk-to-listen ratio, clarity, and number of questions asked and answered. 

AI Role Play example #2: Competitive differentiation practice

Scenario: A prospect that is currently using a competitor’s solution. 

Goal: Help reps navigate competitive deals by highlighting differentiators without resorting to badmouthing the competition.

What it looks like: The AI buyer expresses loyalty to a competitor. The seller must ask thorough questions to uncover dissatisfaction and position your product’s advantages.

AI Role Play example #3: Objection handling

Scenario: A mid-funnel prospect raises concerns about factors like pricing, product capabilities, or ROI. 

Goal: Prepare sellers to tackle tough objections and keep the deal moving forward. 

What it looks like: The AI buyer pushes back on things like timing, pricing, or product capabilities. AI provides feedback to the seller on how well they navigated the objections, how persuasive their tone was, and whether they used the right messaging. 

AI Role Play example #4: Onboarding new sellers

Scenario: A new sales rep practices introducing your company’s value proposition to a prospective buyer.

Goal: Help new reps build their confidence early on so they can start contributing to revenue growth sooner. 

What it looks like: The AI buyer is curious, but skeptical, and responds with common objections and follow-up questions. The seller practices delivering their pitch confidently and learns to pivot depending on where the conversation goes. 

These are just a few examples of how AI Role Plays can simulate important moments from real sales cycles. Whether your team is launching a new product, facing a tough competitor, or just looking to sharpen core selling skills, AI Role Plays can be tailored to meet your goals. 

Suited to different roles and verticals

Mindtickle’s AI Role Plays serve different personas ranging from BDRs, sellers, and partners to customer success managers. Our customers have used AI Role Plays for a range of use cases such as:

  • Onboarding new reps
  • Cold calling practice
  • Discovery calls
  • Objection handling
  • Competitive displacement and much more…

It can also be hyper-specialized to your vertical whether you are in pharmaceuticals, med devices, financial services or cyber security. The AI adapts to your industry and products seamlessly. 

As you move forward, consider how AI can be integrated into your sales enablement strategy to meet and exceed your training goals. Embracing this technology empowers your team, optimizes performance, and makes reps more productive.

This blog post was originally published in August 2024 and was updated in July 2025.

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Sales Process Mapping: What it is and Why is it Important? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-process-mapping/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:15:40 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=24067 Let’s face it: B2B sales teams often operate in a state of organized chaos. Sure, reps find their way and deals get closed. But it’s rarely consistent and almost never scaleable. Sales process mapping changes that. Sales process mapping takes all the moving parts of your sales process and turns them into a clear, visual …

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Let’s face it: B2B sales teams often operate in a state of organized chaos. Sure, reps find their way and deals get closed. But it’s rarely consistent and almost never scaleable.

Sales process mapping changes that. 

Sales process mapping takes all the moving parts of your sales process and turns them into a clear, visual framework. Each stage is defined, every handoff is clear, and the entire journey is mapped to how your customers actually buy – enhancing the overall buyer experience and reducing friction at every stage. 

But a sales process map isn’t just a pretty diagram. It’s a strategic tool that can help align teams, identify gaps, and build a powerful sales engine that drives consistent, high-impact sales engagement

In this post, we’ll focus on what sales process mapping really means, how to build one that reflects your business goals and buyer behavior, and the key role sales enablement plays in bringing it all to life. 

What is sales process mapping? 

If you’re not entirely sure what sales process mapping is (or why it matters), you’re not alone. Let’s start with a clear definition. 

Sales process mapping, defined

Sales process mapping is the process of evaluating and visually documenting the steps your revenue team takes – from their first interaction with a prospect all the way through to closing the deal. 

Think of a sales process map as a detailed, step-by-step blueprint that shows how sales activities, roles, and decisions all fit together across the customer journey.

Sales process maps (also known as sales process flowcharts) can vary widely between organizations. Some are simple flowcharts. Others are more complex visual infographics. We’ll take a closer look at some sales process map examples later on. 

Why does sales process mapping matter? 

Revenue leaders have plenty on their plates. Is sales process mapping really worth the effort?

In a word, yes.

Successful sales organizations don’t get that way by winging it. Instead, they rely on a well-defined sales process to ensure everyone knows what needs to happen, when, and how to move deals forward consistently. Without that structure, teams risk:

  • Missed opportunities
  • Misaligned priorities
  • Unpredictable results

A strong sales process is the foundation of scalable, repeatable growth, and the practice of sales process mapping is well worth the effort. 

What does sales enablement have to do with it?

Sales process mapping and sales enablement go hand in hand. While sales process mapping defines the route, sales enablement provides the tools, content, and training teams need to navigate it effectively. 

We’ll take a closer look at the connection between sales process mapping and sales enablement later in this post. 

How to approach sales process mapping

Sales process mapping is an opportunity to create clarity, drive alignment, and build a more efficient revenue engine. But it can feel overwhelming – especially if you’re not sure where to start.

The good news is, mapping your sales process is fairly straightforward. Here are a few simple steps you’ll need to take.

1. Start with the end in mind

Before diving into the details of your sales process, you must first get clarity on your objective. 

Identify the end goal (or goals) of your sales process. For example, you might have a goal to: 0

  • Increase qualified leads
  • Reduce sales cycle length
  • Boost win rates

Once you’ve defined your goals, you can work backwards to determine how you’ll reach them. 

2. Get the right people around the table

B2B sales is a team effort, and your sales process should reflect that. 

Assemble a task force with stakeholders from teams including:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer success
  • Sales enablement
  • Product
  • Customer Service 

Each of these teams plays a role in shaping the buyer journey, and their input and insights will ensure your sales process flowchart reflects what’s really happening in the field. 

3. Audit your existing sales process

Before designing your ideal sales process, you must first take a long, hard look at your existing one. This isn’t about what should be happening – it’s about what’s actually happening.

Don’t rely on guesses. Instead, use quantitative and qualitative data. Talk to go-to-market teams involved in different parts of the sales process. Dig into your CRM data. Look for inconsistencies, bottlenecks, and areas where deals tend to stall or drop off. 

The goal here isn’t to make judgements. It’s just to understand what’s happening. 

4. Define the stages of your sales process

Once you have a clear understanding of the components of your current sales process, you can break the journey into clear, logical stages. This might include stages like:

  • Awareness
  • Marketing qualified lead (MQL)
  • Sales qualified lead (SQL)
  • Discovery
  • Proposal
  • Closed-won

For each stage of the sales process, you’ll need to define:

  • What qualifies a deal to be in this stage
  • What actions or decisions happen during this stage
  • What triggers the move to the next stage

Thinking through each stage from the buyer’s point of view supports better buyer engagement and helps identify opportunities for buyer enablement – such as sharing the right resources or tools at the right time. 

There’s no right or wrong way to name or structure your stages. What matters most is that they’re clear, consistent, and meaningful to your team. 

5. Create a visualization

Once you’ve defined the stages of your sales cycle and the components of each stage, it’s time to put this information into a visual format. This could be a simple sales process flowchart, a more detailed visual diagram, or a slide deck. It’s really whatever works best for your team. 

Whatever format you choose, be sure to keep things clean and easy to digest. The goal is to make your sales process map as useful as possible. 

6. Measure, optimize, and revisit

A sales process map isn’t set in stone. Be sure to revisit it regularly based on what the data is telling you and how your market, team, or product evolves. Loop in your stakeholders to keep alignment strong across all key functions.

Sales process mapping examples

Now that we’ve covered why sales processing mapping is important – and how to approach the process – it’s time to look at some sales process mapping examples.

The structure, design, and level of detail in a sales process map can vary widely. But the goal should always be the same: clarity, alignment, and repeatability.

#1 Linear sales process flowchart

This is the most common and straightforward type of sales process mapping. Each sales stage is represented as a step in a horizontal or vertical sequence, typically moving from lead generation through closed-won or closed-lost.

sales-process-map

#2 Swimlane diagram

The swimlane format takes the basic flowchart a step further by organizing actions and responsibilities by role or team – such as sales, marketing, or customer success. Each “swimlane” shows who owns what at every stage. 

This format can be great for organizations where multiple teams are involved in the sales process. It drives cross-functional alignment and ensures clarity around handoffs. 

sales-process-swimlane-flowchart

#3 Infographic style

Some companies choose to represent their sales process in a highly visual, infographic-style format. If you choose this style, just make sure form doesn’t outweigh function. Clarity should also be the priority. 

How sales enablement helps with sales process mapping

A sales process map is foundational to sales enablement. But the relationship goes both ways. 

Sales enablement doesn’t just use the sales process map. It also plays a critical role in shaping, maintaining, and operationalizing it. 

Sales enablement helps with sales process mapping 

Sales enablement teams have deep insight into what’s really happening in the field. They know how reps are selling, where they’re getting stuck, and what support they need at every stage. 

This makes sales enablement a natural partner in sales process mapping. They bring rich insights to help define what’s really happening in the field – not just what you think is. 

Sales enablement brings the sales process map to life

Once you’ve finished mapping your sales process, it’s sales enablement’s role to make it real. This involves building training programs around each stage, creating enablement content aligned to the buyer journey, and building and reinforcing skills and behaviors that support the process. Your sales process map becomes a core part of how sellers are onboarded, coached, and supported.

Sales enablement helps the map evolve

A sales process map shouldn’t be static. Instead, it must evolve over time. Sales enablement plays an important role in this ongoing evolution.

As products, markets, and buyer behaviors shift, enablement teams bring ongoing feedback and performance data that keeps your sales process – and your broader go-to-market strategy – agile and responsive. They connect what’s happening in the field to what’s on the sales process map.

Clearly, sales process mapping and sales enablement are deeply interdependent. A sales process map provides the structure, while sales enablement drives adoption, execution, and continuous improvement. 

Build your sales process map – and bring it to life with Mindtickle

We get it: revenue leaders are juggling a lot. Finding time for sales process mapping isn’t easy. 

But it’s well worth the effort.

Sales process mapping isn’t just a documentation exercise. It’s a strategic move that brings clarity to chaos and empowers your teams to move faster, collaborate more effectively, and sell more predictably. 

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help you bring your sales process to life? Schedule a live demo to see how our AI revenue enablement platform helps you build, reinforce, and optimize every stage of your sales process.

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How to Create a Solid Client Engagement Strategy? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/client-engagement/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 16:15:02 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=24072 A great product might be enough to score you a meeting. But if your team can’t connect with buyers, earn their trust, and show they truly understand their needs, the deal is doomed. A thoughtful client engagement strategy – paired with strong buyer enablement – makes all the difference. It helps your sellers stand out, …

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A great product might be enough to score you a meeting. But if your team can’t connect with buyers, earn their trust, and show they truly understand their needs, the deal is doomed. 

A thoughtful client engagement strategy – paired with strong buyer enablement – makes all the difference. It helps your sellers stand out, build stronger relationships, close more deals, and foster long-term loyalty. 

Read on to explore what client engagement is, why it’s critical to your bottom line, and how to build a client engagement strategy that empowers your team to build lasting relationships, accelerate the sales cycle, and win more business.

What is client engagement

If you’re asking yourself “what is client engagement?” you’ve come to the right place. Let’s start with the basics. 

Client engagement, defined 

Client engagement (also referred to as customer engagement) is the act of building and maintaining meaningful relationships with customers throughout every stage of the purchase journey. It includes every touchpoint between a company and a potential or existing customer – whether it’s a quick call, a casual conversation on LinkedIn, or a detailed product demo.

Client engagement has never been more important

In B2B sales, there are many touchpoints between a buyer and seller. Some studies suggest the average B2B sale involves more than 62 touchpoints. 

And increasingly, these interactions aren’t happening face-to-face. Gartner predicts that by the end of this year, 80% of B2B buyer-seller interactions will take place via digital channels. 

The way you show up across these interactions can make or break a deal. That’s why having a  solid client engagement strategy is essential. 

Sure, products will always play a major role in purchase decisions. But today, 88% of decision-makers say the experience they have with the company matters just as much as its products or service. 

That’s what client engagement is all about. With the right client engagement strategy, your sellers can connect more effectively with modern buyers, meeting rising expectations, and stand out in a crowded market.

Next up, we’ll take a closer look at why client engagement is so critical to long-term success. 

Why client engagement matters for B2B organizations 

Customer engagement isn’t just another buzzword. Instead, it’s one of the most powerful ways for your company to capture prospects’ attention, earn their trust, and drive real results.

Let’s take a closer look at why client engagement should be one of your top priorities.

It helps sellers close more deals, faster

When sellers take the time to get to know their prospects and understand their needs, they earn trust. Buyers are more likely to make a purchase from someone they trust. 

There’s plenty of data to back this up.

The vast majority of B2B buyers (86%) are more likely to make a purchase if a company understands their goals. Yet, nearly 60% say most sales reps don’t take the time to understand them.

That’s a huge gap – and a big advantage for businesses that get customer engagement right.

As an added bonus, deals will move faster if buyers feel understood and supported, rather than pressured. 

The bottom line? Customer engagement will empower your teams to close more deals, faster. 

It helps sellers position themselves as trusted advisors

B2B buyers don’t want a seller to provide them with a laundry list of product features. Instead, they want insight and guidance that’s tailored to their unique needs.

In fact, 84% of buyers expect sellers to act as trusted advisors. But nearly three-quarters say most sales interactions feel transactional.

Client engagement can help bridge the gap. 

When reps focus on building relationships, rather than simply making sales, they can position themselves as true partners. And when they provide the resources, insights, and guidance buyers need to make informed purchase decisions, they’re delivering true buyer enablement – helping customers navigate complexity and feel in control of the process.

It drives long-term retention

Client engagement shouldn’t stop once a deal is won. If that’s what happens, your newfound customers will be left to fend for themselves – and they likely won’t stick around come renewal time.

Buyers who have great experiences during and after the sale are more likely to stick around long term. This will boost your retention rates – and your bottom line.

It opens up cross-sell and up-sell opportunities

Your customers may be open to exploring new solutions and expanding their relationship with your business in the future. But only if they trust the person offering them those opportunities. 

A strong customer engagement strategy builds that trust. This makes it easier for your sellers to introduce new products, services, or upgrades down the road.

It fuels brand advocacy and referrals

When companies have good experiences, they’re willing to talk about it – either by telling their peers, writing a review or testimonial, or agreeing to participate in a case study. In fact, 75% of decision-makers have recommended a brand based on excellent experiences.

B2B buyers trust feedback from their peers. It all starts with delivering great client engagement across every touchpoint. 

How to create a solid client engagement strategy

Clearly, client engagement can have a large, measurable impact on your business. But a great client engagement strategy doesn’t happen by chance. It requires the right tools, the right content, and, most importantly, the right mindset across your entire go-to-market organization.

Let’s take a look at the steps to take to build a client engagement strategy that keeps your buyers engaged throughout every stage of their experience with your business. 

1. Understand your customers inside and out

Every effective client engagement strategy is built on a foundation of rich customer insights. You need to understand how buyers are navigating the purchase journey, what’s important to them, how they prefer to engage, and where they tend to drop off the journey. 

Don’t rely on guesswork. Instead, let quantitative and qualitative data guide you. For example, pull insights from your CRM and conduct win/loss analysis. Also, ask for feedback from both your sellers and your buyers.

The more you know, the more effective your sales engagement strategy can be. 

2. Establish clear goals and KPIs

Once you understand your audience, you can set goals for what you want your customer engagement strategy to accomplish. These should be specific, measurable outcomes that are tied directly to your bottom line, like:

  • Increasing conversion rates
  • Improving customer retention rates
  • Boosting customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • Generating more referrals or reviews 

By establishing KPIs upfront, you’ll be able to track what’s working and what’s not. 

3. Align your teams around the customer

It’s easy to assume that buyer engagement rests solely on the shoulders of your sellers. But the truth is, it’s a company-wide effort.

From the moment a prospect clicks on a LinkedIn ad to when they download a resource from marketing, speak to a sales rep, or get handed off to customer success after making a purchase, every interaction matters. If teams aren’t aligned, it becomes apparent – and problematic – fast.

For example, marketing might push one message while sales delivers another. Or customer success might not be looped into the context of a specific deal. In both cases, customers experience friction, and it erodes trust.

Avoid that by:

  • Scheduling regular cross-functional syncs
  • Sharing goals and engagement data across teams
  • Creating a feedback loop that spans departments

When teams are aligned, every touchpoint feels connected and consistent. The buyer experience improves, and so do your sales results.

4. Create and centralize content for every stage of the customer lifecycle

Modern B2B buyers rely on content to make informed purchase decisions. And sellers depend on it to boost client engagement throughout the sales cycle.

Be sure to create sales content that adds value every step of the way – whether a buyer is just starting to explore or actively evaluating their options. Centralize all assets in a sales content management solution so sellers can easily find the content they need, when they need it. Bonus points if that sales content management solution makes it easy for sellers to personalize content and leverages AI to help reps surface proven content for every scenario. 

By sharing relevant content that delivers value, sellers can boost client engagement and encourage buyers to take the next step in their journey. 

5. Equip your teams to engage with confidence

Even the best client engagement strategy will fail without proper enablement. 

Be sure to give your sellers the training, tools, and support they need to confidently engage buyers throughout the customer journey. For example, deliver tailored learning paths to help reps build the knowledge and skills they need to master client engagement. Provide them with AI role-plays so they can practice their client engagement techniques and get real-time feedback for improving. And provide tools like digital sales rooms that centralize collaboration between buyers and sellers throughout the sales cycle.

More than three-quarters of B2B buyers say that their last purchase was very complex or difficult. With the right sales enablement initiatives, your sellers can more effectively navigate that reality. 

6. Deliver seamless experiences across channels

We know B2B buyers are navigating a significant portion of the purchase journey online. But they’re not sticking to just one channel. According to research from McKinsey & Company, B2B buyers use an average of 10 channels in their buying journey. 

Revenue organizations must meet buyers where they are. Support your buyers’ preferred platforms, and be sure your message is consistent across all of them. Consistency builds trust, and trust builds deals. 

In addition, give your sellers visibility into buyer activity across all touchpoints. That way, sellers have the context they need to meet buyers where they are.

7. Measure and optimize regularly

Developing a client engagement strategy shouldn’t be a one time event. Buyer behaviors evolve, and you must adapt your approach accordingly.

Regularly review key client engagement metrics like:

  • Conversion rates 
  • Sales cycle length
  • Retention and churn
  • Customer lifetime value 
  • Content performance 
  • NPS scores

Also, talk to your buyers and your sellers to understand what’s working and what’s not. You can use these insights to iterate, refine, and grow. 

Improve your client engagement with Mindtickle

In today’s competitive marketplace, building a strong client engagement strategy is essential. It’s also critical to ensure your teams have the right buyer engagement tools to bring your client engagement strategy to life.

That’s where Mindtickle comes in.

Mindtickle is an AI-powered revenue enablement platform that equips go-to-market teams to deliver outstanding client engagement across every stage of the customer lifecycle. With Mindtickle, your teams have right tools and support to succeed, including:

  • Training and coaching to build the knowledge and skills needed to meet buyer expectations and position themselves as trusted advisors.
  • Practice opportunities, like AI role-plays, to sharpen skills and boost confidence. 
  • Relevant content for every customer, and the ability to quickly surface the assets that are proven to work.
  • Tools like digital sales rooms to improve collaboration between buyers and sellers and make the purchase journey easier. 

Ready to see how Mindtickle can power up your client engagement strategy? Reach out to see our AI-powered revenue enablement platform in action.

The post How to Create a Solid Client Engagement Strategy? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Mindtickle Digital Asset Library https://www.mindtickle.com/digital-asset-library/ Wed, 09 Jul 2025 04:20:15 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24062 DIGITAL ASSET LIBRARY How to Use The digital assets that are contained in this management system are available for downloading and production use. The latest brand material is dynamically updated here to ensure you have access to what Mindtickle creates. Feel free to download any asset contained in here, or the entire collection. All files …

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DIGITAL ASSET LIBRARY

How to Use

The digital assets that are contained in this management system are available for downloading and production use. The latest brand material is dynamically updated here to ensure you have access to what Mindtickle creates. Feel free to download any asset contained in here, or the entire collection. All files are available in either .svg, .pdf, .eps, .png, .jpg, or a combination of all.
🖥 SSO, ACCESS & AUTHENTICATION

Secure Access & User Profile
Data Sync for User Management

SSO, Access & Authentication Integrations

Mindtickle supports secure access and synchronization of user profile data, enabling seamless user management. 

This includes integration with any Identity Provider (IdP) that supports SAML 2.0, OpenID, Google, or JWT protocols.

📁 CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Easy access to the latest content

Content Management Integrations

Mindtickle simplifies incorporating the latest content into your readiness and enablement initiatives. You can:

  • Use content from popular cloud storage platforms.

  • Integrate with leading content management systems.

  • Bring in curated content from top content providers.

🔨 PRODUCTIVITY

Seamless integration with
productivity & communication
Tools

Productivity & Communication Tools Integrations

Mindtickle integrates seamlessly with widely adopted productivity, communication, and calendaring tools, enhancing notification, scheduling, and reminder capabilities.

📚 REPORTING & INSIGHTS

Advanced reporting and insights
for sales enablement

Reporting & Business Intelligence Integrations

Mindtickle integrates with leading business intelligence tools, enabling data analysts to identify correlations between enablement activities and business outcomes. Reports can be consolidated into a central dashboard.

✏ CRM

Seamless Integration with CRM
Solutions

CRM Integrations

Mindtickle integrates with CRM solutions seamlessly to equip sales teams with personalized content, real-time coaching, and actionable insights directly within their workflow, maximizing productivity and deal success.

🤓 HRMS & LMS

Integration with HRMS and
Learning Management Systems

HRMS & LMS Integrations

Mindtickle automatically syncing with master sources of employee data ensures that the latest user information is always available for rule enforcement and automated learning plan assignments. This includes integration with Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS). Streamline training with Mindtickle’s seamless LMS integration for easy content access, uploads, and learner progress tracking.

💰 SALES ENGAGEMENT

Seamless Integration with Sales
Engagement Platforms

Sales Engagement Integrations

Mindtickle seamlessly integrates with leading Sales Engagement platforms,, to enhance sales rep productivity and enablement. This integration ensures that content is directly accessible within the sales engagement workflow, allowing reps to quickly access the needed resources without disrupting their day-to-day tasks.

With this integration, Mindtickle can track sales activities, provide real-time feedback, and sync data between platforms to ensure consistent and impactful sales engagement, helping drive better outcomes and performance across your sales team.

☎ DIALERS & WEBCONFERENCING

Integration with Dialers, Web Conferencing Platforms

Dialers & Webconferencing Integrations

Mindtickle integrates seamlessly with dialers and web conferencing platforms, bringing valuable call and meeting data directly into the platform. This integration allows sales reps to access training materials, scripts, and real-time coaching.

With Mindtickle, interactions are analyzed in real-time, providing actionable insights and personalized feedback to improve rep performance. All call and engagement data is captured and synced back into Mindtickle, enabling comprehensive reporting and performance tracking, which helps to optimize training and boost sales outcomes continuously.

🔌 APIs

REST API for custom connectivity

API support
  • Content APIs – Allows third parties to pull content metadata and just-in-time content into their systems.

  • User APIs- SCIM and Open APIs allow Mindtickle to pull users and their attributes from third-party systems. Out-of-the-box integrations can be used for specific cases.

  • Reporting API- Allows third parties to pull all Mindtickle data for external analysis.

Single source of truth as deals progress

Amet minim mollit non deserunt ullamco est sit aliqua dolor do amet sint. Velit officia consequat duis enim velit mollit exercitation veniam.

Speed up sales cycles with mutual action plans

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Another sub-bullet if needed

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Another sub-bullet if needed

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COLLABORATION LOREM

Collaborate & share content in one centralized place

Ramp-up-Quickly
ENGAGEMENT INSIGHTS LOREM

Understand what resonates with buyers

Ramp-up-Quickly
Real-time content insights

Amet minim mollit non deserunt ullamco est sit aliqua dolor do amet sint. Velit officia consequat duis enim velit mollit exercitation veniam.

Another sub-bullet if needed

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If needed

Amet minim mollit non deserunt ullamco est sit aliqua dolor do amet sint officia consequat duis enim velit mollit.

Another sub-bullet if needed

Amet minim mollit non deserunt ullamco est sit aliqua dolor do amet sint officia consequat duis enim velit mollit.

arht

At the end of the day, Mindtickle was ultimately the best choice based on the features, based on the pricing, and ultimately the customer service that we were given throughout the sales process.

Andrew Dorcas
Senior VP, Sales & Strategy, ARHT

USE CASE

Better buyer experiences lead to bigger deals

Learn how digital sales rooms help foster better buyer engagement dolor sit amet consectetur. Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque.

man and woman shaking hands on a blue background
FEATURES

Our platform has all the digital sales room features you need

Quick blurb about your all-in-one revenue enablement platform. Nullam sit sed non tincidunt nec in ut. Interdum porta vitae amet amet augue volutpat faucibus.

Shareable URLs

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Contact Enrichment

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Feature name here

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Slack & Teams Integrations

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Security

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur labore ornare egestas.

Feature name here

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Digital Sales Rooms are part of our award-winning, all-in-one revenue enablement platform

CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Customer success headline here dolor

“Mindtickle makes it simple for our sales and marketing teams to create personalized digital sales rooms in minutes…which allows us to customize assets quickly and efficiently. It’s been huge for us”

FirstName LastName
VP of Sales Enablement

DIGITAL SALES ROOM RESOURCES

Resources

WHITE PAPER
Buyer Enablement: Sales Enablement Evolved
man and woman shaking hands on a blue background
SALES ENABLEMENT
Why You Need a Buyer Enablement Strategy (and How to Build One That Works)
Woman looking at laptop with Sirion Labs and MIndtickle logos on a yellow background
SALES ENABLEMENT
Sirion Case Study – Digital Sales Rooms
🖥 related products

Related products

Ready to get Started?

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AI Training for Chemical Industry – Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/ai-training-for-the-chemical-industry/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 09:06:06 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24048 Solutions > CHEMICALS Build an elite team of chemicals sales reps Level up and modernize your sales training with AI-powered sales enablement for the chemicals industry Request a demo Take a quick tour Learn how Henkel modernized revenue enablement at scale Read the blog Learn more about how we can support you Get started quickly …

The post AI Training for Chemical Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Solutions

>

CHEMICALS

Build an elite team of chemicals sales reps

Level up and modernize your sales training with AI-powered sales enablement for the chemicals industry

mindtickle-customers2

Learn how Henkel modernized revenue enablement at scale

Learn more about how we can support you

SCI-white-logo
ARHT-white-logo
Unisys-white-logo
😞 CHEMICAL INDUSTRY PAIN POINTS

Is your training and enablement feeling a little old-fashioned?

You’re not alone. Chemical industry sales teams are among the field-based sales orgs that continue to rely largely on in-person, manual training.

Our training process is inconsistent and not scalable. We need easier ways to help reps in the field.

The chemicals industry changes rapidly. We have a hard time keeping our reps up-to-date.

Our omnichannel sales approach means our attention is divided across a number of different selling roles.

Competition is fierce and the market is getting saturated. We struggle to maintain an edge.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌WE CAN HELP

Modernize your enablement to boost your ROI

Leverage AI to scale your sales training making it more tailored and impactful.

0 %

increase in deal sizes

0 %

increase in revenue per rep

0 %

faster onboarding

🤗 COMPETENCY-BASED SALES TRAINING

Start building ideal chemicals sales reps

Create your ideal rep profile and start identifying and building winning behaviors in your sales team.

Measure and track every rep’s skills against organizational benchmarks. Identify skill gaps and start closing them.

Correlate skill improvement to revenue outcomes. Prove the impact and ROI of your enablement efforts.

🔨 AI ROLE-PLAYS

Coach and practice at scale with AI

Create a safe space for your reps to practice and receive instant feedback with AI role-plays—sporadic coaching from managers isn’t enough to move the needle.

Use interactive role-plays with AI customer stand-ins to simulate realistic, back-and-forth sales interactions.

Overcome the bottleneck of limited coaching time by using AI to review role-play submissions and ease the grading process for managers.

chat

Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time across a single initiative with AI role-plays.

🔥GET STARTED QUICKLY

Launch engaging training for chemical reps quickly and easily.

AI content creation

Ready-to-use content

Enable chemical sales reps at scale with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why chemical sales organizations love Mindtickle

Henkel modernized their sales training with Mindtickle’s enablement platform.

“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people…We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them,”

Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus

89,000

modules
completed

Give your reps the edge
they need.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

Condimentum dolor nec tortor ante mi enim iaculis urna. Auctor id ultrices dolor nec tortor ante.

gartner-peer

The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Tincidunt enim viverra pellentesque pellentesque morbi. Diam nisi placerat leo sed non cras in ac id morbi amet suscipit.
Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque. Ipsum id sed egestas.

Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

The post AI Training for Chemical Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Sales Enablement for the Chemical Industry – Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/sales-enablement-for-the-chemical-industry/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 09:00:37 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24047 Solutions > CHEMICALS Build an elite team of chemicals sales reps Level up and modernize your sales training with AI-powered sales enablement for the chemicals industry Request a demo Take a quick tour Learn how Henkel modernized revenue enablement at scale Read the blog 😞 CHEMICAL INDUSTRY PAIN POINTS Is your training and enablement feeling …

The post Sales Enablement for the Chemical Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>

Solutions

>

CHEMICALS

Build an elite team of chemicals sales reps

Level up and modernize your sales training with AI-powered sales enablement for the chemicals industry

mindtickle-customers2

Learn how Henkel modernized revenue enablement at scale

SCI-white-logo
ARHT-white-logo
Unisys-white-logo
😞 CHEMICAL INDUSTRY PAIN POINTS

Is your training and enablement feeling a little old-fashioned?

You’re not alone. Chemical industry sales teams are among the field-based sales orgs that continue to rely largely on in-person, manual training.

Our training process is inconsistent and not scalable. We need easier ways to help reps in the field.

The chemicals industry changes rapidly. We have a hard time keeping our reps up-to-date.

Our omnichannel sales approach means our attention is divided across a number of different selling roles.

Competition is fierce and the market is getting saturated. We struggle to maintain an edge.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌WE CAN HELP

Modernize your enablement to boost your ROI

Leverage AI to scale your sales training making it more tailored and impactful.

0 %

increase in deal sizes

0 %

increase in revenue per rep

0 %

faster onboarding

🤗 COMPETENCY-BASED SALES TRAINING

Start building ideal chemicals sales reps

Create your ideal rep profile and start identifying and building winning behaviors in your sales team.

Measure and track every rep’s skills against organizational benchmarks. Identify skill gaps and start closing them.

Correlate skill improvement to revenue outcomes. Prove the impact and ROI of your enablement efforts.

🔨 AI ROLE-PLAYS

Coach and practice at scale with AI

Create a safe space for your reps to practice and receive instant feedback with AI role-plays—sporadic coaching from managers isn’t enough to move the needle.

Use interactive role-plays with AI customer stand-ins to simulate realistic, back-and-forth sales interactions.

Overcome the bottleneck of limited coaching time by using AI to review role-play submissions and ease the grading process for managers.

chat

Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time across a single initiative with AI role-plays.

🔥GET STARTED QUICKLY

Launch engaging training for chemical reps quickly and easily.

AI content creation

Ready-to-use content

Enable chemical sales reps at scale with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why chemical sales organizations love Mindtickle

Henkel modernized their sales training with Mindtickle’s enablement platform.

“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people…We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them,”

Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus

89,000

modules
completed

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

You need a strong partner
to drive chemical sales training
transformation at scale.

Give your reps the edge
they need.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

Condimentum dolor nec tortor ante mi enim iaculis urna. Auctor id ultrices dolor nec tortor ante.

gartner-peer

The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Tincidunt enim viverra pellentesque pellentesque morbi. Diam nisi placerat leo sed non cras in ac id morbi amet suscipit.
Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque. Ipsum id sed egestas.

Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Learn more about how we can support you

The post Sales Enablement for the Chemical Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

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AI Training for Consumer Goods and Retail | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/ai-training-for-consumer-goods-and-retail/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 08:10:48 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24046 Solutions > CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS Boost the productivity of your CPG sellers Mindtickle evolves your training programs with smart AI enablement solutions for upskilling reps in the consumer packaged goods space. Request a demo Take a quick tour Future-proof your CPG sales strategy Read the blog Learn more about how we can support you Get …

The post AI Training for Consumer Goods and Retail | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Solutions

>

CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS

Boost the productivity of your CPG sellers

Mindtickle evolves your training programs with smart AI enablement solutions for upskilling reps in the consumer packaged goods space.

amazon business logo
alliance

Future-proof your CPG sales strategy

Learn more about how we can support you

😞 WE FEEL YOUR PAIN

Is your sales training stuck in the past?

You’re not alone. We talk to CPG companies everyday who are taking the steps to modernize their approach to training their reps.

Our training process isn’t efficient or scalable. It costs a lot to onboard reps and the learning isn’t often retained.

We’re still training our reps the way we did 10 years ago, even though so much has changed in our industry.

We’re struggling to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

We’re struggling to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌WE CAN HELP

Modernizing CPG sales training isn’t as hard as you think.

Augment your in-person training with digital enablement content and serve it to your reps when they need it in their flow of work.

0 %

increase in deal sizes

0 %

increase in revenue per rep

0 %

faster onboarding

🤗 COMPETENCY-BASED SALES TRAINING

Create skill-based sales training programs

Create competency-based profiles for each go-to-market role

Measure and track rep’s skills against winning benchmarks

Correlate skill development with performance in the field to show the business impact of training

🔨 AI ROLE-PLAYS

Coach and practice at scale with AI

Similate selling scenarios with an AI customer that interacts with reps in realistic back-and-forth sales conversations.

Simulate real scenarios with interactive role-plays with AI customer stand-ins that ask questions and raise objections in a realistic, back-and-forth conversation.

Streamline coaching by overcoming time constraints and delivering immediate AI-driven feedback.

chat

Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time across a single initiative with AI roleplays.

🔥GET STARTED QUICKLY

No one makes it easier to build and launch CPG sales training

AI content creation

Ready-to-use content

Create engaging CPG sales enablement materials at scale with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why CPG sales training leaders love Mindtickle

Henkel modernized their sales training with Mindtickle’s enablement platform.

“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people…We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them.”

Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus

89,000

modules complete

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

You need a strong partner to drive CPG sales training transformation at scale.

Take your CPG sales training
to the next level.

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Tincidunt enim viverra pellentesque pellentesque morbi. Diam nisi placerat leo sed non cras in ac id morbi amet suscipit.
Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque. Ipsum id sed egestas.

Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

Condimentum dolor nec tortor ante mi enim iaculis urna. Auctor id ultrices dolor nec tortor ante.

gartner-peer

The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

The post AI Training for Consumer Goods and Retail | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>
Revenue Enablement for Retail | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/retail/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 08:05:57 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24044 Solutions > CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS Boost the productivity of your CPG sellers Mindtickle evolves your training programs with smart AI enablement solutions for upskilling reps in the consumer packaged goods space. Request a demo Take a quick tour Future-proof your CPG sales strategy Read the blog 😞 WE FEEL YOUR PAIN Is your sales training …

The post Revenue Enablement for Retail | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>

Solutions

>

CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS

Boost the productivity of your CPG sellers

Mindtickle evolves your training programs with smart AI enablement solutions for upskilling reps in the consumer packaged goods space.

amazon business logo
alliance

Future-proof your CPG sales strategy

😞 WE FEEL YOUR PAIN

Is your sales training stuck in the past?

You’re not alone. We talk to CPG companies everyday who are taking the steps to modernize their approach to training their reps.

Our training process isn’t efficient or scalable. It costs a lot to onboard reps and the learning isn’t often retained.

We’re still training our reps the way we did 10 years ago, even though so much has changed in our industry.

We’re struggling to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

We’re struggling to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌WE CAN HELP

Modernizing CPG sales training isn’t as hard as you think.

Augment your in-person training with digital enablement content and serve it to your reps when they need it in their flow of work.

0 %

increase in deal sizes

0 %

increase in revenue per rep

0 %

faster onboarding

🤗 COMPETENCY-BASED SALES TRAINING

Create skill-based sales training programs

Create competency-based profiles for each go-to-market role

Measure and track rep’s skills against winning benchmarks

Correlate skill development with performance in the field to show the business impact of training

🔨 AI ROLE-PLAYS

Coach and practice at scale with AI

Similate selling scenarios with an AI customer that interacts with reps in realistic back-and-forth sales conversations.

Simulate real scenarios with interactive role-plays with AI customer stand-ins that ask questions and raise objections in a realistic, back-and-forth conversation.

Streamline coaching by overcoming time constraints and delivering immediate AI-driven feedback.

chat

Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time across a single initiative with AI roleplays.

🔥GET STARTED QUICKLY

No one makes it easier to build and launch CPG sales training

AI content creation

Ready-to-use content

Create engaging CPG sales enablement materials at scale with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why CPG sales training leaders love Mindtickle

Henkel modernized their sales training with Mindtickle’s enablement platform.

“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people…We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them.”

Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus

89,000

modules complete

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

You need a strong partner to drive CPG sales training transformation at scale.

Take your CPG sales training
to the next level.

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Tincidunt enim viverra pellentesque pellentesque morbi. Diam nisi placerat leo sed non cras in ac id morbi amet suscipit.
Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque. Ipsum id sed egestas.

Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

Condimentum dolor nec tortor ante mi enim iaculis urna. Auctor id ultrices dolor nec tortor ante.

gartner-peer

The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

Learn more about how we can support you

The post Revenue Enablement for Retail | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>
AI Sales for Automotive Industry – Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/ai-sales-for-automotive/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 07:52:27 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24041 BY SOLUTION > AUTOMOTIVE Unlock peak performance for automotive sellers Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle. Request a demo Take a quick tour See why leading automotive brands trust Mindtickle for dealer sales training excellence Watch now Learn more about how we can support you …

The post AI Sales for Automotive Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>

BY SOLUTION

>

AUTOMOTIVE

Unlock peak performance for automotive sellers

Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle.

See why leading automotive brands trust Mindtickle for dealer sales training excellence

Learn more about how we can support you

😞 PAIN POINTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS

Are these challenges holding back your automotive sales team?

We understand the struggles – Mindtickle can help your team overcome them and reach their full potential.

I struggle to keep my network of dealer sellers up-to-date with frequent car make and model releases

It’s difficult to manage certifications for my large network of dealerships

I’m not sure if sellers are using the most up-to-date content and collateral

My sales strategies feel disconnected from customer needs, leading to a poor buying experience.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌Leading organizations unlock transformative results with Mindtickle

Keep automotive sellers informed on innovations and regulations

Onboard and certify automotive sellers and deliver tailored car buying experiences.

0 %

increase in average deal sizes

0 %

reduction in seller ramp time

0 %

increase in seller productivity

🤗 TAILORED BUYING EXPERIENCES

Accelerate deal cycles & boost post-sale revenue

Personalize the buyer experience to accelerate deal cycles and close deals faster.

Share approved product collateral easily to ensure accurate, consistent information throughout the process.

Continue engaging customers beyond the initial visit to drive post-sale satisfaction and revenue growth.

🚘 PERSONALIZE AUTOMOTIVE SELLER TRAINING

Elevate your network of automotive sellers with modern training

Offer personalized training to boost skills and performance by role, region, specialty and more

Support in-person and virtual training formats with a mobile-first approach.

Provide engaging certifications to keep sellers motivated and accountable.

🛞 PREPARE YOUR SELLERS FOR ANY CONVERSATION

Empower your sales force with AI role-plays

Use AI-powered interactive role-plays to prepare sellers for any showroom scenario.

Customize role-play personas to match real customer interactions for targeted practice.

Get instant feedback and automated grading, saving managers time on manual reviews.

📱 ON-THE-GO LEARNING FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS

Enable on-the-go learning for your team

Provide mobile-friendly training to ensure learning is accessible anywhere, anytime.

Keep your sales team engaged with dynamic content tailored for on-the-go learning.

Empower distributed teams with the flexibility to learn independently, driving better results.

🔥 What we offer

Elevate your automotive sales team's performance with our expert services

Custom content creation

Technical services support

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why automotive sellers and teams love Mindtickle

International on the power of AI role-plays

“The beautiful thing about having AI role-plays is that now you’ve created a safe environment where they can practice over and over again and really refine the way that they engage customers, in very realistic and lifelike situations.”

Joshua De La Luz, Sales Enablement Manager, International

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why automotive sellers and teams love Mindtickle

splunk

International on the power of AI role-plays

“The beautiful thing about having AI role-plays is that now you’ve created a safe environment where they can practice over and over again and really refine the way that they engage customers, in very realistic and lifelike situations.”

Joshua De La Luz, Sales Enablement Manager, International

XX%

increase in
revenue
related metric

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

Partner with the leader in
automotive sales training

Elevate your automotive sales
performance with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

Condimentum dolor nec tortor ante mi enim iaculis urna. Auctor id ultrices dolor nec tortor ante.

gartner-peer

The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Tincidunt enim viverra pellentesque pellentesque morbi. Diam nisi placerat leo sed non cras in ac id morbi amet suscipit.
Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque. Ipsum id sed egestas.

Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

The post AI Sales for Automotive Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>
Sales Enablement for the Automotive Industry – Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/automotive-sales-training/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 07:48:36 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24040 BY SOLUTION > AUTOMOTIVE Unlock peak performance for automotive sellers Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle. Request a demo Take a quick tour See why leading automotive brands trust Mindtickle for dealer sales training excellence Watch now 😞 PAIN POINTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS Are these …

The post Sales Enablement for the Automotive Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>

BY SOLUTION

>

AUTOMOTIVE

Unlock peak performance for automotive sellers

Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle.

See why leading automotive brands trust Mindtickle for dealer sales training excellence

😞 PAIN POINTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS

Are these challenges holding back your automotive sales team?

We understand the struggles – Mindtickle can help your team overcome them and reach their full potential.

I struggle to keep my network of dealer sellers up-to-date with frequent car make and model releases

It’s difficult to manage certifications for my large network of dealerships

I’m not sure if sellers are using the most up-to-date content and collateral

My sales strategies feel disconnected from customer needs, leading to a poor buying experience.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌Leading organizations unlock transformative results with Mindtickle

Keep automotive sellers informed on innovations and regulations

Onboard and certify automotive sellers and deliver tailored car buying experiences.

0 %

increase in average deal sizes

0 %

reduction in seller ramp time

0 %

increase in seller productivity

🤗 TAILORED BUYING EXPERIENCES

Accelerate deal cycles & boost post-sale revenue

Personalize the buyer experience to accelerate deal cycles and close deals faster.

Share approved product collateral easily to ensure accurate, consistent information throughout the process.

Continue engaging customers beyond the initial visit to drive post-sale satisfaction and revenue growth.

🚘 PERSONALIZE AUTOMOTIVE SELLER TRAINING

Elevate your network of automotive sellers with modern training

Offer personalized training to boost skills and performance by role, region, specialty and more

Support in-person and virtual training formats with a mobile-first approach.

Provide engaging certifications to keep sellers motivated and accountable.

🛞 PREPARE YOUR SELLERS FOR ANY CONVERSATION

Empower your sales force with AI role-plays

Use AI-powered interactive role-plays to prepare sellers for any showroom scenario.

Customize role-play personas to match real customer interactions for targeted practice.

Get instant feedback and automated grading, saving managers time on manual reviews.

📱 ON-THE-GO LEARNING FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS

Enable on-the-go learning for your team

Provide mobile-friendly training to ensure learning is accessible anywhere, anytime.

Keep your sales team engaged with dynamic content tailored for on-the-go learning.

Empower distributed teams with the flexibility to learn independently, driving better results.

🔥 What we offer

Elevate your automotive sales team's performance with our expert services

Custom content creation

Technical services support

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why automotive sellers and teams love Mindtickle

International on the power of AI role-plays

“The beautiful thing about having AI role-plays is that now you’ve created a safe environment where they can practice over and over again and really refine the way that they engage customers, in very realistic and lifelike situations.”

Joshua De La Luz, Sales Enablement Manager, International

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why automotive sellers and teams love Mindtickle

splunk

International on the power of AI role-plays

“The beautiful thing about having AI role-plays is that now you’ve created a safe environment where they can practice over and over again and really refine the way that they engage customers, in very realistic and lifelike situations.”

Joshua De La Luz, Sales Enablement Manager, International

XX%

increase in
revenue
related metric

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

Partner with the leader in
automotive sales training

Elevate your automotive sales
performance with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

Condimentum dolor nec tortor ante mi enim iaculis urna. Auctor id ultrices dolor nec tortor ante.

gartner-peer

The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet consectetur. Tincidunt enim viverra pellentesque pellentesque morbi. Diam nisi placerat leo sed non cras in ac id morbi amet suscipit.
Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque. Ipsum id sed egestas.

Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Program creation so you can dolor labore.

Learn more about how we can support you

The post Sales Enablement for the Automotive Industry – Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>
Solutions for Revenue Enablement | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/solutions-for-revenue-enablement/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 07:30:51 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24038 SOLUTIONS Solutions that fuel growth for leading revenue organizations Serving organizations of all sizes and industries for over a decade. We’ve got you covered. Explore our solutions: By role By use case By industry Unlock Your Business Potential with Tailored Solutions Quick implementation and onboarding Hands-on training from product experts Seamless technical setup and integration …

The post Solutions for Revenue Enablement | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>

SOLUTIONS

Solutions that fuel growth for leading revenue organizations

Serving organizations of all sizes and industries for over a decade. We’ve got you covered.

Explore our solutions:

Unlock Your Business Potential with Tailored Solutions

☝ WHY MINDTICKLE?

Partner with the proven enablement leader

Mindtickle has solutions for all kinds of enablement challenges. Learn what sets us apart from everyone else

chat

One unified platform

The training, content, and insights you need to fuel revenue growth

heart

Loved by customers & analysts

Leading analyst firms and users alike continually rank Mindtickle #1

archery

Built to scale

From scrappy startups to global enterprises, our platform is built to grow with you

Want to see results like these?

0 %

Increase in deal sizes

0 %

Increase in revenue per rep

0 %

Faster onboarding

🤓 SOLUTIONS BY ROLE

Solutions for every 
go-to-market team

Perfect your pitch with AI Role Play

Try out our AI sales simulator for free and see if you can seal the deal.
💎 solutions by use case

Solutions for every revenue enablement challenge

Partner enablement

Drive revenue through effective partner training, certification, and content
Explore partner enablement

Sales kickoffs

Host engaging and impactful kickoffs that set the tone for the year
Explore sales kickoffs

Sales certification

Ensure reps are on-brand, on-message, and field-read
Explore sales certification

Voice of the customer

Understand the evolving needs of your target customers
Explore voice of the customer

Sales Onboarding

Ramp reps quickly and accelerate time to first deal
Explore sales onboarding

AI Sales Coaching

Deliver scalable, tailored coaching to every rep with the power of AI
Explore AI sales coaching
Partner with the best
Badges-new
🤓 SOLUTIONS BY INDUSTRY

Serving industries like yours,
including…

Improve sales performance across your dealerships

  • Deliver bite-sized, engaging training and certify dealership sellers
  • Create virtual showrooms to uplevel your customer experiences past the dealership

Create sales excellence in chemicals

  • Launch engaging and personalized product and compliance training to chemical sellers
  • Measure the impact sales training has on business outcomes

Stay ahead of the market in consumer goods

  • Quickly launch new product training ensuring sellers are on-brand and on-message
  • Track the impact of sales training across channels and complex selling motions

Master medical device sales excellence

  • Deliver complex training to a distributed sales force
  • Ensure sellers master every minute with healthcare professionals using AI pitch practice

Set the benchmark for revenue enablement excellence

  • Leverage AI to improve the productivity of every go-to-market role
  • Show the impact of enablement on win rates, deal cycles, and revenue

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

Customers 🫶 Us

Cisco Increases Deal Size 31% With AI Role Play

Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident.

“The impact was tremendous using (Al Role Play) in this way. We saved about 38 weeks of manager time. That’s over 6,000 hours. And this led to much quicker feedback as well as having improved pitch.”

Chris Jackson, Distinguished Solutions Engineer

🌏 RESOURCES

Dive deeper

ASSET TYPE
Resource asset title here
ASSET TYPE
Resource asset title here
ASSET TYPE
Resource asset title here
How an AI Coach Takes Your Sales Team’s Performance to the Next Level
Sales Content Automation
Sales Content Automation: How Sales Content Management and Automation Helps Reps Close More Deals?
SalesClosing-MindtickleV2
13 Sales Closing Techniques That’ll Help You Meet Quota

You got this far, let's chat

The post Solutions for Revenue Enablement | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>
Solutions for Go-To-Market | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/solutions-for-go-to-market/ Fri, 04 Jul 2025 07:18:09 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=24037 SOLUTIONS Solutions that fuel growth for leading revenue organizations Serving organizations of all sizes and industries for over a decade. We’ve got you covered. Explore our solutions: By role By use case By industry ☝️ WHY MINDTICKLE? Partner with the proven enablement leader Mindtickle has solutions for all kinds of enablement challenges. Learn what sets …

The post Solutions for Go-To-Market | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>

SOLUTIONS

Solutions that fuel growth for leading revenue organizations

Serving organizations of all sizes and industries for over a decade. We’ve got you covered.

Explore our solutions:

☝ WHY MINDTICKLE?

Partner with the proven enablement leader

Mindtickle has solutions for all kinds of enablement challenges. Learn what sets us apart from everyone else

chat

One unified platform

The training, content, and insights you need to fuel revenue growth

heart

Loved by customers & analysts

Leading analyst firms and users alike continually rank Mindtickle #1

archery

Built to scale

From scrappy startups to global enterprises, our platform is built to grow with you

Want to see results like these?

0 %

Increase in deal sizes

0 %

Increase in revenue per rep

0 %

Faster onboarding

🤓 SOLUTIONS BY ROLE

Solutions for every 
go-to-market team

Perfect your pitch with AI Role Play

Try out our AI sales simulator for free and see if you can seal the deal.
💎 solutions by use case

Solutions for every revenue enablement challenge

Partner enablement

Drive revenue through effective partner training, certification, and content
Explore partner enablement

Sales kickoffs

Host engaging and impactful kickoffs that set the tone for the year
Explore sales kickoffs

Sales certification

Ensure reps are on-brand, on-message, and field-read
Explore sales certification

Voice of the customer

Understand the evolving needs of your target customers
Explore voice of the customer

Sales Onboarding

Ramp reps quickly and accelerate time to first deal
Explore sales onboarding

AI Sales Coaching

Deliver scalable, tailored coaching to every rep with the power of AI
Explore AI sales coaching
Partner with the best
Badges-new
🤓 SOLUTIONS BY INDUSTRY

Serving industries like yours,
including…

Improve sales performance across your dealerships

  • Deliver bite-sized, engaging training and certify dealership sellers
  • Create virtual showrooms to uplevel your customer experiences past the dealership

Create sales excellence in chemicals

  • Launch engaging and personalized product and compliance training to chemical sellers
  • Measure the impact sales training has on business outcomes

Stay ahead of the market in consumer goods

  • Quickly launch new product training ensuring sellers are on-brand and on-message
  • Track the impact of sales training across channels and complex selling motions

Master medical device sales excellence

  • Deliver complex training to a distributed sales force
  • Ensure sellers master every minute with healthcare professionals using AI pitch practice

Set the benchmark for revenue enablement excellence

  • Leverage AI to improve the productivity of every go-to-market role
  • Show the impact of enablement on win rates, deal cycles, and revenue

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

Customers 🫶 Us

Cisco Increases Deal Size 31% With AI Role Play

Duis aute irure dolor in reprehenderit in voluptate velit esse cillum dolore eu fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat non proident.

“The impact was tremendous using (Al Role Play) in this way. We saved about 38 weeks of manager time. That’s over 6,000 hours. And this led to much quicker feedback as well as having improved pitch.”

Chris Jackson, Distinguished Solutions Engineer

🌏 RESOURCES

Dive deeper

ASSET TYPE
Resource asset title here
ASSET TYPE
Resource asset title here
ASSET TYPE
Resource asset title here
How an AI Coach Takes Your Sales Team’s Performance to the Next Level
Sales Content Automation
Sales Content Automation: How Sales Content Management and Automation Helps Reps Close More Deals?
SalesClosing-MindtickleV2
13 Sales Closing Techniques That’ll Help You Meet Quota

You got this far, let's chat

Unlock Your Business Potential with Tailored Solutions

The post Solutions for Go-To-Market | Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

]]>
What Does Commercial Excellence Mean for CPG – and How Can You Achieve it? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/commercial-excellence/ Tue, 01 Jul 2025 16:08:02 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=24017 In the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, offering great products has always been important. That hasn’t changed, and it never will. But in today’s highly competitive marketplace, product innovation alone is no longer enough to guarantee success. To stay ahead, CPG brands must also focus on achieving commercial excellence. Commercial excellence is all about optimizing …

The post What Does Commercial Excellence Mean for CPG – and How Can You Achieve it? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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In the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry, offering great products has always been important. That hasn’t changed, and it never will.

But in today’s highly competitive marketplace, product innovation alone is no longer enough to guarantee success. To stay ahead, CPG brands must also focus on achieving commercial excellence.

Commercial excellence is all about optimizing the way your business sells to maximize impact. It involves aligning the right people, refining processes, and equipping teams with the tools they need to compete and win.

One of the most critical tools in that toolkit? The right CPG sales enablement solution.

In this post, we’ll unpack what commercial excellence really means in the CPG industry, explore common challenges in achieving it, and show how the right CPG sales enablement platform can empower your team to sell smarter and deliver real, bottom-line results.

What is commercial excellence?

The phrase “commercial excellence” is one that’s thrown around a lot. But its meaning often varies depending on who you ask.

With that in mind, let’s start by defining what commercial excellence really means for consumer packaged goods brands.

Commercial excellence, defined

Commercial excellence is a CPG brand’s ability to drive consistent, sustainable growth by optimizing how the business goes to market. It isn’t as simple as selling more products. Instead, it’s about building a high-performing commercial organization that connects strategy to execution, and execution to measurable results.

To achieve commercial excellence, consumer goods organizations must get three things right:

  • People: Teams must be aligned, have the right skills, and the will to deliver results.
  • Processes: Commercial activities must be planned, executed, and measured in a streamlined, repeatable way.
  • Tools: Teams must have the data, insights, and platforms to be effective and efficient in their roles.

Why is commercial excellence a top priority for CPG brands?

Commercial excellence matters in every industry. But it’s particularly important for CPG brands.

But why?

Because in the world of CPG, competition is fierce, margins are razor-thin, and consumer expectations are constantly in flux.

Sure, the CPG market makes up a sizable chunk of the global economy. In fact, the global CPG industry is predicted to grow to nearly $245 billion by 2030.

CPG industry predicted market size by 2030
$ 0 billion

But the life of a CPG seller isn’t easy. Front line teams face enormous challenges. They’re juggling multiple priorities, territories, and accounts – all while being asked to do more with less.

Simply telling sellers to “work harder” isn’t enough. These reps are already stretched thin as it is. And leaning too heavily on promotions and discounts isn’t sustainable, especially when up to 70% of trade promotions fail to break even.

Instead, CPG organizations must ensure they have the right combination of people, processes, and tools in place to drive predictable, scalable success. That’s exactly where commercial excellence comes in.

What does sales enablement have to do with commercial excellence?

Sales enablement is a critical piece of the commercial excellence equation. But why?

A sales enablement platform bridges the gap between strategy and execution. It equips revenue teams with the tools, content, and insights they need to engage the right customers, at the right time, with the right message.

With the right CPG sales enablement platform in place, sellers can work smarter, not harder, and do it consistently across markets and teams.

Think of it this way: commercial excellence is the goal. Sales enablement is how you get there.

Top challenges in achieving commercial excellence

Commercial excellence is often a priority at CPG brands. But often, achieving this goal is easier said than done.

While the concept of aligning people, processes, and tools seems clear, the reality of bringing it to life across a large, fast-moving organization is often challenging.

Here are four of the most common roadblocks that stand in the way of achieving commercial excellence.

#1 Inconsistent training and coaching

Well-trained, well-coached teams are essential to achieving commercial excellence. But without consistent, personalized onboarding, reinforcement, and coaching, CPG sellers are often left to figure things out on their own or rely on tribal knowledge. This leads to slower ramp times, inconsistent performance, and missed opportunities in the field.

#2 Gaps in rep skill development

CPG sales reps are constantly faced with change – whether it’s shifting buyer expectations, new competitors, evolving selling environments, or some mix of those factors. Achieving commercial excellence requires a culture of continuous learning, where teams are empowered to grow and adapt in the midst of change.

Yet, many organizations lack a structured approach to skill development. Without it, even top-performing reps can easily fall behind the curve.

#3 Disorganized sales content and messaging

CPG sellers rely on sales content to engage their buyers throughout the sales cycle. But when content is outdated, difficult to find, or inconsistent across teams, it impairs productivity and weakens your message in the market.

CPG reps shouldn’t spend more time searching for content than actually using it. To scale commercial excellence, content must be accessible, relevant, and aligned across teams and territories.

#4 A fragmented sales tech stack

Modern CPG sales teams rely on a number of digital tools, including CRM systems, sales content management tools, and analytics dashboards – among others. In fact, more than 63% of sales organizations indicate they have 10 or more tools in their sales tech stack.

But often, these tools don’t play well together. This results in siloed data, duplicate effort, and a lack of visibility into what’s actually driving results.

A modern, integrated tech stack is foundational for commercial excellence. It gives go-to-market teams a unified view of the customer and the sales process and empowers leaders to make smarter, data-based decisions.

How can an AI sales enablement platform like Mindtickle help CPG brands achieve commercial excellence?

The CPG industry is evolving at break-neck speed, and CPG sales teams face mounting pressure to do more with less. Achieving commercial excellence in this environment isn’t as simple as offering great products. Organizations must also equip sales teams with the right training, tools, and insights to consistently deliver great results.

That’s why CPG sales enablement – fueled by an AI sales enablement platform like Mindtickle – is a critical driver of success.

Sales enablement drives commercial excellence in the CPG industry

CPG sales training is essential to achieving commercial excellence. But one-time onboarding and static, one-size-fits all training and content aren’t enough.

Today’s CPG sellers need continuous skill development, personalized coaching, and easy access to relevant sales content – all delivered through a modern AI sales enablement tool.

Mindtickle meets this need by centralizing CPG sales training, coaching, content, and analytics into one platform. That means sellers can easily find everything they need to engage buyers confidently and close deals effectively.

AI sales training and coaching accelerates results

While CPG sales training and coaching have always been important, traditional approaches often fall short – especially when it comes to personalization and scale. AI capabilities with a CPG sales enablement platform can help you bridge that gap.

Mindtickle’s AI-powered capabilities supercharge CPG sales enablement through intelligent, adaptive learning. The platform continuously assesses each rep’s strengths and weaknesses to deliver personalized AI sales training paths that accelerate skill development.

With AI sales coaching, sales reps also receive real-time feedback on their performance in role-plays or sales calls. This helps ensure sellers are using best practices and consistent messaging – and getting guidance on how they can improve their interactions with buyers.

Meanwhile, AI-driven analytics give managers visibility into individual and team performance so they can identify trends and intervene strategically. This fosters a culture of continuous improvement, which is an essential component of sustainable commercial excellence.

Mindtickle is the right choice for CPG brands

Mindtickle is purpose-built to meet the needs of the CPG industry. It integrates seamlessly into your existing tech stack and sales processes, centralizing CPG sales training, coaching, content, and insights into one user-friendly platform. This ensures your CPG sales reps always have what they need, right when and where they need it.

By combining personalized CPG sales enablement with AI sales training and coaching, Mindtickle helps organizations create a culture of continuous learning and commercial excellence.

Ready to achieve commercial excellence with Mindtickle?

In today’s competitive CPG landscape, commercial excellence is essential. In order to thrive, CPG brands must equip their sales teams with the skills, tools, and insights needed to confidently and consistently engage buyers throughout the sales cycle.

That’s exactly what Mindtickle delivers.

Mindtickle helps CPG brands transform how they train, coach, and empower their teams. With AI sales training, real-time coaching, and deep performance analytics, Mindtickle enables CPG organizations to close skill gaps, accelerate sales cycles, and drive measurable business outcomes.

Commercial Excellence with Mindtickle

Ready to see how top-performing CPG brands use Mindtickle to build high-performing sales teams and achieve commercial excellence?

Schedule Your Demo

The post What Does Commercial Excellence Mean for CPG – and How Can You Achieve it? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Mindtickle Named “AI-based Sales Solution of the Year” in 2025 Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough Awards Program https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-named-ai-based-sales-solution-of-the-year-in-2025-artificial-intelligence-breakthrough-awards-program/ Wed, 25 Jun 2025 06:28:31 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=news&p=23987 Prestigious International Annual Awards Program Honors Mindtickle for AI Role-Plays Solution SAN FRANCISCO, June 26, 2025 – Mindtickle, the leading AI-powered revenue enablement platform, this week announced that it has been selected as winner of the “AI-based Sales Solution of the Year” award in the 8th annual AI Breakthrough Awards program. The awards are conducted …

The post Mindtickle Named “AI-based Sales Solution of the Year” in 2025 Artificial Intelligence Breakthrough Awards Program appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Prestigious International Annual Awards Program Honors Mindtickle for AI Role-Plays Solution

SAN FRANCISCO, June 26, 2025 – Mindtickle, the leading AI-powered revenue enablement platform, this week announced that it has been selected as winner of the “AI-based Sales Solution of the Year” award in the 8th annual AI Breakthrough Awards program. The awards are conducted by AI Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence organization that recognizes the top companies, technologies, and products in the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) market.

Mindtickle’s agentic AI platform delivers next-generation coaching, behavior intelligence, and persona-specific co-pilots, fundamentally changing how sellers engage, practice, and perform. At the heart of the coaching experience is Mindtickle’s AI role-plays solution, which enables revenue teams to hone their skills through hyper-realistic, interactive practice scenarios. 

Sellers can practice their pitches with simulated conversations with dynamic AI buyers. These role-plays provide instant qualitative and quantitative feedback, allowing reps to refine their messaging and iterate until they’ve mastered the pitch. This helps them close larger deals with greater confidence.

With just a few prompts, GTM teams can generate tailored role-play scenarios that mirror real-world selling environments. Users can tailor the role-play experience with personality traits, industry specifics, and more. With low latency, conversations feel natural and reflect the dynamic, back and forth interactions sellers experience every day.  AI also delivers real-time feedback on sentiment, speech pace, objection handling, and more. Sellers can practice as often as needed and receive live coaching that accelerates behavioral change and builds seller confidence.

With Mindtickle, enablement teams can transform the behavior of GTM teams. Sales managers can boost performance across their own teams by targeting each rep’s unique strengths and areas for improvement. Beyond real-time feedback, Mindtickle’s Copilot can automatically generate role-play modules, model pitches, and scoring criteria, and can even assess completed submissions. This end-to-end automation makes role-plays and coaching scalable across organizations of any size.

At the core of Mindtickle’s AI capabilities is a powerful analytics engine that delivers deep behavior insights. These insights help revenue teams not only coach more effectively, but continuously improve how they practice, engage, and execute enablement strategies in the field that drive stronger performance and greater business impact.

“We’re honored to receive this prestigious recognition from AI Breakthrough,” said Krishna Depura, co-founder and CEO of Mindtickle. “Our vision is to empower revenue teams through intelligent, AI-powered enablement that drives measurable behavior change and business impact.”

The AI Breakthrough Awards shine a spotlight on the boldest innovators and most impactful technologies leading the charge in AI across a comprehensive set of categories, including Generative AI, Computer Vision, AIOps, Agentic AI, Robotics, Natural Language Processing, industry-specific AI applications and many more. This year’s program attracted more than 5,000 nominations from over 20 different countries throughout the world, underscoring the explosive growth and global importance of AI as a defining technology of the 21st century.

“Mindtickle’s contextual AI-driven role-plays and feedback are enhancing how sales reps practice their skills while also signaling the end of traditional sales coaching,” said Steve Johansson, managing director, AI Breakthrough. “By using AI-powered role-plays, Mindtickle is making sales coaching scalable, efficient, and impactful, helping sales teams sharpen their skills, win bigger deals, and drive real business results. That makes Mindtickle the right choice for our ‘AI-based Sales Solution of the Year’ award!”

About Mindtickle

Mindtickle is the leading AI-powered revenue enablement platform to help revenue teams sell smarter, coach more effectively, and engage modern buyers. With AI and a unified data approach, teams get always-on help with every deal, personalized learning to improve skills, and performance insights to drive more revenue. Mindtickle is recognized by customers and industry analysts as an innovative market leader and ranked #1 by G2 for sales onboarding and training. To learn more or get started today, visit www.mindtickle.com.

About AI Breakthrough

Part of Tech Breakthrough, a leading market intelligence and recognition platform for global technology innovation and leadership, the AI Breakthrough Awards program is devoted to honoring excellence in Artificial Intelligence technologies, services, companies and products. The AI Breakthrough Awards provide public recognition for the achievements of AI companies and products in categories including Generative AI, Machine Learning, AI Platforms, Robotics, Business Intelligence, AI Hardware, Computer Vision and more. For more information visit AIBreakthroughAwards.com.

Tech Breakthrough LLC does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in our recognition programs, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with award designations. Tech Breakthrough LLC recognition consists of the opinions of the Tech Breakthrough LLC organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Tech Breakthrough LLC disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this recognition program, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

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5 Must-Haves for Every Sales Enablement Program https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-must-haves-for-every-sales-enablement-program/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-must-haves-for-every-sales-enablement-program/#comments Wed, 25 Jun 2025 04:12:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=16757 In the world of B2B sales, missed quotas are more common than most would like to admit. In fact, recent research shows that only 19% of B2B sales managers say at least three-quarters of their reps are hitting quota. But sales leaders don’t have to settle for that reality. With the right strategies in place, …

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In the world of B2B sales, missed quotas are more common than most would like to admit. In fact, recent research shows that only 19% of B2B sales managers say at least three-quarters of their reps are hitting quota.

But sales leaders don’t have to settle for that reality. With the right strategies in place, they can improve performance across the entire team.

Hiring the right sellers for the right roles is the first step. But it’s only one part of the equation. To drive consistent performance, organizations also need to build sales enablement programs that properly equip sellers to engage buyers throughout the sales cycle and ultimately, win more deals.

Still, not all sales enablement programs deliver the same impact. While some drive real gains in productivity and performance, others miss the mark. What sets the high-performing sales enablement programs apart?

In this post, we’ll explore five essential components every successful sales enablement program needs to deliver real impact.

What is a sales enablement program?

Before we dive into the key components of a sales enablement program, let’s take a step back to define what a sales enablement program is.

A sales enablement program is a strategic initiative designed to equip sales teams with the tools, content, training, and support they need to engage buyers more effectively and close more deals. It’s about ensuring sellers have the right resources at the right time, aligned with each stage of the buyer journey.

Sales enablement programs typically involve a range of activities, such as developing a content strategy, building sales training and coaching programs, and implementing technology solutions like customer relationship management (CRM) systems, sales automation tools, revenue enablement solutions, and analytics platforms.

When done well, a sales enablement program can help sellers ramp faster, stay productive, and adapt their approach to meet the ever-evolving needs of today’s buyers. For sales leaders, a sales enablement program also provides the visibility and consistency needed to ensure sales performance isn’t left to chance.

How to align your sales enablement with sales process development

Aligning sales enablement with sales process development involves integrating the tools, content, and training provided through sales enablement into the various stages of the sales process. This helps ensure that sales reps have the resources they need to effectively engage with prospects and customers at each stage of the process, ultimately improving their performance and increasing the likelihood of success.

Here are some steps organizations can take to align sales enablement with sales process development.

The first step is to clearly define the stages of the sales process, from lead generation to close. This helps identify the specific needs and challenges of sales reps at each stage, which in turn informs the development of sales enablement resources.

Based on the identified needs of sales reps at each stage of the sales process, organizations can create relevant and engaging sales enablement content, such as product information, customer case studies, and competitive analysis.

In addition to providing sales enablement content, organizations should also provide training to help sales reps effectively use the content and tools provided through sales enablement. This can include training on product features and benefits, objection handling, and sales techniques.

Once sales enablement content and training have been developed, they should be integrated into the various stages of the sales process. For example, sales reps can use customer case studies and competitive analysis during the qualification and discovery stage, and use product information and objection-handling techniques during the presentation and negotiation stage.

Finally, organizations should continuously evaluate the effectiveness of their sales enablement efforts and make improvements as necessary. This can involve gathering feedback from sales reps and customers, tracking key performance metrics, and iterating on sales enablement content and training to better align with the sales process.

By aligning sales enablement with sales process development, organizations can better support their sales reps throughout the sales process, ultimately improving their performance and increasing their chances of success.

How to align enablement efforts with the buyer’s journey

This is probably a broken record that sales enablement leaders are very familiar with hearing. While its importance is easy to understand, executing it well is not.

No matter where you are in executing them, here are the important steps organizations can take to align their sales enablement efforts with the buyer’s journey:

The first step is to understand the different stages of the buyer’s journey, from awareness to consideration to decision. This helps identify the specific needs and challenges of buyers at each stage, which can inform the development of sales enablement resources.

Based on the identified needs of buyers at each stage of the journey, organizations can create relevant and engaging sales enablement content that addresses their specific pain points and concerns. This can include educational content, such as whitepapers and case studies, as well as product-specific content, such as demos and product sheets.

To further align sales enablement with the buyer’s journey, organizations can personalize their content for each buyer persona. This involves tailoring the content and messaging to address the specific needs, preferences, and challenges of each persona.

Once sales enablement content has been developed and personalized, it should be integrated into the different stages of the buyer’s journey. For example, organizations can use targeted email campaigns to deliver relevant content to buyers in the awareness stage and provide personalized demos and case studies to buyers in the consideration and decision stages.

Finally, organizations should continuously evaluate the effectiveness of their sales enablement efforts in supporting the buyer’s journey, and make improvements as necessary. This can involve gathering feedback from buyers, tracking key performance metrics, and iterating on sales enablement content and resources to better align with their needs.

By aligning sales enablement with the buyer’s journey, organizations can provide buyers with the information and resources they need to make informed decisions, ultimately improving their chances of closing deals and increasing customer satisfaction.

How to align sales and marketing teams together

Does an aligned sales and marketing team sound like an impossible dream?

It’s not the easiest feat but if you look at alignment as something to be done in the phases outlined below, you can break off the broader initiative into more achievable and realistic blocks of work.

Here’s where to start:

The first step is to establish shared goals and objectives that both teams can work towards. This helps ensure that both teams are aligned and working towards a common purpose. Shared goals could include increasing lead generation, improving lead quality, and driving revenue growth.

To further align sales and marketing, organizations can develop buyer personas that both teams can use to better understand the needs and preferences of target buyers. This helps ensure that both teams are targeting the same types of buyers and messaging is consistent across both teams.

Effective communication is key to aligning sales and marketing. Organizations should establish regular meetings and check-ins between the teams to share updates, discuss progress, and provide feedback.

Sales and marketing should work together to develop content that addresses the specific needs and concerns of buyers. For example, marketing can develop educational content to attract leads, and sales can provide feedback on the effectiveness of the content in converting leads into customers.

Finally, organizations should implement feedback loops to ensure that both teams are learning from each other and improving over time. This can involve gathering feedback from sales on the quality of leads generated by marketing, and feedback from marketing on the effectiveness of sales messaging and content.

By aligning sales and marketing teams, organizations can improve lead generation and conversion, increase revenue growth, and improve customer satisfaction. It requires a commitment to collaboration, communication, and a shared understanding of the goals and objectives of both teams.

Elements of great sales enablement programs

The components below are absolutely essential for a successful sales enablement motion.

1. Sales onboarding and training

A good sales onboarding program is designed to equip new sales hires with the knowledge, skills, and resources they need to be successful in their role. It should provide a comprehensive introduction to the company, its culture, products/services, sales processes, and best practices.

Here is a checklist of what to make sure is included as part of your onboarding and ongoing training program:

  • Set clear objectives and expectations by outlining what they are expected to achieve and how performance is measured.
  • Role-specific training provides new hires with a deep understanding of their responsibilities and how to execute them effectively.
  • Sales reps need to have a thorough understanding of the company’s products/services and the industry they operate in. Onboarding programs should provide in-depth training on these topics.
  • Onboarding should provide training on the company’s sales processes and tools, including CRM systems, sales scripts, and objection handling.
  • Sales onboarding should be evaluated based on metrics such as ramp-up time, quota attainment, and sales productivity to continuously improve the program’s effectiveness.

By incorporating these key elements, a good sales onboarding program can ensure that new hires are well-equipped to succeed in their role, ultimately contributing to the organization’s overall success.

2. Role-playing

This is a powerful and effective way for reps to practice and improve real-world selling behaviors while allowing sales leaders to get a firsthand look at how learning is applied. And the more often they’re done, the more productive your sellers will be. According to our 2024 State of Sales Productivity Report, reps at top-performing companies perform an average of 13 role-plays per year.

Reps at top-performing orgs perform an average of

role-plays per year
0

Here are some examples of sales role-plays to try with your team. Remember that not every seller might need role-play practice for each one of these scenarios. Take a look at call recordings to see where some reps fall short so they can be coached to improve:

  • Cold calling role plays:  A salesperson practices calling a prospect for the first time and delivering a persuasive pitch.
  • Discovery call role plays: A salesperson practices asking questions to understand the prospect’s needs, pain points, and goals.
  • Objection handling role plays: A salesperson practices responding to common objections and concerns that prospects may raise during the sales process.
  • Demo role plays: A salesperson demonstrates how the product or service works and highlights its benefits to the prospect.
  • Closing role plays: A salesperson practices asking for the sale and overcoming any final objections or concerns the prospect may have.
  • Cross-selling/up-selling role plays: A salesperson practices offering additional products or services to an existing customer.
  • Negotiation role plays: A salesperson practices negotiating price and terms with a prospect to close the deal.

These role plays can be customized to the specific industry, product, or service being sold. They provide a safe and supportive environment for salespeople to practice their skills and receive feedback from their manager or trainer.

Many organizations are also incorporating AI role-plays into their sales enablement programs. AI role-plays allow sellers to practice in realistic scenarios with an AI buyer – giving them a safe environment to refine their skills. Reps receive immediate, targeted feedback, which they can use to fine-tune their approach before applying it in real-world selling situations.

3. Content

Sales content plays a crucial role in sales enablement. It refers to any material or resource that sales teams use to engage with prospects and customers throughout the sales cycle. Here are some ways in which sales content is used in sales enablement:

  • Sales playbook: A sales playbook is a comprehensive guide that outlines the company’s sales process, best practices, and key messaging. It provides sellers with a roadmap for how to navigate the sales process and effectively communicate with prospects.
  • Sales training materials: Sales training materials, such as e-learning modules, videos, and quizzes, can be used to provide sellers with the foundational knowledge they need to be successful in their role. This can include topics such as objection handling, lead qualification, and negotiation.
  • Sales collateral: Sales collateral, such as sales decks, one-pagers, and white papers, can be used to support sellers during their sales conversations with prospects. They provide reps with the messaging and talking points they need to effectively communicate the value of the product or service.
  • Sales tools: Sales tools, such as CRM systems, sales enablement platforms, and lead generation tools, can be used to streamline the sales process and make it easier for new hires to manage their pipeline and stay organized.
  • Personalization: Sales content can be personalized for specific audiences or buyer personas. This can include customizing messaging, using specific examples or case studies, and tailoring content to the prospect’s stage in the buyer’s journey.

Centralizing sales content is key so sellers can always find what they need. Even better is using a sales content management system that leverages AI to recommend the right content based on factors like deal stage and buyer engagement. That helps sellers spend less time guessing and more time delivering content that resonates.

4. Coaching

Sales coaching is an essential component of sales enablement. It involves providing personalized feedback, guidance, and support to sales teams to help them improve their skills and increase their effectiveness in selling. Here are some ways in which sales coaching is used in sales enablement:

  1. Skill development: Sales coaching can be used to develop and improve specific sales skills, such as prospecting, objection handling, and closing. This can help sales reps become more confident and effective in their sales conversations.
  2. Sales process improvement: Sales coaching can also be used to improve the overall sales process, by identifying areas for improvement and providing guidance on how to address them. This can lead to increased efficiency and effectiveness in the sales process.
  3. Goal setting and accountability: Sales coaching can be used to set goals and hold sales reps accountable for their performance. This can help to ensure that sales reps are aligned with the organization’s goals and that they are working towards achieving them.
  4. Performance feedback: Sales coaching can be used to provide regular feedback on sales reps’ performance, identifying areas of strength and areas for improvement. This can help sales reps to continuously improve their skills and performance.
  5. Coaching culture: Sales coaching can help to create a coaching culture within the organization, where sales managers and leaders prioritize coaching and development as a key part of their role. This can lead to a more engaged and motivated sales team and improved sales results.

By using sales coaching in sales enablement, organizations can ensure that their sales teams have the support and guidance they need to improve their skills and achieve their goals. It can also help to create a culture of continuous learning and development, which is essential for success in today’s fast-paced business environment.

Sales managers are typically the ones responsible for coaching their reps. While manager-led coaching can be highly effective, it’s also time-consuming, and feedback often comes too late to make an immediate impact.

Today, many organizations are turning to AI to deliver real-time sales coaching. For example, AI tools can analyze sales calls or role-play recordings and provide instant feedback on things like pacing, tone, and talk-to-listen ratio. Sellers can use this feedback to improve their approach right away.

5. Analytics

It’s important to close the loop on all these sales enablement efforts. This means tracking certain KPIs over time to gauge whether sales enablement training, coaching, and other approaches are helping to improve seller performance.

By evaluating both individual and team performance metrics, as well as how they correlate to revenue, you can diagnose any issues or gaps within your enablement program. And when you’re able to locate where the problems are, you can make changes, like creating additional training materials around a certain topic or assigning role-plays to reps with specified selling scenarios. AI makes it even easier to make sense of this data and understand how to take action on it.

Benefits of a sales enablement program

A strong sales enablement program can drive measurement improvements across multiple areas of the organization. Let’s take a look at some of the key benefits.

1. Accelerates rep ramp time

An effective sales enablement program streamlines onboarding by giving reps structured training, relevant content, and clear guidance. This helps new sellers get up to speed quickly and start contributing to revenue growth sooner.

2. Boosts sales productivity

Sales reps only have so many hours in the day, and it’s important that they make the most of each one. A well-designed sales enablement program centralizes all resources and content. That means sellers can spend less time searching for what they need and more time building relationships and closing deals.

3. Improves buyer engagement

Modern B2B buyers expect relevant, personalized experiences throughout the purchase journey. A sales enablement program ensures sellers have content and messaging needed to engage buyers effectively – wherever they are in the sales cycle.

4. Ensures consistent messaging and sales execution

Buyers expect seamless experiences, whether they’re doing research on their own or speaking with a seller. A sales enablement program helps align sales and marketing around a unified strategy. This ensures reps deliver consistent, on-brand messaging every time.

5. Provides data-driven insights for continuous improvement

Modern sales enablement platforms provide visibility into what’s working and what’s not. These insights empower organizations to optimize their strategies and scale what’s driven results.

Is your sales enablement program preparing your reps to close more deals?

Modern sellers face more challenges than ever before. Sales enablement – when it’s done right – can help sellers overcome these challenges and close more deals.

But creating a sales enablement team doesn’t guarantee results. It’s imperative to build and deliver programs and initiatives that’ll actually prepare your sellers to close deals. It’s also critical to incorporate five must-haves into your sales enablement strategy: sales onboarding, role-playing, content, coaching, and analytics.

Today, leading revenue organizations turn to Mindtickle to build and deliver sales enablement programs that ensure sellers have what it takes to crush any deal. Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform incorporates all the key ingredients of sales enablement – right from one integrated platform.

Sales Enablement with Mindtickle

Ready to why the best revenue organizations are choosing Mindtickle to build impactful sales enablement programs?

Schedule Your Demo

This post was originally published in September 2022, was updated in April 2023, May 2024 and June 2025. 

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The Metrics for Measuring Your Sales Enablement Program https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-metrics-for-measuring-your-sales-enablement-program-why-asset-views-isnt-one-of-them/ Thu, 19 Jun 2025 09:21:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13523 All too often, organizations think they’re measuring the impact of sales enablement. But in reality, they’re focusing on the wrong things. Sure, content views and training attendance offer some insight. But they don’t tell you whether your sales enablement efforts are actually driving outcomes that matter, like higher win rates or real revenue growth. That’s …

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All too often, organizations think they’re measuring the impact of sales enablement. But in reality, they’re focusing on the wrong things.

Sure, content views and training attendance offer some insight. But they don’t tell you whether your sales enablement efforts are actually driving outcomes that matter, like higher win rates or real revenue growth.

That’s a big miss, especially when research shows that sales enablement is now the top strategy for revenue growth.

The #1 growth tactic for revenue leaders
is improving sales enablement and training

If you’re investing in sales enablement to drive growth, you need more than vanity metrics to prove it’s working and figure out what to improve to make it work better.

But which sales enablement KPIs should you track to get a clear picture of your program’s effectiveness? Keep reading to find out.

Views or attendees are vanity metrics for sales enablement programs

Just because reps are looking at your content doesn’t mean they’re successfully using it in their sales conversations or to improve their knowledge, skills, or performance. But many sales enablement teams still use the number of content views or attendees to their training sessions as a primary measure of success. 

This approach isn’t surprising, as content views and downloads are easy to track and communicate.

For example, if you’ve already had 200 views on the new case study you published this morning, that feels positive. You can interpret those 200 views as an indicator that the piece provides value to your sales team. However, all those views mean is that someone opened that case study. They might’ve closed it right away or skimmed through it without taking in the details.

Gartner says, “The best sales enablement programs track and enforce whether resources are being used across the sales organization.”

“The best sales enablement programs track and enforce whether resources are being used across the sales organization.”
- Gartner

If you’re using content views as the primary measure of success for your sales enablement program, you’re missing out on valuable insights. You’re correlating content views with engagement — assuming that reps are using that content or learning from it and that the content has a meaningful impact on your reps’ skills and knowledge.

6 metrics that measure the real impact of sales enablement

Forward-thinking sales enablement teams understand that the true measure of sales enablement is how it affects your sales reps’ performance and drives revenue. Instead of looking at asset views, sales enablement leaders can track key sales metrics to see how asset usage impacts rep performance. Here are some vital sales metrics that will help you understand your sales enablement program’s impact on your team:

1. Content adoption

Content adoption looks at how often your salespeople use your sales enablement content in interactions with prospects to help move deals forward. You can measure content adoption in three different ways:

  • The number of times each content asset has been used in the sales process (such as included in an automated nurture campaign, sent in a personalized follow-up to a prospect, or shared in a digital sales room.
  • The percentage of your sellers who have used each content asset. 
  • The number of times each content asset has been shared in closed/won deals. 

Whichever of these methods you choose, you’ll be tracking how your sales team uses different pieces of content rather than assuming that views mean engagement.

10% of content drives 50% engagement.

Content adoption is a useful metric because you can see how often sellers use different types of sales enablement content. Content that makes it easier to engage with prospects (and, in the long run, close more deals) will be used frequently by your sellers. But content that doesn’t engage or resonate with prospects will quickly be ignored by your sales team in favor of higher-impact content.

Tracking content adoption helps you understand:

  • Whether your sales enablement content is a helpful resource for your sellers.
  • Which content formats (such as sales scripts, product sheets, battlecards, or email templates) are used most. 
  • Which product features or common pain points resonate most with potential customers and lead to closed deals. 

You can use these insights to inform your sales enablement content strategy. Your team can focus on creating more assets that positively impact the customer journey and get used frequently by your sales team.

2. Sales cycle length

Your sales cycle length measures how long (on average) your team takes to close a deal. Your sales team does a lot of work to nurture a lead into a customer, from product demos to high-value calls with C-level decision-makers. The more steps in your sales process, the longer your sales cycle will likely be.

On a more granular level, you can look at interactions at every step of the sales cycle to understand how sales enablement activities might impact a deal’s progress (or lack thereof.)

Overall, you should see your sales cycle get shorter as reps are better equipped with content and coaching to nurture leads and are enabled with the skills and knowledge they need to move deals forward.

But, as well as looking at the length of your sales cycle as a whole, you could measure:

  • The average length of time for prospects to move from lead to opportunity. 
  • The average length of time for prospects to move from opportunity to close. 

Then, look at the content used to engage and nurture prospects. Do some deals progress quicker than others? If so, it’s a good indicator that you’re producing content aligned to each stage of the sales process. As a result, your sellers have the knowledge and resources they need to sell prospects on the value of your products — and the content for prospects to convince the decision-makers in their organization.

3. Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate

The lead-to-opportunity conversion rate tracks the percentage of qualified leads that your sales reps judge as a good fit and have a high likelihood of closing. While the definition of an opportunity varies between companies, it generally refers to a prospect demonstrating a genuine interest in your product. Often, they have committed to initial discovery calls with your reps — possibly even an initial product demo or free trial.

This conversion rate is a good way to measure the impact of your sales enablement program. Your lead-to-opportunity conversion rate may improve when:

  • You produce new sales enablement content because you provide new tools for reps to use in the sales nurture process. 
  • Your sellers complete sales enablement training because they’re building skills and knowledge to sell more effectively. 
  • You reorganize your sales enablement content library to make it easier for reps to find the right content and materials they need at every stage of thes sales process. 

You should track which pieces of content your reps use in deals that convert from lead to opportunity. Doing so will help you understand what resonates with prospects, enabling you to create more impactful content to enable your sellers even better.

4. Quota attainment

Quota attainment is the percentage of sales reps who achieve their sales goals. This metric provides insight into whether sales reps are properly enabled to engage customers and close deals.

In addition to looking at quota attainment as a whole, you can also zero in further to look for trends based on factors such as:

  • Geography
  • Industry
  • Sales rep tenure

For example, you may find that quota attainment for reps who work with prospects in a specific industry is much lower than average. Here, there may be opportunities to deliver targeted content that sellers can use to engage buyers in this industry.

5. Win rate

The win rate is the percentage of opportunities that are converted to closed-won deals. It’s a clear indicator of how effective your sales team is and, by extension, how well your sales enablement initiatives are performing.

A high win rate is an indicator that your sellers are properly equipped to engage prospects and close deals. If your win rate is low (or declining), there may be gaps in knowledge or process inefficiencies.

Sales enablement can positively influence win rates by:

  • Providing sales training on product positioning and selling techniques.
  • Giving sellers opportunities to practice their skills in AI role-plays and get real-time feedback for improvement.
  • Helping sellers surface impactful content to share with prospects at every stage of the purchase journey.

By regularly tracking win rates, you can determine how different sales enablement initiatives are impacting it. For example, you might discover that win rates are significantly higher when reps use a specific case study, complete a certain sales training module, or regularly engage in AI role-plays. You can use these insights to double down on what works and make changes to what doesn’t.

6. Call scores

A sales rep might attend every training and complete every assigned enablement activity with flying colors. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re putting their learning into practice when interacting with customers.

The thing is, sales managers don’t have time to sit in on every sales call with every one of their reps to see how (or whether) sellers are actually applying what they’ve learned. There simply isn’t enough time in the day.

Today, winning revenue organizations are tapping into conversation intelligence to better understand what’s happening in the field. Conversation intelligence uses artificial intelligence to provide a score after each sales call – along with feedback about how to do better next time. Sales managers and enablement teams can use call scores to understand:

  • Whether certain enablement initiatives are improving in-field performance
  • Where there are opportunities to deliver additional enablement and sales coaching to strengthen specific skills or behaviors

7. Customer satisfaction, retention rates, and customer lifetime value

Revenue enablement ensures every seller has the tools, training, and information to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer lifecycle. When customers’ expectations are consistently met, their satisfaction grows and they’re more likely to stick with your business long-term. Satisfied customers are also more open to purchasing new product options from your business in the future.

Measuring customer satisfaction, retention, and lifetime value is an important way to determine whether your revenue enablement efforts are properly equipping customer-facing teams with what they need to effectively engage with buyers throughout the customer lifecycle.

Some ways to boost customer satisfaction, retention, and customer lifetime value include:

  • Providing revenue teams with the right content to engage with buyers throughout the purchase journey – even after they’ve signed on the dotted line
  • Delivering training and enablement that helps revenue teams stay up-to-date on B2B customer expectation trends
    Ensuring sales reps are properly trained on how to hand off new customers to the implementation or customer success team
  • Providing training and coaching on upselling and cross-selling current customers

7. Time to first deal

Time to first deal is the average amount of time it takes for a new seller to close their first deal after joining the company. This metric provides insight into how effective your onboarding and early-stage sales enablement processes are.

A long time to first deal may indicate sellers don’t understand your product or market well enough, can’t find the right content at the right time, or aren’t receiving enough sales coaching. On the other hand, a shorter time to first deal is a good indicator that your onboarding program is doing a good job preparing new reps to sell.

Sales enablement can reduce time to first deal by:

  • Delivering structured onboarding paths personalized for specific roles or regions.
  • Providing just-in-time content and microlearning focused on quick wins.
  • Using shared call recordings to model successful rep behaviors.

Tracking time to first deal can help you refine your onboarding program and get your sellers set up for success as quickly as possible.

Start tracking the sales enablement metrics that really matter

Tracking asset views and attendance gives you some surface-level insight into activity. But these sales enablement metrics don’t tell you whether or not your efforts are really driving better sales outcomes.

This is a real problem, especially if you’re investing in sales enablement as a growth strategy.

To truly understand impact, you must track a variety of metrics, including those we explored in this post. By doing so, you’ll get insight into what’s driving success and where there are opportunities to improve. Then, you can fine-tune your sales enablement strategy and better equip every seller to reach their full potential.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Curious how winning organizations use Mindtickle to build, deliver, and measure sales enablement programs that drive bottom line impact?

Request a Demo

This blog post was originally published in April 2022 and was updated in June 2024 and again in June 2025.

The post The Metrics for Measuring Your Sales Enablement Program appeared first on Mindtickle.

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GTM Enablement Explained: What It Is and How to Build an Effective Strategy https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/gtm-enablement/ Tue, 17 Jun 2025 20:02:40 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23993 There’s no single ingredient that drives B2B sales success. Instead, every deal depends on a number of moving parts working in sync, including: A strong product at the right price point Marketing campaigns that reach the right audience at the right time A sales team capable of delivering a standout buyer experiences A customer success …

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There’s no single ingredient that drives B2B sales success. Instead, every deal depends on a number of moving parts working in sync, including:

  • A strong product at the right price point
  • Marketing campaigns that reach the right audience at the right time
  • A sales team capable of delivering a standout buyer experiences
  • A customer success team ready to help customers realize full value

When even one of these pieces fall out of alignment, the entire go-to-market effort can break down. Deals stall, buyers get frustrated, and revenue slips through the cracks.

Go-to-market (GTM) enablement is what keeps these moving parts working in harmony.

GTM enablement is the strategy that aligns and equips all of your customer-facing teams to execute your go-to-market motion effectively. With the right approach, every team involved has the training, tools, content, and insights they need to drive revenue and deliver value across the entire customer journey.

If you’re not quite sure what GTM enablement is or how to put it into practice, you’re in the right place. Read on as we share a definition, walk through the steps to build a GTM enablement strategy, and share best practices to help your teams collaborate more effectively and drive revenue growth.

What is GTM enablement?

In the world of B2B sales, “enablement” is a term that’s used often. There’s sales enablement, revenue enablement, business enablement, and even customer enablement – each focused on helping teams or individuals to perform better at specific stages of the customer journey.

But where does GTM enablement fit in?

GTM enablement is the practice of equipping all customer-facing teams – including sales, marketing, customer success, and even product – with the tools, training, content, and support they need to engage buyers effectively across the entire customer lifecycle. That includes everything from the first touch to the closed deal to long-term retention and growth.

GTM enablement isn’t just about helping sales close more deals – though that’s certainly part of it. Instead, it’s about helping every team master their role in the buyer journey so your organization can consistently deliver an outstanding customer experience at every stage.

How does GTM enablement relate to sales enablement?

Sales enablement is focused on helping sales reps close more deals. GTM enablement, on the other hand, takes a broader view.

GTM enablement ensures the entire go-to-market team is aligned, prepared, and enabled to drive value at every touchpoint – from generating demand to guiding prospects through evaluation to ensuring customers get the most from your solution after they’ve made a purchase.

When all go-to-market teams are in sync, buyers experience less friction, and your organization is better positioned to build trust, close deals faster, and drive long-term growth.

Traditional vs. modern GTM enablement: What’s the difference?

As the B2B buying journey has evolved, so too has the approach to GTM enablement.

Traditional GTM enablement strategies were largely sales-focused, centered on equipping reps with the tools and training to win more deals. While this approach might still work in simpler selling environments, it falls short in today’s complex B2B landscape, where buyers typically engage with multiple teams, across multiple channels, before (and long after) they make a purchase.

Modern GTM enablement takes a broader view. It recognizes that while sales certainly plays a critical role, they’re not the only team responsible for revenue growth. Focusing solely on sales reps isn’t enough to meet buyer expectations or grow revenue.

For example, a traditional GTM enablement approach might result in a sales team that delivers a great buying experience. But once the ink is signed on the deal, the hand off to customer success is clunky or support is MIA. The result? Dissatisfied customers, increasing churn, and long-term revenue loss.

Not exactly a winning formula for revenue growth, right?

Modern GTM enablement acknowledges that every customer-facing team – including marketing, sales, customer success, and product – plays a key role in shaping the buyer experience and driving revenue. That’s why modern GTM enablement focuses on ensuring these teams are aligned and properly equipped for success.

The table below highlights some of the key differences between traditional and modern GTM enablement in today’s B2B landscape.

Traditional vs. Modern GTM Enablement in B2B

Traditional Modern

Goal

Attracting and winning new customers
Supporting customers throughout the entire lifecycle, from evaluation through retention

Focus

Sales-centric
Cross-functional, including sales, marketing, customer success, and product

Training approach

Onboarding and static training tied to product launches
Continuous learning and just-in-time enablement

Team collaboration

Multiple departments, including sales and marketing, often working in silos.
Unified GTM teams with shared goals and metrics

Customer interactions

Sales interactions, including discovery calls and demos
All interactions a customer has with a company before, during, and after making a purchase

Technology

– CRM
– Email
Integrated tech stack, including:
– CRM
– Sales enablement
– Analytics
– AI

Metrics

Activities, like:
– Calls
– Emails
– Demos
Outcomes, like:
– Pipeline velocity
– Win rates
– Customer lifetime value

Scalability

Hard to replicate or scale across teams
Designed for repeatability and scalability

By embracing modern GTM enablement, organizations can break down silos, deliver better buyer experiences, and build an efficient, scalable go-to-market engine.

How to create an effective GTM enablement strategy

An effective GTM enablement plan empowers all customer-facing teams to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the entire customer lifecycle. With the right strategy in place, you’ll be better positioned to win and retain customers and drive predictable, sustainable revenue growth.

That said, building a GTM enablement strategy from scratch can feel overwhelming. The key is to take it one step at a time. Here’s how to get started.

#1 Take stock of your current state

Before you can make any changes, you must first get a clear picture of where things stand today.

Evaluate your existing aisles processes, tech stack, content, and team coordination to determine what’s working well and what’s not. Use data as well as qualitative feedback to identify gaps and opportunities.

#2 Define your goals and objectives

Clarify what you want your GTM enablement strategy to achieve. Your goals should align with broader business objectives – such as accelerating revenue, improving customer retention, and shortening the sales cycle.

Also, identify how you will measure the success of your GTM enablement strategy. Some common metrics include:

  • Quota attainment
  • Sales cycle length
  • Win rates
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Customer retention
  • Customer lifecycle value

#3 Identify your core stakeholders

Effective GTM enablement is a cross-functional effort. Identify the teams that play a role in the customer journey, which typically include:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer success
  • Product

Assemble a working group with representatives from each area to help shape your strategy. Schedule ongoing check-ins to maintain alignment, share insights, and drive accountability.

#4 Invest in the right GTM enablement technology

Technology is a key piece of any winning GTM enablement strategy. Be sure your tech stack supports your GTM enablement goals.

Start by auditing the tools you already have. Ask questions like:

  • Is each tool being used effectively?
  • Do all tools integrate well?
  • Is there any overlap?
  • Are there any gaps?

Look for opportunities to consolidate point solutions and opt for integrated GTM platforms. For example, an all-in-one sales enablement solution can address many GTM enablement pain points from one platform.

Finally, while it’s tempting to invest in new AI tools, be sure to explore the capabilities of your existing stack first. You may have access to AI functionality you don’t know about.

#5 Develop your game plan and roll it out

Translate your GTM enablement strategy into clear, actionable steps. What tools, processes, and content need to be developed or refined to help you achieve your goals? Who is responsible for what?

Develop a communication and change management plan to keep stakeholders informed and engaged. Define key milestones, assign responsibilities, and ensure everyone understands how their work connects to the bigger picture.

#6 Measure, learn, and optimize

GTM enablement isn’t a one-and-done effort. It’s an ongoing process.

Continuously track your progress against your goals, using the KPIs you established earlier on. Use those insights to identify what’s working and what’s not. Then, make data-based optimizations to improve your strategy over time.

Of course, the world of B2B sales is constantly evolving. Be sure to revisit your goals and priorities on a regular basis to ensure your GTM enablement strategy continues to meet the needs of your business and your buyers.

Best practices for GTM enablement

Once you’ve developed your GTM enablement strategy, it’s important to keep the momentum going. Here are 6 best practices to help you drive the most impact from your GTM enablement efforts.

#1 Foster cross-functional collaboration

GTM enablement is most effective when all teams are on the same page. Create regular opportunities for collaboration among stakeholders. This might include:

  • Check-in meetings to share wins, discuss challenges, and give feedback.
  • Shared Slack or Team channels for real-time communication.
  • Joint planning sessions around product launches or campaigns.

These opportunities can help break down silos, improve collaboration, and increase the impact of your go-to-market enablement efforts.

#2 Centralize content and tools

GTM enablement is all about equipping teams with the tools, training, and content they need to be effective and efficient. But your sellers shouldn’t have to waste precious time hunting for the assets they need.

Instead, store and organize all GTM enablement resources in one place. That way, your teams will always know where they can find up-to-date content. They can spend less time searching and more time facilitating great customer experiences.

#3 Tap into AI

It takes a lot of time and effort to deliver experiences that resonate with prospects and customers. But often, customer-facing teams don’t have much time to spare.

Tap into AI-powered tools to streamline and automate parts of the GTM enablement process, like:

  • Drafting follow up emails
  • Summarizing sales calls and identifying key insights
  • Surfacing relevant sales content

By strategically leveraging AI, your GTM teams can focus on what matters most: building relationships and driving revenue.

woman looking at a tablet surrounded by MIndtickle AI Copilot screenshots

#4 Deliver continuous, contextual training

GTM enablement shouldn’t stop at onboarding. It’s also important to provide ongoing learning opportunities so your teams are always set up for success – even in the midst of ongoing change.

Live training sessions aren’t always the answer. Instead, make training accessible in the flow of work. That way, your teams can access the information they need, whenever and wherever they need it.

#5 Align GTM enablement to business outcomes

Tracking metrics like training completion and content usage are important. But on their own, these metrics don’t tell you whether or not your GTM enablement efforts are actually driving impact.

Be sure to track impact using metrics like win rates, pipeline velocity, customer retention, and sales cycle length. That way, you can ensure your efforts are driving results – not just activity.

#6 Start small and grow from there

It’s tempting to try to tackle all of your GTM pain points at once. But resist the temptation.

Start small by addressing your most pressing pain point. As you gain traction, optimize and expand your GTM enablement program. Small, early wins can build momentum and help you make the case for further investments.

Power your GTM enablement program with Mindtickle

The B2B customer journey is rarely simple or straightforward. In fact, 77% of B2B customers rated their most recent purchase experience as extremely complex. That complexity makes modern go-to-market enablement more important than ever.

GTM enablement empowers all of your customer facing teams to engage buyers effectively, close more deals, and increase retention. When your go-to-market teams work in harmony, you’ll simplify the buyer experience and drive sustainable revenue growth.

GTM Enablement with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s AI-powered platform can help you build and scale a modern GTM enablement strategy?

Get a Demo

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8 Sales Training Topics for Automotive Sellers That Drive Results https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/automotive-sales-training-topics/ Thu, 12 Jun 2025 11:46:21 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23909 Automotive sales can be a rewarding, lucrative career for those who do it well. But success requires more than a friendly personality and a firm handshake. Today’s car buyers are informed, selective, and have more options than ever before. They have endless information at their fingertips, and they expect high-quality, personalized experiences throughout the purchase …

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Automotive sales can be a rewarding, lucrative career for those who do it well. But success requires more than a friendly personality and a firm handshake.

Today’s car buyers are informed, selective, and have more options than ever before. They have endless information at their fingertips, and they expect high-quality, personalized experiences throughout the purchase journey. Automotive sales training programs empower sellers to stand out and succeed in a crowded, competitive market.

But generic sales training programs won’t work. To truly make an impact, organizations must focus on the right sales training topics for automotive sellers.

So, what sales training topics for automotive sellers can help your teams build trust, drive conversions, and thrive in a competitive market? Read on to find out.

The importance of sales training in the automotive industry

Today’s automotive buyers expect a seamless, personalized experience at every step of the purchase journey. Yet, many walk away disappointed. Recent research shows that more than a third of vehicle buyers are dissatisfied with the car shopping experience.

A strong automotive sales training program helps sellers deliver the kind of experience that turns more shoppers into buyers.

Why automotive sales training matters

Automotive sales reps are often the face of the brand. Their ability to capture a prospect’s attention, earn their trust, and create a positive customer experience directly impacts revenue growth and customer retention.

But succeeding in today’s automotive market isn’t easy.

Automotive sales reps face a number of challenges, including stiff competition, changes in customer behavior and preferences, and ever-evolving technology – among others. Even top-performing reps can struggle to engage buyers and hit targets without consistent, targeted automotive sales enablement.

A well-designed automotive sales training program equips teams to:

  • Understand a buyer’s needs
  • Communicate value clearly across digital, phone, and in-person channels
  • Stand out in a crowded marketplace
  • Stay up-to-date on evolving inventory, incentives, and technology
  • Close more deals, faster
  • Foster long-term customer loyalty

The role of AI in automotive sales training programs

While automotive sales training is essential, traditional programs often fall short – especially when it comes to personalization and scalability.

AI can make all the difference.

With the right AI sales training platforms, organizations can now deliver real-time feedback to sellers, identify coaching opportunities, and personalize automotive sales training programs based on individual performance data.

For example, AI can analyze sales calls and provide immediate, actionable feedback. Sellers can use this real-time coaching to adjust their approach and improve outcomes.

These AI sales training and coaching tools make automotive sales training programs more scalable, data-driven, and effective – leading to measurable improvement in sales performance.

Copilot - Mission review

8 sales training topics for automotive sellers

Automotive sellers face a number of unique challenges. The most effective automotive sales training programs cover a range of practical skills that address these real-world challenges.

Let’s take a look at 8 key sales training topics for automotive sellers that can help elevate sales performance and drive revenue growth.

Training topic #1 Product knowledge

Today’s car buyers are more informed than ever. By the time they visit a dealership, they’ve already spent hours studying spec sheets, reading reviews, and comparing models.

Automotive sellers need to bring more to the table than what buyers can find online. That’s why product knowledge is a foundational sales training topic for automotive sellers. Automotive sales reps must be able to speak confidently about vehicle specs, safety ratings, and tech features – among other things.

But product training shouldn’t be a one-time event. With vehicle technology evolving rapidly – especially in areas like EVs, driver-assist features, and infotainment features – sellers need ongoing training to stay current. Strong automotive sales training programs ensure reps can stay up to date, answer tough questions, and position products in a way that resonates with modern buyers.

Training topic #2 Discovery

Car buyers expect sellers to provide personalized recommendations. But first, sellers must understand the buyer’s needs. That’s why discovery is one of the most important sales training topics for automotive sellers.

Effective discovery training teaches automotive sellers to ask thoughtful, open-ended questions to uncover things like:

  • How often the customer drives
  • Where the customer typically drives
  • How many people they need to transport
  • What they like and dislike about their current vehicle
  • What matters most in their next purchase (safety, performance, budget, etc.)

By gathering the right information early on, sellers can provide recommendations that align with buyers’ needs – and earn their trust along the way.

Training topic #3 Competitive differentiation

Today’s car buyers are comparing multiple brands and models before they walk into a dealership. That’s why automotive sales training programs must prepare reps to speak confidently about how their vehicles stack up against the competition.

This sales training topic should focus on helping sellers understand key differences – whether in features, pricing, performance, or value. It’s not about bashing the competition; it’s about clearly communicating strengths in a way that builds buyer confidence and trust.

Training topic #4 Value articulation during the walk-around and on the test drive

Memorizing a list of vehicle features is one thing. But being able to explain how those features translate into real value is a completely different skill.

That’s why value articulation is a key sales training topic for automotive sellers.

Whether during the vehicle walk-around or test drive, reps should be trained to connect specific features to the buyer’s unique needs, priorities, and lifestyle. For example, if safety is a priority, sellers should highlight advanced driver-assist features. If comfort matters, they can point out ride quality and interior upgrades.

When sellers can communicate value clearly and personally, they help buyers see the car not just as a product, but as the right solution for them.

Training topic #5 Objection handling

Even the most engaged car buyers will have concerns or hesitations. That’s why objection handling is a must-have topic in any effective automotive sales training program.

Automotive sales reps are no stranger to objections like:
The price is too high
I need to talk to my spouse
I got a better offer elsewhere
I need to think about it

These objections can stall (or even completely derail) a deal if they’re not handled properly.

Automotive sales reps must be trained to anticipate these objections, respond with empathy, and guide the conversation forward without sounding pushy.

Training topic #6 Negotiation

Negotiation is an expected part of the car-buying process. But often, it’s a stage where sellers struggle.

That’s why it’s one of the most important sales training topics for automotive sellers.

Reps must learn how to approach negotiation with confidence and a value-focused mindset. Rather than going back and forth over price along, sellers should learn to reframe the conversation around what the buyer is getting from their investment, like:

  • Quality
  • Features
  • Warranty
  • Service
  • Peace of mind

By shifting the focus to value, sellers can protect margins, build trust, and help buyers make more confident purchase decisions.

Training topic #7 Finance and insurance fundamentals

Sales reps aren’t responsible for finalizing financials. But they do play a key role in setting the stage for a smooth handoff to the finance and insurance (F&I) manager. That’s why finance and insurance basics are an important part of a well-rounded automotive sales training program.

Sellers should have a foundational understanding of the financing process, including how credit scores impact loan terms and the pros and cons of leasing versus buying. That way, they can answer basic questions early on and avoid confusion later in the sales process.

Sellers should also understand how to introduce the value of available protection products, like extended service contracts or gap insurance. This will help prepare the buyer and set the stage for the F&I manager.

Finally, reps should be trained to facilitate a smooth handoff to the F&I manager. This is key to ensuring the buyer completes the purchase.

#8 Long-term relationship building

Constantly chasing new leads is tough. That’s why one of the most important sales training topics for automotive sellers is building lasting customer relationships that lead to repeat business, reviews, and referrals.

The buyer relationship shouldn’t end when the car leaves the lot. Sellers should be trained to follow up with thoughtful, timely outreach. This will keep the seller top of mind when the customer is ready for their next vehicle.

Automotive sales training programs should also teach best practices for:

  • Introducing the customer to the service department to encourage ongoing maintenance with the dealership
  • Asking for reviews at the right moment and in the right way
  • Requesting referrals from satisfied buyers

By fostering lasting relationships, automotive sellers will build a strong book of business that pays off for years to come.

Rev up your automotive sales training with Mindtickle

A strong automotive sales training program ensures every team member – from new hires to seasoned pros – has the skills to engage modern buyers and sell more vehicles. With the right technology, you can take your automotive sales training program to the next level.

Mindtickle is an AI-powered revenue enablement platform that’s trusted by leading automotive brands. Our platform delivers personalized training, coaching, and resources that help each automotive seller build confidence, communicate value, and deliver outstanding customer experiences.

With our AI role-plays, your automotive sellers can practice what they’ve learned with an AI buyer and get real-time feedback. That way, they can boost their skills and their confidence before going out on the showroom floor.

Train Automotive Reps with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help your automotive sales team close more deals and retain more customers.

Get a Demo

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Sales Engagement 101: What it is and Why it Matters https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-engagement/ Wed, 11 Jun 2025 17:35:17 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23907 In today’s crowded B2B landscape, getting a buyer’s attention is tough. But making initial contact is only the first hurdle. The next challenge is keeping the buyer engaged. This is no easy feat, as sellers must contend with longer, more complex sales cycles, larger buying committees, and well-informed buyers who are increasingly resistant to outreach. …

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In today’s crowded B2B landscape, getting a buyer’s attention is tough. But making initial contact is only the first hurdle.

The next challenge is keeping the buyer engaged. This is no easy feat, as sellers must contend with longer, more complex sales cycles, larger buying committees, and well-informed buyers who are increasingly resistant to outreach.

That’s why a sales engagement strategy is essential to any modern sales approach.

Sales engagement empowers your team to deliver consistent, value-driven interactions that build trust and keep deals moving forward. When combined with sales enablement, it becomes a powerful driver of sales success.

Read on as we break down what sales engagement is, what to look for in a platform, how to improve your approach, and why pairing sales engagement with sales enablement is key to winning over today’s B2B buyers.

What is sales engagement?

Ask a room full of revenue leaders what sales engagement is, and you’ll likely get a variety of answers. So, let’s start off by defining the term.

Sales engagement, defined

Sales engagement refers to all of the interactions that happen between a B2B buyer and seller throughout the purchase journey. B2B buyers often engage in dozens (sometimes more) touchpoints before making a decision. Every one of these touchpoints – whether it’s an email, a phone call, or a click on a piece of content – plays a role in whether a deal moves forward or stalls out.

When these interactions are consistent, relevant, and well-timed, a seller can build rapport, earn a prospect’s trust, and ultimately, win more business. That’s why so many organizations prioritize sales engagement.

The evolution of b2b sales engagement

Sales engagement isn’t a new concept. But it’s one that’s evolving fast.

In the past, B2B sales engagement was largely built around in-person meetings, phone calls, and other traditional outreach tactics. While those channels still matter, today’s buyers expect a more digital, flexible, and self-guided experience.

Many B2B buyers do extensive research before reaching out to a sales rep, and three-quarters say they prefer a rep-free sales experience. Still, research shows that buyers make better purchase decisions when a sales rep is involved.

It’s more important than ever to meet buyers on their own terms.

Today, b2b sales engagement spans a wide range of channels, including:

  • Email
  • Phone calls
  • Live chat
  • Social media engagement
  • Digital sales rooms
  • Video calls and virtual demos

But the problem is, sellers don’t have time to reinvent the wheel for every opportunity. That’s where a strong sales engagement strategy – backed by the right tools – comes in.

A modern sales engagement approach gives sellers a clear, data-driven framework for how and when to engage buyers, while still allowing room for flexibility and personalization. With the right sales engagement strategy, your sellers will have a repeatable, scalable approach that adapts to each buyer’s unique journey.

Features to look out for in a sales engagement platform

A sales engagement platform is a tool that helps sellers engage more effectively with every prospect, no matter where they are on the buyer journey. With the right sales engagement tools, sellers can deliver high quality, consistent interactions at scale.

While features vary widely from platform to platform, here are some key capabilities to look for.

A strong sales engagement platform centralizes lead and contact information in one place. That means sellers can easily access key details – like lead scores and engagement history – so they can determine next best steps and keep deals on track.

Sales engagement isn’t a one-and-done activity. Instead, it’s a series of touchpoints. Often, different types of touchpoints are managed in different tools.

Look for a sales engagement platform that allows sellers to manage different channels – including emails and calls – from a single dashboard. That way, they can spend less time toggling between systems and more time building meaningful relationships with prospects.

A sales engagement platform should make reps’ lives easier, not more difficult.

Look for a sales engagement platform that integrates seamlessly with your CRM, sales or revenue enablement platform, and other key tools. That way, data will flow smoothly across systems and sellers can spend less time manually updating separate tools

Sellers depend on sales collateral to engage their buyers But often, they struggle to find what they need.

Look for a sales engagement platform that helps sellers quickly find and share the right content for any situation. Bonus points if the platform uses artificial intelligence to recommend proven content based on factors like:

  • Buyer behavior
  • Deal stage
  • Buyer persona

Sales engagement strategies aren’t set in stone. Instead, they must evolve over time, based on data. Ongoing measurement is key to determining what’s working and what’s not.

Look for a sales engagement platform that provides robust reporting analytics so you can track key metrics like:

  • Email open rates
  • Call activity
  • Content performance

The platform should help you translate the data into actionable insights so you can continuously refine your sales engagement approach for greater impact.

Delivering consistent, personalized experiences at scale requires a lot of time. Unfortunately, sellers don’t have much time to spare.

Look for a sales engagement platform that offers AI-powered features that can lighten the load. For example, AI can be used to:

  • Streamline or automate routine tasks
  • Surface insights
  • Recommend next steps to take to move a deal forward
  • Personalize outreach

With the right AI-powered features, sellers can drive better engagement across their entire book of business – without a ton of added effort.

Copilot - Email

Best practices for improving sales engagement

Boosting sales engagement must be a top priority for any revenue organization. As sales engagement improves, so too do key outcomes like win rates, deal velocity, and quota attainment.

But improving sales engagement isn’t as simple as sending more emails or making more calls. It’s about delivering the right message, at the right time, through the right channel.

Here are six proven best practices to help your team connect with prospects and close more deals.

#1 Build a solid sales content strategy and centralize your assets

Content plays an important role in the B2B purchase journey. But generic sales content won’t cut it. Instead, it must be relevant, personalized, and aligned to buyer needs.

Create sales content that’s aligned to each stage of the buyer journey. It’s also important to develop content that’s tailored to specific industries and buyer personas.

Then, centralize all sales content in a content management system so sellers always know where to find the most current, approved assets.

Also, don’t let your sellers waste time trying to guess what content will work. Instead, leverage AI-powered recommendations to help sellers surface the right content at the right time.

#2 Choose the right sales engagement tools

Technology is an important component of an effective sales engagement strategy. Some important tools to consider include:

  • CRM: to keep prospect data organized and actionable
  • Sales engagement platform: To automate touchpoints and manage things like outreach cadences and personalization
  • Sales enablement platform: To provide sellers with the training, tools, and content needed to maximize every interaction

But avoid overwhelming your sellers with a bloated tech stack. Choose platforms that integrate seamlessly to create a unified workflow, rather than a disconnected toolset that slows reps down.

#3 Use multiple buyer engagement channels

According to McKinsey & Company, B2B buyers use an average of 10 interaction channels in their buying journey. Your sales engagement strategy should reflect that reality.

Use a variety of channels to engage buyers, including:

  • Email
  • Phone calls
  • Live chat
  • Digital sales rooms
  • Social media
  • Virtual demos

Pay close attention to each buyer’s preferences, and adjust your outreach accordingly. The more tailored the experience, the more likely they are to stay engaged.

average number of interaction channels B2B buyers use (McKinsey & Company)
0

#4 Don’t over-rely on automation

Research found that sales reps spend less than 30% of their time on selling activities. The rest of their time is spent on things like repetitive administrative work, data entry, and internal meetings.

Automation can lighten the load on sales reps so they can spend more time selling. But it should be used to support your sales engagement strategy, not replace it. Buyers can easily spot generic, automated outreach.

#5 Equip sellers with ongoing training and coaching

Sales engagement is a skill. Like any skill, it requires training, practice, and feedback.

In addition to onboarding, provide ongoing training that helps reps engage buyers. Pair that with practice opportunities and coaching. Manager-led sales coaching is great. But you may also want to consider AI-powered coaching tools, which offer personalized, real-time feedback based on real sales calls and role-plays.

#6 Leverage data to measure and optimize

Your sales engagement strategy should be rooted in data, not gut feelings. Track metrics like open rates, reply rates, content views, and deal velocity. These metrics can help you understand what’s working and what’s not. You can use these insights to double down on what works and make necessary optimizations to your sales engagement strategy.

Combining sales engagement and sales enablement for better outcomes

Sales engagement is essential to any modern sales strategy. But most sellers don’t instinctively know how to engage buyers, especially in today’s complex, digital-first environment.

That’s why sales enablement is essential.

Sales enablement ensures sellers have the training, tools, content, and resources needed to confidently connect with buyers and guide them through the purchase journey. In other worlds, sales enablement fuels sales engagement.

Consider this example. A sales rep is preparing to reach out to a prospect who recently downloaded a mid-funnel content asset. A sales engagement platform might prompt the seller to follow up with a personalized email and offer a demo. But without revenue enablement, the rep might not have the right messaging, demo strategy, or confidence to close the loop effectively.

Sales enablement ensures this seller is properly supported with things like:

  • On-demand training that helps the seller understand how to tailor outreach based on the stage of the sales cycle.
  • Recommended content, like case studies or videos, that can support the conversation
  • Tools like digital sales rooms to better engage buying groups throughout the sales cycle

Together, B2B sales engagement and sales enablement form a winning combination that helps sellers:

  • Deliver consistent, personalized experiences that resonate with buyers
  • Make the most of every touchpoint
  • Build trust, accelerate deals, and boost win rates

At the end of the day, sales engagement connects you with buyers, and sales enablement ensures that connection is impactful and meaningful.

Start closing more deals with sales engagement and sales enablement

Capturing a B2B buyer’s attention is hard. But keeping it is even harder – especially when sellers are forced to reinvent the wheel with every prospect.

With the right sales engagement strategy (powered by the right technology), your sellers have a clear, flexible framework for connecting with buyers at the right time, with the right message, through the right channels. When you add sales enablement to the mix, your buyers will have the right training, tools, and support to make every interaction count.

With sales engagement and sales enablement, your sellers can build stronger relationships, deliver better experiences, and close more deals. 

See AI and Mindtickle Copilot in Action

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s AI-powered revenue enablement platform can help your customer-facing teams engage more buyers and close more deals?

Get a Demo

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What is Sales Enablement? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-enablement/ Tue, 10 Jun 2025 14:09:29 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/what-is-sales-enablement/ Let’s face it: being a B2B sales rep has never been easy. But in today’s environment – where buyers are more informed, more selective, and have higher expectations than ever – it’s never been harder. Sellers are expected to know their products inside and out, personalize every interaction, and navigate long, complex sales cycles with …

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Let’s face it: being a B2B sales rep has never been easy. But in today’s environment – where buyers are more informed, more selective, and have higher expectations than ever – it’s never been harder.

Sellers are expected to know their products inside and out, personalize every interaction, and navigate long, complex sales cycles with large buying committees. No pressure, right?

Leaving your sellers to fend for themselves won’t cut it. Instead, you must provide them with the training, tools, content, and support they need to deliver outstanding experiences that win customers.

A strong sales enablement strategy is key. In fact, research shows that 76% of sellers say sales enablement prepares them to make quota.

But what exactly is sales enablement?

In this post, we’ll explore what sales enablement is, why it matters, and how it’s transforming the way B2B organizations prepare their sellers to connect with buyers and close more deals.

What is the definition of sales enablement?

Sales enablement has become a popular strategy for B2B revenue organizations across industries. In fact, research found that 84% of organizations are investing in a sales enablement department.

But before we explore the many reasons why organizations are investing in sales enablement, let’s take a minute to define the term.

Sales enablement is the strategic process of equipping sales teams with the training, content, tools, and information they need to sell effectively and efficiently. The ultimate goal of sales enablement is to drive sales productivity and accelerate revenue growth. Organizations achieve this by providing sellers with the resources and support necessary for success at every stage – from onboarding to continuous development.

of organizations are investing in sales enablement
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The benefits of sales enablement

Sales and marketing have traditionally been siloed, with little interaction or collaboration between the two departments. Considering that companies are better at closing deals when their sales and marketing departments are aligned, any chasm between them poses a significant problem.

Although organizations have known about this siloing for many years, bridging the gap has always been easier said than done. Until now.

Sales enablement is the solution for marketing-sales alignment. It paves the way to wider communication channels and frequent collaboration. Adopting an advanced data-driven sales enablement platform and following some best practices makes alignment possible at your organization.

Here are some of the most prominent benefits of sales enablement.

Improved communication and teamwork

Many organizations face challenges communicating between sales and marketing teams. Sales enablement helps address this challenge by providing a better system for managing sales content. This content management system (CMS) is a centralized database that houses sales resources for all departments and promotes marketing and sales collaboration while creating sales content.

Further, when both departments share the same sales enablement tools, CRM data, and business processes, marketing and sales teams can operate with combined insights into the target market and the sales funnel. The two teams collaborate to better define buyer personas and improve lead-scoring processes.

Optimized content

With open collaboration, content can be fine-tuned using the sales team’s knowledge of buyers and marketing’s knowledge of leads. This highly optimized content moves prospects through the buyer journey faster.

Marketing and sales can also work together to create customizable content that reps can tailor to match the needs of any prospect. The result is highly relevant content created for any circumstance “on the fly.”

Also, with both departments sharing the same content management system, marketing can purge outdated versions of a piece of content to make sure a sales rep doesn’t accidentally present it to a buyer. Reps and marketers can also make small adjustments to keep the content up to date for continued use.

Marketing and sales transparency

Sales enablement provides visibility into the effectiveness of sales and marketing processes. Transparency ensures that both marketing and sales can see which tactics and content are working and which ones aren’t. Both departments can, therefore, pinpoint inefficiencies and correct them quickly.

For example, with the right sales enablement technology, marketing and sales can access a dashboard that reveals how buyers engage with sales materials. Both departments can see which materials are being ignored and which content brings prospects closer to buying decisions.

Increased revenue

Bottom-line performance is obviously the most important benefit of sales enablement. With optimized and customizable content, better customer insight, and full visibility into sales processes, reps close more deals and generate more revenue.

How sales enablement technology transforms the selling process

Sales enablement technology does more than create marketing-sales alignment and boost content effectiveness. It enhances the entire sales process by improving efficiency, providing detailed analytics on sales activities, and improving training and development processes.

Enhanced onboarding

Efficient, simplified onboarding leads to faster quota attainment. The most advanced sales enablement technology helps sales trainers identify their reps’ knowledge gaps and adjust training accordingly. Trainers can automatically assign learning paths based on their sales reps’ roles and monitor their progress with milestones and certifications.

Continuous growth and skill development

Training is only effective when ongoing—in fact, 80% of what is learned in sales training is forgotten within 3 months. You can develop a more structured and interactive approach to ongoing training with the right sales enablement tool. Sales enablement tools provide virtual role-playing exercises, simulated selling scenarios, and personalized feedback for growth and improvement to help sales reps continually sharpen their skills.

  • Micro-learning capabilities: Micro-learning presents sales training information in short, engaging training modules to promote knowledge retention. Highly specific learning objectives, interactive gamification elements, and spaced reinforcements help reps fill their knowledge gaps right from their computers or smartphones.
  • Coaching: With sales enablement technology, coaching can be designed around the unique needs of each sales rep. Sales coaches can create personalized learning paths based on competency maps. Coaches can also assign the exact micro-learning modules a rep needs to reinforce specific concepts.
  • Analytics: Sales enablement gives you visibility into your reps’ understanding of their training. Analytics dashboards help sales coaches track, measure, and improve their teams’ capabilities.

Getting started with sales enablement

Wondering where to begin your sales enablement journey?

Many companies worldwide turn to Mindtickle for marketing-sales alignment and a more competitive salesforce. With innovative training capabilities, advanced micro-learning, analytics, and the ability to integrate a wide range of sales tools, Mindtickle offers a 360-degree solution for sales organizations.

How to measure sales enablement

Continuous measurement is essential to determining the success of sales enablement – and pinpointing opportunities for improvement. Yet, many organizations still don’t consistently measure the impact of their sales enablement efforts.

Of course, measuring revenue and number of units sold is important. However, measuring sales enablement also involves correlating sales activities with tangible business outcomes to determine what works and what doesn’t.

There are many many metrics to track to gauge the impact of sales enablement initiatives. Here are 13 of the most common sales enablement KPIs.

1. Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate

As the name suggests, this metric tracks the percentage of leads that are converted to opportunities. This metric is calculated by dividing the number of opportunities by the total number of leads.

A high lead-to-opportunity conversion rate indicates sellers have the skills and knowledge to convince buyers to learn more and consider purchasing.

2. Win rate

The win rate is the percentage of opportunities that end up as signed deals. Win rate is calculated by dividing the number of closed won deals by the total number of opportunities.

A high win rate indicates sellers have what it takes to carry opportunities across the finish line.

3. Competitive win rate

Competitive win rate specifically measures the rate of closed deals where prospects are also considering one of your competitors. The competitive win rate is calculated by dividing the total number of wins over a competitor by the total number of opportunities who considered a competitor.

Competitive win rate can be more challenging to track than win rate. That’s because accurate calculation depends on whether or not prospects inform you that they’re considering a competitor.

4. Average deal size

This metric is the average amount a customer spends on your product or service. It’s calculated by dividing the total amount of money from all customer orders in a specific time frame by the number of deals in that same time frame.

5. Quota attainment

Quota attainment is a measure of how your sales reps are (or aren’t) achieving their goals during each sales cycle. To calculate the quota for a seller, divide their sales during a set time period by their quota for the same period.

If a seller consistently misses quota, additional training and coaching may be needed.

6. Adherence to sales process

This metric tracks how well your sales reps follow your established sales process. Establishing a standard way for sellers to follow and document the sales process is important for tracking this metric.

If a seller isn’t adhering to the sales process and isn’t meeting quota, additional training or coaching may be needed.

7. Ramp-up time

Ramp-up time, also called time to productivity, measures how quickly it takes a new sales rep to reach full productivity. To calculate ramp-up time, divide the total amount of time to productivity for all reps who ramped up in a given quarter by the number of reps.

It’s important to determine how your organization defines productivity. For example, an organization might define it as reaching a certain percentage of quota or making a certain number of daily calls.

8. Time to quota

This is how long it takes new reps to meet their quota for the first time. It’s measured by adding the number of sales cycles it takes each new rep to meet their quota and dividing that sum by the number of reps being measured.

9. Seller turnover rate

Turnover rate measures how often sales reps voluntarily leave the company. It’s calculated by dividing the number of reps voluntarily leaving the company within a certain period by the total number of reps.

A high rep turnover rate suggests a problem. One way to determine the cause is to ask reps for feedback about the effectiveness of the sales enablement program.

10. Rep net promoter score

This measures your reps’ satisfaction with your company. Employees are typically asked to complete a survey with questions about their experience. A high net promoter score indicates an employee is satisfied and likely to stay with the company. A low net promoter score indicates the employee is dissatisfied and unlikely to recommend the company to others. 

You can calculate NPS by subtracting the number of detractors from the number of promoters, dividing it by the total number of respondents, and multiplying it by 100. 

11. Knowledge retention

Reps must learn certain things to be successful. But more importantly, they must retain this knowledge to apply it in the field. Organizations can measure knowledge retention in a number of ways, including post-training assessments, role-plays, and listening to conversations between sales reps and customers.

12. Content use and adoption

Most sales enablement teams invest time and resources to create internal and external content. Yet, much of that content sits unused.

It’s important to track how both sellers and buyers are using this content – if they’re using it at all. Key content-related metrics include number of views, time spent on a piece, and how often a piece of content is opened, used, or shared. These insights can help you refine your content strategy.

13. Calls-to-action

This metric tracks how often a prospective customer takes action on content, which might include ads, blogs, or emails. The most effective content generates the highest number of clicks.

How sales enablement drives revenue

Today, missed sales quotas have become the norm. Sales enablement, when done right, can have a dramatic impact on a seller’s ability to close deals – and an organization’s ability to drive revenue. Here are some of the key reasons why.

1. Sales enablement provides sellers with a single source of truth

Sellers need on-demand access to information to move deals forward. For example, sellers often leverage:

  • Talk tracks
  • Training modules
  • Customer content

The information a seller needs is often housed in different locations, such as the CRM, multiple drives, and a company wiki. In those circumstances, it’s challenging for sellers to find what they need when they need it.

However, a solid sales enablement program provides sellers with one single knowledge base. That way, they can always access the knowledge they need whenever needed. That means they can more easily move deals through the funnel – and across the finish line.

Plus, if your sales enablement platform uses AI, your sellers get smart, personalized content recommendations based on things like skill gaps, buyer signals, and sales cycle stage. Sellers don’t have to dig through folders and guess what might work. It’s all served up for them.

2. Sales enablement provides ongoing training

Sales training is a key component of sales enablement. Of course, it all starts with sales onboarding. But that’s not enough.

In the world of sales, change is inevitable. New products are released, and existing products are updated. New tools are introduced. New competitors enter the market. Sales enablement teams provide sellers with the ongoing training to build their skills and knowledge to overcome challenges and close more deals.

Also, with AI-powered enablement, you can give your sellers access to just-in-time support. For example, if a prospect asks a tough question, the seller can turn to a digital sales assistant – like Mindtickle Copilot – for a real-time answer, along with relevant supporting content. The seller can get the information they need, when they need it, which allows them to keep the conversation going and move the deal forward.

3. Sales enablement can help create a culture of coaching

Continuous coaching is essential to sales success. In fact, research tells us that 91% of sales managers feel that coaching positively impacts their team’s overall performance. 

A successful sales enablement strategy includes a strong coaching component. Deal coaching is the most common type of coaching. However, sales managers must also incorporate skill coaching to drive behavior change.

Sales managers are essential to effective coaching, but forward-thinking organizations are also using AI to deliver personalized, real-time coaching at scale. AI can score role-plays and live sales calls, offering targeted feedback for improvement. Sellers can implement this feedback right away to refine their approach – without having to wait for manager input.

4. Sales enablement can improve sales and marketing collaboration

Oftentimes, marketing and sales teams work in silos, with each focused on different goals. This negatively affects overall productivity. However, sales enablement can remove these silos and encourage better collaboration between the two teams. When sales and marketing are working toward the same goals, companies can attract and close leads better.

5. Sales enablement can speed up onboarding

Onboarding is an important way to orient new sellers and help them understand the company, its goals, and their role. Sales enablement can help accelerate onboarding – without sacrificing quality.

6. Sales enablement can improve rep retention

Sales enablement can increase seller engagement – which can in turn increase satisfaction. Engaged, satisfied reps are more likely to stick around and be productive.

7. Sales enablement leads to informed, engaged buyers

Sales enablement helps ensure reps are always prepared for any interaction with a potential buyer. When reps have the knowledge and content they need to keep buyers informed and engaged, those buyers are more likely to end up as customers.

Who owns sales enablement?

Ownership of sales enablement varies by organization. But typically, sales enablement is owned by a dedicated sales enablement team. As mentioned earlier, most organizations now invest in a sales enablement team.

The size of the sales enablement team varies and may include functions like:

  • Sales enablement director
  • Sales enablement manager
  • Sales enablement specialist

Most commonly, the sales enablement team reports to the chief revenue officer or another revenue leader.

Sometimes, sales enablement teams work in silos without additional engagement or external guidance. However, the most successful sales enablement programs are those that include cross-functional collaboration across key teams, including:

  • Sales leadership
  • Sales or revenue operations
  • Marketing
  • Dedicated sales enablement team
  • Customer success

Cross-functional collaboration ensures each area of the organization is aligned on goals and the role they play in achieving those goals.

How are sales enablement and revenue enablement related?

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are closely intertwined and interdependent concepts, with several key connections:

  • Sales enablement equips the sales team with tools, resources, and support to enhance their selling effectiveness.
  • Revenue enablement takes a broader perspective, aligning departments such as marketing, customer success, and operations to optimize revenue generation.
  • Sales enablement is a critical component of revenue enablement, directly impacting sales productivity and contributing to revenue outcomes.
  • Both enablement strategies foster collaboration, alignment, and data-driven decision-making.
  • Sales enablement focuses on equipping sales reps with the right content, training, and technology to engage buyers and close deals successfully.
  • Revenue enablement encompasses various functions and aims to maximize revenue growth, enhance customer experiences, and drive overall business performance.

Together, sales enablement and revenue enablement create a cohesive and efficient revenue generation ecosystem.

What is the difference between sales enablement and sales productivity?

Sales productivity and sales enablement are two distinct concepts that play crucial roles in a sales team’s success. Sales productivity focuses on maximizing the efficiency and effectiveness of individual sales representatives. It involves providing them with the tools, resources, and training necessary to close deals and achieve their targets.

On the other hand, sales enablement takes a broader approach, aiming to empower the entire sales organization. It focuses on aligning processes, strategies, and technologies to optimize the sales ecosystem. Sales enablement ensures that the sales team has the right knowledge, content, and support to engage buyers effectively throughout their journey.

Ultimately, sales productivity enhances individual performance, while sales enablement drives overall sales effectiveness and revenue growth.

Sales enablement best practices

An effective sales enablement strategy can significantly impact seller productivity and performance. But not all sales enablement strategies are created equal.

Here are a few best practices to help ensure your sales enablement program delivers maximum impact.

1. Align sales and marketing teams

Sales enablement is most effective when sales and marketing operate as a unified team. Align sales and marketing teams right from the start, and schedule regular check-ins to facilitate ongoing collaboration. When both teams are on the same page, sellers are better equipped with the training, tools, content, and resources they need to engage buyers throughout the sales cycle.

2. Deliver continuous training and enablement

Onboarding is an important way to get your sellers up to speed. But to keep sellers sharp and adaptable, you must also invest in ongoing enablement and training.

Be sure to provide your sellers with plenty of learning opportunities. In addition, use AI to give them access to just-in-time training and enablement. That way, your sellers can get the information and support they need, whenever and wherever they need it.

3. Personalize enablement for each seller

Each seller brings a unique background and skill set. A one-size-fits-all approach to sales enablement won’t cut it.

Start by defining the core skills and competencies needed for each customer-facing role. Then, assess each rep against this benchmark to identify gaps. Finally, create personalized learning paths to help close gaps and improve performance.

4. Deliver real-time sales coaching

Manager-delivered coaching is still important. But it’s time-consuming for managers, and there’s often a delay in delivering feedback. AI-powered tools can help scale coaching efforts by providing instant feedback.

AI-powered sales enablement tools can score and analyze sales calls and role-plays and provide instant feedback to sellers. For example, a seller can get feedback on objection-handling right after a call, which they can use to adjust their approach before their next call.

5. Equip sellers with impactful sales content

Content plays an important role in every stage of the buyer journey. Yet, many sellers waste time searching for content – or guessing which asset will resonate with a specific buyer.

Use a sales content management tool to organize assets in a way that’s easy to navigate.

Even better, use an AI-powered tool to recommend content based on factors like deal stage or buyer behavior. Sellers will spend less time searching and guessing, and more time engaging buyers with relevant content.

6. Track sales enablement metrics and optimize continuously

Without ongoing measurement, it’s impossible to know whether or not your sales enablement programs are making an impact. Monitor sales enablement KPIs – including the ones we explored earlier – on a regular basis. Use these insights to refine your strategy and ensure your efforts are driving real business outcomes.

Drive sales enablement success with Mindtickle

By now, most organizations invest in sales enablement teams and programs. That’s not surprising, as sales enablement is proven to impact outcomes. But only when it’s done well.

The right sales enablement technology is crucial to any sales enablement program.

Today, some organizations continue to use point solutions that address a specific sales enablement component. However, the most successful organizations are choosing to streamline their sales enablement tech stacks by investing in an integrated, AI-powered revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

Mindtickle incorporates all the key components of a holistic sales enablement program – including sales training, content, coaching, digital sales rooms, and AI role plays – all in one platform. That means sellers have a single source of truth for everything they need to master key skills and behaviors and close more deals faster.

Sales enablement teams depend on Mindtickle to quickly build and deploy personalized, effective enablement programs that drive business results. Mindtickle also includes robust analytics to help revenue leaders understand how sales enablement impacts the metrics that matter most. Teams can use these insights to optimize their programs and drive greater impact. 

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can empower every rep to hit quota every quarter?

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in January 2020 and updated in September 2022, July 2024 and June 2025

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CPG Sales Training 101: What Every Revenue Leader Should Know https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/cpg-sales-training/ Thu, 05 Jun 2025 12:04:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23811 Consumer packaged goods are a staple of daily life. From household essentials to everyday snacks, store shelves (both physical and digital) and filled with them. And consumers routinely reach for their go-to products when they’re at home, at work, or on the move. But while CPG items are ubiquitous, selling them is anything but simple. …

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Consumer packaged goods are a staple of daily life. From household essentials to everyday snacks, store shelves (both physical and digital) and filled with them. And consumers routinely reach for their go-to products when they’re at home, at work, or on the move.

But while CPG items are ubiquitous, selling them is anything but simple.

The CPG sector is marked by fierce competition, razor-thin margins, and ever-evolving consumer preferences and behaviors. It’s a lot to navigate – even for the most seasoned sales professionals.

That’s why leading organizations are turning to CPG sales training. With a strong CPG sales training program, sellers have the skills, strategies, and tools needed to stand out and drive results in a competitive marketplace.

In this post, we’ll explore the fundamentals of consumer packaged goods sales training and why so many revenue organizations are making it a strategic priority. We’ll also highlight how artificial intelligence (AI) is helping organizations take their CPG sales training programs (and their bottom-line results) to the next level.

Why is CPG sales training important?

It’s no secret that the consumer packaged goods industry represents a major force in the global economy. Last year, the global CPG market reached USD 2,290.58 billion. By 2029, that number is expected to grow to USD 2,786.83 billion.

But that growth doesn’t guarantee success for every CPG brand.

Of course, offering outstanding products is one piece of the puzzle. But so too is ensuring each one of your consumer packaged goods sales reps has what it takes to engage buyers throughout the sales cycle and close more deals.

That’s easier said than done. CPG sales reps face a number of unique challenges, like:

  • Intense competition: CPG sellers are battling for limited shelf space in stores and online. Reps must cut through the noise and stand out to capture buyers’ attention.
  • Evolving customer preferences: Consumers’ preferences and habits change rapidly. Reps need to stay ahead of trends and be agile enough to adjust their approach.
  • Razor-thin margins: CPG products are high in volume but low in profit per unit. To protect profitability, reps must master negotiation, avoid unnecessary concessions, and lead with value-driven selling.
  • Large, well-informed buying committees: The average B2B buying group includes up to 10 stakeholders, each informed by multiple sources. CPG sales reps must deliver value at every touchpoint, no matter who’s in the conversation.
  • Rapidly changing product portfolios: In the CPG industry, product launches, seasonal campaigns, and promotion cycles are always changing. Sellers need to quickly get up to speed and confidently sell across an ever-evolving lineup.

Strong onboarding is an important first step that sets your CPG sales reps up for success. But a one-time ramp up isn’t enough to ensure your sellers stay competitive in the fast-moving world of CPG.

Your reps also need ongoing CPG sales training and coaching so they can tackle the industry’s unique challenges and keep pace with constant change. With strong CPG sales training and coaching, your sellers will be properly equipped to capture buyers’ attention, keep them engaged throughout the sales cycle, and ultimately, close more deals.

CPG sales training must be personalized to drive real impact

CPG sales training is essential to success. But generic CPG sales training won’t cut it.

Every CPG sales rep brings a unique background and skill set. A one-size-fits-all approach leads to disengagement. Some reps waste their time on irrelevant CPG sales training, while others miss out on the support they truly need to succeed.

Personalized CPG sales training and coaching is a smarter, more effective approach.

Unlike traditional, one-size-fits-all programs, personalized CPG sales training is tailored to the needs of each rep. That means every seller has the right support to master the nuances of their accounts – whether it’s tailoring pitches to meet a retailer’s category goals, responding to regional market trends, or adapting to a buyer’s specific merchandising strategy. Personalized CPG sales training also helps sellers stay agile in an industry defined by constant change.

AI makes personalized CPG sales training scalable

Personalized CPG sales training is a necessity for any organization that hopes to achieve its revenue goals. But delivering personalized CPG sales training is hard, especially for large or geographically distributed sales teams.

Increasingly, CPG organizations are tapping into AI sales training and coaching to bridge the gap.

AI sales training accelerates onboarding for new hires by quickly identifying strengths and weaknesses. That means new CPG sales reps can ramp up faster and contribute to revenue growth sooner.

AI sales training and coaching also ensures ongoing development for all reps, regardless of tenure. That means every rep can keep pace with change and sharpen their skills over time.

AI sales training and coaching for the CPG industry

AI is transforming CPG sales training by moving teams beyond static learning modules and into dynamic, personalized learning experiences. AI leverages data like performance metrics, call recordings, and rep engagement to pinpoint skill gaps and deliver relevant training to address them. For example, if a rep is struggling with objection handling, AI can automatically serve up targeted content and guided practice scenarios that focus on that skill.

AI sales training also allows for just-in-time enablement, which means sellers have the right answers and information, right when they need it. For example, a seller can ask Mindtickle Copilot a question about a product, based on an inquiry they received from a customer. Copilot will provide a real-time answer, as well as related resources on the topic. The seller can deepen their understanding on the spot and confidently respond to the prospect in the moment.

AI role-plays are another impactful CPG tool. These interactive sales simulations allow sellers to practice real-world selling scenarios with an AI buyer. Each session provides immediate feedback, which helps reps refine their skills before facing real-life buyers. As a result, CPG sales reps are better prepared for high-stakes interactions.

AI also plays a critical role in CPG sales coaching.

While traditional CPG sales coaching is effective, it’s labor intensive for managers – and feedback is often delayed. AI sales coaching solves this by automatically reviewing and scoring recorded sales calls and AI role-plays. Consumer packaged goods sales reps get immediate, objective feedback on things like:

  • Confidence
  • Sentiment
  • Talk to listen ratio
  • Messaging accuracy

This feedback enables sales reps to make improvements without waiting for CPG sales coaching from a manager.

In the CPG industry, execution speed, consistency, and adaptability are critical. With AI sales training and coaching, organizations can build confident, agile sales teams that are always ready to engage buyers and drive results in a competitive marketplace.

Build a smarter CPG sales training program with Mindtickle

The CPG market is massive. But success isn’t guaranteed.

To compete and grow, organizations must invest in CPG sales training and coaching that prepares sellers to overcome obstacles, adapt to change, and deliver value at every stage of the purchase journey.

With AI, organizations can now deliver tailored, high-impact CPG sales coaching and training at scale – empowering every rep to reach their full potential.

Take CPG sales training to the next level with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle helps leading CPG organizations build agile, high-performing sales teams that are always ready to engage buyers and win deals?

Request Your Demo

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Sales Training vs Sales Coaching: Key Differences Every Sales Leader Needs to Know https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-training-vs-sales-coaching/ Tue, 03 Jun 2025 09:47:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23808 Every sales leader in the world strives to hit their growth goals each quarter. But reaching those targets isn’t as simple as handing out quotas and hoping reps rise to the occasion. In fact, recent research found that 84% of sales reps missed their quotas last year, a clear sign that hitting sales goals is …

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Every sales leader in the world strives to hit their growth goals each quarter. But reaching those targets isn’t as simple as handing out quotas and hoping reps rise to the occasion.

In fact, recent research found that 84% of sales reps missed their quotas last year, a clear sign that hitting sales goals is more than just laying out expectations.

Sellers also need the right support to reach their goals. That’s where the debate of sales training vs sales coaching comes into play.

While sales training and sales coaching are often used interchangeably, they’re not the same thing. But both play an important role in preparing sellers to engage buyers and close deals.

In this post, we’ll upack the key differences between sales training vs sales coaching, explain why both are critical to sales success, and explore how artificial intelligence can help you scale and optimize your programs for maximum impact.

of sales reps missed their quotas last year
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Sales training vs sales coaching: What’s the difference?

Sales training and sales coaching are certainly related. But they aren’t the same thing. Understanding the key differences between sales training vs sales coaching is key to building an effective sales enablement strategy.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the key differences between sales training vs sales coaching.

#1 Purpose and focus

The purpose of sales training is to provide reps with the foundational knowledge they need to sell. For example, you might deliver sales training on topics like:

  • A new product offering or changes to an existing one
  • Your organization’s sales methodology
  • Core sales processes your reps need to learn and follow

Sales coaching builds upon that foundational knowledge.

The purpose of sales coaching is to:

  • Reinforce what reps have learned
  • Help them apply what they’ve learned in real-life situations
  • Provide tailored guidance and feedback to strengthen skills, improve behaviors, and drive consistent performance

#2 Format and timing

Typically, sales training is formal and delivered at regular intervals. For example, a new rep might go through onboarding when they join the company, followed by ongoing sales training sessions every quarter to reinforce key concepts and learn new ones.

Training is often tied to moments of change. Some examples include:

  • A new product launch
  • A shift in the competitive landscape
  • The rollout of a new sales methodology or tool

Sales training can also be targeted to address specific skill gaps. For example, a group of reps struggling with objection handling might complete a targeted training module focused on improving this skill.

Sales training programs can take a number of different formats, including:

  • Classroom training
  • Live or virtual workshops
  • Videos
  • Quizzes and assessments
  • Bite-sized, on-demand sales training modules

On the other hand, sales coaching is continuous and adaptive.

A recent study found that 65% of sales managers rely on regularly scheduled calls to coach the members of their teams. But sales coaching doesn’t have to be limited to formal meetings. It can (and should) happen between meetings and whenever a teachable moment arises.

Today, more and more revenue teams are using AI-powered sales coaching tools to enhance their efforts. With AI sales coaching tools, reps can get personalized feedback and guidance – anytime and anywhere. We’ll take a closer look at AI sales coaching later in this post.

#3 Audience and ownership

Sales training programs are typically designed for a larger audience, such as the entire sales team or a specific segment based on role, territory, or tenure. Oftentimes, sales training is developed and delivered by a sales enablement or training team.

On the other hand, sales coaching, when it’s done right, is customized for each seller, addressing their unique strengths, weaknesses, and active deals. Research tells us that in most cases, a rep’s direct manager is responsible for delivering coaching. However, a growing number of organizations also leverage AI sales coaching software to provide real-time, on-demand feedback and guidance.

of organizations have direct managers responsible for coaching sales reps.
0 %

#4 Tools of the trade

Sales training and sales coaching both depend on the right tools to drive impact. While each strategy requires its own set of resources, there is often overlap in the tools and technology used to support them.

Organizations often use a learning management system (LMS) or other training platform to deliver sales training. These platforms are often paired with tools like sales playbooks, instructional videos, and video conferencing software.

Sales coaching, on the other hand, is often supported with tools like CRMs, sales coaching software, conversation intelligence tools, and live and recorded role-play tools that provide insight into rep performance.

Increasingly, organizations are consolidating these sales coaching and training tools into a single revenue enablement platform. These all-in-one solutions support all of the core elements of revenue enablement, including sales training, coaching, content, and analytics. Many revenue enablement platforms have AI features, allowing organizations to deliver tailored, effective sales coaching and training at scale.

#5 KPIs

Sales training is often measured through metrics like completion rates, knowledge retention, and certifications. Organizations might track sales coaching metrics like the number of coaching sessions delivered per rep.

However, what’s most important to track is how sales training and coaching translate into improved skills and behaviors and stronger sales performance.

Sales training Sales Coaching

Purpose

Build foundational knowledge.
Reinforce learning and improve a rep’s skills and ongoing sales performance.

Focus

Broad topics, such as product knowledge and sales methodologies.
Focused on individual seller’s performance and deals.

Format

– Onboarding
– Sales kickoffs
– Live and virtual workshops
– Bite-sized virtual learning
– Manager-delivered feedback
– AI-delivered feedback

Timing

Delivered at set points, such as:
– Onboarding
– New product launch
– Introduction of new sales methodology

Training can also be assigned when a seller needs additional support on a specific skill or competency.
– Regularly scheduled coaching calls
– Ad hoc coaching, as needed and depending on manager availability
– On-demand, via AI

Audience

The entire sales team or subsets of it (ie specific roles or regions).
Individual sales reps.

Owner

Sales enablement or training team.
Sales managers.

Examples of tools

– LMS
– Training platform
– Revenue enablement platform
– Sales playbooks
– CRM
– Conversation intelligence tools
– Coaching platforms
– AI tools
– Live and recorded role-plays
– Revenue enablement platform

Examples of KPIs

– Completion rates
– Knowledge retention
– Skills assessment
– Win rates
– Sales performance improvement

Which matters more for B2B organizations: Sales training vs sales coaching?

There’s actually no need to debate sales training vs sales coaching. Why? Because while each serves a distinct purpose, they’re deeply connected and both essential to building a team of high-performing B2B sales reps.

Sales training lays the foundation for success. It provides reps with the essential knowledge and information they need to be able to sell. Sales coaching builds upon that foundation, giving each rep the feedback and guidance they need to effectively apply what they’ve learned in real-life selling scenarios.

Together, sales training and coaching create a dynamic learning loop. Sales training introduces new concepts and information, and sales coaching ensures these concepts and information translate into action and results.

Why do sales training and coaching matter for B2B organizations?

A combination of sales training and coaching is especially important for B2B organizations. But why?

B2B sales cycles are typically long and complex. Buyers have high expectations, buying groups are larger, and the deals themselves tend to be higher in value. In other words, there’s a lot more at stake.

Sellers must engage with multiple stakeholders, clearly articulate value to each, and tailor their approach for each buying scenario. Without sales training and coaching, even the most talented rep can fall short – and lose out on valuable opportunities.

When combined, sales training and coaching can have a powerful impact on sales performance and growth. Some of the benefits to B2B sales organizations include:

  • Faster ramp time: Sales training gets new reps up to speed quickly, while sales coaching helps them stay on track and start contributing to revenue growth.
  • Higher win rates: Sales training equips sellers with the right knowledge, while sales coaching helps ensure they know how to apply this knowledge to engage buyers and close more deals.
  • Greater adaptability to change: Change is inevitable, whether it’s a new product, market shift, or or updated messaging. Sales training and coaching helps sellers quickly adjust and be successful in the midst of change.
  • Higher retention of top reps: Sellers want to work for a company that supports its employees and is invested in their success. By supporting your sellers with sales training and coaching, you’ll boost morale, motivation, and loyalty.

When used together, sales training and coaching boost individual performance and team-wide results. You’ll create a high-performing B2B sales team where each rep contributes meaningfully to your organization’s growth goals.

How is AI transforming sales training vs sales coaching?

There’s no doubt that sales training and coaching can have a significant impact on sales performance. But traditional approaches have their limitations – especially when it comes to scale, consistency, and speed.

That’s why more B2B organizations are embracing AI sales coaching and training to modernize the way they enable and support their teams.

AI sales training

It makes sense to deliver some types of sales training – like onboarding or new product rollouts – to the entire sales team. But other sales training must be personalized to be impactful. The challenge is, personalized sales training is hard to scale.

AI sales training solves this, enabling organizations to deliver personalized, bite-sized learning experiences that adapt to each rep’s strengths, weaknesses, recent performance, and learning preferences. That means sellers can access the right training at the right time – whether it’s during onboarding or just-in-time before a sales call.

Revenue enablement platforms like Mindtickle are leading the charge with innovations like Mindtickle Copilot, which acts as a real-time learning assistant. Copilot can surface relevant content, recommend next steps, and trigger just-in-time learning based on recent activity and sales outcomes. This AI sales training helps reinforce learning and makes sales training more relevant and impactful.

SalesTraining

AI sales coaching

Sales coaching must be personalized to be impactful. But with sales managers overseeing more reps than ever, delivering consistent, one-on-one coaching is harder than ever.

AI sales coaching gives organizations new ways to support reps – without burdening managers.

Take Mindtickle Copilot, for example. This AI sales coaching tool analyzes sales calls and provides real-time feedback on elements like tone, pacing, and confidence. Sellers can use this instant feedback to fine-tune their approach and improve performance on future calls, without involving a sales manager.

Mindtickle also offers AI role-plays, another powerful AI sales coaching capability. AI role plays give sellers a safe place to practice their skills as often as they’d like with an AI-powered buyer. Reps get real-time coaching and feedback, which they can use to improve their skills before they engage with real prospects.

With AI sales coaching, organizations can provide personalized, real-time guidance to help sellers succeed – without stretching their managers thin.

Copilot - Mission review

Unlock the power of AI sales coaching and training with Mindtickle

Sales training and coaching are both proven strategies for improving sales performance. But traditional sales training and coaching approaches have their limitations – especially when it comes to personalization and scalability.

That’s why top revenue organizations are embracing AI sales coaching and training to deliver tailored support at scale. Mindtickle, an award-winning revenue enablement platform equips winning teams with the AI-powered tools needed to boost sales performance and drive revenue growth.

Experience AI sales training and coaching with Mindtickle

Ready to see why winning organizations turn to Mindtickle to power modern, effective sales training and sales coaching programs?

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AI Sales Agents Explained: What They are and Why You Need One https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/ai-sales-agents/ Wed, 21 May 2025 17:29:46 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23624 There’s a lot that goes into closing a B2B deal, and every step matters. If a prospect encounters friction at any point in the purchase journey, there’s a good chance they’ll walk away. No pressure right? The problem is, most B2B sellers simply don’t have the time to deliver the personalized, seamless experiences today’s B2B …

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There’s a lot that goes into closing a B2B deal, and every step matters. If a prospect encounters friction at any point in the purchase journey, there’s a good chance they’ll walk away.

No pressure right?

The problem is, most B2B sellers simply don’t have the time to deliver the personalized, seamless experiences today’s B2B buyers expect. Sales reps are bogged down with tedious, time consuming tasks, leaving them with little time to focus on what really matters: building relationships, earning trust, and closing deals.

Today, more and more revenue organizations are turning to AI sales agents to bridge the gap.

AI sales agents handle the time consuming (but necessary) tasks, like qualifying leads, booking meetings, and identifying the next best action to move deals forward. That way, sellers can stay focused on fostering relationships and closing deals.

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at what AI sales agents are and why they’ve quickly become an essential tool for organizations looking to boost sales productivity and performance at scale.

What are AI sales agents?

An AI sales agent is a tool that leverages artificial intelligence to perform or assist with selling tasks – often without requiring continuous involvement of a human sales rep. AI sales agents are used to save time, increase productivity, and improve customer experiences across the entire sales cycle.

AI agents can support a wide range of areas, including:

  • Qualifying leads
  • Scheduling meetings
  • Engaging with prospects and answering questions in real-time
  • Maintaining accurate records across sales tools
  • Analyzing sales conversations to recommend next steps

B2B buyers have high expectations, but sellers are often short on time. AI sales agents streamline or automate different parts of the sales cycle. This frees up sellers to focus on higher value tasks and closing more deals.

How AI sales agents work

AI sales agents leverage data, algorithms, and machine learning to make decisions and perform different actions. Over time, they learn from past interactions and continuously optimize their approach for even better results.

Different types of AI sales agents

There are two types of AI sales agents:

  • Autonomous: These AI sales agents act independently and can complete entire tasks without human involvement. For example, an AI sales agent may qualify leads or schedule meetings on its own.
  • Assistive: These are often referred to as AI sales assistants. They help sellers complete myriad tasks, but they don’t work independently. For example, an AI sales assistant may draft a prospecting email, but the seller must review the email before sending. Or, an AI sales assistant may suggest the next step a seller should take in the sales cycle, but the seller is ultimately responsible for taking that step.

We’ll take a closer look at the differences between AI sales agents and AI sales assistants later on.

How are AI sales agents shaping the future of sales enablement and sales automation?

The world of sales is evolving at breakneck speed. AI is right at the center of this rapid evolution.

Today’s B2B buyers have high expectations. Of course, they want outstanding products and services. But they also expect personalized communication, real-time responses, and seamless experiences across the entire purchase journey.

Meanwhile, sellers are under pressure to do more with less. Their targets are higher – but they have less time and fewer resources.

Sales enablement strategies and tools that worked in the past may no longer pass muster. That’s where AI sales agents come in.

AI sales agents aren’t just another tool to add to an already-bloated sales tech stack. Instead, they’re an intelligent system that can handle a wide range of sales and enablement tasks so sellers have the time, skills, and resources needed to deliver outstanding buyer experiences.

In the realm of sales enablement, AI agents can help sellers find the right content at the right time, deliver real-time AI coaching based on call and role-play performance, and personalize AI training recommendations – all without a sales manager needing to intervene.

On the sales automation side of things, AI sales agents can handle repetitive tasks like meeting scheduling, lead scoring, and follow-up reminders. That means sellers can spend less time on tedious administrative work and more time on building relationships and guiding deals to the finish line.

The bottom line? AI sales agents can help revenue and enablement leaders scale impact, drive consistency, and keep their teams one step ahead of the competition.

How is an AI sales agent different from an AI sales assistant?

The terms “AI sales agent” and “AI sales assistant” are often used synonymously. While the two terms are related, they aren’t the same thing.

So, what’s the difference?

An AI sales assistant supports sales reps by tackling specific tasks or making recommendations. Some examples include:

  • Drafting emails
  • Recommending a piece of sales content for a specific scenario
  • Suggesting the next best step to take in a deal

While the AI sales assistant provides input, the seller must review and act on the input. For example, an AI sales assistant can make a recommendation on a piece of content, but it’s ultimately up to the seller to share the content with the prospect.

An AI sales assistant is a support tool. It can accelerate and simplify processes, but it doesn’t take full control.

An AI sales agent takes things to the next level.

AI sales agents operate more independently than AI sales assistants. An AI sales agent can perform entire tasks on its own, without human intervention. Some examples include:

  • Qualifying leads
  • Answering questions
  • Scheduling meetings

In fact, an AI sales agent can engage with a prospect across multiple touchpoints and move them further down the funnel before they ever interact with a live sales rep.

Both AI sales assistants and AI sales agents have a role to play. But as technology evolves and customer expectations grow, more and more teams are embracing AI sales agents. AI sales agents can handle larger parts of the sales cycle, more independently, which frees up sellers to focus on fostering relationships, building trust, and closing deals.

AI sales assistants vs AI sales agents

Both can play an important role in increasing productivity and improving buyer experience

AI sales assistant AI sales agent

Purpose

Support human sales reps with tasks and recommendations.
Perform tasks with minimal to no human input.

Level of autonomy

Low. Requires human review, approval, and execution.
High. Can take action and make decisions without human intervention.

Who takes action

Human sales rep
AI sales agent

Best for

Supporting reps with decision-making and task execution.
Streamlining and automating entire portions of the sales cycle.

Examples of tasks

– Drafting emails
– Recommending relevant, proven sales content
– Recommending next best steps
– Qualifying leads
– Answering basic questions
– Scheduling meetings
– Routing prospects to appropriate live sales rep

How it impacts sales teams

Increases efficiency and reduces time spent on manual, tedious tasks.
Frees up reps’ time so they can focus on building relationships and closing deals.

What are the benefits of an AI sales agent?

More and more organizations are investing in AI sales agents, and it’s not hard to see why. These intelligent tools provide plenty of advantages that can help customer-facing teams work smarter and close more deals.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the top benefits of an AI sales agent.

During the average week, sales reps spend a mere 30% of their time on selling activities. The remainder is spent on other time-consuming tasks like qualifying leads, booking meetings, and data entry.

One of the biggest benefits of an AI sales agent is that it saves sellers’ time. These agents can streamline (or even completely automate) the routine, tedious tasks that are necessary – but take up so much of a seller’s time. That way, reps have more time to dedicate to high value activities like building relationships and closing deals.

Prospects are bound to have questions. They expect timely answers – no matter when a question arises.

In the past, prospects were at the mercy of a seller. If a sales rep didn’t respond fast enough, the prospect would look elsewhere.

Now, AI sales agents allow for timely engagement, any time of day. For example, an AI sales agent can answer simple questions from a prospect in real-time. These agents can also help sales reps surface information and content faster, which allows for faster response times.

Today’s B2B buyers expect personalized communication and experiences throughout the sales cycle. But reps often struggle to meet their expectations.

AI sales assistants make it possible to deliver consistent, personalized communication at scale. Every prospect gets relevant messaging and timely follow-up – without overloading sales reps.

The B2B purchase journey is rarely straightforward. Instead, it’s often long and complex, and sellers struggle to keep deals on track.

An AI sales agent can guide sellers every step of the way. For example, AI can help sellers prepare for calls and tailor follow up. AI can also recommend content and training based on the specifics of a deal or suggest what step the seller should take next to keep the deal on track.

B2B buyers depend on content to make informed purchase decisions. But sharing generic content won’t cut it.

An AI sales agent can provide content recommendations for every sales scenario, based on factors like past performance, buyer signals, and deal stage. By sharing relevant content, sellers are more likely to capture buyers’ attention – and keep them engaged throughout the sales cycle.

Sales training is important. But sellers also need opportunities to practice what they’ve learned. While traditional role-plays are effective, they’re also time-consuming and hard to scale across teams.

An AI sales assistant is the answer.

AI role-plays allow sellers to practice their skills through realistic, on-demand sales simulations. Some AI sales tools even let sellers customize role-plays with real deal information. That way, sellers can fine tune their approach and head into the field with confidence.

Ongoing sales coaching is essential for all sales reps. But getting timely feedback often depends on a manager’s availability. By the time coaching happens, it may be too late.

With an AI sales agent, sellers can get real-time AI coaching based on their performance on sales calls or role-plays. They can use this feedback to adjust their approach and improve outcomes.

Every organization aims to boost revenue. But many assume the only way to close more deals is to hire more sales reps.

With an AI sales agent, organizations can engage more customers and close more deals – without adding more headcount.

Unlock your sales potential with AI tools from Mindtickle

Modern B2B buyers expect tailored, seamless communication and experiences – no matter where they are on the purchase journey. The right AI sales tools empower your sellers to meet those expectations and close more deals – without wasting valuable time.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform that’s trusted by organizations across the globe. With Mindtickle’s AI-powered sales tools, you’ll improve sales performance and productivity and deliver outstanding buyer experiences at scale.

Mindtickle Copilot offers powerful AI capabilities to support every member of the go-to-market team.

Mindtickle Copilot makes it easier for sellers to prepare for every sales interaction and follow up accordingly. Copilot also offers capabilities to streamline and automate tasks throughout the sales cycle and ensure sellers have the skills needed to close more deals. For example, A-guided selling helps sellers build the right strategy for every deal, and AI role-plays allow sellers to practice their skills in realistic sales simulations.

Mindtickle Copilot also helps sales managers personalize coaching to address the unique strengths and weaknesses of each sales rep. Managers get insights on competencies, benchmarks, and next steps to take to upskill their teams.

Finally, Mindtickle Copilot has robust capabilities to support sales enablement teams. With Copilot, enablement teams can quickly create and launch engaging enablement content. They can also leverage content localization to support global teams.

Today, AI is all around us – including in many of the tools that sellers depend on every day. But often, AI is stuck in silos. Mindtickle’s AI capabilities integrate with other AI agents and your existing tools – including CRM systems and other engagement platforms. That way, your sellers can experience even larger productivity and performance gains.

Improve Seller Productivity with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle Copilot can transform the way your reps engage buyers and close deals?

Request Your Demo

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The Complete Guide to Sales Enablement KPIs https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-sales-enablement-kpis/ Mon, 19 May 2025 10:38:12 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19733 By now, most B2B organizations understand the importance of sales enablement. In fact, recent research found that sales enablement has become the most popular strategy for driving revenue growth. But simply equipping your teams with training, tools, and content isn’t enough. You must also consistently measure the impact of your efforts. Otherwise, there’s a good …

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By now, most B2B organizations understand the importance of sales enablement. In fact, recent research found that sales enablement has become the most popular strategy for driving revenue growth.

But simply equipping your teams with training, tools, and content isn’t enough. You must also consistently measure the impact of your efforts. Otherwise, there’s a good chance you’re wasting time and resources on programs that aren’t delivering results.

Tracking the right sales enablement KPIs gives you clear insight into what’s working, what’s not, and where there are opportunities to optimize programs and increase impact.

But which sales enablement KPIs do you need to be tracking?

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about sales enablement KPIs, including:

  • What they are
  • Why they matter
  • The key metrics you should start tracking today to improve sales performance and prove ROI

 

What are sales enablement KPIs?

Key performance indicators—or KPIs for short—are metrics used to measure performance. Tracking KPIs helps businesses understand whether they’re on track to meet their goals.

Sales enablement KPIs are key performance indicators that gauge sales productivity and help revenue teams understand how (and whether) sales enablement programs and initiatives are helping them meet their sales enablement goals.

By leveraging sales enablement analytics software, revenue teams can determine how well their enablement programs empower sales reps to effectively and efficiently engage with buyers and close more deals.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

Why are sales enablement KPIs important?

Tracking KPIs is a crucial component of any business strategy. Sales enablement is no exception.

If you don’t track sales enablement metrics, it’s impossible to determine how (or whether) your sales enablement efforts are improving business outcomes and delivering ROI for your organization.

In the best of times, businesses aim to invest in programs and initiatives with the biggest impact. This is especially true in today’s uncertain economy when many organizations face flat (or even reduced) budgets.

Tracking sales enablement KPIs is key to demonstrating the value sales enablement delivers to the business. When you can prove impact, it’s much easier to maintain the budget and resources you have and potentially secure additional budget and resources.

Monitoring KPIs also helps you understand where there are opportunities for improvement. Then, you can make data-driven optimizations to improve your sales enablement programs’ effectiveness and sales rep performance.

Why you need to track sales enablement KPIs

Tracking sales enablement KPIs is a critical step in any sales enablement program, and it’s well worth the effort. Organizations that regularly track KPIs experience some significant benefits. Let’s look at what regular tracking can do for your business.

Improve cross-functional alignment

Modern B2B customers expect excellent, seamless experiences across the purchase journey. Multiple teams, including sales, marketing, and customer success, play a role in delivering these experiences.

Often, these teams work in silos. This results in disjointed buying and selling journeys.

For example, a marketing team may build new campaigns that increase leads. While their campaigns generate a high volume of leads, the leads aren’t high quality. Therefore, sales reps waste their time on leads that’ll never convert.

Establishing sales enablement KPIs is key to ensuring all teams understand sales enablement goals and their role in achieving those goals. When teams are aligned, outcomes improve.

Properly allocate enablement resources

If you’re not tracking sales enablement KPIs, it’s impossible to know what kinds of sales enablement programs and initiatives you need to build. As such, you may scramble to build many different programs and initiatives and hope that something works.

You can identify the most effective ways to support your revenue teams when tracking the right metrics. Then, you can allocate your enablement resources appropriately.

Optimize your sales enablement strategy

Regularly tracking sales enablement KPIs helps you understand if you’re on track to meet your sales enablement objectives. It can also help you identify where there are areas for improvement. Then, you can make data-based optimizations to your sales enablement strategy and programs to improve ROI.

Deliver data-driven training and coaching

Each sales rep has unique strengths and weaknesses. Delivering generic sales enablement to every member of the team isn’t an effective approach.

But this one-size-fits-all approach is more common than we’d like to think. Research found that only 40% of C-level executives can identify sales rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training.

of leaders cannot identify sales rep strengths and weaknesses
0 %

Monitoring sales enablement KPIs provides insight on overall sales performance as well as the performance of specific teams. You can also drill down further to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each sales rep. Armed with these insights, sales enablement teams can deliver targeted training and coaching that address the needs of each seller. That way, every sales team member will have what they need to be effective and efficient in their roles, and they won’t waste their time on irrelevant training and coaching.

Increase the effectiveness of sales content

The right sales content is key to closing deals, but certain types of content are more effective than others.

When you regularly track sales enablement KPIs, you can understand how sales reps and prospects use sales content and how it’s influencing sales outcomes. You can use those insights to optimize your content strategy properly. For example, you can invest more in the types of content tied to closed won deals, and you can eliminate unused assets on the shelf.

Then, you can use a sales content management solution to help sales reps find the right content for any sales scenario.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

Optimize the sales cycle

The shorter the sales cycle, the faster your business can make money. Monitoring sales enablement metrics provides insight into where sellers are having problems. Revenue teams can then work to provide the tools, training, and resources to help sales reps overcome their challenges.

What sales enablement KPIs do you need to measure?

Now that we’ve explained sales enablement KPIs and why it’s important to monitor them, you may be wondering which specific metrics you need to track.

There is no one-size-fits-all answer. Instead, it’s important to determine which sales enablement KPIs are appropriate for your organization.

However, some common examples of sales enablement KPIs include:

Sales enablement aims to improve sales reps’ productivity. As such, measuring sales enablement metrics that shed light on seller productivity is key. A number of different metrics provide insight into sales productivity. One such metric is the time a rep spends on each deal.

You can determine the average time your top reps spend on deals and use this as a benchmark. Then, you can measure all reps against this gold standard to identify areas for improvement.

This measures how long it takes to guide buyers through the entire sales cycle. It includes every step—from initial contact to signing the deal. This sales enablement KPI provides insight into how effectively your sellers guide buyers through the sales cycle.

In addition to measuring the length of the entire sales cycle, you can also measure the length of each step of the sales cycle. This can provide insight into which stages of the sales cycle reps may be struggling with.

This is a calculation of how much it costs to acquire a customer. It’s calculated by dividing sales and marketing expenses by the number of new customers you’ve acquired over a set period.

The lower the CAC, the more money you’re making.

This sales metric measures the percentage of leads that become customers. It provides insight into whether sales reps have what it takes to close deals.

In addition to measuring the overall conversion rate, you may also want to track the portion of prospects who convert at each stage of the sales cycle. If you see a big drop-off at a certain point in the sales cycle, you may be able to deliver additional training and coaching.

This is the percentage of opportunities won by the sales team. Win rate is another sales metric that provides insight into your reps’ ability to close deals.

It makes sense to measure average win rates. Breaking it down by factors like industry and company size can provide even richer insights. For example, you may find that your win rate in the medical device industry is significantly lower than all other industries. Here, there’s an opportunity to develop targeted resources for sales reps working with medical device industry prospects.

Your churn rate is the portion of customers who stop doing business with you during a specified period. There are a number of reasons why customers churn. One may be that the product wasn’t the right fit for the buyer. If this is the case, there may be an opportunity to develop additional training and enablement to improve reps’ qualification skills.

B2B customers have high expectations. They expect outstanding experiences throughout their entire relationship with your organization and won’t hesitate to switch to another company if their expectations aren’t met.

It’s essential to track customer satisfaction and the percentage of customers who stick around long-term. Then, you can discover opportunities to better enable your customer-facing teams to deliver outstanding experiences.

This sales enablement KPI is closely related to customer satisfaction and retention. It’s the total value of a customer for the entire period they do business with you.

A low customer lifetime value may indicate problems with customer satisfaction. This is an opportunity to empower your entire revenue team with the right tools and resources to deliver satisfying customer experiences.

Chances are, sales content is part of your sales enablement strategy. It’s essential to track how (and whether) sales content is being used by sales reps and customers – and how it’s impacting deals.

These sales enablement KPIs provide insight that can help you optimize your sales content and deliver training so your sales reps know how to use it.

For example, when you start tracking sales content consumption and effectiveness, you may notice a certain content piece that’s not used often. But when used, it has a large, positive impact on deal outcomes. This is an opportunity to provide additional enablement to ensure sales reps know where to find this asset and how to use it in deals.

These sales enablement KPIs allow you to understand how sales reps engage with the training and enablement you deliver. For example, you can track what percentage of your sales reps have completed a specific training or the average score for an assessment at the end of a training module.

Sales coaching is an important component of a sales enablement program. It’s important to track sales enablement KPIs related to coaching, like how many coaching sessions sales reps are receiving and how many of those sessions are deal coaching versus skills coaching.

This is a sales enablement KPI that measures how long it takes a sales rep to close their first deal after completing a specific training program. Most often, it’s used to track how quickly a sales rep makes the first sale after onboarding. However, it can also be used to evaluate the effectiveness of ongoing sales training. For example, you may track how soon a rep sells a new product offering after attending a training session.

A shorter time to first deal indicates training was effective and well-retained. A longer time to first deal may indicate there are opportunities for improvement.

This sales enablement KPI provides insight on how the average size of deals changes over time. If your sales enablement programs are working, you’ll likely notice an increase in average deal size. If average deal size is decreasing, there are likely opportunities to optimize sales enablement programs.

There are certain skills and behaviors every seller on your team needs to be successful in their roles. Some examples include active listening, objection handling, product knowledge, and negotiation.

Tracking your reps’ proficiency in these key selling skills is critical. You’ll get insight into which enablement initiatives are driving skill development and how improvements in proficiency correlate with sales performance. This sales enablement KPI can also help you identify where targeted training and coaching are needed, so you can close skill gaps and improve performance across your entire team.

Qualitative vs quantitative sales enablement KPIs?

So far, most of the sales enablement KPIs we’ve discussed have been quantitative. In other words, they’re data-driven, measurable metrics that help you understand the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales enablement programs.

Quantitative sales enablement KPIs tell you what’s happening. But they don’t always reveal why it’s happening. That’s where qualitative sales enablement KPIs come in.

Qualitative sales enablement KPIs capture insights that numbers alone can’t provide. Some examples include:

  • Sales rep feedback
  • Manager observations
  • Sentiment around training and content

These insights help you understand how your sales enablement efforts are being received, whether reps feel prepared, and where there may be friction or gaps.

Relying on numbers alone can lead to blind spots. For example, data may show you that training completion rates are low. But without qualitative input, you won’t know why it’s so low, and you won’t know how to improve.

Be sure to track both qualitative and quantitative sales enablement KPIs. By pairing hard data with human insight, you’ll get a more complete view of sales enablement performance and you can make smarter decisions that’ll actually move the needle.

Get a full picture of sales enablement impact with Mindtickle

Sales enablement – when it’s done well – can have a significant impact on sales performance and revenue growth. But developing and delivering training, content, and resources and hoping for the best isn’t effective.

Instead, it’s imperative to measure sales enablement impact.

There’s no single metric that’ll tell you whether or not your sales enablement programs are making a difference. Instead, you must track a variety of qualitative and quantitative sales enablement KPIs, including the metrics we covered in this post.

Tracking and analyzing so many sales enablement KPIs can seem overwhelming. This is especially true if you’re using multiple, disparate tools to power your sales enablement programs.

Instead, consider trading point solutions for an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

Sales Enablement with Mindtickle

Ready to see why winning revenue teams depend on Mindtickle to build, deliver, and measure winning sales enablement programs that boost sales productivity and performance?

Request Your Demo

This post was originally published in June 2024 and was updated in April 2025.

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AI Compliance https://www.mindtickle.com/ai-compliance/ Fri, 16 May 2025 05:00:34 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=23564 Secure & Responsible AI At Mindtickle, we integrate AI with a strong commitment to security, ethics, and regulatory compliance. Our goal is to enhance customer experience without compromising trust or transparency. We use enterprise-grade AI models from trusted providers like Microsoft Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock. All third parties undergo thorough due diligence, including security …

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Secure & Responsible AI

At Mindtickle, we integrate AI with a strong commitment to security, ethics, and regulatory compliance. Our goal is to enhance customer experience without compromising trust or transparency.

We use enterprise-grade AI models from trusted providers like Microsoft Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock. All third parties undergo thorough due diligence, including security certifications and privacy reviews. Data access, processing, and retention are tightly controlled.

Our AI features prioritize safety, fairness, and accountability. Customer data is never used for public model training, retained, or manually reviewed. With clear AI terms, strict data segregation, and strong governance, customers stay fully in control of their AI experience.

Copilot-pressrelease

Third-Party Oversight​

Enterprise AI Models

Mindtickle leverages private enterprise AI models provided by Microsoft Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock.

Approved Third Parties

Third parties, including AI model providers, are evaluated by Mindtickle and approved by Customers before use.

Supplier Due Diligence

Third parties used by Mindtickle undergo mandatory evaluation through a review of compliances and audits such as SOC 2, ISO, Penetration Testing, AI Controls, Security and Privacy Policies, etc.

Data Privacy

Third parties processing customer data are transparently documented in a public sub-processor repository, sign data processing agreements with Mindtickle, and commit to standard contractual clauses for secure data transfer.

International Transfers

Mindtickle performs GDPR-mandated transfer impact assessment through an independent legal auditor to review all the locations where data could be transferred.

AI Guardrails​
No Public AI

Customer data is never transmitted to public AI models.

Opt-out of Model Training

Customer data is never used to train or improve AI models.

Zero AI Data Retention

AI models access data only temporarily to process requests. Data is deleted immediately upon request completion and is never stored permanently.

Data Confidentiality

Customer data will never be used to contribute to the AI models’ knowledge base.

No Manual Oversight

We have opted out of human review from AI models to eliminate manual oversight.

Content Safety

A content filtering system prevents the generation of inappropriate, harmful, unethical, and copyrighted content through AI features.

Data Use and Access
Data Ownership

Customers completely own the data provided as input, user instructions, additional context, and the generated response/output, and Mindtickle does not make any ownership claims to such data.

No Sharing of Sensitive Data

Audio/Video recordings are never shared with AI models; only the limited subset of the learner’s audio/video recording text transcript is shared.

Data Minimization

Only the minimum required data is shared with the AI models.

No High-Risk Processing

Mindtickle does not use AI to perform facial recognition or biometric analysis.

Data Segregation

AI requests are strictly segregated at the tenant and user levels to ensure that customer data remains isolated and there is no cross-tenant access to AI interactions.

AI Terms

We maintain dedicated AI terms that outline our commitment to responsible data usage and retention while addressing key topics like data ownership, accuracy, and accountability.

Responsible AI
Responsible AI Measures

Mindtickle follows responsible AI principles in alignment with the EU AI Act, and general industry standards to remain ethical, transparent, and aligned with regulatory requirements.

Inclusive AI

System prompts are designed to prevent bias, toxicity, and discrimination by AI models.

Human-in-the-Loop

Content generated by AI features is saved in draft mode, requiring human review and approval before publishing — ensuring accuracy and accountability.

Model Diversity

We select AI models that have been trained on a broad and diverse range of datasets to ensure fairness, equity, and non-discrimination.

AI Support, Human Leadership

AI features are designed to enhance human capabilities, boost productivity, and provide data-driven insights—not replace human roles.

AI Use Disclosure

AI-powered features and output are clearly labeled with the “Mindtickle Copilot” title and an icon indicating AI use.

AI Governance
Documentation

All AI features are thoroughly documented to highlight the data fields used, the purpose of each data field, and the generated output/response to help in AI use case evaluation.

Granular AI Access

Customers decide who can use AI features via the platform’s Role Based Access Control (RBAC) framework.

Auditability

Mindtickle logs all requests between users and AI models, capturing relevant data points, including user input, system instructions, and pre-defined constraints for a transparent and secure audit trail.

Flexible AI Control

Mindtickle provides customers full control over their AI experience, with the flexibility to enable or disable AI features based on their organization’s use cases.

End-User Feedback

End users are provided a mechanism to give feedback on AI-generated content to identify and address any problematic content, unintended biases, or ethical concerns.

Explainability

AI outputs are context-aware, rule-based, and constrained to ensure clear reasoning behind the response and feedback.

Audits and Compliance
EU AI Act

Mindtickle has formally assessed itself through an external auditor and has implemented all the controls to comply with the EU AI Act, ensuring ethical and safe AI deployment.

AI Penetration Testing

Mindtickle rigorously tests its platform, and all AI features through semi-annual VAPT audits, covering OWASP’s top 10 AI/LLM risks, including prompt injection, output manipulation, model inversion, data poisoning, etc., along with responsible AI measures.

AI Principles

Responsible AI principles, AI compliance policy, and AI system security checks are integrated into the AI product development lifecycle.

ISO 42001

Mindtickle has been audited by an independent assessor and complies with all the requirements provided by ISO 42001 – the world’s first comprehensive AI system security standard.

Robust Compliance Ecosystem

Mindtickle adheres to rigorous industry standards and compliance frameworks, including SOC 2, SOC 3, ISO 27001, ISO 22301, ISO 27701, ISO 27017, ISO 27018, HIPAA, 21 CFR Part 11, GDPR, SCCs, DPF, CCPA, CPRA, UK DPA 2018, and various US state privacy laws.

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A Complete Guide to Corporate Training Software https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/corporate-training-software/ Thu, 08 May 2025 19:38:29 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23464 The value of corporate training is undeniable. With a strong corporate training program, you can not only onboard sellers faster, but also ensure each rep is always equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to achieve their long-term goals. In fact, studies show that ongoing training can lead to a 50% boost in net sales …

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The value of corporate training is undeniable. With a strong corporate training program, you can not only onboard sellers faster, but also ensure each rep is always equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to achieve their long-term goals.

In fact, studies show that ongoing training can lead to a 50% boost in net sales per rep. Clearly, sales training is well worth the investment.

At the heart of any successful training and development program is the right software. With the right corporate training software, you can streamline onboarding, upskill your team, and ensure your sellers are always ready to deliver outstanding buyer experiences.

If you’re not entirely sure what corporate training software is – or how to choose the right option for your team – you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll explore:

  • What corporate training software is
  • Why it’s worth the investment
  • Key features to look for
  • Some of the top corporate training platforms on the market today

What is a corporate training software?

First things first: what is corporate training software?

Corporate training software is a digital tool or platform that enables revenue organizations to create, deliver, manage and track learning and development programs at scale. Unlike one-off training sessions, corporate training software provides structured, engaging, and tailored learning experiences that meet the unique needs of each seller.

Corporate training software plays an important role in both sales onboarding and continuous training and learning.

With the right corporate training software, new hires can ramp up quickly and be prepared to contribute to revenue growth faster. This software can also be used to provide ongoing learning and development that ensures every rep is always ready to sell. Some examples of ongoing sales training include new product information, competitor updates, and best practices for handling objections.

Most sales training software offers features that allow sales leaders to track online training engagement and completion. For example, a sales manager can see which reps have completed a new product training and how they scored on the accompanying assessment.

However, the best corporate training software goes a step further, providing insight into how sales training is influencing seller behavior and driving performance. That means managers can connect online training to real-world outcomes, like improved skills and better sales results.

What are the benefits of a corporate training software?

Now that we’ve defined what corporate training software is, let’s talk about why it matters.

The impact of sales training and coaching is well understood. Research shows that sellers are 63% more likely to be top performers when they have effective training, consistent coaching, and strong support from their manager.

Corporate training software makes that possible.

Let’s explore some of the key benefits corporate training software can bring to your organization.

In many revenue organizations, sales training content is scattered. Some resources live in shared drives, others in a corporate learning management system (LMS), and still others are buried in email threads. This fragmentation makes it difficult for sellers to quickly assess the training they need, when they need it.

Corporate training software solves this by centralizing all learning into one platform. Sellers can spend less time searching and more time engaging with sales training that’ll improve behaviors and results.

The faster you can onboard new sales reps, the easier it’ll be to hit your revenue targets. Corporate training software enables organizations to deliver standardized onboarding programs that are tailored to each sales role. That means reps will be set up for success and ready to hit the ground running faster. And sales managers won’t have to spend their time manually training each new seller.

In the world of sales, change is a constant. Sellers need continuous training so they can thrive in the face of change.

Corporate training software allows you to distribute new content right away – whether it’s a product update, timely competitive insights, or quick best practices. That way, sellers always have the knowledge and skills needed to be successful.

Sales training must be personalized to be effective. But delivering tailored training to a large team can be difficult – if not impossible.

With the right corporate training software, you can scale your sales training programs without sacrificing quality. Every seller – no matter their role or region – will get a tailored training experience that meets their unique needs.

The most effective sales training doesn’t just deliver knowledge. It also drives behavior change.

Corporate training software reinforces key concepts and gives sellers opportunities to practice real-world skills. For example, sellers can use AI role-plays to practice their pitch with an adaptive AI buyer before money is on the line. That way, reps will be more prepared to engage customers and close deals.

We all know that sales training is essential to sales success. But often, organizations struggle to measure impact.

With the right corporate training software, you can not only see who is engaging with sales training, but also how different initiatives are influencing sellers’ behaviors and different sales metrics. You can use these insights to enhance sales training programs and ensure every seller has the right support to achieve their full potential.

Today, most B2B buyers value the experiences a company provides as much as its products or services. Buyers have high expectations, and if their expectations aren’t met, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

With corporate training software, you can equip every seller with the right learning opportunities. That way, they can build the knowledge and skills needed to consistently deliver winning experiences that meet (or even exceed) customer expectations.

Sales rep retention is a common (and costly) challenge at many B2B organizations. High turnover means constantly investing time and resources into recruiting and onboarding new team members.

Providing ongoing learning opportunities – powered by the right corporate training software – can be an effective way to boost seller retention. In fact, three-quarters of employees indicate they’re more likely to stay with an organization that offers continuous training and development.

number of employees more likely to stay with an organization that offers continuous training and development
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Key features to look for in corporate training software

If you run a search for corporate training tools on Google or G2, you’ll see you have a lot of options. It can be difficult to narrow down your choices – especially when you’re not exactly sure what to look for.

Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all corporate training software. It’s important to find a solution that aligns with the needs of your organization.

However, there are certain key features to look for in any corporate training platform.

#1 Tools to define and measure sales excellence

There are certain skills and competencies that each seller on your team needs in order to be successful. Look for corporate training software that allows you to define what those skills are for each of your sales roles.

For example, Mindtickle includes Ideal Rep Profiles (IRPs), which allow organizations to define essential skills and behaviors for each customer-facing role. Then, teams can create training and enablement content that’s focused on helping sellers master these must-have skills and competencies.

#2 Personalized sales training and coaching programs

Each sales team is made up of individuals with diverse backgrounds, experiences, and skill sets. That’s why a one-size-fits-all approach to sales training and coaching doesn’t work.

Instead, choose corporate training tools that allow you to deliver tailored training and coaching based on factors like role, location, and tenure. The right solution should also help you identify individuals’ strengths and weaknesses so you can deliver targeted training and coaching that drives meaningful improvement.

For example, Mindtickle’s Readiness Index evaluates each seller against the Ideal Rep Profile. That way, can you deliver tailored sales training and coaching that addresses the needs of each seller.

#3 AI role-plays

Just because a sales rep completes a training module doesn’t mean they’re fully prepared to be successful in the field. After all, Gartner found that B2B sellers forget 70% of what they learn within a week of training.

It’s important to find corporate training software that offers opportunities for sellers to try out their newfound skills and knowledge before going into the field. AI role-plays are one great example.

With AI role-plays, sellers can practice their pitch in realistic scenarios with an adaptive AI seller. Sellers get real-time feedback, which they can use to refine their approach and prepare for real-life customer interactions.

amount of training sellers forget within 1 week, according to Gartner.
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#4 Just-in-time sales training and enablement

Live sales training has a role to play. But learning doesn’t always follow a set schedule. Instead, sellers need on-demand access to training and enablement resources – whenever and wherever a need arises.

That’s why it’s important to choose corporate training software that uses AI to deliver just-in-time support. For example, a seller may ask a product-related question and get a real-time answer, without waiting on a subject matter expert. AI can also recommend additional content and resources to deepen understanding and reinforce learning in the moment.

#5 Content management

Internal sales training content equips your sellers with the skills and information they need to conquer any selling scenario. On the other hand, external sales content empowers them to effectively engage every prospect – no matter where they are in the purchase journey.

To support both, choose corporate training software with robust sales content management tools. That way, sellers can easily find the content they need, when they need it. Also, look for corporate training software that leverages AI to surface proven, relevant materials for every sales scenario. Your sellers will spend less time guessing what will work – and more time delivering engaging buyer experiences.

#6 Powerful data and analytics

Without ongoing measurement, there’s no way to truly gauge the effectiveness of your corporate training efforts.

Choose corporate training software that provides visibility into how employees are engaging with various sales training programs and content. In addition, look for software that provides robust analytics that can help you understand the influence of corporate training on skill development and sales performance. You can use these insights to optimize corporate training programs for even greater impact.

Top corporate training software on the market today

Now that we’ve covered some of the must-have features of corporate training software, you may be wondering which platform is the best one.

As mentioned earlier, it’s important to find corporate training software that includes essential features and is aligned to the needs of your business. However, there are some corporate training platforms that are especially popular in the market today.

1. Mindtickle

Mindtickle is one of the best corporate training software solutions on the market today and includes all of the essential features we covered earlier in this post. With Mindtickle, organizations can get new sellers up and running quickly and ensure every rep has the ongoing training, coaching, and support needed for long-term success.

Mindtickle allows organizations to define what success looks like for each customer-facing role. Then, they can deliver corporate training and coaching to help each seller master the essential skills and behaviors needed for success.

AI is integrated into just about every aspect of Mindtickle. For example, the platform features AI role-plays, which allow sellers to practice their skills before taking them out into the field. AI also scores and analyzes every sales call so sellers know what they can do to improve their skills and sales outcomes. Copilot, Mindtickle’s AI sales assistant, also empowers sellers to access on-demand enablement and support.

Mindtickle also offers robust sales content management tools. Sellers can always find fresh, relevant content for any scenario. And AI delivers content recommendations based on factors including buyer signals, deal stage, and past performance.

Finally, Mindtickle delivers powerful corporate training data and analytics. You can measure completion and engagement with corporate training. But, even more importantly, you can determine how corporate training is influencing behavior change and sales outcomes.

 

2. Docebo

docebo

Docebo is a popular cloud-based learning management system. Organizations use Docebo to deliver, manage, and track employee training initiatives. Some organizations also use Docebo to power partner and customer training initiatives.

 

3. 360Learning


360Learning is another popular corporate training platform. 360Learning has many of the features of a traditional, corporate LMS, along with tools for collaborative, interactive learning.

 

Level up your corporate training with Mindtickle

A strong corporate training program is key to ramping new sellers quickly and equipping your entire team with the skills and knowledge they need to succeed. Choosing the right corporate training software is essential.

Ramp New Sellers Quickly

Want to see how Mindtickle helps leading organizations shorten ramp time and prepare every seller to effectively engage buyers and close deals?

Get a Demo

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Sales Enablement Training: What is it and Why is it Important? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-enablement-training/ Thu, 01 May 2025 21:47:30 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23447 It seems like the world of B2B sales is growing more complex by the day. B2B sales cycles are getting longer – often lasting up to a year or more. Purchase decisions now involve buying committees of up to 11 stakeholders representing an average of five distinct business functions. And buyer expectations have never been …

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It seems like the world of B2B sales is growing more complex by the day.

B2B sales cycles are getting longer – often lasting up to a year or more. Purchase decisions now involve buying committees of up to 11 stakeholders representing an average of five distinct business functions. And buyer expectations have never been higher.

stakeholders now involved in buying committees, per Gartner.
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Most sellers aren’t born ready to conquer these challenges. Instead, they need to master the right knowledge, skills, and information. High-performing revenue organizations invest in sales enablement training to ensure their sellers have what it takes to be successful.

It’s easy to see why. Organizations that invest in sales enablement training see significantly higher win rates than those that don’t, and three-quarters of sellers feel that sales enablement training prepares them to make quota.

But what exactly is sales enablement training, and why is it so effective?

In this post, we’ll break down what sales enablement training is, why it matters, and what to look for when choosing the tools to power your sales enablement training programs.

What is sales enablement training?

You’ve likely heard the phrase “sales enablement training” at least a time or two. But what does it mean?

Sales enablement training is a structured approach to providing sales reps with the knowledge, skills, and information needed to effectively engage B2B buyers and close more deals. When implemented successfully, sales enablement training helps your sellers reach their individual targets, which ultimately drives your organization’s overall success.

Components of sales enablement training

Sales onboarding is a key component of sales enablement training, helping new sellers start off on the right foot with your organization. However, sales enablement training should extend far beyond the onboarding process.

To truly drive long-term success, sales enablement training must be an ongoing initiative. This ensures your sellers always have the latest knowledge, skills, and strategies to stay ahead in an ever-evolving market.

Some key areas covered in continuous sales enablement training include:

  • Product knowledge
  • Sales methodologies
  • Buyer personas
  • Competitive landscape
  • Selling techniques
  • Core selling skills, such as objection handling, active listening, and closing deals

The most effective sales enablement training programs combine structured teaching with self-paced learning. For example, a revenue organization may offer live training sessions on a new product offering, which sellers can attend in-person or via video conferencing. There may also be self-paced components, like:

  • Micro-learning modules
  • Videos
  • Quizzes and assessments
  • Sales enablement certifications
  • AI role-plays that allow sellers to put their knowledge and skills to the test in realistic scenarios

How are sales enablement and training related?

Sales enablement and sales enablement training are two phrases we often hear. That’s not surprising, as both play crucial roles in boosting sales performance.

While sales enablement and sales enablement training are related, they’re not the same thing.

Sales enablement training focuses on equipping sellers with the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed to do their jobs. With effective sales enablement training, reps can become product experts, master proven sales techniques, and develop essential skills like objection handling and negotiation.

On the other hand, sales enablement is a broader strategy. It involves providing sales teams with the tools, content, resources, learning opportunities, and support they need to be as effective and efficient as possible.

Sales training is one component of sales enablement. However, a comprehensive sales enablement program includes a variety of other components, such as:

  • Sales content
  • Sales enablement coaching
  • Sales enablement certifications
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Buyer engagement tools, like digital sales rooms
  • Analytics and insights to understand prospects’ behavior and guide next steps

What are the benefits of sales enablement training and certification?

Today, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement programs and teams, and it’s easy to see why. Sales enablement training – when it’s done well – can have a positive impact on buyers and sellers alike.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the key benefits of sales enablement training and certification.

Today’s buyers expect seamless experiences with a business regardless of where they are in the purchase journey and who they’re engaging with. Achieving alignment between go-to-market teams is critical.

But the reality is, these teams often work in silos, leading to missed opportunities and frustrating buyer experiences.

With a sales enablement training strategy, all teams are working towards the same goals and are aligned around the same tools and messaging. This alignment ultimately drives better business outcomes.

Every sales leader wants to get new sellers up to speed as quickly as possible. After all, the faster reps ramp, the sooner they can start driving revenue growth.

Sales enablement training provides a structured approach for accelerating this process. For example, Janssen reduced ramp time by 50% by leveraging Mindtickle to power their sales enablement training programs.

Onboarding alone isn’t enough to guarantee long-term sales success. With products, markets, and customer preferences always evolving, sellers must stay agile and ready to adapt.

Sales enablement training provides ongoing learning opportunities that help sellers keep up with change. As a result, sellers are better prepared, more confident, and more likely to close deals.

B2B buyers expect exceptional experiences throughout the purchase journey. If their expectations aren’t met, they’ll take their business elsewhere.

Sales enablement training equips sellers to deliver great experiences that meet prospects’ expectations. When reps consistently meet or exceed expectations, they’re more likely to win prospects’ business – and their long-term loyalty.

What features should I look for in sales enablement training software?

Sales enablement training is no longer a nice-to-havel. Instead, it’s a must-have for teams that want to effectively engage buyers and win deals in today’s competitive environment.

Choosing the right sales enablement software is critical to the success of your program.

If you run a quick search for sales enablement software, you’ll see there are plenty of options available. But not all sales enablement training tools are the same.

So, what’s the best sales enablement training software on the market today? That depends on your organization’s needs and goals. Still, there are some essential features that any strong sales enablement training software should offer.

#1 Personalized learning for every seller

Sales enablement training shouldn’t be “one-size-fits-all.” Instead, it must be tailored to the needs of every seller.

Yet, a mere 40% of C-level executives can identify reps’ strengths and weaknesses, which makes it nearly impossible to deliver targeted sales enablement training.

A sales enablement platform should give organizations the ability to identify the skills and competencies necessary for success, and then measure each seller against this gold standard to identify their strengths and weaknesses. The platform should also enable teams to create tailored learning paths designed to close individual skill gaps and drive long-term performance improvement.

Personalized sales training

#2 Tools to quickly and easily launch sales training programs

Sales enablement training can have a big impact on your sellers’ skills and performance. But building and launching new programs can be time-consuming.

It’s important to choose a sales enablement program that makes it easier to build and launch new sales training programs. Look for tools that offer pre-built templates, ready-to-use content, and AI-powered features that help you create new sales enablement training content quickly and efficiently.

#3 Holistic sales enablement capabilities

The right technology can help your sellers be more successful. Yet, two-thirds of sales reps feel overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use.

Rather than using a standalone sales training tool, like a learning management system (LMS), consider investing in an integrated sales enablement platform. That way, you can build, launch, and measure all of your sales enablement programs from one platform. Also, your sellers will have a single place to find all the training, content, tools, and resources they need to engage buyers and win deals.

#4 Great user experience

Even the best sales enablement training software won’t deliver results if your sellers aren’t using it. That’s why user experience matters.

Choose sales enablement training software that’s intuitive, easy to navigate, and enables sellers to quickly find the tools and resources they need. The more user-friendly the tool, the higher the adoption. With higher adoption comes greater ROI.

#5 On-the-go sales enablement training

Sales enablement training doesn’t always occur within the four walls of a classroom. Be sure your chosen sales enablement training software allows you to develop and deliver self-paced learning that your sellers can access any time, from any device.

#6 AI role-plays

Just because a sales rep completes a training module and aces an assessment doesn’t guarantee they’ll apply those skills in the field. Sellers need opportunities to practice and perfect their skills before money is on the line.

Look for a sales enablement platform that provides AI-powered role-plays. This allows sellers to practice their skills with an adaptive, AI “buyer” and receive real-time feedback. Sellers can sharpen their skills (and grow their confidence) before they hit the field.

Copilot - Mission review

#7 Robust analytics and insights

Simply delivering sales enablement training and hoping it sticks isn’t enough. Instead, you must track and measure your sales enablement programs.

Beyond just measuring engagement and completion, your sales enablement training software should provide insight into real impact. That means evaluating how sales enablement training is influencing seller behavior, strengthening essential skills, and ultimately, improving performance in the field.

#8 Integration with other key tools

Chances are, your organization already relies on tools like a CRM, HRIS, and other essential systems. To avoid fragmented workflows and disconnected data, be sure your chosen sales enablement training software integrates seamlessly with your existing tech stack.

 

Deliver impactful sales enablement training with Mindtickle

Sales reps aren’t born with the knowledge and skills needed to succeed. Instead, sellers develop essential skills through consistent, targeted sales enablement training.

With the right sales enablement platform, you can deliver tailored training that empowers every sales rep to reach their full potential.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform designed to help organizations deliver personalized, high-impactful sales training at scale. With Mindtickle, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of each sales rep, then deliver tailored training paths to close skill gaps and improve sales performance.

Mindtickle also provides powerful analytics and insights so you can track how sellers engage with sales enablement training and, more importantly, how that training impacts skill development and sales performance.

Elevate Your Sales Enablement Training

Curious how Mindtickle can elevate your sales enablement training and drive bottom line impact?

Get a Demo

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The Future of Sales: AI Guided Selling Explained https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-future-of-sales-ai-guided-selling-explained/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-future-of-sales-ai-guided-selling-explained/#comments Fri, 25 Apr 2025 10:03:09 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19493 Today’s B2B buyers aren’t an easy bunch. They expect personalized experiences, relevant content, and quick, accurate answers at every stage of the purchase journey. But even in a digital-first world, they still want meaningful, human interactions. Sellers are under pressure to meet buyers’ expectations. But doing so is no small feat. Sales reps are stretched …

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Today’s B2B buyers aren’t an easy bunch. They expect personalized experiences, relevant content, and quick, accurate answers at every stage of the purchase journey. But even in a digital-first world, they still want meaningful, human interactions.

Sellers are under pressure to meet buyers’ expectations. But doing so is no small feat.

Sales reps are stretched thin, juggling countless tools, channels, and customer demands. Often, sellers simply don’t have the bandwidth to deliver the tailored content, guidance, and experiences B2B buyers have come to expect.

Enter: AI-guided selling.

AI-guided selling isn’t about replacing humans with machines. Instead, it’s about empowering reps to sell smarter. AI acts as a trusted coworker, offering timely insights, data-driven recommendations, and real-time support so sales reps can stay focused on what really matters: building relationships and closing deals.

But what is AI-guided selling, and why does it matter?

In this post, we’ll explore:

  • What AI-guided selling really is
  • How it fits into the modern B2B sales process
  • The benefits it brings to your sales team
  • Real-world examples of AI-guided selling in action
  • Some of the most popular AI-powered sales tools in the market today

Let’s dive in.

What is AI-guided selling?

Until recently, artificial intelligence (AI) was no more than an abstract concept for most people. But that’s all changed – fast.

More and more people are embracing AI to simplify and streamline many aspects of their personal and professional lives. Forrester predicts that generative AI will experience an average annual growth rate of 36% to 2030.

Generative AI will experience an annual growth rate of
to 2030
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As AI sales tools evolve, buyers’ and sellers’ engagement will be transformed. AI-guided selling is one way we’re already seeing this happen.

But what is AI-guided selling?

By now, the vast majority of B2B buyers expect personalized interactions from the companies they do business with. Generic sales presentations and content will no longer cut it.

Delivering personalized guidance and experiences to each buyer makes sense. But sellers only have so many hours in the day. That’s where AI selling comes in.

Guided selling, defined

As the name suggests, guided selling is a practice that guides reps through the sales cycle. Guided selling enables sales reps to tap into data to deliver outstanding experiences and personalized solutions that resonate with every buyer at every stage of the sales cycle.

Supercharging guided selling with the power of AI

AI-guided selling is the term that’s used when artificial intelligence (AI) is incorporated into guided selling.

Most revenue organizations have a ton of data about buyer interactions. AI aggregates and analyzes this data to help sales reps determine the next best action to take in a given deal.

Make no mistake: AI-guided selling isn’t a replacement for live sales reps. Instead, AI works hand-in-hand with sales reps to power outstanding experiences. AI does the legwork of analyzing data and making recommendations based on that data. That means sellers can spend less time guessing what step to take next, and more time building relationships that’ll lead to closed deals.

How does AI-guided selling work?

This kind of selling enables sales reps to deliver content and experiences that resonate with each buyer. But how exactly does it work?

As touched on earlier, most sales organizations have plenty of data available about buyer interactions. For example, when it comes to sales content, an organization might have historical data related to:

  • Which sales content is used most often by sales reps
  • At what stage in the sales cycle key assets are used
  • How buyers engage (or don’t engage) with this content
  • How this content impacts sales outcomes

Organizations may also have data about a specific buyer, such as their industry, size, competitors, market conditions, and behaviors.

There’s no shortage of data. However, most organizations lack the time and expertise to analyze and make sense of this data.

Today, revenue organizations leverage AI to aggregate and analyze this data.

With AI-guided selling tools, revenue organizations can aggregate and analyze key data and glean valuable insights. AI can also guide the sellers through the sales process by recommending the steps they should take next to bring a deal closer to the finish line. These recommendations are based on data rather than gut feelings.

Though it’s not the same, AI selling can be likened to your experience on Amazon. When you open the Amazon app on your phone, you see a variety of tailored recommendations based on data, including your browsing and buying behavior and historical data. You’re more likely to purchase because recommendations are tailored to your unique needs.

What are the benefits of AI-guided selling?

Today, a growing number of sales organizations leverage AI-guided selling. This isn’t surprising, as guided selling benefits buyers and sellers alike.

AI-guided selling benefits B2B buyers

With AI-guided selling, sellers can deliver personalized, relevant experiences and solutions to buyers. Buyers aren’t wasting their time on irrelevant content and experiences. Instead, they’re working with a trusted partner who understands their challenges and delivers solutions.

AI-guided selling benefits B2B sellers

It also takes the guesswork out of selling. Rather than relying on gut feelings, sales reps can tap into data to determine what step to take next. With this approach, sales reps can better meet customers’ expectations for personalized experiences and solutions. That means they can close more deals faster.

Guided selling examples

We’ve explored what AI-guided selling is and how it works. But how exactly are revenue organizations using it?

Now, let’s take a look at some AI-guided selling examples.

Simplifying meeting prep
Accelerating follow-up
Recommending sales content
Personalized content at scale
Personalized enablement

Example #1: Simplifying meeting prep

Sales reps must be prepared for each call. Often, this requires reviewing notes and digging into data. But this takes a lot of time, and sales reps don’t have much to spare.

AI-guided selling helps simplify meeting preparation so sales reps can always show up ready to deliver value. For example, rather than listening to a call recording to jog their memory, a sales rep can use AI to ask a question like, “What pain points did this customer mention during our previous call?” AI can summarize these pain points and suggest the next step a sales rep should take.

Example #2: Accelerating follow up

Prompt follow-up is important. But for busy sales reps, it’s not always easy.

AI enables sales reps to follow up with prospects in real-time. For example, AI can help them generate follow-up messages based on an analysis of a recent sales call. AI can also suggest content relevant to a specific prospect’s needs.

When sales reps can follow up quickly, this can accelerate the sales cycle. In other words, they can close more deals faster.

Example #3: Recommending relevant sales content for any scenario

B2B buyers depend on sales content to make informed purchase decisions. But content must be relevant to the buyer’s needs. Otherwise, they’ll disengage.

It can be challenging (and time-consuming) for a rep to determine which piece of content will resonate with a buyer at a specific time. AI-guided selling can help.

AI analyzes data about the customer and historical data about content use and performance. Based on this analysis, AI suggests content that will resonate with the buyer and is proven to improve sales outcomes.

Example #4: Generating personalized communication at scale

In the world of sales, effective communication is key. Today, in the era of virtual selling, a lot of that communication happens electronically.

With AI-guided selling, sales reps can quickly and easily draft personalized communication to buyers. For example, if a seller shares a piece of sales content with a prospect, AI can generate a contextual email to go with the content.

#5: Delivering personalized enablement and coaching to boost lagging skills

In an ideal world, a sales rep would apply all of the skills they’ve learned while on sales calls. But often, there’s room for improvement.

Today, many organizations use conversation intelligence software, which leverages AI to record and analyze sales calls. After a sales call, a sales rep can receive real-time feedback on improving performance (and the deal’s outcome). AI may also suggest training or a piece of enablement to help the sales rep hone specific skills and boost long-term performance.

Mindtickle Call AI with conversation intelligence insights

What are some of the best AI-powered selling tools?

Modern B2B buyers demand personalized experiences, content, and solutions throughout the sales cycle. A generic approach will no longer cut it.

But meeting customers’ expectations takes a lot of time, which sales reps don’t have much of. Furthermore, determining what will or won’t resonate with each customer can take a lot of guesswork.

With AI-guided selling, your sales reps can deliver outstanding experiences that resonate with each buyer – no matter where they are on the purchase journey. That means your reps will be equipped to close more deals, and your revenue will grow.

Investing in the right AI guided selling tools empowers your sellers to deliver outstanding customer experiences at scale. But with so many AI sales tools on the market (and more popping up constantly), it’s tough to know where to start.

Let’s take a look at some of the top AI sales tools that can help your sellers work smarter, move faster, and close more deals.

1. Mindtickle

Today, many of the world’s best revenue organizations rely on Mindtickle to deliver outstanding customer experiences at scale.

Mindtickle is an AI-powered revenue enablement platform that equips your teams with sales training, enablement, content, and insights – all from one platform. Copilot from Mindtickle is an AI-guided selling tool that assists your reps at every stage of the sales cycle.

With Copilot, your sellers can prepare for every prospect interaction with dynamic role-plays and AI-powered feedback. That way, they can perfect their pitch before money is on the line.

Copilot also lightens the load of meeting prep and follow-up. This eliminates friction and helps sellers close deals faster.

Copilot can also answer prospects’ questions, recommend content and next steps, and draft contextual emails. This saves sellers’ time, which frees them up to focus on strategic selling.

2. Salesloft

Salesloft is a popular B2B sales engagement platform that helps teams drive durable growth. Conductor AI, Salesloft’s AI-powered selling tool, is woven throughout the entire platform. Conductor AI can help sellers determine what actions to take next to drive better outcomes. This AI sales tool can also help sales organizations understand data, draft content, and get insights into deals.

3. Salesforce

Salesforce is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform used by businesses around the world. With Salesforce AI, sellers can automate time-consuming tasks and optimize every customer interaction. For example, sellers can use the tool to draft personalized sales emails, generate summaries based on calls, and create customized close plans to win more deals.

4. Drift

Drift, now part of Salesloft, is a conversational AI platform designed to engage prospects in real-time. Using AI chat agents, Drift delivers accurate, personalized answers to prospects’ questions. This keeps conversations flowing and prospects interested, without pulling sellers away from higher-value work.

5. Gong

Gong is an AI-powered revenue intelligence platform. Gong leverages AI tools to analyze customer and prospect interactions, and then uses those insights to actions that drive productivity and revenue growth.

Now’s the time to invest in AI-guided selling

B2B selling isn’t getting any easier. Customer expectations are high, and competition is fierce. Your sellers are under pressure to ace every customer interaction, every time.

AI guided-selling gives your sales team the edge it needs to stay ahead.

With AI-guided selling, your reps have the insights, automations, and workflows they need to create personalized, high-impact experiences that move deals forward.

There’s no better time to make the shift to AI-guided selling. But remember: your strategy is only as powerful as the tools driving it.

AI-Guided Selling with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s Copilot can empower your reps to deliver memorable buyer experiences?

Get Your Demo

This post was originally published in May 2024 and was updated in April 2025.

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How to Create a Winning Sales Leadership Development Plan https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/leadership-development-plan/ Thu, 24 Apr 2025 17:45:17 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23374 In the high stakes world of sales, strong leadership is a must. A great leader can be the difference between a high-performing sales team and one that consistently misses their targets. Yet, many organizations still overlook the importance of developing their current and future sales leaders. So it’s no surprise that 77% of organizations are …

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In the high stakes world of sales, strong leadership is a must. A great leader can be the difference between a high-performing sales team and one that consistently misses their targets.

Yet, many organizations still overlook the importance of developing their current and future sales leaders. So it’s no surprise that 77% of organizations are experiencing a leadership gap – a gap that can directly impact performance, employee engagement, and revenue growth.

A strong sales leadership development plan is essential. With the right plan in place, everyone from emerging managers to veteran leaders can build the skills needed to inspire teams and drive results.

But what are the key ingredients of a winning leadership development plan?

In this post, we’ll explore what a leadership development plan is, why it’s so important, and how to create one that equips your leaders to coach, guide, and motivate their teams to lasting success.

What is a sales leadership development plan?

If you’re not quite sure what a sales leadership development plan is, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s start off by defining the term.

A sales leadership development plan is a strategy created to ensure current and future sales leaders can build the skills, behaviors, and competencies needed to effectively lead sales teams and drive results that boost the bottom line.

Typically, a sales leadership development starts with identifying the skills and attributes required for successful leadership in your organization. These skills vary by role. For example, the skills needed to be an effective frontline manager may differ from those required of a regional sales director.

Then, organizations deliver targeted training and learning opportunities to help leaders build these essential skills and capabilities. Some types of training and development that may be included in a sales leadership development plan include:

  • Live workshops and leadership training sessions
  • Online courses and seminars
  • On-demand learning modules
  • Curated training and development content
  • One-on-one leadership coaching
  • On the job leadership training
  • Structured mentoring programs
  • Industry conferences and events

Each sales leader (and aspiring leader) brings a unique background, set of strengths, and areas for growth. A leadership plan must be tailored to the unique needs of each individual, a point we’ll discuss in further detail later on.

Why is a sales leadership development plan important?

Establishing a sales leadership development plan can have a positive impact on your sellers – and your entire organization. Let’s explore some of the key advantages of a solid sales leadership development plan.

Perhaps the most obvious benefit of a sales leadership development plan is its ability to cultivate more effective sales leaders. When leaders have opportunities to build essential skills and competencies, they’re better prepared to be successful in their roles. LinkedIn research found that development initiatives can increase job performance by up to 25%.

Strong sales managers have what it takes to coach and motivate their teams. When sellers are properly trained and coached, they’re better equipped (and motivated) to close more deals. In fact, a recent study found that organizations in the top quartile for leadership development report 37% more revenue per employee.

Sales leaders are far more likely to stay with your company long-term when they feel supported and receive ongoing training and development. Per LinkedIn, 94% of employees stay longer at a company that invests in their professional development.

That kind of retention plays off – reducing the time, cost, and disruption of constantly recruiting, onboarding, and training new sales leaders.

Recruiting great sellers isn’t always easy. But the opportunity to work under an exceptional sales leader can be a big draw for high potential candidates.

Strong sales leaders can also positively impact seller retention. It’s often said that people don’t leave companies – they leave bad managers. But a great leader can keep your sellers engaged and committed.

Every organization aspires to have great sales leaders. But without a clear definition of what excellence truly means, this goal can be difficult to achieve.

Creating a leadership development plan gives you the opportunity to step back and define what great leadership looks like at your organization. Once you establish a clear standard, you can work to replicate it across your entire sales leadership team.

Today’s B2B customers expect exceptional experiences throughout the customer journey. A well-designed sales leadership development plan empowers managers to effectively coach their teams to meet (and exceed) those expectations. Organizations that consistently deliver outstanding experiences are far more likely to earn prospects’ business and their long-term loyalty.

How to build an impactful sales leadership development plan

It’s clear that a strong leadership development plan can have a big impact on your sales managers – and your bottom line. But how do you go about creating one?

Building an effective sales leadership development plan starts with a few essential steps.

#1 Determine your goals

The first step in developing your sales leadership development plan is to clearly define your goals. These objectives must align with the priorities of the sales team and the overall goals of the organization.

Here are a few examples of goals for a sales leadership development plan:

  • Strengthen leadership capabilities of existing sales managers to boost their team’s sales performance and retention.
  • Develop leadership skills in high-performing sales reps with strong potential, preparing them to step into future management roles and ensuring a solid pipeline of leadership talent.
  • Create a consistent leadership approach across the entire sales organization to drive a more cohesive and high-performing sales culture.

#2 Define leadership excellence

A sales leadership development plan can help shape exceptional leaders. But first, it’s important to define what great leadership looks like at your organization.

Make a list of the skills, competencies, and behaviors of leaders who are successful at your organization. Ideally, this list should be based on quantitative data and qualitative insights.

Here are some examples of of essential leadership skills to consider:

  • Coaching
  • Talent development
  • Communication
  • Cross-functional collaboration
  • Conflict resolution
  • Pipeline and forecast management
  • Time management

Remember: different leadership roles require different skills and competencies. Make sure to create a list of essential skills for every role in your leadership development plan. That way, sales manager training and development will be targeted and relevant.

#3 Map out training and development

Once you’ve identified the essential skills and competencies of sales leaders, you can determine what initiatives you’ll use to help them grow these skills. You may already have existing sales manager training and development programs that can be integrated into your leadership development program. Others will have to be built from scratch.

There are several methods to consider including in your sales leadership development plan, including:

  • Real-time sales management training (either in-person or remote)
  • Bite-sized, easily digestible learning modules
  • Video content
  • Written training and development materials
  • Coach the coach programs
  • Mentorship programs
  • On-the-job learning opportunities

Each approach can play a valuable role in reinforcing critical leadership skills and supporting long-term growth.

#4 Create and deliver personalized training and development paths

Every current and aspiring sales leader brings a unique blend of experiences, strengths, and opportunities for growth. That’s why a one-size-fits-all leadership development plan isn’t effective.

Instead, take time to identify each individual’s strengths and weaknesses. From there, deliver personalized learning and development paths that target their specific needs and support their growth as effective, confident leaders.

Personalized sales training

#5 Choose the right tools to support your leadership development plan

Choosing the right tools and technology is critical to the success of your leadership development plan. Without the proper sales manager software, even the most well-designed sales leadership development plan can fall short in terms of execution and impact.

The sales leadership training solution you choose should streamline training and development and provide visibility into progress, engagement, and outcomes. An all-in-one revenue enablement platform is a great option.

The right revenue enablement platform centralizes learning, coaching, development, and performance data all in one place, which makes it easier to deliver tailored sales leadership training and development at scale. Organizations can provide just-in-time training, reinforce leadership behaviors, and track growth over time. In addition, a revenue enablement platform aligns leadership development with broader revenue goals. This helps ensure sales leaders are not only growing in their roles, but also actively driving performance across the team.

Revenue productivity platform

#6 Measure impact and optimize your leadership development plan accordingly

All too often, organizations roll out leadership development programs and simply hope they’ll deliver results. But hope alone isn’t an effective strategy.

Instead, it’s essential to continuously measure the impact of your leadership development plan. By tracking key metrics and gathering feedback, you’ll see what’s working and what isn’t. These insights will help you continuously refine your approach and maximize the impact of your sales leadership development plan.

Build stronger sales leaders with Mindtickle

Sales leaders are critical to the success of their teams and their organizations. But not all sales leaders aren’t born with the skills needed to coach, inspire, and drive performance.

Now is the time to invest in a sales leadership development plan that empowers your sellers to grow the skills and behaviors needed to lead effectively. The right technology is a key component of any winning sales leadership development plan.

Mindtickle is an AI-powered revenue enablement platform designed to help organizations build and scale effective sales leadership training and development. With Mindtickle, you can pinpoint each leader’s strengths and weaknesses, then deliver personalized learning paths to close gaps and boost performance. You’ll also get powerful analytics to track progress, measure impact, and continuously optimize your leadership development plan for even greater results.

Scale Sales Training and Development

Ready to empower your sales leaders to drive real business impact? See how Mindtickle’s award-winning platform can help.

Get Your Demo

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Why AI Role Play is a Game-Changer for Automotive Sales Training https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/ai-role-plays-for-automotive-industry/ Wed, 23 Apr 2025 17:29:18 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23366 Selling cars has never been easy. But in today’s quickly evolving automotive industry, it’s never been more difficult. Today’s automotive buyers are better informed, more selective, and expect highly personalized experiences from the moment they step into the showroom. Sure, your seller’s need deep product expertise on ever-evolving products and technology. But they also need …

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Selling cars has never been easy. But in today’s quickly evolving automotive industry, it’s never been more difficult.

Today’s automotive buyers are better informed, more selective, and expect highly personalized experiences from the moment they step into the showroom. Sure, your seller’s need deep product expertise on ever-evolving products and technology. But they also need to be able to handle tough questions, build trust quickly, and consistently meet (and exceed) customers’ expectations.

Yet, traditional training methods often fall short when it comes to preparing automotive sales reps to face (and overcome) these complex selling scenarios.

That’s where AI Role Plays come in.

AI Role Plays allow automotive sellers to practice navigating complex selling scenarios in a risk-free environment, with real-time feedback to help them improve. By integrating AI Role Plays into your automotive sales training strategy, your sellers can build the skills and confidence they need to to succeed.

In this post, we’ll explore how AI Role Plays can level up your automotive sales training so your teams are ready to connect with more customers and close more deals.

AI Role Plays for the automotive industry

AI Role Plays are quickly becoming a game changer for the automotive sales teams. But why?

Automotive sales reps need the right mix of knowledge, skills, and competencies to be successful in their roles. Today, most automotive businesses invest in sales training programs to ensure their sellers have a solid foundation.

But knowledge alone isn’t enough. Without consistent practice, even the best trained sales reps risk stumbling when it counts. If automotive sales reps don’t have a safe place to practice their pitch, they’ll end up practicing on prospects – and losing deals in the process.

Role Play scenarios give reps the chance to practice their pitch before money is on the line, and they’re a popular tactic among successful sales teams. Research tells us top-performing companies have sellers do six or more Role Plays per year.

But traditional Role Plays are time-consuming, and feedback often arrives too late to make a difference.

Imagine this scenario: a sales rep is eager to practice and get feedback for improvement. But their manager doesn’t have the time to engage in a real-time Role Play or listen to a recording and provide meaningful feedback. By the time the manager does have time, the seller may have fumbled in the field and lost some prospects along the way.

Today, leading automotive sales teams are turning to AI Role Plays to deliver scalable practice and real-time feedback – without putting extra strain on sales managers.

AI Role Plays give sellers the chance to hone their skills through realistic, interactive simulations that mirror real-life customer interactions. Reps can practice navigating a wide range of complex selling scenarios – from explaining the benefits of new battery technology to negotiating trade-in value – with a realistic, AI “customer” that responds in real time.

AI Role Plays also provide automotive sales reps with real-time, unbiased feedback on their performance. There’s no need to wait for a manager to review and respond. Automotive sales reps can use this immediate feedback to improve their skills and behaviors right away.

With AI Role Plays, automotive sellers can build the skills and confidence they need to navigate any complex selling scenario – all without requiring hours of manager involvement. When the seller does go into the field, they’ll be ready to deliver outstanding experiences and close more deals.

automotive-enable-with-roleplays-practice-sessions

How do AI Role Plays enhance automotive sales training?

On its own, traditional sales training practices aren’t enough to prepare automotive sales reps to navigate complex selling scenarios. Sellers need opportunities to practice and perfect their skills and techniques.

AI Role Plays are a powerful tool in any automotive sales enablement and training program. They provide an engaging, efficient way for sellers to build skills, increase confidence, and prepare for real-world scenarios – all without overloading managers.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the key benefits of AI Role Plays for automotive sales teams.

Most automotive sellers want to practice their pitch before engaging with a customer. But with traditional Role Plays, they’re often limited by someone else’s availability. For example, they may have to wait on a manager or teammate to find time for a practice session. This type of scheduling bottleneck slows down learning and makes it harder to build momentum.

AI Role Plays give automotive sellers the flexibility to practice on their own schedule. For instance, a seller can engage in an AI Role Play between meetings or during a slow time on the showroom floor. The result? Reps can practice their skills more frequently and perfect them faster.

In sales, practice is often predictable and scripted. But that’s not what real life is like on the showroom floor. Automotive buyers can take a conversation in any direction, and sellers must be prepared to pivot.

AI Role Plays provide life-like, unscripted interactions that mirror real customer behavior. For example, the AI “customer” may raise unexpected objections about a new model or ask tough technical questions. Automotive sellers get practice thinking on their feet, so they’ll be ready and able to do so when they’re engaging with a real customer.

Sales coaching – when it’s done well – can have a significant impact on seller performance. But often, automotive sellers have to wait for a scheduled meeting to receive coaching. By the time the meeting rolls around, the coaching may no longer be timely or relevant, and the seller may have already fumbled in the field.

Interactive Role Plays are a type of AI guided selling. With AI Role Plays, automotive sellers get real-time feedback on things like tone, pacing, and use of filler words. Because feedback comes from AI – not a manager or peer – it’s consistent and free from performance and relationship bias. This objective, immediate feedback helps reps make improvements and refine their pitch faster.

According to a recent survey, 70% of sales managers indicate their team size has grown within the last year. With more reps to support and limited hours in the day, it’s simply not feasible for sales managers to review hours of recorded Role Plays and deliver personalized coaching to each sales rep.

AI Role Plays give sellers instant, targeted feedback – anytime, anywhere – without waiting on a manager. This gives reps the feedback they need to continuously improve, while freeing up sales leaders to focus on higher-level coaching and strategy. Case in point? When Cisco started using AI Role Plays, they were able to save about 38 weeks of manager time, which equates to over 6,000 hours.

As an automotive seller, the experience you offer a customer is just as important as your products and services. Yet, a recent report found that a quarter of car buyers are dissatisfied with their dealership experiences.

If an automotive buyer is dissatisfied with their experience, they’re unlikely to make a purchase.

With AI Role Plays, automotive sales reps can perfect essential skills and behaviors. That way, they’ll be ready to deliver experiences that align with customers’ expectations.

Consistent practice helps automotive sellers build competence and confidence before engaging with real buyers. By regularly engaging in AI Role Plays, automotive sellers will be better prepared to handle complex selling scenarios, from overcoming objections, to guiding hesitant buyers towards confident purchase decisions.

AI Role Plays empower automotive sellers to show up prepared, earn trust quickly, and deliver personalized experiences that resonate with each prospective customer. They’ll be able to close more, larger deals with more confidence. In fact, Cisco saw average deal size increase by as much as 30%, thanks to AI Role Plays.

Prepare your automotive sales reps for complex selling scenarios

“Practice makes perfect.” It may be cliche. But for automotive sellers, it couldn’t be more true.

AI Role Plays provide sellers with risk-free opportunities to sharpen their skills and improve their performance. So it’s really no surprise that so many automotive brands are integrating them into their sales training strategies.

Incorporating AI Role Plays into your auto sales training program may seem like a big undertaking. But with the right automotive sales solution, it doesn’t have to be.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that delivers the training, tools, resources, and insights your sellers need to engage modern buyers and sell more vehicles. AI Role Plays are one key resource that’s built right into the Mindtickle platform.

Mindtickle makes it quick and easy to get started with AI Role Plays.

With Mindtickle’s AI Role Plays, you can customize the persona your sales reps are pitching to, what they’re selling, and the deal stage. You can even customize the personality of your prospect.

Then, your automotive sales reps can use launch AI Role Plays as often as they’d like – anywhere, anytime. Sellers will have a safe, engaging place to practice skills and messaging, and with Mindtickle Copilot, they’ll get real-time, objective feedback for improving their pitch – without waiting on their manager. Sellers can use this feedback to perfect their skills and be ready to handle any complex selling scenario that comes their way.

Kick your automotive sales training into high gear with Mindtickle

The job of an automotive seller isn’t easy. With rapidly evolving technology, shifting market dynamics, and rising customer expectations, automotive sellers are under pressure to stay sharp and deliver results.

Automotive sales reps need the right training, tools and support to deliver personalized, impactful buyer experiences. AI Role Plays have become an essential component of any modern automotive sales training program.

The right automotive sales training software can take your auto sales training from good to great. With Mindtickle, you can empower your sellers with the training, coaching, content, and reinforcement they need – all in one platform.

Every automotive seller has unique strengths and weaknesses. With Mindtickle, you can identify both, then deliver targeted learning paths to close skill gaps and boost performance. You’ll also get powerful analytics that show how your automotive sales training programs are impacting real sales outcomes, giving you the insight to optimize programs and maximize impact.

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The Best Seismic Competitors and Alternatives https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/seismic-competitors/ Tue, 22 Apr 2025 20:48:25 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23362 Today, 84% of B2B revenue organizations invest in sales enablement, and it’s easy to see why. Per recent research, 76% of sales reps feel that enablement prepares them to meet quota. B2B revenue organizations that invest in sales enablement 0 % With the right sales enablement tools, you can significantly increase the effectiveness of your …

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Today, 84% of B2B revenue organizations invest in sales enablement, and it’s easy to see why. Per recent research, 76% of sales reps feel that enablement prepares them to meet quota.

B2B revenue organizations that invest in sales enablement
0 %

With the right sales enablement tools, you can significantly increase the effectiveness of your sales enablement program. It’s important to choose your tools wisely.

If you’ve searched for sales enablement tools recently, chances are you’ve come across the name “Seismic.” Seismic, which is based in San Diego, CA, is one of the most popular sales enablement platforms on the market today.

But Seismic certainly isn’t the only option available. In fact, there are several Seismic competitors and alternatives that may be a better fit for your business.

If you’re wondering which Seismic sales enablement competitor is the best option, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll highlight 10 best Seismic alternatives, detailing factors like price, features, and downsides that can help you determine the right sales enablement platform for your company.

 

Why explore Seismic competitors and alternatives?

In the world of sales enablement, Seismic is a popular option. The company, which was founded in 2010, now serves more than 2,000 customers around the globe, including well-known brands like IBM and American Express.

Seismic’s popularity isn’t surprising. The platform offers a wide range of features and functionality that enable customer-facing teams to more effectively engage with prospective customers throughout the sales cycle.

But Seismic isn’t always the best option. In fact, Seismic competitors consistently rate higher than the popular sales enablement platform on a number of different factors.

For example, many Seismic users cite challenges with initially setting up the platform. They also struggle with ongoing ease-of-use. On the other hand, with a Seismic alternative like Mindtickle, companies can get up and running quickly and the simple, intuitive nature of the platform helps boost adoption and ROI.

In addition, while Seismic offers content management tools to its customers, there are competitors, including Mindtickle, that make it easier to create and disseminate sales content so sellers always have the right content for the right customers at the right time.

Another key reason you may want to explore Seismic alternatives is that the platform is primarily focused on sales content management. While content management is an important pillar of sales enablement, it’s not the only one. If you’re looking to build a holistic sales enablement practice, it’s important to find a sales enablement platform that supports it. An integrated sales enablement platform like Mindtickle has robust tools to support every pillar of sales enablement, including onboarding, training, coaching, and digital sales rooms – among others.

While Seismic is popular, the platform has some significant downsides. For that reason, it makes sense to also consider Seismic software competitors.

9 Best Seismic competitors in the market

Seismic may not be the best choice for the needs of your organization. Fortunately, there are plenty of Seismic competitors and alternatives to consider.

Keep reading as we dive into some of the best Seismic competitors to help you narrow down your options.

1. Mindtickle

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
Price: There are several pricing tiers available. Reach out to Mindtickle for a customized quote.

Mindtickle is an award-winning AI-powered revenue enablement platform that increases revenue growth. With Mindtickle’s all-in-one platform, sellers have the tools, training, content, and resources needed to effectively engage buyers and close deals.

While Seismic has strong sales content management and delivery tools, Mindtickle’s all-in-one sales enablement platform more effectively addresses all of the key elements of a holistic sales enablement program including:

  • Onboarding
  • Sales training
  • Coaching
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Digital sales rooms
  • AI role-plays
  • Reporting and analytics to connect programs to business outcomes

When Mindtickle is compared to Seismic, Mindtickle consistently rates higher in terms of ease of set-up, which means new customers can get up and running quickly. Overall, Mindtickle also offers a more intuitive, user-friendly platform, which means users can more easily leverage the platform’s comprehensive features and functionality. Mindtickle users also rate the company highly in terms of ongoing customer support.

Standout features

  • AI role-plays enable sellers to practice their skills in a dynamic, risk-free environment. Sellers get real-time feedback, which they can use to improve their skills right away before money is on the line.
  • With Mindtickle’s Readiness Index, you can identify the skills, competencies, and behaviors of your top sellers and determine how each of your reps stacks up against this gold standard of sales excellence. Then, you can deliver training and coaching to close gaps and improve skills, track readiness over time, and tie readiness to outcomes like quota attainment and win rates.
  • Unlike Seismic, Mindtickle has conversation intelligence tools built right into the platform. These tools provide insight into what’s happening during sales conversations so sellers can improve their interactions with buyers and sales managers can coach reps towards better outcomes.
  • Real-time analytics enable managers to keep a constant pulse on seller performance, as well as their mastery of different essential skills and competencies. Sales managers can easily identify reps’ strengths and weaknesses and deliver targeted training and coaching to help sellers improve their skills and boost sales performance.
  • Mindtickle offers more robust sales coaching tools than Seismic. Sales managers can use call recordings, AI role-plays, and sales performance data to understand where sellers may need additional support. With AI, sellers can also access real-time, on-demand feedback to improve their skills and behaviors. Sales managers can track reps’ progress over time to determine how (and whether) coaching efforts are making an impact.

Best for

Mindtickle offers features and functionality to support various teams throughout the organization, including sales, marketing, sales enablement, sales operations and leadership teams.

Today, the company has more than one million users across the globe. Mindtickle serves businesses of all sizes, from startups to large enterprises. The Mindtickle platform is built to meet the unique needs of businesses in a number of industries, including healthcare, consumer goods, chemicals, manufacturing, technology, automotive, and many others.

2. Highspot

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
Price: Highspot does not publish pricing information. Contact the company for customized pricing information.

Highspot, which was founded in 2021, is another popular sales enablement platform that is a Seismic alternative. The Highspot platform incorporates several components of sales enablement, including sales training, content management, and data and analytics – all in one solution.

Standout features

  • Content management tools make it easy to store, organize, and access the right content at the right time.
  • Robust data and analytics enable organizations to determine which assets are driving engagement and conversion.
  • Seamless integrations with other technology, including popular CRMs, streamlines workflows.

Pros

Highspot often outperforms Seismic in many areas, including:

  • Ease of setup
  • Ease of us
  • Quality of support
  • Content import and storage
  • Content utilization analytics

Cons

Highspot users cite a number of downsides to the platform, including factors like:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Confusing platform
  • Layout issues
  • Challenges with platform updates

3. Showpad

showpad-logo

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 for Showpad Coach; 4.6 out of 5 for Showpad Content
Price: Showpad offers multiple pricing tiers for both Showpad Content and Showpad Coach. Companies can contact Showpad for customized pricing information.

Showpad is a popular sales enablement platform that provides sellers with the tools, content, and insights they need to engage buyers and close deals. Showpad’s platform has two components: Showpad Content and Showpad Coach. Showpad Content offers sales content management capabilities, while Showpad Coach is used to onboard new sellers and deliver continuous training to ensure reps are always ready to sell.

Standout features

  • 3D models and 360 degree immersive showrooms enable sellers to deliver more engaging customer experiences.
  • Digital sales rooms (referred to as Shared Spaces) serve as a single source of truth throughout the sales cycle.
  • Advanced analytics capabilities enable leaders to understand how content is being used so they can optimize strategies for greater impact.

Pros

Showpad often ranks higher than Seismic in areas including:

  • Ease of use
  • Ease of setup
  • Ease of admin
  • Product direction
  • Content management
  • ROI reporting

Cons

Showpad users cite certain downsides to the platform, including those related to:

  • Limited features
  • Poor search functionality
  • Confusing platform that’s not intuitive

4. Allego

G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5
Price: Allego offers its solutions a la carte. In addition, companies can also purchase the full suite of solutions. Contact Allego for detailed pricing information.

Allego is a popular sales enablement platform used by revenue organizations of all sizes and industries. Revenue organizations leverage this Seismic competitor to provide sellers with the content, tools, and training needed to improve performance.

Standout features

  • Video-based training and coaching increases seller engagement, potentially leading to improved sales performance.
  • AI recommendations, which are based on factors including sales stage and customer signals, enable sellers to deliver content that’s relevant to every seller at every stage of the sales cycle.
  • Collaborative learning tools allow reps to share best practices and learn from peers.

Pros

Per user reviews, Allego outperforms Seismic in a number of areas, including:

  • Quality of support
  • Product direction
  • Content management and optimization
  • Video emails
  • Digital sales rooms

Cons

Some of the common downsides of Allego cited by users include:

  • Steep learning curve for admins
  • Limited customization options
  • Integration challenges
  • Extensive feature set, which can be overwhelming
  • High pricing when compared to other sales enablement platforms like Seismic

5. Bigtincan

G2 rating: 4.4 out of 5 for Bigtincan Readiness; 4.4 out of 5 for Bigtincan Content; 4.1 out of 5 for Bigtincan Engagement
Price: Bigtincan offers customized pricing packages depending on the needs of your organization. Contact the company for customized pricing information.

Bigtincan is a popular sales enablement solution that offers AI-driven tools to help sellers close more deals, faster. The Bigtincan core platform includes a suite of products which include: Readiness, Content, and Engagement.

Standout features

  • AI-sales coaching, which analyzes sales conversations in real-time to deliver guidance on next steps and how to engage with prospects more effectively.
  • An excellent mobile-first experience, which can help prepare sellers for success no matter where they are.
  • Gamification and other interactive elements make learning and content more engaging for sellers.

Pros

There are certain factors where Bigtincan may outshine Seismic, including:

  • Real-time coaching
  • Better mobile experience
  • Flexible content creation and customization tools
  • Simple implementation process
  • AI-powered content recommendations

Cons

Bigtincan also has some notable downsides, especially when compared to Seismic.

  • Less intuitive platform
  • Difficult to navigate, especially for new users, which can hinder adoption
  • Less comprehensive sales content management tools
  • Training and enablement tools aren’t as robust as Seismic’s offerings
    Less advanced analytics tools, especially in terms of content use and sales performance
  • Integrates with fewer technologies than Seismic

6. Gong

Gong logo

G2 rating: 4.8 out of 5
Price: Gong’s pricing depends on several factors. Contact the company for customized pricing information.

Gong is a popular Seismic competitor that’s primarily focused on conversation intelligence. Gong captures, transcribes, and analyzes a variety of sales conversations, including sales calls, meetings, and emails. The platform then delivers powerful insights into how sales reps are engaging with buyers throughout the sales cycle. While Gong has strong conversation intelligence capabilities, it often falls short in supporting other areas of sales enablement.

Standout features

  • Powerful conversation capabilities, which leverage calls, emails, and meetings to deliver insights to improve sales conversations.
  • Data-driven coaching tools, which allow managers to spot trends, track rep performance over time, and deliver feedback to improve seller performance.
  • Real-time sales performance insights enable sales teams to optimize their strategies right away.
  • Revenue intelligence tools provide insight into deal progression and pipeline health, which helps sales teams more accurately predict outcomes.

Pros

Gong offers some advantages over Seismic, including:

  • Ease of setup
  • Ease of use
  • More robust conversation intelligence tools
  • More robust revenue intelligence tools

Cons

Per user feedback, there are certain areas where Gong may fall short – especially when compared to Seismic. Some of those areas include:

  • Integration set-up can be complex
  • No dedicated tools for building and managing sales playbooks
  • Limited content management capabilities
  • Overall, a less comprehensive sales enablement solution than Seismic

7. Paperflite

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
Price: Paperflite offers four pricing levels

  • Starter plan: $30 per user per month
  • Professional plan: $50 per user per month
  • Advanced: $60 per user per month
  • Enterprise: Contact Paperflite for pricing tailored to the needs of your organization.

Paperflite is a popular sales enablement tool that is primarily focused on sales content management. With Paperflite, sellers can easily surface the right content, develop custom microsites to share it, and measure how prospects engage with it. While Paperflite has robust sales content management tools, it lacks many of the other sales enablement features of Seismic and other key competitors.

Standout features

  • Interactive content experiences, including multimedia content, video, and presentations, make it easier to keep prospects engaged throughout the sales cycle.
  • Robust content tracking and analytics enable organizations to refine their content strategies for greater impact.
  • Rich content personalization and sharing tools allow reps to deliver personalized experiences that resonate with each seller.

Pros

Paperflite offers several advantages over Seismic, including:

  • Ease of setup and use
  • Quality of ongoing support
  • A more simple, user-friendly interface
    Robust content sharing and collaboration tools
  • A more cost effective option for those working with smaller budgets

Cons

Paperflite also has some significant downsides, especially when compared to Seismic. Some of those downsides include:

  • Less extensive sales enablement capabilities than Seismic
  • Limited content analytics
  • Less refined user interface
  • Layout issues
  • Fewer integrations, which can be especially problematic for businesses with larger tech stacks

8. Salesloft

G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5
Price:Salesloft offers two pricing tiers: Advanced and Premier. Contact the company for detailed pricing for both tiers.

Salesloft is a popular sales engagement platform that helps sales teams optimize outreach efforts and improve engagement with prospective customers. Because Salesloft isn’t a traditional sales enablement platform, it’s not a direct competitor of Seismic. However, some of Salesloft’s features and functionality overlap with sales enablement platforms, which is why we’ve included it on this list.

Standout features

  • Built-in calling functionality, which allows sellers to place calls, track conversations, and log notes – all within the platform.
  • Tools for personalized sales outreach, which empower sales reps to build meaningful relationships with prospective customers.
  • Robust data and analytics enable reps to see how buyers are engaging with their outreach efforts so they can adapt their approach accordingly.

Pros

According to feedback from users, Salesloft outperforms Seismic in a number of different areas, including:

  • Sales engagement features
  • Revenue intelligence tools
  • Outbound call tracking
  • Email tracking
  • Personalized outreach
  • Workflow integrations

Cons

The biggest downside of Salesloft is that it isn’t a traditional sales enablement platform. That means organizations would still need to invest in a separate, dedicated sales enablement platform.

9. Saleshood

saleshood-logo

G2 rating: 4.6 out of 5
Price: SalesHood pricing starts at $45 per user per month. Contact the company for more detailed pricing information.

SalesHood is an AI-driven sales enablement platform that helps ensure sellers are ready to deliver outstanding, personalized buyer experiences. The SalesHood platform incorporates many key features of a holistic revenue enablement practice, including training and onboarding, sales coaching, content management, digital sales rooms, and analytics and insights.

Standout features

  • Peer-to-peer learning tools allow sellers to easily share best practices and learn from others within the organization.
  • Customized sales playbooks provide sellers with a roadmap for navigating deals throughout the sales cycle.
  • Training tools help organizations quickly ramp new sellers and ensure they’re always ready to engage with buyers.

Pros

Per user feedback, SalesHood often outranks Seismic on factors including:

  • Ease of setup
  • Ease of admin
  • Sales training and onboarding features
  • Digital sales rooms
  • Sales coaching features

Cons

Users cite downsides of the SalesHood platform related to factors including:

  • Limited customization options
  • A steep learning curve, which can hinder adoption
  • Challenges with initially setting up integrations
  • High cost compared to other options for small to medium sized businesses
  • Inefficient search functionality
  • Navigation difficulty

See why Mindtickle is the best Seismic competitor on the market today

More and more businesses are investing in sales enablement. Choosing the right sales enablement tools is an essential component of building a winning sales enablement strategy.

Seismic is one of the most popular sales enablement platforms on the market today. But it may not be the right fit for your business. That’s why it’s important to explore top Seismic competitors – especially the top alternatives outlined in this post.

But which Seismic competitor is the best on the list?

Each business must determine their needs and find the sales enablement platform that best meets them. However, there’s one sales enablement platform that clearly stands above the rest: Mindtickle.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one AI revenue enablement platform designed to help sellers close more deals, faster. Mindtickle supports all the core pillars of sales enablement – all in one intuitive platform. With Mindtickle, sellers always have the training, content, and insights they need to engage buyers and close deals. 

See Mindtickle in Action

Ready to see firsthand why Mindtickle is the best Seismic competitor on the market?

Request a Demo

The post The Best Seismic Competitors and Alternatives appeared first on Mindtickle.

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How to Create a Winning Sales Pitch Deck https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-pitch-deck/ Thu, 17 Apr 2025 19:55:53 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23335 Today’s B2B buyers aren’t simply shopping for a product or service. Instead, they’re seeking out trusted partners who truly understand their challenges and can offer expert advice and real solutions. In fact, 84% of B2B buyers expect reps to act as trusted advisors, not just transactional sellers.   of buyers expect reps to act as …

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Today’s B2B buyers aren’t simply shopping for a product or service. Instead, they’re seeking out trusted partners who truly understand their challenges and can offer expert advice and real solutions. In fact, 84% of B2B buyers expect reps to act as trusted advisors, not just transactional sellers.

 

of buyers expect reps to act as trusted advisors
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Sellers must make a great first impression – and consistently deliver value at every interaction.

Yes, the words you say matter. That’s why so many sellers spend time perfecting their sales pitches. But how you deliver that pitch is just as important. That’s where a sales pitch deck comes in.

A well-crafted sales pitch deck helps you tell a clear, compelling story, keep your prospect engaged, and drive them to action. But let’s be honest: not all sales pitch decks are great. Some end up overwhelming buyers or losing their attention altogether.

So, how can you create the type of sales pitch deck that captures prospects’ interest, earns their trust, and entices them to take the next step?

In this post, we’ll break down what a sales pitch deck is, why it’s an essential tool for any B2B seller, and how to create one that’ll help you connect with more prospects and close more deals.

What is the difference between a sales pitch deck and a sales pitch?

You might hear “sales pitch” and “sales pitch deck” used interchangeably. The two are closely related, but they’re not the same thing.

What is a sales pitch?

A sales pitch is the messaging a seller uses to convey value and persuade the buyer to take the next step in the purchase journey. It’s the words a seller uses – whether in an in-person meeting, on a sales call, or via email – to communicate what their product or service does and how it can help the buyer achieve their goals and overcome their challenges.

What is a sales pitch deck?

On the other hand, a sales pitch deck is a visual aid that supports the sales pitch. A well-structured sales pitch deck can help a seller deliver their pitch in a more structured, engaging way and make a lasting impression on a buyer.

Typically, a sales pitch deck takes the form of a slide presentation that’s made using PowerPoint, Google Slides, Keynote, or similar software. A sales pitch deck generally includes a combination of clear, high level messaging and visual aids such as charts, diagrams, and product images.

While sales pitch decks vary from company to company, some common components include:

  • Customer pain points
  • Seller’s value proposition
  • Case studies and testimonials
  • Pricing information
  • Team expertise
  • Call to action

Sales pitch vs sales pitch deck

Clearly, sales pitches and sales pitch decks are both essential tools for capturing buyer interest and building trust. But one shouldn’t be used at the expense of the other.

When combined, sales pitches and sales pitch decks create a cohesive, engaging experience that not only communicates value but also sparks meaningful conversations, showcases expertise, and motivates prospects to move forward in their buying journey.

How does a sales pitch deck help your sales team?

A sales pitch deck is a powerful tool for any B2B seller – whether they’re new to selling or have been doing it for years. With a strong sales pitch deck, sellers can capture buyers’ attention, deliver their pitch in an engaging manner, and ultimately, close more deals.

But how?

Let’s take a look at some of the key ways a well-structured sales pitch deck can boost sales success across your entire team.

B2B buyers expect consistent experiences with a company. A sales pitch deck helps ensure your sellers are all telling the same clear, compelling, on-brand story to each prospect.

It’s easy for sales reps – especially newer ones – to get off track. With a well-structured sales pitch deck, your sellers will hit all the key points, keep conversations on track, and lead the buyer through a logical story.

In B2B sales, products and services are often complex. This is especially true for industries like medical devices and pharmaceuticals. A sales pitch deck uses concise messaging and compelling visuals to make complex solutions easier to understand.

Some sales conversations can be nerve wracking – even for veteran sellers. A sales pitch deck is a professional, polished tool sellers can rely on to deliver confidence pitches every time. Confident sellers are more likely to win a buyer’s trust and eventually, their business.

A sales pitch deck can be a great, go-to resource for less experienced sellers. When they have a strong sales pitch deck, new reps can deliver engaging pitches sooner.

Research suggests the majority of people are visual learners. While it’s easy to forget what someone says, a great sales pitch deck can make a pitch more memorable and impactful.

How to create a sales pitch deck for your business

A strong sales pitch deck can grab (and hold) a prospect’s attention and move them to action. But the reality is, many sales decks fall flat.

So, what separates a winning sales pitch deck from the rest?

The truth is, there’s no one-size-fits all sales deck outline. A winning sales deck should be tailored to your audience, aligned to your offerings, and built around your specific goals. It’s not about following a rigid formula. Instead, it’s about creating a sales pitch deck that:

  • Supports your sales pitch
  • Highlights your value
  • Sparks insightful conversations

With that said, there are certain steps any organization can take to build an effective sales pitch deck that empowers sellers and increases buyer engagement.

1. Start with the buyer’s pain points

Buyers want to work with sellers who genuinely understand their challenges and are committed to helping solve them. That’s why your sales pitch deck should start by demonstrating your understanding and empathy.

Begin with a slide that identifies the buyer’s key pain points. These should be informed by previous conversations you’ve had with the business, as well as any research you’ve done on your own.

For example, if you sell marketing automation software, you might identify that a buyer’s primary challenge is that their targets are higher this year, but they have a smaller team and a tighter budget.

This approach lets prospects know you’re not just there to sell a product – you’re there to help them solve real problems. It positions you as a trusted partner, rather than a pushy salesperson, and helps build credibility right from the start.

2. Introduce the solution

Once you’ve identified the prospect’s problems, you can introduce your solution and the value it delivers.

Avoid copying and pasting a laundry list of your product’s features and benefits. Instead, zero in on how your solution will address the prospect’s unique pain points and deliver measurable ROI.

For example, you might say something like, “Our platform streamlines the many moving parts of creating and executing marketing campaigns. That means you can create and launch campaigns 50% faster and increase conversion by up to 30% – even with a smaller team and leaner budget.”

3. Provide social proof

Buyers often approach sales pitches with a healthy level of skepticism. Incorporating social proof into your B2B sales pitch deck is a powerful way to boost credibility.

When buyers see how other businesses have overcome similar challenges with your solution, it’ll add weight to your message. So be sure to include customer success stories, reviews, and testimonials to your sales pitch deck. Metrics matter, it’s important to include qualitative results, whenever possible, to reinforce the value of your solution.

But don’t just throw a random case study or customer testimonial into your sales pitch deck. The prospect will think you don’t understand their business, and they’re likely to disengage. For example, a story about a smart tech startup’s success with your solution likely won’t resonate with an enterprise-level pharmaceutical business.

Instead, be sure to infuse relevant social proof that will resonate with the prospect. Highlight case studies and testimonials from companies that match their size, industry, region, and most importantly, share similar challenges. This will make your sales pitch deck more compelling and trustworthy.

4. Incorporate a clear call to action

What action do you want your prospect to take after you’ve completed your sales pitch? Be sure to make it crystal clear.

Whether it’s scheduling a live demo to see your solution in action or looping other stakeholders into the conversation, spell it out. That way, there’s no confusion about how to move forward.

5. Keep the sales pitch deck simple

You’ve got a great solution for your prospect’s problems. So it’s easy to get excited and want to include every single detail about it.

Resist the temptation. If you include too many details, you’ll confuse or overwhelm the prospect.

Instead, keep your sales deck simple and concise. Make sure each slide serves a purpose. Limit the amount of text you use, and use bullet points and lists to make your B2B sales pitch deck easier to scan.

A clean, simple deck is easier to digest, and your prospects are more likely to remember what you covered.

6. Incorporate compelling visuals

The majority of people are visual learners. So be sure to use compelling visuals to reinforce the messages in your sales pitch deck. Some examples include:

  • Charts
  • Graphics
  • Icons
  • Before/after imagery
  • Product images

7. Tailor the sales pitch deck to every prospect

A generic sales pitch deck isn’t going to resonate with your prospects. Instead, you must tailor your sales deck for each prospect. After all, B2B buyers have come to expect personalized content and experiences throughout the purchase journey.

With the right sales content management tools, your sellers can build tailored sales pitch decks for each prospect – all while staying consistent with your brand and messaging.

8. Share your sales pitch deck

B2B buying decisions involve large committees – sometimes up to 10 stakeholders. But chances are, not all of them will be present for your sales pitch.

Be sure to share your sales pitch deck with your prospect after you’ve wrapped up your pitch. That way, your point of contact can revisit the sales deck and share it with others involved in the decision-making process.

Instead of sending the sales pitch deck via email, consider using a digital sales room. A digital sales room provides a single source of truth where both buying and selling teams can access key materials. Plus, you’ll get insight into how each stakeholder interacts with your B2B sales pitch deck and other sales content. You can use these insights to refine your follow-up strategy for even greater impact.

9. Revisit your sales pitch deck regularly

Your sales pitch deck shouldn’t be static. As the business landscape evolves, it’s important to regularly review and update your sales deck to keep it relevant and effective.

For instance, be sure to refresh your sales pitch deck whenever you release a new product, sunset an old one, or adjust your offerings. You can also use feedback from buyers and sellers and quantitative data to continuously optimize your sales pitch deck to make it even more impactful.

Create a sales pitch deck that converts with Mindtickle

A compelling B2B sales pitch deck can help your sellers capture (and hold) prospects’ attention and guide them to the next step in the purchase journey. But a one-size-fits-all sales pitch deck won’t cut it.

Often, sellers struggle to find the right sales deck or content to use with a prospect. They may even take matters into their own hands and create their own materials, leading to inconsistent messaging and off-brand content.

With Mindtickle’s award-winning revenue enablement platform, your sellers can easily build personalized, on-brand sales pitch decks and other content for every prospect. They can also spin up a digital sales room in minutes to share the sales pitch deck and other relevant content and resources. With a digital sales room, buyers and sellers have a single, centralized hub for all deal-related content and information, which streamlines communication, ensures alignment, and accelerates sales cycles. In addition, sellers gain real-time insights into how buyers engage with sales content, which helps them fine-tune their follow-up strategy for greater impact.

Create Pitch Decks That Work

Ready to see how Mindtickle can empower your reps to create and share standout sales pitch decks?

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What is Sales Effectiveness – and How Do You Improve Yours?  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-effectiveness-and-how-do-you-improve-yours/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-effectiveness-and-how-do-you-improve-yours/#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2025 03:41:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18316 As a sales leader, boosting sales effectiveness must be a top priority. After all, the more effective your sales team is, the better they can engage buyers and consistently close deals. But improving sales effectiveness isn’t as simple as pushing your sellers to book more calls and meetings. Instead, it’s about empowering your reps to …

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As a sales leader, boosting sales effectiveness must be a top priority. After all, the more effective your sales team is, the better they can engage buyers and consistently close deals.

But improving sales effectiveness isn’t as simple as pushing your sellers to book more calls and meetings. Instead, it’s about empowering your reps to sell faster, smarter, and with more consistency.

In this blog, we’ll explore what sales effectiveness means, why it matters, and how you can take simple steps to boost your team’s performance and drive sustainable revenue growth.

Sales effectiveness definition

Most sales leaders agree that sales effectiveness is important. But without a clear definition, it’s impossible to measure it. If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.

With that in mind, let’s start by answering the question, “What is sales effectiveness?”

At the most basic level, it refers to how well your sellers turn prospects into buyers. Throughout the typical purchase journey, a seller has multiple interactions with a potential buyer. Effectiveness gauges the seller’s ability to conquer each of these interactions. Of course, their ability to conquer these touchpoints depends on many factors, including the quality of training and coaching – and how (or whether) they put this training and coaching into practice to improve.

Sales effectiveness vs. sales efficiency

Oftentimes, “sales effectiveness” and “sales efficiency” are used interchangeably. While they’re certainly related, they’re not the same thing.

Sales efficiency is about what your team is doing. For example, you might measure how much time your sales team is spending on training.

On the other hand, sales efficiency is how your team is performing. Sales effectiveness considers how much your sales reps are actually getting out of their training – and whether they’re putting that learning into practice in the field.

It’s possible to have a team that’s efficient – but not effective. In other words, your sales reps may complete tasks quickly. However, that doesn’t mean they’re completing the right tasks to move deals forward.

How to measure sales effectiveness

There’s an old adage that you can’t improve what you don’t measure. This definitely rings true for sales effectiveness. If you’re not continuously measuring it, it’s impossible to identify areas for improvement.

But many aren’t sure how to measure sales effectiveness.

8 essential sales effectiveness metrics

There’s no single metric for gauging sales effectiveness. Instead, sales organizations must track myriad metrics to get an accurate picture of it.

By tracking the right metrics (and analyzing them side-by-side), you’ll get a clear idea of what’s working, what’s not, and where there are opportunities to improve sales effectiveness.

So, what sales effectiveness metrics should you track? It varies from organization to organization. However, there are eight key metrics any team should track.

Quota attainment measures the percentage of your reps that are achieving quota. According to Gartner, quota attainment is one of the most common metrics for measuring sales effectiveness.

If quota attainment is low, it may indicate your sellers lack the training, tools, and resources they need to engage prospects and close deals.

This is the percentage of deals or opportunities your sales team successfully closes. In other words, it’s the portion of prospects end up purchasing your product or service. The win rate is calculated by dividing the number of deals won by the total number of deals, then multiplying by 100.

Calculating win rates can help you understand how your team is performing and where there may be friction in the sales process.

This is the percentage of leads that become qualified opportunities or customers. It’s calculated by dividing the number of qualified opportunities or customers by the total number of leads, then multiplying by 100.

Measuring lead conversion rates can give you insight into how well sales and marketing teams are working together. If conversion rates are low, it’s important to examine the quality of the leads coming in as well as whether or not your sellers have the right skills to engage these leads.

CAC is a measure of how much it costs the company to convert a prospect to a customer. This includes both the cost of sales and marketing, divided by the number of new customers acquired.

CAC can give you insight into how efficiently you’re spending to grow your customer base. If you find your CAC is growing, there may be opportunities to optimize processes to boost sales effectiveness.

This is how quickly prospects progress through the sales cycle. Obviously, the shorter the sales cycle length, the faster money comes in.

This is a metric you’ll want to compare to industry benchmarks. If your sales cycle length is significantly longer than industry average, there’s obviously something that needs to improve.

This is the average amount of money a business makes from closing a deal. You can calculate average deal size by dividing the value of all closed won opportunities by the number of deals closed.

A high average deal size can be an indicator that your sellers are effective at building relationships with customers. If average deal size decreases, there may be opportunities to optimize sales processes and sharpen sellers’ skills.

This is the amount of time a rep spends on revenue-generating activities. The more time a rep spends selling, the more business they will close.

Research tells us B2B sales reps spend just 30% of their time selling. If your sellers aren’t spending much time on revenue-generating activities, look for opportunities to streamline or automate tasks that take up their time. This will boost sales effectiveness and performance.

This is a sales effectiveness metric that compares the value of your pipeline for a specific time period to your sales quota for the same time period. While target pipeline coverage ratios vary from company to company, a 3:1 ratio is a common benchmark.

If pipeline coverage is low, it’s important to take a closer look to determine where there are opportunities to improve processes and skills to boost sales effectiveness.

Using KPIs to assess and improve sales performance

Sales effectiveness measures how your sales team is performing. As such, it’s important to focus on accessing your reps’ performance – and then taking data-based action to improve it.

Let’s take a look at some of the tools and techniques winning sales orgs are using to access and improve sales rep performance.

Sales dashboards and reporting

Improving your reps’ performance requires access to the right data. You can’t help them improve if you don’t know where they’re excelling and where they’re falling flat.

Most organizations have no shortage of data. But often, it lives in myriad locations. It’s important to ensure you have access to sales dashboards and reporting tools that make it easy to not only pull the right data – but also make sense of it so you can take action on it.

Sales call recording analysis

Sure, a sales rep may complete all training and enablement activities. But that doesn’t guarantee success. It’s important to understand whether the rep is actually using their newly acquired selling skills while in the field.

Conversation intelligence software records sales calls – and then analyzes those calls. This gives managers insight into what’s really happening in the field. That way, managers can provide training and coaching to improve the effectiveness of the rep – both on that deal and long term.

Mindtickle Call AI with conversation intelligence insights

Quarterly rep feedback cycles

Ongoing feedback is essential to improving rep performance and boosting sales effectiveness. Managers should perform quarterly reviews for each rep. These reviews are a great opportunity to examine sales performance quarter-over-quarter. In addition, it’s an opportunity to discuss opportunities for improvement.

But remember: feedback should be ongoing. Don’t wait until these quarterly meetings to provide feedback.

Newer reps vs. experienced rep analysis

It’s important to measure overall sales effectiveness. But be sure to measure sales effectiveness on a variety of levels too.

One example is newer reps vs. experienced reps. Experienced reps likely have different strengths and weaknesses than newer ones. Measuring sales effectiveness based on tenure can shed light on opportunities for improvement specific to each group.

Mindtickle Readiness Index

Sales enablement and sales training technology

Each rep has different strengths and weaknesses. Ongoing measurement helps you identify where sellers may need additional support to improve sales effectiveness.

Sales training, sales enablement, and sales coaching are all key to boosting seller performance. The sales effectiveness tools can help you identify the needs of each rep – and then deliver personalized sales training, sales enablement, and sales coaching to increase sales effectiveness.

Proven techniques for improving your sales effectiveness strategy

Improving sales effectiveness is a top goal of most sales organizations. But what can you do to boost this key metric?

Here are some foundational techniques to improve your sales effectiveness strategy.

Identify target markets and ideal customer profiles

Sometimes, a deal doesn’t move forward simply because the prospect isn’t the right fit for your products or services. It’s important to develop ideal customer profiles (ICPs), outlining the qualities of companies that are a good fit for your products and services. Be sure your sellers know these ICPs inside and out. Sellers should be spending the bulk of their time with prospects that align with these ICPs.

Provide personalized training and coaching

Sales training and coaching are key to building each seller’s competencies to succeed. But oftentimes, organizations deliver training and coaching that’s one-size-fits-all.

First, organizations must define the skills and competencies that are required to succeed in the field. Then, each rep should be measured against that ideal rep profile (IRP). Finally, personalized training and coaching can be delivered to strengthen those weaker skills – and boost sales effectiveness.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Centralize tools and content

The more time reps spend selling, the more deals they can close. Yet, sellers often waste valuable time searching for the tools and resources they need to engage buyers and move deals forward.

Chances are, you spend time and effort developing content and resources for your sellers to develop their skills and engage buyers. For example, you might provide tools like sales playbooks, battlecards, role-plays, and digital sales rooms. Be sure to centralize all these resources so your sellers can easily find what they need. The result? They’ll spend less time searching for what they need, and more time delivering outstanding experiences that convert prospects to customers.

Improve sales and marketing collaboration

Typically, marketing teams create plenty of material for reps to use throughout the sales cycle. But often, these materials are created without input from the sales team. Marketing and sales teams must work together to identify what reps need throughout the sales cycle – and what actually helps move deals closer to the finish line. That way, marketing teams can focus on the content that’s proven to work. Sales and sales enablement teams can help ensure sellers know how and when to use these marketing-created materials.

Deliver continuous feedback

Feedback shouldn’t just come during a quarterly review. Instead, managers must make it a priority to deliver feedback on an ongoing basis. That way, their reps understand what they need to work on to improve sales outcomes.

Leverage data to drive decisions

Sales effectiveness decisions must be grounded in facts, not gut feelings.

Remember: no single metric will tell you the full story of sales effectiveness. Instead, it’s important to track a broad range of metrics and analyze them side-by-side.

Manually pulling data from disparate sources can be tedious and often leaves gaps in your analysis. But with the right tools, you can centralize your data into a single dashboard, making it easier to track, analyze, and act on key metrics. You can use these insights to make better decisions, optimize processes, and ultimately, drive stronger sales effectiveness and performance.

Improving sales effectiveness with Mindtickle

An effective sales team is one that’s ready to confidently engage buyers and consistently close deals. So it’s no wonder why so many organizations focus on improving sales effectiveness.

But increasing sales effectiveness isn’t as simple as telling your sellers to hit the phones harder. True sales effectiveness comes from equipping your team with tailored training, tools, and resources to work smarter, operate more efficiently, and deliver consistent results.

The right tools and technology make all the difference. An integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle is an essential tool for any organization looking to increase sales effectiveness.

With Mindtickle, your sellers are always ready for any deal. They have the knowledge, skills, content, and resources they need to deliver winning buyer experiences – right at their fingertips.

Hypercharge sales effectiveness

See for yourself how Mindtickle can help you boost sales effectiveness across your entire revenue organization.

Get Your Demo

This post was originally published in September 2023 and was updated in February 2024 and April 2025.

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How Sales Content Analytics Helps Revenue Teams Close More Deals, Faster https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-sales-content-analytics-helps-revenue-teams-close-more-deals-faster/ Fri, 11 Apr 2025 12:35:01 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19411 It’s no secret that sales content plays a pivotal role in B2B sales. Research suggests the vast majority of B2B purchasing decisions are directly influenced by content, and 46% of buyers consume more sales content now than they did in the past. Buyers that say they consume more sales content now than in the past …

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It’s no secret that sales content plays a pivotal role in B2B sales. Research suggests the vast majority of B2B purchasing decisions are directly influenced by content, and 46% of buyers consume more sales content now than they did in the past.

Buyers that say they consume more sales content now than in the past
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Great sales content drives buyer engagement and conversion rates, which is why so many revenue organizations invest significant time and resources into producing it. For example, organizations that use Mindtickle publish an average of 642 new assets each year.

But when it comes to sales content, quality is far more important than quantity. After all, if you’re creating a high volume of content but it’s not being used or making an impact, it’s wasted effort.

Organizations must dig into their sales content analytics to understand which assets are driving engagement and conversion and which aren’t. Then, they can focus on creating more impactful sales content.

But what exactly are sales content analytics?

In this post, we’ll define sales content analytics, discuss why they’re important, and highlight the key metrics you need to track to achieve better results.

What is sales content analytics?

Most organizations invest plenty of time and resources into developing sales content. But the harsh reality is that most of that content sits unused. 

With sales content management analytics, you can spend your time and effort creating content that will actually be used and improve sales outcomes. But what is sales content analytics?

Sales content analytics is the practice of analyzing the performance of the different types of sales content your revenue team uses. These include sales presentations, sales collateral, whitepapers, case studies, videos, or any other type of content used throughout the sales cycle.

Sales content analytics can help you understand:

  • How often a piece of content is used by sales reps
  • How and when sellers share a piece of content with buyers
  • How buyers consume the content
  • How (and whether) the content influences revenue
  • Which teams and sellers get the most customer engagement from the content they share.

Revenue organizations can leverage content analytics to optimize their sales content strategy. For example, teams can use these insights to understand when there are opportunities to:

  • Update existing content to improve performance
  • Eliminate unused or underperforming content
  • Create new content

Content analytics can also help organizations determine where additional sales training and sales enablement are needed. For example, let’s say an organization finds that its best sellers frequently use a specific piece of sales content to close deals. However, this piece of content isn’t used widely across the sales team. The revenue organization can use this intel to deliver sales training or sales enablement to help all sellers understand when and how to use this piece of content in the sales cycle.

Sales content analytics are also hugely beneficial to sales reps – which we’ll cover in more detail next.

How does sales content analytics help your B2B sales team?

Today, businesses of all kinds tap into analytics to make better decisions and improve performance. Their efforts are paying off. Research tells us data-driven organizations are more likely to win customers, retain them, and remain profitable.

Revenue organizations are no exception to this rule. With the right sales analytics, revenue teams can make better decisions – and improve outcomes.

Sales content analytics, which is a type of sales analytics, enable sellers to be more effective and efficient in their roles. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key ways sales content analytics can improve sales rep performance.

Content analytics inform more effective training and enablement

On every B2B sales team, there’s a subset of top performers. Content analytics helps you understand what your top sellers are doing with content so your entire team can adopt these winning behaviors.

For example, you may find that one of your top sellers uses a specific piece of sales content every time they close a deal in a specific industry. However, the entire sales team hasn’t widely adopted this content. You can use these insights to deliver training and sales enablement focused on helping all sellers understand how to use this particular piece of content.

Sales content analytics help reps determine the next best action

Chances are, your sellers follow an established sales process for every deal. However, the sales process must be flexible enough to allow sellers to deliver personalized experiences that resonate with each buyer.

Content analytics provide valuable information that B2B sales reps can use to determine what action to take next. For example, a sales rep can examine content analytics to see how (or whether) different buying committee members are engaging with the content they’ve shared. These insights can help the sales rep determine the next best action.

Sales content analytics helps drive deal acceleration

Sales content helps reps close more deals. But not just any content will do. Instead, reps need relevant, proven content for each customer – no matter where they are on the sales journey.

With sales content analytics, revenue teams can understand how content is being used and whether it’s impacting deals. Then, they can use these insights to invest in content that’s proven to accelerate deals.

For example, content analytics may reveal that certain pieces of content are never used. This content can be eliminated altogether.

Content analytics can also illuminate opportunities to freshen up existing content and boost its effectiveness. According to the State of Revenue Productivity Report, the top 10% of revenue organizations update their content at least every 3.25 months.

The right sales content analytics can also help organizations understand where new content is needed. For example, you may find that deals frequently drop off at a certain point in the sales cycle, and the existing assets for that stage aren’t as effective as you’d hoped. You can use data—as well as feedback from your sales team—to develop new content for sellers to use.

The bottom line is that sales content analytics enables organizations to improve the effectiveness of their sales content. That means sellers are equipped with proven-to-work sales content. When sellers use this content, they’re more likely to close deals faster.

Sales content analytics help create a culture of data-driven decision-making
Making decisions based on hunches or gut feelings isn’t an effective approach. Instead, business decisions must be rooted in data.

Revenue organizations should strive to build a culture where data-driven decision-making is the norm. Equipping the right people with the right sales content analytics is a key way to make this a reality.

What sales content metrics do you need to track?

Now you know what sales content analytics is and why it’s important to revenue organizations. But what content metrics do you need to track to understand how your content is being used and what kind of impact it has on deals?

Let’s take a closer look at some of the top sales content metrics. 

Content freshness

Stale, outdated content can be a big turnoff to buyers, so it’s important to regularly measure how up-to-date your content is. In some cases, you may want to update stale content. However, there are other instances when the best approach is to eliminate the content altogether.

Searches

Track what keywords your reps are using when searching for the right content. You can leverage this information to categorize better or tag your existing sales content assets.

In addition, look for trends in reps’ searches. If sellers’ searches turned up no results, there may be an opportunity to develop new sales content.

Finally, be sure to monitor whether the content reps find during their searches is effective. In other words, ask yourself if buyers are engaging with this content and whether it’s creating opportunities for sellers.

Sales content usage

You may have spent a lot of time creating great content. But if your sellers aren’t using it, your prospects will never see it.

Content usage metrics help you understand how (or if) sales reps use a particular piece of content. Key metrics include things like:

  • Sales content views
  • Sales content downloads
  • Sales content edits
  • Sales content shares
Mindtickle Asset Hub sharing

You can track sales content usage metrics across the whole revenue team, as well as by region, territory, or individual rep.

Sales content engagement

The right content helps accelerate B2B deals. However, content must be relevant and engaging to be effective.

As such, it’s important to track sales content engagement, which measures how your buyers consume your sales content. There are several metrics you need to track to understand sales content engagement, including:

  • Clickthrough rate
  • Average amount of time buyers spend engaging with a specific piece of content
  • How often buyers engage with a piece of content
  • How many pages or sections the buyer engage with, and which pages or sections get the most engagement
  • How often buyers are sharing a piece of content with others
  • Which sales reps have the highest engagement on sales content

Sales content production timeline

Producing content requires time and effort. Be sure to track the amount of time it takes to create sales content. This metric will be important when determining whether the results are worth the time and effort spent on it.

Sales content performance and ROI

You want to invest in content that improves sales outcomes. As such, it’s important to measure sales content performance and ROI.

You can use these insights to invest more in content that’s proven to work.

Be sure to track which content buyers are engaging with at each stage of the sales cycle and how it’s impacting whether or not they continue through the funnel. You should also track which content is used in both closed-won and closed-lost opportunities – and the impact the content had on each deal.

Feedback from the sales team

When it comes to sales content optimization, hard data is key. However, it’s also important to ask for feedback from your sales teams, as they meet with customers daily. Your sales reps – especially your top performers – have unique insight into which content works, which doesn’t, and where there are opportunities to develop new assets to accelerate the sales cycle and improve sales outcomes.

How to measure the impact of sales content

There’s no single metric that can measure the impact of your sales content. Instead, it’s important to regularly track a variety of sales content metrics, which we just outlined.

But for many organizations, this is easier said than done.

Organizations often struggle to measure the effectiveness of their sales content for many reasons. They may store their content in a variety of different locations, making it difficult to track sales rep and customer engagement. Or, they might lack the proper sales content analytics tools needed to measure impact.

Without reliable sales content analytics, it’s impossible to optimize your content strategy. Fortunately, investing in the right sales content management tools can help you overcome these challenges.

With the right sales content management tool, you can centralize your content in one location. This provides your sales team with a single source of truth for accessing content, while also giving you a unified view into how your reps and prospects are engaging with content throughout the sales cycle.

The right sales content management platform should also integrate into your CRM and other key technologies so you can get insight into how (and whether) different sales content assets are influencing sales outcomes.

With the right sales content management tools, you always have the sales content analytics you need to measure impact. You can identify which types of content are driving results, so you can start making more of it. You’ll also pinpoint which content should be eliminated or updated.

But how often do you need to update your sales content?

An analysis found that content freshness is correlated with engagement. So it’s important to regularly use sales content analytics to keep your assets fresh.

The same analysis found that the top 10% of organizations update their content at least once every 3.25 months. So that’s a solid target to aim for.

When your sellers see that your sales content is reliably up-to-date, they’re more likely to trust it and use it. As a result, you’ll see higher engagement and greater ROI.

Unlock sales content analytics and improve content impact with Mindtickle

In B2B sales, content is king. Buyers depend on content to evaluate their options and make informed purchase decisions, while sellers rely on it to keep buyers engaged throughout the purchase journey.

While many organizations create extensive sales content libraries, it’s imperative to focus on quality rather than quantity.

With sales content analytics, you can see which content is making an impact and which content is sitting unused. These insights allow you to refine your content strategy and provide your sellers with more effective content.

But without the right sales content analytics tools, it’s impossible to effectively measure impact.

Mindtickle, an AI revenue enablement platform, offers a full suite of sales content management tools. With Mindtickle, your sellers can quickly and easily find proven content for every sales scenario. In addition, Mindtickle features sales content analytics that can help you understand content engagement and impact. You’ll find out what content works so you can make more of it – and less of everything else. You can also use Mindtickle to deliver sales training and sales enablement to ensure reps know how and when to use content that’s proven to drive revenue.

Sales Content Analytics in Mindtickle

Curious how leading revenue organizations use Mindtickle to create, distribute, and measure the impact of sales content?

Get Your Demo

This post was originally published in April 2024, updated in April 2025.

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Request A Demo https://www.mindtickle.com/demo-request/ Thu, 10 Apr 2025 13:02:02 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=23305 REQUEST A DEMO Start Changing Behaviors with Revenue Enablement Talk to the Mindtickle team to learn how to make enablement a change agent and revenue driver. Leader in Forrester’s Sales Readiness Wave Report, 2024 with highest possible score in 8 of 11 criteria Leader in Sales Enablement Platform by Software Reviews Leader on G2 grids …

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Start Changing Behaviors with Revenue Enablement

Talk to the Mindtickle team to learn how to make enablement a change agent and revenue driver.

  • Leader in Forrester’s Sales Readiness Wave Report, 2024 with highest possible score in 8 of 11 criteria
  • Leader in Sales Enablement Platform by Software Reviews
  • Leader on G2 grids for 6 categories including Sales Performance Management
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Sales Performance Evaluation: What it is and Why it Matters https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-performance-evaluation/ Thu, 10 Apr 2025 11:35:23 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23313 Sales performance is a critical factor in the success (or failure) of your business. If sellers consistently perform at a high level, your revenue grows. But if sellers fall short, your bottom line takes a hit. To ensure ongoing success, sales leaders must stay attuned to the performance of their sellers and their teams. That’s …

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Sales performance is a critical factor in the success (or failure) of your business. If sellers consistently perform at a high level, your revenue grows. But if sellers fall short, your bottom line takes a hit.

To ensure ongoing success, sales leaders must stay attuned to the performance of their sellers and their teams. That’s where sales performance evaluation comes in.

With the right sales performance evaluation process, you’ll gain insight into what’s working and what needs improvement. These insights will empower you to deliver tailored training and coaching, refine your strategies, and better equip your sellers to meet their goals.

But what exactly is sales performance evaluation, and why is it important? Read on as we define the term and share best practices for implementing an effective sales performance evaluation process.

What is sales performance evaluation?

If you’re not quite sure what sales performance evaluation is, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s start by defining the term.

Sales performance evaluation is a comprehensive process used to access the effectiveness of an individual sales rep or an entire sales team.

The sales performance evaluation process involves tracking and analyzing quantitative and qualitative data to determine whether goals are being achieved. Some examples of data include:

  • Sales metrics: These include figures like number of deals closed and average deal size.
  • Sales activities: This covers the tasks performed by a seller, such as making calls and setting meetings.
  • Progress against goals: This measures how actual results compare to goals, such as quota attainment.
  • Skills and behaviors: This assesses which must-have sales skills and behaviors a seller has mastered and where further development is needed.

The goal of a sales performance evaluation is to identify a seller’s strengths and pinpoint opportunities for improvement. With these insights, leaders can provide training, coaching, and support to boost sales performance and drive revenue growth.

Copilot - Analytics

Why is sales performance evaluation important?

Now that we’ve defined what sales performance evaluation is, let’s explore why it’s so important.

Simply stated, sales performance evaluation is important because the process enables you to improve the effectiveness of your sales team.

More often than not, revenue organizations struggle to hit their goals. In fact, according to Forrester, the average quota attainment for B2B revenue organizations is only 47%. A more recent survey found that 35% of sales managers report that less than 50% of their teams are hitting their sales quotas.

average quota attainment for B2B revenue organizations
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If your sellers aren’t hitting their individual goals, you’ll never achieve your company-wide goals.

Through sales performance evaluation you’ll get a clear picture of what each seller is doing well. Recognizing these accomplishments will improve seller satisfaction and motivation. Sellers will be motivated to do their best work, and they’ll be more likely to stick with your company long-term.

You’ll also pinpoint where each seller is falling short. You can use these insights to deliver data-driven training, coaching, and support, ensuring each seller has what they need to reach their full potential.

The sales performance evaluation process is also a great way to understand what makes your top sellers stand out. By understanding the skills and competencies that contribute to their success, you can start to replicate those qualities across your entire sales team to drive greater sales productivity and performance.

Regular sales performance evaluations can also help you identify trends, which you can use to optimize your sales strategy and tactics.

Measuring vs. evaluating sales performance: What’s the difference?

If you work in sales, you’ve likely participated in conversations about measuring or evaluating sales performance. In fact, the terms “measuring sales performance” and “evaluating sales performance” are often used interchangeably.

Measuring and evaluating sales performance are both important, and they are closely related. However, they aren’t the same thing.

Sales performance measurement is the practice of tracking quantifiable data and metrics that reflect how well sellers are achieving their goals. Some examples of metrics you might track as part of sales performance measurement include:

  • Conversion rates
  • Number of deals closed quota attainment
  • Average deal size

The focus of sales performance measurement is to compare data against predefined metrics to determine whether individual sellers and teams are on track to reach goals. Sales performance measurement is a straightforward process that takes data at face value, without delving into the “why” behind it.

Evaluating sales performance also involves tracking key data and sales metrics, but it goes beyond simply measuring results. Sales performance evaluation also involves analyzing and interpreting data to understand the many underlying factors influencing sales performance. Sales leaders can use these insights to provide targeted feedback and coaching, which will help sellers improve their performance.

For example, measuring sales performance might reveal that a seller has missed their quota for the last four quarters. However, evaluating sales performance goes a step further by pinpointing the reasons behind those missed quotas. This allows you to provide targeted support to help the seller improve and increase their likelihood of hitting their quota.

What is the sales performance evaluation process?

The sales performance evaluation process is an important way to understand the strengths and weaknesses of your sales reps, which can help you deliver training, coaching, and support to improve those weaknesses. Furthermore, the process can help you pinpoint problem areas in your sales process, which you can then optimize for better results.

But how can you start evaluating sales performance in your organization? There are certain key steps to follow.

Sales performance evaluation helps you assess how well your sales reps are meeting their goals. But before you can evaluate performance, you must first define what these goals are. Be sure your goals are specific and measurable.

You must also identify what metrics you’ll use to track progress. Sales metrics like number of deals closed, average deal size, and conversion rates are some of the most obvious. You’ll also need to track how these numbers compare to a sellers’ goals.

It’s also important to track other metrics that can help you understand the “why” behind certain metrics. For example, you can track a rep’s skills and behaviors to help understand why they may be struggling to close deals.

Be sure your sellers know what their goals are and how they will be measured against them. When sellers know they’ll be evaluated (and what they’ll be evaluated on), it’ll drive accountability and motivate them to perform their best.

Sales performance evaluation isn’t a one time event. It should be conducted regularly to monitor performance and progress over time.

It’s important to determine what the right cadence is for your organization. Then, schedule recurring meetings with each seller so sales performance reviews don’t fall by the wayside.
Access and analyze metrics
It’s important to show up prepared for sales performance evaluation discussions. That way, you can make the most of your time with the seller.

Be sure to gather the necessary metrics to assess the seller’s performance. If you use an integrated revenue enablement platform, you may have a sales performance dashboard with all the metrics you need, all in one place.

It’s also important to analyze the data to understand the factors contributing to sales performance. Again, this is easier to do if the data is all housed within a single platform.

While quantitative data is important, it doesn’t tell the full story of sales performance. Make sure to observe your sales reps in action, and consider gathering feedback from their peers. This qualitative feedback will offer insights that’ll help you evaluate (and improve) sales performance.

Once you’ve conducted a thorough sales performance evaluation, it’s time to have a discussion with the seller. Make sure to acknowledge their strengths and identify areas for improvement. You can also begin to outline a plan for addressing those weaker areas and set goals for the future. It’s important that those goals align with both the objectives of the sales team and the overall goals of the company.

Remember: a sales performance review should be a two-way conversation. Encourage the seller to share their thoughts and feedback. They’re likely to provide insight into the tools and resources they need to be more successful or ways you can better support them.

The sales performance evaluation process can help you pinpoint each seller’s weaknesses. But reps shouldn’t feel like they have to tackle these challenges alone. Instead, it’s important to provide sellers with targeted training, enablement, and coaching to help them improve in these areas.

For example, you can assign training courses that focus on a specific skill. Or, you can encourage sellers to use AI role-plays to practice their skills in an adaptive setting.

Additionally, it’s important to meet with each rep regularly for coaching sessions. After all, research tells us high performing sellers receive significantly more coaching than lower performers.

Evaluating sales performance shouldn’t just happen once per year. Instead, it’s important to consistently track your sellers’ performance and progress.

This ongoing approach enables you to spot roadblocks early on. That way, you can intervene to provide support and guidance before your sellers fall short of their goals.

Transform your sales performance evaluation process Mindtickle

Sales performance evaluation is essential for any revenue organization. By identifying each sellers’ strengths and weaknesses, you can provide focused support to close gaps and boost productivity and performance.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform trusted by top performing revenue organizations to assess and improve sales performance.

With Mindtickle, you can easily access and analyze all the data you need to evaluate sales performance, all in one place. These insights can help you pinpoint each seller’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, you can use Mindtickle to deliver targeted training, enablement, and coaching to close skill gaps and improve sales performance. Each of your sellers will be properly equipped to reach their full potential, and your revenue will grow.

Master Sales Performance Evaluation

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Online Sales Coaching 101: How to Build a Program That Drives Results https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/online-sales-coaching/ Wed, 09 Apr 2025 10:23:01 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23309 Every seller on your team – from the newest to the most experienced – needs ongoing sales coaching to refine their skills and reach their full potential. In fact, recent research found 91% of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts their team’s performance. Of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts their team’s overall performance. 0 …

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Every seller on your team – from the newest to the most experienced – needs ongoing sales coaching to refine their skills and reach their full potential. In fact, recent research found 91% of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts their team’s performance.

Of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts their team’s overall performance.
0 %

Considering its impact, it’s really no wonder why so many managers view sales coaching as one of their most important tasks as leaders.

But in today’s world, traditional, in-person sales coaching isn’t always the most practical or effective approach. Instead, many organizations have shifted – at least partially – to online sales coaching. Often, those who make this shift find themselves better equipped to deliver personalized, effective sales coaching that truly moves the needle.

So, what exactly is online sales coaching, and how can you build a program that equips each sales rep to be a top performer? Read on to explore everything you need to know about online sales coaching and how to build an effective program that prepares your sellers for success.

What is online sales coaching?

There’s no doubt you’re familiar with the concept of sales coaching. But what exactly is online sales coaching?

Online sales coaching (also known as virtual sales coaching) is the practice of leveraging digital tools and platforms to deliver guidance and support that helps sellers refine their skills and improve their performance.

Some examples of tools and platforms used for online sales coaching include:

  • Video conferencing software
  • CRM
  • Conversation intelligence software
  • Role-playing tools
  • Analytics and insights tools
  • Revenue enablement platforms

Online sales coaching can be used to deliver various types of sales coaching to sellers, including:

  • Deal coaching: Offering guidance on current deals to improve outcomes.
  • Skill coaching: Providing feedback to help sellers enhance their skills and behaviors, leading to better long-term sales performance.

In some cases, virtual sales coaching is delivered to sales reps in real-time by their sales manager. For instance, a seller may have weekly coaching calls with their manager to discuss active deals and strategize on next steps.

However, some online sales coaching programs also offer sellers the flexibility to access on-demand support coaching and support as needed. For example, organizations may use conversation intelligence tools that offer feedback after each sales call. Or, they may use AI role-plays, which provide sellers with real-time feedback they can use to improve their skills and behaviors.

What’s the difference between online and in-person coaching?

When you hear the term “sales coaching,” you might first think of traditional, in-person sales coaching. As the name suggests, in-person sales coaching involves providing feedback, support, and guidance to a seller who is physically present with you.

While in-person and online sales coaching both aim to improve seller performance, they’re not the same thing.

One of the biggest differences between in-person and online and sales coaching lies in how coaching is delivered. In-person sales coaching is delivered face-to-face, often in an office or meeting room, and can be conducted in a one-on-one session or with a larger group. On the other hand, online sales coaching is conducted virtually.

Because of its remote format, online sales coaching tends to be a more flexible approach than in-person sales coaching. Sales reps can be coached from anywhere. In addition, online sales coaching programs often incorporate on-demand features, allowing sellers to get real-time support whenever they need it.

Both online and in-person sales coaching typically involve the sales manager. However, online sales coaching can also leverage AI, which provides sellers with more immediate feedback.

Online and in-person sales coaching also use different tools and technology. For example, organizations often use face-to-face discussions, live role-plays, and physical materials for in-person coaching programs. Online sales coaching requires different tools, which might include video conferencing software, conversation intelligence tools, AI role-plays, and integrated revenue enablement platforms.

Online sales coaching In-person sales coaching

Goal

Improve sales performance
Improve sales performance

Setting

Virtual, through the use of digital tools and platforms.
Face-to-face, often in an office or meeting room. Meetings can be one-on-one or a group setting.

Level of flexibility

Highly flexible. Sales reps and coaches can attend from anywhere.

In addition, ongoing sales coaching programs often incorporate on-demand capabilities, which enables sellers to access support whenever they need it.
Less flexible, as the sales rep and sales manager must be in the same physical location at the same time.

Who is responsible for delivering coaching

– Sales manager

– Other individuals, including level up managers or peers, may be involved in sales coaching

– Artificial intelligence
– Sales manager

– Other individuals, including level up managers or peers, may be involved in sales coaching

When coaching happens

– Pre-scheduled, recurring meetings

– On an ad hoc basis, as manager availability allows

– On-demand
– Pre-scheduled, recurring meetings

– On an ad hoc basis, as manager availability allows

Examples of tools and technology used

– Video conferencing software

– CRM

– Conversation intelligence tools

– AI role-plays

– Revenue enablement platforms
– Face-to-face discussions

– Live role-plays

– Physical materials

– Attendee notes

Why is online sales coaching important?

Sales coaching is an important part of any sales enablement strategy. Why? Because it works. A recent analysis found that high performing sellers receive significantly more coaching than their lower performing peers. That’s not a coincidence.

But why is online sales coaching particularly important?

While sales coaching can have a big impact on performance, one-size-fits-all coaching doesn’t work. Instead, sales coaching must be personalized to the needs of every sales rep.

But delivering tailored sales coaching isn’t exactly easy, especially when 70% of sales managers report an increase in team size over the past year, and each rep on those increasingly large teams has different needs. To further complicate matters, sales teams are often spread across different geographical locations.

Virtual sales coaching offers a flexible way to deliver effective, personalized sales coaching at scale. Sales leaders can quickly determine the strengths and weaknesses of each rep, and then offer targeted feedback, support, and guidance to improve their skills and performance.

With the right online sales coaching program, sellers can master the skills and behaviors they need to close more deals faster, leading to accelerated revenue growth. Additionally, your online sales coaching program will provide the support sellers need in their roles, which will boost satisfaction and improve retention.

How can you create an effective online sales coaching program?

An online sales coaching program is a great way to provide the support and guidance your sellers need to excel in their roles. It’s no surprise that so many organizations are incorporating online sales coaching into their revenue enablement strategies.

Building an online sales coaching program from scratch can seem daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. Let’s take a closer look at some of the key steps you’ll need to take when developing your online sales coaching program.

The first, foundational step is to define your sales coaching objectives. Start by asking yourself what you aim to achieve by building and deploying an online sales coaching program.

Avoid setting vague goals. Instead, focus on specific, measurable objectives. Examples include:

  • Increasing win rates by x%
  • Increasing average deal size by x%
  • Decreasing the average sales cycle length by x%
  • Decreasing time to first sale by x%

The right online sales coaching tools and technology can have a large impact on the success of your program. After setting your goals, you can identify the sales coaching software that will help you achieve them.

For example, you may need a conversation intelligence tool to get insight into reps’ skills and behaviors while on sales calls. Or, you may need a tool sales reps can use to engage in interactive role-plays and get real-time feedback. In addition, you’ll need the right tools to measure the impact of your online sales coaching efforts.

Rather than using point solutions that each address a specific aspect of online sales coaching, consider investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform. Often, these platforms provide a variety of online sales coaching tools – all in one integrated solution.

Generic online sales coaching won’t cut it. Instead, coaching must be tailored to the needs of each sales rep.

If you haven’t already done so, create ideal rep profiles (IRPs) that outline the essential skills and competencies required for each sales role in your organization. Then, measure each seller against the IRP to identify their strengths and weaknesses. Online sales coaching efforts should focus on addressing weaker areas.

Online sales coaching isn’t a one-time event. Instead, it must be a continuous effort.

Most sales managers rely on scheduled meetings to determine when it’s time to coach reps. So be sure your managers set up recurring coaching meetings with each of their sales reps.

It’s also important to provide your sellers with guidance and coaching outside of their regularly scheduled coaching calls. For example, AI sales coaching tools can recommend next steps for a seller to take, which can improve the outcome of an open deal. Additionally, an AI sales coach can provide feedback to sellers after sales calls and during interactive role–plays, which they can use to improve their skills right away.

Often, great sellers are promoted to the role of sales manager. But they may not necessarily have the skills needed to effectively coach and lead a team.

Be sure to provide all new sales managers with proper training so they can grow the skills needed to be great coaches. It’s also important to provide them with ongoing coaching to continuously improve their ability to coach and lead their teams.

Without ongoing measurement, it’s difficult to assess whether or not you’re on track to achieve your online sales coaching goals. Be sure to track key sales coaching metrics to evaluate the effectiveness of your virtual sales coaching program and identify opportunities for improvement. You can use these insights to grow and optimize your online sales coaching program for even greater impact.

Kick your online sales coaching program into high gear with Mindtickle

Every sales rep needs ongoing coaching to reach their full potential. With the right online sales coaching tools, you can start delivering tailored, impactful sales coaching that improves sales skills and performance.

Mindtickle is an award-winning revenue enablement platform offering a comprehensive suite of sales coaching tools. With Mindtickle, you can easily identify the strengths and weaknesses of each sales rep and provide targeted coaching to improve weaknesses.

Of course, sellers may also need support beyond their regularly scheduled sales coaching sessions. Mindtickle uses AI to deliver real-time, relevant online sales coaching to each seller – whenever and wherever they need it. For example, AI role-plays in Mindtickle allow sellers to practice their skills in a safe environment and get immediate feedback they can apply before money is on the line.

Deliver Impactful Coaching to Every Rep

Curious why top-performing revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to power their online sales coaching programs?

Get a Demo

The post Online Sales Coaching 101: How to Build a Program That Drives Results appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 27 February 2024 to 2 April 2025 https://www.mindtickle.com/professional-services-scope-and-services-description-from-27-feb-2024-till-2-apr-2025/ Fri, 04 Apr 2025 10:16:17 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=23287 Professional Services Scope and Services Description from 27th February 2024 to 2nd April 2025 Table of Contents Professional Services Scope – Readiness Package Professional Services Scope – Enable package Professional Services Scope – Transform Package Professional Services Scope – LMS Package Professional Services Scope – Custom Technical Solutions Package Out-of-Scope Services for LMS, Readiness, Enable, …

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Professional Services Scope and Services Description from 27th February 2024 to 2nd April 2025

Professional Services Scope – Readiness  Package 

Included with the Readiness package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance

  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
    • Account settings
    • Roles and Permissions
    • User, profile management
    • Groups and group automation
    • Tagging framework and governance
    • Readiness Index configuration and feature walkthrough
    • Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Customers’ competency model or Mindtickle standard competency model
    • Business metrics correlation with Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Learning site branding and configuration
    • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
    • Private labeling Sender’s email address
    • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
    • Identify and define enablement program success metrics
    • Structure enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro learning
    • Launch communication and change management
    • Program and platform-level reporting and analytics
    • Out of platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
  • Advise on standard integrations:
    • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
    • Support for configuring 1 user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
    • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
    • Notifications on Slack or MS teams
    • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
    • Sales Outcome Data sync with Salesforce
    • Learner Performance Synchronization with Salesforce Lightning
    • Salesforce Opportunity Integration to display Learning Modules
    • Salesforce Integrations for Coaching (if required)

Professional Services Scope – Enable package

Included with the Enable package, Mindtickle shall provide the following services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance:

  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
    • Account settings
    • Roles and Permissions
    • User, profile management
    • Groups and group automation
    • Tagging framework and governance
    • Readiness Index configuration and feature walkthrough 
    • Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Customers’ competency model or Mindtickle standard competency model
    • Business metrics correlation with Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Learning site branding and configuration
    • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
    • Private labeling Sender’s email address
    • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
    • Identify and define enablement program success metrics
    • Structure enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro learning
    • Launch communication and change management
    • Program and platform level reporting and analytics
    • Out of platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
  • Advise on standard integrations:
    • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
    • Support for configuring 1 user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
    • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
    • Notifications on Slack or MS teams
    • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
    • Sales Outcome Data sync with Salesforce
    • Learner Performance Synchronization with Salesforce Lightning
    • Salesforce Opportunity Integration to display Learning Modules
    • Salesforce Integrations for Coaching (if required)
  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration for Asset Hub, including:
    • Content organization
    • Content discoverability and search
    • Content tagging
    • Content governance
    • Content metadata definition
    • Analytics review and advisory
    • Advise on standard integrations
      • Salesforce Opportunity Integration with Mindtickle Asset Hub
      • Salesforce Opportunity Integration for Activity Writeback (Admin view only)
      • Salesforce Integration for Revenue Impact of Asset (Admin view only)
  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration for Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs), including:
    • Digital Sales Rooms Management
    • 1 (one) of the standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
    • Roles and User Management applicable to Digital Sales Rooms
    • Analytics review and Advisory

Professional Services Scope – Transform package

Included with the Transform package, Mindtickle will provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle Instance: 

  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
    • Account settings
    • Roles and Permissions
    • User, profile Management
    • Groups and group automation
    • Tagging framework and governance
    • Readiness Index configuration and feature walkthrough 
    • Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Customers’ competency model or Mindtickle standard competency model
    • Business metrics correlation with Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Learning site branding and configuration
    • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
    • Private labeling Sender’s email address
    • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
    • Identify and define enablement program success metrics
    • Structure enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro learning
    • Launch communication and change management
    • Program and platform level reporting and analytics
    • Out of platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
  • Advise on standard integrations:
    • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
    • Support for configuring 1 user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
    • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
    • Notifications on Slack or MS teams
    • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
    • Sales Outcome Data sync with Salesforce
    • Learner Performance Synchronization with Salesforce Lightning
    • Salesforce Opportunity Integration to display Learning Modules
    • Salesforce Integrations for Coaching (if required)
  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration for Asset Hub, including:
    • Content organization
    • Content discoverability and search
    • Content tagging
    • Content governance
    • Content metadata definition
    • Analytics review and advisory
    • Advise on standard integrations
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration with Mindtickle Asset Hub
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration for Activity Writeback (Admin view only)
        • Salesforce Integration for Revenue Impact of Asset (Admin view only)
  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration for Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs), including:
    • Digital Sales Rooms Management
    • 1 (one) of the standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
    • Roles and User Management applicable to Digital Sales Rooms
    • Analytics and Advisory
  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration for CallAI, including
    • Call scoring and analytics
    • Call recording and analytics
    • Coaching program setup, management, and reporting
    • Launch communication and change management
    • Analytics review and Advisory
    • Advise on standard integrations
        • 1 (one) Calendar sync (Outlook, Google Calendar)
        • 1 (one) of the Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
        • 1 (one) of the Dialer tool listed in Table 4 below
        • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
        • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
        • Post launch analytics review and advisory

Professional Services Scope – LMS package 

Included with the LMS package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance:

  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
    • Account settings
    • Roles and Permissions
    • User, profile management
    • Groups and group automation
    • Tagging framework and governance
    • Readiness Index configuration and feature walkthrough 
    • Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Customers’ competency model or Mindtickle standard competency model
    • Business metrics correlation with Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Learning site branding and configuration
    • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
    • Private labeling Sender’s email address
    • Identify and define enablement program success metrics
    • Structure enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro learning
    • Launch communication and change management
    • Program and platform level reporting and analytics
    • Out of platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
  • Advise on standard integrations:
    • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
    • Support for configuring 1 user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
    • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
    • Notifications on Slack orMS teams
    • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
    • Sales Outcome Data sync with Salesforce
    • Learner Performance Synchronization with Salesforce Lightning
    • Salesforce Opportunity Integration to display Learning Modules

Professional Services Scope: Custom Technical Solutions Package

Under the Custom Technical Solutions Package, Mindtickle Technical Solutions team provides the following services, ensuring alignment with the agreed engagement terms and restricted by technical feasibility:

  1. Standard Integrations: as mentioned in Table 1 to Table 4 
  2. Custom Integrations: Development and deployment of integrations with the customer’s tech stack to meet unique requirements.
  3. Data Management Solutions: Including data clean-up, filtering, manipulation, and migration.
  4. Advanced Reporting: Creation of custom reports, one-time or cadence-based email reports, and dashboards using the reporting API data set.
  5. BI and Visualization Tools Integration: Integration with business intelligence or data visualization tools.
  6. Content Synchronization: Streamlining and automating content updates across platforms.
  7. Updates to Existing Solutions: Modifications to completed and accepted custom solutions, including integrations and reports, based on evolving business needs.

The above listed services are subject to feasibility checks and designed to ensure robust, scalable, and customer-centric outcomes. All the effort required to do such feasibilty checks is a part of the service. 

Assumptions for Custom Technical Solutions Package

  1. Feasibility Checks: The Mindtickle Technical Solutions team will evaluate the feasibility of custom requests and implementations to ensure compatibility with the Mindtickle product’s technical architecture.
  2. Adaptation of Solutions: If a customer requirement does not align with the product’s architecture, the Mindtickle Technical Solutions team will propose alternative approaches to address the requirement and communicate them with the customer for alignment.
  3. Rescoping for Best Fit: If alternative solutions do not meet the customer’s needs, the scope of the requirement will be revisited in collaboration with the customer to define a workable approach that balances feasibility with business requirements. If the customer requirements cannot be changed to align with the Mindtickle Platform architecture or feasiblity, such requirements would then be considered out of scope for the engagement. In such cases, the customer will provide the next set of requirement(s) for the resources to work upon. 

Out-of-Scope Services (for Custom Technical Solutions)

The following services are not in the scope. In the event that an out-of-scope service is deemed necessary, both MindTickle and the customer shall collaborate to ascertain and document the service’s scope, level of effort, and tasks through a change order. Out-of-scope services include the following:

  • Any MindTickle platform administrative tasks
  • Development of in-platform custom reporting
  • Content creation
  • Consult on Mindtickle platform configuration and governance
  • Consult on best practices for User Management
  • Use-case deep dive
  • Advise on best practices for structuring content in Mindtickle
  • Provide framework and guidance on Program setup and launch
  • Deep dive on leveraging Mindtickle Reporting & Analytics Data for Program and Platform level insights

FTE equivalent resource engagement

At Customer’s request, Mindtickle may provide designated resources (“Consultant/s”) for Technical Solutions and such arrangement would be specified in the Order. The assumption for Consultant engagement are as follows:

  1. The term FTE means a ‘Full Time Equivalent’ providing not more than 8 hours per working day or 40 hours of Consultant(s) providing Technical Solutions service per week subject to clause 4 below (pertaining to leaves). FTE engagement can be delivered by a resource or combination of resources on a non-exclusive basis unless otherwise expressly mentioned in the Order. Accordingly, the maximum available number of hours for a 1/2 FTE, 1/3 FTE and 1/4 FTE specified in the Order shall be prorated to 20 hours a week, 14 hours a week and 10 hours a week, respectively subject to reasonable allowances for time off. Any balance of unused time shall not be carried forward to the next day or week.
  2. The Consultant shall provide an estimate of the time required for completing the work post-content analysis phase. The development plan shall continue as per the provided estimates unless there is a change in the scope of work or re-prioritization of work by the Customer.
  3. Consultant will work 10 am to 6 pm (Monday to Friday) during their home office time zone. Meetings outside of these hours can be arranged as mutually agreed between Customer and Consultant.
  4. Consultant will be entitled to reasonable allowances for Paid Time Off, Administration, Sick Leave, and Training.
  5. Consultant will work from home or the Mindtickle office. Any travel to the Customer location will be billed as per Customer travel policies.
  6. Customer will provide the required subject matter expert support and the resources required for any custom development project.
  7. FTE engagements purchased cannot be carried forward after the Term.
  8. On sharing a requirement, the Customer will provide Mindtickle, with a lead time of 5 working days to start working on the requirement.
  9. The timeline for every project/task will be defined and communicated to the Customer by Mindtickle after the requirements are frozen.
  10. For projects/tasks with fixed, predefined timelines by the Customer, the Customer will notify Mindtickle at the earliest date possible. Mindtickle will then analyse the requirement, complete the Solution Document, and share the projected timeline to complete the project/task. If the projected timeline shared by Mindtickle does not meet the target timeline required by the Customer, Mindtickle and Customer will discuss and agree upon one or combination of more than one of the below options:
    1. Explore the possibility of adding an additional resource on the project to pull the expected timeline for completion. This can be explored only if –
      1. There is an available lead time of a minimum fifteen (15) business days before a resource needs to be added; and
      2. The duration for which the additional resource is required is fixed and agreed upon.
    2. Decide on the minimum viable output to be delivered within the target timeline
    3. Explore the possibility of changing the output format in order to reduce the time investment required in development
  11. All timelines communicated by Mindtickle will be based on budgeted Customer review timelines and project steps as set out in the project schedule.

Out-of-Scope Services for LMS, Readiness, Enable, and Transform Service Packages

Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Data export, clean up, import, filtering, transformation that may be part of any kind of migration effort including and not limited to:
    • Call recordings from any other software / platform.
    • Content, content structure, content metadata from any other software / platform
  • Integrations:
    • Multiple integrations per Table
    • Not listed in Table 1 or Table 2 or Table 3 or Table 4
    • With in-house, niche, non-standard applicationstech stack
    • Custom solution development for a specific business requirement
  • Any Mindtickle Platform administrative tasks
  • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
  • Custom reports
    • One-time or cadence-based email reports, excel reports
    • Creation of reports using the API data set
    • Development of in-Platform custom reporting
    • Creation ofAny other out-of-platform dashboards
  • Creation of Content and programs for use on Mindtickle platform
  • Content creation

When Customers require additional services or scope, Mindtickle will work jointly with Customer on a Statement of Work agreement to analyze and document the scope, level of effort, tasks, and additional fees.

Sales Forecasting (RO&I) Implementation

Following Professional Services will be provided:

    • Business Type Setup
    • Maximum two (2) Business Types (sales, renewals, etc)
    • User Access
    • Standard SFDC Manager hierarchy
    • User access controlled by opportunity-level field assignments
    • Note BoostUp does not support SFDC role-based hierarchy
    • Rollups
    • Standard Filters only
    • Maximum three (3) Custom Forecast Types (commit, best case, upside, etc.)
    • Hierarchy
    • AE/Manager Forecast Submission workflow with deal inclusion criteria
    • Standard Forecast rollups
    • Maximum ten (10) Custom columns
    • Deal inclusion criteria
    • Targets
    • Accounts
    • Maximum six (6) Custom Filters
    • Maximum fifteen (15) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunities
    • Maximum ten (10) Custom Filters
    • One (1) Sales Process
    • Enable in-line edit
    • Maximum ten (10) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunity splits not supported as part of the Professional offering
    • Account / Deal Insights
    • Topics
    • Competitors
    • Forecast Dashboard
    • Standard filters only
    • Forecast Trends, Pipeline Trends Dashboards, Pipeline Risk Analytics
    • Maximum three (3) additional custom filters
    • Scoring & Predictions
    • Opportunity Engagement Risk score
    • Account Engagement Risk score
    • BoostUp Projections (enabled for Ops initially until the algorithm has collected the necessary data – generally 2 quarters of history)
    • General
      • oAuth SSO
      • SFDC Automatic User Provisioning
      • SFDC Manager Hierarchy Sync
      • SFDC Validation Rules / Integration User setup (Admin or User based)

Out of Scope: 

  • Custom report design or build

CallAI Implementation

As part of the CallAI Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance: 

  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
    • Call scoring and analytics
    • Call recording and analytics
    • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
    • Launch communication and change management
    • Analytics review and advisory
  • Advise on standard integrations
    • 1 (one) Calendar sync (Outlook, Google Calendar)
    • 1 (one) of the Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
    • 1 (one) of the Dialer tool listed in Table 4 below
    • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
    • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)

Out of Scope: 

  • Migration of Call Recordings from other software/platforms. 
  • Custom report design or build

Asset Hub Implementation

As part of the Asset Hub Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance: 

  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration including:
    • Content organization
    • Content discoverability and search
    • Content tagging
    • Content governance
    • Content metadata definition
    • Analytics review and advisory
    • Advise on standard integrations
      • Salesforce Opportunity Integration with Mindtickle Asset Hub
      • Salesforce Opportunity Integration for Activity Writeback (Admin view only)
      • Salesforce Integration for Revenue Impact of Asset (Admin view only)

Out of Scope: 

  • Migration of Content and assets from other software/platforms. 
  • Creation of Content and programs for use on Mindtickle platform
  • Custom report design or build

Digital Sales Room Implementation

As part of the Digital Sales Room Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance:

  • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
  • Digital Sales Rooms Management
  • 1 (one) of the standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
  • Roles and User Management applicable to Digital Sales Rooms
  • Analytics review and advisory

Readiness Index Implementation

As part of the Readiness Index Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance:

  •  
  • Readiness Index walkthrough and consult on how to set up one Ideal Rep Profile for one role
  • Consult on setting up competencies and assigning weights
  • Advise on program selection and application of tags for Readiness Index
  • Consult on Business metrics correlation set up with Readiness Index
  • Choosing the appropriate and high priority business metrics
  • SFDC integration or manual correlation
  • Follow-up meetings: Setup, Q&A, troubleshooting, launch 
  • Tracking and reviewing the progress, sharing updates 
  • Analytics review and Advisory 

Out of Scope: 

  • Custom report design or build

Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

  • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
    • OKTA
    • Salesforce
    • Microsoft Azure
    • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
    • One Login
    • IBM Cloud
    • Oracle HCM
    • Ping Identity
    • Veeva
    • Centrify
    • Impartner
    • SecureAuth
    • SailPoint
  • OpenID
  • Google SSO
  • JWT

Table 2: Standard Integrations – User Sync

  • Workday
  • Bamboo HR
  • Okta
  • Azure
  • MS Dynamics
  • Salesforce
  • Veeva

Table 3: Standard Integrations – Conferencing Tools

  • Webex
  • Zoom
  • MS Teams
  • Google Meets
  • GoTo

Table 4: Standard Integrations – Dialer Tools

    • Cloudtalk
    • Salesloft
    • RingCentral
    • Dialpad
    • Aircall
    • Genesis
    • Outreach
    • Salesforce Dialer
    • Five9

    If during the integration process, Mindtickle determines that the Customer has SSO, HRMS, and other business applications which prevent a standard integration with the Mindtickle Platform, then Mindtickle will work with the Customer to estimate the additional integration effort involved and submit a change order to Customer for approval before continuing with the integration work.

Professional Services (PS) Advisory

Included with the Professional Services Advisory Package, MindTickle shall provide following services based on the number of hours purchased: 

  • Consult on Mindtickle platform configuration and governance
  • Consult on best practices for User Management
  • Use-case deep dive
  • Advise on best practices for structuring content in Mindtickle
  • Provide framework and guidance on Program set up and launch
  • Deep dive on leveraging Mindtickle Reporting & Analytics Data for Program and Platform level insights
  • Consult on Standard Mindtickle supported integrations with 3rd party platforms
  • Design onboarding instruction and enablement
  • Design and launch Revenue Productivity Center of Excellence
  • Design and oversee reporting for Revenue Productivity metrics
  • Design program based enablement updates
  • Design coaching and ongoing training curriculum
  • Design change management framework and strategy
  • Other consultation may be provided based on the Customer’s requirements, within the hours specified in the order form. 

Professional Services Advisory Engagement Terms

Mindtickle will provide a resource (“Consultant”) for providing PS Advisory Services subject to the following terms and conditions:

  • US based Consultants will work 9 am to 5 pm during their home office time zone. India based Consultants will generally work 12pm to 9pm during their home time zone. Meetings outside of these hours can be arranged as mutually agreed between Customer and Consultant.
  • Consultant will be entitled to reasonable allowances for Paid Time Off, Administration, Sick Leave, and Training.
  • Consultant will work from home or the Mindtickle office. Any travel to the Customer location will be billed as per Customer travel policies.
  • PS Advisory Services purchased cannot be carried forward after the Term.

Out-of-Scope Services (for PS Advisory)

The following services are not in the scope of the contract and may require additional fees to be delivered. In the event that an out-of-scope service is deemed necessary, both MindTickle and the Customer shall collaborate to ascertain and document the service’s scope, level of effort, and tasks through a change order. Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Any custom integrations
  • Any data clean-up, filtering, or manipulation
  • Any MindTickle platform administrative tasks
  • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
  • SFDC – Module Sync and Opportunity Integrations
  • Custom reports
    • One-time or cadence-based email reports
    • Creation of reports using the reporting API data set
    • Readiness Index dashboards
    • Development of in-platform custom reporting
  • Integration with business intelligence or data visualization tools 
  • Content creation
  • Data migration 

Technical Account Manager Services Scope and Description

Following Professional Services will be provided:

  • Business Type Setup
    • * Maximum two (2) Business Types (sales, renewals, etc)
  • User Access
    • Standard SFDC Manager hierarchy
    • User access controlled by opportunity-level field assignments
    • Note BoostUp does not support SFDC role-based hierarchy
  • Rollups
    • Standard Filters only
    • Maximum three (3) Custom Forecast Types (commit, best case, upside, etc.)
    • Hierarchy
    • AE/Manager Forecast Submission workflow with deal inclusion criteria
    • Standard Forecast rollups
    • Maximum ten (10) Custom columns
    • Deal inclusion criteria
    • Targets
  • Accounts
    • Maximum six (6) Custom Filters
    • Maximum fifteen (10) custom SFDC fields
  • Opportunities
    • Maximum ten (10) Custom Filters
    • One (1) Sales Process
    • Enable in-line edit
    • Maximum ten (10) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunity splits not supported as part of the Professional offering
  • Account / Deal Insights
    • Topics
    • Competitors
  • Forecast Dashboard
    • Standard filters only
  • Forecast Trends, Pipeline Trends Dashboards, Pipeline Risk Analytics
    • Maximum three (3) additional custom filters
  • Scoring & Predictions
    • Opportunity Engagement Risk score
    • Account Engagement Risk score
    • BoostUp Projections (enabled for Ops initially until the algorithm has collected the necessary data – generally 2 quarters of history)
  • General
    • oAuth SSO
    • SFDC Automatic User Provisioning
    • SFDC Manager Hierarchy Sync
    • SFDC Validation Rules / Integration User setup (Admin or User based)

Mindtickle Roles and Responsibilities of the Implementation Packages

Mindtickle will staff a Professional Services Consultant, & Solutions Architect to provide the agreed-upon services.

Mindtickle Staff RoleResponsibilities
Professional Services Consultant
  • Project management
  • Advise implementation and configuration
  • Provide leading practices
  • Oversees other Mindtickle roles
Solutions Architect
  • Provide technical guidance on standard, in-scope integrations
  • Performs technical integration tasks required to enable Customer to configure and test the integrations in scope

Customer Roles and Responsibilities

Customer will staff a team responsible for the duties of the roles below and any additional roles as required.
Customer Staff Role Description
Enablement Owner
  • Defines overall vision, goals, operational standards, and processes for deploying Mindtickle with Customer organization
Program Manager
  • Develops enablement program plans, drives engagement, and provides reports/data insights
Content Author
  • Develops program content
Enablement Admin
  • Responsible for site and User Admin; supports content authors with Platform usage
IT Admin/Developer
  • Develops and/or configures, and tests integrations

Customers will provide timely access to all necessary resources, including personnel, content, IT systems, etc. as necessary for Mindtickle to provide the Services.

Customers acknowledge that implementing Mindtickle is a coordinated effort between the Customer and Mindtickle Professional Services teams. The customer agrees to take ownership of activities identified as the customer’s responsibility during the implementation of Mindtickle.

Customers agree to perform the following activities and/or prepare the following pre-requisites for each implementation package:

Package Customer responsibilities or pre-requisites
LMS
  • Customer must come with a competency model to be implemented on the Mindtickle platform at or before executing the contractual agreements.
  • If/When Customer does not have a competency model available in time, Customer agrees to use the default Mindtickle ideal rep profile and prioritize up to 5 competency groupings
  • Customer must come with an enablement program ready to deploy from the following sources
  • If/When Customer does not have a program available in time, Customer agrees to deploy a program from the below sources
    • Any template from the Mindtickle template gallery
    • Purchase a program from Mindtickle’s Partners
Readiness
  • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the LMS package and;
  • Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front line managers for the coaching session
  • If/When Customer does not have a program available in time, The Customer agrees to deploy a program from the below sources
    • Mindtickle Ready-To-Deploy programs
    • Any template from the Mindtickle template gallery
    • Purchase a program from Mindtickle’s Partners
Enable
  • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the LMS and Readiness package.

Transform
  • All responsibilities and prerequisites in the Enable package, and
  • Identify by week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front-line managers for CallAI

Prior to implementation kick-off, Customer admin(s) involved in the project shall attend either self-paced training on Mindtickle University or live workshops hosted by Mindtickle for subscribed products as per the Recommended training chart shown below

Place of Performance

All Professional Services will be provided at the Customer site or in Mindtickle offices remotely, as per the project requirements and as mutually agreed between Mindtickle and the Customer.

Acceptance of Services

    • Customer shall have the right to review the Professional Services rendered within five (5) calendar days of receipt of subject Professional Services from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle.
    • Before the end of the five (5) calendar-day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject Professional Services is accepted by Customer.
    • If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period, subject Professional Services shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    • If the Customer does not accept subject Professional Services, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period.
    • Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject Professional Services and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    • Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each Professional Service in scope.

If Customer procured SKO Services through respective Order, the scope and description of SKO Services is described here

The post Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 27 February 2024 to 2 April 2025 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Active Listening in Sales: What it is and How to Master This Essential Skill https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/active-listening/ Thu, 03 Apr 2025 08:12:31 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23273 Sales success is built on meaningful conversations. Through great conversations, sales reps can earn prospects’ trust, help them overcome challenges, and ultimately, earn their business. That’s why mastering sales call skills is essential. While training is often focused on what a sales rep says on sales calls, how they listen is just as important. By …

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Sales success is built on meaningful conversations. Through great conversations, sales reps can earn prospects’ trust, help them overcome challenges, and ultimately, earn their business.

That’s why mastering sales call skills is essential.

While training is often focused on what a sales rep says on sales calls, how they listen is just as important. By practicing active listening in sales, reps gain a better understanding of their prospects’ needs and can offer tailored solutions that effectively address those needs.

But what is active listening in sales?

In this post, we’ll discuss what active listening in sales is, why it matters, and how it’s especially important for virtual sales. We’ll also share practical tips and best practices to improve active listening in sales – and start winning more deals.

What is active listening in sales?

It’s no secret that sales reps spend a significant portion of their time on sales calls. Collaborative phone calls help keep buyers engaged, make them feel heard and understood, and motivate them to take the next step in the sales process. On the other hand, one-sided sales calls tend to turn prospects off and push them towards other options.

Ideally, sellers should aim for more collaborative calls. In order to do so, they must master active listening in sales.

So, what is active listening in sales?

Active listening is sales is the practice of being fully engaged in a sales conversation so you can truly understand what a prospect is saying, respond appropriately, and recall key details later on. Active listening in sales isn’t just about letting a prospect speak and hearing the words they say. It’s about actively focusing on what’s being communicated (both verbally and non-verbally), asking clarifying questions to ensure understanding, and responding in a way that shows you’re truly listening to what they’re saying and where they’re coming from.

Why is active listening in sales important?

Now we have a clear understanding of what active listening in sales is. But why is it so important for organizations to ensure their sellers have mastered active listening skills?

Simply put, active listening drives sales success. By practicing active listening in sales, your reps can earn buyers’ trust, address their biggest pain points effectively, and ultimately, convert them to customers.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the top reasons why active listening in sales is so important.

Active listening earns prospects’ trust

By practicing active listening in sales, reps can build authentic connections with prospects. When buyers feel that sellers are truly listening and making an effort to understand their viewpoints, they’re more likely to trust those sellers.

Trust drives several positive business outcomes. In fact, Forrester research found that B2B buyers who trust a company are almost twice as likely to pay a premium to work with that company or recommend it to others.

B2B buyers who trust a company are

more likely to pay a premium
0 x

 

Active listening enables buyers to deliver effective solutions

Active listening in sales enables a rep to accurately identify the needs, preferences, and pain points of sellers. The rep not only hears the words the prospect is saying, but truly grasps the thoughts and emotions behind those words.

When a seller understands a buyer’s pain points, they can better craft and present a solution to accurately address them. And when a prospect is presented with a solution that actually meets their needs, they’re more likely to make a purchase.

Active listening accelerates deal cycles

B2B sales cycles are long. For some industries, the sales cycle can last months or even more than a year.

Active listening in sales helps drive alignment between the buyer and the seller throughout the sales cycle. When both parties are aligned, it helps reduce friction and can accelerate the sales cycle. That means your sellers can close more deals – faster.

How is active listening even more important in remote selling?

Active listening is crucial for every B2B sale. But these sales rep skills are especially important in remote selling scenarios.

A growing portion of B2B sales are struck remotely – a trend that accelerated at the start of the COVID pandemic. And it appears this shift is here to stay. Gartner predicts that by the end of this year, 80% of interactions between B2B buyers and sellers will occur via digital channels.

While there are many upsides of remote selling, it also comes with challenges. Chief among them is the ability to effectively capture and maintain prospects’ attention.

In remote meetings, multitasking is common. For instance, a buyer may split their attention between the call and a report they’re finishing up for their manager, while a seller could be distracted by frequent email and message notifications.

These aren’t exactly ideal conditions for uncovering pain points and building trust. But active listening in sales can help.

By practicing active listening, you’re showing the prospect they’re fully focused on the conversation, which will encourage the prospect to do the same. Asking clarifying questions and summarizing what you’ve heard shows you understand their needs and pain points. This will help you stand out from competitors, earn your prospects’ trust, and eventually, convert them to a customer.

screenshot of Mindtickle Call AI

8 Tips to improve active listening in sales (+ active listening examples)

Active listening in sales enables your teams to engage buyers more effectively and close more deals. Whether selling remotely, in-person, or through a hybrid approach, it’s important for every seller to develop active listening skills and continually refine them.

Read on as we explore 8 practical, effective tips and best practices for improving active listening in sales and share some active listening examples.

Active listening in sales requires you to stay focused on the conversation. To do this, it’s important to eliminate distractions during meetings.

If you’re meeting in person, close your laptop and put away your phone. If you’re meeting remotely, silence your phone and disable any notifications on your computer. That way, you can fully focus on what the prospect is saying.

Body language can provide valuable insight into a prospect’s thoughts and emotions. In addition, strategically using body language can show a prospect that you’re actively listening and fully understanding what they’re saying. For example, eye contact can show that you’re focused on what they’re saying, and nodding can convey understanding.

When meeting with a prospect in person, it’s easier to read their body language and use your own to communicate effectively. For remote selling conversations, consider using video conferencing software. By turning on your camera, your prospect will be more likely to do the same.

Nobody wants to be on a sales call that’s dominated by the seller. Instead, prospects want to feel like they’re active participants and that sellers are really listening to what they’re saying.

As such, it’s important to share the mic during sales calls, and avoid lengthy monologues. A recent analysis found that, on average, the longest monologue response from a rep during a sales call lasts two minutes and 15 seconds. So if you catch yourself rambling, make sure to pause and check in with the buyer.

To practice active listening in sales, you’ve got to get your prospects to talk. While some may easily share their thoughts, others are more reluctant. Asking the right questions can get them to tell you more.

Asking the right open-ended questions can help you gain a better understanding of the prospect’s pain points. For instance, you could ask, “Can you tell me more about what you’re doing to overcome this challenge now?” Or, “Can you tell me more about how this challenge is standing in the way of you achieving your goals?”

You can also ask clarifying questions to confirm your understanding of what the prospect is saying. For instance, you might ask, “Could you elaborate more on what you mean by that?” Another option would be, “Just to make sure I understand correctly, you’re saying [key point]. Is that right?”

Active listening in sales helps ensure you’re aligned with your prospect. By paraphrasing or summarizing what they’ve said, you confirm your understanding and give them the chance to clarify or correct any points.

Active listening skills are essential for any B2B seller. Therefore, it’s crucial to create training and enablement focused on building those sales rep skills.

Remember: training doesn’t have to be live and instructor-led. It can also take many other forms, such as micro-learning modules, videos, and quick assessments, among others.

All too often, sellers get so bogged down by taking notes that they can’t focus on the conversation at hand. Then, later on, they struggle to decipher their notes and decide what steps to take next.

Using conversation intelligence tools can help you more effectively practice active listening in sales. Conversation intelligence tools record and transcribe calls so you can focus on the conversation rather than taking notes. These tools also leverage AI to summarize calls and help sellers identify key points, themes, and action items.

Furthermore, conversation intelligence software allows sales managers to see how sellers are (or aren’t) practicing active listening on calls. Sales managers can look for trends and knowledge gaps, and then deliver tailored training and coaching to help sellers improve their active listening skills.

Training on active listening in sales is important. But you must also give your sellers opportunities to practice their selling skills before money is on the line.

Consider using AI role-plays, which allow sellers to practice skills in a safe, interactive environment as often as they’d like. Sellers get AI-powered feedback along the way, which they can use to hone their active listening skills before taking them into the field.

Empower your teams to master active listening in sales

With active listening skills, your sellers can more effectively engage with buyers, earn their trust, and convert them to customers. It’s essential for every rep to learn (and continually refine) active listening skills in sales.

Mindtickle is an AI powered revenue enablement platform that equips sellers with the training, tools, resources, and insights they need to be active, engaged listeners. 

Help Your Team Perfect Active Listening

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help your entire go-to-market team perfect active listening in sales?

Get a Demo

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8 Reasons Why Sales Enablement Is Important to Help You Drive Revenue https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/8-reasons-why-sales-enablement-is-important-to-help-you-drive-revenue/ Wed, 02 Apr 2025 01:47:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14181 In the world of B2B sales, quota attainment is often a challenge. According to a recent survey of sales managers, 35% report that less than half of their sellers are achieving their sales quotas of sales managers report less than half of their sellers are achieving their sales quotas. 0 % When you think about …

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In the world of B2B sales, quota attainment is often a challenge. According to a recent survey of sales managers, 35% report that less than half of their sellers are achieving their sales quotas

of sales managers report less than half of their sellers are achieving their sales quotas.
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When you think about it, this isn’t too surprising. B2B buyers have high expectations, and they only want to engage with sellers who truly understand their needs and can deliver tailored experiences and solutions that align with them.

Yet, many sellers lack the necessary skills, tools, and resources to meet these demands. That’s where sales enablement comes in.

Today, many revenue organizations are investing in sales enablement to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of the entire sales team. In fact, a recent report found that improving sales enablement and training is the top growth initiative among sales leaders.

But what makes sales enablement such a popular strategy for driving revenue growth? In this blog, we’ll explore eight of the top reasons.

How sales enablement can help improve revenue growth

Today, 84% of B2B revenue organizations invest in a sales enablement department. But why?

Because sales enablement, when it’s done well, can significantly boost sales performance. A recent survey found that 76% of sales reps feel sales enablement helps prepare them to make quota.

In the past, B2B sellers could get by with delivering generic, one-size-fits all presentations to every prospect. But that approach no longer works.

Today, buyers are doing their own research. When (and if) they reach out to a company, they expect the rep to quickly understand their needs and provide tailored experiences and recommendations.

Buyers reward those who meet those expectations. In fact, the vast majority of B2B buyers will only make a purchase if they view the sales rep as a trusted advisor.

But sellers aren’t born with the skills needed to meet customers’ growing expectations. Instead, they need the right training, tools, content, and resources to effectively engage buyers throughout the sales cycle and close more deals.

A holistic sales enablement program (powered by the right sales enablement tools) ensures every seller on the team has exactly what they need to deliver exceptional buyer experiences and win more business.

Now, let’s take a closer look at 8 of the top reasons why sales enablement is important to help you drive revenue.

#1 Sales enablement supports overall seller productivity

We define sales enablement as the process of providing the sales organization with the information, content, and tools that help sellers sell more effectively. The foundation of sales enablement is to provide sellers with what they need to successfully engage the buyer throughout the buying process.

Practically speaking, sales enablement teams identify skill gaps through performance metrics, assessments, and feedback. They then tailor training and development programs based on these skill gaps.

Example: Skill and knowledge gaps

Let’s look at a hypothetical, but realistic, problem. ABC company is in the process of assessing its sales readiness. During the process, the sales team noticed that there were gaps in the skills their sales reps have versus the skills they need to sell effectively. Sales leaders at ABC correlate this to a recent decline in deals closed, which has also resulted in not meeting revenue goals.

ABC can employ sales enablement efforts to fix this misalignment. They can identify which parts of the sales workflow are most difficult for each sales rep, like converting leads into opportunities or upselling, for example. Then they can leverage that data to train and enable each rep based on their individual skills gap.

Mindtickle Missions

#2 Sales enablement provides an accessible knowledge base

A strong sales enablement structure gives your salespeople access to a knowledge base, one that’s designated as a single source of truth. A designated knowledge base saves them from spending a lot of time looking for information or answers while they’re working with a customer. It promotes just-in-time access to the resources they need.

Sales enablement makes knowledge more accessible by gathering all resources, knowledge, and sales content into one spot. Here are some examples of what to include in your knowledge base:

  • Sample scripts or talk tracks
  • Information about customer personas and pain points
  • Links to training modules
  • Customer-facing content

No matter what they need to access, they can get it all within this single source of truth.

Example: One source of truth

Say your sales teams have knowledge spread out across multiple tools (like a CRM, a company wiki, and multiple drives). With too many places to look, it’s hard for your reps to find what they need in a timely manner during a customer interaction.

Sales enablement managers should come together to decide which source will be designated as the single source of truth. If you already have a drive or knowledge base tool in place that every necessary person has access to, start there. Even a simple tool like Google Drive can work for organizing all your relevant content and knowledge in one spot.

Mindtickle Asset Hub

#3 Sales enablement promotes ongoing sales training

Sales enablement helps your reps hone their skills and develop industry knowledge through ongoing sales training and practice. Technology evolves all the time – products are updated; new tools are adopted; objectives and KPIs are changed. Ongoing training prepares your reps for these inevitable changes. Training gives them insights and advice they can use during customer interactions like more compelling messaging examples or how to resolve common conflicts or objections effectively.

Training is a big part of any successful sales enablement initiative. Sales enablement promotes an environment where your salespeople are continually building their skills and knowledge. Then they put their skills to the test in common real-life scenarios through role-playing or other simulations.

Example: Stopping skill erosion

Skill erosion refers to a decline in a certain skill set, usually because that skill isn’t used often enough. Ongoing training helps your reps with skill reinforcement, so they can integrate those skills into their tasks, leading to more valuable and successful customer conversations.

To avoid skill erosion, make ongoing learning part of your sales team’s everyday routine. One tool that can help is Mindtickle. In the Mindtickle platform, you can use AI-powered skill reinforcements, role-plays, and more to protect your reps from skill erosion.

#4 Sales enablement helps your managers create a coaching culture

For your sales teams to succeed, they need a supportive and knowledgeable coach. Sales enablement can help you create an effective coaching culture using data-driven insights, provide teachable moments, and easily facilitate coaching sessions for teams and individual reps.

A strong sales enablement strategy includes specific skill resources and behavioral training that help your managers coach your sales reps. This includes data they can use to identify areas of improvement in the workflow and technology to help make those improvements.

Take conversation intelligence technology, for example. This technology lets you tap into sales calls to understand your sales reps’ behaviors and skill sets. 

“With recordings and transcripts from sales calls, I can get a sense immediately if a rep is struggling with closing a call, and listen in on what’s going well. This allows me to coach my team to more wins and emphasize what’s working for us."
Greg Myers headshot
Greg Myers
Regional VP of Sales at Turing Video.

Example: First-time manager training

If you have a lot of first-time managers, it’s especially important to provide sales management training on topics relevant to leading a team. These topics include effective communication, conflict resolution, how to handle performance reviews, and how to provide support to sales reps.

For instance, all sales managers should be well versed in how to handle objections since this is a common obstacle for every sales rep. Moreover, your managers should have resources and support to make them feel confident in their coaching abilities, enabling them to give their sales reps effective solutions to any problem.

#5 Sales enablement removes silos between sales and marketing

When marketing and sales are siloed, each one is more focused on their individual goals rather than the overall company goal. This can affect overall productivity and collaboration, making it harder to get tasks done related to content, branding, and general marketing.

When sales and marketing can work together, companies can attract and close more leads. Think of marketing as the bait that attracts the leads and sales as the line that reels them in.

By implementing standards and processes on how these two teams should work together, you can break down the silos and increase collaboration.

Example: Content creation

Sales reps don’t have the time or often the skills to create their own content – they need marketing. Your marketing team is experienced in creating content that resonates with your target audience and attracts qualified leads.

Let’s say you need a specific piece of relevant content from your marketing team. With no standards or processes for content creation, your marketing team doesn’t know that they’re supposed to create the content. Your salespeople may feel obligated to create it themselves or skip it all together. The result is often less effective sales tactics and resources.

Alternatively, with a process in place, your sales reps will know when and how to engage marketing, and marketing folks will understand the types of situations they may be employed to help.

#6 Sales enablement can expedite onboarding for new salespeople

Sales enablement in your onboarding programs can get your reps effectively prepared to sell. Reps at winning orgs onboard their reps faster and get their sellers out into the field — and productive — much faster. 

Example: Personalized training to decrease ramp time

Each one of your salespeople is different. They all have varying skill levels and skill sets, and they come from different professional backgrounds. The idea behind sales enablement is to be able to personalize training based on the experience each rep already has and the skills they still need.

A sales enablement platform like Mindtickle automates your onboarding process from start to finish with personalized training based on each rep’s background and experience. It helps them build on the specific skills and knowledge they need to be successful without sitting through training that might be irrelevant to them.

#7 Sales enablement can reduce sales rep turnover

Sales enablement can decrease rep turnover by keeping your salespeople engaged. Engaged employees feel more committed to the work they do and to the company they work for. On the other hand, disengaged employees often feel more burned out and end up costing you much more than engaged employees.

Sales enablement can help build a team of engaged sales reps by helping them develop their skills and navigate challenges as they arise and generally cultivating a positive seller environment – all factors that make them less likely to leave.

Example: Keep your reps engaged

Engaged salespeople are more optimistic, selfless, and team-oriented and show a passion for learning. One way to keep your sales reps engaged is by showing an interest in their career goals and helping them reach those goals.

For instance, if you have a sales rep who wants to become a sales manager, you can suggest resources, training, and content they can access to build their knowledge and skills.

automotive-enable-on-the-go-learning

#8 Sales enablement keeps your potential customers informed

Sales enablement is also about properly communicating and educating your customers via helpful content and your well-prepared sales reps. Informed customers are more likely to make a purchase from you if your product aligns with their needs.

With effective sales enablement, you can proactively answer customers’ questions and acknowledge the challenges they experience every day.

Example: Create memorable experiences to keep customers in the sales funnel

To keep your customers engaged, create memorable experiences that keep them in your sales funnel. Personalize your communications to them, craft impactful messaging, and provide high-value content that meets them where they’re at in the funnel.

For example, if you’re writing content for people who are somewhere in the middle of your sales funnel, write blogs or emails to offer helpful advice and tips like “How to Use [Our Software] to Do [This] Task” or “X Reasons You Need [Our Software] to Boost Sales.”

This type of content addresses pain points and offers helpful solutions, which can help convince them that your product is the right one for them.

Amplify the impact of sales enablement with Mindtickle

Sales enablement is a popular strategy among winning revenue organizations, and it’s easy to see why. With a strong sales enablement program, your sellers will always have the training, coaching, content, tools, and insights they need to engage every buyer – no matter where they are on the purchase journey.

When your sellers are properly equipped to meet buyers’ expectations, your revenue will grow.

Choosing the right sales enablement tools is crucial to the success of your sales enablement program. Mindtickle is an all-in-one, AI-powered revenue enablement platform that equips each seller with the information, tools, and resources they need to engage more buyers and close more deals. With Mindtickle, you can build an entire team of top performers who are always ready to crush quota.

Want to see how top revenue organizations use Mindtickle to deliver wildly effective enablement programs that boost sales performance? Schedule a demo to see for yourself.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Schedule a demo to learn more about how sales enablement pros at winning orgs use Mindtickle for effective sales enablement.

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in August 2022, updated in July 2023, March 2024, and April 2025.

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11 Sales Coaching Tips and Techniques to Improve Sales https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/11-sales-coaching-tips-and-techniques-to-improve-sales-mindtickle/ Mon, 24 Mar 2025 04:35:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14219 Sales coaching can have a powerful impact on performance, and most sales managers recognize its value. In fact, when 600+ sales managers were asked what their most important task was, “coaching sales reps” was the most popular response. While sales leaders clearly recognize the value of sales coaching, many lack the proper training, tools, and …

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Sales coaching can have a powerful impact on performance, and most sales managers recognize its value. In fact, when 600+ sales managers were asked what their most important task was, “coaching sales reps” was the most popular response.

While sales leaders clearly recognize the value of sales coaching, many lack the proper training, tools, and resources needed to be effective coaches. As a result, their coaching efforts often deliver lackluster results.

If you’re looking for ways to improve the way you coach your sales reps, you’ve come to the right place. Read on as we explore 11 sales coaching tips and techniques that will boost sales performance and drive revenue growth.

Why is sales coaching important? 

Before we dive into proven tips for improving sales coaching, let’s take a moment to discuss why sales coaching matters in the first place.

Sales training plays an important role in ensuring your sellers have the knowledge and information they need to be successful. But training alone isn’t enough. Sellers also need sales coaching so they can refine their skills and behaviors, ensuring they can effectively apply what they’ve learned in real-life scenarios.

When sales training is done well, it has a significant impact on sales performance. In fact, 91% of sales managers believe coaching positively impacts their team’s overall performance.

Furthermore, a recent analysis found that top-performing sales reps receive significantly more sales coaching than lower performing peers. This proves that there’s a direct link between coaching and performance.

So, why is sales coaching important? Quite simply, because it works.

1. Provide regular training for your sales coaches

At many companies, sales managers are often top-performing reps who get promoted into managerial roles. These new leaders know how to sell but have less experience managing a team or leading their reps.

As a result, their coaching efforts are unfocused and less effective than they could be. So, it’s essential to train your sales managers. You need to help them develop their coaching skills so they know how to mentor, teach, and encourage the sellers on their team.

Sales manager coaching shouldn’t be a one-off activity. Instead, it should be an essential part of your onboarding process for sales leaders hired into the organization and reps who have been promoted into leadership roles.

Run sales manager coaching at least a couple of times a year to help sales leaders remember best practices and learn from each other. Add coaching sessions into your annual sales and midyear kick-offs so that managers benefit from coaching sessions at least every six months.

2. Don’t coach at random

Random sales coaching means you have no formal plan, structure, or cadence to your coaching sessions. It’s ad-hoc and sporadic, so it’s difficult for sellers to see the benefits from each session.

Unsurprisingly, ad-hoc sales coaching is far less effective than formalized coaching which happens on a regular basis. Research shows that dynamic coaching (purposeful, formally implemented, and tailored to the needs of your reps) makes a significant difference in sales outcomes. Compared to random coaching, dynamic coaching brings a 27.9% improvement in quota attainment and 32.1% in win rates.

Providing regular coaching for your sales reps can feel overwhelming and like it will be a significant time commitment for everyone involved. But sales coaching doesn’t need to be separate from other meetings and conversations you have with your sellers. Make it part of your recurring 1:1 meetings so your reps receive coaching interactions regularly. That way, you can help your salespeople make incremental improvements over time rather than trying to make big changes less frequently. There are many different sales coaching techniques and approaches, but we’ve found the GROW model to be effective and flexible for teams of different sizes. This format is a helpful starting point if you’re not sure how to kick off your coaching conversations:
  • Goal — What are they working toward? What’s their target and what are they hoping to achieve?
  • Reality — What does their current situation look like?
  • Options and obstacles — What options do they have to overcome the obstacles between them and their goal?
  • Way forward — What are the specific next steps they can take to work toward their goal?

3. Understand your reps’ current skill levels

You can’t help your reps develop their skills if you don’t have a current idea of their proficiency levels across each of your core competencies.

Before each coaching session, review their skill levels against your benchmarks to see their strengths and areas where they struggle. This will help you identify topics that offer the biggest opportunities for improvement for individual reps so that you can focus on these as your top priority.

Compare your reps’ performance against the benchmarks and expectations you’ve defined in your IRP. This data can come from multiple sources, such as:

  • Self-assessments of reps against each competency, so you know how they feel about their performance and current capabilities.
  • Scores from training exercises such as quizzes and virtual role-plays and identify the topics where they perform better or worse than average.
  • Call recordings and other interactions with prospects to see their sales skills in action.

Mindtickle’s revenue enablement platform brings all of these insights in one place to determine the readiness of your teams. You can learn more about our Sales Readiness Index here

Mindtickle sales readiness index by role

4. Focus on one thing at a time

One of the big temptations with sales coaching is to try and improve everything, all at once. But the most effective coaches focus on improving one skill or competency at a time rather than trying to change everything. If you try and change too many things at once, you’ll overwhelm the rep and will likely see smaller improvements as they have to remember too many new things at the same time.

Help your sellers make targeted improvements in their skill set by prioritizing areas where they’re weakest. By focusing on one skill at a time, your reps have a chance to improve and master that skill before trying to make changes in other parts of their sales process.

Use data from your sales tools to track how your reps are improving over time, to assess when they’ve mastered a core competency and are ready to focus on a different skill.

Mindtickle provides detailed analytics and reports so you can see how reps’ skill levels change and improve. Our sales readiness index helps you set benchmarks for the skill levels of top-performing sales reps and tracks your sellers’ progress against those benchmarks. Learn more about our sales enablement analytics and reports here.

5. Don’t coach everyone the same way

Your sellers all have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, some may excel at negotiation conversations, while others are better at discovery calls.

If you coach all your reps on the same topic, you’ll be spending lots of valuable coaching time helping some of them develop the skills they already have. At best, it’ll be a waste of both your time. At worst, they’ll switch off and disengage with your coaching, damaging the trust and relationship between you and your sales rep.

Taking a one-size-fits-all approach to sales coaching may give you small gains across your sales team. However, you’ll see bigger improvements if you tailor your coaching initiatives to your reps’ individual needs, taking each person’s strengths and weaknesses into consideration.

Creating a personalized coaching plan for your sellers can be a lot of work if you do it all manually. A revenue enablement platform gives you the tools to automate much of the scoring, analysis, and planning so you can focus on delivering high-quality, tailored coaching instead of analyzing rep calls and touchpoints.

6. Coach skills, not just deals

When you think of sales coaching, you probably think of targeted conversations to help sellers navigate the specific issues they’re experiencing that may stop them from closing their current deals. But if all your coaching conversations are about their pipeline, you only focus on the short term.

Instead, you should add skills coaching to your conversations. This type of coaching will set your reps up for long-term success by helping them strengthen their core skills and develop the competencies that will help them progress in their roles.

Learn more about the difference between deal and skill coaching.

Our research found that only 24% of sellers receive coaching on skills. But sales managers whose teams consistently exceed quota provide skills coaching monthly (or more frequently if they notice a drop in performance in a specific area.)

Depending on your preferences, you might run one specific session per month on skills coaching. Alternatively, you could incorporate skills coaching into your weekly 1:1s. Start each meeting by discussing any areas reps feel like they’ve been struggling with recently so you can help them improve by giving them relevant follow-up training exercises to work through. Then you can discuss their pipeline and specific deals where they may be facing obstacles. Aim for a 50/50 split, so you’re dedicating enough time to each part of the conversation.

7. Use real examples to make learning tangible

Your coaching will be much more accessible to your sellers if you can use real-life examples to illustrate the topic. Instead of using vague, abstract scenarios, you can discuss your sellers’ skills in the context of a real sales scenario. Sharing real examples from your reps will make it easier for them to understand where they’re doing well and where they can improve.

Using a conversation intelligence product that records and transcribes your sales calls gives you access to a wealth of recordings to use for coaching. Not only can you analyze where a seller may need to improve on certain skills, but you can also highlight what good looks like by showcasing snippets of top call moments in coaching sessions. Giving sellers concrete examples of skills in action helps them replicate and practice themselves.

8. Reinforce coaching with related training activities

Coaching is an ongoing process that helps sales professionals develop and strengthen their skills over time. You’ll need to continually reinforce the concepts and ideas you cover to help reps retain that information and gradually improve their skills.

Follow-ups are an important part of the coaching process. Assign training exercises after coaching conversations to keep reps thinking about their ongoing personal development.

Our research shows that top managers are 3X more likely to assign follow-up activities after their coaching sessions, such as sales training exercises or content to review. Work with your sales enablement team to identify suitable follow-up activities such as:

  • Knowledge checks
  • Virtual role-plays
  • Training courses
  • Product content

These exercises should relate to the topics you covered in your coaching sessions to reinforce the ideas and help reps retain the information you shared.

9. Incorporate different types of sales coaching

Nearly a half — 47% — of sales managers say that lack of time is the biggest obstacle to providing sales coaching due to the number of reps they manage. If you’re running a big team, finding enough time in the week to provide coaching and guidance to all of your salespeople can be difficult.

Regular sales coaching shouldn’t be the sole responsibility of team leads or sales managers. Instead, empower your team to support and help each other so you don’t have to do all the coaching.

Manager-led coaching is just one type of sales coaching. There’s also peer-to-peer coaching, where reps coach and support each other. For example, if you have one seller who excels at negotiation conversations, they can share tips and best practices with the other reps on your team.

Additionally, your reps should complete self-coaching to understand their own skill levels, strengths, and weaknesses. They can do this by reviewing call recordings and completing virtual role-plays to assess their performance and identify improvement areas.

 

10. Provide real-time coaching

One of the biggest flaws of traditional sales coaching practices is the delay in receiving feedback. Sellers often have to wait for a scheduled meeting with their manager to get feedback. Even if a seller reaches out to their manager between meetings, they may have to wait around awhile to hear back.

Instead, start providing your sellers with real-time sales coaching. That way, sellers can apply feedback immediately, leading to quicker improvements to both behaviors and sales results.

Providing real-time feedback doesn’t mean you have to drop everything anytime a seller reaches out. Instead, leverage AI sales coaching tools to deliver personalized, real-time feedback and guidance to sellers.

For example, some conversation intelligence tools leverage AI to provide feedback after every sales call, which sellers can use to improve performance in their next customer interaction. In addition, some revenue intelligence platforms offer AI role-plays, which enable sellers to practice their skills as much as they want in realistic scenarios with an adaptive AI bot. AI delivers real-time feedback throughout the role-play experience, which sellers can use to perfect their sales skills.

11. Track performance over time instead of looking for quick wins

Sales coaching aims to help your sellers develop over time to build the skills and competencies needed to progress in their careers. While your deals coaching will immediately help your sellers, skills coaching offers longer-term benefits.

Compare your reps’ skill sets against your ideal rep profile and set target skill levels to work toward in the next three, six, and twelve months. That way, you can see where you expect your rep to be in a year, giving them a long-term view of their personal development.

Support your reps to create long-term goals, for example, by helping them understand the skills they’ll need in order to progress from a business development role to an account executive one or a sales leadership position.

Four benefits of sales coaching

Sales coaching helps your sellers develop the skills they need to be successful. It also offers several benefits to the wider business.

Increases employee retention

Effective coaching can affect employee retention in your sales team by reducing involuntary turnover. With dynamic, regular coaching, reps are likelier to hit their quota and achieve their performance targets. As a result, you’re less likely to have to let them go due to unsatisfactory performance.

Additionally, it can help reduce voluntary turnover, where reps leave because they’ve found a new role elsewhere. Gallup found that the relationship between managers and their team plays a crucial role in employee engagement and satisfaction. Managers “must be upskilled from boss to coach so that they can have honest, meaningful, developmental conversations with their team members.”

If reps feel like their managers are invested in their growth and personal development, they’re more likely to engage with their work and have higher satisfaction levels — and they’ll be less likely to look for other opportunities elsewhere.

Strengthens sales leadership

Coaching is a skill you develop over time. It requires different skills and knowledge from being a sales rep, so if your organization has a culture of promoting from within, you may have multiple sales leaders who struggle with these skills.

Training your sales leaders is essential for turning them into great sales coaches. By coaching the coaches, you help your sales managers acquire the skills they need to motivate, manage, and develop their teams. As a result, managers can deliver a more effective sales coaching program and make a bigger impact on their team’s performance.

Improves sales performance across the team

Effective sales coaching should help all your reps improve their skill set — not just your high performers. This is because you provide tailored, personalized coaching to all team members so that everyone can make improvements in their weakest areas.

As a result, you should see increased performance scores for all your reps, as they can all focus on strengthening their core skills. Rather than having the top 20% of your reps generate 80% of the revenue, expect to see the rest of your reps raise their performances to the standards set by your top sellers. With a strong coaching culture, sellers learn from each other and can make targeted improvements to enhance their overall skills and competencies.

Increases revenue growth

The most important benefit you’ll get from sales coaching is revenue growth. As we’ve seen, dynamic sales coaching makes reps more likely to hit their quota and improve close rates. Coaching makes your sellers better at their jobs and can help turn all your salespeople into top performers.

Put simply, sales coaching improves your sellers’ ability to close deals, which can deliver a tangible boost to your company’s bottom line.

Create a sales coaching culture with Mindtickle

Sales coaching can have a significant impact on seller productivity and performance. It’s no coincidence that top-performing sellers receive more coaching than lower-performers.

But delivering personalized sales coaching isn’t always easy – especially for managers with large teams. Revenue organizations must ensure their sales managers have the right tools and resources to deliver timely, tailored coaching to every member of the team.

Mindtickle is an award-winning revenue enablement platform with the tools you need to deliver personalized sales coaching at scale. With Mindtickle, you can quickly identify the strengths and weaknesses of each sales rep – and then deliver manager-led and AI-powered coaching to close gaps and improve performance.

Create a Sales Coaching Culture

Ready to see how Mindtickle can empower you to deliver effective sales coaching at scale?

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in August 2022, updated in July 2023, April 2024 and again in March 2025. 

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Announcing New Copilot AI Features in Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/announcing-new-copilot-ai-features-in-mindtickle/ Thu, 20 Mar 2025 12:57:43 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23141 AI has transformed sales. And it’s not just time saved; AI is already impacting the bottom line of leading revenue organizations. According to Gartner, sellers who effectively partner with AI tools are 3.7 times more likely to meet quota than those who do not. Sellers who use AI tools are times more likely to hit …

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AI has transformed sales. And it’s not just time saved; AI is already impacting the bottom line of leading revenue organizations.

According to Gartner, sellers who effectively partner with AI tools are 3.7 times more likely to meet quota than those who do not.

Sellers who use AI tools are

times more likely to hit quota than those who do not
0

But you can’t just “use AI.” You have to implement smart and connected AI solutions that support your teams and ensure they can use them effectively.

Mindtickle announces personalized AI assistants for GTM teams

It’s a tough market for revenue teams today. They have more data than ever before, but it’s not always easy to navigate and make sense of. Their competitive landscape constantly changes, with new entrants and threats uncovered daily. Finally, the purchasing process is also evolving, with every dollar spent scrutinized by an ever-growing buying committee.

Our latest announcement unveiled the newest AI capabilities on the Mindtickle platform, including personalized AI assistants for GTM teams. These innovations provide tailored capabilities for key revenue-driving roles to improve performance, engage the modern buyer, and close more deals.

AI to assist the skilled seller

Mindtickle customers still rely heavily on human sellers, even after the wave of AI. Their products and services are complex, and their buyers are experts in their field.

Sellers leverage Mindtickle’s AI Copilot to help them prep for every call and provide fast follow-ups. New capabilities automate even more tasks for sellers while also supporting their complex deal cycles and building the skills needed to close deals strategically, including:

AI-guided selling: Sellers can build the right deal strategy with dynamic playbooks, including recommended content and training based on their deals’ specifics.

Automated Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs): DSRs enable buyers and sellers to engage in one central portal with personalized content and deal information. Innovations allow these rooms to be automatically created at the right time in an opportunity, saving the seller’s time and reinforcing best practices.

Contextual role-plays: With AI role-plays, sellers can practice their pitch in simulated sales scenarios. Now, sellers can personalize their role-plays with real deal information, such as buyer personas.

AI to coach more effectively

Sales managers are busy. Because of this, they struggle to deliver personalized coaching at scale, often relying on manual tracking and generic feedback, which can lead to inefficiencies and missed growth opportunities for sales reps. In our 2025-2026 State of Sales Coaching Outlook Report, managers reported that their team sizes are growing, leaving less time to coach sellers effectively.

AI has already proven to scale coaching efforts with AI-powered pitch practice. Our new capabilities for managers will make it easier to personalize coaching to the individual skills and behaviors of each of their direct reports with:

Coaching insights: Sales leadership gains the full picture of the performance and quality of coaching across sales managers.

AI-guided coaching for managers: Managers get skill insights through a personalized dashboard that includes team competencies, benchmarks, and actions to uplevel their teams.

Mindtickle manager dashboard

AI to drive business outcomes with enablement

Enablement teams are consistently being told to do more with less. With fewer resources, it can be difficult to maintain the level of personalized ongoing training reps need to be field-ready.

Today, Copilot helps enablement teams quickly launch training. Our new releases for enablement teams focus not just on launching the training but transforming content to be more engaging and accessible for global teams with:

  • Rapid content creation: Quickly turn content into engaging enablement training, such as videos and podcasts.
  • Support global teams: Easily leverage AI-powered content localization to build multi-lingual training for global enterprises.

AI built for all

AI is everywhere, including almost all the tools that make up the modern revenue tech stack. That’s why Mindtickle is building its AI capabilities to work with other AI agents and existing revenue tech stacks, including Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems and other engagement platforms.

When AI isn’t stuck in silos, revenue teams can fully experience productivity and efficiency gains.

AI that is safe, secure, and ethical

Finally, our commitment to delivering safe and ethical AI capabilities remains a priority as we add compliance with ISO 42001, the first international framework for responsible AI management, and the EU AI Act.

With Copilot as a teammate for every go-to-market role, organizations can outpace the competition, expand accounts, and close more deals in this competitive market

See Copilot in Action

Learn more about the upcoming AI releases in our on demand webinar "What’s New in Mindtickle: AI to Grow Your People & Pipeline."

Watch Now

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5 Stats About Sales Coaching That’ll Make You Rethink Your Entire Strategy https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-stats-about-sales-coaching-thatll-make-you-rethink-your-entire-strategy/ Wed, 19 Mar 2025 20:56:04 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23143 The connection between sales coaching and sales success is undeniable. Research shows that top-performing B2B sales reps receive far more coaching than their lower-performing peers. It’s no surprise, then, that high-performing organizations consider sales coaching to be a key element of their revenue enablement strategies. But sales coaching strategies and practices that were effective in …

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The connection between sales coaching and sales success is undeniable. Research shows that top-performing B2B sales reps receive far more coaching than their lower-performing peers.

It’s no surprise, then, that high-performing organizations consider sales coaching to be a key element of their revenue enablement strategies.

But sales coaching strategies and practices that were effective in the past may no longer be impactful. Organizations must adapt their coaching strategies as the B2B sales landscape evolves.

Recently, Mindtickle surveyed more than 600 sales managers to understand their sales coaching priorities, expectations, practices, and must-have technologies. In this post, we’ll share five of the top insights from the survey, which you can use to ensure your sales managers are properly equipped to coach and lead their teams.

Insight #1: 91% of sales managers said coaching positively affects their team’s overall performance

When done well, sales coaching can significantly impact the metrics that matter most, including win rates, average deal size, sales cycle length, and quota attainment, among others. Most sales managers are well aware of the power of sales coaching. Nearly all (91%) feel coaching positively impacts their team’s performance.

of managers feel coaching positively impacts their team’s performance
0 %

Our research also found that overall, manager sentiment about sales coaching is largely positive. That means you likely won’t have to work too hard to get buy-in from most of your sales managers. Instead, you can concentrate on providing your sales managers with the right tools, training, and support to become the best coaches they can be.

Insight #2: 70% of sales managers say the size of their team has grown in the past year

Sales managers are tasked with leading and coaching their teams toward success. But this becomes increasingly difficult as teams continue to expand.

Today, 70% of sales managers indicate their team has grown in size in the past year. The majority (49%) manage teams of six to 10 sales reps; 21% are responsible for 11 or more sellers.

of managers say their team sizes grew in the last year
0 %

A one-size-fits-all approach to sales coaching simply doesn’t work. Instead, sales managers need to identify the strengths and weaknesses of every seller and deliver tailored coaching to improve performance.

While personalized coaching is effective, it requires significant time and effort from sales managers. This is especially true for many managers with large (and growing) teams. Revenue organizations must ensure their sales managers have the tools needed to pinpoint reps’ strengths and weaknesses, deliver targeted coaching, and gauge the impact of coaching on sales performance.

Insight #3: 30% of sales managers say coaching reps is their most important managerial task

Sales managers certainly have a lot on their plates. Day in and day out, they’re responsible for countless tasks – from administrative work and internal meetings to reviewing calls and helping reps close deals. And that’s just to name a few.

Yet, when asked which task was the most important, coaching their reps was the most popular response, chosen by 30% of respondents. This reinforces the idea that sales managers recognize the critical role coaching plays in sales success.

of managers say coaching is their most important task
0 %

But while sales coaching is seen as the most important task, administrative work is the most time-consuming. Revenue organizations must identify ways to streamline or automate tedious (but necessary) administrative work so sales managers have more time to coach their teams and focus on tasks that directly impact revenue growth.

Insight #4: At 78% of organizations, direct managers are responsible for sales coaching

The impact of sales coaching is well understood. But who is responsible for delivering coaching that enhances sales reps’ skills and behaviors?

In most organizations (78%), direct managers are responsible for sales coaching. More than half (57%) say level-up managers deliver coaching, while 29% leverage peer mentors.

Direct managers play a vital role in coaching, but they’re often stretched thin. Organizations must identify ways to lighten their load – while still ensuring sellers have the coaching they need to succeed.

Some organizations are leveraging artificial intelligence to achieve this balance. For example, sellers can receive AI-powered feedback on role-plays and sales calls, which they can use to refine their skills and behaviors – without waiting for their manager. Sellers can also engage in AI role-plays with an adaptive AI bot.

Peer-to-peer coaching can also lighten the load on sales managers. With the right sales coaching software, sellers can get tips and best practices from their top-performing peers, which they can use to enhance their skills and performance.

Insight #5: 65% of managers say regularly scheduled calls are the primary trigger for coaching members of their teams

Sales managers are usually responsible for supporting multiple sales reps. But how do they decide it’s time to provide coaching to one of them?

Most (65%) rely on regularly scheduled calls to determine when coaching is needed. The most common approach among sales managers (60%) is to meet with each rep weekly to deliver coaching.

of managers meet with reps weekly to deliver coaching
0 %

These recurring meetings ensure coaching happens consistently. But sales reps also need support outside of their weekly coaching sessions. For instance, a sales rep might need help addressing tough questions from a prospect but hesitate to contact their manager. Or, perhaps the rep does reach out, but the manager isn’t available for immediate assistance. In either case, the situation can go south quickly.

Be sure to provide your sellers with just-in-time enablement. That way, they can get the information and support they need to keep deals on track – whenever and wherever a need arises.

Start delivering personalized sales coaching at scale

Sales coaching can have a significant impact on reps’ behaviors and performance. But delivering tailored coaching can seem like an uphill battle – especially for managers with large teams.

2025 Sales Coaching Outlook Report

Want to dig into these and other coaching insights that can help you build a more effective sales coaching program? 

Get the Report

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Building a Sales Enablement Charter: A Step-by-Step Guide https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-enablement-charter/ Fri, 14 Mar 2025 14:28:59 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23120 Sales enablement is a must for any revenue organization looking to improve sales performance and increase revenue growth. Sellers agree. Recent research found that three-quarters of sales reps feel that sales enablement is effective at preparing them to reach quota. But taking an ad hoc approach to sales enablement won’t yield great results. Instead, organizations …

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Sales enablement is a must for any revenue organization looking to improve sales performance and increase revenue growth. Sellers agree. Recent research found that three-quarters of sales reps feel that sales enablement is effective at preparing them to reach quota.

But taking an ad hoc approach to sales enablement won’t yield great results. Instead, organizations must take a strategic approach, starting with building a sales enablement charter.

Whether you’re creating a sales enablement charter for the first time or are revisiting an existing one, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll cover everything you need to know about sales enablement charters, including:

  • What they are
  • Why they matter
  • What components are typically included in one
  • How to build a winning sales enablement charter to guide your entire enablement strategy

What is a sales enablement charter?

Chances are, you’ve heard the phrase “sales enablement charter” at least a time or two. But what exactly is a sales enablement charter?

Essentially, a sales enablement charter is a roadmap or business plan for your sales enablement plan. The charter is a document that clearly outlines your sales enablement mission and goals, and it serves as the foundation for your entire sales enablement strategy.

A sales enablement charter is foundational to any winning sales enablement program. However, organizations often don’t take the time to establish one. In fact, recent research found that only 38% of sales enablement professionals have one in place.

Research found that only

of sales enablement professionals have a charter
0 %

Is developing a sales enablement charter worth the time and effort?

Absolutely. But why is a sales enablement charter so important?

All too often, organizations take an ad hoc approach to sales enablement, tackling any random tasks and requests that happen to come their way. This is a recipe for disaster.

Research shows that organizations with a more strategic approach to sales enablement see better results. Creating a sales enablement charter is an essential step in formalizing your sales enablement efforts.

By clearly defining your purpose, goals, and priorities in a sales enablement charter, you can help your team focus on what truly matters. That way, you’re more likely to achieve your goals and have a larger impact on the metrics that matter most to your organization.

Furthermore, a well-defined sales enablement charter drives cross-functional understanding and alignment. With a strong sales enablement charter in place, other teams will clearly understand what does (and doesn’t) fall under the purview of sales enablement and how best to collaborate with your team.

What are the key components of a sales enablement charter?

Sales enablement charters vary from organization to organization. As such, there is no single example relevant to every company.

However, you’ll likely notice that just about every sales enablement charter template includes many of the same components, such as:

Sales enablement vision

This statement describes where you want your sales enablement plan to go. Typically, vision statements are aspirational and provide a high-level view of the potential impact of sales enablement on the organization.

One example is: “To empower our revenue team to to drive outstanding customer experiences that grow revenue.”

Sales enablement mission

While the vision statement focuses on where you hope to go, your mission statement should focus on how you plan to get there.

An example of a sales enablement mission statement is: 

"Our mission is to provide our go-to-market teams with the tools, training, and resources needed to close more deals faster, and consistently meet the company’s sales performance goals.”

Sales enablement goals

Your sales enablement goals should be aligned with your mission and the company’s overall objectives. Use the SMART acronym to avoid vague goals.

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Achievable
  • Relevant
  • Time-bound

An example of a sales enablement goal is: Create and deliver a sales onboarding program that will reduce time to first sale by 10% for sales reps hired during the fourth quarter.

Sales enablement pillars

Even the best sales enablement teams can’t tackle everything. That’s why it’s important to document your sales enablement pillars in your sales enablement charter.

Essentially, a sales enablement pillar is an element of sales enablement. You will focus your time and effort on your chosen sales enablement pillars. Some examples include:

  • Sales onboarding
  • Role-based training
  • Sales methodology training
  • Train the trainer
  • Sales kickoffs
  • Product training
  • Sales content creation

Enablement audience

These are the people who will be supported by your sales enablement initiatives. While sales reps are typically the primary focus, many organizations are broadening the focus of enablement to include other customer-facing teams, like:

  • Customer success
  • Marketing
  • Solution consultants

It’s important to clearly define which teams your enablement initiatives will support. Doing so will keep your team focused and avoid any confusion and misunderstandings in the future.

KPIs

Without ongoing measurement, it’s impossible to know whether or not you’re on track to achieve your sales enablement goals. In your charter, define the KPIs you’ll track to measure sales enablement success and impact.

While the KPIs you should track depend on your goals, some examples include:

  • Revenue growth
  • Quota attainment
  • Average deal size
  • Conversion rates
  • Retention rates
  • Sales cycle length
  • Time to first sale
  • Time to quota

How to build your sales enablement charter

A sales enablement charter lays the foundation for a successful enablement strategy. While building a charter from scratch can seem overwhelming, it doesn’t have to be.

In fact, by following a few simple steps, you’ll be well on your way to creating a sales enablement charter that’ll guide your strategy and initiatives like a North Star.

Step 1: Assemble your team

Building a sales enablement charter isn’t something you should do alone. Instead, it’s important to collaborate with various teams to ensure alignment.

The first step is determining who will be on the sales enablement charter team. Be sure to include stakeholders from various teams, including:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer success
  • Sales operations

Your sales enablement charter team will provide valuable feedback to help shape your charter.

It’s also important to include your execute sponsor, who will champion sales enablement throughout your organization.

Step 2: Develop your sales enablement vision and mission statements

Your vision and mission statements will help you articulate sales enablement’s purpose and how it will support the organization’s goals. While your vision statement will convey where you want to go, your mission statement will articulate how you will get there. Be sure to include both in your sales enablement charter.

Step 3: Identify your sales enablement pillars

These pillars will be your primary areas of focus. They will include ongoing responsibilities and new initiatives you plan.

Be sure to include relevant details for each sales enablement pillar, including:

  • Overall goals and objectives
  • Shorter-term goals
  • The KPIs you’ll use to measure long- and short-term impact and success
  • Any known risks and challenges you anticipate as you aim to achieve your goals
  • What teams will be involved and how you will collaborate with them to achieve your goals
  • Resources you will need to achieve your goal, such as team members or special sales enablement tools
  • Who is responsible for what

Step 4: Define your audience

Some sales enablement teams focus exclusively on supporting sales reps. Others support additional customer-facing functions, like solution engineers and customer success managers. Be sure to clearly define your target audience. It’ll eliminate confusion down the road.

Step 5: Socialize your sales enablement charter

Once you’ve finalized your sales enablement charter, share it with key stakeholders throughout the company. That way, everyone will clearly understand the purpose and role of sales enablement and how to collaborate with your team.

Step 6: Revisit your charter regularly

A sales enablement charter isn’t (and shouldn’t) be set in stone. Instead, it’s important to review your charter regularly to ensure it remains aligned with your organization’s strategy and goals. If it’s no longer in sync, make the necessary adjustments.

It’s time to build your sales enablement charter

Today, most B2B organizations invest in sales enablement tools and teams. Yet, a mere 38% take the time to develop a sales enablement charter.

Now’s the perfect time if you’ve never built a sales enablement charter. With a charter in place, you can adopt a more strategic approach to sales enablement. When you make that shift, you’ll see a bigger impact on sales performance and revenue growth.

If you already have a sales enablement charter, now’s the time to ensure it aligns with your organization’s current goals. If it doesn’t, make the changes needed to get it there.

Better Enablement with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s all-in-one revenue enablement platform can help you deliver the training, tools, and support your revenue teams need to engage buyers and close more deals?

Request Your Demo

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Building a Winning Sales Tech Stack: The Ultimate Guide https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-tech-stack/ Thu, 13 Mar 2025 14:22:32 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=23106 Modern sales teams use the right tools and technology to reach their goals. Revenue organizations must prioritize building a winning sales tech stack. But adding random sales tools to the mix isn’t the right approach. Instead, revenue organizations must ensure they have the right combination of tools to support their teams and drive revenue growth …

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Modern sales teams use the right tools and technology to reach their goals. Revenue organizations must prioritize building a winning sales tech stack.

But adding random sales tools to the mix isn’t the right approach. Instead, revenue organizations must ensure they have the right combination of tools to support their teams and drive revenue growth properly.

But what is a sales tech stack, and how can you build one that boosts sales performance and accelerates revenue growth? Read on as we answer these questions and more.

What is a sales tech stack?

A sales technology stack (or a sales tech stack) is a set of software tools and platforms a sales team uses to manage and enhance the sales process. The tools within a sales tech stack serve many purposes, including:

  • Managing leads
  • Providing sales training and enablement
  • Centralizing customer interactions and tracking engagement
  • Analyzing data

We’ll look closely at some of these common functions later.

How large is the average sales tech stack?

The size of the sales technology stack varies from company to company, but many organizations maintain a sizable collection of tools. More than 63% of sales leaders report having 10 or more tools in their sales tech stack.

of sales leaders have 10 or more tools in their tech stacks
0 %

But bigger isn’t always better when it comes to the sales tech stack. Research shows that revenue teams don’t consistently use all the sales tools they have available. Furthermore, 70% of sales reps feel overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use.

Investing in technology can significantly enhance seller productivity and buyer experience. But rather than randomly investing in tools, revenue leaders must focus on building an optimized sales tech stack that improves efficiency and boosts sales performance without adding unnecessary bloat.

Questions to consider before building your sales tech stack

A strong sales tech stack can significantly impact the success of your revenue organization. But before building it, there are certain questions you’ll need to address.

What are my current goals and challenges?

Each tool in your tech stack should be aligned with a specific goal or challenge. As such, defining your sales team’s goals and objectives is essential. Some examples might include:

  • Accelerating new rep ramp time
  • Improving buyer experience
  • Increasing conversion rates
  • Improving customer retention

What are my future goals and challenges?

A tool in your sales stack may meet your needs today. But it’s important to ensure it’ll continue to meet your needs in the future.

Consider your future needs and challenges. For instance, you might expect significant growth to your sales team in the next two years. As such, it’s important to find a sales enablement solution to support it as it grows.

What tools do I currently have?

Undoubtedly, you already have certain sales tools in place at your organization. Take an inventory of the tools you have, what they do, and how (or whether) they align with your goals and challenges.

It’s also important to measure the adoption of your existing sales tech stack tools. You might invest in a great tool, but if no one uses it, it will not make a difference.

Do my current tools have additional capabilities I’m not using?

It’s possible one of your unmet needs can be addressed with a sales tool you already have. Before investing in a new solution, it’s important to determine whether this is the case.

Do my sales tools work well together?
It’s important to ensure the tools in your sales technology stack integrate. If they don’t, you’ll end up with inefficiencies and data silos.

What is involved with adding a new sales tool?

Before adding a new tool to your B2B sales tech stack, it’s important to consider what that will entail. Of course, you need to consider costs. You’ll also need to factor in the time and effort required to implement a new solution and ensure sellers know how to use it.

How will I measure success?

Every tool in your sales tech stack should contribute to achieving a goal or overcoming a challenge. Be sure to define how you’ll measure the effectiveness of each tool.

How to build your sales tech stack

How can you build an optimized tech stack that improves the effectiveness and efficiency of your sellers? There are a few steps you’ll need to take.

Define your needs, goals, and requirements

Your B2B sales tech stack should support your organization’s needs and goals. Therefore, the first step in building it is to clearly define those needs and goals.

One of the best places to start is accessing your current sales process. By examining each part of the process, you can pinpoint what’s working well and where there’s room for improvement.

Additionally, be sure to have conversations with different areas of the go-to-market team, including sales, marketing, and customer success. That way, you can understand their unique needs and pain points.

Identify sales tool categories

Once you’ve identified your goals and challenges, you can determine which categories of sales tools will best address them. A typical B2B sales tech stack includes tools from various categories, including:

  • CRM tools help go-to-market teams manage interactions with current and prospective customers. A customer relationship management platform is a central hub for all customer data, enabling organizations to manage relationships throughout the customer lifecycle effectively.
  • CRM tools offer a range of features and functionality, like contact management, pipeline tracking, and analytics and reporting, among others.
  • Sales enablement tools provide sales teams with the training, tools, and resources to engage prospective customers and close deals. With the right sales enablement tech stack, sellers can be more effective and efficient. Key features of sales enablement tools include onboarding, training, sales content management, and data and analytics.
  • Sales engagement tools assist sellers in managing their interactions with prospects throughout the sales cycle. These tools can significantly improve the efficiency of sales outreach and help sellers engage their prospects more effectively. Features of sales engagement tools often include email automation, call and email scheduling, multi-channel outreach, and tracking and analytics.
  • Sales training tools give sellers the knowledge and skills they need to be effective in the field. Some common features of sales training tools include onboarding, ongoing training modules, quizzes, gamification, and interactive role-plays.
  • Sales coaching tools enable sales leaders to deliver targeted support to each seller to help them improve their skills, behaviors, and in-field performance. A sales manager or AI-powered tools can deliver sales coaching.
  • Conversation intelligence tools record and analyze sales calls, allowing sellers to focus on the conversation rather than note-taking. Sales managers can use conversation intelligence tools to identify trends and provide coaching to improve sellers’ behaviors and call performance. Some examples of conversation intelligence features include call recording, conversation summaries, and call scoring.

Evaluate sales tools

Once you’ve identified which categories of tools you need in your sales tech stack, you can begin exploring options that align with your needs, goals, and requirements.

Start by researching your options online, seeking recommendations from industry peers, and reading reviews from current and past customers. Once you’ve narrowed your options, request demos to experience the different tools firsthand.

There is no one-size-fits-all sales tool. Instead, finding the option that best suits your unique goals and challenges is important.

It’s also important to choose options that are intuitive and easy to use. If there’s a steep learning curve, you’ll struggle with adoption and won’t experience a return on investment.

Lastly, be sure any sales tools you consider integrate with other technology you already have in place. Otherwise, you’ll only add further complexity to the sales process.

Look for opportunities to streamline your sales tech stack

As we mentioned earlier, many sellers find themselves overwhelmed by the volume of tools at their disposal. So while building your B2B sales tech stack with the right tools is important, it’s equally important to keep it streamlined and efficient.

Rather than investing in point solutions that tackle one specific issue, opt for integrated platforms that address multiple challenges. For example, the right sales enablement platform can address sales training, coaching, role-plays, conversation intelligence, and sales content management – all from one platform.

Prioritize user adoption

You may have the best sales tech stack in place. But your investments won’t pay off if sellers aren’t using the available tools.

Be sure to provide training, enablement, and coaching so your sellers know what tools are in the B2B sales stack and how to use them to improve the sales process and outcomes.

Measure effectiveness regularly

All businesses want to get the most out of their investments. With ongoing measurement, you can determine whether you’re getting value from each tool in your sales tech stack.

In addition, be sure to ask your sales team for feedback so you have both qualitative and quantitative insights. These insights will help you understand where things are going well and where there are opportunities to refine your sales stack.

Adapt accordingly

In the world of sales, change is inevitable. New sales technologies are continually introduced, and your business needs are always evolving. It’s important to reassess your needs regularly and ensure your sales software stack is keeping up.

Benefits of a modern sales tech stack
Building a winning sales tech stack isn’t a simple task, but it’s worth the time and effort. Why? Because a modern, optimized sales tech stack can provide a variety of revenue-boosting benefits, including:

Increased efficiency

Sales reps are responsible for several tasks – many of which are repetitive and time-consuming. A modern sales tech stack can streamline and even automate many of these processes, allowing sellers to focus on high-value activities contributing to revenue growth. That means sellers can close more deals faster, positively impacting the bottom line.

Improved collaboration

Engaging customers across the sales cycle is a joint effort involving teams including marketing, sales, and customer success. But often, these teams work in silos, which leads to disjointed experiences.

A modern B2B sales tech stack integrates various tools, which enables teams to work together seamlessly. This alignment improves customer experiences and sales results.

Centralized data to fuel informed decision-making

The best decisions are rooted in data, not intuition. Modern tech stack tools can gather and analyze data on factors like seller performance, pipeline health, and buyer signals. Sales leaders can use these insights to make more informed decisions, forecast revenue, and refine sales strategies.

Better customer experiences

Research shows that 80% of customers feel a company’s experience is just as important as its products or services. Modern businesses must be able to meet customers’ expectations for outstanding experiences.

With the right sales tech stack, organizations can create tailored experiences for every customer, no matter where they are in the sales cycle. Sales tools also offer insights into a buyer’s behaviors, allowing sellers to adjust their approach and deliver experiences that’ll resonate with the buyer.

Accelerated sales cycles

The quicker you close deals, the faster your revenue will grow. A modern sales stack can streamline various processes within the sales cycle, reducing the length of your sales cycle and accelerating revenue growth.

Consolidate your sales tech stack with Mindtickle

A modern sales tech stack can greatly impact how you do business. With the right combination of sales tools in place, you’ll increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your sellers – while also improving the experiences your customers have with your business.

But building a large tech stack isn’t the answer. Too many tools can overwhelm sellers, and switching between them can be time-consuming.

Instead, focus on streamlining and simplifying your sales tech stack. One way is to trade disparate, point solutions for integrated platforms.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform that combines training, coaching, role-plays, sales content management, conversation intelligence, and more – all in a single platform. With Mindtickle, your sellers have one central hub for everything they need to be ready to sell.

Streamline your tech stack

Why are revenue organizations swapping enablement standalone tools for Mindtickle’s all-in-one revenue enablement platform?

Request Your Demo

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6 Ways to Have More Productive Sales Calls https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/6-ways-to-have-more-productive-sales-calls/ Wed, 12 Mar 2025 07:56:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13900 Sales calls are an inevitable part of every successful seller’s routine – whether they like it or not. If a B2B seller isn’t making enough sales calls each day, they won’t make their sales targets. It’s as simple as that. But increasing sales call volume doesn’t guarantee success. Sales reps must also focus on ensuring …

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Sales calls are an inevitable part of every successful seller’s routine – whether they like it or not. If a B2B seller isn’t making enough sales calls each day, they won’t make their sales targets. It’s as simple as that.

But increasing sales call volume doesn’t guarantee success. Sales reps must also focus on ensuring every sales call they make is as productive as possible.

While some sales calls leave buyers and sellers excited and eager to move on to the next step of the sales cycle, others leave both parties confused by what just transpired. Fortunately, there are strategies sellers can use to increase their chances of having more of the first type.

Recently, we analyzed nearly half a million sales calls recorded using Call AI, Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution. Based on this analysis, we’ve compiled our top six tips for having more productive sales calls.

Types of sales calls

A sales call describes any interaction between a sales rep and a prospective customer. However, many different types of sales calls happen throughout the B2B sales cycle. Some examples include:

Cold calls

Cold calling is the practice of reaching out to prospective customers with whom you have never engaged before. During cold calls, sellers introduce themselves and their business and gauge a prospect’s interest in learning more.

Warm calls

A warm call happens when a seller reaches out to a prospect with some initial interest in the seller’s products or services. For example, the buyer may have interacted with a company representative at a tradeshow or completed a website form indicating they want to learn more.

Discovery calls

A discovery call aims to learn as much as possible about a prospect’s goals, priorities, and challenges. Sales reps must ask the right questions to understand a prospect’s pain points and determine whether they have a solution to address them.

Demo calls

During a demo call, a seller provides a demonstration of their solution. That way, a buyer can see firsthand what the solution looks like and how it can address their challenges.

Follow-up calls

Follow-up calls happen throughout the sales process. They are a way for sellers to check in with buyers to see where they are in the purchase journey and how they can support them as they make a purchase decision

Closing calls

A closing call is when a seller secures a commitment from the buyer. In other words, the buyer commits to purchasing the seller’s solution.

6 data-based tips for better sales calls

Now, let’s dive into six practical tips for increasing the effectiveness of sales calls – no matter where a prospect may be on their purchase journey.

1. Optimize sales call length – and make the most of your time

Have you ever scheduled a 30-minute sales call, only to run out of time before you’ve covered everything you wanted to? Maybe the customer had a lot of questions, or perhaps they took things in a different direction than you anticipated. As the end of your time approached, you likely felt a sense of panic kick in, and you may have come across as rushed or disorganized.

So if you’ve scheduled 30 minutes, you have a few options. You can ask the prospect if it’s possible to run over (which it often isn’t, as prospects have busy schedules, too). Or, you can end the call without covering everything — and hope the prospect agrees to another call. Neither situation is ideal.

In order to avoid this situation, it’s important to optimize the length of your sales calls. But what’s the right amount of time to book on your prospect’s calendar?

Our analysis found that the average length of a sales call recorded, transcribed, and analyzed with Mindtickle was 30 minutes, However, the average length of a discovery call is 36 minutes.

The average length of a discovery call is

minutes
0

Take a look at your own sales calls to evaluate length. Use those insights to determine how long you should schedule calls for. When in doubt, schedule more time. For example, rather than scheduling a half hour call, schedule it for 40 minutes. If you don’t need the entire time, you can always give the prospect or customer some time back, which is preferable to going over your time.

In addition, be sure your reps show up ultra-prepared. That way, they can make the most of their time with buyers – no matter how much time that may be.

2. Share the mic – especially on discovery calls

A sales call, like any conversation, should be a give-and-take. Both parties should have an equal opportunity to share what’s on their minds and ask and answer questions.

But often, that’s not the case. Instead, sales reps do the lion’s share of the talking — while prospects sit quietly and (hopefully) take it all in. On average, customers talk 37% of the time on sales calls.

3. Keep monologues in check

Have you ever been in a situation where someone’s telling you a long, drawn-out story? Your eyes might glaze over, while your attention drifts to other things.

The same can happen on sales calls with the rep delivering a long, droning response to a prospect’s questions. Generally, the longer the monologue, the more disengaged a prospect gets.

We found that, on average, reps’ longest monologue responses are 2 minutes and 15 seconds, down from previous years.

Though monologues are decreasing in length, it’s critical for reps to be mindful. If a seller finds themself speaking for more than a minute and a half, it’s important to check in and see if the prospect has any questions. Doing so helps ensure a balance of rep and prospect participation and engagement.

4. Equip sellers to handle objections

Ideally, every sales call will end on a positive note. The prospect will feel excited about the seller’s solution — and eager to move on to the next step of the sales process.

But that’s not reality.

Negative sentiment, such as uncertainty, hesitancy, competitive mentions, and objections, are extremely common on sales calls. In fact, over half (54%, to be exact) of sales calls contain more negative sentiment than positive.

But negative sentiment doesn’t mean the call is a lost cause — especially if the seller has been adequately trained and coached to expect resistance and overcome it. When a prospect brings up competitors and challenges statements made during the call, it often means they have researched, indicating that they have prioritized the search for a solution like yours.

Of course, providing enablement ensures reps know your messaging inside and out and can properly differentiate you from your competitors is important. Be sure you’re also spending time on enablement topics that help reps build their confidence and overcome common objections.

5. Ask and invite questions

When reps ask questions, they clarify deal information and deepen their discovery. On average, reps ask 20 questions during sales discovery.

On the other hand, when a rep receives a question from a prospect, it can indicate the potential customer’s needs and priorities. On average, sellers receive 12 questions from prospects during sales discovery. Of course, this will vary based on prospect preparedness, confidence levels, decision-making stage, and time constraints. 

During the best sales calls, questions are asked by both parties. Yet, we’re seeing a decline in questions posed by both buyers and sellers.

Be sure to provide your reps with the coaching and resources they need to improve their questioning techniques. Boosting these skills can help foster more engaging and insightful customer interactions. y In addition, be sure to review your top discovery calls. That way, you can create a list of the questions that best uncover additional deal information and get the prospect thinking.

6. Leverage conversation intelligence software

Let’s be real: sales calls don’t always go well. And when they go south, reps often struggle to articulate what exactly went wrong. That makes it difficult (or even impossible) for the sales manager to provide coaching that’ll improve future outcomes.

Furthermore, front-line managers are busy and don’t have the bandwidth to sit in on every single call for every single rep. That’s why the best sales orgs use conversation intelligence software to bridge the gap.

Conversation intelligence software records sales calls and leverages AI to help managers identify where reps are excelling — and where there are skill gaps. Managers can use these insights to deliver personalized enablement, content, and coaching to close those gaps, improve key skills, and boost sales outcomes.

With all of their calls recorded, reps can better prepare for meetings. Conversation intelligence products like Call AI send digest emails with summaries and key action items from the last call with a prospect. In addition to call prep, sellers can collaborate and coach each other on key selling moments, solicit feedback, and view their team members’ top call moments.

Start making more productive sales calls with Mindtickle

Great sales calls don’t happen by chance. Revenue organizations must ensure that every seller—from veterans to new hires—has what it takes to lead high-quality sales calls that propel prospects through the sales funnel.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that equips sellers with the training and support needed to master the skills needed to lead outstanding sales calls. In addition, sellers can use AI role-plays in Mindtickle to practice their skills in realistic scenarios – before money is on the line.

There’s room for every seller to hone their sales call skills. With Call AI, Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution, sales managers can see where sellers are excelling on calls – and where there are opportunities for improvement. Sales managers can use these insights to deliver targeted training and coaching to improve sellers’ skills and performance on sales calls.

Want to learn more about what winning revenue organizations are doing to ensure each member of the team is always ready to sell? Read the Mindtickle State of Revenue Productivity report.

Ready to get more out of your sales calls?

Want to learn more about what winning revenue organizations are doing to ensure each member of the team is always ready to close deals?

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in June 2022, updated in April 2024, and again in March 2025. 

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MetricStream’s Journey to Smarter Enablement https://www.mindtickle.com/customer-stories/metricstreams-journey-to-smarter-enablement/ Mon, 10 Mar 2025 15:01:01 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=customer_stories&p=22958 Theresa DeLong, Director of Sales Enablement, MetricStream MetricStream, a leader in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software, uses Mindtickle to scale enablement and drive a continuous learning culture. Theresa DeLong, Director of Sales Enablement, shares how missions, certifications, and AI-driven coaching help reps apply their knowledge effectively while streamlining assessments and coaching. By leveraging AI …

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Theresa DeLong, Director of Sales Enablement, MetricStream

MetricStream, a leader in governance, risk, and compliance (GRC) software, uses Mindtickle to scale enablement and drive a continuous learning culture. Theresa DeLong, Director of Sales Enablement, shares how missions, certifications, and AI-driven coaching help reps apply their knowledge effectively while streamlining assessments and coaching.

By leveraging AI role-plays and Copilot, MetricStream has reduced manual grading time, giving managers more bandwidth while maintaining high-quality feedback. This has led to a 20% increase in conversion to appointments for certified reps. Mindtickle’s real-time reporting provides leadership with visibility into rep progress, ensuring training is impactful, scalable, and aligned with business goals. With Mindtickle, MetricStream has transformed enablement into a dynamic, AI-powered program that enhances rep performance, streamlines coaching, and delivers clear, measurable impact.

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Frontline Sales Managers | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/solutions/sales-manager-software-frontline-managers/ Fri, 07 Mar 2025 07:18:28 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=22773 BY ROLE  > FRONTLINE SALES MANAGER Spread winning behaviors that drive team performance. Identify skill gaps and build personalized coaching programs to elevate team performance. Get a demo Take a quick tour The 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report Read the Report 😞 MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES Struggling to elevate coaching and boost team …

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BY ROLE 

>

FRONTLINE SALES MANAGER

Spread winning behaviors that drive team performance.

Identify skill gaps and build personalized coaching programs to elevate team performance.

The 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report

😞 MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES

Struggling to elevate coaching and boost team performance?

You’re not alone. With forecasting demands, growing teams, and tons of reporting, it can be difficult to find time to meaningfully coach your reps.

I struggle to identify existing skill gaps for my sellers and sales teams.

I’m not sure what to focus on when coaching my reps

How do I ensure consistent long-term growth for my team?

I am having difficulty tracking and measuring my team’s performance effectively.

✌BOOST COACHING & ELEVATE TEAM PRODUCTIVITY

Uplevel your team, win more

Prepare your team for success with data-driven readiness programs that adapt to constant change and enhance productivity.

0 %

Increase in deal sizes

0 %

Increase in revenue per rep

0 %

Faster onboarding

🤗 DATA-DRIVEN COACHING

Drive an org-wide coaching culture based on data and insights

Create a coaching framework around competencies, analyze skills, and address gaps for individualized growth.

Use real-world call snippets to deliver relevant, actionable coaching based on actual sales moments.

Get insights and recommendations into team behaviors and benchmarks to improve rep performance and effectiveness.

“Our vision was to have all learning happen in one portal. With Mindtickle, sales reps can easily go in, find what they need to learn, and go out and do their work. And we have visibility into how they’re engaging with the platform. It’s a one-stop shop for everyone.”

Dr. Somnath Data, Head of Commercial Excellence

🔨 DIGITAL SALES ROOMS

Understand the deal pulse

Managers can see when and how buyers engage, identifying champions and key interests.

Analyzing interactions helps identify effective sales tactics and refine deal strategies.

Get content insights by tracking which content buyers view, revealing preferences and pain points.

chat

How Digital Sales Rooms are Helping Reps Win More Deals

📈 ENABLEMENT ROI

Showcase the ROI of enablement

Identify the DNA of your A players across various skills, behaviors, and competencies.

Benchmark your entire sales teams on skills and competencies so you can turn your B players into A players.

Go beyond tracking engagement and adoption and connect enablement programs to revenue outcomes that matter.

chat

There’s a formula for the perfect rep. What’s yours?

🔥 ALIGNING SALES MANAGERS AND SELLERS

Coaching that impacts field effectiveness

Sales Managers

Sales Reps

Get personalized coaching and actionable feedback to improve skills and close deals faster

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why sales organizations
love Mindtickle

Menemsha group transforms its GTM strategy with mindtickle accounting for 95% of licensing revenue

“Mindtickle’s product is amazing, but the people are even better. If you’re going to get a solution like Mindtickle, it’s important that you can trust and rely on the people you work with.”

Dan Fisher, Founder.

95%

Licensing revenue

Presales academy sees 84% increase in student enrollment using Mindtickle for sales training

“My experience with Mindtickle and the team has been nothing short of amazing. From incredible customer service to the overall functionality and power of the platform, we’ve been able to successfully train hundreds of individuals through our PreSales Academy and PreSales Collective enablement programs. Since we deployed both online and live training, it was important we utilized a solution that could accommodate both methods effectively and allow us to deliver high-quality content.”

Mattie Stremic, Head of the Academy

84%

Increase in Student Enrollment

SaaScend gains visibility into buyer engagement

“Our sales and marketing teams are more aligned on the messaging, content, and narrative. We’re now providing our prospects a much better, personalized experience.”

Phil Rader, Sr. Account Executive, SaaScend (former)

40%

REDUCTION IN
ADMIN WORK

🧠 WHY MINDTICKLE

Supporting your sales teams and
improving their performance

Tools to help sales managers
empower reps

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Crush CPG Sales Challenges with Smarter Enablement https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/cpg-sales-enablement/ Thu, 27 Feb 2025 19:00:37 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20881 The consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector is deeply integrated into the fabric of our lives. A day rarely goes by without us reaching for our favorite CPG items, including food and beverages, cleaning products, and toiletries. Given its ubiquity, it’s no surprise that the CPG industry makes up a significant portion of the global economy. …

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The consumer packaged goods (CPG) sector is deeply integrated into the fabric of our lives. A day rarely goes by without us reaching for our favorite CPG items, including food and beverages, cleaning products, and toiletries.

Given its ubiquity, it’s no surprise that the CPG industry makes up a significant portion of the global economy. In 2022, the global CPG market was valued at about $160.75B. That figure is expected to reach $244.92B by 2030.

The expected global value of CPG by 2030:

$ 0 B

Yet, despite the industry’s size, CPG sales reps still face many daily challenges, from intense competition to changing consumer preferences to ever-evolving regulatory requirements.

That’s where CPG sales enablement comes in.

In this post, we’ll deeply dive into some of the top challenges CPG sales reps encounter and explore how CPG sales enablement can equip them with the training, tools, and resources they need to overcome hurdles and close more deals.

Challenge #1: Intense competition

CPG is a crowded market. Sellers must contend with large, legacy brands as well as private labels and digital-first brands that seem to spring up out of nowhere and threaten to capture market share.

Consumer goods sellers often struggle to stand out from the competition. As a result, they miss out on opportunities to grow deals and secure prime shelf space.

How CPG sales enablement can help

A holistic sales enablement program helps CPG sales reps master the skills they need to stand out. For example, discovery skills can help buyers quickly uncover the needs and challenges of the buyer. Value articulation skills can help those sellers convey how their product will help the buyer address their unique challenges. Competitive knowledge ensures sellers anticipate (and be prepared to overcome) questions about competitors.

While competing CPG products may be similar, a great buying experience can set one apart. A robust sales enablement program also equips sellers with the tools to deliver engaging buying experiences, like customized content and Digital Sales Rooms.

Digital collaboration rooms

Challenge #2: Shifting consumer preferences

CPG shopper preferences are always in flux. For example, a growing number of consumers now seek out health-conscious products and environmentally friendly packaging.

CPG companies must be willing and able to adapt to shifting consumer preferences. After all, 70% of businesses fail to stay competitive due to their inability to adapt quickly to market shifts.

How CPG sales enablement can help

Successful CPG companies innovate to align with consumer preferences. This can involve changing existing product offerings or developing new ones.

CPG sales enablement ensures sellers are always up to speed with changes to product offerings. That way, sellers can confidently convey how their CPG products align with consumers’ preferences.

Challenge #3: Time consuming administrative work

The more time a CPG sales rep spends on selling activities, the more deals they can close. Yet, CPG sellers are increasingly bogged down with administrative tasks like price control. This takes them away from what they do best: selling.

How CPG sales enablement can help

Today, innovative CPG organizations leverage artificial intelligence (AI) in their CPG sales enablement programs to help sellers streamline (or even automate) many tasks that take up their time.

For example, AI can deliver content recommendations to CPG sellers, which means they can spend less time searching for relevant content. AI can also draft contextual emails sellers send prospects to accompany the content.

AI can also make it much easier for CPG sellers to prepare for meetings, which historically takes time. For example, a seller can ask Mindtickle Copilot what objections a prospect brought up during a recent sales call. Then, the seller can properly prepare without listening to meeting recordings.

Challenge #4: Ever-evolving regulatory compliance

CPG is a heavily regulated industry, and non-compliance penalties can be steep. CPG training programs must be regularly updated to keep up with regulatory changes, but this is often easier said than done.

It’s time-consuming to update existing CPG training content and ensure sellers are well-versed in current regulatory standards. There’s also always a risk that sellers will continue to use outdated, non-compliant training and content.

How CPG sales enablement can help

The right sales enablement platform makes updating existing CPG sales training and enablement content to reflect regulatory changes easy. You can also quickly build and deploy new CPG sales training programs that ensure sellers are up-to-date with regulatory standards.

A CPG platform ensures sellers only use current, compliant content with prospects. Enablement teams can change existing content and publish it in real time. That way, CPG sellers know they’re always using the latest, greatest versions of sales content.

Challenge #5: Long sales cycles

Relationship-building is critical in CPG sales. When a seller builds a strong relationship with a prospect, they’re more likely to win their business and secure prime shelf space.

However, CPG sales cycles are often long and complex. They can last up to 12 months (or even longer) and often involve complex price negotiations, volume commitments, and promotional strategies.

Many CPG sales reps struggle to keep buyers engaged across long, complex sales cycles.

How CPG sales enablement can help

CPG enablement gives CPG sellers the skills and tools to keep buyers engaged and build long-lasting relationships. For example, CPG sales training can focus on bolstering skills like:

  • Active listening
  • Trust-building
  • Consultative selling
  • Relationship management

Role-plays allow sellers to practice these relationship-building skills and get feedback from their managers, peers, or AI for improvement.

AI-Roleplay

Sales enablement also equips sellers with the CPG tools to keep them engaged throughout the sales cycle. For example, digital sales rooms provide CPG buyers and sellers with a single source of truth for sharing content, communicating, and collaborating throughout the sales cycle. Sellers can see how buyers engage in the digital sales room and use those insights to adapt their CPG sales strategy.

Organizations can also equip CPG sellers with just-in-time enablement, which allows them to get the information and answers they need in real-time. For example, a CPG buyer asks a question about a product and the seller doesn’t know the answer. The seller can pose their question using a tool like Mindtickle Copilot and get a real-time answer. That way, they can get back to the buyer faster and deliver a CPG sales experience that keeps them engaged.

Challenge #6: Scaling CPG training and coaching

Ongoing training and coaching ensure CPG sellers have what it takes to deliver outstanding CPG sales experiences. However, CPG training and coaching must be personalized to be effective. Otherwise, CPG sellers are wasting their time on irrelevant training and coaching and still not getting what they need to improve.

But tailored training and coaching is hard to scale.

How CPG sales enablement can help

With CPG sales enablement, sales leaders can identify every seller’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, they can assign tailored training to close skill gaps. Sellers can also access just-in-time enablement whenever and wherever a need arises.

That means CPG sales reps always have what they need to strengthen weaker skills, and they don’t have to waste their time on irrelevant training.

A holistic sales enablement strategy also allows for personalized sales coaching at scale. Sales managers can easily identify a seller’s strengths and weaknesses, which can inform sales coaching opportunities.

In addition, many organizations now leverage AI to deliver real-time sales coaching during a role-play exercise or after a sales call. Consumer packaged goods sales reps can apply this tailored feedback immediately to improve their skills and sales performance – without waiting on a manager. One company saved 38 weeks of manager time with AI role-play reviews in Mindtickle, increasing deal size by 31%.

AI role-plays saved one company

of manager time
0 weeks

One company saved 38 weeks of manager time with AI role-play reviews in Mindtickle, increasing deal size by 31%.

Challenge #7: Geographically dispersed sales teams

Usually, a company’s CPG sellers aren’t all based outside the same office. Instead, CPG companies commonly leverage a mix of internal and partner sellers, often scattered across the globe.

Regulations and customer needs and preferences vary widely by geographical region. This makes it difficult (and costly) to ensure that every seller has what they need to be successful (and compliant) in their role.

How CPG sales enablement can help

With a solid sales enablement strategy, you can deliver consistent training and support that ensures both internal and partner sellers are ready to deliver engaging CPG sales experiences.

For example, enablement teams can create and deliver country-specific training and content that reflects regional needs and regulations. Sellers can easily access the training, tools, and resources they need – whether sitting in an office or in the field.

Challenge #8: Measuring the Impact of CPG sales training

By now, most CPG brands invest in sales enablement and training. However, they often struggle to measure the impact of their initiatives on revenue outcomes.

Optimizing your training and enablement for maximum results is impossible if you can’t measure impact. Furthermore, making a case for additional resources will be difficult if you can’t prove impact.

How CPG sales enablement can help

Data is a key component of sales enablement for CPG.

With the right sales enablement platform, you can see which sellers engage with different training and enablement and how this engagement impacts outcomes. For example, you can see whether sellers who complete objection handling training are improving their skills and their sales performance.

With the right data, you can understand what works and what doesn’t. Then, you can invest more resources in consumer packaged goods sales enablement programs that improve behaviors and performance.

Conquer CPG sales enablement with Mindtickle

The CPG industry makes up a significant portion of the global economy. Yet, CPG sellers face several challenges to attract, engage, and convert customers.

A CPG sales enablement strategy, paired with the right tools, ensures that CPG sales reps have the right training, tools, and resources to overcome these challenges and thrive.

Better Sales Enablement for CPG

Ready to see why leading CPG brands rely on Mindtickle to power their sales enablement programs?

Request Your Demo

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Mindtickle Integrations https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/integrations/ Fri, 21 Feb 2025 11:29:16 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21870 PLATFORM > MINDTICKLE INTEGRATIONS Maximize efficiency with smart and seamless integrations Unlock revenue growth with 100+ partner integrations to boost sales productivity Get a demo Read our white paper 👑 BENEFITS Integrations ensure your teams work smarter 📉 Centralized data and insights Integrate with sales tools and CRMs to provide a single source of truth, …

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PLATFORM > MINDTICKLE INTEGRATIONS

Maximize efficiency with smart and seamless integrations

Unlock revenue growth with 100+ partner integrations to boost sales productivity

👑 BENEFITS

Integrations ensure your teams work smarter

📉 Centralized data and insights

Integrate with sales tools and CRMs to provide a single source of truth, enabling better decision-making and streamlined workflows.

💸 Improved sales performance

With CRM data integrated with Mindtickle, you can see the full picture of your teams’ skills tied to performance in the field.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 Seamless workflow automation & collaboration

Automate tasks and integrate with collaboration tools to boost productivity.

Customers see win rates double when they use our digital sales rooms.

🖥 SSO, ACCESS & AUTHENTICATION

Secure Access & User Profile
Data Sync for User Management

SSO, Access & Authentication Integrations

Mindtickle supports secure access and synchronization of user profile data, enabling seamless user management. 

This includes integration with any Identity Provider (IdP) that supports SAML 2.0, OpenID, Google, or JWT protocols.

📁 CONTENT MANAGEMENT

Easy access to the latest content

Content Management Integrations

Mindtickle simplifies incorporating the latest content into your readiness and enablement initiatives. You can:

  • Use content from popular cloud storage platforms.

  • Integrate with leading content management systems.

  • Bring in curated content from top content providers.

🔨 PRODUCTIVITY

Seamless integration with
productivity & communication
Tools

Productivity & Communication Tools Integrations

Mindtickle integrates seamlessly with widely adopted productivity, communication, and calendaring tools, enhancing notification, scheduling, and reminder capabilities.

📚 REPORTING & INSIGHTS

Advanced reporting and insights
for sales enablement

Reporting & Business Intelligence Integrations

Mindtickle integrates with leading business intelligence tools, enabling data analysts to identify correlations between enablement activities and business outcomes. Reports can be consolidated into a central dashboard.

✏ CRM

Seamless Integration with CRM
Solutions

CRM Integrations

Mindtickle integrates with CRM solutions seamlessly to equip sales teams with personalized content, real-time coaching, and actionable insights directly within their workflow, maximizing productivity and deal success.

🤓 HRMS & LMS

Integration with HRMS and
Learning Management Systems

HRMS & LMS Integrations

Mindtickle automatically syncing with master sources of employee data ensures that the latest user information is always available for rule enforcement and automated learning plan assignments. This includes integration with Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS). Streamline training with Mindtickle’s seamless LMS integration for easy content access, uploads, and learner progress tracking.

💰 SALES ENGAGEMENT

Seamless Integration with Sales
Engagement Platforms

Sales Engagement Integrations

Mindtickle seamlessly integrates with leading Sales Engagement platforms,, to enhance sales rep productivity and enablement. This integration ensures that content is directly accessible within the sales engagement workflow, allowing reps to quickly access the needed resources without disrupting their day-to-day tasks.

With this integration, Mindtickle can track sales activities, provide real-time feedback, and sync data between platforms to ensure consistent and impactful sales engagement, helping drive better outcomes and performance across your sales team.

☎ DIALERS & WEBCONFERENCING

Integration with Dialers, Web Conferencing Platforms

Dialers & Webconferencing Integrations

Mindtickle integrates seamlessly with dialers and web conferencing platforms, bringing valuable call and meeting data directly into the platform. This integration allows sales reps to access training materials, scripts, and real-time coaching.

With Mindtickle, interactions are analyzed in real-time, providing actionable insights and personalized feedback to improve rep performance. All call and engagement data is captured and synced back into Mindtickle, enabling comprehensive reporting and performance tracking, which helps to optimize training and boost sales outcomes continuously.

🔌 APIs

REST API for custom connectivity

API support
  • Content APIs – Allows third parties to pull content metadata and just-in-time content into their systems.

  • User APIs- SCIM and Open APIs allow Mindtickle to pull users and their attributes from third-party systems. Out-of-the-box integrations can be used for specific cases.

  • Reporting API- Allows third parties to pull all Mindtickle data for external analysis.

Single source of truth as deals progress

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Speed up sales cycles with mutual action plans

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Another sub-bullet if needed

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Another sub-bullet if needed

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COLLABORATION LOREM

Collaborate & share content in one centralized place

Ramp-up-Quickly
ENGAGEMENT INSIGHTS LOREM

Understand what resonates with buyers

Ramp-up-Quickly
Real-time content insights

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Another sub-bullet if needed

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If needed

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Another sub-bullet if needed

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arht

At the end of the day, Mindtickle was ultimately the best choice based on the features, based on the pricing, and ultimately the customer service that we were given throughout the sales process.

Andrew Dorcas
Senior VP, Sales & Strategy, ARHT

USE CASE

Better buyer experiences lead to bigger deals

Learn how digital sales rooms help foster better buyer engagement dolor sit amet consectetur. Eu faucibus odio elit ullamcorper at eros neque.

man and woman shaking hands on a blue background
FEATURES

Our platform has all the digital sales room features you need

Quick blurb about your all-in-one revenue enablement platform. Nullam sit sed non tincidunt nec in ut. Interdum porta vitae amet amet augue volutpat faucibus.

Shareable URLs

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Contact Enrichment

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Feature name here

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Slack & Teams Integrations

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Security

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Feature name here

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Digital Sales Rooms are part of our award-winning, all-in-one revenue enablement platform

CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Customer success headline here dolor

“Mindtickle makes it simple for our sales and marketing teams to create personalized digital sales rooms in minutes…which allows us to customize assets quickly and efficiently. It’s been huge for us”

FirstName LastName
VP of Sales Enablement

DIGITAL SALES ROOM RESOURCES

Resources

WHITE PAPER
Buyer Enablement: Sales Enablement Evolved
man and woman shaking hands on a blue background
SALES ENABLEMENT
Why You Need a Buyer Enablement Strategy (and How to Build One That Works)
Woman looking at laptop with Sirion Labs and MIndtickle logos on a yellow background
SALES ENABLEMENT
Sirion Case Study – Digital Sales Rooms
🖥 related products

Related products

Join us

Interested in becoming a partner or learning more about our partner programs? Fill out the form and we’ll be in touch.

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Professional Services: Implementation & Onboarding | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/services/get-started-quickly/ Wed, 19 Feb 2025 07:25:44 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21815 SERVICES > GET STARTED QUICKLY Get up and running in weeks We take care of you from onboarding, ongoing training, and community events to make sure you are successful. Talk to an Expert Take a quick tour 😞 PAIN POINTS Are you struggling to onboard and implement new solutions? Onboarding and learning new solutions can …

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SERVICES

>

GET STARTED QUICKLY

Get up and running in weeks

We take care of you from onboarding, ongoing training, and community events to make sure you are successful.

😞 PAIN POINTS

Are you struggling to onboard and implement new solutions?

Onboarding and learning new solutions can seem like an uphill task. But Mindtickle takes care of you every step of the way.

It takes too long to implement new sales enablement solutions

There is too much scattered content that needs to be migrated

Driving adoption among teams is a big challenge

I don’t have a large team and struggle to launch programs quickly

✌WE CAN HELP YOU

You need enablement programs that drive meaningful business results

With the all-in-one revenue enablement platform and our experienced team, you can implement fast, launch programs quickly, and improve rep productivity

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Reduction in time to launch programs

0 %

Faster onboarding

0 %

User engagement on modules

🤗 ONBOARDING

Get up and running in weeks

We partner with you to align around your goals and define what success looks like

We can tackle migrating content efficiently and integrating with existing systems like your CRM, HRMS, and others

We’ll provide quarterly check-ins to align on outcomes, share progress, and gather feedback

“They provide a level of support that is unbelievable in the industry. We have had such great success with them. During this pitch contest, they were able to help us to create the security pitch seller testimonial videos. Highly recommend the Mindtickle team for any types of activities like this. They just get it, and they get it done.”

Chris Jackson,
Distinguished Solutions Engineer

🎓 MINDTICKLE UNIVERSITY

All the training you need for success

From onboarding and certifications to ongoing training, we have you covered

Use all the latest and greatest Mindtickle capabilities with our product release webinars and instructor-led workshops

Attend customer meet-ups in your city so you can listen, learn, and share experiences with other Mindtickle customers

🔨 CUSTOMER SUPPORT AND SUCCESS

Maximize your impact

A dedicated CSM to act as your single point of contact for all your questions

AI support assistant available within the product, plus 24/5 global support for you and your learners

A dedicated support site with detailed documentation, FAQs, and walkthrough videos

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

Integrace Health Enables Sales Team From the Top Down with Mindtickle

“The Mindtickle customer support team has been a sounding board for me whenever I had a challenge, not just in Mindtickle but building programs as a whole. It’s a win-win situation. Not only are we reducing expenses, but also saving time for the participants and enablement as well.”

Shripad Shukre, GM – Sales Training, Integrace Health

MetricStream’s Shift to a Scalable, Personalized Learning Culture

“Mindtickle is one of the most intuitive platforms I’ve used. It is user-friendly with comprehensive training resources and quick, personalized support. It’s a platform that truly makes enablement accessible and effective for teams of all sizes.” –

Samyak Jain, Senior Associate, Sales Enablement, MetricStream

Aurigo Leveraged Mindtickle for Structured Sales Enablement and Onboarding of their GTM Team

“Aurigo was able to experience all of this impact within six months of deploying Mindtickle. With improved efficiency, transparency, and sustainability, Aurigo continues to revolutionize infrastructure project delivery, reinforcing its position as a leader in the industry.”

Laura Bailey, Director of Marketing Operations Aurgio Software Technologies

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

Drive growth with the leading
revenue enablement platform

Learn more about how we can support you

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Sales Enablement Success Solutions | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/services/solutions-detail-achieve-ongoing-success/ Wed, 19 Feb 2025 07:22:54 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21813 SERVICES > ACHIEVE ONGOING SUCCESS Expertise to empower sales enablement teams Our experts are here with you every step of the way to ensure you achieve your business goals Talk to an expert Take a quick tour 😞 PAIN POINTS Are you wondering how to scale sales enablement for your organization? You’re not alone. Our …

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SERVICES

>

ACHIEVE ONGOING SUCCESS

Expertise to empower sales enablement teams

Our experts are here with you every step of the way to ensure you achieve your business goals

😞 PAIN POINTS

Are you wondering how to scale sales enablement for your organization?

You’re not alone. Our teams are experienced in tackling your unique enablement challenges head on.

My training adoption rates are lower than expected

I have a complex revenue tech stack which is difficult to integrate with

I have a small team and can’t keep up with our workload

I do not have support for my existing teams

✌WE CAN HELP YOU

You need enablement programs that drive meaningful business results

With the all-in-one revenue enablement platform and our experienced team, you can implement fast, launch programs quickly, and improve rep productivity

0 %

Reduction in time to launch programs

0 %

User engagement on modules

🤗 CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Deliver impactful enablement programs

Expert Support: Our services experts help optimize your program delivery and ensure smooth execution.

Dedicated Success Managers: Your personal point of contact for guidance, ensuring adoption and business outcomes.

Continuous Value: Receive tailored recommendations, product insights, and strategic reviews to maximize your Mindtickle investment.

arht

“At the end of the day, Mindtickle was ultimately the best choice based on the features, based on the pricing, and ultimately the customer service that we were given throughout the sales process.”

Andrew Dorcas

Andrew Dorcas
Senior VP, Sales & Strategy (former)

🚀 SUCCESS ACCELERATORS

Success Accelerators for Maximum Impact

Targeted Engagements: Pre-scoped sessions with a Mindtickle specialist to unlock the full potential of your investment.

Expert Guidance: Receive actionable advice and recommendations based on industry best practices.

Driving Outcomes: Focused on solving use cases, boosting productivity, and helping you achieve your desired results.

🔨 TECHNICAL SUPPORT

24/7 support for seamless operations

Global Support: Access to support when you need it.

Multiple Support Channels: Flexible support options including video conference, live chat, and critical 24/7 support.

Expert Technical Guidance: Get advice from experts to integrate Mindtickle smoothly into your IT systems with proven plugins and APIs.

🌐 CUSTOMER ADVISORY BOARD

Shaping the future of Mindtickle together

Influence Development: Provide feedback to shape future features and product updates.

Peer Collaboration: Connect with industry leaders to share best practices and drive mutual success.

Exclusive Insights: Get early access to new features and updates, staying ahead of the competition.

🔥 What we offer

Plus additional support

Customer Community

Ongoing Account Optimization

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

Integrace Health Enables Sales Team From the Top Down With Mindtickle

“The Mindtickle customer support team has been a sounding board for me whenever I had a challenge, not just in Mindtickle but building programs as a whole. It’s a win-win situation. Not only are we reducing expenses, but also saving time for the participants and enablement as well.”

Shripad Shukre, GM – Sales Training, Integrace Health

How Signifyd Drives Change Management with Mindtickle

“I’m constantly amazed at how much attention I get from the Mindtickle team…The support from my CSM is phenomenal—I get problem-solving, I get creative thought, I get collaboration. It isn’t just helping escalate a support ticket..”

Mike Demmert, Head of Global Organizational Development, Signifyd

MetricStream’s Journey to Smarter Enablement

“Mindtickle is truly in it to make me successful. That mission comes through in every interaction I’ve had with their team. They’re good people, trying to do good things in the enablement space.”

Theresa DeLong, Director of Sales Enablement

🧠 WHY MINDTICKLE

Our teams are here for you

Learn more about how we can support you

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Revenue Enablement for Consumer Packaged Goods | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/consumer-goods/ Mon, 17 Feb 2025 06:41:06 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21754 Solutions > CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS Boost the productivity of your CPG sellers Mindtickle evolves your training programs with smart AI enablement solutions for upskilling reps in the consumer packaged goods space. Request a demo Take a quick tour Future-proof your CPG sales strategy Read the blog 😞 WE FEEL YOUR PAIN Is your sales training …

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Solutions

>

CONSUMER PACKAGED GOODS

Boost the productivity of your CPG sellers

Mindtickle evolves your training programs with smart AI enablement solutions for upskilling reps in the consumer packaged goods space.

amazon business logo
alliance

Future-proof your CPG sales strategy

😞 WE FEEL YOUR PAIN

Is your sales training stuck in the past?

You’re not alone. We talk to CPG companies everyday who are taking the steps to modernize their approach to training their reps.

Our training process isn’t efficient or scalable. It costs a lot to onboard reps and the learning isn’t often retained.

We’re still training our reps the way we did 10 years ago, even though so much has changed in our industry.

We’re struggling to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

We’re struggling to remain competitive in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌WE CAN HELP

Modernizing CPG sales training isn’t as hard as you think.

Augment your in-person training with digital enablement content and serve it to your reps when they need it in their flow of work.

0 %

increase in deal sizes

0 %

increase in revenue per rep

0 %

faster onboarding

🤗 COMPETENCY-BASED SALES TRAINING

Create skill-based sales training programs

Create competency-based profiles for each go-to-market role

Measure and track rep’s skills against winning benchmarks

Correlate skill development with performance in the field to show the business impact of training

🔨 AI ROLE-PLAYS

Coach and practice at scale with AI

Similate selling scenarios with an AI customer that interacts with reps in realistic back-and-forth sales conversations.

Simulate real scenarios with interactive role-plays with AI customer stand-ins that ask questions and raise objections in a realistic, back-and-forth conversation.

Streamline coaching by overcoming time constraints and delivering immediate AI-driven feedback.

chat

Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time across a single initiative with AI roleplays.

🔥GET STARTED QUICKLY

No one makes it easier to build and launch CPG sales training

AI content creation

Ready-to-use content

Create engaging CPG sales enablement materials at scale with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why CPG sales training leaders love Mindtickle

Henkel modernized their sales training with Mindtickle’s enablement platform.

“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people…We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them.”

Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus

89,000

modules complete

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

You need a strong partner to drive CPG sales training transformation at scale.

Take your CPG sales training
to the next level.

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

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Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

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You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

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gartner-peer

The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

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Sales Enablement for the Chemical Industry Reps – Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/chemical/ Mon, 17 Feb 2025 06:39:07 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21753 Solutions > CHEMICALS Build an elite team of chemicals sales reps Level up and modernize your sales training with AI-powered sales enablement for the chemicals industry Request a demo Take a quick tour Learn how Henkel modernized revenue enablement at scale Read the blog 😞 CHEMICAL INDUSTRY PAIN POINTS Is your training and enablement feeling …

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Solutions

>

CHEMICALS

Build an elite team of chemicals sales reps

Level up and modernize your sales training with AI-powered sales enablement for the chemicals industry

Learn how Henkel modernized revenue enablement at scale

SCI-white-logo
ARHT-white-logo
Unisys-white-logo
😞 CHEMICAL INDUSTRY PAIN POINTS

Is your training and enablement feeling a little old-fashioned?

You’re not alone. Chemical industry sales teams are among the field-based sales orgs that continue to rely largely on in-person, manual training.

Our training process is inconsistent and not scalable. We need easier ways to help reps in the field.

The chemicals industry changes rapidly. We have a hard time keeping our reps up-to-date.

Our omnichannel sales approach means our attention is divided across a number of different selling roles.

Competition is fierce and the market is getting saturated. We struggle to maintain an edge.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌WE CAN HELP

Modernize your enablement to boost your ROI

Leverage AI to scale your sales training making it more tailored and impactful.

0 %

increase in deal sizes

0 %

increase in revenue per rep

0 %

faster onboarding

🤗 COMPETENCY-BASED SALES TRAINING

Start building ideal chemicals sales reps

Create your ideal rep profile and start identifying and building winning behaviors in your sales team.

Measure and track every rep’s skills against organizational benchmarks. Identify skill gaps and start closing them.

Correlate skill improvement to revenue outcomes. Prove the impact and ROI of your enablement efforts.

🔨 AI ROLE-PLAYS

Coach and practice at scale with AI

Create a safe space for your reps to practice and receive instant feedback with AI role-plays—sporadic coaching from managers isn’t enough to move the needle.

Use interactive role-plays with AI customer stand-ins to simulate realistic, back-and-forth sales interactions.

Overcome the bottleneck of limited coaching time by using AI to review role-play submissions and ease the grading process for managers.

chat

Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time across a single initiative with AI role-plays.

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Launch engaging training for chemical reps quickly and easily.

AI content creation

Ready-to-use content

Enable chemical sales reps at scale with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why chemical sales organizations love Mindtickle

Henkel modernized their sales training with Mindtickle’s enablement platform.

“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people…We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them,”

Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus

89,000

modules
completed

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

You need a strong partner
to drive chemical sales training
transformation at scale.

Give your reps the edge
they need.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

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The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

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Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

This is where you would tell your unified platform story and why that’s so important for your prospects dess

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How to Build a Sales Training Program for Med Device Reps https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/medical-device-sales-rep-training/ Thu, 13 Feb 2025 19:13:59 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20820 The medical device industry is key in enhancing the healthcare landscape and improving patient quality of life worldwide. Medical device innovations are integral to modern medicine, from life-saving technologies to diagnostic tools to surgical instruments. The medical device industry is experiencing healthy growth overall due to various factors, including an aging population, longer life expectancy, …

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The medical device industry is key in enhancing the healthcare landscape and improving patient quality of life worldwide. Medical device innovations are integral to modern medicine, from life-saving technologies to diagnostic tools to surgical instruments.

The medical device industry is experiencing healthy growth overall due to various factors, including an aging population, longer life expectancy, and increased prevalence of chronic disease. In fact, the global medical devices market is expected to reach $539.10 billion by the end of this year.

The global medical devices market is expected to reach

by the end of the year
$ 0 B

Yet, medical device sales reps don’t have it easy. Every day, these sellers are expected to capture (and hold) the attention of busy healthcare professionals despite stiff competition and a complex regulatory environment.

Organizations must build a strong medical device sales rep training program so sellers are always ready to overcome these challenges.

In this post, we’ll examine medical sales rep training and its critical role in success. We’ll also explore how to build a more effective medical sales rep training program so your sellers are properly equipped to engage buyers and build their book of business.

What are medical device sales?

Medical device sales Is the process of selling medical devices to healthcare professionals and medical institutions, including:

  • Hospitals
  • Clinics
  • Doctors’ offices
  • Laboratories
  • Pharmacies

But what exactly is a medical device?

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), a medical device is “any instrument, apparatus, implement, machine, appliance, implant, reagent for in vitro use, software, material or other similar or related article, intended by the manufacturer to be used, alone or in combination for a medical purpose.”

In other words, it’s any equipment used for medical purposes. That includes anything from x-ray machines to pacemakers to surgical instruments – and everything in between.

Over the last few years, the device industry has also pivoted importantly toward selling hardware and software. These companies are often starting to view themselves more like medical tech companies. This has created a new burden on sales reps, who must learn to sell an entirely new product category. And they need to do it with technical fluency as they are now speaking with clinicians and IT leaders.

Medical device sales training is critical
Medical device sales reps are expected to sell complex solutions to busy healthcare professionals in a highly regulated environment. They must know their products inside and out and master the skills needed to engage healthcare professionals across long, complex sales cycles—all while remaining compliant.

Proper medical device sales rep training is essential. In fact, with a strong medical device sales rep training program, your sellers will be properly prepared to engage buyers and close deals. But your medical devices sales rep training must be built to address the unique needs of medical device sales. A generic sales training program won’t adequately prepare these sellers for success.

Instead, you need a medical device sales training program that equips your sellers with the skills, tools, information, and support they need to overcome challenges and achieve their sales goals.

You can build an effective medical device sales rep training program by following the steps below.

How to create a medical device sales training program

Success in medical device sales depends on well-trained reps navigating complex products, evolving regulations, and high-stakes buyer interactions. A structured sales training program ensures reps have the skills, knowledge, and resources they need to succeed.

#1 Align cross-functionally

Several teams play a role in medical device sales rep training, including:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Product marketing
  • Sales or revenue enablement

#2 Define medical device sales excellence

Any medical device sales training program aims to create a team of great sellers. But first, you must define what a great seller looks like.

Document the key skills and competencies your medical device sales reps need to be successful. Creating an Ideal Rep Profile (IRP) is a great way to do this.

Some examples of must-have skills you may want to include in your IRPs include:

  • Product knowledge
  • Discovery skills
  • Active listening
  • Objection handling
  • Relationship building
  • Negotiation

It’s important to ensure these teams are aligned right from the start. That way, everyone will work towards the same goals and understand their role in achieving them.

#3 Create medical device sales rep training initiatives

Once you know what skills and competencies your medical device reps need, you can build initiatives to help them master those skills and competencies.

Sales onboarding is a great way to set up your new medical device sales reps for success. Be sure it’s built around the key skills and competencies of your IRP.

But sales onboarding isn’t enough to prepare your medical device reps for long-term success.

Why?

Gartner research found that B2B sellers forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of sales training. Creating and delivering ongoing learning opportunities that reinforce sellers’ knowledge and skills is essential.

In addition, the medical device industry is extremely dynamic. Products, regulations, markets, and customer preferences are always in flux. Ongoing medical device sales rep training ensures sellers can keep up with change.

Remember: medical device sales rep training isn’t (and shouldn’t be) limited to live classroom training. Instead, create micro-learning opportunities and just-in-time enablement that sellers can access whenever and wherever they need.

#4 Assess knowledge and boost engagement

Developing great training isn’t good if your sellers aren’t using it. So, leverage tools like leaderboards and contests to increase engagement.

In addition, quizzes and tests should be incorporated to gauge sellers’ mastery of new information and skills and keep them engaged.

#5 Create practice opportunities

Completing medical device sales rep training doesn’t mean your sellers are ready for the field. Instead, they need opportunities to practice and hone their skills.

Allow your sellers to record role-plays and submit them for feedback from their managers and peers. Or, use AI role-plays, which allow sellers to practice as much as they want with a realistic AI bot and get real-time feedback for improvement.

#6 Develop winning sales content

Content is a key ingredient of any medical device sales training program.

Some content is internal. In other words, it’s meant to be used by sellers and not distributed externally. Some examples include medtech sales battlecards and sales playbooks.

Sellers also use other content to engage buyers. Some examples are case studies, sales presentations, and sell sheets.

Be sure to create plenty of content for both types of medtech sales. Then, organize this content in a sales content management system so sellers can always find updated, compliant content whenever needed.

#7 Measure and optimize your medical device sales rep training programs

Ongoing measurement is key to any medical device sales rep training program. Of course, measuring how (and if) sellers engage with different sales training content is important. However, it’s even more important to measure how medical device sales rep training is making an impact.

For example, you can measure how sales training programs are helping your sellers build the skills documented in their IRP. One way to do this is to leverage conversation intelligence software, which records and analyzes sales calls.

You can also measure how your medical device sales rep training programs correlate with outcomes. For example, you can hone in on sellers who completed a sales training program and see whether completion is correlated with higher conversion rates or quota attainment.

Then, you can use these insights to make improvements that’ll boost the impact of your medical device sales rep training programs.

#8 Invest in the right sales training tools

A strong medical device sales rep training program requires the right tools and technology. But adding another tool onto an already-bloated tech stack isn’t the answer.

Instead, consider an all-in-one revenue enablement platform to power your medical device sales rep training programs. With the right platform, you can build your IRPs to define excellence. Then, you can create and deliver training programs to ensure every seller on your team has the training and support they need to master must-have skills.

An all-in-one revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle also offers robust data and analytics, which can help you understand how your medical device sales rep training impacts outcomes. That way, you can make data-based optimizations to improve the effectiveness of your medtech sales rep training.

Key components of medical device sales training programs

Every medical device company is different. As such, medical device sales training programs vary from organization to organization.

However, certain components are common across all effective medical device sales training programs. Those components include:

Structured onboarding

Sales onboarding lays the foundation for sales success. Delivering a consistent, structured onboarding experience is important so all new sellers can get acquainted with your company, your products, and their role.

Personalized, continuous training

Every seller has unique strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. As such, a generic, one-size-fits-all approach to medical device sales rep training will not work.

Instead, pinpoint each medical device sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, deliver tailored training and coaching to help close skill gaps and improve performance.

Ongoing sales coaching

When done well, sales coaching can reinforce what sellers learn during medical device sales rep training and positively impact sales outcomes. In fact, recent research found that nine in 10 (91%) sales managers feel coaching positively impacts their team’s performance.

of managers feel coaching positively impacts team performance
0 %

Be sure to give your sales managers the training and tools they need to deliver effective sales training at scale. In addition, look for opportunities to leverage AI to deliver real-time coaching to sales reps. That way, they can get the feedback needed to build key skills – without waiting for their sales manager.

Effective, compliant sales content

Healthcare professionals rely on sales content to make informed purchase decisions. Be sure your medical device sales reps have plenty of compliant content to engage buyers wherever they are on the purchase journey.

Consider centralizing all content into a sales content management system. That way, sellers can easily surface relevant, up-to-date, compliant content and track buyers’ engagement.

Buyer engagement tools

Medical device sales cycles tend to be long and complex. Giving sellers the tools they need to keep buyers engaged is important.

For example, consider leveraging Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs), a central hub for medical device buying and selling teams to share content, ask questions, and collaborate across the sales cycle. With DSRs, sellers can track what content their buyers are looking at and engaging with. This can provide critical visibility, particularly during long, drawn-out value analysis stages.

Robust data and analytics

With the right data and analytics, you can determine the effectiveness of your medical device sales rep training programs and identify areas for improvement. For example, you can see which programs are helping sellers improve their skills and which aren’t. Then, you can double down on medical device sales rep training initiatives that work.

An all-in-one sales training solution

Some medical device companies use disparate tools to power their sales training programs. But a better approach is to use an all-in-one sales enablement solution like Mindtickle. That way, training and enablement teams can use a single solution to build, deliver, and measure training initiatives. Sellers have a central hub to access all the training, tools, and content they need to build skills and engage buyers.

Take your medical device sales rep training to the next level with Mindtickle

Modern medical device sales reps are responsible for engaging with busy healthcare professionals and providing expert advice in a complex regulatory environment. It’s no easy feat.

With a strong medical device sales rep training program, you can ensure every seller has the skills, content, and tools to earn healthcare professionals’ trust – and their business.

Med Device Sales with Mindtickle

Ready to see why companies like Thermo Fisher Scientific, Lantheus Medical Imaging, Fresenius Medical Care, and Alcon rely on Mindtickle for their training programs?

Request Your Demo

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Sales Enablement Analytics Software | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/sales-enablement-analytics-software/ Thu, 13 Feb 2025 06:53:06 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21686 PLATFORM > ANALYTICS & DASHBOARDS Drive the transformation of your teams with data Get deep insights into sales performance, correlating training & enablement efforts to seller productivity and outcomes. Get a demo Take a quick tour Benefits How it works Features For your role Customers Resources 👑 BENEFITS Mindtickle decodes best-in-class enablement and seller insights …

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PLATFORM > ANALYTICS & DASHBOARDS

Drive the transformation of your teams with data

Get deep insights into sales performance, correlating training & enablement efforts to seller productivity and outcomes.

👑 BENEFITS

Mindtickle decodes best-in-class enablement and seller insights

Go beyond adoption metrics—transform average sellers into top performers with analytics and dashboards measuring training impact.

💸 Connect readiness to revenue

View individual and team-level reports that correlate training to business outcomes

🧗 Role-based dashboards

Provide actionable insights for all stakeholders on sales performance

🔍 Flexible reporting tailored to your needs

Build custom reports and dashboards or export data to your BI tools for centralized reporting

Stop digging through scattered data. Get real-time visibility enablement impact-all in one place.

📤 OUT-OF-THE-BOX REPORTS

In-depth insights into adoption & engagement

Analytics-depth
Track adoption and engagement

Visualize key metrics to understand which teams or reps are falling behind in program completion, helping managers drive adoption.

Identify high performing programs and content

Gain insights into which programs and content are generating the most engagement, and uncover the reasons behind their success.

Deliver targeted support for reps

Discover areas where reps need more assistance and provide them with the relevant resources or content to improve performance.

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🪜 MANAGER COMMAND CENTER

Single source of truth for managers

Benchmark team performance

Gain a clear view of both positive and negative behaviors within your sales team, helping you identify areas for improvement and reinforce successful actions.

Understand your customers

Leverage customer and prospect feedback to deeply understand target personas, pain points, and value selling

Personalize coaching

Receive tailored coaching recommendations based on rep performance data, guiding specific actions to improve behaviors and drive better outcomes.

🕐 REAL-TIME BEHAVIORS & PERFORMANCE

Assess and optimize rep performance
with real-world data

🤗 PERSONALIZed sales training lOREM
Analyze rep behaviors and skill gaps

Leverate data from sales conversations to benchmark reps, identify skill gaps, and personalize training

Measure training impact and readiness

Track rep performance against benchmarks like quota attainment and win rates using the Ideal Rep Profile™

Correlate skills with revenue results

Identify which teams or cohorts are excelling and which need personalized coaching, tracking improvements over time to optimize enablement efforts

aurigo logo

“We wanted to show how our enablement function was helping. We had long sales cycles, and Mindtickle was just blowing the other platform away as far as ease of getting to the metrics and showcasing this to the leadership team”

Laura Bailey

Laura Bailey,
Director of Marketing Operations

👉 USE CASE

Tailored coaching made scalable with AI

AI scales coaching efforts to make them more impactful and drive better business outcomes.

✅ FEATURES

The leader in turning data into action

Drive the transformation of your revenue teams with actionable insights, powered by AI.

Comprehensive reporting & dashboard
Access 100+ out-of-the-box reports on content, training, engagement, performance, and more.

Learning & performance insights
Detailed reports on learning path progress, content ROI, coaching session performance, and more.

Role & user-based reporting
Customizable reports for reps, managers, groups, and regions tailored to each role.

Self-serve reports
Custom reports that are easy to build, share, and track so your data is flexible and digestible.

Reporting APIs
Extract engagement and performance data to Excel, BI Tools, and other reporting tools via our Snowflake integration.

Competency & progress tracking
Role-based competency benchmarks and tracking against region, team, cohorts, and more. 

Analytics and dashboards power the Mindtickle revenue enablement platform

🤓 for your role

Data powering your revenue teams

Prove the impact of enablement on revenue outcomes

Sales-training

Understand the true impact of your content on deals

Develop a team of out-performers

🫶 CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Signifyd leverages reporting for
real-time visibility and accountability

“The way that Mindtickle allows me to track engagement, to assign it, for people to engage whenever they want to—I have leadership accountability through reporting, and team members can go in and see their progress.

Mike Demmert, Head of Global Organizational Development

🌏 ANALYTICS & DASHBOARD RESOURCES

Dive deeper into analytics resources

BLOG

What is Business Enablement? Everything You Need to Know

BLOG

How to Use Your CRM, Enablement Analytics, and Call AI to Inform Better Coaching

BLOG

Your Guide to Sales Analytics + The Best Sales Analytics Tools for 2024

🖥 related products

Explore more of the revenue enablement platform

Unlock insights with
sales enablement analytics

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Copilot | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/copilot/ Thu, 13 Feb 2025 06:50:52 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21685 PLATFORM > AI Copilot Capitalize on every prospect interaction with Copilot Mindtickle Copilot puts AI to work for your team. Create better buying experiences and accelerate deals with scalable, ethical and secure AI. Get a demo Take a quick tour Benefits How it works Features For your role Customers Resources 👑BENEFITS AI that works with …

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PLATFORM > AI Copilot

Capitalize on every prospect
interaction with Copilot

Mindtickle Copilot puts AI to work for your team. Create better buying experiences and accelerate deals with scalable, ethical and secure AI.

👑BENEFITS

AI that works with your teams

With limited time in front of buyers, fierce competition, and more complex buying cycles, every interaction counts. Mindtickle Copilot helps sellers prep and capitalize on every conversation.

🛍 Better buying experiences

Accelerate deal cycles and better support your customers with Copilot assisting your teams at every stage.

👯 Personalization at scale

Quickly create customized, high-impact enablement to support the immediate needs of the field.

🔐 Efficient, ethical, secure

Uphold the highest standards, keeping data secure
and interactions trustworthy.

Cisco increased deal sizes by 31% with Copilot.

🤝 DEAL ACCELERATION

AI that works deals, even when you’re offline

Land every pitch

Prep for every customer and prospect interaction with hyper-realistic selling simulations and instant AI-powered feedback.

Fast-track follow-ups

Copilot handles your meeting prep and follow-up so you can stop digging through emails and action items and start closing deals faster.

Save time

Let Copilot answer your prospect’s questions, find the right content, and write emails – freeing you to focus on strategic selling.

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How an AI Coach Takes Sales Team’s Performance to the Next Level

🤖 AI COACHING

Coach to win with Copilot

Act on insights

Understand the strengths and gaps of your teams with skill and performance reporting.

Scale coaching

Remove the manager bottleneck by letting Copilot provide feedback and grade pitches.

Fast-track deal prep

Focus on the deals and reps that need the most attention with Copilot’s call scores, summaries, and follow-ups.

📝 CONTENT CREATION

Scale your enablement efforts
with Copilot

🤗 PERSONALIZed sales training lOREM
Launch impactful training quickly

Create role-play scenarios, program outlines, and assessments quickly with Copilot.

Deliver practice at scale

Let Copilot review pitch practice submissions so managers can prioritize the reps who need 1-1 coaching.

Create self-serve enablement

Provide searchable and indexable training and content so reps can find the answers they need fast.

👉 USE CASE

Better coaching with AI

Learn how AI scales coaching efforts to personalize training for every rep and provide tailored feedback.

✅FEATURES

AI features to maximize efficiency

With Copilot, your teams have an always-on AI assistant ready to help

AI content creation
Launch enablement training quickly

AI coaching
Create hyper-realistic selling scenarios

Call summaries
Quickly review calls across reps and deals

Call scoring
Understand the performance of reps on each call

Call follow-ups
Automate follow-ups for customers and prospects

AI-powered search
Surface the right training and content quickly

Copilot is part of our award-winning,
all-in-one revenue enablement platform

🤓 for your role

Copilot powers leading revenue teams

Always-on enablement with Copilot

Lead a team of out-performers

Streamline and scale with Copilot

🫶CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Cisco increased deal sizes by 31% with Copilot

“Sellers who scored really high on the security pitch had an average of $110,000 more in security bookings. This highlighted the direct link between pitch mastery and, ultimately, sales performance. These metrics demonstrate the ROI that we got by incorporating copilot.”

Chris Jackson
Distinguished Solutions Engineer

🖥 related products

Explore more of the platform

Ready to power your
revenue teams with Copilot?

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How a Sales Enablement Platform Can Help You Tackle Your Biggest Chemical Sales Challenges  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/chemical-sales-enablement/ Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:12:39 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20818 The chemical industry plays a fundamental role in modern society, powering a whole host of products and services—from building materials to pharmaceuticals to agriculture supplies – to name a few. It’s hard to imagine an industry more embedded in our daily lives. But chemical sales is no easy feat. Reps face many challenges daily, including …

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The chemical industry plays a fundamental role in modern society, powering a whole host of products and services—from building materials to pharmaceuticals to agriculture supplies – to name a few. It’s hard to imagine an industry more embedded in our daily lives.

But chemical sales is no easy feat. Reps face many challenges daily, including a crowded marketplace, shifting consumer preferences, a complex regulatory landscape, and long sales cycles.

Increasingly, chemical organizations are turning to sales enablement strategies and tools to help their sellers overcome these common challenges and close more deals. In this post, we’ll explore the obstacles chemical sales teams face and how the right sales enablement platform can equip sellers with the skills, tools, and resources they need to overcome those challenges and come out on top.

What are the biggest pain points for chemical sales reps?

The life of a chemical sales rep isn’t easy. In fact, these sellers often face a variety of challenges daily.

The sales process has evolved from demand creation to demand fulfillment. Today, customers come to the table more informed than ever and have specific requirements. Chemical reps must be agile and ready to shift their approach to meet customers’ expectations.

Reps must understand their products inside and out. But product offerings, compliance requirements, and customer expectations are always evolving. Once-and-done sales training doesn’t adequately prepare these sellers to retain knowledge and keep pace with change.

Sales content plays an important role in specialty chemical sales. Yet, sellers often struggle to find up-to-date, compliant sales content to use with their prospects.

If sellers share irrelevant content, buyers will disengage. Furthermore, outdated, non-compliant content can tarnish trust and lead to regulatory action.

The chemicals marketplace is very competitive. At the same time, consumers’ preferences related to chemicals are always evolving. For example, we’re seeing increased demand for clean or sustainable products. Reps must be able to articulate how their solutions are different from the competition.

Relationships have always been important in chemical sales. But building those relationships can be challenging when all interactions are digital. Reps need the right tools to engage buyers and earn their trust.

Reps are increasingly tasked with administrative roles like price control, which reduces the time they can spend on core selling activities.

Reps depend on the right technology to do their jobs. But often, they’re expected to use a wide range of disjointed tools.

How can a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle help improve chemical sales?

A sales enablement program powered by the right tools can help any chemical organization overcome its top challenges and achieve its sales goals.

Adding disparate point solutions to your tech stack isn’t the right answer. Instead, consider swapping these disjointed solutions for an all-in-one sales enablement like Mindtickle. That way, sellers have everything they need to grow their skills and knowledge and deliver engaging, personalized buyer experiences from one platform.

Consistent sales onboarding

The sooner your new chemicals sales reps can get up to speed, the sooner they can contribute to revenue growth. A sales enablement platform like Mindtickle makes creating and delivering a consistent onboarding experience easy for all reps. That way, your sellers are ready to hit the ground running – faster.

Tailored, ongoing learning – anytime, anywhere

Chemical sales training can’t be a one-time event. After all, Gartner research found that sellers forget 70% of information within a week of sales training. Ongoing training and reinforcement ensure learning sticks.

Furthermore, change is constant in specialty chemical sales. Ongoing training and enablement help sellers adapt quickly to market changes and maintain up-to-date product knowledge.

With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can build and deliver interactive learning experiences that engage reps and help them master the skills and knowledge they need to be successful, like:

  • Technical expertise
  • Objection handling
  • Regulatory compliance

Training shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, leaders can identify each seller’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, they can deliver tailored training and enablement to help sellers improve their weaker skills. In addition, rich analytics and insights help sales leaders understand how training and enablement are impacting skill mastery and sales performance. They can use these insights to adapt their approach.

Many reps spend significant time away from their desks. With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, sellers can access training and enablement anywhere, from any device.

Certification and data-driven sales coaching

Completing training doesn’t guarantee success. Reps need additional support to take on any deal confidently.

With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can leverage sales certifications to ensure sellers are ready for the field. In addition, you can access data to identify sellers’ lagging skills and deliver personalized sales coaching to help close gaps and improve performance.

Real-time feedback and coaching

Manager-led sales coaching can significantly impact performance. However, traditional sales coaching practices are labor-intensive and difficult to scale.

Sales enablement platforms like Mindtickle allow sellers to get real-time feedback and coaching without waiting for a sales manager.

With Mindtickle, sellers can get immediate feedback anytime they complete a sales call or submit a role-play. With AI role-plays, they can practice their skills with an adaptive AI bot and get feedback. Reps can use this feedback to improve skills and behaviors before entering the field.

Tools for tailored buyer experiences

Reps must work to build strong, lasting relationships with prospects. But it’s not always easy. Today’s chemical buyers are well-informed and come to the table with lofty expectations.

A modern sales enablement platform equips sellers with the tools they need to deliver outstanding experiences tailored to each buyer’s needs and preferences, wherever they are on the purchase journey.

For example, sales content management tools make it easy for sellers to find content that resonates with every buyer. Reps can also get AI-powered, data-based content recommendations.

Digital collaboration rooms

In addition, chemical sales reps can leverage digital sales rooms to centralize all activity in one spot. In a digital sales room, all buying and selling group members can share content, ask questions, and collaborate throughout the sales cycle. Sellers can also access analytics to determine how their buyers are (or aren’t) engaging in the digital sales room. They can use these insights to adapt their approach and deliver more relevant buying experiences.

AI tools to streamline and automate mundane tasks

Chemical sales reps, like all sales reps, find themselves increasingly distracted with repetitive administrative tasks. Often, that means they don’t spend enough time on core sales activities.

Mindtickle Copilot is an AI productivity assistant that streamlines time-consuming tasks so reps can spend more time selling. For example, a rep can ask Copilot a question raised by one of their prospects. Copilot can provide an answer, along with supporting content. That means the seller can return to the buyer with an accurate answer, and the deal can progress faster.

Copilot can also help reps prepare for sales calls. For example, a sales rep can ask Copilot which competitors a prospect brought up on their most recent call and what action items they agreed to. Then, the seller can get prepared to conquer the next sales call without reviewing call recordings or notes.

Data to drive optimizations

Ongoing measurement is key to any sales enablement strategy. With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, every team member has the insights they need to make better decisions.

For example, chemical sales reps can understand how (and whether) their prospects engage with sales content. They can use these insights to decide what steps to take next, and AI can even suggest the next best action.

On the other hand, sales enablement leaders can see how chemical sales reps engage with training and enablement and how this engagement impacts performance. They can use these insights to optimize their programs to better support their chemical sales reps.

With a sales enablement platform, revenue leaders can measure sales performance and how deals progress along the sales cycle. They can use these insights to fuel data-based optimizations to processes and procedures.

Benefits of a sales enablement platform for chemical sales reps

More and more chemical sales companies are investing in sales enablement strategies and platforms. It’s easy to see why.

Finding the right sales enablement platform can significantly impact how your sellers engage with buyers and close deals.

Better alignment among customer-facing teams

Many teams deliver great buyer experiences – including sales, marketing, sales enablement, and customer success – among others. But often, these teams work in silos. The result? Disjointed experiences that send prospective customers packing.

A sales enablement platform serves as a central hub for all customer-facing teams. All teams understand the organization’s goals and their role in achieving them. This alignment results in seamless buyer experiences across the entire sales cycle.

Confident chemical sales reps who consistently crush their goals

Chemical sales reps need the right skills, tools, and resources to be ready for any deal. For example, chemical sales reps need ongoing training on product offerings, competition, and compliance requirements. And they need the right content to engage every buyer, wherever they are in the sales cycle.

A sales enablement platform ensures sellers have everything they need – all in one place. Then, they’ll be ready to conquer any deal that comes their way confidently.

More time for selling

Recent research found that sales reps spend less than 30% of their time on core selling activities. That’s simply not enough.

Reps spend less than

of their time on core selling activities
0 %

With a sales enablement platform, your sellers have a single place to access training, tools, content, and resources. That means they can spend less time searching for what they need and more time engaging buyers.

In addition, the AI features of revenue enablement platforms like Mindtickle enable sellers to streamline and automate mundane tasks like finding content and drafting emails. Again, this frees up chemical sales reps’ time to engage more with prospects.

Shorter sales cycles

Chemical sales cycles tend to be lengthy. This is especially true for chemical sales companies that sell to large businesses with many locations.

However, when sellers have the right tools and information readily available via a sales enablement platform, friction in the sales cycle is reduced.

For example, just-in-time enablement allows sellers to get real-time answers to buyers’ questions – without waiting on a subject matter expert. That means sellers can get back to their buyers sooner, and deals can accelerate.

In addition, sales enablement platforms can leverage AI to recommend content for specific sales scenarios. That means sellers can use proven content to accelerate deal cycles rather than spending time guessing what will work.

Better buyer experiences

Today’s chemical buyers expect great products and services. But they also expect outstanding customer experiences. If their expectations aren’t met, they’ll look elsewhere.

A sales enablement platform equips chemical sales reps with the skills, content, and tools they need to deliver tailored experiences to every prospect. Buyers with excellent experiences are likelier to become loyal customers who stick around long-term. They’re also more likely to refer your business to others.

Higher rep retention rates

Retaining good reps is a challenge for just about any industry. When your turnover rates are high, you must sink time into filling vacant roles and onboarding new sellers – only to turn around and do it all over again.

The right sales enablement platform can make your chemical sales reps feel supported from their first day on the job. When sellers feel supported and have opportunities for learning and development, they’re more likely to stay with your company long-term.

Start conquering chemical sales with Mindtickle

Now, more than ever, chemical sales companies must ensure their sellers have what it takes to outpace the competition in the face of increasing challenges. A solid sales enablement strategy – powered by the right platform–is necessary.

But not all sales enablement platforms are built for the needs of modern chemical sales teams. Mindtickle is.

Mindtickle is an award-winning revenue enablement platform that can elevate the performance of your entire chemical sales team

Better Chemical Sales with Mindtickle

Ready to overcome your biggest chemical sales challenges? See how a sales enablement platform can help your team close more deals, faster.

Request Your Demo

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How Sales Enablement Redefines Automotive Training https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/automotive-sales-enablement/ Tue, 11 Feb 2025 15:20:58 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20808 In the past few years, automotive brands have certainly felt the squeeze. A challenging economic environment left fewer consumers willing (and able) to purchase a new vehicle. But many automotive businesses are optimistic about the year ahead – for good reason. Cox Automotive predicts that in 2025, new vehicle sales will reach 16.3 million units, …

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In the past few years, automotive brands have certainly felt the squeeze. A challenging economic environment left fewer consumers willing (and able) to purchase a new vehicle.

But many automotive businesses are optimistic about the year ahead – for good reason. Cox Automotive predicts that in 2025, new vehicle sales will reach 16.3 million units, making this the best year for sales since before the pandemic.

In 2025, new vehicles sales will reach

0 M units

But that doesn’t mean automotive sales will suddenly be easy or guaranteed.

Automotive buyers have high expectations and an overwhelming amount of options. Reciting a list of features isn’t enough to meet those expectations and drive automotive sales.

Instead, winning automotive brands invest in sales enablement strategies, programs, and tools to ensure their sellers have what it takes to deliver engaging buyer experiences and close more deals.

Sales enablement for the automotive industry

Modern automotive buyers expect great products and services. But increasingly, they also demand outstanding buyer experiences.

Often, their expectations aren’t met. According to a recent report, around a quarter of automotive buyers are dissatisfied with their interactions with automotive sellers. If an automotive buyer isn’t satisfied, they won’t hesitate to take their business elsewhere.

of automotive buyers are dissatisfied with their interactions with sellers
0 %

Many automotive sales organizations are implementing sales enablement programs so every seller has the automotive training, tools, and resources to be ready to meet (and even exceed) automotive buyers’ expectations.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the top ways the automotive industry is leveraging sales enablement to ensure sales reps are ready to engage any car buyer that comes their way.

Sales onboarding

The sooner new automotive sellers can get up to speed, the sooner they can contribute to revenue growth. A robust sales onboarding program helps ensure every new automotive seller is set up for success, and it’s one of the pillars of a holistic automotive sales enablement program.

Ongoing automotive sales training

In the world of automotive sales, change is constant. Automotive innovation, buyer preferences, and compliance requirements are always evolving.

Ongoing automotive sales training for your dealership network ensures sellers know the ins and outs of the products and services you’re selling and can master the skills they need to deliver outstanding experiences that meet customers’ expectations. With mobile learning environments, sellers access automotive sales training wherever and whenever needed. This is essential for distributed automotive sales teams.

Just in time automotive sales enablement

Questions and challenges can arise anytime, anywhere. With just-in-time automotive enablement, sales reps can always find the content and information they need to conquer any sales scenario.

Targeted sales coaching

Sales coaching can significantly impact performance. A winning enablement program ensures dealerships and automotive sales reps receive personalized sales coaching that helps them improve their skills and performance.

Engaging, relevant automotive sales content

Sales content plays an important role in the automotive purchase journey. A sales enablement strategy ensures automotive sellers can easily find sales content that’ll resonate with each buyer and tailor those materials to fit the individual customer’s needs and preferences.

Role-plays

Practice opportunities help automotive sellers hone their skills before they use them with customers. Sales reps can share recorded role-plays and get feedback from sales managers and peers. With AI role-plays, they can practice their skills with an adaptive AI bot and get real-time feedback.

Digital sales rooms

Reps must deliver outstanding buyer experiences before, during, and after the sale. With digital sales rooms, dealers can share content, manuals, and other key documents – all in one spot. Dealers can track customer engagement to adapt their sales approach. After the sale, reps can use these insights to create opportunities for cross-selling.

Benefits of automotive sales enablement

Today, the most successful automotive brands invest in sales enablement strategies, programs, and technology. And it’s no wonder why. An enablement program can have a large, positive impact on how your sellers engage with buyers and sell vehicles.

Boost seller confidence

Confident sellers are better able to win the trust of automotive buyers. An sales enablement strategy ensures sellers have the right skills, tools, and resources to navigate (and conquer) any sales scenario confidently.

Get new reps selling – faster

The automotive industry’s turnover tends to be higher. That means you likely have new sellers joining the team regularly.

A structured onboarding program gives sellers a solid foundation to start selling sooner. And ongoing training and enablement provide the opportunities automotive sellers need to sharpen their must-have sales skills.

Ensure sellers keep pace with change

Change is constant in sales. New technology emerges, consumer preferences shift, and regulations change.

With sales enablement, reps always have the training, tools, and information they need to keep pace with change. For example, one component of a holistic sales enablement strategy may be a centralized repository for electric vehicle training and content so sellers can be well-versed in its features and benefits.

Attract great sellers and increase seller retention

Turnover is typically higher in automotive sales than in other industries. Per recent data, automotive dealerships experience an annualized seller turnover rate of just over 40%. It takes time and resources to continuously backfill those positions and ensure new sellers are properly onboarded and trained.

Providing a holistic sales enablement program can help you attract great candidates. According to a LinkedIn report, one of the top five factors people consider when considering a new job is whether or not there are opportunities to learn and develop.

A winning sales enablement program can also significantly impact seller retention. In fact, according to the same report, providing learning opportunities is the #1 way organizations are working to improve retention.

Better buyer experiences

Offering great automotive products is important. But today’s automotive buyers also demand great experiences. And they won’t hesitate to take their business elsewhere if their expectations aren’t met.

A modern sales enablement program equips customer-facing teams with the tools and resources they need to deliver engaging customer experiences, whether the shopper is researching independently or visiting the dealership. For example, sellers can use digital sales rooms to share content and communicate with buyers – all in one spot.

Rev up your automotive sales performance with Mindtickle

Overall, automotive sales are expected to grow this year. But success isn’t guaranteed. The automotive brands that deliver outstanding buyer experiences will be most successful.

With a winning enablement strategy, your sellers will have the skills, tools, and resources to attract, engage, and convert automotive buyers.

The right sales enablement technology is foundational to any enablement strategy.

Better Automotive Sales with Mindtickle

Ready to see why top automotive brands depend on Mindtickle to ensure their sellers have what it takes to deliver winning buyer experiences?

Request Your Demo

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Request A Demo https://www.mindtickle.com/request-a-demo/ Tue, 11 Feb 2025 10:24:29 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21569 REQUEST A DEMO Start Changing Behaviors with Revenue Enablement Talk to the Mindtickle team to learn how to make enablement a change agent and revenue driver. Leader in Forrester’s Sales Readiness Wave Report, 2024 with highest possible score in 8 of 11 criteria Leader in Sales Enablement Platform by Software Reviews Leader on G2 grids …

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REQUEST A DEMO

Start Changing Behaviors with Revenue Enablement

Talk to the Mindtickle team to learn how to make enablement a change agent and revenue driver.

  • Leader in Forrester’s Sales Readiness Wave Report, 2024 with highest possible score in 8 of 11 criteria
  • Leader in Sales Enablement Platform by Software Reviews
  • Leader on G2 grids for 6 categories including Sales Performance Management
Trusted by leading companies
mindtickle-customers-demonew copy
💬 tESTIMONIALS

Customers love Mindtickle

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9 of the Best Sales Coaching Software, Tools, & Platforms https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-coaching-software/ Fri, 07 Feb 2025 15:05:48 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20789 Modern revenue leaders understand that sales coaching is key to sales success. Sales coaching can help every team member achieve their full potential when done well. In fact, recent research found that nearly all (91%) of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts team performance. of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts team performance 0 % …

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Modern revenue leaders understand that sales coaching is key to sales success. Sales coaching can help every team member achieve their full potential when done well.

In fact, recent research found that nearly all (91%) of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts team performance.

of sales managers feel coaching positively impacts team performance
0 %

Investing in sales coaching software can help you improve the effectiveness of your coaching initiatives. But not all sales coaching software is the same. Finding sales coaching tools that align with your needs and goals is important.

In this post, we’ll examine 9 of the top sales coaching software tools today. We’ll discuss the pros and cons of each platform so you can narrow down the options that best suit your needs and goals.

Best sales coaching platforms on the market
Without further ado, here’s a list of the 10 best sales coaching software solutions on the market today. Later on, we’ll dive deeper into each sales coaching tool so you can better understand which coaching tools may be right for you.

  1. Mindtickle
  2. Brainshark
  3. Showpad
  4. Gong
  5. Dialpad
  6. Clari
  7. Spekit
  8. Seismic
  9. Highspot

What is sales coaching software?

Before we examine the features and benefits of some of the most popular sales coaching tools, let’s define sales coaching software.

Sales coaching, defined

Sales coaching provides ongoing guidance and support to sellers to improve their skills, strategies, and sales performance.

Many sales managers focus on providing deal coaching to sales reps. This guidance is focused on improving the outcome of an open deal. While deal coaching is important, the most successful sales managers also deliver skill coaching, which ensures sellers build the skills they need for long-term success with your company.

A rep’s manager is most often responsible for sales coaching. However, many organizations use artificial intelligence to deliver personalized, real-time coaching at scale.

Sales coaching platform, defined

A sales coaching platform is a tool commonly used by revenue organizations to deliver feedback and guidance to sales teams.

Sales managers use sales coaching software to gain insight into a seller’s strengths and weaknesses and their performance in the field. Then, managers can use the sales coaching platform to deliver feedback and measure how coaching impacts the rep’s mastery of skills and performance in the field.

Sellers use sales coaching software as a single hub for accessing the feedback and guidance they need to bolster their skills and improve performance. Sales coaching platforms allow sellers to access coaching from various sources, including managers and peers.

Some sales coaching platforms also leverage artificial intelligence to deliver real-time coaching based on sales calls and role-play performance. For example, a seller can role-play with an adaptive, AI-powered bot and receive real-time feedback throughout the experience. The seller can use this feedback to improve performance on their next role-play or sales call.

Sales coaching platforms also feature robust data and analytics. Organizations can use these insights to measure the impact of sales coaching and optimize their sales coaching programs.

How do you choose the right sales coaching platform?

If you search for “sales coaching software,” you’ll see plenty of options. And each one promises to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales coaching programs.

Which is the right sales coaching platform for you? Making that decision requires you to weigh several factors. Let’s take a look at a few.

Sales coaching goals and program scope

To identify the right sales coaching software, you must first define the goals you hope to achieve with sales coaching. You must also clearly define the scope of your sales coaching program. For example, is sales coaching exclusively for sales reps? Or will you also provide “coach the coach” programs for sales managers?

Once you’ve defined your sales coaching goals and program scope, you can search for sales coaching software with the right features and functionality to support your program. For example, if you’re an organization that uses peer-to-peer coaching, find a sales coaching platform that allows sellers to exchange feedback easily. If you record your sales call or plan to in the future, consider a solution that can record and analyze calls and provide coaching functionality within calls.

Budget

Determine your budget for sales coaching software. Then, look for options that fit it.

But price shouldn’t be the only consideration. You should also determine the value of different sales coaching platforms for your organization.

For example, if a sales coaching platform is more expensive than other options – but also delivers greater ROI – it may be worth the larger investment.

Ease of use

If a sales coaching platform is hard to use, your sales team won’t use it. It’s as simple as that.

Be sure to look for easy sales coaching software for sellers and their managers to use and navigate.

Rather than purchasing stand-alone sales coaching software, consider investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform with great sales coaching tools. That way, sellers have a single hub for all onboarding, training, coaching, calls, and enablement. Then, they can spend less time switching between disparate tools.

Feedback from other customers

Talking to sales reps and scheduling product demos are great ways to learn about different sales coaching platforms. However, it’s also important to seek unbiased feedback from the experts who have actually used the platform.

Sales coaching software vendors often have case studies or testimonials on their websites, which allow you to learn how other businesses have used the tool to solve their challenges. In addition, consider reading product reviews from past and existing customers on G2.

Best sales coaching platforms, tools, & software

Earlier, we shared a list of the 10 sales coaching platforms, tools, and software. Now, let’s take a closer look at each one so you can start narrowing your search.

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
Price: Mindtickle offers three pricing editions. Request a demo for customized pricing information.

Mindtickle isn’t a standalone sales coaching platform. Instead, it’s an all-in-one revenue enablement platform that equips sellers with the training, coaching, tools, and resources they need to deliver great buying experiences and close more deals faster.

Our suite of sales coaching tools enables organizations to deliver tailored, data-based coaching relevant to the needs of every seller on the team.

Mindtickle equips sales managers with rich insights into each seller’s strengths and weaknesses. For example, managers can assess sellers’ skills and get insight into how they perform on sales calls and in role-plays. Sales managers can use these insights to deliver coaching that builds on sellers’ strengths and improves their weaknesses.

While manager-led coaching is important, it’s also labor-intensive. This is especially true for the large portion of sales managers who indicate their teams are larger now than just a year ago. Mindtickle also leverages AI to deliver real-time coaching and feedback to sellers with role-plays. This gives sellers a safe place to practice their pitches and improve without waiting for a manager to review or give feedback.

Notable features

  • Ideal Rep Profiles (IRPs) allow sales leaders to outline the skills reps need to master to be successful in their roles. Organizations can create different IRPs for different customer-facing roles.
  • The Readiness Index allows managers to measure sellers against the IRP to pinpoint their strengths and weaknesses.
  • Skill and performance data helps sales managers identify their top and bottom performers so they can provide coaching to improve outcomes.
  • Conversation intelligence tools analyze and benchmark call performance so sellers can improve behaviors and outcomes.
  • Conversation intelligence tools provide sales managers with insights into their team’s performance, which can inform sales coaching.
  • Role-plays allow sellers to practice their skills and get manager and artificial intelligence feedback.
  • Role-plays allow sellers to practice their skills in dynamic environments with an AI bot and receive real-time feedback for improvement.
  • Tracking capabilities allow sales leaders to keep a pulse on the coaching behaviors of managers.
  • A flexible and mobile-first platform means managers can deliver coaching from anywhere.
  • Best-in-class templates enable organizations to launch coaching programs quickly and easily.
  • Peer-to-peer coaching tools allow reps to learn from each other.
  • Enablement suggestions allow reps to proactively work on lagging skills.

Best for

Mindtickle has more than one million users across the globe. Organizations of all sizes and types rely on Mindtickle to build best-in-class sales coaching programs. Mindtickle has customers in a wide variety of industries, including:

  • Automotive
  • Medical devices
  • Consumer goods
  • Chemical
  • Technology
  • Manufacturing
  • Pharmaceuticals
Bigtincan-logo

Price: Bigtincan Readiness offers multiple pricing options, depending on your needs. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Bigtincan Readiness (formerly known as Brainshark) is a tool that helps equip sellers to deliver outstanding buying experiences. It also enables organizations to deliver impactful training and personalized sales coaching.

Notable features

  • CoachingAI enables sellers to access real-time feedback without relying on their manager’s schedule.
  • Readiness Scorecards enable sales managers to determine sellers’ weaknesses so they can provide coaching to close gaps.
  • Readiness CRM Scorecards enable organizations to understand whether or not coaching efforts are impacting results.

Cons

Bigtincan Readiness users note some downsides of the sales coaching platform, including:

  • A steep learning curve
  • Limited customization options
  • A confusing interface that’s not intuitive or user-friendly
  • Missing features that are common in other sales coaching platforms
showpad-logo

Price: Showpad Coach offers two pricing tiers: Essential and Plus. Contact Showpad for detailed pricing information.

Showpad is a popular sales enablement platform that aligns marketing and revenue teams to deliver better buying experiences. The platform has two components: Showpad Coach and Showpad Content.

Notable features

  • Analytics shed light on what skills and behaviors set star performers apart.
  • AI-powered coaching delivers instant feedback on recorded role-plays, which sellers can use to improve their pitch.
  • Integrates with many other tools and technology commonly used by revenue teams.

Cons

Showpad users cite certain drawbacks of the platform, including:

  • Limited features
  • Poor search functionality
  • Overall confusion with the platform
Gong logo

Price: Gong pricing varies based on the needs of your organization. Contact Gong for personalized pricing information.

Gong is a revenue intelligence platform enabling companies to understand customer interactions and leverage those insights to improve outcomes. The platform also offers sales coaching tools that help organizations replicate the behaviors of their top reps.

Notable features

  • Powerful insights help you determine what your best sales reps are doing differently so you can work to replicate those behaviors across the entire team.
  • Analysis of interactions to understand where there are coaching opportunities.
  • Peer-to-peer coaching enables sales reps to share and learn from one another.

Cons

Gong users cite challenges with the sales coaching tool related to:

  • Recording issues
  • Accuracy issues
  • Missing features

Price: Dialpad offers multiple pricing tiers. Dialpad’s standard plan is $15 per user per month, and its Pro plan is $25 per user per month. Dialpad also offers an Enterprise plan. Organizations can contact Dialpad for detailed pricing on the Enterprise plan.

Dialpad is an all-in-one customer communication platform. With Dialpad, sellers can engage with buyers through a variety of channels – all from one platform. Dialpad’s Ai Coaching Hub enables sellers to access personalized real-time coaching and feedback.

Notable features

  • AI scorecards grade every sales conversation and analyze the customer experience.
  • AI Call Purpose identifies a caller’s intent.
  • AI-powered live coaching provides real-time feedback and sales recommendations.

Cons

Dialpad can be a great tool for coaching sales teams more effectively. However, some users indicate the sales coaching platform has a poor user interface.

Price: Clari offers customized pricing based on the organization’s needs. Contact Clari for detailed pricing information.

Clari is an all-in-one, unified revenue platform that helps organizations drive predictable revenue growth. Its sales coaching tools empower sellers to improve performance in real-time.

Notable features

  • Copilot delivers real-time coaching during live sales calls.
  • AI-powered insights enable managers and sellers to centralize call insights.
  • Integrates with many of the major tools revenue teams use.

Cons

Clari users note downsides to the sales coaching software, including:

  • A steep learning curve
  • Limited customizations
  • Platform limitations
  • Missing features
  • Problems with the Salesforce integration

Price: Spekit does not publish pricing information. Contact the company for custom pricing information.

Spekit is a sales enablement platform. It provides sellers with the answers, content, and training they need – right within the flow of work.

Notable features

  • Real-time sales coaching provides just-in-time feedback to sales reps.
  • Sales coaching is delivered within the tools sales reps already use, including Salesforce, LinkedIn, ZoomInfo, and others.
  • Bite-sized knowledge is available right within a seller’s flow of work.

Cons

Spekit users face some challenges when using the sales coaching platform, including:

  • Missing features
  • Inadequate search functionality
  • Issues with content management
seismic

Price: Seismic offers custom packages and pricing to fit the needs of the business. Contact Seismic for personalized pricing information.

Seismic is a unified sales enablement platform that ensures customer-facing teams have the right skills, content, tools, and insights. It has over 2,000 customers worldwide, ranging from startups to large enterprises.

Notable features

  • Rich data helps sales managers identify reps’ knowledge gaps so they can deliver customized coaching plans to fill those gaps.
  • Real-time coaching empowers sellers to refine their pitch before taking it into the field.
  • Integrates with many other tools, including CRMS, email, and collaboration software.

Cons

While Seismic is a popular sales coaching platform, users face challenges related to:

  • Navigation difficulty
  • Layout issues
  • Limited features
  • Confusing, an interface that’s not intuitive

Price: Highspot offers a range of packages and pricing options. Contact the company for customized pricing information.

Highspot is a popular AI-driven sales enablement platform. Customer-facing teams use It to deliver buying experiences that increase revenue and customer retention.

Notable features

  • AI-driven coaching delivers real-time competency and delivery feedback, which sellers can implement right away.
  • Sales coaching tools enable managers to understand how sellers perform in the field and identify opportunities for skills coaching.
  • 360-degree assessments and scorecards allow managers to consistently evaluate and coach every member of the team.

Cons

Highspot users say there are some downsides to the sales coaching platform, including:

  • A steep learning curve
  • Navigation difficulty
  • Layout issues
  • Confusing platform that’s not intuitive

Kick your sales coaching into high gear with the right sales coaching software

Sales coaching, when it’s done well, can have a large impact on sales performance. Consider that top-performing sales reps receive significantly more coaching than lower performers. That’s no coincidence.

The right sales coaching software is a key ingredient of any sales coaching strategy. With the right sales coaching tools, you can deliver targeted training that addresses the needs of every sales rep. And, you can measure the impact of coaching on reps’ skills mastery and performance.

Today, several sales coaching platforms are on the market, each with unique features and functionality. While some sales coaching tools are standalone platforms, others are part of integrated sales enablement platforms.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform with robust sales coaching tools. With Mindtickle, sales managers can identify reps’ strengths and weaknesses. Sellers can also access manager-led and AI-driven feedback to grow their skills and improve performance.

Sales Coaching in Mindtickle

Ready to see why Mindtickle is the best sales coaching platform today?

Request Your Demo

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6 Types of Sales Metrics to Understand and Improve Performance https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-types-of-sales-metrics-to-understand-and-improve-performance-mindtickle-3/ Tue, 04 Feb 2025 05:26:00 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=17870 In the world of sales, tracking the right metrics is critical. By monitoring key sales metrics, you get insight into what’s driving your success – and what’s holding you back. Then, you can use these insights to make better decisions that optimize your growth. Increasingly, sales leaders acknowledge that tracking the right sales metrics is …

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In the world of sales, tracking the right metrics is critical. By monitoring key sales metrics, you get insight into what’s driving your success – and what’s holding you back. Then, you can use these insights to make better decisions that optimize your growth.

Increasingly, sales leaders acknowledge that tracking the right sales metrics is key to better decision-making. Gartner predicts that by 2026, 65% of B2B revenue organizations will move from intuition-based decision-making to data-driven strategies. 

But there are many different sales metrics. Which metrics must you track to understand (and improve) sales performance? 

In this post, we’ll take a closer look at:
 

What are sales metrics?

Sales metrics are data points that represent the performance of an individual salesperson or a full sales team. Management and other leaders use different types of sales metrics to track progress, identify issues, and prepare for future growth.

Sales management metrics aren’t just for visibility. They’re also a great way to incentivize sales teams to hit targets consistently. Sales leaders can use metrics to fine-tune training and make any necessary adjustments to individual learning, contributing to better overall performance.

Essentially, sales performance metrics aim to steer sales teams in the right direction. This information helps identify problems in the sales process, grow revenue, and increase competitiveness in today’s marketplace.

How to choose the most important sales performance metrics to track

Different businesses need to track different types of sales metrics. It’s up to you to decide which are most important for your industry, customer base, and individual teams — but it’s always smart to keep these ideas in mind:

  • Have a goal: Every tracked metric should have a purpose, such as supporting sales enablement or providing insight into your sales onboarding process.
  • Unite your data: Sales metrics don’t exist in a vacuum. Ensure they work together to create visibility into your entire sales process and customer journey.
  • Skip the vanity metrics: Vanity metrics, such as views or attendee numbers, don’t actually contribute to your sales performance or revenue. Don’t get too caught up in this information.
  • Stay consistent: You don’t have to track the same metrics all the time, but always use a single method for tracking and recording data so your numbers remain consistent.
  • Learn: When choosing which sales metrics to track, remember that you’re supporting your sales team, sales forecasting, and more. Learn from your data and put those insights to good use for your business overall.

The 6 most important types of sales metrics

Since there are a plethora of sales metrics available, it can be difficult to figure out which ones to track. Let’s take a closer look at five of the most important sales metrics:

1. Sales KPIs

Sales KPIs are connected to company-wide goals or objectives, which means this data allows organizations to measure overall performance. Managers often depend on sales KPIs to make informed business decisions. That’s because sales KPIs help identify key gaps related to product-market fit, sales team efficiency, and more.

The most important sales KPIs include:

  • Customer lifetime value (CLV): The amount of money a customer will spend during their entire relationship with your business.
  • Revenue from new customers: The revenue you get exclusively from new business or first-time buyers.
  • Revenue from existing customers: The revenue you earn from up- or cross-selling to current or previous customers.
  • Year-over-year growth: Your sales performance compared to the same time period last year.

2. Hiring and onboarding metrics

With the right hiring and sales onboarding observations and metrics, managers can fine-tune job descriptions and reduce the risk of future hiring mistakes, which can cost a great deal of time, money and headaches down the road. Sales leaders will also have valuable data that informs them of when and how to recruit new candidates.

The top hiring and onboarding metrics include:

  • Sales ramp-up time: Average time for new sales representatives to be completely productive.
  • Productivity: The ratio of sales to quota capacity, and the actual monetary impact of an increase or decrease in this productivity.
  • Retention: The number of new hires who stay with the company.

3. Training and coaching metrics

Without a strong sales enablement strategy, it’s nearly impossible to create and maintain a successful sales team. Therefore, training and coaching metrics are invaluable to those in sales, marketing, management, and just about anyone else involved in sales enablement.

These metrics include:

  • Efficiency: Time spent on training compared to time spent answering team member questions during sales processes.
  • Satisfaction: Sales representative satisfaction and engagement during onboarding, training and coaching.
  • Manager effectiveness: Quality of interaction in shadowing, ride-alongs, 1:1 reviews, two-way feedback loops, and more.
  • Cost of training: Average cost per sales representative in both money and time.

4. Outreach metrics

If your sales representatives focus on closing deals via phone, email, and social media, outreach metrics can be very beneficial, particularly when tied back to training content (learning) and skill-building activities (practice). Managers and trainers can use them to determine which outreach methods require greater attention.

Email

  • Open rate: How many customers open an e-mail.
  • Response rate: How many customers reply directly to an e-mail.
  • Engagement rate: How many customers click a link or otherwise engage with content in an email.

Phone

  • Call-backs: Percentage of prospects who call back to follow up.
  • Conversations: Percentage of prospects who agree to talk with your sales team.
  • Conversions: Percentage of prospects who move to the next steps.

Social media

  • Requests: Percentage of LinkedIn connection requests accepted.
  • Interactions: Number of likes, shares, and comments on social media posts.
  • Meetings: Number of meetings set through social media.
  • Opportunities: Number of qualified opportunities generated.

5. Pipeline metrics

Through pipeline metrics, sales managers can thoroughly understand their success throughout the entire pipeline. They can also provide insights into how their organization is dominating the market and what kind of demand there is for their products or services.

The most important pipeline metrics are:

  • Sales cycle length: How long it takes to move from prospect to customer.
  • Sales per rep: How many sales each representative makes in a given time period.
  • Sales by region: How many deals are closed in each area.
  • Average deal size: Average amount of revenue per sale.
  • Churn rate: How many customers are lost in a given time period.
  • Quota attainment: The average percentage of quota completion.

6. Revenue driving metrics

It’s important to keep a pulse on the overall health and growth of the company. Revenue driving metrics offer deep insight into those factors. They’re especially important for businesses that use a subscription-based model.

Some important revenue driving metrics to to track include: 

  • Monthly recurring revenue: A measure of the revenue a company can expect to generate on a monthly basis. MRR doesn’t include one-time payments or non-recurring charges.
  • Annual recurring revenue (ARR): A measure of a company’s recurring revenue generated over a 12 month period. ARR is typically a more accurate metric for assessing a business’s overall performance.
  • New MMR: This is the additional revenue generated from new customers in a given month.
  • Expansion MMR: This is the additional revenue generated via upsells, cross-sales and upgrades in a given month. 

The importance of tracking and analyzing sales metrics

By making it a priority to track sales performance metrics, sales-driven organizations can:

Make better decisions

Business decisions shouldn’t be made based on gut feelings. By regularly tracking the right sales metrics, you’ll get insight that can lead to better, more strategic decision-making.

Better optimize the employee experience

There’s a direct correlation between employee experience and customer experience. By tracking and analyzing sales metrics, organizations can gain valuable insight into what is working for their employees and what isn’t.

Provide insightful training feedback

While sales leaders can ask their new sales representatives how they feel about their training, the answers likely won’t be thorough enough to accurately gauge how they’re doing. With sales metrics within reach, however, teams can figure out exactly how effective their training program is and where they need to improve.

Deliver data-driven sales coaching

Sales coaching, when it’s done well, can have a significant impact on sales performance. However, coaching must be rooted in data.

When you monitor the right sales metrics, you can understand strengths and weaknesses at the individual rep level. That way, you can deliver coaching that addresses the needs of each seller. Then, sales performance will improve across the entire team.

Increase customer retention

Retention efforts increase customer lifetime value and boost revenue as a result. To increase customer retention, sales representatives must engage existing customers to continue to buy an organization’s products or services.

There are a number of sales metrics such as customer churn, time between purchases, and loyal customer rate that can give sales leaders and the management team a close look at how well their organization is retaining clients.

Create more accurate sales forecasts

Accurate sales forecasts are important for planning. Yet, many sales leaders aren’t confident in their forecasts. By regularly tracking the right sales metrics, you can more accurately predict future sales.

How technology can help

An analytics interface is one of the easiest and most effective ways to track and manage key sales metrics. When shopping around for sales enablement analytics software, organizations should be on the lookout for the following important features:

  • Real-time alerts: An interface should offer data on real-time changes in the market.
  • Filters: Whether it’s a high-level view or a highly specific look at particular metrics, filters should allow you to customize your parameters for any given goal.
  • Sharing: Data, tools and tasks should be easy to share via email for internal parties or through public URLs for external users.
  • Collaboration tools: Dashboards should allow users to make comments, share key metrics and create slideshows. Automation features such as report scheduling and program notifications are important, too.

Mindtickle helps you make the most of sales data

Ongoing measurement is key. If you’re not tracking the right sales metrics, you won’t know what’s going well and where there are opportunities to improve sales performance.

No single metric will give you the full story. Instead, you must track a variety of sales metrics to get a holistic view of sales performance. But often, this data comes from different sources. It can be difficult (if not impossible) to consolidate it, analyze it, and decide what action to take on the insights.

With an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, you have all the sales performance insights you need – all in one platform.

Mindtickle’s revenue enablement platform helps sales leaders understand and quantify the strengths and weaknesses of the sales team as a whole, as well as individual sellers. Sales leaders can use these insights to fuel data-driven action that improves sales capabilities and performance. Thanks to the power of AI, Mindtickle can even suggest impactful actions to take based on the data.

Sales Performance in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle equips winning revenue teams with the data and insights they need to understand and improve sales performance?

Request a Demo

This article was originally posted in April 2020, updated in March 2023, February 2024 and again in February 2025. 

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The Key Ingredients of Buyer Experience (and How to Improve Yours) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/buyer-experience/ Fri, 31 Jan 2025 15:34:56 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20774 Offering great products and services has always been important. That will never change. But selling the right product at the right price is no longer enough to guarantee success. If an organization expects to close deals and grow revenue, it must also focus on delivering outstanding buyer experiences. After all, Gartner research found that the …

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Offering great products and services has always been important. That will never change.

But selling the right product at the right price is no longer enough to guarantee success. If an organization expects to close deals and grow revenue, it must also focus on delivering outstanding buyer experiences.

After all, Gartner research found that the overall buyer experience has a larger impact on purchase decisions than product and price. And organizations that invest in buyer experience grow faster.

In this post, we’ll explore buyer experience, why it matters, and what role sellers play in delivering great experiences. Better experiences lead to better sales outcomes, so we’ll also share some tips and tricks for improving your buyer experience – and your bottom line.

What is the buyer experience?

Let’s start by answering this foundation question: What is buyer experience?

The buyer experience describes how they perceive their experience purchasing a product or service from your company. The typical B2B buyer journey includes several touchpoints, from initial contact to contract signing. These touchpoints contribute to the overall experience and how the buyer feels about your company.

Customer experience vs buyer experience: What’s the difference?

You may be familiar with the term “customer experience.” Though customer experience (CX) and buyer experience are unrelated, they’re different.

Buyer experience is the experience a prospect has when considering a purchase. Customer experience, on the other hand, is the broader experience a person has with a specific company. Customer experience includes everything that happens before, during, and after a purchase.

How long is the buyer experience?

Sometimes, the B2B experience only consists of a few simple steps. For example, a person can quickly and easily purchase a low-cost subscription SaaS app via credit card without ever talking to a sales rep.

In other cases, the experience consists of several touchpoints spread out over a long period. This is often the case when a business considers a costly, enterprise-level solution.

Whatever the length of the buyer journey, B2B organizations must aim to deliver great buyer experiences.

What does a great B2B buyer experience look like?

Of course, every B2B buyer is unique, with different needs, expectations, and preferences. But generally speaking, the vast majority of B2B buyers want:

  • Personalization: Today’s B2B buyers do plenty of research before contacting a sales rep. When they make contact, they expect information and content personalized just for them.
  • Trusted advice: Buyers don’t want to feel like a seller is pushing a product. Instead, 87% expect sellers to act as trusted advisors.
  • Seamless buyer experiences: Three-quarters of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience. However a hybrid approach leads to better outcomes. Organizations must work to deliver connected, seamless buyer experiences, whether a prospect is doing their research or engaging with a sales rep.
  • Ease: Nearly eight in 10 B2B buyers rate their last purchase as complex or difficult. Organizations must focus on delivering buyer experiences that make it easier, not more difficult, to purchase.

The role of sales in improving the buyer experience

Buyer experience is a team sport. Many teams – including sales, marketing, and sales enablement – contribute to the overall experience.

Sales reps play a particularly large role in the B2B experience. After all, they’re the ones meeting with prospective customers every day.

As such, revenue organizations must ensure their sellers have the tools, training, and resources to deliver consistent, outstanding experiences. That way, sellers can close more deals – and contribute to revenue growth.

But what exactly are those must-have tools, training, and resources? It varies from company to company. However, some key ones are important for any organization looking to improve the experience.

Digital sales rooms

Navigating the buyer journey can be challenging. In fact, according to Gartner, 77% of B2B buyers rate their latest purchase as complex or difficult.

Difficult experiences are especially common when large buying committees exist, and each stakeholder has different needs, preferences, and requests. Often, buyers have to dig through endless email threads to find what they need.

Digital sales rooms are a tool sellers can use to improve buyer experiences. They centralize everything related to a deal and enable all members of the buying and selling teams to share information and content, ask questions, and collaborate on mutual action plans—all in one spot.

Digital collaboration rooms

Sellers can also access insights on how different stakeholders engage in the digital sales room. They can use these insights to adapt their strategy and deliver more relevant experiences.

Role-plays

Any sales rep needs to learn certain skills and competencies to facilitate great B2B experiences consistently. Most revenue organizations invest in training programs to help sellers master these skills.

But while a rep may complete training and any corresponding assessments, it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re ready to deliver outstanding experiences. They need opportunities to practice their skills.

Role-plays are a popular way for sellers to test their skills before taking them into the field. Today, innovative organizations leverage AI role-plays, which enable sellers to practice in realistic scenarios with adaptive, interactive AI bots. Sellers get real-time feedback, which they can immediately implement to improve skills and deliver a better experience.

An AI sales assistant, like Mindtickle Copilot

Delivering great experiences takes time. But often, sellers don’t have much to spare.

An AI sales assistant like Mindtickle Copilot makes it easier for sellers to deliver great buyer experiences at scale – without wasting time.

Mindtickle Copilot can simplify and streamline many time-consuming tasks that go into delivering great experiences. For instance, Copilot can aid with call prep and meeting follow-up, which take up many sellers’ time. For example, a seller can ask Copilot what they need to know about a past call to prepare for the next one. They can get this information without spending time reviewing notes or listening to call recordings.

In addition, winning experiences are personalized and relevant to the needs of each prospect. Mindtickle Copilot can help sellers surface content that is relevant to each prospect, regardless of their purchase journey. Copilot can also draft professional, contextual emails to accompany the content so the seller doesn’t have to spend time drafting communications from scratch.

The benefits of making buyer experience a priority

Today, winning revenue organizations prioritize buyer experience. That’s unsurprising, as improving the experience can greatly impact business outcomes.

Some of the benefits include:

  • Higher conversion rates: Buyers with a great experience are likelier to purchase. It’s as simple as that. So when your sellers are properly equipped to deliver great experiences, they’ll start winning more business.
  • Shorter sales cycles: When organizations invest in improving the experience, there’s less friction in the sales process. That means buyers can more easily navigate the purchase journey, and deals will close faster. As a result, your revenue will grow more quickly.
  • Higher customer retention: If your buyer experience is subpar, you’ll likely see a high churn rate. However, when customers are satisfied with the experience, they will likely stick with your business long-term.
  • Greater customer lifetime value: When customers have a great initial experience, they’re more likely to make additional purchases in the future. These upsell and cross-sell opportunities boost customer lifetime value (CLV).
  • Increased referrals: Great B2B experiences lead to happy customers. Happy customers are often willing to share their experiences with others by referring business, writing reviews, or agreeing to case studies and testimonials.
  • Better aligned teams: Customer-facing teams often work in silos. This misalignment can lead to disjointed, frustrating experiences. When experience is a company priority, go-to-market teams are better aligned. Each team understands the company’s overall goals in improving experience and their part in achieving them.

Tips to enhance the buyer experience

To grow and thrive, B2B businesses must prioritize buyer experience. Read on for simple (but powerful) ways to improve your experience.

Understand the needs of each buyer

Nearly a quarter of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. Yet, 61% say most companies treat them as just another number.

of buyers say companies treat them as just another number
0 %

Sellers must quickly uncover a buyer’s needs and expectations – and then deliver experiences and solutions that align with those expectations.

Create and deliver sales training and enablement to help your sellers sharpen their sales discovery skills. In addition, allow your sellers to practice their discovery skills in AI role-plays. That way, your sellers will be ready to quickly understand their buyers’ needs and deliver experiences that align with them.

Provide solutions rather than pushing products

In the past, B2B sellers would rattle off a list of product features and benefits to entice their prospects to buy. This approach doesn’t work.

Instead, sellers must work to understand the pain points of sellers – and then provide solutions for addressing these challenges. This approach will earn your buyer’s trust – and, eventually, their business. After all, 84% of B2B buyers expect sellers to act as trusted advisors.

Deliver personalized, relevant sales content

Sales content is an important part of the B2B experience. But sellers can’t simply choose a piece of content at random. For example, a case study about a small education company probably won’t resonate with a large medical device enterprise.

Instead, sellers should share content relevant to the prospects’ needs, no matter where they are on the purchase journey.

Mindtickle Asset Hub

Consider using a sales content management platform, which provides sales reps with a single source of truth for all sales content. A sales content management system makes it easy for sellers to find the content they’re looking for – without wasting time searching. Some sales content management systems leverage artificial intelligence, which uses data like past performance and buyer signals to suggest relevant sales content that can enhance the experience.

Deliver seamless buying experiences across channels

We’re seeing a big shift in how B2B buyers navigate the purchase journey. Many prefer to navigate the early parts of the journey on their own, and 75% prefer a completely rep-free experience.

Yet, Gartner research shows that a hybrid approach involving a seller leads to more confident purchase decisions and less buyer’s remorse.

Customer enablement must be a priority so buyers have great experiences and can easily access the tools, resources, and information they need—no matter how they engage with your business.

Centralize buyer engagement

B2B sales cycles are long, and buying committees are increasingly large. Keeping buyers engaged and delivering great experiences over a long period can be challenging.

Consider leveraging digital sales rooms as a central hub for buying and selling groups to exchange information, share content, ask questions, and collaborate on mutual action plans. This will enhance the buyer experience, as everyone on the buying committee will know exactly where to find the content and information they’re looking for – without needing to comb through long email threads.

Furthermore, digital sales rooms provide sellers insight into how each buying committee member engages with information and content. Sellers can use these insights to tweak their approach and improve the buyer experience.

Automate time-consuming tasks

Delivering great buyer experiences takes time. There’s just no way around it.

Yet, the average sales rep spends just 28% of their time selling. The rest is spent on admin work, data entry, and meetings.

With the rise in AI, there are plenty of opportunities to streamline and even automate tedious (but necessary) tasks so your sellers have more time to devote to buyer experience.

For example, consider using conversation intelligence software, which records, transcribes, and analyzes sales calls. With AI, a seller can ask, “What competitors did this prospect bring up during our last call?” They’ll get a quick answer that they can use to prepare for their next call without having to spend time listening to meeting recordings or searching through notes.

Start improving your buyer experience with Mindtickle

Offering great products and experiences will always be important. But in an increasingly competitive environment, buyer experience will set you apart.

First, you must work to understand each customer’s needs, preferences, and expectations. Then, your entire customer-facing team must align to deliver outstanding buyer experiences at scale.

The right buyer experience platform is key.

Better Buyer Experiences with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle equips go-to-market teams with the training, tools, and resources they need to consistently drive great buying experiences that earn customers’ trust – and their business?

Request Your Demo

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Sales Enablement for the Automotive Industry – Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/industries/automotive/ Thu, 30 Jan 2025 09:42:34 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21080 BY SOLUTION > AUTOMOTIVE Unlock peak performance for automotive sellers Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle. Request a demo Take a quick tour See why leading automotive brands trust Mindtickle for dealer sales training excellence Watch now 😞 PAIN POINTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS Are these …

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BY SOLUTION

>

AUTOMOTIVE

Unlock peak performance for automotive sellers

Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle.

See why leading automotive brands trust Mindtickle for dealer sales training excellence

😞 PAIN POINTS FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS

Are these challenges holding back your automotive sales team?

We understand the struggles – Mindtickle can help your team overcome them and reach their full potential.

I struggle to keep my network of dealer sellers up-to-date with frequent car make and model releases

It’s difficult to manage certifications for my large network of dealerships

I’m not sure if sellers are using the most up-to-date content and collateral

My sales strategies feel disconnected from customer needs, leading to a poor buying experience.

Join us at Elevate 25 in Chicago on September 24-25

✌Leading organizations unlock transformative results with Mindtickle

Keep automotive sellers informed on innovations and regulations

Onboard and certify automotive sellers and deliver tailored car buying experiences.

0 %

increase in average deal sizes

0 %

reduction in seller ramp time

0 %

increase in seller productivity

🤗 TAILORED BUYING EXPERIENCES

Accelerate deal cycles & boost post-sale revenue

Personalize the buyer experience to accelerate deal cycles and close deals faster.

Share approved product collateral easily to ensure accurate, consistent information throughout the process.

Continue engaging customers beyond the initial visit to drive post-sale satisfaction and revenue growth.

🚘 PERSONALIZE AUTOMOTIVE SELLER TRAINING

Elevate your network of automotive sellers with modern training

Offer personalized training to boost skills and performance by role, region, specialty and more

Support in-person and virtual training formats with a mobile-first approach.

Provide engaging certifications to keep sellers motivated and accountable.

🛞 PREPARE YOUR SELLERS FOR ANY CONVERSATION

Empower your sales force with AI role-plays

Use AI-powered interactive role-plays to prepare sellers for any showroom scenario.

Customize role-play personas to match real customer interactions for targeted practice.

Get instant feedback and automated grading, saving managers time on manual reviews.

📱 ON-THE-GO LEARNING FOR AUTOMOTIVE SELLERS

Enable on-the-go learning for your team

Provide mobile-friendly training to ensure learning is accessible anywhere, anytime.

Keep your sales team engaged with dynamic content tailored for on-the-go learning.

Empower distributed teams with the flexibility to learn independently, driving better results.

🔥 What we offer

Elevate your automotive sales team's performance with our expert services

Custom content creation

Technical services support

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why automotive sellers and teams love Mindtickle

International on the power of AI role-plays

“The beautiful thing about having AI role-plays is that now you’ve created a safe environment where they can practice over and over again and really refine the way that they engage customers, in very realistic and lifelike situations.”

Joshua De La Luz, Sales Enablement Manager, International

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why automotive sellers and teams love Mindtickle

splunk

International on the power of AI role-plays

“The beautiful thing about having AI role-plays is that now you’ve created a safe environment where they can practice over and over again and really refine the way that they engage customers, in very realistic and lifelike situations.”

Joshua De La Luz, Sales Enablement Manager, International

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increase in
revenue
related metric

🧠WHY MINDTICKLE

Partner with the leader in
automotive sales training

Elevate your automotive sales
performance with Mindtickle.

You 🤝 Mindtickle

Why go-to-market teams love Mindtickle

The best way to train !

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The best way to train !

“The training platform is very easy to navigate. It also keep your attention .”

🫣 WHY MINDTICKLE LOREM

Your number one partner for revenue growth

Everything your team needs in one platform

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Plus expert services you don’t get with anyone else

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The Ultimate Guide to SaaS Sales: What is it and How to Do it Better https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/saas-sales/ Wed, 29 Jan 2025 17:53:49 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20764 In the past, businesses relied on software installed directly on their systems. But today, many are swapping on-premise solutions for the convenience and scalability of SaaS. The SaaS sales market is expected to reach $299.07 billion this year. $ B The potential for SaaS sales is significant. But selling SaaS is no easy feat. B2B …

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In the past, businesses relied on software installed directly on their systems. But today, many are swapping on-premise solutions for the convenience and scalability of SaaS.

The SaaS sales market is expected to reach $299.07 billion this year.

$ B

The potential for SaaS sales is significant. But selling SaaS is no easy feat. B2B customers have increasingly high expectations. And they have no shortage of options for solving their challenges. While the exact number of SaaS companies is hard to pin down, some estimates suggest there are as many as 20,000 vying for buyers’ attention.

To succeed in B2B SaaS, reps must be ready to deliver outstanding buying experiences that meet customer expectations and drive bottom-line results.

If you want to boost your success, you’re in the right place. In this post, we’ll dive into everything you need to know about SaaS sales, including:

  • What it is
  • How it differs from selling other types of products
  • What the process looks like
  • Best practices for improving buyer experiences and driving more sales

What is SaaS?

Chances are, you’ve seen the term “SaaS” a time or two. But what exactly is SaaS?

SaaS is an acronym for software as a service. It’s a web-based type of software typically accessed through an online portal or mobile app. SaaS differs from on-premise software, installed and maintained locally on an organization’s computers or servers.

Today, most SaaS vendors use subscription-based pricing. In other words, customers pay a recurring fee in order to use the SaaS solution for a specific time, typically monthly or annually. Sometimes, SaaS vendors offer free trials that allow prospects to test the solution before purchasing.

What are the types of SaaS?

Some SaaS is used directly by consumers. Typically, no sales rep is involved, and a consumer can access the software for free or purchase it online via credit card. Some examples of popular SaaS solutions consumers use include Netflix, Spotify, and Headspace.

However, for this post, we’re focusing on B2B SaaS sales. Some examples of popular B2B SaaS software include:

  • Video conferencing software, like Zoom
  • Customer relationship management (CRM) software, like Salesforce
  • Revenue enablement software, like Mindtickle
  • Office suite software, like Microsoft Office or Google Workspace

What is SaaS sales?

Now that we know what SaaS is, what is it?

It’s selling B2B, web-based solutions to customers to help them overcome their challenges and achieve their goals. Typically, the process is focused on signing up a customer for a subscription. The customer makes regularly recurring payments (for example, monthly or weekly) in exchange for using the software.

How does SaaS sales differ from selling other types of products or services?

If a rep is skilled at selling other types of products or services, you may assume they’ll excel in SaaS sales. But that’s not always the case.

Why? Because SaaS sales differ from other types of sales in some significant ways.

The type of product

SaaS is fundamentally different from other types of products and services. It’s not tangible, like certain B2B products. And it’s vastly different from traditional, on-premise software. That means the approach you use for other types of B2B sales may not work in SaaS.

The pricing model

Some B2B deals involve a one-time purchase. For example, if a business purchases new computers, it pays for the machines once.

SaaS typically uses a subscription-based pricing model. Customers pay a recurring subscription fee in exchange for using the solution for a specified period, which allows for a more predictable cash flow.

Because they use subscription-based pricing, SaaS businesses track metrics like:

  • Monthly recurring revenue (MRR): How much recurring revenue is generated from customers each month.
  • Annual recurring revenue: How much recurring revenue is generated from customers annually.

The complexity

Many SaaS products are highly complex. In addition, as businesses evolve and innovate, product offerings change.

In SaaS sales, reps must know their products inside and out. They must also receive ongoing sales training and coaching to ensure they stay up-to-date with any changes to the product or the market.

Furthermore, enterprise-level customers often expect higher levels of customization. Those in SaaS sales must understand what is (and isn’t) possible in terms of product customization and integrations.

The length of the sales cycle

Some SaaS sales are quite fast. That’s often the case for software that has a lower price point.

However, long sales cycles are quite common in enterprise SaaS sales. That’s because deals are larger and more stakeholders are involved.

Sellers must be skilled at keeping sellers engaged throughout the entire cycle – no matter how long it may be.

The importance of building customer relationships

Building relationships with customers is important for any type of B2B sales. After all, people are more willing to purchase if they trust the seller.

But customer relationship management is especially important for SaaS sales.

SaaS is a subscription service, which means it regularly comes up for renewal. Building strong relationships is key to increasing satisfaction and decreasing churn rates. Furthermore, relationship building also influences the likelihood of upsells and cross-sales, impacting customer lifetime value (CLV).

The 3 SaaS sales models

Typically, there are three different models, each with a unique way of selling SaaS.

The three common SaaS sales models are:

#1 Self-service SaaS sales

Also referred to as self-service, this is a model in which the customer navigates the purchase journey on their own – without the involvement of a sales rep. The buyer often signs up for a free trial using a credit card, and then a paid subscription starts once the free trial is up.

The self-service model is good for vendors selling a relatively simple, low-cost solution. Marketing is active in self-service, from creating lead generation campaigns to optimizing the sales process.

One example of the self-service SaaS model is an employee signing up for a free trial of a low-cost SaaS solution like Canva. Or, the marketing team at a startup organization might sign up for a trial of a marketing automation platform. After the trial is up, the employee’s or team’s credit card is charged, and they submit the charge for reimbursement.

One example of the self-service SaaS model is an employee signing up for a free trial of a low-cost SaaS solution like Canva. Or, the marketing team at a startup organization might sign up for a trial of a marketing automation platform. After the trial is up, the employee’s or team’s credit card is charged, and they submit the charge for reimbursement.

#2 Transactional SaaS sales

The transactional model is the most common approach. Typically, the marketing team is focused on developing lead-generation campaigns and initiatives to attract prospective customers and get them started on the buyer journey. Then, reps focus on guiding buyers to conversion.

The transactional model is common when products are more expensive, and buying committees are larger. Many B2B buyers aren’t willing to make a significant purchase without some level of involvement from a rep.

Consider a team that needs a way to organize its projects better. The team learned about a specific project management SaaS solution through a paid LinkedIn post. The team engages with different marketing-developed resources, including webinars and eBooks. Eventually, the team submits a request for a live demo. A B2B rep then takes things from there.

#3 Enterprise SaaS sales

The enterprise model is common for vendors selling relatively expensive or complex solutions to enterprise-level companies with large buying committees. These larger deals require a tailored, customer-centric approach where all go-to-market teams are aligned.

In this model, sellers are involved in the entire process – from identifying and qualifying leads to nurturing them and closing deals.

The enterprise model is common for SaaS vendors that sell products widely used across the organization. Some examples include office suites like Google Workspace or CRMS like Salesforce.

The SaaS sales process

The sales process consists of the steps involved in closing a deal. But what does the process involve?

It varies based on many factors, including your organization’s model.

However, several steps are involved in the process.

1. Generating leads

This step involves generating interest in your SaaS solution. A steady stream of leads helps keep your funnel full.

Organizations may employ a wide variety of tactics to generate leads, including:

  • Webinars
  • Live events
  • Paid advertising
  • Email campaigns
  • Live chat on websites
  • Demo request forms

2. Prospecting

Some models involve outbound prospecting. In other words, sales sales reps connect with prospects via channels including:

  • Email
  • Phone
  • LinkedIn

3. Lead qualification

Lead qualification is the process of identifying whether a prospect is a good fit for your SaaS solution. This involves determining whether a prospect aligns with your ideal customer profile. Reps must also work to understand a prospect’s pain points quickly so they can determine whether they have a solution.

Many organizations use a lead qualification framework like BANT (Budget, Authority, Need, Timing) or MEDDIC (Metrics, Economic Buyer, Decision Criteria, Decision Process, Identify Pain, Champion) to quickly qualify leads. That way, sellers can prioritize good-fit prospects.

4. Product demonstrations

Once a rep has identified a prospect’s needs and pain points, it’s time to create and present a solution. Product demonstrations are a great way for leads to see firsthand how a SaaS solution can help them overcome challenges and meet their goals.

Some SaaS providers also offer a free trial period, during which  prospects can try out a product for a certain period before committing.

5. Negotiations

Sales negotiations are the back-and-forth discussions between a buyer and seller before a deal is struck. They are common in B2B sales, especially when using the enterprise sales model. It can take time for a buyer and seller to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.

6. Closing the deal

Sales closing involves bringing the deal to the finish line and securing a commitment from the prospect.

7. Retention

Most SaaS is subscription-based. Organizations must make it a priority to delight customers after they’ve closed the deal. Doing so is key to reducing churn and increasing customer lifetime value.

Tips for building a winning sales process

SaaS sales aren’t exactly easy. But with some proven best practices, you can build a winning process that yields predictable, sustainable growth.

Let’s look at 10 tips for a better  process.

#1. Determine your  model

One of the first, foundational steps is to determine which model you’ll use: self-service, transaction, or enterprise.

There’s no right answer for every business. Instead, the right model for your company depends on several factors, including cost and the size of the companies you sell to.

It’s important to note that combining different models is possible. For example, you might have a self-service offering for small businesses. These businesses can complete the entire journey without interacting with a sales rep. However, you might also have a more robust option for offering for large businesses. For this offering, you may use the enterprise model.

2. Adopt a sales methodology

It’s inefficient for reps to reinvent the wheel for every deal. Instead, it’s best practice to adopt a sales methodology.

Essentially, a sales methodology provides a standard way of engaging with prospects. Some popular sales methodologies include:

Be sure to choose the sales methodology that aligns best with your business.

3. Develop your ideal customer profile

Any rep needs to reach out to good-fit prospects. But first, you must take a step back to determine what a good-fit prospect looks like.

Be sure to develop ideal customer profiles (ICP), which outline the characteristics of a business that fits your SaaS product well. IRPs might include information like:

  • Company size
  • Industry
  • Geographic location
  • Pain points

4. Align on lead generation

A steady stream of leads can help keep your funnel full. But when it comes to leads, quality is more important than quantity.

Sales and marketing teams need to be aligned on lead generation. That way, marketing understands the best type of leads – and can work to generate more of them. And, SaaS sellers won’t waste their time on dead-end leads.

5. Qualify leads quickly

Lead qualification is a key step in the process. Consider leveraging a sales qualification framework like BANT to help reps quickly identify which prospects are worth their time.

In addition, be sure to provide training, sales enablement, and coaching to ensure your reps master the key skills needed to become experts at lead qualification.

6. Develop sales content that’s aligned with the purchase journey

B2B buyers rely on content to make informed purchase decisions. SaaS buyers are no exception.

Be sure to provide your B2B sellers with sales content to engage and inform buyers – no matter where they are in the B2B sales cycle. Use a sales content management system to centralize all content. That way, sellers can easily find relevant sales content to use with any lead.

7. Centralize customer engagement

Often, several stakeholders are involved with a SaaS purchase. Each stakeholder has its own needs and preferences, making it challenging for reps to keep everyone aligned.

Digital sales rooms provide a central hub for all engagement between buying and selling groups. With a digital sales room, SaaS buyers and sellers can share content and information, ask and answer questions, and collaborate on mutual action plans.

In addition, digital sales rooms enable reps to see how different buying committee members engage with content and information. Sellers can use these insights to adapt their approach – and improve outcomes.

8. Deliver tailored training and sales enablement

Sales reps must master certain skills to excel. The first step is to determine what those must-have skills are. You can document them in an Ideal Rep Profile.

Then, focus on creating training and sales enablement that help your reps build those skills.

It’s important to remember that learning opportunities must be personalized to be effective. Measure each rep against your IRP regularly so you can understand their unique strengths and weaknesses. Then, deliver targeted enablement and learning paths that help your sellers bolster weaker skills – and boost their performance.

9. Provide targeted coaching

Ongoing coaching helps reps build the skills they need for success. Research shows that top-performing sellers receive significantly more coaching than their lower-performing peers.

Manager-led coaching is an important part of the puzzle. But today, innovative organizations also tap into artificial intelligence to deliver real-time feedback at scale.

For example, an organization may use conversation intelligence software, which records and analyzes sales calls and provides the seller with immediate feedback. Other organizations use AI role-plays, which enable their reps to practice their selling skills with an adaptive AI bot. Sellers get real-time coaching and feedback, which they can use to perfect their skills before putting them to the test in the field.

AI-Roleplay

10. Measure and optimize continuously

Ongoing measurement is key to understanding what parts of your SaaS sales process are working well and where there are opportunities for improvement. In the world of SaaS sales, some metrics that are particularly important to track include:

  • Customer lifetime value
  • Monthly (or annually) recurring revenue
  • Churn rate
  • Customer acquisition cost

It’s also important to track metrics related to seller performance. Some examples include:

  • Overall conversion rate
  • Conversion rate at each stage of the SaaS sales cycle
  • Sales cycle length
  • Quota attainment

Look for trends and dig deeper to understand the why behind the numbers. Then, deliver targeted coaching to help each SaaS sales rep improve their skills and performance.

Get ready to master SaaS sales with Mindtickle

Increasingly, businesses are embracing the convenience and scalability of SaaS solutions. But that doesn’t mean SaaS sales are a walk in the park.

Every SaaS sales rep needs the right training, tools, and resources to engage buyers and close deals. With Mindtickle’s all-in-one revenue enablement platform, your sellers will have everything they need to be prepared to conquer any deal – all in one place.

With Mindtickle, you can create ideal rep profiles to define the skills and competencies Saas sales reps need to be successful. Then, you can deliver tailored training, enablement, AI role-plays, coaching, and more to ensure each seller can master the skills that matter. Mindtickle also equips sellers with tools they need to effectively engage SaaS buyers throughout the purchase journey, including sales content and digital sales rooms.

Crush SaaS sales with Mindtickle

Ready to see why leading companies depend on Mindtickle to ensure their sellers are ready to conquer SaaS sales?

Request Your Demo

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4 Objectives of Effective Sales Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/4-objectives-of-effective-sales-coaching-2/ Tue, 28 Jan 2025 08:57:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/4-objectives-of-effective-sales-coaching/ The B2B purchase journey has evolved a lot. Today, many B2B buyers complete a large portion of it without the involvement of a sales rep. In fact, some prefer not to interact with sellers at all. When sellers do have the opportunity to engage with a buyer, the pressure is on to make a great …

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The B2B purchase journey has evolved a lot. Today, many B2B buyers complete a large portion of it without the involvement of a sales rep. In fact, some prefer not to interact with sellers at all.

When sellers do have the opportunity to engage with a buyer, the pressure is on to make a great impression. With effective sales coaching, sellers are ready to make every interaction count.

But let’s face it: not all sales coaching is effective. What sets great coaching apart from the rest?

In this post, we’ll dive into the objectives of great sales coaching as well as some of the common pitfalls that hinder success. That way, you can start overcoming these challenges and build an effective sales coaching program that drives real improvements to reps’ behaviors and performance.

What is sales coaching?

Sales coaching is the ongoing, one-on-one mentorship of each rep on a sales team. It is a conversation between the rep and a coach, where the rep does most of the talking while the coach listens, observes, and offers feedback.

Coaching differs from onboarding, where new information is presented to many reps simultaneously. It’s also unique from sales training, which can happen in many different forms, including virtual training and micro-learning.

Here are a few characteristics of coaching that make it different from training:

While a training event provides a baseline education or a foundation, coaching builds on this foundation with continual sessions. Many successful sales organizations make coaching a weekly practice, and some even establish daily coaching routines.

Unlike a training session that involves the whole sales team, each coaching session is tailored to the needs of an individual rep. The coach knows the rep, as well as their strengths, challenges, and areas needing improvement.

While training is designed to impart new information about products, customers, strategies, competitors, etc., coaching is behavior-based. It corrects a rep’s unfavorable behaviors and habits while reinforcing effective ones. In fact, quota attainment increases by 7% when coaches focus on sales rep behavior.

 Why does effective sales coaching matter?

Having a strong coaching relationship is important to gaining employee trust and working together to develop sales skills. But the secret sauce to coaching is making sure to build a program and approach where reps are coached the right way.

Apart from building an environment where growth is supported, sales coaching can also:

  • Optimize sales training information and skills to be incorporated into day-to-day practices.
  • Show sales reps you care about their personal development and growth in their role.
  • Create personalized KPIs and development plans that are tracked with employees.
  • Share, in a safe environment, valuable feedback for improvement.
  • Teach sales reps to leverage sales enablement tools to track and monitor their skill development progress.

The 4 key objectives of sales coaching

Often, sales coaching is focused on open deals. Deal coaching is important, as it can improve the outcome of the specific opportunity. But on its own, it’s not an effective way to change a rep’s long-term behaviors; it’s not enough. The best sales managers prioritize delivering a mix of opportunity, skills, and targeted coaching to truly drive results.

Here’s how to build a coaching approach that focuses on developing long-term skills rather than just focusing on short-term deal remediation.

1. Ensure reps refine and improve their sales skills

Most sales reps forget 70% of their sales training, with 87% forgetting that 70% within the first month of training. Sales coaching helps with this by reinforcing training concepts and applying them to each rep’s unique needs.

Coaching starts with analytics that pinpoint each rep’s strengths and weaknesses. The sales coach might target foundational behaviors and best practices like empathetic listening and objection handling for new hires. Over time, the coach’s focus might transition to sales negotiation skills and effectively presenting value.

As the rep’s career progresses, they’ll flourish into a highly skilled advisor that buyers depend on and trust.

2. Build confidence and encourage skill development

Many sales leaders incorrectly assume that coaching creates discouragement and a lack of confidence. Such leaders often come from organizations that only coach their reps after they’ve lost a deal. In that circumstance, coaching is viewed as a negative, as it is often read as a type of punishment.

Proper coaching, however, is an integral part of every sales rep’s daily or weekly routine. Effective coaches build confidence by praising their reps’ daily wins, along with helping them overcome their weaknesses.

3. Provide consistent practices and expectations across the sales team

It’s common for sales organizations to lack standard best practices for their teams to anchor themselves to. Without a standard set of guidelines and repeatable steps to take, it’s almost impossible to help reps correct their courses of action.

Successful sales organizations use onboarding sessions to teach reps about the organization’s best practices, and they reinforce these standards with coaching. These one-on-one sessions are a great opportunity to identify and correct behavior that doesn’t fit with the organization’s vision or standard process.

4. Increase revenue

Organizations that provide effective sales coaching greatly impact the metrics that matter most, including conversion rates, quota attainment, and revenue growth. That’s why sales leaders need to resist the temptation to “be the hero” and take the reins of a lagging deal to score the big win. By taking over, sales leaders deprive their teams of the ability to refine their skills and improve.

Sales organizations that establish coaches rather than “heroes” can turn every member of their salesforce into competent deal closers. Having 100 highly skilled closers is more profitable than a handful of heroes.

The challenges of sales coaching

Recent research found that nine in 10 (91%) of managers feel coaching positively impacts their team’s performance. Yet, many struggle to find the time and support to implement an effective coaching program.

Here are the four most common challenges in sales coaching:

Some sales reps don’t feel they need sales coaching

Many reps want training and coaching because they understand it boosts their career development. Others, particularly those who consistently hit their sales quota, are hesitant.

Reluctance to sales coaching can be solved by instituting a culture of coaching in which everyone—including the coaches themselves—is mentored and coached.

Sales coaches and managers can lead by example by continuing to receive coaching and working to develop their skills. It’s good practice to balance formal and informal coaching, as this will let your sales reps know they’re not being graded and evaluated but can use the coaching session as a tool for improvement. It’s especially important early in the sales coaching process — when reps are hesitant — to reinforce a culture of continuous improvement.

Leaders are unsure how to measure success

Many sales leaders want to make a business case for establishing a coaching process at their organization, but they have no idea how to measure success or ROI. Fortunately, the right sales coaching platform provides all the analytics and metrics needed for this

With the right sales enablement tool, you can set goals for the entire team and individual reps.

When you understand an individual rep’s strengths and weaknesses, you can set performance goals and coach toward these. Whether it’s contract value, win rate, time to productivity, or another sales KPI, you can track the individual’s performance on a given metric over time to evaluate the effectiveness of your coaching.

Teams don’t want to put forth the time and resources required

Time and resources are common challenges for organizations looking to expand their sales coaching. It takes time for both the sales rep to be coached and the leader to do the coaching. It may involve implementing and learning new technology, adjusting schedules, and changing the department’s culture.

This investment seems daunting, but the long-term value far outweighs the initial investment of time and effort.

It’s a good idea to include a sales enablement platform that empowers sales reps and coaches with insights, centralized content, and courses to help save time and track improvement. This platform will give sales reps insights into their improvement and encourage continuous development.

 Lack of understanding of what makes a strong sales coaching program

What makes a good sales rep often differs from what makes a good sales coach. Unfortunately, many organizations promote high-performing reps without investing in training and ongoing development for the sales coach in their new role.

Implement coach training in your organization to create an effective coaching plan. Have coaches complete their training before they begin coaching salespeople. Use one-on-one mentoring, virtual training, and other tools to ensure your coaches are well-equipped to develop sales skills in other reps.

The above challenges are temporary ones, and they are usually resolved as the coaching system progresses. Once all reps see the career advantages of coaching and top leadership understands the competitive benefits, you can encourage the entire department to embrace continuous development.

4 tips for measuring sales coaching effectiveness

Measuring the impact of sales coaching is important to help understand the ROI of time and other resources invested in coaching sales reps.

However, calculating sales coaching impact is a bit more tricky.

But don’t worry — we have four simple tips to help you measure your sales coaching effectiveness.

1. Keep track of sales performance

Many companies look at the performance of the overall team to gauge the success of sales coaching. This will help you understand how behavioral change and skill development translate to higher win rates and improved performance.

To measure the impact of sales coaching, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the following sales metrics:

  • Sales cycle length
  • Quota attainment
  • Conversion by deal stage
  • Average revenue generation

Track the skills developed through coaching sessions to see their influence on quota attainment. This will help you understand where your training has been the most useful and what skills need more improvement.

2. Assess sales reps’ skill development

With sales coaching, the goal is to identify weak sales traits and skills and then support sellers to grow their skills and knowledge.

Part of calculating the impact of sales coaching is to see how learned skills pass from theory into practice. You’ll want to ensure sales reps use their new skills in all their interactions and note the impact it has on closing rates.

Keep an eye on the following measurements to calculate the impact sales coaching has on sales reps’ skills:

  • Number of sales skills improved
  • Behavioral changes around selling approaches
  • Amount of new skills learned

 You can use skill tests and quizzes to measure skill improvement. And sales enablement platforms can help automatically keep track of interactions and score each seller on their skill level.

3. Create anonymous surveys and feedback polls

Employee turnover is expensive. However, sales coaching and training can increase employee engagement and improve employee experience. 

Keep track of employee engagement through surveys and polls to understand the correlation between sales coaching and employee engagement.

Some good indicators to keep an eye on are:

  • Average employee engagement scores
  • Average employee turnover
  • Average employee satisfaction

Sales coaches also hear sales reps’ concerns and worries at the front line. This puts them in a position to proactively improve their employee experience and develop solutions with the reps being coached.

This not only helps with sales rep engagement, but it also empowers employees to succeed in their roles and improves company profitability.

Benefits of effective sales coaching

Chances are, you have several competing priorities vying for your resources and attention. So why should you prioritize effective sales coaching?

Because sales coaching – when it’s done well – delivers significant benefits. Here are just a few.

Skill improvement

Each sales rep needs to master certain skills and behaviors to be successful in their roles. Sales training plays a role, but it’s not enough. After all, many sellers forgot the information they learned in training.

Sales coaching helps reinforce skills and behaviors learned during sales training. It’s also a way for sales managers to provide support that’s focused on reps’ weaker skills.

Faster ramp time

Ideally, you want your new sellers to be up and running as quickly as possible. When you provide new sellers with effective coaching, they can more quickly master the skills they need for success. That means your new hires will be ready to hit the ground running (and close more deals) – faster.

Better sales performance

When sales reps are properly coached, they’re better prepared for success. They’ll start closing more deals, faster, and your revenue will grow.

Higher rep retention

A lot of time and resources go into hiring new sales reps and getting them ready to sell. When you have a high rep turnover rate, it can seem like that effort goes right down the drain.

By providing effective sales coaching, your sales reps will feel supported in their roles. This will increase their satisfaction — and their likelihood of staying with your company long-term.

Better customer experiences

Modern B2B buyers have come to expect outstanding experiences, no matter where they are on the purchase journey. Effective sales coaching will prepare your sellers to meet (or even exceed) customer expectations. That means buyers are more likely to become satisfied, long-term customers.

A sales coaching platform empowers your whole team

By now, the importance of sales coaching is well understood. But it can be challenging to deliver effective coaching that meets the needs of every seller on your team.

The right sales coaching software is a must.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform with robust sales coaching features. With Mindtickle, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of each sales rep – and then deliver AI– and human-powered coaching that helps close gaps and improve performance. Mindtickle also delivers rich data and analytics so you can understand the impact of your coaching – and identify opportunities to improve your approach.

Sales Coaching in Mindtickle

Request a demo to learn how Mindtickle can help you develop and implement effective sales coaching in your own organization.

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in January 2020, updated in December 2022, October 2023, and again in January 2025. 

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Transformation Made Simple: How Henkel Modernized Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/transformation-made-simple-how-henkel-modernized-revenue-enablement-with-mindtickle/ Mon, 27 Jan 2025 20:55:40 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20738 Every revenue leader understands the importance of equipping sellers with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. So it’s no wonder why 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement teams. Yet, many organizations take an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach to sales enablement that doesn’t address the needs of each seller. Sure, these companies may recognize …

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Every revenue leader understands the importance of equipping sellers with the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. So it’s no wonder why 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement teams.

Yet, many organizations take an outdated, one-size-fits-all approach to sales enablement that doesn’t address the needs of each seller.

Sure, these companies may recognize the need to modernize their approach to sales enablement. But many feel overwhelmed and unsure of where to start. After all, while delivering tailored training at scale is important, it can feel like a pipe dream. This is especially true for global businesses with geographically dispersed sales teams and various native languages.

Paul Spackman, Global Head of Campus at Henkel, understands the challenges of modernizing sales enablement for a worldwide organization. At the Sales Enablement Summit in London, Spackman shared how his team has overcome key challenges to build a modern, future-proof revenue enablement function that drives bottom-line business results.

Recognizing a need for change

Henkel is a multinational, chemicals and consumer goods organization based in Dusseldorf Germany. The company’s sales team is about 5,000 strong, split between industrial and commercial retail business units. Spackman’s Campus team, responsible for functional sales training, has approximately sixteen employees, with a Campus manager for each region.

In the past, Henkel took a traditional approach to sales training that relied heavily on in-person classroom instruction. “We were an old school, traditional, ‘come to my classroom and I’ll lecture you for a couple of days’ campus,” explained Spackman.

There was very little pre- and post-work and nearly no follow-up on classroom instruction. “We were not particularly good at measuring and following that stuff through,” he continued.

Furthermore, uneven budget allocations meant that training wasn’t accessible to all sellers.

“You’d see a few sellers quite regularly, others you never see, and you never have any real or realistic relationship with the sales community as a whole,” said Spackman. “Whilst our training was pretty good, in reality, our impact on this sales force as a whole was not nearly as good as it could be.”
Paul
Paul Spackman
Global Head of Campus at Henkel

Identifying the opportunity to transform revenue enablement

The team at Henkel knew there was a big opportunity to modernize their approach to revenue enablement and increase their impact. The opportunity would allow for:

  • Universal access: Providing every seller with the opportunity to take advantage of the training available.
  • True hybrid approach: Using technology to create a hybrid approach that helps the company improve knowledge retention and flatten out the forgetting curve. “Adults are really good at coming to a classroom for a couple of days and learning stuff. But as soon as they go back to their jobs, if they don’t use that stuff they forget it really quickly,” said Spackman.
  • Consistent, regular touchpoints with sales: With regular touchpoints, Henkel could shift away from a culture of ad hoc learning to one of continuous professional development and lifelong learning.

Earning transformation: you can’t do it alone

When it comes to transforming revenue enablement, you can’t do it alone. Henkel’s approach involved several components.

Embrace digital approaches and trust your sellers

Henkel knew they needed the right technology to support their digital approach to revenue enablement. The team set out to find a revenue enablement platform vendor and narrowed their options to three.

“We needed an intuitive option,” said Spackman. “We settled on Mindtickle in the end, and we’ve really used them as a partner throughout the process.”
Paul
Paul Spackman

He also stressed the importance of trusting the sellers. Self-paced learning may be a new concept for sellers accustomed to classroom training. You must trust your sellers to use new technology to access learning opportunities.

Delivering targeted, granular training is key to getting sellers to engage with it. “We thought that we would be able to populate our site with large, open-access training on negotiation and handling objections, and everyone would want to take them. That doesn’t work,” said Spackman. “When we started to create programs in a more granular way for smaller groups of people, suddenly the engagement levels were really high.”

Map learning journey to individual career path

Learning opportunities shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, they should be mapped to individual career paths.

Henkel has industrial and retail businesses, and sellers are divided into 11 groups, each with tailored learning journeys.

Ask more from your enablement vendors

Every business is unique. It’s important to find flexible enablement vendors to accommodate your needs, requirements, and restrictions.

For example, as a German business operating globally, Henkel encounters some unique challenges and restrictions that impact the way they can use technology. “If you’re an American business, you can take a platform like Mindtickle, pop it into your business, and use all of the features,” said Spackman. “If you’re a German business, there are certain restrictions.”

Spackman’s team collaborated with those who deal with GDPR and German data privacy law, as well as the workers’ council, to understand what they could and couldn’t do within the Mindtickle platform. Then, the team shared their requirements with Mindtickle.

"Working with Mindtickle as the provider, we found a very willing, cooperative, and flexible group on the technical side within that and on their customer success side to work the platform to fit our needs,” said Spackman.
Paul
Paul Spackman

Incentivize engagement in new ways

Training and revenue enablement initiatives require time and resources, but they won’t have an impact if sellers aren’t engaged with them. Henkel needed to rethink the way it encourages and incentivizes engagement while remaining compliant.

Empowering all sellers with a modernized program

In October 2024, the team at Henkel officially launched STEPS, a structured program that provides a clear pathway of continuous professional development from new sellers to “Master Black Belt.”

“We took our old, unstructured, ad hoc classroom training and transformed it into a structure of sales training and professional development opportunities for a whole sales force of 5,000 people,” said Spackman. “There’s something here for everyone, whether they’re a fresh-faced 23-year-old straight from university or a seasoned professional or late-career sales manager.”

The STEPS program has four key components, all of which are linked to the Mindtickle platform.

#1 Guided curriculum by sales role

The team at Henkel has found that the more granular the programs, the higher the engagement and effectiveness. Henkel sellers were split into industrial, retail, and inside sales. In industrial and retail, sellers were split even further:

  • Territory sales
  • Channel sales
  • Key account managers and business development
  • Sales managers

Each group has a role-specific curriculum, which includes components like:
Guided curriculum, which consists of programs focused on their roles
Elective curriculum: This consists of programs that are fairly focused on their roles but with some pieces that are a bit more forward-thinking.
Self-paced learning curriculum, powered by Mindtickle

#2 New Campus charge model

In the past, access to training was inconsistent. “We were relying on people’s local budget to access our services.,” explained Spackman. “We needed to find a way to give universal access.”

Today, Henkel has developed a charge model where training seats are allocated based on the size and maturity of the sales region.

“Suddenly, all the sales managers who had to find budget before don’t have to anymore because there’s a number of seats allocated to them,” said Spackman. “They can start to allocate training on the basis of need, not on mad local budgets.”

#3 Henkel Selling Foundations

This onboarding program is for anyone new to sales at Henkel Adhesive Technologies. Sellers complete 6+ hours of content, and they are expected to complete it in their first eight in their role. The content is available in 16 languages, including industrial and retail versions. Sellers receive a sales enablement license when they complete the foundations,

After completing Henkel Selling Foundations, sellers have “the building blocks to talk to customers.”

#4 Recognition and reward belt system

Henkel leverages Mindtickle’s Readiness Index feature to drive an incentivized belt system for sellers. Readiness Index scores are based on several factors, including:

  • Classroom trainings
  • Sellers’ experience
  • What training they engage with on Mindtickle
  • Manager input
Screenshot of Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

With the Readiness Index, Henkel can track competencies and correlate them to organizational baselines and revenue outcomes. In addition, sellers earn badges endorsed by the Institute of Sales Professionals. “This is an incentive for our sales team to take part in that fits very neatly within our compliance rules.

Four key takeaways

The team at Henkel is already starting to see the impact of their revenue enablement transformation. In addition to consistently getting positive feedback from sellers, the team has experienced:

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Transformation can seem overwhelming. But by taking things one step at a time, it’s achievable – and can yield big results.

Spackman closed the session by sharing four key takeaways for any organization looking to modernize its revenue enablement approach.

#1 Make sure your vendors are true partners

Your vendors need to be flexible and easy to work with. Support is tailored to the needs of each location worldwide, .

#2 Pay attention to services and support, not just technology

Great technology is important. But it’s also important to find sales enablement solutions that provide excellent services and support. “We couldn’t have done this without a great customer success team at Mindtickle and the tech people who sat behind them,” said Spackman.

#3 Show investment in your sellers

Ensure your sellers know you’re investing in programs to help them succeed. You’re here for them.

#4 Show how continuous professional development supports career paths

Sellers only have so many hours in the day and many competing priorities. It’s important to show them how continuous professional development is relevant to them. “It has to be meaningful for those sellers to get time in their day,” said Spackman.

Watch the full Henkel Story

Want to see Henkel’s full session to learn more from Paul and how his team modernized enablement with Mindtickle?

Watch the On-Demand Session

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AI Sales Coaching | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/solutions/sales-coaching-training-for-managers/ Mon, 20 Jan 2025 03:50:09 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=21000 SOLUTIONS > AI Sales Coaching Make coaching scalable with AI Build a culture of coaching that is available anywhere, anytime, and personalized to meet each seller’s needs. Get a demo Read our AI Sales Coaching Guide Are your sellers performing at their peak? Yours reps are unable to meet quota Rising attrition on your sales …

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11 Sales Initiatives to Help You Close More Deals https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/11-sales-initiatives-to-help-you-close-more-deals/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 18:22:38 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20735 The start of the new year is the perfect time to reflect on the year that’s passed and set sales goals for the year ahead. As a CRO, you might have goals like: Improving sales performance Closing more deals Growing revenue Boosting customer retention But jotting down these sales goals doesn’t mean you’ll achieve them. …

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Conversation Intelligence | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/conversation-intelligence/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 13:39:27 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=20990 PLATFORM > Conversation Intelligence Call insights to closemore deals Conversation intelligence unlocks insights into each call to improve rep performance in the field Get a demo Take a Quick Tour Benefits How it works Features For your role Customers Resources 🤓 BENEFITS A clear picture of your sellers and buyers Call recordings are analyzed and …

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PLATFORM > Conversation Intelligence

Call insights to close
more deals

Conversation intelligence unlocks insights into each call to improve rep performance in the field

🤓 BENEFITS

A clear picture of your sellers and buyers

Call recordings are analyzed and scored with AI Copilot to move as fast as your market. Copilot summarizes your calls, answers prospects’ questions, and even drafts your emails so you can focus on strategic selling.

🔬 Analyze every interaction

Score calls against winning sales behaviors like talk time, pace, and questions asked.

📢 Inform manager coaching

Surface call insights to managers so they can prioritize deals and reps to coach.

💡 Understand your buyer

Track competitor mentions, objections, and questions your buyers have across calls and deals.

Turn conversations into conversions. Unlock key customer insights from every sales call.

📊 CALL INSIGHTS

Deeper insights into sales conversations

Score and analyze sales conversations automatically

Analyze sales conversations by automatically capturing, analyzing, and scoring buyer interactions with sellers.

AI-powered call reviews with actionable insights

Get faster call reviews and timely follow-ups with instant AI-generated action items and next steps.

360° view of sales

Provide sales leaders with a comprehensive view of their team’s opportunities, meetings, and performance to prioritize deal support.

chat

7 Reasons Your Sellers Need Call Recording to Hit Revenue Targets

📈 DATA-DRIVEN COACHING

Harness buyer data for targeted
sales coaching

Build a coaching program based on buyer interactions

Cultivate an impactful sales coaching culture grounded in real-world buyer interactions.

Boost collaboration with call interactions

Comment, tag, and leave notes on calls to share best practices and recommend opportunities for improvement.

AI-driven personalized coaching

Leverage AI to deliver personalized, data-driven coaching for each seller.

👀 Customer Insights

Advance sales with customer and competitive insights

Centralize market & competitive insights

Build a repository for marketing and competitive intelligence via customer call snippets.

Craft winning strategies with competitive intelligence

Design effective sales and deal strategies with detailed competitive intelligence from Copilot.

Make data-driven decisions from buyer insights

Make informed decisions about new products, services, and features from real-world buyer interactions.

“Mindtickle has conversation intelligence built right into the platform. And, it’s integrated so it works well with the other products we use — including Salesforce.”

Sal Pecoraro
SVP Client Technology Solutions and Sales Readiness

👉 USE CASE

Enhance coaching & training to boost seller productivity

Leverage calls to deliver targeted coaching to reps who need it the most. AI-powered call analysis help managers prioritize the reps and deals that need coaching and support.

✅FEATURES

The features you need to improve seller productivity

Tap into sales conversations to understand winning behaviors and coach sellers

Call recording & transcription
Automate the recording and transcription of sales conversations.

AI-powered call scores
Score every call to understand sales effectiveness.

Deal coaching & collaboration
Coach reps on calls with embedded coaching forms.

AI Copilot
Ask questions, answer objections, and complete follow-ups with your call assistant.

CRM integrations
Integrate with leading CRMs like Salesforce and MS Dynamics to bring insights into existing sales workflows.

Set benchmarking
Set winning behaviors to track against reps like talk time, questions asked, pace, and more.

Mindtickle Call AI is part of our award-winning, all-in-one revenue enablement platform 

📂for your role

Conversation intelligence benefits
for revenue teams

In-field interactions inform relevant enablement programs

Sales-training

Be on every rep’s call, without being on every call

Fast-track follow-ups to accelerate deals

Customers 🫶 SUCCESS

How Fastmarkets uses Mindtickle to
digitize their competency framework

“Call AI has been instrumental in making sure the adoption is there. I think that’s really important to bring us 360, making sure that not only do we have clarity on what we’re focused on, but also making sure that we’re moving the needle with our sales people to make sure they can execute that as well.”

Anusha Purkis,
Director of Sales Enablement

🌏 CONVERSATION INTELLIGENCE RESOURCES

Reports, guides, and more

How To Choose A Conversation Intelligence Platform
BLOG

How To Choose A Conversation Intelligence Platform

How 10 of the Best Conversation Intelligence Software Solutions Stack Up
BLOG

How 10 of the Best Conversation Intelligence Software Solutions Stack Up

RESOURCES

Buyer’s Guide to Conversation Intelligence Solutions

🖥 related products

Explore more of the platform

Gain skill & deal insights with
conversation intelligence

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Analyze Sales Team Performance | Revenue Readiness Index https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/analyze-sales-team-performance-sales-readiness-index/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 13:37:53 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=20988 PLATFORM > READINESS INDEX™ Establish the gold standard for sales excellence Mindtickle’s Readiness Index™ identifies personalized programs for sellers and teams creating peak performers. Get a demo Take a Quick Tour Benefits How It Works Features For Your Role Customers Resources 👑BENEFITS Define, analyze, and improve seller readiness Understand the skills and behaviors that drive …

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PLATFORM > READINESS INDEX™

Establish the gold
standard for sales excellence

Mindtickle’s Readiness Index™ identifies personalized programs for sellers and teams creating peak performers.

👑BENEFITS

Define, analyze, and improve seller readiness

Understand the skills and behaviors that drive better business outcomes.

👯‍♀️ Create more top reps

Leverage the Ideal Rep Profile to identify and close skills gaps across your sales teams.

✨Deliver custom coaching & training

Curate tailored programs, content, and coaching that engage sales teams and improve performance.

🔗 Tie readiness to outcomes

Align skills with CRM data on quota achievement, win rates, sales cycles, and pipeline performance.

Customers see a 50% reduction in onboarding time

🏆 BOOST SELLER PERFORMANCE

Drive sales performance

Define the ideal rep profile

Identify your best sellers’ top skills, competencies, and behaviors and replicate them across teams.

Analyze seller performance

See seller performance at a skill, competency, and behavior level to recommend custom training and coaching.

Measure seller performance

Set benchmarks for top seller behaviors and competencies and correlate them to business outcomes.

chat

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🚀 LAUNCH QUICKLY

Launch competency-based
frameworks quickly

Track competencies by role

Create multiple competency profiles for different selling roles.

Leverage pre-built templates

Use pre-built competency frameworks built with best practices across common selling roles.

Another sub-bullet if needed

Brief benefit-drive description of your enablement capabilities here aliqua dolor do amet sint velit officia .

🪩VISUALIZE ORG-WIDE READINESS

Track org-wide readiness by rep, team, or region

👀 Track performance trends and areas for improvement

Monitor readiness scores to track skill development, identify gaps, and adjust strategies for individuals or teams, driving continuous improvement.

Boost peak performance with custom learning & coaching

Use readiness scores to create personalized training paths, target improvement areas, boost ramp times, and enhance productivity and team performance.

Optimize enablement with performance data

Use readiness data to focus on underperforming reps or teams, prioritizing resources and tailoring enablement to boost overall performance.

“What’s been really rewarding for me is having these new hires complete their onboarding process and then go out into the field almost fearlessly and start demoing to customers. By the time they are working with customers, they are well prepared and they know exactly what to do.”

Vanessa Garrabrant
National Trainer, Sales and Success

 

👉 USE CASE

Readiness Index fuels personalized training

Learn how Readiness Index is the secret sauce behind tailored and personalized learning programs.

✅ FEATURES

The features you need to create
elite sales teams

Our Sales Readiness Index includes Ideal Rep Profiles that benchmark the characteristics of top-performing reps against individual sellers, teams, or regions to analyze and optimize performance.

Ideal Rep Profile
Define and benchmark top skills & competencies for sellers and track progress

Templates
Leverage Ideal Rep Profile™ templates to get started quickly

Performance mapping
Correlate sales skills with performance metrics to uncover impactful insights.

Customizable reporting
Map readiness of teams by manager, region, and skill

Quadrant visuals
Analyze readiness across teams to see top performers, bottom performers, capability ready, and outliers.

Module-level insights
Understand the programs and modules that have the biggest impact on readiness

Mindtickle’s Readiness Index fuels the knowledge, skills, and behaviors of reps on our revenue enablement platform.

🗂 for your role

Readiness Index benefits for revenue teams

The North Star for enablement leaders

Sales-training

The secret sauce to impactful coaching

The key to predictable sales success

Customers 🫶 SUCCESS

How Data Axle simplifies sales readiness and gains actionable field insights with Mindtickle

“With Mindtickle, we can develop our IRP [ideal rep profile] to define what success looks like. Then we can determine where reps need help, whether it’s presentations, a communication skill gap, or something else.”

Sal Pecoraro
SVP Client Technology Solutions and Sales Readiness

🌏 READINESS INDEX RESOURCES

Reports, guides, and more

Mindtickle IRP Generator
BLOG

No More 80/20 Rule: How to Build an Ideal Rep Profile

BLOG

You Have an Ideal Customer Profile. But Do You Have an Ideal Rep Profile?

BLOG

Do You Know What Makes Your Salespeople Successful?

🖥 related products

Explore more of the platform

Create the benchmark
for winning behaviors

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AI Role Plays | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/ai-role-plays/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 13:37:08 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=20987 PLATFORM > AI ROLE PLAY Close bigger deals with AI Role Play Create hyper-realistic selling scenarios and get immediate feedback to master your pitch and close bigger deals faster.   Get a demo Try it for yourself Benefits How it works Features For your role Customers Resources 🌟 BENEFITS Master your pitch Perfect your pitch …

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PLATFORM > AI ROLE PLAY

Close bigger deals
with AI Role Play

Create hyper-realistic selling scenarios and get immediate feedback to master your pitch and close bigger deals faster.

🌟 BENEFITS

Master your pitch

Perfect your pitch with a dynamic AI buyer and never miss an opportunity when money is on the line.

♟ Be agile

GTM teams always deal with new products, competitors, and talk tracks. Role Plays ensure they are ready.

⚖ Make role plays scalable

Don’t let your sales managers be the bottleneck. Use AI to create role plays and grade thousands of submissions in minutes.

💰 Drive more revenue

Increase deal sizes and win rates with AI-powered pitch practice

 

Cisco increased deal sizes by 31% with AI Role Plays.

🤝 REALISTIC SELLING EXPERIENCES

Sellers can capitalize on every conversation

Ace objection handling

Practice with a dynamic AI buyer. No conversation is the same so you can truly master objection handling and value selling.

Get immediate feedback

Skip the wait for manager feedback. AI gives immediate feedback and even cites areas for improvement.

chat

Next Gen Selling: 30+ AI Prompts Every Sales Pro Should Know

Perfect your pitch with AI Role Play

Try out our AI sales simulator for free and see if you can seal the deal.
📈 SCALABLE

Conduct role plays for every launch

Ensure teams are field-ready

Reinforce every new launch – whether it’s a product, a campaign, or a new sales motion.

Scale with AI

Use Copilot to create role play scenarios and grade submissions, reducing reliance on large enablement teams and sales managers.

Understand what resonates with buyers

🤗 PERSONALIZed sales training lOREM
Ramp reps and close deals faster
Brief benefit-drive description of your enablement capabilities here aliqua dolor do amet sint velit officia .
Another sub-bullet if needed

Explain how personalized sales training benefits enablement teams dolor sit amet.

arht

At the end of the day, Mindtickle was ultimately the best choice based on the features, based on the pricing, and ultimately the customer service that we were given throughout the sales process.

Andrew Dorcas
Senior VP, Sales & Strategy, ARHT

👉 USE CASE

Launch pitch competitions at scale

AI Role Plays unlock the ability to launch pitch competitions across your teams, regions, and selling motions. Ensure your new product, service, or messaging launches are a success with a pitch certification using AI Role Plays.

✅ FEATURES

Cutting-edge AI Role Play features

Partner with the revenue enablement leader in realistic, AI-powered pitch practice.

AI for role play creation
Give AI a few prompts and it creates the role play scenario for you.

Choose your voice and personality
Pick a voice and personality traits that resemble your buyers.
Lowest latency in the industry
With the lowest latency, your conversations are natural.

AI for role play reviews
AI can review thousands of role play submissions in minutes.

Role play reporting
Admins can monitor learners and their progress.

Feature name here rep skills and performance at scale

AI Role Plays are part of our award-winning, all-in-one revenue enablement platform

Summer2025
📂for your role

AI Role Plays make every team more successful

Make role plays scalable

Sales-training

Win bigger deals with practice

Customers 🫶 Us

Cisco leverages AI Role Play to improve deal outcomes

“The impact was tremendous for using (AI Role Play) in this way. We saved about 38 weeks of manager time. That’s over 6,000 hours. And this led to much quicker feedback as well as having improved pitch quality.”

Chris Jackson,
Distinguished Solutions Engineer

🌏 RELATED RESOURCES

Resources, blog posts, guides and more

Ai sales role-plays
SALES ENABLEMENT

How AI Sales Role Plays Elevate Your Sales Enablement Game

WEBINARS

Turn Practice into Performance with AI Role Plays

SALES COACHING

The End of Traditional Sales Coaching: Why AI Role Play is Taking Over

🖥 related products

Explore related products from Mindtickle

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Sales Coaching Software | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/sales-coaching-software/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 13:29:22 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=20986 PLATFORM > SALES COACHING Coach to win with Mindtickle Data-driven coaching backed by skill, performance, and deal insights. Get a demo Take a Quick Tour Benefits How it works Features For your role Customers Resources 🤓 BENEFITS Increase sales performance Go beyond deal coaching to motivate reps, create a coaching culture, and build sellers’ skills. …

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PLATFORM > SALES COACHING

Coach to win with Mindtickle

Data-driven coaching backed by skill, performance, and deal insights.

🤓 BENEFITS

Increase sales performance

Go beyond deal coaching to motivate reps, create a coaching culture, and build sellers’ skills.

🎊 Motivate your reps

Show your sellers that you are investing in them with coaching, boosting motivation and retention.

👨‍🏫Create a coaching culture

Teach managers how to be high-quality coaches with a formalized approach.

🎯 Focus on skill coaching

Don’t just coach deals, arm managers with competency insights to build a team of skillful sellers.

Splunk fosters sales coaching culture

💪 FLEXIBLE COACHING

Streamline processes to make coaching easy & impactful

Coaching forms to get you started

Beat the blank slate syndrome with best-in-class coaching forms and templates.

Call coaching

Get immediate feedback on every call so managers can support coaching with real-world sales interactions.

Pitch practice

Leverage AI-powered role-plays to validate coaching effectiveness with sales simulations.

chat

The End of Traditional Sales Coaching: Why AI Role-Play is Taking Over

🤝 CONTINUALLY IMPROVE

Close the loop on coaching with
reinforcement to improve performance

Recommend training content

Identify gaps like weak discovery skills and automatically assign relevant training.

Assign AI role-plays

Assign pitch practice with AI-powered feedback to close seller skill and messaging gaps.

Coaching
📈 POWERFUL ANALYTICS

Go beyond the basics to track what matters

🤗 PERSONALIZed sales training lOREM
Replicate winning behaviors

Easily benchmark the skills and behaviors of your top performers and replicate winning behaviors across the field, turning B players into A players.

Easily track coaching metrics

Get full visibility of coaching scores, who is coaching, and how often across different business units and geographies.

arht

“We began all of this with a defined governance model and operational processes, executive buy-in and champions across the company, metrics to map back to, and a plan to ensure adoption would be seamless. Without taking these initial steps — and, of course, Mindtickle powering Splunk Coach — Splunk wouldn’t have been able to attain a culture of coaching.”

Krishna Saw, Director of Digital Transformation & Adoption
Splunk

👥 USE CASE

Coach the coach

Elevate your coaching by teaching managers how to be great coaches with ‘coach the coach’ programs.

✅ FEATURES

Our platform has all the sales coaching features you need

Partner with a complete revenue enablement platform that can grow with your needs.

Coaching forms and templates
Give managers a prescriptive approach to coaching.

Hybrid coaching model
Support in-person, virtual, peer-to-peer, 1:1, and self-coaching.

Automatic remedial action
Automatically assign training content and AI role-plays.

Readiness Index™
Benchmark the skills and behaviors of your sellers.

Call coaching
Coach reps on calls with AI-powered call insights

AI role-plays
Validate coaching effectiveness with AI-powered pitch practice

 

Sales coaching is part of our award-winning,
all-in-one revenue enablement platform.

🤓 for your role

Sales coaching elevates the morale of the entire sales organization.

Sales coaching simplified

Motivate and retain sellers

Sales-training
🫶CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Janssen saw a 35% increase in sales with data-driven coaching

Janssen Logo

As a result of using Mindtickle sales coaching, 95% of coaching forms are completed on-site and on time, resulting in higher-quality coaching data to inform personalized training for sellers.”

Dr. Somnath Datta,
Head of Commercial Excellence

🖥 related products

Explore related products from Mindtickle

Want to know more about the
leader in revenue enablement?

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Sales Enablement Programs & Training | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/platform/sales-enablement-programs-training/ Thu, 16 Jan 2025 13:24:35 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=20985 PLATFORM > SALES Training Upskill teams with personalized sales training Reduce ramp and upskill teams with personalized and impactful sales training. Get a demo Take a quick tour Benefits How it works Features For your role Customers Resources 👑 BENEFITS Sales training that delivers business outcomes Deliver engaging sales training programs that help sellers and …

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PLATFORM > SALES Training

Upskill teams with personalized sales training

Reduce ramp and upskill teams with personalized and impactful sales training.

👑 BENEFITS

Sales training that delivers business outcomes

Deliver engaging sales training programs that help sellers and partners ramp fast and win big.

⬇ Reduce ramp time

Ramp new hires quickly to increase time-to-first-deal with engaging, tailored onboarding programs.

🏆 Build top performers

Reinforce training over time with micro-learning and assessments.

📊 Prove your impact

Don’t just track completion; show the impact of training on revenue outcomes.

Janssen cut ramp time by 50% and increased new seller sales by 35%

🤩 MODERN ENABLEMENT

Engaging and impactful sales enablement

Built for sellers

Bite-sized learning, mobile-accessible, and tailored to each individual.

Practice till perfect

Test your knowledge and practice your pitch.

Always-on coaching

Get instant feedback from AI and sales managers on calls, pitches, and ride-alongs.

chat

2024 State of Revenue Productivity

🛠 EASY TO BUILD

Quick to implement, quick
to launch

Get up and running fast

Implement in weeks with seamless integrations with your CRM, HRIS, and 100+ more tools.

Drive behavior change

Leverage deep domain expertise and advisory services to design enablement programs that change sales behaviors and deliver results.

Maximize efficiency with AI

Use AI to create content and to scale your role-plays. Launch programs faster using a library of ready-made content, templates, and services.

📊 POWERFUL ANALYTICS

Track the metrics that matter to your leaders

Replicate winning behaviors

Baseline top rep skills with competency-based enablement and replicate it across your revenue-generating roles.

Track your impact

Move beyond adoption and completion metrics – show the impact of sales training on revenue.

Chownow-logo logo

Chownow saw 50% faster time to first deal with a robust new-hire training program

“Right now, we have to be very adaptable to things that are changing. The way people learn is very different. There is still this propensity to make a PowerPoint but that just doesn’t work for training anymore.”

Cole Lindbergh
Sales Enablement Manager, Revenue Operations
Chownow

🎉 USE CASE

Host sales kickoffs that move the needle

Turn your kickoffs into engaging learning experiences that prep your sellers to crush quota.

✅ FEATURES

Sales training features you need to fuel growth

Partner with a complete revenue enablement platform that grows with you.

Microlearning on the go
Consume bite-sized training on the go from any device.
AI role-plays
Practice your pitch with immediate AI feedback
Integrations
100+ integrations work with your existing tech ecosystem.
Coaching
Create a coaching culture with data-driven insights.
Readiness Index
Connect your enablement programs to skill improvement and ROI.

Feature name here rep skills and performance at scale

Sales training is part of our award-winning, all-in-one revenue enablement platform.

🗂 for your role

Sales training programs that help sellers win more

Deliver engaging and impactful enablement

Sales-training

Expand your accounts and win big

🙌 CUSTOMER SUCCESS

Janssen Cuts Rep Ramp Time in Half

“Our vision was to have all learning happen in one portal. With Mindtickle, sales reps can easily go in, find what they need to learn, and go out and do their work. And we have visibility into how they’re engaging with the platform. It’s a one-stop shop for everyone.

Dr. Somnath Data
Head of Commercial Excellence

🌏 SALES TRAINING RESOURCES

Reports, blog posts, and more

REPORT

2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report

BLOG

10 Sales Training Topics

Two people looking at a laptop with sales training from Mindtickle
BLOG

What Makes a Successful Sales Training Program?

🖥 related products

Complement your sales training with impactful content

Want to know more about the
leader in revenue enablement?

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Sales Negotiation Training: Transforming Your Approach to Closing Deals https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-negotiation-training-transforming-your-approach-to-closing-deals/ Tue, 14 Jan 2025 20:39:19 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20713 In a perfect world, every prospect would accept your first offer as written. But every B2B seller in the world knows that’s not reality. Instead, sales negotiations often happen until the buyer and seller reach a mutually beneficial agreement. B2B sellers must master the right sales skills to expertly navigate these negotiations and start closing …

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In a perfect world, every prospect would accept your first offer as written. But every B2B seller in the world knows that’s not reality.

Instead, sales negotiations often happen until the buyer and seller reach a mutually beneficial agreement. B2B sellers must master the right sales skills to expertly navigate these negotiations and start closing more deals.

Some people find sales negotiations uncomfortable. Fortunately, with the right sales negotiation training, every seller on your team can confidently conquer any negotiation that comes their way.

In this post, we’ll explore how sales negotiation training can supercharge your team’s performance. We’ll answer questions including:

  • What is sales negotiation?
  • Why does sales negotiation training matter?
  • What skills do my sellers need to master to prepare for their next sales negotiation?
  • What are some winning sales negotiation training techniques that’ll equip my sellers for success?

What is sales negotiation?

Before delving into the key sales negotiation skills your reps must master, let’s first take a step back to answer the question, “What is sales negotiation?”

Sales negotiation is a term for the back-and-forth discussions between a buyer and a seller as they work to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.

Buyers and sellers may negotiate on several different factors, including (but not limited to):

  • Price: How much will the customer pay for the solution, and when will they expect to pay (for example, net 30 or 60).
  • Timing: For example, when a solution will be deployed.
  • Service and support: What kind of service and support can the customer expect for the price? For example, what will the service level agreement (SLA) be for service requests?
  • Customization: Buyers may want or need more customization than the solution offers out of the box.
  • Contact terms: For example, is the contract for one year or multiple years? Is there a termination clause?
  • Legal and compliance matters: Different industries will have different legal and compliance matters.

What is the outcome of sales negotiation?

Ideally, sales negotiation results in an agreement that reflects both parties’ needs and goals. In other words, both the buyer and the seller walk away feeling confident about the agreement.

Of course, sales negotiations don’t always end that way. In some cases, the buyer and seller never reach an agreement and eventually part ways.

How long should the sales negotiation process take?
You may be wondering how long the B2B sales negotiation process should take.

There’s no easy answer. In some cases, sales negotiations can be completed in a single discussion. In other instances, successful sales negotiations can require several discussions across weeks or months.

The length of sales negotiations depends on a number of different factors, including:

  • Company size
  • Deal size
  • Deal complexity
  • Industry
  • Number of people on the purchasing committee
  • Negotiation style and tactics of both parties

Generally, the simpler the deal, the shorter the sales negotiation process.

For example, suppose a sales rep sells a simple, straightforward solution to a smaller business with just two stakeholders. The sales negotiation process might take two or less weeks in that case. Suppose another rep is selling a solution to an enterprise organization with a large buying committee that requires a high level of customization. In that case, the process can take months or even longer.

When it comes to the length of sales negotiations, it’s important to strike the right balance. Of course, you ideally want the sales negotiation process to be as quick as possible. But if you rush through negotiations, you may lose your prospect’s trust – and their business.

Why sales negotiation training matters

Now we’re clear on what sales negotiation is. But why should sales negotiation training be a priority for revenue organizations?

There are several reasons why sales negotiation training matters. Let’s look at some of the top benefits of delivering training that ensures sellers can master the sales negotiation skills that matter most.

Benefit #1: Maximize revenue

Every organization wants to maximize revenue. But sellers may cave too easily if they haven’t mastered sales negotiation skills. It’ll cut profit margins if they cave too much in price.

By mastering the right sales skills, a seller can ensure that a buyer is confident that their needs are being met while maintaining healthy profit margins.

Benefit #2: Close more winnable deals

All too often, a deal progresses through the sales cycle, but then things go south during the negotiation process, and the deal is lost.

With the right sales negotiation skills, sellers can start closing more winnable deals – and your revenue will continue to grow.

Benefit #3: Build trust and foster long-term relationships

Throughout the sales negotiation process, sellers can build rapport with their buyers. If a seller demonstrates their commitment to arriving at a mutually beneficial agreement that’ll solve the buyer’s challenges, they’ll earn the buyer’s trust.

This trust can build the foundation for a long-term relationship, leading to higher retention and lower churn. In addition, if a buyer trusts you, they’re more likely to refer your business to others who may benefit from your solutions.

Benefit #4: Minimize misunderstanding

When misunderstandings happen, it can stall deals – or even kill them altogether.
Clear communication during the sales negotiation process ensures everyone is on the same page. This can reduce the likelihood of misunderstandings.

Benefit #5: Stand out from the competition

Many companies promise to solve any challenge a buyer faces. The sales negotiation process allows you to stand out from the competition.

During negotiations, you can demonstrate your willingness to work with the prospect to meet their needs. In addition, the sales negotiation process allows you to articulate the value your solution can deliver, which can set you apart from the competition.

The top sales negotiation skills every seller must master

Every sales rep must be ready and able to navigate sales negotiations. For that to happen, a seller must master certain sales negotiation skills.

The sales negotiation skills a seller needs depend on many factors, including company size, industry, sale complexity, and the size of the buying committee. However, every seller must learn certain skills to be successful.

Sales negotiation skill #1: Preparation

Preparation is key in sales negotiations. If you’re unprepared, the buyer may feel you’re wasting their time.

Be sure to do your research and properly prepare for any discussions. For example, you might use conversation intelligence tools and artificial intelligence to quickly surface key themes from a previous discussion. You can use this information to properly prepare for the next stage of sales negotiations.

Sales negotiation skill #2: Objection handling

Sellers are bound to face objections during the sales negotiation process. They must anticipate those objections – and be properly equipped to handle them.

Consider developing enablement resources that help sellers anticipate common objections. For example, your sales battle cards can include objections that often arise when sellers face specific competitors.

Sales negotiation skill #3: Active listening

No prospect wants to feel like they’re being steamrolled during a sales negotiation. So be sure your sellers have mastered the skill of active listening.

Sellers should ensure they’re truly present and paying attention during all negotiation discussions. Conversation intelligence tools can record and analyze calls so sellers can pay attention to the discussion at hand rather than getting distracted by taking notes. In addition, sellers should ask questions and summarize the prospect’s answers to ensure clarity.

mt-platform-conversation-intelligence-screen

Sales negotiation skill #4: Value articulation

Price is one of the most common elements buyers bring up during the sales negotiation process. Perhaps they want you to reduce the price to better fit their budget. Or, they have questions about why your solution is priced higher than competitors.

Sure, you may be willing and able to lower your price. But it’s critical to clearly articulate the value your solution delivers. When you can communicate ROI, your buyers may be willing to spend more than they initially intended.

For example, say your prospect is pushing back on price during sales negotiations. However, you can communicate how your solution can save them x% more time or money than their existing solution. Because of the value of your solution, they’re more likely to sign off on the higher price.

Sales negotiation skill #5: Understanding when to walk away

Not all sales negotiations are going to end in a closed deal. And if sellers don’t have the right sales negotiation skills, they may be wasting unnecessary time on a deal that’ll never close.

It is important to train your sellers to know when to persist and when to walk away from a deal. Though disappointing, walking away from a deal can free up time for more valuable opportunities.

Sales negotiation training strategies for your team

B2B sales negotiation training – when it’s done well – can help your sellers master the skills they need to be confident, successful negotiators. Research tells us that top-performing negotiators are 12.5 times more likely than the rest to feel satisfied with the outcomes of their negotiations.

Top-performing negotiators are

more likely to feel satisfied with negotiation outcomes
0 times

So, what does effective sales negotiation training look like? It varies from organization to organization. However, certain training strategies can be deployed at just about any B2B revenue organization.

#1 Define the sales negotiation skills that matter most in your organization

To be successful negotiators, sellers must master certain sales negotiation strategies and skills. These skills will vary from organization to organization.

As a first step, sure to define the sales negotiation skills the sellers at your organization need to master. A good way to identify must-have sales negotiation skills is to determine your top sellers’ skills. Then, you can incorporate these sales negotiation skills into your ideal rep profiles (IRP).

Ideal rep profile competencies

When (and only when) you’ve defined the sales negotiation skills your sellers need, you can start building programs to help them develop those skills.

#2 Deliver personalized sales negotiation training

Every seller is unique. Delivering one-size-fits-all sales negotiation training isn’t the best approach.

Instead, measure each seller against the IRP for their role. That way, sales managers can identify their strengths and weaknesses in sales negotiation. Once you have those insights, you can deliver targeted sales enablement training and coaching to help them bolster their weaker sales negotiation skills.

#3 Lean into bite-sized sales enablement

When you hear the phrase “sales negotiation training,” you might think of a classroom-style training led by a sales trainer or sales enablement professional. This type of training has a role to play. But often, in-person training isn’t practical. Furthermore, it’s not enough to drive behavior change and performance improvement.

Be sure to incorporate bite-sized learning and reinforcement into your sales negotiation training programs. That way, sellers can engage with sales negotiation training anytime, anywhere. Furthermore, periodic reinforcement will help ensure learning sticks.

#4 Provide practice opportunities

Just because a seller has aced an assessment on sales negotiation strategies doesn’t necessarily mean they know how to apply these strategies. So be sure your B2B sales negotiation training program includes opportunities for your sellers to practice what they’ve learned.

Role-plays are a great way for sellers to practice their sales negotiation strategies before entering the field. With AI-powered role-plays, sellers can practice their skills with a realistic, dynamic bot. AI delivers feedback throughout the role-play experience so sellers can sharpen their sales negotiation skills in real time – without waiting for a manager to provide feedback.

AI-Roleplay

#5 Deliver coaching

Sales coaching can help sellers master important negotiation skills. However, it must be personalized for it to be effective.

Sales managers can use the IRP to determine a seller’s strengths and weaknesses in sales negotiation. They can also leverage conversation intelligence tools to gain insight into how sellers navigate negotiations on calls. All of these insights enable sales leadership to deliver targeted sales coaching that addresses each seller’s needs.

#6 Tap into peer-to-peer learning

Learning doesn’t always have to be facilitated by a trainer or sales manager. Look for opportunities to incorporate peer-to-peer learning into your sales negotiation training programs.

For example, top sellers can share their tips and best practices for more effective sales negotiations. Or, sellers can submit recorded role-plays focused on sales negotiation strategies and get feedback from their peers.

#7 Provide recognition for mastering sales negotiation skills

Everyone likes to be recognized for the work they put in. Be sure to recognize your team members who are improving their sales negotiation skills and putting those skills to work in the field.

Master the sales negotiation skills that matter with Mindtickle

Sales negotiation skills aren’t nice to have. They’re a must-have for any seller who expects to close more deals and meet quota quarter after quarter.

But not all sellers are born negotiators. Fortunately, B2B sales negotiation skills can be taught.

With Mindtickle’s all-in-one revenue enablement platform, you can create and deliver targeted training, reinforcement, AI role-plays, and coaching that ensure all sellers have the right skills to navigate sales negotiations and close more deals expertly.

 

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The BANT Sales Framework: A Complete Breakdown https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-bant-sales-framework/ Fri, 10 Jan 2025 15:51:32 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20710 You’re certainly not alone if you wish for more hours in the day. Modern sales reps are bogged down with many tasks, leaving them far too little time to do what they do best: sell. Sellers need to spend the time they do have with qualified prospects. But first, these sellers must be able to …

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You’re certainly not alone if you wish for more hours in the day. Modern sales reps are bogged down with many tasks, leaving them far too little time to do what they do best: sell.

Sellers need to spend the time they do have with qualified prospects. But first, these sellers must be able to determine whether or not a prospect is the right fit – and fast.

The BANT framework is a simple yet effective tool for quickly determining whether a prospect is worth pursuing. By using it, sellers can focus their time and effort on deals that are most likely to close and leave dead-end deals behind.

In this post, we’ll cover the basics of the BANT framework, including:

  • What it is
  • How to use it
  • How the BANT framework differs from the MEDDIC framework
    How to determine if the BANT framework is working for your sales process.

What is the BANT framework?

First things first, what is the BANT framework?

BANT is a sales qualification framework that helps sellers quickly determine if a prospect is qualified and likely to convert. In other words, it provides a structured framework for determining whether a prospect is worth pursuing.

BANT is an acronym that stands for:

  • Budget: How much is the prospect willing to spend?
  • Authority: Does the person you’re interacting with have the authority to make a purchase decision? Or do they influence the decision?
  • Need: What are the needs of the business, and do you have a solution to address them?
  • Timing: When does the prospect plan to act and decide?

A lead is generally considered viable if it meets three of the four BANT framework criteria. However, each organization must determine what a qualified lead looks like.

For example, let’s say a prospect has a need that can be addressed by your solution, the authority to make a decision, and the drive to make a decision quickly. But they don’t currently have the budget to pay for your solution. In this instance, the prospect likely isn’t a good fit. However, that could change. For example, the prospect could secure more budget in the next calendar year. Or, if a seller can articulate value in terms of cost or time savings, the buyer may be able to secure a larger budget.

IBM initially created the BANT framework in the 1950s. More than 70 years later, BANT continues to be an effective, go-to sales methodology for quickly qualifying sales leads. According to a Gartner report, over half of sales reps find the BANT framework reliable. Furthermore, four in 10 sellers value the flexibility of the BANT framework.

How to use the BANT sales framework

The BANT sales framework considers four factors to determine whether a prospect is a good fit: budget, authority, need, and timing. But how exactly can organizations use the BANT sales framework to help their sellers quickly identify whether a prospect is worth their time and effort?

There are a few key steps for using the BANT framework.

Step 1: Develop your ideal customer profiles

Before deciding whether a prospect is a good fit for your solutions, you must figure out what a good fit prospect looks like.

If you haven’t already, create ideal customer profiles (ICPs). As the name suggests, an ICP describes an ideal customer for your company. In other words, what are the characteristics of a business that’ll gain the most value from the solutions you offer?

ICPs look different from organization to organization. However, some factors you’ll want to consider including in your ICPs include:

  • Company size
  • Industry
  • Geographic location
  • Pain points
  • Revenue
  • Budget
  • Current solution

Of course, you may have multiple ICPs. For example, you may have a solution that’s best suited to small and medium-sized businesses – as well as an enterprise solution. You should create ICPs for each.

Be sure your ICPS are rooted in data rather than hunches. For example, analyze your existing customer data to understand the characteristics of companies that have truly:

  • Made an initial purchase
  • Seen a significant ROI from your solution
  • Purchased additional products and services, thus increasing lifetime value
  • Renewed their contract for multiple years

Your sales and customer success teams will also have insights that can help shape your ICPs.

Step 2: Determine the prospect’s budget

The “B” in BANT stands for budget. So, the next step of the process is to determine whether or not a prospect has the means to pay for your products and services.

Of course, part of this is determining whether the lead can afford your solution. A prospect with a tiny budget and no wiggle room will not be a good fit.

But another critical part is conveying your solution’s ROI. For example, explaining how your solution can deliver significant cost or time savings (or both) may convince the prospect to take action to bump up the budget.

Here are some examples of questions that can help you determine the prospect’s budget:

  • Do you have a specific budget for addressing this challenge/pain point?
  • How much are you currently spending to tackle this challenge/pain point?
  • How significant of a factor is price in your purchase decision?
  • What ROI are you looking to achieve with this purchase?
  • What will happen if you don’t address this issue?

Step 3: Gauge the prospect’s decision-making authority

The second component of the BANT framework is authority. This involves determining whether or not the person you’re speaking with has the authority to make this purchase decision.

If you determine the prospect has no authority to make a purchase decision, that doesn’t necessarily mean you should bail out. After all, this person may have some level of influence on the purchase decision. If you gain their trust and can demonstrate how you can help them solve their problems, they can help connect you to the people with the authority to make a purchase decision.

Here are some questions that can help you determine the authority of the person you’re speaking with:

  • Who initiated the search for a solution for this problem/pain point?
  • What was the decision-making process the last time you invested in a solution of this size?
  • Is there anyone else that should be invited to our next call?
  • Who is the final decision maker on this purchase?

Step 4: Identify the prospect’s needs

The “N” in the BANT framework acronym is “need.” Determining a prospect’s needs is key to deciding whether or not you have a solution to address them.

Asking the right questions is key to uncovering a prospect’s needs, pain points, and challenges. According to a user analysis, sellers using Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution ask an average of 20 questions during sales discovery calls.

Sellers ask an average of

questions during sales discovery calls
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But regarding discovery questions, quality is just as important as quantity. Limit questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Instead, ask strategic questions to get your prospects talking about what keeps them up at night.

Some examples of questions that can help you address the “Need” aspect of the BANT framework include:

  • What challenges or pain points are you currently experiencing
  • What goals are you looking to achieve in the short term?
  • What goals are you looking to achieve in the long term?
  • We often hear prospects in your industry talking about [challenge]. Do you ever face this challenge?
  • What process or solution are you currently using to address your needs?
  • What is/isn’t working with this solution?

Asking the right questions about a prospect’s needs will help you qualify them. If you do determine they’re a qualified prospect, the insight you get can help shape your sales approach.

Step 5: Pinpoint the prospect’s timeline

Once you’ve determined a prospect’s budget, authority, and needs, it’s time to figure out their timeline. In other words, when does your prospect anticipate moving forward with a solution?

Some examples of questions to addressing the timing aspect of the BANT framework include:

  • When are you aiming to launch a new solution?
  • What does the timeline typically look like for a purchase of this size?
  • Are you currently in a contract for another solution?
  • Does this solution need to be in place for upcoming events/milestones?

Understanding a prospect’s timeline gives you a better idea of how (or if) to move forward. For example, if a prospect anticipates making a decision quickly, you’ll want to prioritize earning their trust and keeping them engaged.

If a prospect’s anticipated timeline is longer than your typical sales cycle, that doesn’t necessarily disqualify them, especially if they check the other BANT framework boxes. However, you may decide it makes the most sense to follow up with them later so you can prioritize more urgent deals.

Step 6: Determine next steps

Once you’ve addressed all four elements of the BANT framework, it’s time to determine the next steps. As mentioned, a prospect meeting three of the four BANT framework criteria is typically considered qualified. However, that’s not a hard and fast rule.

If you determine a prospect is qualified, you can focus on keeping them engaged and moving them to the next step of the sales cycle.

Of course, there will also be prospects you disqualify. In those cases, it’s best to cut your losses.

You may also determine that while a prospect is qualified, they’re not yet ready to move forward. In those cases, you can set a reminder to follow up with prospects when they are ready to move forward.

BANT vs. MEDDIC framework: What’s the difference?

BANT has been a go-to framework for qualifying prospects for over 70 years. But it’s certainly not the only framework for lead qualification.

The MEDDIC framework is another widely used sales qualification framework. While BANT and MEDDIC are frameworks used to qualify prospects, they aren’t the same.

MEDDIC, like BANT, is an acronym. It stands for:

  • Metrics: What quantifiable outcomes is the prospect hoping to achieve?
  • Economic buyer: Who is in charge of the purchase?
  • Decision criteria: What factors will a prospect weigh to make a decision?
  • Decision process: What things must happen for a decision to be made?
  • Identify pain: What challenges or pain points is the prospect facing?
  • Champion: Who will champion for your solution internally?

BANT is a fairly simple, straightforward framework. On the other hand, MEDDIC is more complex. It takes a closer look at things like customers’ pain points, quantifiable goals, and the criteria they’ll weigh when making decisions and navigating the purchase journey. As such, it’s a more time-intensive approach.

Because BANT is simple, it’s typically best for selling products and services that are relatively easy to understand to small and mid-sized organizations. It’s also a good lead qualification framework for deals involving a relatively short sales cycle.

Because MEDDIC is more in-depth, it’s better for technical or complex product offerings sold to enterprise-level organizations. It’s also a good framework for deals that involve long sales cycles.

So, which framework is the better option: BANT or MEDICC? Both frameworks are popular for a reason. The right option depends on your organization’s needs.

Furthermore, some organizations use both MEDICC and BANT frameworks during the sales cycle. The BANT sales process can be used to determine which prospects meet basic criteria and are worth pursuing. The MEDICC framework can then be used to guide a more detailed, strategic lead qualification process. The insights you uncover while navigating the MEDICC framework can inform your sales approach and increase your chances of closing the deal.

How do you determine if the BANT sales framework works for your sales process?

The BANT sales framework can be excellent for quickly and easily qualifying prospects. But how do you know whether or not BANT is working for your organization?

For starters, it’s important to provide training and sales enablement to ensure your sellers know the BANT sales framework and how to use it. After all, the framework won’t be effective if sellers aren’t using it – or aren’t using it correctly.

You can also include information about the sales framework in tools and resources like sales playbooks.

Once your sellers are properly trained and enabled, tracking the right metrics is important to determine the efficacy of the BANT sales framework. Some key metrics include:

  • Conversion rates: If BANT is working well, you should see an increase in conversation rates. That includes the portion of prospects that convert to customers and the portion that advances to different stages of the sales cycle.
  • Sales cycle lengths: If prospects are qualified, there should be less back-and-forth. Therefore, sales cycle lengths should decrease.
  • Seller productivity: With the right sales qualification framework, sellers can spend more time engaging with good fit prospects. If the BANT framework works for your organization, you’ll see sellers spend less of their time with unqualified leads.
  • Sales forecast accuracy: If BANT is working well for your sales process, you’ll likely notice an improvement in sales forecast accuracy. Predicted close rates will better align with actual sales outcomes.

In addition, soliciting seller feedback can help you understand how the BANT sales framework is (or isn’t) working for them. You can use these insights to adapt the framework or provide additional training and sales enablement to help your sellers master the framework.

Sometimes, you may adopt a different framework that’ll be a better fit. For example, if your organization sells highly technical products, you may find that the BANT framework alone isn’t enough to improve key metrics. So, you also decide to integrate the MEDDIC framework into your sales process.

Start qualifying prospects faster with the BANT framework

Sales reps only have so many hours in the day. With the BANT framework, they can quickly qualify leads and ensure they’re prioritizing their most valuable prospects.

It’s important to ensure your sellers understand the ins and outs of the BANT framework. With a platform like Mindtickle, you can deliver training, tools, and resources to ensure your sales reps master the BANT framework. For example, AI-powered role-plays allow your seller to practice the BANT framework and get real-time feedback – before money is on the line.

Once your sellers are trained and enabled on the BANT framework, you can leverage Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence capabilities to see how sellers apply the methodology in the field. AI-powered and manager-deliver coaching can help sellers hone their BANT lead qualification skills. That way, they can spend more time with good fit prospects – and close more deals.

Get Your Sellers Trained Quickly to use BANT

Now that you know how BANT helps your sellers better qualify leads, train them on how to use the sales framework using Mindtickle. 

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5 Must-Have Sales Performance Dashboards Every CRO Needs https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-sales-performance-dashboard-examples-cros-must-have-to-improve-sales-readiness-2/ Thu, 09 Jan 2025 13:44:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/5-sales-performance-dashboard-examples-cros-must-have-to-improve-sales-readiness/ Modern revenue organizations depend on the right tools and technology to fuel their success. In fact, large tech stacks have become the rule rather than the exception. According to research, about 63% of sales leaders have 10 or more tools in their current tech stacks. of sales leaders say they have 10+ tools in their …

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Modern revenue organizations depend on the right tools and technology to fuel their success. In fact, large tech stacks have become the rule rather than the exception. According to research, about 63% of sales leaders have 10 or more tools in their current tech stacks.

of sales leaders say they have 10+ tools in their tech stacks
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But these busy leaders don’t have the time to hunt down the right data across disparate tools, analyze it, and decide how to act.

Instead, they need the right sales performance dashboards to easily unlock holistic insights about what matters, all in one spot. With a complete sales performance dashboard, CROs can understand:

  • Why deals are won or lost
  • When pipeline is at risk
  • Where managers are spending time in sales coaching efforts
  • Which enablement efforts are (or aren’t) working and scalable
  • How to get more sellers hitting quota

But what is a sales performance dashboard? And which dashboards does every CRO need? We’ll answer those questions and more in this post.

What is a sales performance dashboard?

A sales performance dashboard is a single hub for all your most important sales metrics, including sales KPIs, hiring and onboarding metrics, training and coaching metrics, outreach metrics, and sales pipeline metrics. Broken down, here’s what RevOps and sales enablement leaders focus on:

Conversation intelligence, sales forecasting, and Digital Sales Rooms that also include integrations with CRMs and sales engagement tools

Revenue productivity, sales content management, and sales coaching data that also pulls data from tools like HRMS and sales performance solutions

A good sales performance dashboard should go beyond the stuff you find in the CRM and really help you understand which deals are at risk and answer questions like where you have issues with buyer engagement, potential issues with seller efficiency, who needs help on what topics, and how to win more.

For example, you should have visibility into which content and programs truly drive an ROI for customers, voice of market insights from calls on competitors, pricing, and so on.

On top of those considerations, best-in-class sales performance dashboards should also include the following:

This is the total amount of revenue generated by the sales team over a given period of time.

This is the percentage increase or decrease in sales revenue compared to a previous period.

This refers to the number and value of deals that are currently in progress and have not yet closed.

This is the percentage of leads that are converted into customers.

This is the average dollar amount of each closed deal.

This is the amount of time it takes to close a deal, from initial contact to signed contract.

This is the cost of acquiring a new customer, including sales and marketing expenses.

This is the total amount of revenue a customer is expected to generate over their lifetime.

This is a measure of how efficiently the sales team is working, such as the number of calls made or emails sent per day.

This is the percentage of deals that are won versus the percentage that are lost.

Why adoption is not a reliable metric for sales performance

To be blunt: CROs don’t care about adoption. They rely on their CRM to give them data about where deals and forecasts stand, but even those tools aren’t good indicators of whether or not the team will hit quota. Looking at adoption metrics gives a single view that doesn’t surface any valuable information about deal health.

For example, our research found that on average, companies have sellers do 13 role-plays each year. However, the top 20 companies have sellers do 80 role-plays annually.

Average sales rep

Winning reps

Role-plays per year
0
Role-plays per year
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It’s clear that adoption is important here — but that’s only part of the story. Without a way to track sales performance and connect them to the number of role-plays performed, you’ll never know exactly if those role-plays had any impact on the rep’s performance in the field and, ultimately, any impact on closing deals.

Another example is a training module with assessments. Your entire team may have completed them, but if they don’t remember what they learned or apply it when interacting with prospects, that adoption metric doesn’t really impact revenue productivity.

The takeaway is simple: No single sales metric tells a full story.

Adoption and engagement are important, yes — but to get real insight into sales performance, you need to track, analyze, and learn from a much wider variety of data. That’s why a complete sales performance dashboard that tracks metrics across all enablement activities – onboarding, ongoing training, conversation intelligence, sales content, and key competencies development – is the most effective way to see a full picture of sales productivity and performance.

What do CROs care about?

With the above in mind, it’s important to build reporting and dashboards that answer questions CROs probably ask their teams weekly. Some examples include:

  • How healthy is my pipeline?
  • Which deals are at risk or progressing nicely?
  • Are reps doing the right volume of activities?
  • Are they prepared to hit quota?
  • What do my top reps do differently?
  • What do my top managers do differently?
  • What do my buyers and customers need from us regarding positioning, pricing, our products, services, and integrations?
  • What content and enablement programs are truly driving an ROI and being used by my team?

5 key sales performance dashboards for CROs

CROs, CSOs, and sales leaders want to fully understand how their teams (and even individual sellers) are moving toward true revenue productivity. For example:

  • Is a new team or rep ready to sell?
  • What are the top skill gaps in the organization?
  • What do most reps do right (or wrong) in sales conversations?

In order to derive such insights, they need the right data at the ready—visually presented in a way that’s easy to consume and take action on.

Though the sales performance metrics tracked vary from organization to organization, these are five key data reports all CROs need to improve sales performance.

Pipeline + deal risk

A pipeline deal risk dashboard is a visual representation of the various risks associated with pipeline deals. It allows CROs to assess the risks involved in each deal, prioritize deals based on their risk level, and take appropriate measures to mitigate them. Typically, these dashboards include the following:

This provides an overview of the current pipeline deals, including the deal value, stage, and potential risks associated with the deal.

This section provides a detailed analysis of the risks associated with each deal. It includes factors such as the deal’s complexity, potential hurdles, and revenue impact. The risk assessment helps CROs identify the most significant risks so they can prioritize efforts accordingly.

This section provides updates on the progress of each deal, including milestones achieved, timelines, and any deviations from the original plan. It allows CROs to identify any potential issues early and take corrective action.

Sales Readiness Index

This dashboard helps organizations assess their sales team’s readiness to sell their products or services and provides an overall view of the sales team’s capabilities, identifying strengths and weaknesses that can be addressed to improve their sales performance. A Sales Readiness Index Dashboard typically includes the following components:

An overview of the entire sales team’s performance, including metrics such as revenue generated, deals closed, and sales cycle length.

Analytics related to the training programs that are available to the sales team. It includes metrics such as completion rates, satisfaction ratings, and the effectiveness of the training programs.

Metrics such as the number of touches required to close a deal, the average time it takes to close a deal, and the conversion rate at each stage of the sales process.

This outlines metrics such as the usage of sales content, feedback from the sales team, and the effectiveness of the content in helping to close deals.

Metrics such as adoption rates, usage, and the effectiveness of the technology in improving sales performance.

Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

Ideal rep profiles

An ideal rep profile (IRP) is a profile of a sales rep who is likely to succeed at a given organization. Much like an ICP includes characteristics that make the customer “ideal,” an IRP defines the competencies and skills a rep must have to regularly close deals and meet (and surpass) quota.

The initial step in implementing a more effective sales enablement approach is to establish your ideal rep profile (IRP). This involves identifying the skills and competencies associated with successful sales outcomes based on observations of your top performers.

Since each organization is unique, the IRP will differ from company to company. It is essential to create an IRP that reflects your organization’s sales goals and aligns with the specific needs of your customers.

After setting up your IRP, it is crucial to evaluate your reps’ performance compared to these standards. This evaluation allows you to identify areas of strength and knowledge gaps that may hinder success. Understanding how each rep measures up to the benchmarks is essential in determining their skill level.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Sales coaching effectiveness

Overall, a sales coaching dashboard should provide sales coaches with the tools and information they need to improve the performance of their team and drive revenue growth. By tracking key metrics, providing targeted coaching, and enabling collaboration and communication, sales coaches can help their reps achieve their full potential and drive success for the organization.

A sales coaching dashboard should include the following metrics and features:

These should include key performance indicators (KPIs) such as win rate, deal size, and pipeline coverage.

These metrics can include things like product knowledge, selling skills, message consistency, and competitive knowledge.

Sales coaches should be able to schedule and track coaching activities such as role-play sessions, one-on-one meetings, and group training sessions. The dashboard should provide an easy way to monitor the progress of these activities and ensure that they are happening on schedule.

Conversation analysis tools can help sales coaches understand how reps are engaging with prospects and customers, identify areas of improvement, and provide targeted coaching. The dashboard should provide access to these tools and make it easy to review call recordings and other conversation data.

The dashboard should provide a way for sales coaches to collaborate with other members of the sales team and share best practices. It should also enable communication with reps to provide feedback, answer questions, and provide coaching tips.

The dashboard should provide access to sales enablement content such as training materials, playbooks, and battle cards. This content can help reps improve their skills and knowledge and enable them to engage with prospects and customers more effectively.

ROI of sales enablement efforts

This dashboard should calculate the ROI of sales enablement activities, based on the increased revenue generated and the cost of sales enablement activities. This information can help sales leaders determine the value of sales enablement activities and make data-driven decisions about where to invest resources. It should include the following:

Includes KPIs like revenue generated, win rate, sales cycle length, and average deal size.

The dashboard should also track sales enablement activities such as training sessions, coaching sessions, and the creation and delivery of sales content.

Includes metrics that show how reps are engaging with sales enablement content, such as how often they are accessing content, which content is used most often, and the content’s impact on deal acceleration.

The dashboard should also track how sales enablement activities are impacting individual rep performance. This could include metrics such as the number of deals closed, the amount of revenue generated, and improvements in win rates and sales cycle lengths.

The dashboard should provide visibility into the cost of sales enablement activities, including the cost of creating and delivering content, and the cost of training and coaching sessions.

Unlock the insights you need to boost sales success across the entire team

No single sales metric tells a CRO everything they need to know. Instead, CROs need a complete sales performance dashboard that allows them to quickly surface insights on how the sales team is performing – and how training and enablement initiatives are (or aren’t) impacting their performance.

Cobbling together data from disparate platforms isn’t an effective approach to getting the actionable insights you need. Fortunately, there’s another way.

With an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, CROs can access all of the performance dashboards they need – all in one location. With Mindtickle, CROs can understand the impact of training and enablement on sales productivity and performance – and then use those insights to make data-based improvements.

But Mindtickle sales performance dashboards aren’t just for CROs. Instead, Mindtickle provides the right role-based reporting to every team member responsible for optimizing sales performance – from sales leaders to enablement professionals to front line managers.

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This post originally appeared in October 2021, was updated in May 2023, January 2024, and again in January 2025.

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Revenue Enablement Solutions | Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/solutions/ Tue, 07 Jan 2025 04:39:47 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=20890 SOLUTIONS Solutions that fuel growth for leading revenue organizations Serving organizations of all sizes and industries for over a decade. We’ve got you covered. Explore our solutions: By role By use case By industry ☝️ WHY MINDTICKLE? Partner with the proven enablement leader Mindtickle has solutions for all kinds of enablement challenges. Learn what sets …

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Serving organizations of all sizes and industries for over a decade. We’ve got you covered.

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Virtual Sales Training Programs: 10 Skills Every Seller Needs to Master https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/virtual-sales-training-programs-10-skills-every-seller-needs-to-master-2/ Tue, 07 Jan 2025 00:49:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14617 Often, sales leaders believe that great sellers are born, not made. But this is a myth. If they can access the right sales training and support, any seller can master the skills needed to be a top performer. But in-person sales training isn’t always the most practical (or effective) approach. Instead, revenue organizations invest in …

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Often, sales leaders believe that great sellers are born, not made. But this is a myth.

If they can access the right sales training and support, any seller can master the skills needed to be a top performer.

But in-person sales training isn’t always the most practical (or effective) approach. Instead, revenue organizations invest in virtual sales training programs to ensure their sellers can grow their skills for success – regardless of their geographical location.

In this post, we’ll explore virtual sales training and how it differs from in-person training. We’ll also share 10 key sales skills any revenue organization should incorporate into its virtual sales training programs to ensure every seller is set up for success.

What is virtual sales training?

The phrase “sales training” may conjure up images of a sales trainer or enablement professional delivering training on a specific topic to a room full of sales reps. But what is virtual sales training?

As you may have guessed, virtual sales training uses digital tools to deliver sales training remotely. With virtual sales training, sales reps can access instruction, reinforcement, practice opportunities, and feedback – without being physically present in a classroom or training session.

Virtual sales training can be instructor-led. In other words, attendees may attend a sales training session live but remotely. This is made possible by tools including video conferencing software and revenue enablement platforms.

Or, virtual sales training can be on-demand. That means sellers can access sales training whenever and wherever they need it. Some examples of on-demand virtual sales training include:

  • Recorded webinars
  • eLearning modules
  • Video tutorials
  • Bite-sized reinforcement
  • Virtual role-plays

Again, the right technology is critical to creating and delivering on-demand virtual sales training programs and then measuring their effectiveness.

How are virtual sales training programs different from in-person sales training programs?

Virtual sales training programs differ from in-person training programs in several key ways.

One of the biggest differences is how the training is delivered and consumed. With in-person sales training, a group physically meets in the same location. A sales trainer or sales enablement professional often leads it.

Virtual sales training is delivered remotely. Sellers can access it from anywhere thanks to technology like video conferencing software and revenue enablement platforms.

Due to the nature of virtual sales training, it’s often more convenient (and less costly) than in-person training. If you have a geographically dispersed sales team, your sales reps must take time away from the field to travel to and attend in-person training. You’ll incur travel expenses for attendees and lost revenue from when your sellers were out of the field.

On the other hand, sellers can engage in virtual sales training from anywhere. That means they can attend a training – and then return to selling.

Another key difference is that virtual sales training is easier to customize to the needs of each seller. If you convene a large group of sellers for in-person training, they will receive the same instruction. That’s OK – as long as it’s relevant to everyone. But if not, some attendees will be wasting their time on irrelevant sales training.

On the flip side, virtual sales training programs make it easier for sellers to access relevant training that aligns with their strengths, weaknesses, and learning styles. For example, sellers who struggle with objection handling can consume training modules that help them strengthen this skill. However, experts in objection handling don’t have to waste their time.

Top skills for virtual selling success

Virtual sales training can effectively ensure your sellers have the instruction and support they need to succeed. Let’s look at 10 top skills you’ll want to incorporate into your virtual sales training programs.

 #1 Discovery

To have any hope of making a sale, a seller must be able to find accounts and buyers that fit your target customer base and ask insightful questions to provide relevant and meaningful outreach and content.

Uncovering a prospect’s pain points, priorities, objectives, and buying team dynamics during discovery sales calls is crucial for continued engagement as the prospect moves further down the funnel. Have top-performing reps share best practices for discovery with others on the team to help everyone hone this skill.

 #2 Time management

In a perfect world, salespeople could devote 100% of their time to sales activities: sending emails, making sales calls, and closing deals.

But today’s selling experience is complex, requiring many seemingly minor tasks that largely contribute to a deal’s success. For this reason, reps must be able to juggle it all, prioritizing the highest-value items on their to-do lists and responding to buyer requests on time.

One-on-one coaching sessions between manager and seller are useful for finding ways the rep can manage their time and maximize productivity.

 #3 Technology use

Numerous sales tools have been introduced to automate, streamline, and/or measure sellers’ daily activities. Whether it’s a content management system, conversation intelligence, or a revenue enablement platform, reps must be able to use technology effectively. It’s up to IT, sales, and sales enablement leadership to ensure salespeople are adequately trained on these systems.

#4 Relationship building

Developing authentic relationships with buyers is critical regardless of what territory a seller has and the type of prospect they’re working with.

Executives and other business leaders are flooded with sales calls and emails daily and will not give the time of day to a vendor who doesn’t care to hear their feelings and opinions.

Forming and nurturing connections can help your reps engage more meaningfully. The ability to do this can be passed down from the top; if sales leaders and managers empathize with their teams, reps will replicate this behavior with their prospects.

#5 Effective communication

Written and verbal communication skills are not just important for interacting with buyers; they’re also required for impactful internal relationships, whether between members of the same team, between manager and rep, or colleagues from other departments.

To be successful in sales, reps must be assertive while mastering the tone and delivery of the information they’re delivering. Encourage reps to practice different messaging formats and techniques, share ideas, and provide feedback to one another.

#6 Storytelling

Shaping messaging into a compelling tale is a distinct skill that goes beyond knowing how to communicate effectively. Telling an authentic story to demonstrate how other customers have solved business issues with your solution appeals to emotions and stokes action. As with other important sales competencies, crafting persuasive narratives takes practice, so give salespeople plenty of opportunity to do just that within coaching sessions and team meetings.

#7 Product knowledge

Today’s buyers have high expectations and can see through salespeople who pretend to know what they’re talking about.

Rather than memorizing a minute-long product pitch, having extensive product knowledge allows sellers to share the value of products more creatively and meaningfully. It also enables reps to answer nuanced questions buyers have about features and functionality. Provide plentiful virtual sales training materials surrounding your product suite and walk your sales team through product demos so they know the ins and outs of what they’re selling.

Mindtickle Missions

#8 Active listening

It bears repeating: Generic pitches and presentations don’t work with buyers today. Sales reps must demonstrate the value of their solutions differently based on a buyers’ unique use cases. And the only way to do that is by letting them tell you what those use cases are. Sellers must ask about goals, roadblocks, priorities — anything that gets them to the heart of what that buyer needs — and then stop and listen.

Active listening means staying in the present, taking in what the person is saying, and waiting until they’re finished to respond. By doing so, a rep builds a further connection with that buyer and begins to position him or herself as a trusted advisor.

#9 Negotiation

Once a proposal has been put together, sales reps must be able to command the subsequent negotiation process. This means not giving in to a prospect’s every demand and instead being assertive and presenting alternative solutions that benefit both parties. Train sellers on how to manage negotiations and allow them to practice with their peers.

#10 Objection handling

A buying team will rarely accept everything a seller tells them without question. Rather than taking their challenges as obstacles, reps should take these as opportunities to get more visibility into how the buyers think. Ensure your salespeople can respond to common skepticism and objections with recorded role-plays scored by either AI or managers.

Take your virtual sales training programs to the next level

With the right sales training, tools, and support, every sales team member will be ready to tackle any deal that comes their way. While in-person sales training has a role, virtual sales training allows you to deliver engaging, personalized instruction, reinforcement, and practice opportunities to every seller– no matter where they live and work.

Technology is key to delivering wildly effective virtual sales training programs. With a revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can create and deliver virtual sales training programs that help ensure your sellers master the skills that matter. What’s more, you can measure the impact of your virtual sales training programs and use those insights to optimize them for even greater impact.

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This post was originally published in October 2022, updated in October 2023, and again in January 2025.

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6 Sales Call Script Templates to Close More Deals in 2025 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/6-sales-call-script-templates-to-close-more-deals-in-2025/ Fri, 20 Dec 2024 15:09:49 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20666 B2B sales reps are no strangers to making phone calls – and lots of them. Research tells us sales reps make an average of 40 calls per day. number of calls a rep makes per day 0 But chances are, every sales rep on your team has had the unfortunate experience of a bad sales …

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B2B sales reps are no strangers to making phone calls – and lots of them. Research tells us sales reps make an average of 40 calls per day.

number of calls a rep makes per day
0

But chances are, every sales rep on your team has had the unfortunate experience of a bad sales call.

With the right sales call script, your sellers can be prepared to ace any sales interaction. In fact, sales call scripts can empower all sellers – from newbies to veterans – to engage more buyers and close more deals.

In this post, we’ll discuss what sales call scripts are and share some examples you can use in 2025 to close more deals.

Of course, sales call scripts aren’t one-size-fits-all. With that in mind, we’ll also share best practices for creating sales call scripts that will deliver the biggest impact for your organization.

What is a sales call script?

Before we jump right into sales call script examples, let’s take a step back to explore what a sales call script is.

What sales call scripts are

A sales call script is a written guide or outline that helps sellers structure their conversations with prospective customers. Scripts can be developed to help sellers stay focused during a variety of different types of sales calls. We’ll explore some of the different types of sales scripts later on.

As the name suggests, sales call scripts are used for phone calls. However, these scripts can also be adapted for other interactions, including emails, live chats, and LinkedIn messages. This is important to note, as many interactions between buyers and sellers occur via digital channels.

What sales call scripts aren’t

Scripts aren’t meant to be recited word-for-word. If a seller takes this approach, they’ll come across as inauthentic or even robotic.

Instead, sales call scripts should be used as flexible guides. Scripts can help ensure sellers cover the right information during different sales calls. However, sales reps can (and should) personalize and adapt call scripts for each interaction. That way, they can build authentic connections with each prospect.

Types of sales calls scripts

Organizations often develop sales call scripts to guide sellers through different sales scenarios. Here are some common sales call script examples.

#1 Cold call script

There’s a lot of pressure when making that first connection with a prospect. The first call sets the tone for the entire relationship, and it’s important to get it right. A BsB sales cold call script can help ensure your sellers get off the right foot.

#2 Cold call voicemail script

Your prospects won’t pick up the phone every time you call. Therefore, it’s important to equip sellers with a sales call script so they don’t fumble when they reach a prospect’s voicemail.

#3 Follow-up sales call script

You’ve already made an initial connection with a prospect. A follow-up sales call script can help you reconnect with the prospect and guide them to take the next step in the purchase journey.

#4 Follow-up voicemail script

When following up with a prospect, you might reach out to their voicemail. With the right sales call script, you can entice them to pick up the phone and return your call.

#5 Objection handling script

Sellers are bound to encounter objections. With the right sales call script, they can anticipate potential objections – and be equipped to address them.

#6 Breakup sales call script

Persistence is key in B2B sales. However, there comes a point when a rep has to decide whether or not to keep trying. A breakup sales call script can help sellers navigate these conversations.

Winning sales call script templates

There’s no single sales call script that every seller should use in every scenario. Instead, it’s a best practice to develop sales call scripts for common sales scenarios – and empower your sellers to adapt and personalize them as appropriate.

However, a sales call script template can be a great starting point.

With that in mind, here are a few sales call script templates to get you started.

#1 Cold call script template

This simple cold call script template can help you connect with any prospect.

“Hi [prospect name!]. This is [seller name] from [company name]. How’s your day going?”

If they respond positively:

  • “Great! I’m going to keep this brief, because I know your time is very valuable.”

If they respond negatively:

  • “I’m sorry to hear that. I’m going to keep this brief, because I know your time is very valuable.”

Then, briefly explain the purpose of the call.

“I’m reaching out to you because we’ve helped businesses like yours [solve this problem/achieve this goal]. I’m confident you could achieve similar results, and I’d love to see if you’re interested in learning more about this.

If now is not a good time:

  • “No worries! I’m happy to call back. Does tomorrow at 3:00pm work for you?”

If now is a good time:

  • Move into your sales pitch.

#2 Cold call voicemail template

Leaving a voicemail can be nerve-wracking. A short and sweet voicemail template can keep your message focused and pique your prospect’s interest.

“Hi there, [prospect name]! This is [seller name] from [company name]. Hope you’re having a great day. I’m trying to get in touch with you because we’ve recently helped businesses like yours achieve [goal/result]. I’ll love to connect for five or ten minutes to see if there’s an opportunity for us to help you get similar results.

Please give me a call back at [phone number] whenever you have a few minutes. I’m going to follow up by email, in case that’s a better way to set up some time to chat.

Thanks so much, [prospect name]! I’m looking forward to hearing from you.”

#3 Follow-up sales call script

You’ve made an initial connection with the prospect, and now it’s time to follow up to keep things on track. Follow-up sales call script templates aren’t as straightforward. That’s because follow-ups must be tailored to the discussions the seller has already had with the prospect.

However, here’s a simple sales call script template to use as a starting point when following up with a prospect.

“Hey [prospect name!]. This is [seller name] from [company name]. I’m so glad to connect with you again today. How’s your day going?”

If they respond positively:

  • “I’m glad to hear it!”

If they respond negatively:

  • “I’m sorry to hear that! That sounds really frustrating.”

Then, recap the last call and how your solution can deliver value.

“Last time we chatted, you mentioned how [company] was really struggling with [challenge]. I’ve been thinking more about this, and I really feel confident we can help you overcome this challenge. Just recently, [customer name] was able to achieve [results] from using our solution.”

Then, work to propel the conversation forward.

“I think the best way to understand how our solution can be a game changer is to see it in action. I’d love to schedule some time for me to demo the product. Does Wednesday or Thursday afternoon work?”

#4 Follow-up voicemail script

You may not always be able to reach your prospect live. A simple voicemail script can remind the prospect of your value and encourage them to take the next step.

“Hi [prospect name]! It’s [seller name] over at [company name]. Hope you’re having a great week.

I really enjoyed connecting last week to learn more about [company name]’s challenges/struggles. I’ve been thinking about our conversation a lot, and I feel really confident that we can help you overcome that challenge – similar to what we did for another customer of ours.

I’d love to find a time for you to see our solution in action. Please give me a call back or shoot me an email to let me know if Wednesday afternoon works or if there’s another day that would be better.

Thanks so much, [prospect name]! Looking forward to connecting again.”

#5 Objection handling script

No one-size-fits-all sales call script will work for every objection that comes your way. That’s because prospects raise a wide variety of objections, and each one must be addressed differently.

However, a simple script can help you prepare to overcome objections.

“Hi [project name]! This is [seller name] from [company name]. How’s it going today?”

If they respond positively:

  • “I’m glad to hear it!”

If they respond negatively:

  • “I’m sorry to hear that! That sounds really frustrating.”

“Hey, I’m following up on the conversation we had last week about how our solution can help you overcome [key challenges]. Do you have any questions about what we discussed?”

When the buyer objects, acknowledge it to show understanding and empathy.

“You feel that our solution is too expensive – especially when compared to [competitor]’s solution. I totally get that.”

Then, work to overcome the objection.

“To be honest, several of our existing clients initially had this same hesitation. But they found our solution actually helped them [save money/cut costs/etc.]. I’d love to share more details on how [current customer name] was able to [achieve this goal] with our solution. Or alternatively, we can run an ROI analysis to get you a better idea of the value you can expect from investing in this solution.”

#6 Breakup sales call script

A breakup sales call script can help you determine whether it’s time to cut your losses.

“Hey [prospect name]! How’s it going?

If they respond positively:

  • That’s great!”

If they respond negatively:

  • “I’m sorry to hear that!”

Then, cut to the chase.

“Last time we connected, we had a great conversation about [pain point] and how our solution can help you overcome this challenge. But I haven’t heard back from you since. I wanted to reach out one last time to see if you had any questions and if you think it makes sense to keep the conversation going.”

Best practices for developing winning sales call scripts

Sales call script templates can be a great starting point. But you shouldn’t stop there.

Every revenue organization is different. And every prospect is different too.

Creating sales scripts that fit your needs and deliver great results is important.

With that in mind, here are some best practices for developing effective sales call scripts to help your sellers engage prospects and close more deals.

#1 Make a list of common types of sales calls

Sure, every sales call is unique. But your sellers likely encounter some common types of sales calls, such as cold calls, voicemails, and objection handling calls.

Start by making a list of the types of sales calls your sellers make most often. But don’t just make guesses. Instead, leverage data and ask for feedback from your sales reps.

#2 Focus on value rather than features

Reciting a laundry list of product features doesn’t capture buyers’ attention. Instead, focus on what your solution can do for your prospects. Ensure your sales call scripts feature talking points about the value of your solution.

#3 Include open-ended questions

Sales calls should be a dialogue rather than a monologue. So avoid using many questions in your sales call scripts that can be answered with a simple yes or no. Instead, incorporate open-ended questions that’ll get the prospect talking. Then, the seller can tailor their approach based on the prospect’s answers.

#4 Keeps your sales call scripts flexible

Sales call scripts shouldn’t be rigid. Instead, they must be flexible and easily adapted to any sales scenario.

Ensure your sellers understand the importance of personalizing sales call scripts – and how to do so.

#5 Provide training and practice opportunities for your sellers

Just because you provide sales call scripts doesn’t mean your sellers know how to use them.

Be sure to provide training and enablement so sellers know where to find sales scripts and how to use them. In addition, provide opportunities for your sellers to practice using sales scripts. For example, you might leverage AI-powered role plays to allow sellers to practice their skills and get feedback before money is on the line.

#6 Leverage conversation intelligence to see how sellers are using sales call scripts

All too often, organizations create sales call scripts for their teams but have little insight into how (or if) they’re being used in the field. With a conversation intelligence tool, you can get insight into what’s actually happening in the field – without having to sit in on sales calls or listen to hours of call recordings.

Mindtickle Call AI summaries

Conversation intelligence tools deliver immediate feedback to sellers, which they can use to improve their skills. Sales managers can also look for trends in a rep’s behaviors, which can inform sales coaching opportunities.

#7 Revisit your sales call scripts often

It doesn’t make sense to create a sales call script and then never look at it again. Instead, revisit your sales call scripts regularly.

Leverage data to see what’s working and what’s not. You can use these insights to make improvements to your sales call scripts.

Ace all of your sales calls with Mindtickle

In today’s world, several different channels exist for connecting with customers and prospects. Yet sales calls remain a key channel for engaging B2B buyers and closing deals.

With the right sales call script templates, your sellers will be prepared to conquer any sales call they make. And with an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can centrally store and organize all your sales call scripts so sellers can quickly and easily find what they need for any sales scenario.

Developing sales call scripts is important. But providing these tools to sellers doesn’t mean they’re using the right sales call scripts and skills.

Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence feature provides sales call analysis. Sellers get real-time feedback after every call, which they can use to hone their skills and increase their chances of success. And sales leaders can use sales call analysis to identify where sellers are shining – and where there are opportunities for improvement. Sales managers can use these insights to deliver coaching that empowers sellers to improve their sales call skills – and start closing more deals. 

Conversation Intelligence in MIndtickle

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Lost Without a Compass: Navigating the Path to Peak Sales Performance at GoTo https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/lost-without-a-compass-navigating-the-path-to-peak-sales-performance-at-goto/ Tue, 10 Dec 2024 15:28:20 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20633 Maps are an important navigation tool. But for sales enablement professionals, a map isn’t always enough. Sales enablement professionals need a map and a compass to navigate the road toward peak sales performance. “We’ve got to be agile enough to redirect ourselves but not lose sight of that north star,” said Teri Long, VP of …

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Maps are an important navigation tool. But for sales enablement professionals, a map isn’t always enough.

Sales enablement professionals need a map and a compass to navigate the road toward peak sales performance. “We’ve got to be agile enough to redirect ourselves but not lose sight of that north star,” said Teri Long, VP of Revenue Enablement at Mindtickle.

GoTo is an organization that understands the transformative power of leveraging both the map and the compass. Recently, the team at GoTo developed their Sales Compass, an integrated ecosystem powered by Mindtickle that supports sellers throughout the purchase journey and empowers them to reach peak performance.

“GoTo needed to be really clear about where they wanted to go and how they could back into that,” explained Long.

At the Sales Enablement Summit in Boston, Long joined Tara Medeiros, Sr. Director of Sales Enablement at GoTo, to explore how GoTo has used its Sales Compass to transform rep behavior and drive better business outcomes.

Optimizing the tech stack

The GoTo team recognized challenges with efficiency and seller productivity. Upon further investigation, it became clear that the root cause of some of these challenges was related to the company’s tech stack.

“We’ve had a lot of growth through M&A activity over the last nine years,” explained Medeiros. “Our sellers are no strangers to change and pivoting. When things aren’t working well, the enablement team is the first to hear about it.”

One recurring piece of feedback was that there were too many internal tools and systems. “It was absolutely overwhelming,” said Medieros.

The enablement team knew they couldn’t control all the company’s systems and tools. Instead, they focused on what they could change and how they could make a significant impact.

“We landed on this notion of creating more of an enablement platform,” explained Medeiros. “But for us, it became more of an ecosystem, which we internally call our Sales Compass.”
Tara Medeiros
Sr. Director of Sales Enablement, GoTo

Sellers are first introduced to the Sales Compass during the interview process. During the presentation round of the interview process, candidates are given a digital sales room (DSR), a page devoted specifically to them. On the DSR, they can find details on expectations and how they’ll be assessed. “We want them to know that if they choose to be a seller at GoTo, we’re going to invest in them,” said Medeiros.

For the team at GoTo, champion building has been a key part of building and launching the Sales Compass.

“You can’t move any needle forward unless you have your champions,” said Medeiros. “Sales leadership was obviously #1. We pulled them into the process extremely early so they felt as if they were building it with us – which they were.”

The enablement team also worked to gain buy-in from product marketing. “With our LMS and our CMS, product marketing didn’t have much insight into the content they were creating,” said Medeiros. The Sales Compass was going to solve that pain for them, but it also came from our budget, so they were totally on board. We pulled them in really early and made sure that they were with us the whole way through.”

Guiding and influencing leadership

All too often, sales enablement teams simply do the bidding of others. But increasingly, teams are moving away from enablement as a service – and working to get a real seat at the table.

To earn a seat at the table, the team at GoTo knew they must be able to prove impact. In the past, this wasn’t always easy. 

"Before this ecosystem existed, we were making constant requests to sales opps,” explained Medeiros. “We’re not always their top priority. I know that. I get that.”
Tara Medeiros
Sr. Director of Sales Enablement, GoTo

Today, the team at GoTo holds monthly performance review calls, where leaders from different areas come together to address performance issues and make improvement plans. Thanks to the Sales Compass, the enablement team always has the data they need at their fingertips.

“We know we must be seen as a must-have organization and not as nice to have organization. The only way you can really do that is if you’re showing up with data and you’re making actual correlations,” said Medeiros. “Beforehand, data was in disparate systems. I had attendance records over here and certification completions over there, and there was no way to really tie it in a meaningful way. Now, we finally have that seat at the table.”

Integrating with impact

Every enablement team aims to have an impact. But the team at GoTo knows that impact must go beyond a check box exercise. Now, GoTo has the data needed to prove impact and adjust as necessary. “We have data at every turn,” said Medeiros.

One of the biggest impacts of adopting their new Sales Compass is that sellers can more easily find what they need.

“Our reps were spending so much time just looking for information,” explained Medeiros. “We had everything spread out over a disparate LMS, a disparate CMS. Our call recording was done in a separate tool as well.”
Tara Medeiros
Sr. Director of Sales Enablement, GoTo

Today, everything is centralized, and reps can find information within the workflow. “There’s less clicks for the reps, and more direct access to the content they need – quickly,” said Medeiros.

“The CRM integration is huge,” she continued. “They live in the CRM. Let’s meet them where they’re at.

Prior to rolling out its new ecosystem, GoTo also introduced a new sales methodology, which required sellers to undergo significant behavior change. GoTo has embedded its sales process into its Sales Compass, which allows the company to quickly identify what’s working well and where there are gaps or inefficiencies.

We know they went through the training, they’ve completed the certification,” said Medeiros. “We have that data, that’s easy. But are they implementing it? Are they following the process as it’s been outlined for them? This tool has given us the ability to easily check in and be that proactive support role, instead of reactive.”

Improving sales results with digital sales rooms

Digital sales rooms are one Mindtickle feature that GoTo’s sellers have embraced with open arms.

“This was easily the best feature to get our sellers on board. This excited them, this engaged them,” explained Medeiros. “It was the DSR that got our sellers to understand the real impact that this new platform could have for them because it changed the way they communicated with their customers.”

Digital sales rooms drive big impact

improvement in win rates
0 %
new contacts created
0
assets shared
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“We had three deals that were really on the line, totaling just under two million ACV,” explained Medeiros. “All three of those deals cited the DSRs as being a competitive advantage because it presented so well and so buttoned up and allowed communication flow to be that much easier.”

DSRs also track activity and provide data on how buyers engage with content, how sellers execute mutual action plans, and how they follow up with customers. In addition, new contacts can be created in Salesforce anytime a champion forwards a DSR to someone else. “That’s work that the reps aren’t having to do,” said Medeiros. “That sphere of influence is growing without reps having to do anything.”

What’s next for GoTo?

Already, GoTo has seen a big transformation by implementing their Sales Compass – not to mention significant results in terms of sales productivity and performance. But they’re not stopping there.

Recently, GoTo merged its sales and marketing teams under one revenue organization. “Next up on our plate is really thinking about our first-ever revenue kickoff, instead of just a sales kickoff,” said Medeiros. “We’re really eager to see what the platform can do with an event like that.”

The team also plans to start experimenting with AI role-plays, which is a Mindtickle feature that enable sellers to practice their skills in dynamic scenarios with a realistic, AI-powered bot. “We’ve already got ideas spinning around like ‘can you beat the C-suite?’”

In addition, the GoTo team plans to dig into Ideal Rep Profiles (IRPs). IRPs in Mindtickle enable teams to define the behaviors and competencies of their top performers. “We want to pull all that data in and try to replicate and pull as much of that into our programming as possible,” concluded Medeiros.

Unlock GoTo's Secrets to Peak Sales Performance

Watch the webinar to see how GoTo’s Sales Compass is transforming sales success with actionable insights and innovative tools.

Watch the Full Webinar

Tara Medeiros recorded this session while she was in her role as senior director of sales enablement and has since moved on from GoTo

The post Lost Without a Compass: Navigating the Path to Peak Sales Performance at GoTo appeared first on Mindtickle.

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What are Sales Battlecards and How Can Your Sales Team Benefit from Them? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-are-sales-battlecards-and-how-can-your-sales-team-benefit-from-them-2/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-are-sales-battlecards-and-how-can-your-sales-team-benefit-from-them-2/#comments Tue, 10 Dec 2024 07:03:00 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=18742 B2B buyers are more informed than ever before. Just ask any sales rep. Sure, most prospects are researching your company before reaching out. But they’re scoping out your competitors, too. Recent research found 57% of all sales deals are competitive. That means your sellers will encounter questions about your competitors and how you stack up. …

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B2B buyers are more informed than ever before. Just ask any sales rep.

Sure, most prospects are researching your company before reaching out. But they’re scoping out your competitors, too.

Recent research found 57% of all sales deals are competitive. That means your sellers will encounter questions about your competitors and how you stack up.

Percentage of sales deals that are competitive
0 %

Ensuring your sellers are properly equipped to address (and overcome) any competitive queries is critical. That’s where sales battlecards come in.

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about sales battlecards, including what they are and why they’re important. We’ll also share plenty of tips and best practices for creating sales battlecards that help your sellers conquer any competitive deal that comes their way.

What are sales battlecards?

Sales battlecards are an effective tool for ensuring reps are experts on their competitors’ offerings. But what are sales battlecards?

They provide an overview of how your company stacks up against the competition. Sales battlecards distill key factors about your own company and your competitors, which may include:

Products

Services

Features + functionality

Pricing

A sales battlecard may compare your company to a single competitor. For example, HubSpot might create one comparing their marketing automation offering to that of ActiveCampaign.

Other sales battlecards compare a company against multiple competitors. For example, a multi-competitor one might show how HubSpot stacks up against ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Marketo Engage.

Some sales battlecards are created as an internal resource for sellers to use. Others are developed as customer-facing collateral. We’ll explore the different types later on.

How are sales battlecards important for competitive selling?

Creating battlecards takes time. Is it really worth the effort?

Yes, without a doubt.

Competitive intelligence battlecards are a powerful tool for competitive selling. In fact, they’re proven to improve sales outcomes. According to research from Crayon, seven in 10 businesses that use them say they’ve boosted their win rates.

Competitive knowledge is key to sales success. But sales reps are busy people. They simply don’t have the time to keep up with every product or feature change announced by a competitor. Sales battlecards can help bridge the gap.

Here’s how battlecards help reps during the course of a deal:

Product and service offerings are always changing and evolving. Competitive intelligence battlecards help ensure sellers always have the latest information about their competitors – and how their own offerings stack up. However, it’s essential they’re updated on a regular basis.

One-size-fits all pitches don’t work. Instead, sellers must develop pitches that address the unique needs and challenges of each seller.

In some cases, a sales rep knows which competitors a prospect is considering. Sales battlecards can help reps tailor their pitches in a way that addresses how their offerings are a better solution than what the competition has to offer.

Sellers are no strangers to objections. A recent analysis found that 63% of sales calls have more negative sentiment than positive. Competitive mentions are one example of negative sentiment.

As such, objection handling is a key sales skill. Specifically, reps must be prepared to address objections related to competitors.

Imagine a prospect considering two competing products. They might raise objections such as:

  • Why does the competitor’s product have these features – and yours doesn’t?
  • Why are these product features important when your competitors don’t have them?
  • Why is the competitor’s product less expensive?

Battlecards help sellers understand how their offerings stack up against a competitor. That way, they can anticipate buyers’ objections – and be equipped to address them head-on.

What are the types of sales battlecards?

There are many different types of sales battlecards. Each type is used in different circumstances.

Single competitor vs. multi-competitor

You might develop a sales battlecard that compares your business to one competitor. These can be a great resource for sellers who are working with prospects who are further along in the sales funnel and have shared what other options they are considering. These single-competitor sales battlecards provide a detailed look at a competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.

Some organizations also develop a sales battlecard that pits the company against multiple competitors. They can be a great resource for reps when they’re working on deals that are higher up in the sales funnel. Typically, they include less detail than a single competitor battlecard.

Competitive

Competitive battlecards provide information on a company’s key competitors. This information might include:

  • Company information
  • Product and service information
  • Pricing
  • Target audience

They are a great resource for ensuring sales reps know how your company stacks up. Competitive battlecards also help sellers anticipate objections so they can be prepared to address them.

Product

These ensure sales reps know the ins and outs of the products they’re selling. These battlecards may incorporate information including:

  • Customer challenges
  • How the product helps address these challenges

Some product battlecards focus on a single product offering. Others compare multiple product offerings – and how they each address specific use cases.

Marketing

Marketing battlecards focus on the marketing strategies of key competitors. These zero in on who the competition is marketing to and what strategies they’re using to position themselves as the right choice for that market.

For example, one competitor may position themselves as the lowest-cost option. If your solutions are more expensive, your reps must be prepared to articulate why that is the case.

Marketing battlecards may also incorporate other information on competitors’ marketing strategies, including:

  • Strategic partners
  • Key marketing channels

Prospect-specific sales

Some battlecards can be used more generally. For example, a multi-competitor, customer-facing sales battlecard can provide a great overview of how your company differs from its key competitors.

However, there are times when it makes sense to create a prospect-specific sales battlecard. This sales enablement battlecard can address the specific, unique pain points of the prospect – and how your solutions stack up to your competitors in terms of solving those pain points.

How to create effective sales battlecards

Sales battlecards are a great resource for your reps. They can have a positive impact on sales outcomes – when they’re thoughtfully created and your sales reps know how to use them.

So, how exactly should you go about creating one? Here are a few best practices to guide the process.

Start with a template

Starting your sales battlecard from scratch can seem overwhelming. Instead, consider starting with a template that suits your needs and use case. Using a template will save time – and it’ll help ensure they all have a consistent look and feel.

Remember: a template should only be a starting point. Be sure to adapt the template as needed so it meets your needs.

Choose your competitors

Start by making a list of your key competitors. Then, add details about how often and when each typically comes up in the sales process. If you’re not sure, ask your sales team for insights.

These insights can help you determine what type is needed for each competitor. For example, if your sellers often lose deals to a specific competitor, it makes sense to develop a battlecard focused solely on that competitor. However, if another competitor is brought up earlier in the purchase journey – but you don’t often lose deals to them – you can include them in a multi-competitor sales battlecard.

Determine your sales battlecard focus areas

Next, you must determine the categories to include in your sales enablement battlecard. Some focus areas to consider are:

  • Product features
  • Cost
  • ROI
  • Customer support
  • Customization options

The focus areas of your sales battlecard will depend on the type you’re developing and the intended audience. For example, a customer-facing multi-competitor battlecard will likely include fewer focus areas than an internal, single competitor version.

Of course, you want to develop battlecards that put your brand and offerings in the best light. However, it’s important to be honest, too. If there’s an area where a competitor outshines you, be sure your sellers know how to articulate why this is the case.

Do your research

It’s important to ensure the information on your sales battlecards is accurate. If a prospect notices an error, you’ll lose your credibility – and likely, the sale.

As such, it’s important to do plenty of research when developing them. Much of your research can be done online. For example, you can find product feature information on your competitors’ websites. In addition, you can read reviews from current and past customers to gain insight into user experience. A generative AI tool like ChatGPT can also be a great tool for conducting high-level competitor research.

In addition, ask for feedback from teams throughout the organization. For example, the sales team can explain why deals are often lost to a specific customer. Marketing teams, on the other hand, likely have insight into a competitor’s online presence and marketing strategy.

Revisit them regularly

Sales battlecards aren’t a one-time project. Instead, they need to be revisited often.

Why? Your products and features will change and evolve in the future. So will that of your competitors.

It’s important to ensure they always reflect the latest and greatest information about your business and your competitors. That way, your sales reps can confidently share their knowledge and be equipped to overcome objections.

How to use them

Creating great battlecards is foundational. But it’s also important to ensure your sales reps know they exist and how to use them. Otherwise, the time and effort spent creating them will be wasted.

With that in mind, here are a few best practices for using them.

Do's

Don'ts

  • Store your them in a single location
  • Provide training, enablement, and coaching on how to use them
  • Ensure sellers know which ones are internal and which are customer-facing
  • Leverage conversation intelligence to ensure sellers are putting their knowledge into practice in the field
  • Communicate when a new one is available
  • Welcome feedback – especially from top sellers – and incorporate this feedback into new versions

 

  • Distribute them via email or store via disparate platforms
  • Assume sellers know how to use sales them
  • Distribute internal sales battlecards to prospects
  • Assume sellers are applying their competitive knowledge in the field
  • Make your reps find them on their own
  • Create the sales battlecards once and never revisit

 

#1: Ensure they are centrally located and easily accessible

Some sales organizations may still use printed sales battlecards. But most have made the transition to digital sales enablement battlecards. It’s important to ensure they are housed in a central location so your sales reps know exactly where to find them.

Some organizations opt to store them in Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or a similar solution. However, a better approach is to store your sales battlecards within your revenue enablement platform. That way, sales reps can easily find exactly what they’re looking for – anytime and from any device.

In addition, a sales productivity tool with content management capabilities makes it easy to make updates to them. That means your sales reps can always access the latest and greatest versions of each sales one. You no longer have to worry about them using an outdated sales versions.

Empower your sellers to win more competitive deals
Sales reps must have deep knowledge of their own products. But they must also become experts on their competitors’ offerings.

Sales battlecards are a great resource for both new and veteran sellers. They provide reps with the information they need to confidently articulate how they differ from the competition. They also help sellers anticipate buyers’ objections – and ensure they’re ready to overcome those objections.

The best place to house your sales battlecards is within a revenue intelligence platform like Mindtickle. That way, your sales teams can access the sales training, sales enablement, sales content, and conversation intelligence they need to win against the competition – all in one place.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

#2: Provide enablement and coaching on how to use them

You’ve created a collection of sales battlecards. But you shouldn’t assume your sellers know what to do with them.

It’s important to provide sales training, sales enablement, and coaching to ensure your reps know how and when to use the sales battlecards available to them. Training, bite-sized exercises, and practice opportunities can help ensure sellers understand:

  • Which ones are available to them
  • The intended audience for each one (internal vs. external)
  • Which ones they should use in which sales scenarios

Sales managers can also leverage conversation intelligence to ensure sales reps are actually putting their knowledge into practice in the field. If there are knowledge gaps, sales managers can provide additional coaching to close those gaps – and improve sales outcomes.

#3: Communicate when there are new ones available

Over time, there may be a need to create additional versions. Each time a new one is available, make sure to let the sales team know. That new sales battlecard may just be the ticket to winning their next competitive deal.

#4: Ask for feedback

Your customer-facing teams interact with prospects day in and day out. They’re well aware of your key competitors and why they’re losing deals to them. So be sure to ask for their feedback on a regular basis. Incorporating feedback from your top sales reps can help improve the effectiveness of your sales battlecards.

Best practices to create sales battlecards

Sales battlecards can equip your sellers to effectively address competitive questions and objections – and come out on top. But simply creating a them doesn’t guarantee it’ll be effective.

So how can you create more effective sales battlecards? Here are a few best practices to consider.

Focus on the right competitors

You might spend a lot of time creating outstanding battlecards. But they’ll sit unused if they don’t include the competitors your sellers most often encounter in the field.

Be sure to create them for the competitors you’re most often up against. But don’t just guess. Instead, analyze data and ask the experts: your sellers.

Include top competitive objections

Your sellers are bound to encounter objections related to a competitor. Your sales battlecards can help sellers anticipate objections and understand how to address them effectively.

Be sure to include common competitive objections in your sales battlecards. It’s also a good idea to provide recommended responses for each common objection.

Consider the format

Sales battlecards can take several different formats. Be strategic about what format you use.

It’s a best practice to use digital sales battlecards. That way, you can store them in a sales content management system so sellers can easily find them. In addition, you can make updates in real-time so you know your sellers are always using the latest and greatest versions.

Make the content easily digestible

Often, sellers need to quickly access competitive information on the fly. They don’t have time to read and comprehend lengthy reports about each competitor. Instead, they need to be able to quickly scan the battlecards to find the information they need.

Be as concise as possible and use techniques like headings, bullet points, and numbering to make the content as easy to scan as possible.

Welcome feedback

Sales battlecards are a tool to make your sellers more effective at overcoming competitive questions and objections. But how do you know if they’re making sellers’ lives easier? By asking the sellers themselves.

Be open to feedback from your sales team. They have unique insight into what’s working and what’s not. You can use these insights to optimize your battlecards for maximum effectiveness.

Update regularly

Products, competitors, and market dynamics are always in flux. It’s important to regularly review and update your battlecards to reflect these changes. That way, your sellers are always equipped with the most accurate, up-to-date information.

Empower your sellers to win more competitive deals

Sales reps must have deep knowledge of their own products. But they must also become experts on their competitors’ offerings.

Sales battlecards are a great resource for both new and veteran sellers. They provide reps with the information they need to confidently articulate how they differ from the competition. They also help sellers anticipate buyers’ objections – and ensure they’re ready to overcome those objections.

The best place to house your sales battlecards is within a revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle. That way, your sales teams can access the sales training, sales enablement, sales content, and conversation intelligence they need to win against the competition – all in one place.

Close every winnable deal

Want to see firsthand how Mindtickle prepares your sales teams to beat the competition?

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in November 2023 and was updated in December 2024. 

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The Kirkpatrick Model: Measuring the Impact of Sales Training https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/kirkpatrick-model-measuring-impact-sales-training-2/ Mon, 09 Dec 2024 01:19:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/kirkpatrick-model-measuring-impact-sales-training/ Chances are, you invest plenty of time and resources into developing and delivering sales training programs. You’re not alone. Research tells us that, on average, companies in the US spend about $1,500 per sales rep each year on training. Of course, you want to get the most from our investments. That’s why it’s critical to …

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Chances are, you invest plenty of time and resources into developing and delivering sales training programs. You’re not alone. Research tells us that, on average, companies in the US spend about $1,500 per sales rep each year on training.

Of course, you want to get the most from our investments. That’s why it’s critical to determine whether or not your sales training is making an impact.

But organizations struggle all too often to measure the impact of sales training. The Kirkpatrick Model is one tool that can help.

Donald Kirkpatrick developed the Kirkpatrick Model in the 1950s. Today, it continues to be one of the most widely recognized frameworks for measuring training effectiveness.
In this post, we’ll explore the Kirkpatrick Model and how it can be used to gauge sales training effectiveness. We’ll also examine some of the key benefits of using this framework and its limitations.

What is the Kirkpatrick Model?

An integral part of any successful sales training program is measuring its contribution to skill building and improved performance. The Kirkpatrick Model is an internationally recognized tool for evaluating sales training results, taking any and all kinds of training into account, including formal, informal, in-person, and virtual.

With the level of visibility this model provides, sales leaders know which learning materials and formats are working to improve performance and which aren’t, helping to drive decisions and make changes that meet the team’s (and overall organization’s) needs.

The Kirkpatrick Model is comprised of four levels for evaluation:

Reaction
Learning
Behavior
Results

 

The four levels of the Kirkpatrick Model

Level 1: Reaction

This first level considers whether your reps found the sales training useful, engaging, and relevant to their role. It also allows you to discover topics that were missed in the training and topics that are redundant. Key to this level is actually utilizing the reactions and feedback you get to change the training program in ways that make a real difference.

  • Did your reps enjoy the sales training?
  • Was it a good use of your reps’ time?
  • Was the length of the training appropriate?
  • Did your reps feel comfortable participating?
  • Feedback from surveys and polls
  • Learning completion rates
  • Gamification scores
  • Grading via quizzes
  • Feedback on subsequent performance by managers

Much of this can be measured during and immediately after the training has been completed. You can also establish a specific cadence (monthly or quarterly, for example) in which to measure whether the learning has been both adopted and retained over time.

Level 2: Learning

Next, the model focuses on measuring how much reps’ knowledge and sales skills increased as a result of training. This will vary from one company to the next, according to their different business objectives. To get the most accurate measurement, set a baseline by testing reps prior to participating in the training.

  • Have your reps learned what they needed to?
  • Have reps’ skills improved in the way that was intended?
  • How much have the reps’ skills improved as a result of the training?
  • Knowledge certification
  • Sales skill certification
  • Program certification
  • Demo role-play certification

The degree to which some of these goals have been achieved can be measured during the training or immediately afterward. Others may require additional time to give reps the opportunity to absorb and practice selling skills. Again, the timeline is up to you based on how aggressive you want to be with developing competencies.

Level 3: Behavior

This measures how reps use what they have learned daily in their roles and how behaviors have changed as a result of the training. Managers must be very involved at this stage in identifying and providing sales coaching to reinforce the changed behaviors.

  • Are reps using the knowledge and skills they learned?
  • How has performance changed as a result of the learning?
  • Have sales increased?
  • Did training help reps improve their selling skills?
  • Has time to productivity reduced? (for sales onboarding)
  • Are your sales reps aware that their sales skills have improved?
  • Manager-driven evaluations
  • Identifying and closing gaps
  • Reviewing sales performance by teams or individual reps over time

Some of these training goals can be measured immediately, but many will require performance reviews over a longer period of time. This could, for example, involve periodically evaluating improvements in sales performance.

Level 4: Results

This measures business outcomes and performance as a result of the training. You’ll have to determine which benefits, outcomes, or other results are most closely linked to the training and put a system in place for quantifying those outcomes moving forward.

  • Sales and revenue
  • Turnover of sales reps
  • Impact on specific stages of the sales funnel (e.g., demo conversions)
  • Number of calls/meetings held
  • Number of opportunities added to pipeline/CRM
  • Number of proposals/quotes submitted
  • Percentage of leads converted to opportunities
  • Percentage of opportunities converted to close
  • Average deal size per rep
  • Average deal cycle length
  • Percentage of forecast achieved

It’s important to look at these metrics in the early stages of a training program’s implementation to see where performance has improved and to correct the course in areas that still need refinement. Continue tracking them over time for insights into long-term changes.

Benefits and limitations of the Kirkpatrick Model

As with any tool or initiative used within a sales organization, there are pros and cons to the Kirkpatrick Model.

In terms of pros, the model provides a scientific method for analyzing the impact of training. With its leveled approach, it offers clear steps to follow for evaluating reps individually, as well as gauging the performance of the greater team. The model works with different kinds of learning programs, whether you use a traditional program or a more sophisticated, digital solution.

However, there are a few downsides. While the Kirkpatrick Model has been continuously updated over time, its structure was developed over 60 years ago. How people learn and retain information has drastically changed since then — and it continues to evolve. Implementing the model will likely require a lot of time and resources and can be expensive to put in place. And finally, it doesn’t consider how other factors like new leadership or a new technology, can influence results.

How to use the Kirkpatrick Model

You likely already have sales training programs throughout your organization. The Kirkpatrick Model is a great tool for evaluating these programs.

This process involves evaluating training on the four levels we covered: reaction, learning, behavior, and results. By using the Kirkpatrick Model, you’ll better understand what’s working and what’s not. You can then use these insights to optimize your training programs and improve outcomes and impact.

You can also use the Kirkpatrick Model to build new programs from scratch. The best way to do this is to approach the Kirkpatrick Model backward. Start by defining your desired results and outcomes. Then, you can work backward to develop training to help you achieve your desired results.

You’ll need to compile and analyze the right data for all four levels of the Kirkpatrick Model. This can be a time-consuming, tedious effort if you’re using disparate systems and technology. However, if you’re using an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can easily access and analyze the data you need to measure impact across all four levels of the Kirkpatrick Model.

How are you measuring the impact of sales training?

Most revenue organizations invest heavily in sales training programs and technology. Yet, many struggle to measure impact.

It’s critical to evaluate your sales training programs. That way, you can find out what’s working – and fix what’s not. The Kirkpatrick Model can serve as a simple, proven framework for understanding sales training impact.

With Mindtickle’s award-winning revenue enablement platform, you can build sales training programs that are tailored to the needs of each seller. You can also measure the impact of those programs across all four levels of the Kirkpatrick Model.

Sales Training in Mindtickle

Quickly build competency and boost retention with tailored learning content for every sales rep. Learn more or request a demo today.

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in August 2017, and updated in November 2022,  October 2023, and again in December 2024. 

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How to Create a Mutual Action Plan That’ll Help You Close More Deals https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-create-a-mutual-action-plan-thatll-help-you-close-more-deals/ Thu, 05 Dec 2024 17:56:03 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20619 Let’s face it: B2B selling isn’t getting any easier. According to recent data, over half of sales professionals feel it’s harder to sell now than it was a year ago. But the truth is, B2B buying is often difficult, too. Per Gartner, more than three-quarters of B2B buyers rate their last purchase as very complex …

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Let’s face it: B2B selling isn’t getting any easier. According to recent data, over half of sales professionals feel it’s harder to sell now than it was a year ago.

But the truth is, B2B buying is often difficult, too. Per Gartner, more than three-quarters of B2B buyers rate their last purchase as very complex or difficult.

of B2B buyers say purchases are very complex or difficult
> 0 %

A mutual action plan can simplify the sales process for buyers and sellers alike. How? By ensuring all parties are aligned throughout the entire purchase journey.

But what is it?

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need about mutual action plans. We’ll share examples and tips for developing an action plan that aligns buyers and sellers and empowers reps to close more deals faster.

What is a mutual action plan (MAP)?

You may ask yourself, “What is a mutual action plan?” If that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place.

A mutual action plan clearly defines action items and assigns responsibility for each. They also include deadlines for when each action item must be completed.

Some mutual action plans also outline decision criteria, the factors a buyer will evaluate when determining if the solution fits them. They may also include a list of potential risks – and how they can be overcome.

A mutual action plan isn’t simply a list of checkboxes for a seller to tick off. Instead, it’s a collaborative document between sellers and buyers. Buyers and sellers must align on the outlined action items, next steps, milestones, and timelines.

A mutual action plan (also known as a MAP) is a collaborative framework that outlines the actions buyers and sellers must take throughout the entire purchase journey. In other words, the MAP answers, “What must happen for this deal to close?”

Why does your sales team need a mutual action plan?

Now that we’re clear on what a mutual action plan is, does your sales team really need one?

Absolutely yes.

Mutual action plans are extremely beneficial to any sales team. Let’s look at some of the key benefits of developing and implementing one.

Better alignment throughout the purchase journey

There was a time when B2B sellers were in the driver’s seat. But today, B2B buyers are active participants. As such, B2B sales must be a collaborative process.

A well-written mutual action plan ensures buyers and sellers are aligned every step of the way. Both parties have a single source of truth for referencing goals and the steps that need to happen to make those goals a reality. In addition, buyers and sellers alike are held accountable for the action items assigned to them. This builds trust and increases follow-through.

Consistent customer experiences

Ideally, your prospects would have seamless, consistent experiences with your brand, regardless of which sales rep they’re engaging with. But often, that’s not the case.

New sellers may struggle to reinvent the wheel every time. And even veteran sellers may get hung up determining what step to take next.

Providing sellers with templates helps them deliver consistent experiences every time. New sellers can hit the ground running faster, and more seasoned reps can spend less time guessing – and more time executing.

Improved close rates

Sales mutual action plans improve alignment and facilitate better customer experiences. As a result, prospects are more likely to convert to customers, and your close rates will grow.

Accelerated sales cycles

We all know that B2B sales cycles can be quite long. With large buying committees, progress can often be held up.

They facilitate a structured sales journey for buyers and sellers alike. Everyone is aligned on goals and understands what they must do (and when) to achieve them, which increases sales acceleration.

More accurate forecasting

Accurate forecasting is important, but it’s often a struggle. Per Gartner, less than 50% of sales leaders and sales reps have high confidence in forecasting accuracy.

of sales leaders and reps have high confidence in forecasting accuracy
< 0 %

Mutual action plans outline a given deal’s timeline and key milestones. This can help you understand when a deal will likely close so you can more accurately predict revenue.

How to create and implement a mutual action plan

There are many benefits of using mutual action plans. But getting started with them can seem overwhelming.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

When developing and using a mutual action plan during the sales cycle, certain steps must be taken.

Team up with your stakeholders

A mutual action plan isn’t simply a checklist used by sellers. Rather, it’s a collaborative document between buyers and sellers. As such, the first step of the process is to meet with your key stakeholders.

You may have one primary contact with the buying organization, but remember: several people are likely weighing in on the purchase decision. According to Gartner, the typical B2B buying group consists of six to ten stakeholders. Make sure you involve as many as you can.

Ask the right questions

To develop a mutual action plan, you must understand your prospect’s needs, preferences, challenges, decision-making criteria, and internal processes.

Asking the right questions is critical to getting the information you need. When you have the right information, you can create an effective plan that accurately reflects what needs to be done for a deal to close.

Align on timing

A seller may want to close a deal by the end of the month. But the buyer won’t have the budget until the start of the next quarter.

It’s important to ensure everyone is aligned on timing.

A good starting point is to determine the buyer’s projected launch date. Then, you can work backward to assign deadlines. That way, the deal stays on track, and the buyer can launch on time.

Develop a template

Use the information you’ve gathered up to this point to develop a mutual action plan template. Your template should incorporate the stages of your sales process and the key milestones of the prospect’s purchase journey.

Collaboratively refine your mutual action plan with stakeholders

We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: a mutual action plan is a collaborative document. After you’ve developed the template, share it with your prospects. Ask for their feedback and incorporate it into your template. That way, you can ensure everyone is on the same page.

Track progress

Creating a template and never looking at it again doesn’t make sense. Instead, it’s important to track progress regularly.

Meet milestones and deadlines and ensure deals are progressing as expected. Consider scheduling regular check-ins to discuss progress and increase accountability among everyone involved in the purchase journey.

Update to your mutual action plan as needed

In the world of B2B sales, change is inevitable. For example, a prospect’s decision-making criteria can change. Or, a stakeholder may leave or join the buying committee. Or, perhaps the seller simply uncovers new information they didn’t have before.

Be sure to update your mutual action plan to reflect any changes that arise. Otherwise, your template will quickly become outdated and irrelevant.

How to increase adoption of your mutual action plan templates

Creating a mutual action plan template is the first step. But your templates are useless if your sellers aren’t using them.

It’s important to ensure your sellers know that these templates exist and how to use them to keep deals on track and convert more customers faster.

Here are some best practices for increasing seller adoption of your mutual action plan templates.

Provide training

Some of your sellers have probably used mutual action plans in the past. Others haven’t. It’s important to ensure your entire sales team knows where to find your templates and how to use them to improve sales results.

You can share your templates during sales onboarding as a starting point. You can also create micro-learning modules to share tips and best practices for using templates.

Deliver personalized coaching

Sales coaching can improve how your sellers use mutual action plans throughout the sales cycle. But sales coaching must be personalized for it to be effective.

First, sales managers must determine how a seller uses mutual action plans. If you use a platform like Mindtickle to create them, you can likely access data to see how buyers and sellers engage with it. Using a conversation intelligence tool, you can reference call recordings and summaries to get insights into how sellers use them in their prospect conversations. Once you have the right data, you can identify the seller’s strengths and deliver coaching to improve their weaknesses.

Centralize your tools and resources

Sellers only have so many hours in the day. They shouldn’t waste time finding the necessary tools and resources, such as templates.

Be sure to store and organize your mutual action plan templates in a single repository so they are easy for your sellers to find. If you use an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, your mutual action plans can live within the platform and the other tools, information, and content your sellers use to engage buyers.

Use a mutual action plan tool

Creating a MAP doesn’t have to be a high-tech endeavor. Some organizations use Microsoft Excel or Word to create their MAPs.

If possible, consider using a tool instead. With the right tool, you can easily create plans, collaborate with customers, and access analytics on how buyers engage with the mutual action plan.

Mutual action plan examples and template

There’s no single, one-size-fits-all template that works for all deals. Instead, mutual action plans must be tailored to each specific sales scenario.

As a starting point, consider creating mutual action plans for common scenarios your sellers encounter. Some examples include those based on:

  • Industry
  • Deal size
  • Company size

There are many different examples, ranging from simple to complex. Here’s one simple example you can use as a starting point.

Mutual Action Plan: Marketing Automation Platform Evaluation

Customer: [Name]
Sales executive: [Name, title, company]
Date: xx/xx/xxxx
Project Overview

  • Prospect’s goals: Short paragraph outlining prospective customer’s goals.
  • Sales goals: Short paragraph outlining sales objectives.

Timeline and Project Milestones

Decision Criteria

  • Criteria #1
  • Criteria #2
  • Criteria #3
  • Criteria #4

Risk Mitigation Plan

Examples of mutual action plan tools

As mentioned earlier, some businesses create mutual action plans using Microsoft Office or Google Workspace. This can be as simple as a spreadsheet outlining roles and responsibilities throughout the purchase journey and corresponding deadlines. The upside of this approach is that you can create plans with tools you already own.

Other businesses prefer to use a tool. For example, Mindtickle’s  digital sales rooms allow sellers to create and share mutual action plans for each deal.

Digital collaboration rooms

Buyers and sellers can then collaborate on the mutual action plan. Updates are made in real-time, so buyers and sellers can be sure they’re always working with the most current version. Furthermore, sellers can access analytics on how buyers engage with the plan and the digital sales room. They can use these insights to adapt their approach.

Start closing deals faster with a mutual action plan

Navigating the B2B purchase journey can be tough. Mutual action plans make it much easier for buyers and sellers alike.

With the right template, your sellers can collaborate more effectively with buyers throughout the sales cycle, ensure alignment every step of the way, and close more deals faster.

Mutual Action Plans With Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle makes it easy to create and execute mutual action plans that engage buyers and accelerate deals?

Request a Demo

The post How to Create a Mutual Action Plan That’ll Help You Close More Deals appeared first on Mindtickle.

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9 Top Highspot Competitors and Alternatives  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/9-top-highspot-competitors-and-alternatives/ Thu, 05 Dec 2024 15:54:08 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20606 A solid sales enablement strategy can significantly impact sales productivity and performance, and revenue leaders are taking note. According to recent research, training and enablement are now the #1 tactic for revenue growth. The right sales enablement tools are essential to an effective sales enablement strategy. If you’ve researched sales enablement tools, there’s no doubt …

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A solid sales enablement strategy can significantly impact sales productivity and performance, and revenue leaders are taking note. According to recent research, training and enablement are now the #1 tactic for revenue growth.

The right sales enablement tools are essential to an effective sales enablement strategy.

If you’ve researched sales enablement tools, there’s no doubt you’ve come across Highspot as one option. Highspot has been around for over a decade, and it’s become a popular option for sales enablement.

However, there are plenty of Highspot competitors that may be a better option for your business.

So, which Highspot competitor is the best out there?

In this post, we’ll explore 10 alternatives to Highspot you may want to consider. We’ll examine key factors, including pros, cons, and pricing, so you can more easily determine which sales enablement tool fits your organization.

Why consider Highspot competitors and alternatives?

Highspot is a popular sales enablement platform, serving customers of all sizes, from startup businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises. The platform has a lot of great features and functionality to support go-to-market teams, so it’s easy to understand why it’s become a top revenue enablement platform.

However, the Highspot platform has some notable downsides. One major drawback is that its sales training and readiness capabilities are limited and unlikely to meet the needs of mature, enterprise organizations.

In addition, there are some significant drawbacks in terms of user experience.
Another theme in user reviews for Highspot is that there’s a steep learning curve. This can hurt user adoption. And if user adoption is low, you’re unlikely to experience significant ROI.

Because of its downsides, it makes sense to also consider Highspot competitors and alternatives.

10 Best Highspot competitors in the market today


Which revenue enablement tool is the best choice for your business? Let’s explore the pros and cons of 10 Highspot competitors so you can zero in on the solution that best fits your needs.

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
Price: Multiple pricing tiers are available. Contact us for customized pricing.

Mindtickle is an award-winning, market-leading revenue enablement platform that provides go-to-market teams with the tools, training, and information they need to deliver great experiences and win deals. It is an integrated platform for onboarding, training, content, digital sales rooms, AI role-plays, and more. In other words, it addresses all the major areas of a holistic sales enablement program—all in one platform.

Enablement leaders use Mindtickle to build and deploy tailored programs that address the needs of every seller. With Mindtickle Copilot, enablement teams can launch programs even faster, which means they’ll see an impact sooner.

Mindtickle delivers robust data and analytics that help revenue and enablement leaders make better decisions. For example, Mindtickle’s Readiness Index helps teams understand how their efforts impact sales outcomes. They can use these insights to optimize their programs. As another example, sales content analytics can help teams understand how buyers and sellers engage with sales content and how that engagement impacts outcomes. Teams can use these insights to develop and optimize content strategies that have a larger, positive impact on sales outcomes.

Customer-facing teams use Mindtickle to access tools, including training, content, digital sales rooms, conversation intelligence, and AI role-plays, all in one spot. In addition, Mindtickle Copilot helps automate and streamline time-consuming tasks like taking notes during customer calls, finding answers to questions, and drafting written communication to prospects. That means sellers can spend more time building relationships with prospective buyers.

Leading analysts recognize Mindtickle as an industry leader. It’s also ranked as the #1 sales onboarding and training product on G2, among many other accolades.

Notable features

  • Ideal rep profiles allow you to define the skills and competencies each customer-facing role needs for success. Then, the Readiness Index allows organizations to track individuals and teams against the IRP.
  • Onboarding helps ensure every new rep is up to speed and ready to sell ASAP.
  • Ongoing, tailored enablement and training programs enable each seller to grow the skills they need for success.
  • Sales content management capabilities ensure reps can access relevant, approved sales content for any sales scenario. Mindtickle delivers content recommendations based on buyer signals and can even help draft contextual emails to accompany sales content.
  • Mindtickle Copilot eliminates the need to wait on subject matter experts. Sellers can ask questions and get instant, accurate answers.
  • Sales coaching empowers sales managers to deliver individualized coaching that improves performance – at scale.
  • Digital sales rooms allow sellers to deliver engaging buying experiences. Buyers and sellers can communicate and collaborate throughout the sales cycle, and sellers can share relevant sales content.
  • Sellers get insight into how buyers are engaging in the digital sales room so they can properly adapt their approach.
  • Conversation intelligence tools record and transcribe every sales call so sellers can stay focused. Sellers can use Mindtickle
  • Copilot to quickly surface insights from calls to strategically plan their next steps.
  • Conversation intelligence tools deliver insights to sales managers so they can understand what’s happening in the field and deliver coaching to improve outcomes and reps’ long-term behaviors.
  • AI role-plays allow sellers to practice their skills before money is on the line. Sellers get real-time feedback for improvement that they can implement immediately–without waiting on their sales manager.
  • Robust analytics and insights allow enablement teams to prove ROI. Teams can see how sellers engage with different enablement programs and how that engagement improves behaviors and sales performance.

Best for

Mindtickle is built with features and functionality that serve many teams throughout the organization, including:
Sales

  • Marketing
  • Sales/revenue enablement
  • Sales/revenue operations
  • Leadership teams

There are over one million users throughout the world that rely on Mindtickle. These users hail from businesses ranging from small startups to the largest enterprises. Mindtickle powers revenue enablement programs for businesses in industries including:

  • Automotive
  • Medical devices
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Consumer goods
  • Manufacturing
  • Chemicals
  • Technology
  • Many more

2. Seismic

Price: Multiple pricing tiers are available. Contact the company for customized pricing.

Seismic is a popular sales enablement platform that equips go-to-market teams with skills, content, tools, and insights. It is used by more than 2,200 companies worldwide, ranging from startups to large enterprises.

Notable features

  • Rich content management capabilities so enablement teams can build, maintain, and control content and sellers can find and share the right content with the right buyers.
  • Robust analytics to optimize performance and prove the ROI of sales enablement.
    150+ integrations so you can unify enablement with your existing tech stack.

Cons

Users cite several downsides to the Seismic platform, including:

  • Navigation difficulty
  • Limited features
  • Layout issues
  • Not user-friendly

3. Showpad

Price: There are multiple pricing plans for Showpad Content and Showpad Coach. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Showpad eOS® is an AI-powered revenue platform. The platform has two key components, Showpad Content and Showpad Coach, which are sold as separate product offerings. Showpad Content enables sellers to find and share the right content at the right time. Showpad Coach enables organizations to provide sellers with the right onboarding, training, and coaching to engage buyers and deliver value throughout the purchase journey.

Notable features

  • Content management features that provide teams with a single source of truth for finding, managing, and sharing the right sales content.
  • Digital experiences, including 3D models and 360° immersive showrooms that bring products to life.
  • Robust analytics and insights empower teams to make strategic decisions and double down on impactful initiatives.
  • Flexible platform, including over 65 pre-configured integrations and an open AI, enables Showpad to fit into your existing processes.

Cons

User reviews shed light on multiple downsides of Showpad, including:

  • Limited features
  • Platform limitations
  • Issues with content management
  • Admin issues
  • User experience

4.  Allego

Price: Allego’s product offerings are available via a la carte pricing. Alternatively, customers can bundle products. Pricing varies depending on the number of users and contract length. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Allego is an AI-powered revenue enablement platform that provides customer-facing teams with the knowledge, content, and insights they need to engage buyers throughout the purchase journey. With Allego, sales, marketing, and enablement teams can collaborate to deliver the outstanding experiences B2B buyers have come to expect. Allego is used by one quarter of Dow Jones Industrial Average companies.

Notable features

  • Digital sales rooms allow sellers to collaborate with buyers
  • Sales content management capabilities make it easy for sellers to find the right sales content for any sales scenario.
  • Conversation intelligence analyzes calls and provides real-time coaching to sellers.
  • Generative AI enables sellers to ask questions and get real-time answers incorporating insights from sales content, learning materials, and subject matter experts.

Cons

Users cite several downsides of Allego, including those related to:

  • A steep learning curve
  • Poor platform organization
  • Missing features that are available in other platforms
  • Counterintuitive platform

5. Bigtincan Readiness (Formerly Brainshark)

Price: Bigtincan Readiness offers multiple pricing tiers, depending on company size. Contact the company to get personalized pricing information.

Bigtincan Readiness (formerly Brainshark) is Bigtincan’s AI-powered sales readiness solution. With it, organizations can equip sales teams with the right training, sales coaching, practice opportunities, and learning content to be ready for any sales interaction. Businesses in industries including IT, manufacturing, insurance, and banking use Bigtincan Readiness.

Notable features

  • Interactive experiences – including AR and VR – help teach complex concepts to go-to-market teams.
  • A drag-and-drop editor enables administrators to quickly and easily build and launch courses.
  • Readiness Scorecards make it easy to visualize individual and team improvement – and provide remediation when necessary.

Cons

Reviewers mention several cons of Bigtincan Readiness, including those related to:

  • Missing features
  • Steep learning curve
  • Limited editing
  • Admin issues

6. Bigtincan

Price: Packages and pricing are customized to the organization’s needs. Contact the company for personalized pricing information.

Bigtincan is an AI-driven sales enablement platform that empowers go-to-market teams to deliver better buying experiences. The platform includes three elements: Readiness, Content, and Engagement. The platform is flexible and can be customized to the needs of organizations of all types and sizes.

Notable features

  • Bite-sized training and coaching helps ensure go-to-market teams are ready to deliver outstanding buying experiences.
  • Sales content management capabilities provide sellers with a one-stop shop for quality, approved sales content, and the ability to personalize it.
  • Robust analytics and reporting help you understand what’s working and what’s not so you can make data-based decisions.

Cons

Reviews shed light on several downsides of Bigtincan, with trends emerging related to:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Limited functionality
  • Limited reporting
  • Not intuitive

7. Paperflite

Price: Paperflite offers a free trial. After that, pricing starts at $50 per user per month, with a five-user minimum.

Paperflite is a sales enablement tool focused on sales content management. With it, sales and marketing teams can store, organize, distribute, and track content. Organizations also use Paperflite to create engaging content, including custom microsites, landing pages, and interactive experiences.

Notable features

  • Brings together all sales content into one intuitive interface.
  • Sellers can share content with buyers via personalized, engaging microsites.
  • Leverages behavior patterns and AI to help sellers surface the right content at the right time for the right situation.
    Integrates with many top sales technology tools.

Cons

Paperflite is primarily focused on sales content. That means businesses must use other tools to address the other elements of sales enablement, such as onboarding, training, and role-plays.

User reviews shed light on other issues with the platform, including:

  • Limited features
  • Layout issues
  • Platform limitations
  • Content management difficulties

8. Salesloft

Price: Salesloft offers Advanced and Premier pricing tiers. However, they don’t publish pricing. Contact the company for pricing information.

Salesloft is a popular revenue orchestration platform that helps organizations grow efficiently and drive revenue. It uses AI to analyze buyer signals and provides insights to help sellers determine how best to engage with prospects, wherever they are on the purchase journey. Over 5,000 businesses rely on Salesloft, including IBM, 3M, Instacart, and Shopify.

Notable features

  • Salesloft’s AI-powered engine integrates buyer signals into the seller workflow, so sellers know what steps to take and when to take them to close more deals faster.
  • Robust analytics and insights help sales leaders understand which actions have the most revenue impact so they can replicate winning behaviors across the entire team.
  • Conversation intelligence analyze sales calls, enabling sellers to tailor their follow-up

Cons

User reviews mention several cons of Salesloft, including:

  • Missing features
  • Call issues
  • Integration issues
  • Platform limitations

9. SalesHood

saleshood-logo

Price: Three pricing packages are available, starting at $40 per user per month. Contact the company for detailed pricing information

SalesHood is a revenue enablement platform that leverages AI to help sellers understand what to do and what to share with buyers to move deals forward. The platform is equipped with guidance and templates, enabling professionals to launch programs quickly and see impact faster. SalesHood offers robust reporting and analytics that make it easy for you to measure the ROI of enablement and understand where there are opportunities for optimization.

Notable features

  • Digital sales rooms enable sellers to deliver engaging, personalized experiences to buyers and understand how they engage throughout the sales cycle.
  • AI enables sellers to get real-time answers and guidance, which increases efficiency and accelerates the sales cycle.
  • AI role-playing allows sellers to practice their skills and get real-time coaching.

Cons

While there are many benefits to SalesHood, users cite many downsides, including:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Difficult navigation
  • Layout issues
  • Missing features

Which is the best Highspot competitor?

The right technology is a key component of any revenue enablement strategy. While Highspot is a popular option, the platform has shortcomings. Luckily, several Highspot competitors are in the market today.

So which is the best Highspot competitor among those we explored in this post?

While each Highspot competitor has unique features and benefits to support go-to-market teams, Mindtickle stands above the rest.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform. Revenue teams can access onboarding, training, content, AI role plays, digital sales rooms, conversational intelligence, and more – all from one platform. That means your teams will have the skills, tools, and information they need to deliver outstanding experiences and close more deals faster. 

See Mindtickle in Action

Ready to see firsthand why Mindtickle is the best Highspot competitor on the market?

Request a Demo

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11 Sales Enablement Trends to Watch for in 2025 and Beyond https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/11-sales-enablement-trends-to-watch-for-in-2025-and-beyond/ Tue, 03 Dec 2024 17:13:25 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20604 Sales enablement is relatively new in the long history of business. Its origins are often traced back to 1999 when John Aiello and Drew Larsen saw a need to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of sales reps. In the past 25 years, sales enablement trends have evolved significantly. This evolution has been driven by many …

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Sales enablement is relatively new in the long history of business. Its origins are often traced back to 1999 when John Aiello and Drew Larsen saw a need to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of sales reps.

In the past 25 years, sales enablement trends have evolved significantly. This evolution has been driven by many factors, including technological advancements and shifting B2B buying habits and behaviors.

The pace of change isn’t expected to slow down. Sales enablement practitioners must be ready, willing, and able to observe sales enablement market trends and adapt their strategies and programs accordingly.

But what can we expect in the coming year? Let’s explore 11 key sales enablement trends shaping the industry in 2025 and beyond.

#1: B2B buyer expectations will grow and evolve

B2B buyers are a tough bunch.

They expect relevant, engaging, and personalized content and experiences throughout the purchase journey. In fact, research tells us that for most B2B buyers, experience matters just as much as products or services.

Furthermore, B2B buyers do plenty of research on their own before contacting a sales rep. When they do reach out, they expect the rep to understand their needs and act as a trusted advisor. Yet, 59% of B2B buyers say most sales reps don’t take the time to understand their goals.

of buyers say reps don't understand their goals
0 %

Now, more than ever, revenue enablement teams must equip sellers with the right tools, training, and information to meet customers’ expectations and earn their trust.

#2: B2B sales will increase in complexity

There’s no denying that B2B sales are a lot more complex than B2C sales. Research from Gartner found that over three-quarters of B2B buyers rate their last purchase as very complex or difficult.

One factor contributing to the complexity of B2B sales is the number of people involved in a purchase decision. According to Gartner, the typical B2B buying committee includes up to 10 stakeholders, and each person typically consults four to five sources of information. It’s no wonder things get complicated.

of B2B buyers say purchases are complex
> 0 %

Sales reps who leverage depend on digital sales rooms to achieve this goal. With a digital sales room, every buying committee member will have a single source of truth for information and content relevant to their needs. This will simplify the sales journey – and accelerate deal cycles.

Digital collaboration rooms

#3: Digital selling skills and tools will be more important than ever

Today, a large (and growing) portion of deals are completed without the buyer and seller ever setting foot in the same room.

This trend is expected to continue – and accelerate. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions between buyers and sellers will occur in digital channels.

By 2025

of B2B sales interactions will happen in digital channels
0 %

Increasingly, B2B buyers are navigating the purchase journey digitally. But that doesn’t mean the sales rep’s role will become obsolete. It’ll just evolve.

According to Gartner, B2B buyers are nearly two times more likely to complete a high-quality deal when they engage with vendor-provided tools in partnership with a sales rep, rather than navigating the journey on their own.

#4: One-size-fits-all sales enablement will (finally) get kicked to the curb

By now, we all know that sales enablement can significantly impact the metrics that matter most to your business, including quota attainment, conversion rates, and revenue growth (among others). But not all sales enablement is the same.

In the past, many revenue enablement teams developed and delivered content and resources without much insight into what teams needed. A report from 2024 found that a mere 40% of C-level executives said they could identify rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training.

Recent research found that only

of C-level execs know rep strengths and weaknesses
0 %

But this one-size-fits-all approach to sales enablement has never worked. Sellers waste their time on training and enablement that isn’t relevant to them, and many still lack the knowledge and resources they need.

In 2025, more businesses will abandon one-size-fits-all enablement and work to deliver revenue enablement personalized to each member of the go-to-market team.

It all starts with defining what skills and competencies are needed for each role on the revenue team. Then, enablement teams can measure each seller against the appropriate ideal rep profile, identify their weaknesses, and work to deliver tailored training and learning paths that help them improve their skills and behaviors.

#5: Revenue teams will leverage AI to deliver tailored coaching at scale

Quality, consistent coaching helps every sales team member reach their full potential. There’s data to back that claim. A recent analysis shows that top-performing sellers receive four times more coaching than the average sales rep.

Top-performing reps receive

more coaching than the average sales rep
0 x

However, traditional sales coaching practices are labor intensive, and sellers are left with no choice but to wait for their manager’s feedback.

In the year ahead, we’ll see innovative organizations leveraging artificial intelligence to deliver targeted, real-time coaching at scale. At these organizations, sellers will engage with AI role-plays, which allow them to practice their skills in realistic sales scenarios with a dynamic, AI-powered bot. 

AI-Roleplay

AI will deliver real-time qualitative and quantitative coaching to the rep, which they can use immediately to improve their behaviors. That means sales reps will have the feedback they need to improve their behaviors and won’t have to wait around for their manager to deliver it.

#6: More businesses will make the transition to revenue enablement

Sales enablement can significantly impact sales productivity and performance, so it’s no wonder that most organizations invest in sales enablement teams and technology.

But sales teams aren’t the only ones involved in growing revenue. Instead, it’s a team effort involving your customer-facing roles, including sales, marketing, customer success, and customer support. Equipping these teams with the tools, knowledge, and information they need to deliver outstanding customer experiences is important.

In the coming year, we’ll see many organizations expanding their enablement efforts to include all go-to-market roles. By embracing revenue enablement, these organizations will be better equipped to drive predictable revenue growth through a variety of strategies including acquisition, retention, and expansion.

#7: Enablement teams will tap into AI to develop and deliver programs faster

Change is constant. Products, markets, and customer preferences are constantly in flux. Sales enablement teams are under pressure to deliver and deploy programs that ensure their teams can keep pace with change.

But creating new sales enablement modules and programs can be challenging and time consuming – especially when teams are lean and resources are stretched thin. On average, it takes 3-4 weeks to launch a new program from scratch.

to launch a new program from scratch
weeks

In the future, innovative revenue enablement teams will tap into AI to develop and deliver new enablement programs in hours (or even minutes), rather than weeks.

#8: Sales teams will be empowered with just-in-time self enablement

Traditional training and sales enablement tactics may be effective but are often labor-intensive. Enablement teams (in collaboration with sales and marketing) spend time creating content and resources and training sellers so they know how to use the resources available to them. What’s more, enablement teams and subject matter experts must be on call to answer sellers’ questions and help them overcome barriers to success.

Revenue teams will empower their teams with just-in-time self-enablement in the coming year. This approach will allow customer-facing teams to easily find the information and answers they need whenever and wherever a need arises. They won’t have to rely on others to get what they need.

Just-in-time self-enablement will accelerate sales cycles and remove friction in the purchase journey. That means sellers will be able to close more deals faster.

#9: AI will enable reps to spend more time selling

The more time a seller can devote to engaging with buyers, the more deals they’re likely to close. It seems obvious, right?

But research found sales reps spend a mere 30% of their time selling during the average week. The remainder of the time is spent on time-consuming admin work and internal meetings.

Reps spend just

of their time selling
0 %

In 2025, innovative revenue enablement teams will leverage AI to help sales reps streamline (and even automate) time-consuming but necessary work. For example, AI will deliver content recommendations to sellers so they don’t have to spend time searching for the right assets. Or, generative AI will compose a first draft of an email to a prospect so the seller doesn’t have to start from scratch.

By streamlining and automating time-consuming, tedious tasks, sellers will have more time to engage with buyers and close deals.

#10: Organizations will trade point solutions for integrated sales enablement platforms

Revenue leaders understand the importance of equipping their sellers with the right tools and technology. But it’s easy for things to get out of hand.

In the past, it was common for organizations to invest in point solutions that addressed a single sales enablement need or pain point. This led to bloated sales technology stacks – and overwhelmed sales reps. Recent research found that nearly seven in 10 sales reps feel overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use.

of reps are overwhelmed by the number of tools in their tech stack
0 %

In the coming year, nine in ten sales organizations plan to consolidate their tech stack. One key way they’ll do this is to trade point sales enablement tools for an integrated sales enablement platform. With this approach, sellers will still have the tools, information, and content they need for success – but they’ll be able to access it all from one source of truth. That means they can spend less time searching for what they need and more time engaging with buyers.

#11: Enablement teams will (finally) make sense of all that data

Sales enablement strategies should be rooted in data, not gut feelings. But historically, compiling data – and making sense of it – has been a struggle.

By trading point solutions for an integrated revenue enablement platform, enablement teams can finally find the data they need to prove ROI, identify what’s working, and figure out what needs to be optimized. AI can even deliver recommendations on what actions to take based on the data and analytics.

Why should you care about these sales enablement trends?

Sales enablement aims to equip sellers with the knowledge, content, and tools they need to deliver great experiences that convert buyers to customers. But the B2B landscape is always changing. That means the sales enablement strategy you built a year ago may be ineffective.

Keeping a pulse on revenue enablement trends is key to ensuring your strategy and programs keep pace with rapid change. If you don’t, your sellers won’t be properly equipped to meet the needs of modern buyers, and you’ll find yourself losing business to a competitor that’s more focused on customer needs.

Is your strategy keeping up with sales enablement trends?

Technology plays a key role in the success of your sales enablement strategy. With the right sales enablement technology, your enablement team (and your sellers) can always stay one step ahead of the latest sales enablement trends.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that empowers organizations to build and deliver personalized enablement that increases sales productivity and performance.

See Better Sales Enablement in Action with Mindtickle

Ready to see why the world’s best revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to power their sales enablement programs?

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The Complete Guide to Sales Automation for 2025 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-sales-automation-for-2025/ Mon, 25 Nov 2024 21:29:46 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20588 Behind every deal that’s won are countless tasks and processes. Multiply that by all the deals in your sales pipeline, and things get complicated – fast. Sellers are bogged down with tedious, time-consuming tasks, so it’s easy to see why so many are missing quota. Today, winning revenue organizations leverage sales automation to streamline manual …

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Behind every deal that’s won are countless tasks and processes. Multiply that by all the deals in your sales pipeline, and things get complicated – fast.

Sellers are bogged down with tedious, time-consuming tasks, so it’s easy to see why so many are missing quota.

Today, winning revenue organizations leverage sales automation to streamline manual processes and free up their teams to do what they do best: sell.

You’ve come to the right place if you’re eager to see what sales automation can do for your business. In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about sales automation, including:

  • What it is
  • How it can increase sales productivity
  • How it works
  • What sales automation mistakes to avoid

What is sales automation?

You’ve probably heard “sales automation” at least once or twice. But you may be unclear on what this phrase means.

So, what is it?

Sales automation is using technology to streamline and automate the time-consuming, repetitive tasks and processes that are part of the sales cycle. By streamlining these tasks and processes, you can significantly improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales team.

Organizations use automation in many ways, from updating CRMs to streamlining workflows to unlocking valuable insights. Artificial intelligence is expanding the scope of sales automation even further, enabling teams to streamline more (and more complex) activities. We’ll explore some of these use cases later.

What are the top sales automation benefits?

Sales is a numbers game. The more time sellers can spend actively engaging with good-fit buyers, the more deals they’ll be able to close.

Yet research tells us sellers spend less than 30% of their time each week actually selling.

Research shows that sellers spend less than

of their time selling
0 %

But that doesn’t mean they’re slacking off the other 70% of the time. Instead, they’re spending it on time-consuming admin work and meetings.

A key benefit is reducing the time and effort required to complete tedious (but necessary) tasks. That means sellers can spend more time building customer relationships and guiding more deals through the sales cycle.

Depending on how it’s is used, there are several other benefits. For example, if an organization is leveraging automation for pipeline management, it’s getting insights that can help it improve deal outcomes. Or, if an organization is using automation to summarize and analyze sales calls, sales managers have insights they can use to deliver coaching that improves reps’ long-term behaviors and performance.

How does sales automation work?

There are countless ways organizations can leverage automation throughout the sales process. How sales automation works largely depends on how it’s being used.

At its core, sales automation is all about data. Often, it involves updating data based on an activity, such as a deal advancing to the next sales cycle stage.

Artificial intelligence takes automation to the next level.

For example, predictive AI can leverage sales data, make predictions based on that data, and recommend actions to increase the chances of the deal moving forward. AI can also provide recommendations on the best content to share with each prospect based on buyer behavior and past performance.

In addition, many organizations are now using generative AI to automate the creation of emails and other content. Sellers don’t have to start from scratch, which means they can accelerate deals.

Sales automation examples

When it comes to automation, the possibilities are endless. So, how should you use sales automation to improve the way you do business?

It depends on what your goals are.

However, here are some examples that can help you start your thought process.

Data entry

Data entry is perhaps one of the most common ways to leverage sales automation.

Logging data is necessary – but it’s time-consuming, especially if you use several different tools and platforms. With sales automation, your sellers’ activities can automatically be logged into your CRM. For example, if a seller shares a piece of content via email, that activity will automatically be logged in the CRM. That way, the seller can spend less time entering data and more time engaging with the prospect.

Pipeline analysis

Accurate forecasting is important. But often, deals go south – and you don’t know about it until it’s too late.

One use case for AI sales automation is pipeline analysis. This lets you quickly identify at-risk deals and provide remediation to get things back on track. AI can even deliver recommended next steps to improve the deal’s outcome.

Prospecting

Sellers only have so many hours in the day. They need to ensure they spend their time with prospects who are a good fit for their products or services.

Today, many organizations leverage marketing and sales automation to nurture and qualify leads. For example, if a buyer takes a certain action on the vendor’s website, it’ll trigger an email. Organizations can use lead scoring to assign certain points to certain actions. When a buyer score surpasses a specified threshold, the appropriate sales rep will be notified to contact them.

Call summary and analysis

Often, sellers spend a lot of time taking notes during calls and deciphering those notes after the fact. Organizations can leverage sales automation to analyze calls and provide summaries. This can help sellers understand what steps to take next and help sales managers identify opportunities for targeted coaching.

Content creation

Increasingly, sales interactions are taking place via digital channels. But developing written communication can be time consuming for sellers.

Today, sellers can use generative AI to help. For example, a sales rep can send relevant content to a buyer and ask a digital sales assistant to draft a contextual email to accompany the content. Sellers can also use sales automation to personalize content for each buyer.

Personalized training and enablement

Ongoing training and sales enablement ensure sellers are always ready for any deal. However, training and enablement must be personalized to each seller’s needs.

With automation, sellers can be assigned relevant training and sales enablement based on their strengths and weaknesses. AI can also recommend resources to help sellers bolster their knowledge and skills.

Common sales automation mistakes to avoid

Sales automation can simplify and streamline the many moving pieces of the sales process, allowing your sellers to focus on building authentic relationships and earning customers’ trust.

But rolling out initiatives isn’t as simple as flipping a switch. Instead, you must be strategic and avoid certain pitfalls.

Let’s look at some of the most common mistakes to avoid.

Using disparate tools and software

Automation requires the right tools. For example, a sales enablement tool allows you to automatically deliver personalized training paths at scale. And conversation intelligence delivers sales call summaries and insights.

However, these solutions are often siloed, and sellers find themselves overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use.

This approach makes your sellers’ lives harder – when you should aim to make them easier.

Instead, invest in marketing and sales automation tools that integrate with your existing sales technology stack. For example, your sales automation tools should integrate with your existing CRM to automate the data entry process.

In addition, look for opportunities to trade point solutions for integrated sales automation platforms. For example, consider investing in a single, integrated revenue enablement platform rather than purchasing a sales content management system, learning management system, and a conversation intelligence platform.

Failing to properly personalize

Modern B2B buyers have come to expect personalized content and experiences – no matter where they are on the purchase journey. According to research from Forrester, nearly three-quarters of B2B customers expect fully or mostly personalized content.

of B2B buyers expect fully or mostly personalized content
0 %

But often, organizations focus so much on automating content, communication, and experiences that personalization is overlooked.

When prospects receive generic content and communication, they’re likely to disengage. It’s important to strike the right balance between automation and personalization.

Neglecting data management

Great marketing and sales automation depends on great data. Your efforts will only succeed if your data is accurate and quality. For example, you may send the wrong emails to the wrong prospects or deliver irrelevant training and enablement to your sellers.

It’s important to prioritize data hygiene. Clean data is the foundation of effective automation.

Eliminating the human element

You can win more business faster with the right strategies. But remember that sales automation should complement human interaction, not replace it.

Be sure to strike the right balance between automation and the human touch. It’ll pay off in terms of customer acquisition and retention. According to Gartner, “B2B buyers are 1.8 times more likely to complete a high-quality deal when they engage with supplier-provided digital tools in partnership with a sales rep rather than independently.”

Taking a “once and done” approach to sales automation

Sales automation isn’t something you can set up once – and never think about again. But often, this is exactly what organizations do. As a result, B2B automation efforts become outdated and ineffective.

Instead, consistently track KPIs to see what’s working and what’s not. Then, use those insights to optimize your efforts.

Failing to provide proper training and coaching

Adoption will suffer if teams don’t know how to use the sales automation tools. Be sure to deliver proper training to help teams understand why you’ve invested in a sales automation tool – and how they can use it to be more successful in their roles.

Ignoring seller feedback

Your sellers have unique insight as they engage with customers daily. Yet, organizations often develop strategies without their input.

When developing sales automation strategies, be sure to involve sellers. Otherwise, you may implement strategies that don’t help sales reps and don’t align with customers’ needs.

See why Mindtickle is a critical tool in your sales automation toolbox

Your sellers only have so many hours in the day. With sales automation, you can streamline tasks and processes so sellers have more time to do what they were hired to do: engage buyers and close deals.

The right technology is key to any B2B sales automation initiative.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that equips sellers with the training, tools, content, resources, and insights they need to effectively and efficiently engage buyers. The platform also leverages AI to automate and streamline the mundane tasks that take up so much of your sellers’ time – like searching for sales content, and drafting contextual emails. identifying key moments in sales calls, accessing real-time coaching, making sense of data and analytics, and more.

See Mindtickle in Action

Ready to see why top go-to-market organizations choose Mindtickle to simplify processes and ensure their sellers always have what it takes to conquer any deal?

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What is Sales Collateral and How Does it Help Reps Close More Deals? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/why-is-sales-collateral-and-how-does-it-help-reps-close-more-deals-2/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/why-is-sales-collateral-and-how-does-it-help-reps-close-more-deals-2/#comments Mon, 25 Nov 2024 04:16:00 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=18924 Modern B2B buyers are more informed than ever before. Sellers must be ready to meet them where they are and deliver relevant information and experiences every step of the way. With the right sales collateral, your sellers can effectively engage each buyer – no matter where they are on their purchase journey. Sales collateral can …

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Modern B2B buyers are more informed than ever before. Sellers must be ready to meet them where they are and deliver relevant information and experiences every step of the way.

With the right sales collateral, your sellers can effectively engage each buyer – no matter where they are on their purchase journey.

Sales collateral can take many forms – from sell sheets and presentations to case studies and ebooks. Sellers must share the right content at the right time with the right prospects.

In this post, we’ll explore sales collateral and how different types can be used throughout the purchase journey to boost sales engagement. We’ll also share tried-and-true best practices for creating winning sales collateral that helps your reps guide more prospects through the sales funnel – and convert more of them to customers.

What is sales collateral and why is it important?

First things first: what is sales collateral?

It’s any type of asset that enables sales reps to engage prospects and guide them through the sales funnel. It takes many forms, which we’ll explore in detail a little later on.

Print

Digital

Internal

External

Print vs. digital sales collateral

Today, some organizations continue to use printed sales assets. However, the vast majority of sales organizations are transitioning to digital collateral. This is especially true in today’s world, when many sales are conducted without a buyer and seller ever meeting face-to-face.

A best practice is to leverage a sales content management solution to centralize your digital collateral.

Internal vs. external sales collateral

Some sales collateral is used externally. In other words, this collateral is shared with customers and prospects. Some examples include case studies and data sheets.

Other collateral is for internal use only. This collateral (often referred to as sales enablement collateral) is developed only for use by the sales team. Some examples of internal collateral include sales playbooks and sales battlecards.

The importance of sales collateral

Now, we’re clear on what sales collateral is. But why is it important?

Sales collateral drives sales effectiveness and sales efficiency. When it’s done well, it engages buyers with the right information at the right time in the right format. Outstanding collateral can accelerate the sales cycle, so sales reps can close deals faster. When reps can close more deals, your revenue will grow.

What are the different types of sales collateral?

There are many different types of sales and marketing collateral. Each type is especially effective in certain parts of the purchase journey. For example, a case study may be impactful for a prospect who is close to making a decision – but first wants to get a better idea of how other businesses have leveraged a similar solution to achieve their goals. However, the same case study may not resonate with prospects who are higher up in the funnel and just starting to research their options.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the different stages of the sales journey – and some of the best collateral for each stage.

Sales and marketing collateral for the awareness stage

During the awareness stage, prospective customers are aware that they have a challenge (or multiple challenges), and they’ve started to look for solutions to address it. B2B collateral is an important tool that helps ensure prospects become aware of your company and its solutions.

The purpose of collateral at this stage is to make your brand known – and demonstrate that your business is a thought leader. Some common types of collateral that resonate during the awareness stage include:

Blogs are a great way to demonstrate your thought leadership during the awareness phase.

Videos can convey key information in a format that’s easy to digest.

Enables prospects to see what’s new at your organization.

These are a great way to quickly convey a lot of information in an easy-to-digest format.

Regularly posting on key social media channels can increase prospects’ awareness of your brand.

Sales and marketing collateral for the consideration stage

During the consideration stage, prospects start weighing their options. They know about your organization and may have some knowledge about your products and services. But they’re not ready to sign on the dotted line just yet.

Collateral can help sellers build relationships and deliver value during the consideration phase with assets including:

These can be an effective way to present a large amount of information.

eBooks and guides are popular ways to add value during the consideration stage.

Conducting surveys – and then summarizing your findings in a research report – is a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

Webinars are an interactive way to share a variety of information and data with prospects.

At this stage, sellers should be sure to use B2B sales content that is industry-specific and speaks to the buyer’s specific challenges.

Sales and marketing collateral for the decision-making stage

At this stage, prospects are getting ready to buy. They’re likely considering your business – as well as a few competitors. The right collateral can build their confidence about your solution being the best option. Collateral that’s effective during the decision-making stage includes:

You can put together fact sheets to concisely convey key product information.

Tells the story of how a company has leveraged your solution to solve their challenges.

These customer quotes give prospects an idea of what it’s like to work with your company.

Provides prospects with concise feedback from your current customers.

Tools like ROI calculators can help prospects understand what they can expect from investing in your products or services.

Demos enable buyers to see your solution in action.

Sales and marketing collateral for retention stage

After you’ve closed a deal, the goal is to keep that customer around long-term. After all, retaining an existing customer is a whole lot easier (and less expensive) than acquiring a new one.

This can be a great way to share best practices to ensure customers are getting the most value from your solution.

Let customers know what’s new with your product and how it benefits them.

Newsletters are a great way to share what’s new at your company. They can also include links to other resources that’ll build customers’ knowledge and ensure they’re getting the most from your solutions.

You can engage customers by sending automated emails when they complete certain activities.

How do you create sales collateral for your business?

The right sales collateral can help you grow revenue. But creating collateral for the sake of creating collateral isn’t effective. After all, research suggests that up to 70% of B2B sales collateral sits unused.

Asking key questions for sales content development

It’s important to create collateral that resonates with buyers throughout the purchase journey – and is proven to move deals forward. It’s also imperative to ensure sellers know where to find the collateral they need – as well as how to use it.

So, how can you start creating more effective collateral for your team? The first, foundational step is to answer these five questions:

Question #1: Who is your customer?

Before developing any type of asset, you must have a clear understanding of who you are talking to. Today, many sales organizations develop buyer personas. Buyer personas are detailed descriptions of fictitious prospects who are a good fit for your organization’s products or services.

Question #2: What are your customers’ pain points?

Generic B2B sales content isn’t effective. Instead, it must speak to a customer’s specific pain points.

When developing your buyer personas, it’s important to understand their challenges. That way, you can develop sales content that specifically addresses those pain points.

Question #3: How can prospects trust your solution?

To close deals, you must articulate why your solution is the best option for solving your customers’ challenges.

Of course, it’s important to establish your brand messaging. However, incorporating the voices of your existing customers into your sales content can be a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

A recent Gartner study found that “third-party interactions, such as reading customer references or reviews and consulting directly with third-party experts, are better suited to provide customers with value affirmation.”

Question #4: What types of content will help in the buyer journey?

You know who your customers are and you understand their pain points. You also understand how your solution is ideal to address those pain points. Next, you have to determine what types of content are right for delivering your message throughout the purchase journey.

There’s no right answer here. As we discussed earlier, different types of sales collateral resonate with buyers at different points in the purchase journey. It’s important to determine the right mix of sales assets, measure regularly, and optimize accordingly.

Question #5: How can you retain your existing customers?

Often, sales content is focused on acquiring new customers. However, it’s also important to develop collateral that aids in customer retention.

It’s important to ask yourself what you need to keep your customers around long-term. Then, develop the right content to engage them.

You can use the answers to these key questions to develop the right sales collateral.

Streamlining  management

You’ve answered the key questions above and used the answers to develop sales collateral. What now?

It’s important to ensure your sellers know how to find and use your newly created sales content.

At some sales organizations, collateral is stored in multiple repositories or distributed by email. This makes it difficult for sellers to find the sales assets they need in a specific situation. In addition, it’s common for sellers to use outdated content.

A best practice is to store and organize your sales collateral in a single platform. Many revenue enablement solutions include content management functionality so you can store all content in one place. That way, sales reps can easily find the best content for any selling scenario.

In addition, sales enablement teams must provide training to ensure sellers know when and how to use the sales collateral that’s available to them.

Measuring and optimizing 

Sometimes, organizations develop a piece of sales collateral, upload it to a repository, and then never think about it again. This isn’t an effective approach.

Instead, it’s important to consistently measure usage of sales collateral. In other words, how often are sellers using a specific piece of sales collateral? And how are buyers engaging with it?

Measuring how (or whether) sales collateral impacts sales outcomes is also important. That way, you can understand which collateral has the biggest impact. Then, you can use those insights to optimize your sales content strategy accordingly.

When should salespeople use sales collateral?

Your sales reps may have a large amount of sales collateral available to them. But when should they use it?

There’s no simple answer to that question. As we already explored, sales collateral plays an important role in every stage of the sales funnel.

Early on in the purchase journey, sellers can use sales collateral to earn a prospect’s trust and help them understand more about their business. For example, a sales rep could share an ebook or whitepaper to demonstrate industry expertise and provide value early on.

Later on in the journey, sellers can use sales collateral to help overcome objections and convey why their solution is the best option. For example, a sales rep could share a case study about how a similar business overcame a similar challenge. Or, they could share a sales battlecard to help buyers understand how different solutions stack up.

The important thing is to share the right sales collateral at the right time.

Sharing relevant content at the right time helps sellers earn buyers’ trust and entice them to continue on the purchase journey. On the other hand, sharing irrelevant content will cause the buyer to disengage.

Organizing your sales collateral in a sales content management system is an important way to ensure sellers can quickly surface relevant content. Look for a solution that leverages AI to deliver content recommendations based on data.

Increase the impact of your sales collateral with Mindtickle

Sales reps must keep their buyers engaged. But this isn’t always easy, as sales cycles are long and buying groups are increasingly large.

Sales collateral is an important tool sellers can use to deliver relevant information and keep buyers engaged throughout the entire purchase journey.

Many organizations focus on creating a high volume of sales collateral. But often, a large portion of that sales content sits unused.

Instead, focus on creating high quality sales collateral that’s aligned to the purchase journey. In addition, be sure your sales collateral is easy to find and that your sales reps know how to use it to accelerate deals.

Mindtickle’s revenue enablement platform incorporates sales content management, which enables organizations to store and organize all sales collateral in one central location. That means sales reps can easily find the right sales collateral for any selling scenario. AI also recommends sales collateral based on data and past performance.

In addition, Mindtickle allows sellers to see how buyers engage with sales collateral so they can adapt their approach accordingly. Sales leadership can also measure how sales collateral is used and whether it improves sales outcomes.

Simply creating sales collateral isn’t enough. Mindtickle also enables organizations to deliver sales training and sales enablement to ensure sellers know how and when to use the sales collateral that’s available to them.

Sales Content Management in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s award-winning sales productivity platform ensures reps are always ready to sell?

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This post was originally published in January 2024 and updated in November 2024. 

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Formal vs. Informal Learning: Which Drives Better Sales Results? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/formal-vs-informal-learning-which-drives-better-sales-results/ Tue, 19 Nov 2024 18:33:22 +0000 https://www.www.mindtickle.com/?p=20562 Ongoing learning is key to success in any field. Sales is certainly no exception. When sellers have continuous training and learning opportunities, they’re better equipped to deliver engaging experiences that attract, win, and retain customers. In fact, research tells us companies that invest in training are significantly more effective than their competitors. Revenue organizations often …

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Ongoing learning is key to success in any field. Sales is certainly no exception.

When sellers have continuous training and learning opportunities, they’re better equipped to deliver engaging experiences that attract, win, and retain customers. In fact, research tells us companies that invest in training are significantly more effective than their competitors.

Revenue organizations often invest in formal learning and training programs and tools. But informal learning (when done well) also drives sales productivity and performance.

Which is the better option in a battle of formal vs informal learning? The truth is, both are important pieces of the puzzle.

In this post, we’ll explore what formal and informal learning are, how they’re similar, how they’re different, and why you need both to drive sales performance and revenue growth.

What is formal learning?

First things first: what is formal learning?

Formal training is what many people think of when they hear the phrase “sales training.” It typically takes the form of structured curricula delivered to a specific audience on a set schedule. For example, each new sales rep undergoes sales onboarding, which is a structured set of courses and tasks that are assigned and completed at specific points in time.

Formal enterprise learning can include a variety of components, like:

  • Live lectures (either in-person or remote)
  • Training videos
  • Assigned reading
  • Other assignments and tasks
  • Quizzes and other types of assessments
  • Certifications

Sometimes, formal learning takes place in a classroom setting, where all attendees are in the same physical location. But increasingly, formal learning takes place remotely, often via videoconferencing and other digital tools.

Typically, formal learning is developed and delivered by trainers, instructional designers, or sales enablement professionals. These folks may use a sales training tool to develop and deliver programs and measure their impact.

Why is formal learning important?

Organizations are largely in control of the formal learning experience. As such, formal learning can be a great method for delivering structured information to a group of people.

For example, if you’re launching a new product, your entire sales team needs to learn its features. Formal learning, including live training and assessments, helps ensure all sellers gain the right product knowledge to accurately articulate the solution’s value to buyers.

Formal training is also important for organizations in heavily regulated industries. For example, sellers in certain industries—such as pharmaceuticals—may need formal training to comply with rules and regulations.

What is informal learning?

Now that we know formal learning, you may ask yourself, “What is informal learning?”

Informal learning is a more flexible approach to sales training and learning. Informal learning is unstructured and typically takes place outside of the classroom.

Informal learning can take many forms, including:

  • Microlearning
  • Reinforcement
  • Practice opportunities like role-plays
  • Knowledge base
  • Coaching
  • Peer-to-peer sharing

Informal learning is typically employee-led. Employees seek out just-in-time information and learning opportunities whenever a need arises. They can get answers and information from various sources, including managers, subject matter experts, and peers.

Typically, informal learning requires less of a time commitment than formal learning. Rather than attending training at a specific time, employees can consume informal learning whenever and wherever their schedule allows.

Why is informal learning important?

Formal training has an important role. But according to Gartner research, B2B sellers forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of sales training.

Gartner found that B2B sellers forget

of training within a week
0 %

Informal learning helps reinforce concepts and skills taught during formal training. That way, knowledge sticks and sellers are more likely to apply it in the field.

In addition, informal learning is hyper-relevant to the needs of each individual. Rather than requiring a large group to sit in on a live training, informal training provides learning opportunities targeted to each individual’s needs. And individuals can access these opportunities anywhere, at any time.

As a sales leader, you understand that learning isn’t a one-time event but should be continuous. Informal learning helps foster a culture of ongoing learning within the organization.
Formal learning vs. informal learning: what’s the difference?
Now that we’ve shared definitions for formal and informal learning, one thing is clear: they are not the same.

Let’s look at some key differences between formal and informal learning.

What are some examples of formal and informal learning?

One of the best ways to understand the difference between formal learning vs. informal learning is to see some examples of each. So with that in mind, let’s take a look at some formal and informal training examples.

4 formal training examples

Some formal training examples include:

#1 Sales onboarding

Let’s say you have a group of 15 new sales reps who are scheduled to start next month. These sellers will all go through a formal sales onboarding program, which will kick off with three days of live classroom training sessions. Then, each seller will be assigned certain courses and tasks to complete over the next 90 days.

#2 Product training

Another formal training example is product training. This type of formal training may be developed and delivered when a business is launching a new product offering or making significant changes to an existing one. Product training might include on-demand and live courses, as well as assessments to ensure understanding.

#3 Sales kickoffs

Sales kickoffs often include at least some formal sales training. A sales kickoff is often the one time of year the entire team is in the same place at the same time, so it’s a good opportunity to deliver formal training on topics including (but not limited to) product offerings, sales processes, and new technology.

#4 Training on new technology

Let’s say you’re investing in a new piece of software—such as a revenue enablement platform—that will be used by the entire go-to-market team. You may want to develop and deliver formal training so your entire team understands why you’re adding this technology and how they can use it to do their jobs well.

4 informal training examples

Some informal training examples include:

#1 Microlearning

Organizations can develop bite-sized learning to convey new information or reinforce concepts covered during formal training. For example, a formal training may focus on different closing methods. Then, the organization might develop short, bite-sized videos of top sales reps using these different closing techniques.

#2 Knowledge base

A knowledge base is an informal training resource that allows sellers to find the knowledge and information they need when they need it. A sales content management system can serve as a knowledge base, providing sellers with a one-stop shop for sales content.

Sellers can search the knowledge base to find the information that they need without having to wait on a subject matter expert. Sometimes, a knowledge base incorporates an artificial intelligence sales assistant, which allows users to pose questions and get answers based on the information and content housed within the knowledge base.

#3 Coaching

Coaching is informal learning that can help sellers hone their skills for success. Coaching can be manager-led. In other words, a sales manager delivers coaching based on a rep’s performance. Or, organizations can deliver AI-powered coaching. For example, conversation intelligence software can analyze sales calls and deliver feedback. Or, sellers can engage in AI-driven role-plays and get real time feedback for improvement.

#4 Peer-to-peer feedback

Peer-to-peer feedback is a type of informal training that enables your top sellers to help each other learn and grow. For example, a sales rep can post a role-play or practice pitch recording, and peers can share their feedback.

Formal vs. informal learning: Which is better for your organization?

For example, imagine your organization is rolling out a new product offering. Your teams work together to develop a formal training program that’ll be delivered at your next sales kickoff. At the end of the sales kickoff, attendees will take an assessment to test their knowledge. These are examples of formal learning.

Once attendees have left the sales kickoff, they can tap into informal learning to strengthen their knowledge. For one, they can use an internal knowledge base to find information and resources about the new product offering. They can also watch short videos where subject matter experts go into depth on some of the key features and benefits of the product. Finally, they can practice pitching the new product via AI role-plays and get real-time feedback on improving their pitch. These are all examples of informal learning that can be done whenever and wherever sellers have the time.

Take your formal and informal training to the next level with Mindtickle

Formal vs informal training: which is the best? The truth is, both formal and informal training are key to ensuring your sellers have the knowledge and skills needed to build relationships with buyers and close more deals.

But generic, one-size-fits-all sales training topics won’t cut it. Instead, you need to deliver formal and informal training that addresses the needs of each seller.

That might seem impossible – especially if you have a large sales team. But with Mindtickle, you can identify the strengths and weaknesses of each seller – and deliver personalized training tailored to their needs.

With Mindtickle, you can build and deliver formal training programs like onboarding and product training. You can also deliver informal training opportunities like microlearning, reinforcement, coaching, and practice opportunities that help sellers hone their skills for success.

Now that we’ve discussed the differences between formal and informal learning and shared examples of each, you may wonder which option is better.

The truth is, it depends on your organization’s needs and the types of information and knowledge you plan to deliver to your sellers. Often, the best approach is to use a blend of formal and informal learning.

See Mindtickle in Action

Ready to see why Mindtkcle is the #1 sales training and onboarding solution on G2 for the fifth year in a row?

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Top 4 Tips to Planning the Most Effective Sales Kickoff https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/top-three-tips-to-planning-the-most-effective-sales-kickoff-2/ Mon, 18 Nov 2024 10:29:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=12805 It’s hard to believe it, but the end of the calendar year is just around the corner. For sales enablement professionals, the end of one year (and the beginning of another) can only mean one thing: sales kickoff planning season is here. Often, the sales kickoff (SKO) is the one time of year the entire …

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It’s hard to believe it, but the end of the calendar year is just around the corner. For sales enablement professionals, the end of one year (and the beginning of another) can only mean one thing: sales kickoff planning season is here.

Often, the sales kickoff (SKO) is the one time of year the entire go-to-market team gathers together (either in person or virtually). That makes it the ideal time to celebrate the wins of the past year and strategize how to make the coming year your best one yet.

Sales enablement professionals work tirelessly to make a sales kickoff a smashing success. But it’s not always easy to strike the right balance between celebrations and getting down to business.

Whether your 2025 sales kickoff will be in person, virtual, or a combination of the two, thoughtful and strategic planning is critical to success. The team at Mindtickle is here to help you plan an engaging sales kickoff that will set your sellers up for success in 2025.

In our 2024 SKO-in-a-box, we share a framework for planning a virtual or hybrid sales kickoff. You’ll find plenty of tools and resources to help you plan your best SKO yet, including checklists, event planning tools, pre- and post-work exercise ideas, and plenty of tried-and-true advice from Mindtickle’s sales enablement team.

But first, here are four tips to help get your SKO planning underway today!

Tip 1: Unify SKO activities into one platform

One of the first steps in planning a kick-off event is identifying the right technology to execute your vision. You should use a platform that enables you to unify all activities for the event in one place and make it easy to engage both virtual and in-person attendees.

It’s important to start with a software solution where you can author and host content, build and manage course sessions for live events, keep reps engaged (gamification, competitions, interactive questions, etc.), and enable reps with learning and training sessions during and after the event.

Mindtickle for Sales Kickoffs

You should leverage the existing sales enablement platform for SKO wherever possible. Sellers already use many different systems daily, so asking them to log into and use another platform can feel cumbersome and jeopardize their engagement before, during, and after the event.

With a comprehensive revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can create, organize, and house all SKO materials and activities in the same system sellers have already engaged in for training and sales content, making the technical overhead for participants easier.

And for sales enablement teams, using your existing platform means that, instead of figuring out how to set up and build everything in a new event point solution, you can focus on designing the content itself, finding the best speakers, and creating the most impactful session content possible. It also means it will be easier for sellers to access content in the future and enables you to better leverage SKO content from year to year.

Tip 2. Define an SKO theme and stick to it

Defining a theme for your SKO helps to refine your messaging, solidify objectives, and, ultimately, make the event memorable. Typically, themes are centered around motivation or growth but are general enough to bring together multiple messages and takeaways through the event’s presentations and activities.

From your session titles to your decor, awards, gifts, and team-building activities, you should tie back to your theme as much as possible. So whether your theme is related to climbing Mount Everest, launching into space, or going for the gold (2022 Winter Olympics theme, anyone?), pick and stick to one consistent theme.

You should meet with your chief revenue officer and other sales leaders to gather ideas, align behind a theme, and discuss how to mobilize and energize the team with the highest-impact sessions.

The following discussion points can help facilitate your conversation with sales leadership to define your theme and develop ideas for accompanying session content:

  • What competitive, market, or internal obstacles stand between us and hitting this year’s revenue goal?
  • What does our sales team need to do differently or stop doing this year?
  • What tools or skills are our sales team lacking?
  • What knowledge, skills, and behaviors from our top performers do we want to replicate across the sales team?

Tip 3. Deliver compelling SKO content

All too often, SKO training sessions are dull. When that happens, attendees start to disengage and minds wander. We’ve all been there.

Developing compelling SKO content is important so sellers stay focused and leave with the information and knowledge they need to tackle the year ahead. Work with speakers on their decks to ensure each ties back to the event theme and sales goals.

In addition, vary the format of SKO content to keep attendees engaged. For example, consider incorporating breakout discussions, games, and competitions. You can also leverage conversation snippets from real-world sales calls to bring different presentation concepts to life.

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As you solidify your SKO and the accompanying content, be sure to centralize all resources—including agendas, session presentations, event pre-work, breakout session instructions, and more—in one place. That way, attendees can easily access everything they need before, during, and after the event. Consider using Digital Sales Rooms to create a dynamic, seamless experience for your attendees.

Tip 4. Communicate expectations and assign prework

Players don’t arrive at the stadium on game day without having done some individual prep. On day one of SKO, your sellers should be warmed up after doing some prework and know exactly what’s expected of them during the event.

Ensure you send an agenda at least one week before so that sellers know exactly where to be and when. Creating a comprehensive agenda will accomplish two key goals: it’ll align team expectations and also get reps excited for what’s to come.

A pre-event communication to sellers usually includes:

  • Agenda and links to the different virtual sessions and resources
  • For hybrid events, include all relevant information for in-person meeting rooms, accommodations, travel logistics, meals, and more
  • Session materials and a what-to-bring checklist
  • A welcome video from leadership to set the context and build morale
  • A gamified knowledge challenge for participants
  • How-to guides for any tools sellers will need to use during the event

And depending on the SKO’s focus, various pre-work activities can engage sellers before the big day. This ensures sellers are ready to jump in, cuts down on the time the sales enablement team needs to spend setting the context and giving instructions for different sessions, and helps the event move more smoothly overall.

Examples of pre-work activities you can assign each rep include:

  • Pre-recorded territory plans: Record a territory review before SKO, enabling productive discussions. Remind sellers that the goal of the activity is not to talk through slides but to think through their priorities strategically and provide the thought processes behind their plans for the quarter. Make sure you have reps complete their videos at least a week before the event so you have time to review them ahead of time.
  • Research for group breakout: Complete competitive or market research about a specific area to be used during hands-on group breakout exercises.
  • On-demand training video: Watch a pre-recorded training video and be prepared to discuss it during an SKO session.

Sales kickoff checklist

When planning your sales kickoff, you must do certain things before, during, and after the event to ensure success and avoid common missteps.

Let’s take a look at five do’s and five don’ts of a successful SKO.

Do:

  • Establish a theme. Ensure your content, talk tracks, and activities tie back to this theme.
  • Determine your delivery strategy. For example, will you host on-demand sessions or live-streaming the entire event?
  • Assign your attendees any pre-work to be completed before the event.
  • Invite your attendees to a Digital Sales Room to access all materials and information, including pre-work.
  • Send out a post-event survey to all attendees to get delivery, content, and engagement feedback.

Don’t:

  • Forget to have the right technology in place to support your delivery strategy.
  • Wait until the last minute to send attendees the SKO agenda and supporting materials.
  • Treat the SKO like a dress rehearsal. Instead, coordinate a dry run with presenters to iron out any challenges in advance.
  • Stick with long presentations. Instead, incorporate breakout discussions, activities, and quizzes to keep attendees engaged.
  • Deliver once-and-done training. Instead, have a plan to reinforce learning and give attendees opportunities to practice their new knowledge and skills.

You can find even more do’s and don’ts in our 2024 SKO-in-a-box.

Get ready for a smooth, successful SKO

The SKO is an opportunity to gather the sales team together to celebrate success and plan for the year ahead. The pressure is on to deliver an engaging and fun SKO that properly prepares teams to crush their goals in the year ahead.

SKO planning can be stressful for sales enablement teams. But by planning (and using the tips we shared in this post), you can pull off an outstanding SKO that energizes your team and prepares them to reach new heights in the coming year.

SKO-in-a-Box

Looking for more tips and resources for planning and executing your best SKO yet? Our SKO-in-a-box is full of tools, resources, and advice for hosting an engaging, impactful sales kick-off for your team.

Get Your Kit

This post was originally published in December 2021 and was updated in November 2024. 

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Janssen India Cuts Rep Ramp Time in Half with Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/janssen-india-cuts-rep-ramp-time-in-half-with-mindtickle-beta/ Fri, 15 Nov 2024 07:41:59 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=20541 Janssen India Cuts Rep Ramp Time in Half with Mindtickle Increase in sales after a new sales rep has joined 0 % Reduction in rep ramp time 0 % “ copy 6 Dr. Somnath Datta Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen Our vision was to have all learning happen in one portal. With Mindtickle, sales reps …

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Janssen India Cuts Rep Ramp Time in Half with Mindtickle

Increase in sales after a
new sales rep has joined
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Reduction in rep ramp time
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Dr. Somnath Datta

Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen

Our vision was to have all learning happen in one portal. With Mindtickle, sales reps can easily go in, find what they need to learn, and go out and do their work. And we have visibility into how they’re engaging with the platform. It’s a one-stop shop for everyone

The Challenge

Janssen, a global pharmaceutical leader, struggled to keep its dispersed sales team consistently trained on complex, regulated products. Relying on in-person sessions and scattered resources led to inefficiencies, disrupting reps’ access to essential, up-to-date information for customer engagement.

The Solution

In 2018, Janssen India implemented Mindtickle for its 600-person sales force, transforming its learning approach. Now, Janssen manages all rep learning—onboarding, ongoing training, assessments, and coaching—from a single platform, using Mindtickle’s analytics to align content with sellers’ needs and drive business outcomes.

Company

Janssen is a pharmaceutical company and division of Johnson & Johnson that focuses on research and development to address unmet medical needs.

Headquarters

Mumbai, India

Industry

Pharmaceuticals (Johnson & Johnson)

Centralizing all seller learning

Keeping pharmaceutical sales organizations trained and up-to-date with the most current information has always been difficult. The size and geographical spread of the workforce and the highly specialized and regulated nature of the subject matter make it challenging to stay on top of changes. Salespeople also must understand the needs of a diverse set of customers who require a quick pitch and be able to articulate product differentiation confidently.

A sales readiness strategy is essential. However, Janssen India knew using different tools for each readiness aspect wasn’t effective.

Before Mindtickle, all rep training at Janssen India happened face-to-face or via video calls, with no on-demand training available. Before scheduled training, managers would distribute materials via email. In addition, the material required to train reps was owned by multiple teams: learning and development, marketing, and medical affairs. Any attrition on these teams would disrupt the training material and schedule. Sales reps—especially newer ones—struggled to navigate the system to find what they needed.

“Three years back, our vision was to have all rep learning happen in one portal,” explained Dr. Somnath Datta, Head of Commercial Excellence at Janssen.

In 2018, Janssen made this vision a reality by partnering with Mindtickle. Today, sellers’ learning needs are all addressed within a single portal, which brings congruence and simplicity to the sales team’s learning journey.

“With Mindtickle, reps can easily go in, find what they need to learn, and go out and do their work,” said Datta. “It’s a one-stop-shop for everyone.”
Dr. Somnath Datta
Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen

Accelerating onboarding

Janssen built their award-winning onboarding program, Nirmaan Academy, on the Mindtickle platform. With Mindtickle, Janssen can deliver all onboarding content and bite-sized learning to over 600 sellers on the go, both via desktop and mobile. This ensures reps are ready to sell faster. 

Since launching Nirmaan Academy on Mindtickle, Janssen has experienced a 50% reduction in rep ramp time. 

The onboarding initiative has also resulted in improved sales outcomes. In 2021, Janssen experienced a 35% increase in sales after a new sales rep’s first six months and a 10% increase in sales after 18 months.

“After implementing Mindtickle, we were above our business targets, grew by 13.5%, and were the second-fastest-growing multinational company in India,” said Datta.
Dr. Somnath Datta
Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen

Delivering more effective learning content at the right time

There are many common assumptions about how sellers learn. For example, it’s easy to assume that bite-sized content is more effective when learning online — and that the content length is inversely proportional to the chance of a module being skipped.

However, Janssen wanted to test the validity of these theories and adapt its strategy appropriately. To do this, it analyzed the behavior of more than 500 of its sellers using Mindtickle over three years.

Their analysis uncovered some surprising findings. For example, the length of training content was a deciding factor in whether content was reviewed — but not in the way the company originally assumed. Contrary to the initial hypothesis, learners were more likely to skip shorter modules, between one and three minutes, presumably because short modules are perceived as having lower importance.  

Another key finding of the analysis was that the optimal time to release training modules was in the first 12 days or the last five days of the month. 

Janssen has used these discoveries, among others, to adjust their learning content and improve its effectiveness. 

“The duration of each learning module has been optimized, and the deployment timing has been adjusted to avoid peak sales weeks,” said Datta.
Dr. Somnath Datta
Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen

With Mindtickle’s detailed analytics and all seller data and performance in a single platform, Janssen can continue to refine and evolve learning content with their sellers.

The company has seen measurable results from these optimizations. Online training scores have improved by 25% and course completion time has decreased by 11%. In addition, the number of skipped modules has decreased by 24%.

Reinforcing learning through practice

The team at Janssen understands that learning isn’t a one-time event. Instead, sellers need opportunities to practice their skills and reinforce learning. 

To deliver effective, engaging practice opportunities, Janssen first needed to understand how sellers engage with reinforcement activities. Specifically, they examined the effectiveness of role-plays and quizzes by looking at how likely learners were to reattempt or review each. 

The team discovered that video role-plays were the most effective practice method, with 71% of learners reattempting at least once. In comparison, only 12% of learners reattempted learning content without a quiz or role-play, while 39% reattempted if a quiz existed. Janssen incorporated more role-plays and quizzes in their learning content to boost seller engagement.

Closing the loop with coaching

Coaching is proven to drive sales results. However, Janssen’s approach to sales coaching wasn’t garnering the results they wanted.

In the past, Janssen used a coaching form that was part of its legacy CRM system — and focused solely on a rep’s communication with a healthcare practitioner. Managers needed access to a computer to complete the forms for their reps but could not bring their computers onsite. So often, they waited until the end of the month to complete all coaching forms. By the end of the month and with countless ride-alongs, managers could not remember the coaching session details and were just filling out each form to check a box. This was a tedious, inefficient process that wasn’t improving sales outcomes. 

“The coaching form had become a chore,” said Datta. “And everyone was getting the same scores.” 

The company set out to improve the coaching process by implementing Mindtickle’s sales coaching module and revamping its forms. Janssen’s current coaching form focuses on four pillars of sales success: knowledge, communication, planning, and behavior. With coaching forms now powered by Mindtickle, managers can complete them while shadowing sellers and record accurate feedback for improvement. 

“Because the coaching form is in Mindtickle, the number of managers that need to be reminded to complete it has drastically reduced,” said Datta. “More importantly, discussions between managers and reps have become far more objective and productive.” 
Dr. Somnath Datta
Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen

Janssen’s learning and development team uses the coaching scores to determine where additional, tailored training is needed. This also reduces sellers’ time in training sessions they don’t need, improving their training efficiency through personalized learning.

“We might see that 15 reps scored poorly in a specific aspect of planning,” explained Datta. “So those reps will participate in a small group training focused on that aspect.” 

In addition, Janssen has developed a framework called Bridge, which empowers sales managers to be more effective coaches. Ensuring managers are coaching effectively was the final missing piece in their coaching culture. 

“As a result of using Mindtickle sales coaching, 95% of coaching forms are completed on-site and on time, resulting in higher-quality coaching data to inform personalized training for sellers,” said Datta.

Testing knowledge with Krosswind (quarterly knowledge assessment)

At Janssen, sellers interact with doctors daily. While communication skills are important, so too is product knowledge.

“You have to have a basic level of knowledge before going to the field,” said Datta. “But we found some reps could not answer basic questions about the product.” 

Today, the team at Janssen leverages Krosswind, a knowledge check housed in the Mindtickle platform. Each quarter, every rep must take an assessment to test their knowledge. If a rep doesn’t achieve a passing score of 80%, action is taken to improve knowledge. For example, they may be assigned relevant training modules in Mindtickle and then a follow-up exam. They attend a face-to-face or digital training session if their scores haven’t improved.

“We need to make sure reps have a certain level of product knowledge before speaking with doctors,” said Datta.
Dr. Somnath Datta
Head of Commercial Excellence, Janssen

Linking engagement with sales performance

Janssen wanted to understand how seller engagement in Mindtickle was correlated with sales performance. To do this, they used the data and analytics in Mindtickle to create an engagement index, which analyzed each seller’s participation in the platform, based on five parameters:

  • The score obtained in modules
  • The percentage of courses completed
  • The average number of days taken to complete a module
  • The percentage of modules partially skipped
  • The percentage of modules viewed after midnight

Using the Index, the company mapped its sales organization into four quadrants:

  • Curious outperformers: High Mindtickle engagement score and high sales achievement
  • Incurious performers: Low Mindtickle engagement score and high sales achievement
  • Curious underperformers: High Mindtickle engagement score and low sales achievement
  • Incurious underperformers: Low Mindtickle engagement score and low sales achievement

 

This enabled Janssen to adjust their learning and development interventions to try and change behavior and in turn, improve sales performance. 

For example, they found that learners who demonstrated that they could plan their sales visits and connect with doctors were also less likely to skip learning modules. Janssen hypothesizes that salespeople who are poor planners in some aspects of their role (like learning) are also poor planners in others (like preparing for sales visits). With this knowledge in hand, they can now intervene to find ways to help their salespeople plan more effectively. 

“The Index confirmed the assumption that an individual’s learning behaviors on the platform correlated to their fieldwork,” said Datta. “But we’ve only scratched the surface. There’s so much more we can do with the data in Mindtickle.”

Results

In the past few years, Janssen’s partnership with Mindtickle has become key to the organization’s sales success. In fact, in 2021, the company achieved its annual target and grew by 13.5%, all despite a challenging COVID lockdown environment. By centralizing all components of sales readiness into a single platform — including onboarding, training, and coaching — Janssen’s sales reps always have easy access to everything they need to close deals and drive revenue growth. 

Increase in sales rep 18-month sales performance 
0 %
Manager net promoter score for Nirmaan Academy, the company’s onboarding initiative
0 %
Improvement in online training scores
0 %
Reduction in course completion time
0 %
Decrease in skipped training modules
0 %

The market leader in sales enablement programs and training

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These Are the Top Sales Skills According to 9 Sales Leaders https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/these-are-the-top-sales-skills-according-to-9-sales-leaders/ Thu, 14 Nov 2024 00:21:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13625 On every sales team, there are high performers and low performers. Then, there are the folks who fall somewhere in between. Often, revenue leaders resign themselves to the fact that a small group of top performers will always drive the lion’s share of sales. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Your top performers …

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On every sales team, there are high performers and low performers. Then, there are the folks who fall somewhere in between.

Often, revenue leaders resign themselves to the fact that a small group of top performers will always drive the lion’s share of sales. But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Your top performers are those who have mastered the top sales skills they need for success. Once you identify those top sales skills, you can deliver training, coaching, and enablement that helps every rep build the competencies and behaviors needed to crush quota every quarter.

But what are the top sales skills for revenue teams?

Recently, we asked a group of revenue leaders what their teams’ top sales skills are. Based on their feedback, we’ve compiled a list of the seven top sales skills every rep needs for success.

1. Product knowledge

Sales reps need up-to-date product knowledge to answer prospects’ questions, address competitor comparisons, and run confident demos. David Bitton, co-founder at DoorLoop, explained it as: 

Customers will ask unexpected or difficult questions. Having a profound grasp of your product will reduce the likelihood of salespeople getting caught off-guard and stumbling over their answers.
David Bitton headshot
David Bitton
Co-founder, DoorLoop

The more your sellers know about your product, the better they’ll be able to tailor a demo or sales presentation to each prospect’s particular needs or challenges. “You must know your product inside and out,” said Freya Ward, global sales director at Headley Media. “You need to be able to deal with any questions a client may raise and handle any potential objections they may have with confidence. You also need to understand exactly how the product will help the customer and why it is they need it,” she added.

Run dedicated training sessions with your product team when you launch product updates or new features. These will allow your reps to get hands-on experience with your product and learn how to use it in a structured setting. Then run short quizzes to test their knowledge about your new features and virtual role-plays or practice demos to check that they are ready to present your new products to potential customers.

2. Active listening

Active listening helps sellers strengthen their rapport with customers. Cayla Thurman, business reputation consultant at Rize Reviews, explained, “Active listening is all about staying in the moment and making sure that you understand what the buyer is saying. You can rephrase what the buyer just said, verify if you got the message correctly, or slow the conversation down to ensure that you are perceived as an effective sales consultant.”

As well as helping build customer relationships, active listening is important for companies that take a more consultative approach to sales. This is the case for Frontify, and Stephanie McSwiney, their VP of sales, told us:

Our AEs really need to understand the process and drivers of our customers and match them with the different use cases for our product. It's often a very educational sell, so really understanding the client by active listening is key.
Stephanie McSwiney
VP of Sales

You can assess reps’ active listening skills by reviewing call recordings, listening back, or reading call transcripts. You want to see a good split in the talk time, with prospects talking more than your sellers. You can also look for key questions or phrases, such as, “Did I understand that correctly?” or “Have I got that right?” These questions demonstrate that a rep actively engages with what a prospect tells them.

3. Prospecting

Sales development reps (SDRs) need strong prospecting skills to find and reach out to good-fit potential customers, so they can maintain a healthy sales pipeline and hit quota. According to Salesforce , sales professionals spend about 9% of their time each week researching their prospects.

This might,” include seeking information about the company and looking up decision-makers on social media platforms like LinkedIn. Thurman explained: 

Active listening is all about staying in the moment and making sure that you understand what the buyer is saying. You can rephrase what the buyer just said, verify if you got the message correctly, or slow the conversation down to ensure that you are perceived as an effective sales consultant.
Cayla Thurman
Rize Reviews

Using a revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle helps you provide AI-powered training and coaching for your reps. We found that cold email intros are the top use case for written role-plays in the Mindtickle platform as reps work to develop their prospecting and outreach skills.

4. Negotiating

Negotiation is important for keeping deals moving forward and overcoming potential objections and blockers to closing deals. Tim Clarke, director of sales and marketing at SEOblog.com, explained, “A sales representative should have solid negotiation skills to create a tailored experience for their customers, helping [customers] get the products or services they want while also ensuring that their company benefits from their customers’ decisions.”

Nina Pączka, community manager at Zety, has a clear idea of what reps with strong negotiation skills look like. She believes that: 

A good negotiator takes customer objections and turns them to the company's advantage. They are assertive in finalizing the deal, showing different solutions that will appeal to the customer.
Nina Pączka
Zety

You can assess your reps’ negotiation skills by listening to their call recordings for later-stage sales conversations with prospects. Alternatively, your reps can run practice calls with their peers to see how their colleagues approach negotiation, learn from each other, and identify negotiation tactics that work in real selling scenarios.

5. Identifying and understanding customer needs

Reps need to identify the challenges customers face and understand what they want from a product like yours. Otherwise, they won’t be able to show how your product will meet customer needs and resolve their pain points. “A good salesperson has to be able to listen to clients and understand their needs rather than just jumping in with a sales pitch,” said Ward.

To understand customer needs, sellers need to ask thoughtful, relevant questions. Ng Jiong Han, CSO at Novocall, said, “The ability to ask the right questions is an essential skill. It’s important because SDRs understand and magnify prospects’ problems by asking the right questions. With this, they can easily position themselves to help prospects solve their problems without being pushy.”

Aneet Narang, Head of Global Revenue Enablement at PayPal, also understands the importance of identifying and understanding customer needs.

One piece of advice for those struggling to prove ROI is prioritizing fostering a customer-centric mindset, particularly by focusing on sales managers and implementing data-driven decision-making processes.
Aneet Narang
Paypal

Once a seller understands customer needs well, they’re better equipped to deliver solutions and experiences that align with those needs. “A seller needs to have attention to detail and be able to manipulate data and identify patterns from multiple data streams to translate it into a story for buyers,” said Derrell James, CRO at Juniper Networks.

This is another area where reviewing call recordings can pay off. A conversation intelligence tool like Mindtickle’s Call AI can identify the main themes and topics covered on a call. You can also track mentions of specific keywords, such as common challenges or competitors.

6. Written and verbal communication

Soft sales skills like effective communication are just as important for sellers to master as hard skills. Clarke explained, “Salespeople must know how to communicate effectively throughout the sales cycle and be confident in speaking or presenting, whether through video conference or in person.”

Your reps’ communication skills affect relationship building and their ability to confidently explain your product’s benefits. Many companies think that verbal communication skills are necessary for sales reps but don’t look so closely at written communication. But email and outreach messages are a core part of the sales process. Poor written communication can create an unprofessional first impression and lead to missed opportunities for your team.

Some revenue leaders predict that sales reps will start to take ownership of inbound lead-generation campaigns and work more closely with marketing departments in the future. With that in mind, we wanted to bring in the perspective of demand generation.

Tristan Harris, demand generation marketing manager at Thrive Agency, agrees that communication skills are essential.

You need to be comfortable communicating with your clients, customers, and peers in various situations. These instances include knowing how to ask clear and concise questions, effectively communicating and resolving customer complaints, and speaking confidently on the phone or in the video.
Tristan Harris
Thrive Agency

7. Coachability

Coachability is your reps’ ability to receive and act on feedback to develop and improve their skills. It can be the difference between a top-performing rep and a low-performing one.

Srikanth Pendyala, SDR team lead at Outplay, said, “Many sales leaders I talk to tell me how important it is for them to hire SDRs who are coachable. Yet there is no yardstick to measure that skill. So we bring an element of coaching into our interview process. No matter how good the rep is, if they are not ready to unlearn and learn new things, we do not make an offer.”

Krishna Saw, Director Digital Transformation & Adoption at Splunk also understands the importance of coachability.

We use coaching sessions to build a feedback model between our managers and our reps. The reps are coached by the managers, who can then better assess reps’ skills in order to prescribe extra studies or remediation.
Krishna Saw
Splunk

An AI-driven sales coaching program can improve performance levels across your team, combining deal-specific coaching with more general skills training. It helps you personalize your coaching and training to focus on the individual skills and behaviors that each rep is struggling with, so they can make targeted improvements.

Document your team’s top sales skills in an ideal rep profile

Which skills are frequently displayed by the most successful salespeople at your organization? Once you’ve identified the skills, behaviors, and competencies that matter most to your business, document them in an ideal rep profile (IRP). You can then use your IRP in your hiring process to bring on new team members with the skills that will set them up for success.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Empower your sellers to master the skills that matter

Hiring great-fit sales reps is a good starting point. But while many buy into the myth that great sellers are born, not made, that’s not the case. Instead, when you identify the right sales skills, you can work to create an entire team of top-performing sales reps.

Once you’ve identified the top sales skills at your organization, you can measure each seller against this gold standard. You’ll identify the weaknesses of each seller, and you can use that insight to deliver targeted training, coaching, and enablement to close gaps.

Every member of your team will master top sales skills and be well-equipped to engage buyers and close deals.

Build a Stronger Sales Team with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help you deliver targeted training, coaching, and enablement that ensures each seller can master the top sales skills they need to succeed?

Request Your Demo

This blog was originally published in May 2022 and updated in November 2024. 

The post These Are the Top Sales Skills According to 9 Sales Leaders appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Your Guide to Knowledge Management Systems: What They are and 10 Must-Have Features https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/your-guide-to-knowledge-management-systems-what-they-are-and-10-must-have-features/ Thu, 07 Nov 2024 14:53:37 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20502 “Knowledge is power.” It may be cliche, but it’s true – especially for go-to-market teams. Customer-facing teams must be equipped with the right knowledge and information to be successful in their roles. But accessing the right information is easier said than done. Modern businesses have an abundance of information. It’s often siloed, and sellers struggle …

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“Knowledge is power.” It may be cliche, but it’s true – especially for go-to-market teams.

Customer-facing teams must be equipped with the right knowledge and information to be successful in their roles. But accessing the right information is easier said than done.

Modern businesses have an abundance of information. It’s often siloed, and sellers struggle to find what they need when they need it.

The right knowledge management system ensures your teams can access the right information quickly and easily at the right time.

But what is it?

In this post, we’ll explore knowledge management, why it matters, and why the right tools are critical to any strategy. We’ll also share a list of must-have features to look for when choosing a knowledge management system for your business.

What is knowledge management?

Perhaps you have a clear idea of what enterprise knowledge management is. Or maybe you’re not so sure. Either way, let’s start off by answering this foundational question: What is it?

Simply stated, knowledge management is the practice of gathering, organizing, and sharing knowledge and information with the right people.

Why is knowledge management important?

If you’re like most businesses, you have a huge volume of information spread across the organization. Some examples of the types of information include:

  • Fact-based, straightforward information. For example, a list of features of a specific product offering.
  • Formalized knowledge. Key knowledge and skills delivered through channels, including onboarding, ongoing training, and sales enablement.
  • Experiential knowledge. Information and knowledge employees gain through practice and on-the-job experiences.
  • Procedural information. Information that describes how to do something. For example, how to log in to the CRM for the first time or properly route a contract for approval.

Most organizations have a large amount of knowledge and information, and the volume continues to increase as the organization grows.

But often, knowledge and information are siloed. It lives in different places throughout the organization, it’s not organized, and employees struggle to find what they need.

Your customer-facing teams must be able to find the right information to do their jobs well. They shouldn’t have to spend endless time hunting down what they need.

A knowledge management practice (paired with the right system) ensures employees can always access the right information at the right time – quickly and easily.

What is a knowledge management system?

Organizations house an abundance of information, and this information is often siloed. Enterprise knowledge management is all about controlling the chaos so employees can find what they need, when they need it.

A knowledge management system makes this possible.

But what is it?

A knowledge management system is a tool or platform that enables organizations to find, store, organize, and share knowledge and information.

Knowledge management system examples

Organizations use different types of knowledge management systems. Broadly, they can be divided into two categories: internal and external.

Here’s a closer look at these two examples.

  • Internal system: This system consolidates, organizes, and shares knowledge and information internally. For example, the go-to-market team may have a knowledge management system that serves as a single source of truth for all information.
  • External systems: Some systems are used by external audiences. For example, you might use a one to ensure customers can access the information they need to get the most from your products and services. Or, you might use a knowledge management system to equip your partners with information and resources.

For this post, we’re focusing on internal systems – specifically those used by go-to-market teams.

The benefits of knowledge management systems

Knowledge and information accumulate. And often, it lives in multiple disparate systems.

A knowledge management system connects all information so teams have a single source of truth for knowledge and information.

These systems have some significant benefits. Let’s look at some that top the list.

Increased seller productivity

For sellers, the search for information can seem endless. They spend time hunting down information for one scenario just to turn around and do it all over again.

Unsurprisingly, reps spend less than 30% of their time selling.

Reps spend less than

of their time selling
0 %

With a knowledge management system, teams have a single source for all the information they need. That means they can spend less time searching and more time engaging with customers and winning deals.

Better buyer experiences

Modern B2B buyers have high expectations for great experiences. And when they have questions, they expect timely, accurate answers.

A knowledge management system equips sellers with the knowledge and information they need to deliver consistent experiences that delight customers. And when a rep gets a question from a customer, they no longer have to wait around for an answer from a subject matter expert. They can find the information they need on the enterprise system.

Improved collaboration

Chances are, knowledge floating around your organization is not being shared. For example, you might have a top-performing sales rep that employs certain best practices to close more deals.

A system helps cultivate a culture of learning. Teams have the opportunity to come together to exchange best practices and knowledge, which helps the entire team grow their skills.

Increased sales performance

With the right knowledge management system, sellers can easily access the knowledge they need to reach their full potential. Furthermore, buyers are more likely to have great experiences. That means your sellers will close more deals faster, and your revenue will grow.

Must-have features of knowledge management systems

Which knowledge management platform is right for your business? There’s no easy answer. You must consider your goals and find a tool with features and functionality that’ll help you achieve those goals.

When shopping for a system, be sure your options have these must-have features.

#1 An outstanding user experience

Your employees won’t use a knowledge management system if it’s hard to use. And that means your efforts (and investment) will be for nothing.

Be sure to find an option that’s intuitive and easy to use. Users should be able to easily navigate the knowledge management platform and find what they need within a few clicks.

#2 Mobile-friendly platform

The need for information doesn’t always hit when a seller sits at their desk. Instead, they might need to access knowledge and information while on the field, at a trade show, or waiting for a flight.

It’s important to ensure your chosen platform is accessible and easy to navigate, regardless of the seller’s device.

#3 Robust organization capabilities

You might have a lot of great information, but it’s useless if users can’t find it.

Be sure your chosen knowledge management tool has features and functionality that allow you to tag and organize different knowledge assets. Then, your sellers can easily run queries to find what they need and when needed.

#4 AI capabilities

Today, winning knowledge management systems are leveraging artificial intelligence to make it even easier for users to find the information and knowledge they need to do their jobs well. For example, a platform may leverage AI to offer sellers knowledge and information assets based on their unique needs.

Some platforms also incorporate an AI sales assistant, which enables sellers to ask questions and get real-time answers and information.

#5 Integrations with existing technology

Chances are, your revenue teams already use several tools and technology to do their jobs. About 63% of sales leaders indicate they have 10 or more tools in their current tech stack.

Sales leaders say that they have

tools in their tech stacks
0 +

It’s important to find a tool that integrates with your current tools. Otherwise, users will feel bogged down by yet another disparate solution they must learn to use daily.

#6 Support for a variety of knowledge formats

Knowledge can take many different forms. It could be a training video, a live discussion, or a written piece of sales content, just to name a few examples.

It’s important to ensure your chosen knowledge management system supports various formats. Otherwise, you’ll be forced to store different types of content in different places, which can cause chaos.

#7 Simple course creation

Chances are, your organization has plenty of existing knowledge and information. But there will be times when you need to create new sales training content.

Ensure your knowledge management system offers templates and other capabilities that make it easy to create new learning content quickly and easily. For example, Mindtickle includes out-of-the-box program templates that you can populate with content and launch quickly. A recent report found that, on average, it takes organizations up to four weeks to launch a new program, but starting with a program template reduces that number to seven days.

The average time to launch a program

without a template
0 days
with a template
0

In the future, AI will make it even easier for organizations to quickly and easily develop and deploy learning content. As such, it’s important to look for a knowledge management platform committed to continuous innovation.

#8 Role-plays

Often, information learned in training is forgotten. It’s important to provide opportunities for your sellers to put their knowledge into practice and sharpen their skills.

AI-powered role-plays are a great way for sellers to practice before money is on the line.

With AI role-plays, sellers can practice their skills in a realistic scenario with an adaptive AI bot. AI delivers real-time feedback, which the seller can use to perfect their skills and master knowledge.

AI-Roleplay

#9 Robust analytics

Organizations need to understand how users engage with knowledge and information and how that engagement impacts outcomes.

Find a knowledge management system that provides robust data and analytics. Use these insights to optimize your knowledge management strategy.

#10 Knowledge sharing opportunities

When an organization builds a learning culture, teams and individuals often share feedback and best practices. Be sure your knowledge management software allows for this type of collaboration.

For example, some knowledge management platforms enable sellers to record role plays and share them with peers for feedback. Other organizations may incorporate best practices from top sellers in their video content.

It’s time to see what a knowledge management system can do for your revenue organization

Sellers rely on information to do their jobs—and do them well. For example, they need information to master the skills and behaviors they need to succeed. And when prospective customers ask a question, they need to get an accurate answer—and fast.

But often, sellers spend time and effort hunting down the right information. This time would be better spent delivering outstanding experiences that win customers.

With the right knowledge management system, your teams can find all the information and knowledge they need – whenever and wherever they need it. Sellers can spend less time searching for information and more time engaging with buyers. And that means they’ll close more deals – faster.

Better Knowledge Management with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle equips go-to-market teams with the information and answers they need – right at their fingertips?

Request Your Demo

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What is Sales Execution? (and How to Improve Yours) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-execution-and-how-to-improve-yours/ Mon, 04 Nov 2024 21:37:36 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20491 Nowadays, organizations invest in many strategies and tactics, hoping to boost the bottom line. But increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of your go-to-market team is the most surefire way of growing revenue. Sales execution is key to ensuring your teams can close more deals faster. But what is sales execution? And how can you leverage …

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Nowadays, organizations invest in many strategies and tactics, hoping to boost the bottom line. But increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of your go-to-market team is the most surefire way of growing revenue.

Sales execution is key to ensuring your teams can close more deals faster.

But what is sales execution? And how can you leverage this strategy to drive greater revenue growth? Read on as we answer these questions and explore everything you need to know about building a winning sales execution strategy.

What is sales execution, and why does it matter?

Sales execution is important for every revenue team. But often, there’s confusion about what this term means.

So, let’s start by defining what it is and why it matters.

What is sales execution?

Sales execution describes an organization’s processes and activities for guiding a prospective customer through the sales funnel. Essentially, it involves everything that leads up to a deal being closed—from the campaigns that generate interest to how sales reps engage with prospects during different phases of the funnel—and everything in between.

Why is sales execution important?

B2B buyers have high expectations and an overwhelming amount of choice. They’re only willing to buy from businesses that meet (or exceed) their expectations, understand their needs, and help them solve their unique challenges.

Of course, offering the right products and services at the right price matters. But delivering great customer experiences is just as important. After all, recent research found that four out of five customers feel a company’s experience is just as important as its products and services.

of customers say a company's experience is as important as its product and services
0 %

A solid execution strategy ensures you have the right process and structures to meet your customers’ needs – no matter where they are on the purchase journey. When you can consistently address your prospects’ needs, they’re more likely to convert to customers. In other words, your teams will be able to close more deals.

In addition, an optimized strategy streamlines the sales process and removes friction. That accelerates the sales cycle, allowing your sellers to close deals faster.

The bottom line is, that with a winning plan, you can grow revenue – faster.

How do you create a sales execution strategy?

Sales execution is key to maximizing revenue growth. But getting started with sales execution can seem overwhelming.

It doesn’t have to be. In reality, sales execution is a rather simple concept.

Let’s examine the key steps to developing an effective strategy.

1. Define your target audience

Your customers’ needs and expectations must be at the heart of your sales execution strategy. So be sure to step back to determine your target audience, their needs, and what they care about.

Start by developing ideal customer profiles (ICPs), which outline the characteristics of organizations that best suit your solutions. Your ICPs might include company size, industry, and geographic location.

In addition, be sure to create buyer personas, which provide fictional representations of the folks you’re likely to interact with at those ideal companies. For example, if you’re selling a marketing automation platform, you might interact with stakeholders in marketing, sales, and sales operations. Each of these stakeholders will have different needs and priorities.

2. Map the customer journey

You must map the customer journey once you’ve defined your ideal prospects. This will help you understand customers’ paths and the steps necessary to execute a sale.

Then, you can identify opportunities to simplify and streamline these sales execution steps.

3. Create your sales execution plan

After you’ve mapped the customer journey, it’s time to create your plan. This will serve as your roadmap for attracting prospects, engaging with them throughout the purchase journey, and closing deals.

4. Build your pipeline

To deploy your sales execution strategy, you must have leads and prospects in the pipeline. There are several ways you can fill your sales pipeline, including:

  • Cold calls and emails
  • Engaging with potential prospects on social media
  • Marketing campaigns and content
  • Referrals from current customers

Remember: it’s about quality rather than quantity. Fewer qualified leads are better than a larger number of unqualified leads.

5. Measure and optimize continuously

Your sales execution strategy isn’t something you can create once and never think about again. Instead, it’s an iterative process.

Be sure to track key metrics on an ongoing basis. Then, use those analytics to optimize your sales execution plan. With ongoing, data-based improvements, your sales execution strategy will be even more effective in achieving your revenue optimization goals.

How can you improve your sales execution process?

Chances are, you’ve already completed some (or even all) of the foundational work required for effective sales optimization. But even the most successful revenue teams have opportunities to improve their execution process.

Let’s look at a few impactful ways to boost your B2B sales execution – and your bottom line.

Ensure cross-functional alignment

Sales execution isn’t the responsibility of one person or one team. Instead, many different teams play a role in it, including:

  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Sales operations
  • Revenue enablement

It’s important to ensure these key teams are aligned. Consider holding standing meetings to ensure everyone is on the same page regarding goals and their role in achieving them. When everyone is aligned, you’re better positioned to deliver great experiences to your prospects, which means you’ll win and retain more customers.

Refine your messaging

If your messaging doesn’t resonate with your target audience, they won’t engage with you. It’s as simple as that.

Revisit your messaging regularly to ensure it aligns with your target audience’s needs, challenges, and expectations. Remember: generic messaging won’t do. If you’re targeting different segments, tailor your messaging for each.

Optimize your pipeline

A key component of sales execution is ensuring your reps spend their time on high-quality leads that are likely to convert.

Look closely at your marketing campaigns to ensure they generate high-quality leads. If they’re not, look for ways to optimize them.

It’s also important to optimize your lead qualification processes. For starters, be sure sellers know how to identify good–quality leads quickly. Also, a lead scoring system should be implemented that assesses people’s readiness to buy based on various factors and behaviors.

Deliver personalized sales training and coaching

Your sales reps play a big role in the success of your execution plan. It’s important to ensure they have the right skills to be successful.

Start by defining the skills each of your customer-facing roles needs for success. Then, measure each person against the appropriate ideal rep profile. Once you’ve identified each seller’s strengths and weaknesses, you can deliver tailored sales enablement and training to drive improvements.

Ideal rep profile competencies

In addition, be sure to provide coaching that addresses the needs of each seller. Sales managers can deliver coaching based on a rep’s performance on calls or in role-plays. Some revenue enablement platforms also leverage artificial intelligence to deliver real-time feedback to reps on their performance.

The most innovative organizations even allow their reps to role-play with AI bots in realistic sales scenarios. Throughout the role-play experience, reps receive feedback that they can use to bolster their skills before engaging with prospects.

AI-Roleplay

Invest in the right sales execution tools and technology

Successful sales execution requires the right tools and technology. For example, sales outreach tools make it easier for sellers to engage with the right prospects at the right time. Sales enablement tools allow you to deliver targeted sales training and coaching to your sellers and measure the impact of your efforts on sales performance. Conversation intelligence tools deliver real-time feedback to your sellers and help sales leaders understand what’s happening in the field.

But investing in a lot of different B2B sales execution tools may not be the right answer. Switching back and forth between all these tools is time-consuming and overwhelming for sellers. Instead, look for integrated sales execution platforms that address several challenges—all in one spot.

Streamline and automate sales processes

Research tells us sellers spend less than 30% of their time selling. Clunky, time-consuming tasks take up the other time.

Look for opportunities to streamline and automate these tedious processes and tasks. For example, use sales execution software to trigger emails if prospects take certain actions. Or, leverage AI to help your sellers draft effective written communication – faster. Organizations can tap into an AI-powered revenue enablement platform to ensure sellers can quickly find proven content for any sales scenario.

By streamlining and automating processes and tasks, sellers can spend more time engaging with prospects and closing deals.

Tap into data to drive ongoing optimization

Ongoing optimization helps ensure your sales execution strategy is as impactful as possible. Data is key to effective optimization.

With the right data, you can understand where (and why) deals are dropping off. For example, a clunky process may be to blame. Or perhaps the seller just hasn’t mastered the essential skills yet. You can leverage this data to make changes – and improve performance.

Chances are, you have no shortage of data. But data can be overwhelming – especially when it resides within many different tools. AI makes it possible to consolidate data, make sense of it, and determine how to take action on it in a way that will improve outcomes.

Learn how Mindtickle can help power your sales execution plan

A solid strategy is essential for any organization looking to grow revenue. With the right sales execution tools and strategy, you can build an efficient sales team that beats quota every quarter.

Today, winning revenue organizations globally leverage Mindtickle to help power their strategies.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform that empowers the people behind sales execution. With Mindtickle, your customer-facing roles can access the tools, training, and information they need to engage with any prospect – no matter where they are in the purchase journey.

Optimize sales execution with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help boost sales execution at your organization?

Request Your Demo

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Sales Methodology: What is it and How to Choose One for Your Business https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-methodology-what-is-it-and-how-to-choose-one-for-your-business/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-methodology-what-is-it-and-how-to-choose-one-for-your-business/#comments Thu, 31 Oct 2024 08:45:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17651 Every sales leader wants to improve sales performance and grow revenue. But sending your sellers out to fend for themselves isn’t the right way to achieve these goals. Instead, you must set the foundation for sales success. A critical part of this is identifying and institutionalizing a sales methodology. A sales methodology acts as a …

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Every sales leader wants to improve sales performance and grow revenue. But sending your sellers out to fend for themselves isn’t the right way to achieve these goals.

Instead, you must set the foundation for sales success. A critical part of this is identifying and institutionalizing a sales methodology.

A sales methodology acts as a framework, guiding reps through the various stages of the sales process. By adopting the right sales methodology, your sellers can more effectively engage buyers throughout the sales cycle.

But with so many sales methodologies, it can be difficult to determine the right fit for your organization.

In this post, we’ll explore sales methodology and why it’s important. We’ll also share examples of some of the most common sales methodologies and provide practical guidance for choosing the one that’s right for your business.

What is a sales methodology?

A sales methodology is like a thread uniting different sales cycle stages. When your reps follow this thread, they know exactly what to say and when to say it, what buyers think at different times, and how to build better relationships. While the customers, products, and teams may change, the best sales methodologies can stay consistent because they’re based on best practices.

Of course, that’s not to say that a sales methodology is “one size fits all.” These frameworks can and should scale depending on new sales training materials, shifting buyer expectations, and what you learn in the ever-changing sales world.

Why is a sales methodology important for any business?

Sales reps might feel they have an instinct for making all the right moves in customer communication — and they could very well be right. The best sales methodologies don’t replace those instincts but rather build on them to create a shared, consistent approach that keeps every individual and team pushing in the same direction.

Here are a few more reasons you need a sales methodology:

Solid sales frameworks are flexible enough to enable accurate, personalized responses without changing your approach for every individual buyer.

Toggle ContentThese guidelines are informed by sales performance metrics and best practices, which means they’re based on what actually works instead of what should work.

A single sales methodology unites many sales processes to encompass every activity, interaction and stage for both buyers and sales reps.

Skip the guesswork and let your sales frameworks identify where and when a lead fits into your pipeline.

With the right set of guidelines, your reps will be better prepared to overcome sales objections, address hesitations and build trust — the first step toward more and better deals.

As your business and customers change, your sales methodology will too. You’ll have the insight, data and tools you need to identify what’s working, what isn’t and where improvements need to be made.

What’s the difference between a sales process and a sales methodology?

“Sales process” and “sales methodology” are often used interchangeably. Though the two concepts are certainly related, a sales process and methodology aren’t the same.

What’s the difference?

A sales process is a set of steps that sellers take when guiding a prospect through the purchase journey. That includes everything from initial contact to closing the sale. You can think of a sales process as the “what” of selling. In other words, what steps does a rep take to sell.

On the other hand, a sales methodology is the “how” of selling. It’s a philosophy or set of guiding principles behind how a seller completes the steps of the sales process.

Sales methodologies are widely adopted. In other words, many different companies use the same sales methodology. We’ll look closely at some of the most common sales methodologies shortly.

Conversely, sales processes are unique to each organization.

So, which is more important: a sales process or methodology?

The reality is that your sellers need both. By aligning on a sales methodology and developing the right sales processes, your sellers will be empowered to effectively engage with buyers and win (and retain) more of them as customers.

What are some common sales methodologies?

When choosing the best approaches for your teams, it’s often helpful to have sales methodology examples in front of you. Here are just a few to consider:

MEDICC

MEDDIC is an acronym that represents a comprehensive sales qualification framework. Each letter stands for a key element in the sales process.

  • Metrics refers to understanding the quantifiable goals and objectives of the customer.
  • Economic buyer refers to identifying the person with the authority and financial power to make purchasing decisions.
  • Decision criteria involve understanding the specific requirements and criteria that the customer uses to evaluate potential solutions.
  • Decision process refers to comprehending the steps and individuals involved in the customer’s decision-making process.
  • Identify pain involves discovering and understanding the customer’s challenges, problems, and pain points.
  • Champion refers to finding an internal advocate within the customer’s organization who supports and promotes your solution.

Takeaway: Use the MEDDIC framework to thoroughly understand customer needs and the decision-making process and leverage internal champions for successful sales.

BANT

BANT is a sales qualification methodology and assesses potential customers. It stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline. Each element represents a crucial aspect of determining the viability of a sales opportunity.

  • Budget refers to understanding the prospect’s financial resources and whether they have the means to make a purchase.
  • Authority involves identifying the decision-makers and influencers involved in the buying process.
  • Need refers to assessing the prospect’s specific pain points and determining how well your product or service can address them.
  • Timeline involves understanding the prospect’s urgency and when they intend to make a decision or implement a solution.

Takeaway: Assess leads effectively using BANT: Determine budget, authority, need, and timeline to prioritize sales efforts and qualify potential opportunities.

Consultative selling

The most important part of consultative selling is right in its name: the consultation. Buyers come to you because they have unanswered questions, and they need your reps to act as guides. Key processes involve listening, communicating, and collaborating.

Takeaway: Consultative selling builds trust by being primarily informational instead of promotional. ​

Solution selling

Sometimes, customers already know exactly what their problem is — all you have to do is tell them what the solution can look like. Even before the first call, this sales methodology requires that your reps have a particularly solid understanding of:

  • The buyer
  • Their needs and challenges
  • The most targeted offerings for their situation

Takeaway: Solution selling is more focused on addressing a problem than selling a particular product or service.

Provocative selling

When you use this framework, your reps need to be able to identify pain points before buyers do and then provoke them to research solutions. In many ways, reps are “selling” problems first and products second.

Takeaway: Provocative selling is all about being proactive and giving customers what they didn’t even know they needed.

Challenger sales

Matthew Dixon and Brent Adamson developed “The Challenger Sales Method.” In their book of the same name, they discuss various seller archetypes and identify the most successful: challengers, who represented 40% of high-performing sales reps in the authors’ study.

Takeaway: Challenger sales methodologies focus on empowering other rep archetypes to teach prospects, tailor their communications and take control of sales.

Inbound selling

In this sales methodology, you acknowledge that buyers are doing more work themselves and may not contact your reps until they’re well into the pipeline. That means sales might take a back seat for your reps as they educate and advise buyers.

Takeaway: With inbound selling, qualified leads come to you instead of the other way around — so while the sales processes might look different, they may be far more efficient.

SPIN selling

Neil Rackham’s book, “SPIN Selling,” builds a sales methodology around four key kinds of questions:

  • Situation: What is the customer’s current need or challenge
  • Problem: Where is the problem coming from?
  • Implication: What happens if nothing is done?
  • Need-payoff: What are the benefits of solving the problem?

Takeaway: When strung together, these kinds of questions allow reps to lead buyers on a kind of realization journey in which they connect their problems to specific solutions.

Target account selling

This sales methodology is all about research and automation. It’s an approach that emphasizes the importance of choosing the right accounts to focus on — those that will be most responsive and easiest to sell to.

Takeaway: Research is vital in all the best sales methodologies, but it’s at the heart of target account selling — so reps must fully understand personas, key decision-makers, in-depth challenge breakdowns, and more.

Sandler Selling Method

This approach is built on the concept that buyers and sellers must trust one another to have a successful relationship. That means there has to be communication, collaboration, and mutual respect. This methodology is similar to consultative selling but has a more prescriptive framework: building a relationship, quantifying the lead, and ultimately closing the deal.

Takeaway: The Sandler Selling Method works best when buyers want and need to be able to lean on reps as decision-making partners, not just sales experts.

How to identify and choose the right sales methodology for your business

Say you have a Software as a Service (SaaS) company. You do some research and find common approaches — but the best sales methodology for SaaS organizations isn’t the same as the best sales methodology for manufacturers, retailers, food sellers, or real estate agents.

So how do you choose the right one for you?

Most common sales methodologies, among organizations who have one

Source: 2022-2023 Sales Enablement Outlook Report. 

#1: Evaluate your business goals and objectives

Whether you’re trying to improve sales performance, boost revenue, grow your business, or achieve some other goal, it’s important to consider the future when deciding on a sales methodology. This helps align your sales team with your overall business objectives and makes sales activities much more efficient.

#2: Analyze target market and customers

To find out what works best for your customers, you must know who they are, how they think, and what markets they spend time in. With this analysis at your fingertips, you can choose methodologies that resonate with your audience instead of relying on an ill-fitting or “tone-deaf” approach.

#3: Consider business size and industry

Consider how many people and resources you can dedicate to a sales methodology. Is there too much to do, or do the tasks and approaches seem well-balanced? The size of your business will have a big influence on this, but so will your industry, which dictates much of what customers expect and how your sales processes need to work together.

#4: Experiment and evaluate

Remember that sales methodologies can be mixed, matched, and combined to make them work for you. Keep track of relevant data to see whether a certain approach is working or if you need to weave in concepts, processes or theories from other frameworks.

How to get started with implementing a sales methodology for your business

Once you’ve chosen a sales methodology, it’s time to jump in. Here’s how to get started:

Evaluate current skills

It’s important to know what your reps bring and what they’ll need to learn to adapt to a new sales methodology. This is also a chance to reflect on your sales training methodologies and fill in gaps.

Create new training material

As you train reps on the new sales methodology, make sure to cover:

  • Which of their former processes are sticking around
  • Which processes will be updated
  • Which processes will be completely changed
  • What your overall philosophy is
  • What your goals look like.
  • The benefits of the new methodology

Remember to make this sales training material consistent and easily accessible — not just to the sales teams but to all departments,

Assess and provide feedback

Track your reps’ learning curves and provide support, feedback, or coaching where they need it most. Remember to capture best practices and particularly helpful examples to build out your methodology going forward.

Putting your sales methodology to use

If you want to choose, implement, track, and improve a sales methodology, you can’t afford to do it in disparate systems. That’s not just bad news for your business outcomes; it also creates frustration for sales reps, other teams, and even customers.

Instead, unite your sales activities in a single revenue enablement platform. From onboarding and training to data capture, performance reviews, and ongoing learning, Mindtickle is your best bet for getting more out of sales methodologies.

Have you institutionalized a sales methodology?

Choosing a sales methodology is foundational to sales success. Yet, research shows that a significant portion of revenue organizations have yet to institutionalize a sales methodology.

If your teams aren’t aligned around a sales methodology, it’s time to change that. The guidance provided in this post can help you sift through your options and pinpoint the sales methodology that’ll work best for your business.

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s award-winning revenue enablement platform can help you deliver the training, coaching, and tools your sellers need to put your chosen sales methodology into practice? 

Mindtickle in action

From onboarding and training to data capture, performance reviews, and ongoing learning, Mindtickle is your best bet for getting more out of sales methodologies.

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in June 2023, updated in December 2023, and again in October 2024. 

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6 Practical Ways to Increase Sales Productivity https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/4-practical-ways-to-increase-sales-productivity/ Wed, 30 Oct 2024 09:28:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13368 Like any sales leader, you work hard to hire and develop a team of reps that will close deals and contribute to revenue growth. But the harsh reality is that your reps aren’t spending much time selling. According to recent research, sales reps spend a mere 28% of their time each week on selling activities. …

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Like any sales leader, you work hard to hire and develop a team of reps that will close deals and contribute to revenue growth. But the harsh reality is that your reps aren’t spending much time selling. According to recent research, sales reps spend a mere 28% of their time each week on selling activities.

That certainly doesn’t mean your sellers are slacking off 72% of the time. Instead, they spend the bulk of the week on time-consuming, tedious tasks and administrative work. This frustrates reps and stands in the way of them reaching their full potential.

To increase sales productivity, you must first pinpoint roadblocks and determine what’s eating up your team’s time. Then, you can work to optimize processes and procedures so reps have enough time to effectively tackle revenue-generating activities.

Increasing sales productivity doesn’t have to be a big undertaking. Even a small uplift in the amount of time each rep spends on core selling activities will add up to a big productivity boost across your entire sales team.

Not sure where to start? Read on to explore six practical ways to remove barriers and increase sales productivity across your entire team.

1. Automate data entry

Adding data to your customer relationship management (CRM) program is time-consuming and a top frustration for sales professionals. Fortunately, there are ways to automate data entry so your reps have more time to sell.

As reps work on more complex deals with multiple stakeholders and more touchpoints, each interaction creates more information and data for them to keep track of. It takes a long time to add detailed notes and provide meaningful updates for each sales activity in your CRM.

You need to automate data entry to get data into your CRM faster. Automation also improves data quality by reducing the number of incomplete CRM records — normally a clear sign that a rep started to update their records and then jumped on another call.

Use AI to analyze call recordings, outreach emails, and social media messages, looking for topics discussed, key messaging, or competitors mentioned

Then, connect that AI with your CRM to automatically link to call recordings, other sales activity, and appropriate tags based on the insights it gathers. Using AI to automate data entry enables sellers to spend less time inputting info without compromising data quality.

2. Consolidate tools to reduce context switching

Context switching is where you jump between projects, tools, and tasks — and it affects your productivity levels and focus. For example, Asana found that “workers switch among 10 apps 25 times per day,” greatly reducing their efficiency.

Workers switch between apps up to

times a day
0

For sales organizations, tool overload seems even worse. According to recent research, around 63% of revenue organizations have ten or more tools in their tech stacks. It’s not surprising that 49% of sellers feel overwhelmed by the number of technologies needed to do their jobs.

But it’s also not good, as overwhelmed sellers are 43% less likely to make quota than their peers who aren’t overwhelmed.

Consolidating your sales tech stack can increase productivity by reducing duplicated effort and context switching. According to Forrester, there is a “significant overlap in features and functionality that exists between different sales tech categories.” 

"There is significant overlap in features and functionality that exists between different sales tech categories."
Forrester Research

Consolidation will bring “greater value for buyers of sales tech, reducing dependency on point solutions.” A closer analysis of your existing tech stack may reveal duplicate functionality across multiple tools — so consolidation will save the business money, as well as help your sales reps increase productivity.

Before you start consolidating tools, sales managers should ask their teams which ones they use most and where they spend the most time duplicating work. This will help you understand the biggest inefficiencies for your sales teams and how your existing tech stack is affecting their workflow.

Then, you can review your existing tools and the functionality you get across each. Look for:

  • Overlapping features
  • Duplicate functionality
  • Opportunities to set up new integrations between tools
  • Options to switch to an all-in-one platform instead of multiple disparate applications

For example, Mindtickle’s revenue enablement platform integrates sales enablement, content management, conversation intelligence, and sales coaching. Ken Blank, senior sales enablement program lead at Infoblox, explained, “We’ve been able to integrate multiple disjointed systems into one single platform for our internal customers as well as the enablement team.”

3. Improve access to content and resources

Finding the best content and resources is another inefficiency for many sales teams. Forrester states that “not having the right content” is one of the biggest productivity challenges facing sales teams and that “finding content and information is a significant productivity obstacle.”

Sales teams often struggle because they don’t know what content is available or where to find it in shared drives. Finding sales content can be especially difficult if another team (such as marketing) creates the content, and each team has different ways of organizing assets. You can help sales reps improve their productivity by making it easier to find and use sales content to move their deals forward.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

Adopting a dedicated sales content management system makes it easy for reps to access your sales content. It provides a single, searchable home for all your content assets. In addition, you can organize your content into hubs based on topic or content type so that it’s categorized based on how your sales team will use or search for it.

When it’s easier for sellers to find relevant content to use in their sales interactions, reps aren’t spending time scrolling through shared drives hunting for relevant case studies. Instead, they can focus on their next sales conversation, equipped with the information they need for the call or follow-up message.

4. Make training and coaching an ongoing priority

At first glance, it may seem like sales training and coaching will negatively impact your sales team’s productivity. You may think it’s yet another activity that takes up reps’ time. That’s likely true if your company sees sales training as an ad-hoc checkbox activity rather than a long-term value-add. But personalized, continuous training helps reps improve their skills, enabling them to follow best practices and learn from other team members how to be more efficient and productive in their work.

Adopting a structured revenue enablement program enables sellers to increase knowledge, enhance performance, and adapt to change. It makes training and enablement an ongoing priority and helps to foster a team culture of continuous improvement.

Training personalized to each rep helps individuals make targeted improvements in key areas. For example, some reps struggle to handle sales objections, while others struggle to discuss your pricing. Sales leaders can help reps improve on areas of weakness identified using AI to analyze sales call recordings and other customer interactions. This helps reps improve their productivity by handling these regular, recurring situations more easily.

5. Deliver real-time coaching

Sales coaching—when done well—can significantly impact sales productivity and quota attainment. But traditional coaching practices tend to be time-consuming for sellers and managers alike.

Most sellers want coaching so they can improve their performance. However, they often have to wait around for feedback from their manager. For example, they might submit role-plays to their manager – and then have to wait around for their manager to watch the role-plays and deliver meaningful feedback. In the meantime, deals may stall – or disappear altogether.

On the other hand, real-time coaching allows sellers to sharpen their skills right away. Then, they can take their improved skills into the field to close more deals.

But how exactly can revenue organizations deliver real-time coaching? By tapping into AI role-plays.

With AI role-plays, enablement teams can create realistic sales scenarios and assign characteristics and behaviors to an AI-powered bot. When sellers launch a role-play, they can practice their skills in a dynamic, realistic environment with an adaptive bot. AI delivers feedback throughout the role-play experience, which the seller can apply immediately.

The seller can practice as much as necessary and get immediate feedback without waiting on their manager. Then, they can enter client interactions with stronger skills and a greater likelihood of closing the deal.

6. Streamline sales interactions

These days, sellers aren’t dealing with a single buyer. Instead, they’re typically juggling large (and growing) buying committees. Per Gartner, the average B2B buying group includes up to 10 people.

The average B2B buying group includes

stakeholders
0

Each member of the buying committee brings a different perspective and unique needs, preferences, and questions. Keeping each stakeholder engaged and ensuring their needs are met can take a lot of time and effort for sellers.

If your sellers primarily use email to engage with buyers, it can get tedious. They probably find themselves sinking a lot of time into digging through their inbox or scanning long email threads to ensure they’ve addressed each stakeholder’s questions and concerns. And if one (or more) of these stakeholders goes silent, the seller may not know what to do next.

One way to streamline sales interactions (and increase sales productivity) is to start using digital sales rooms.

Digital sales rooms are personalized portals where all members of the buying and selling teams can collaborate throughout the sales cycle. Sales reps can use digital sales rooms to share content and information that’s relevant to each buyer stakeholder – instead of sending (and resending) countless email attachments.

In addition, digital sales rooms allow sellers to see how different buying committee members engage with information and content. Sellers can use that insight to adapt their approach and spend time on things that will move the deal forward. In other words, the insights in digital sales rooms can help increase sales productivity.

Increase sales productivity by helping reps spend more time doing what they love

Your sellers are responsible for delighting prospects and closing deals. But often, they don’t have the time to do so because they’re bogged down with admin and other time-consuming tasks.

Sales leaders must make it a priority to increase sales productivity. By implementing just one or two of the tips in this post, your reps can spend less time on admin and more time building relationships with prospects and helping them solve their challenges. Sellers will be able to close more deals – and they’ll be happier in their roles.

The math is simple: your sales reps need to spend more time engaging with prospects to close more deals. Increasing sales productivity will boost sales performance – and grow your bottom line.

More Productivity with Mindtickle

Are your reps spending too much time on admin work and not enough time closing deals? See how Mindtickle helps.

Request Your Demo

This post was originally published in March 2022 and was updated in October 2024. 

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5 Ways to Leverage AI to Supercharge Sales Performance https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-ways-to-leverage-ai-to-supercharge-sales-performance/ Wed, 23 Oct 2024 21:15:49 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20333 It’s no secret that artificial intelligence has gone mainstream. Today, navigating to a news website, social media site, or industry publication is nearly impossible without seeing at least a handful of headlines or conversations about AI’s tremendous growth and impact. But AI isn’t just some buzzword or a passing trend. AI has become a must-have …

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It’s no secret that artificial intelligence has gone mainstream. Today, navigating to a news website, social media site, or industry publication is nearly impossible without seeing at least a handful of headlines or conversations about AI’s tremendous growth and impact.

But AI isn’t just some buzzword or a passing trend. AI has become a must-have technology for any revenue organization looking to remain competitive and grow revenue in a crowded marketplace.

By now, most revenue leaders know they should leverage AI to boost sales performance. But many still aren’t quite sure how to incorporate AI into their sales processes.

In this post, we’ll explore five practical, impactful AI strategies that can help you enhance seller efficiency and drive revenue growth for your go-to-market teams.

AI is a must-have for revenue leaders

The harsh reality is that many revenue organizations aren’t meeting their numbers. If that’s the case at your organization, you’re not alone.

GTM performance often misses the mark – by a lot. Research tells us only 42% of sales reps regularly meet quota.

cost of customer churn each year
$ 0 B
of orgs fail to pivot to market shifts
0 %

Furthermore, GTM teams struggle to keep up with the pace of change. Customer churn costs U.S. providers $168B each year, and 70% of businesses fail to pivot to new market shifts.

As a revenue leader, your work is cut out for you.

But AI can help change the game.

By strategically leveraging AI, you can improve performance across the entire GTM team and drive revenue growth. Let’s look at five practical but impactful AI strategies that’ll supercharge your sales results.

Strategy #1: Build rep skills with modern training and enablement

Every seller needs training and enablement to have what it takes to engage buyers and close deals. But each rep has different experiences, strengths, and weaknesses. A one-size-fits-all approach to training and enablement doesn’t work.

Enablement and training must be personalized for each individual. However, most organizations struggle to apply a truly adaptive approach to enablement.

AI makes it easier to deliver personalized training and enablement at scale – even when budgets and people hours are tight. Here are a few ways you can tap into AI to make enablement creation fast and simple:

  • Program creation: AI can create program structures for common enablement use cases. Then, you just have to drop your content into the flow.
  • Knowledge assessment: AI can take training content and quickly create an assessment to gauge mastery. Mindtickle Copilot has reduced the time to create assessments from 21 to 1.9 minutes.

Time to create an assessment

without Mindtickle Copilot
0 mins
with Mindtickle Copilot
0 mins

As AI quickly evolves, so will the ability to create even more complex and tailored enablement quickly and at scale.

Strategy #2: Improve team performance with data-driven coaching

Effective sales coaching can improve win rates by as much as 29%. However, traditional sales coaching practices are time-intensive, and sales managers don’t have time to spare.

Role Plays have been a longstanding sales tactic for preparing reps for conversations. However, managers are busy and don’t have time to go over each pitch before a rep jumps on a call.

AI makes Role Plays scalable across large enterprises.

Organizations can quickly create AI Role Play scenarios based on a few prompts. Reps can practice with an AI buyer in a hyper-realistic scenario miming a real-life sales interaction. With Role Plays, sellers can practice as much as needed to be confident with messaging and nail the delivery without waiting for their manager’s feedback.

AI-Roleplay

Also, sales reps don’t have to wait around for manager feedback. AI provides a score for each Role Play – as well as immediate feedback on things like:

  • Pace of speech
  • Sentiment
  • Use of filler words

Sellers can use this feedback to improve their pitch before money is on the line.

AI-driven coaching works. Cisco, a Mindtickle customer, recently held a pitch contest for its 3,500 sellers, which yielded 6,050 submissions. By using Mindtickle Copilot to review the Role Plays, Cisco saved 38 weeks of manager time. The company also saw a 25% increase in the value of booked deals and a 31% rise in the average deal size.

Strategy #3: Accelerate deal cycles with intelligent digital sales rooms

Deals are getting increasingly complex, and buying committees are getting larger. It can be a lot for a seller to manage – especially when every buying committee member has unique needs.

Digital Sales Rooms (or DSRs, for short) are portals where buyers and sellers can engage and collaborate to accelerate deals. DSRs give buyers a place to research, share content with team members, and get answers to their questions. On the other hand, sellers use DSRs to share the right content and understand how the entire buying group engages with it.

Though DSRs are a relatively new technology, they’re proving to be an effective way to collaborate with buyers and move deals forward. Customers that incorporate DSRs into their sales motion typically see increases in win rates, sometimes as high as 2x, showing the importance of upleveling how you engage with modern buyers.

Increasingly, buyers prefer to do their buying tasks via self-service tools. DSRs give them a place to do their buying tasks and allow sellers to influence and track this self-service process. Serve them the branded and third-party content they need to advance their evaluation, and they’ll progress quicker through the buying journey. You’ll know where they are in their process and how you can support their next steps.

Advancements in AI will make Digital Sales Rooms even more useful for buyers and sellers. Modern sales orgs will soon use AI to auto-create and curate rooms based on CRM data, content engagement data, and other buying signals. Using a combination of AI, input from your marketing SMEs, and insights from your sellers, you can orchestrate compelling buyer experiences that drive deals forward.

Strategy #4: Deliver the right content for every moment

Most organizations have no shortage of sales content to use with buyers. In fact, we might say that most organizations have too much. Sellers often struggle to find the content they need and know how to use it when they find it. With AI, sellers don’t have to spend hours looking for content or creating their assets. Instead, recommended assets are served alongside helpful context, which they can use to move deals forward.

With AI being able to scrub a ton of content all at once, sellers can stop searching for keywords on a certain document and rather ask AI common questions to help them in their deals, like, “How do I compete with Competitor ABC?” and get a succinct response that they can use in the moment.

Furthermore, AI is making it possible to (finally) understand the true impact of content in deals. It’s not enough to know the content was used in a deal that closed or was lost. You need to understand whether it has the intended impact within each deal.

For example, AI is unlocking the ability to combine attribution and engagement data into an understanding of the estimated impact of engagement with content on the likelihood of a deal closing. This will tell you so much more than the shallow content ROI metrics currently offered in most platforms.

Strategy #5: Gain insights on every call to accelerate deals

Each interaction with a buyer is full of rich insights – whether a seller realizes it or not. With AI, sales teams can unlock these insights without sifting through call transcripts. Then, they can leverage this intel to improve performance and sales outcomes.

AI helps analyze each call. This allows for:

  • Fast follow-ups: Reps get real-time call summaries and action items, which enables them to follow up faster.
  • Higher productivity: Your CRM is auto-enriched with call recordings and summaries.
  • Instant insights: AI highlights key moments and can answer deal or rep-related questions instantly.
  • Voice of your market: AI can summarize competitive mentions, challenges of your customers, and how your message is resonating with buyers across conversations

AI-powered call insights boost performance. You can use insights to measure rep performance, understand your buyers, and enhance deal outcomes.

AI is transforming the world of sales

AI has only recently gone mainstream. But already, it’s transforming the world of sales.

Your competitors are already using AI. If you’re not, you risk getting left behind.

Now’s the time to strategically leverage artificial intelligence to ramp reps faster, get more expansion opportunities, and win bigger deals.

See Mindtickle Copilot in Action

Ready to see how Mindtickle Copilot empowers GTM teams to work faster and smarter?

Get Your Demo

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20 Best Sales Enablement Softwares, Tools, & Platforms https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-enablement-tools/ Tue, 22 Oct 2024 05:22:10 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20262 By now, sales enablement has become a critical department for businesses of all sizes and industries looking to increase productivity and revenue growth. In fact, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement teams. It’s no wonder. Sales enablement prepares sellers to overcome key challenges, effectively engage buyers, and land more deals when done well. According …

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By now, sales enablement has become a critical department for businesses of all sizes and industries looking to increase productivity and revenue growth. In fact, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement teams.

It’s no wonder.

Sales enablement prepares sellers to overcome key challenges, effectively engage buyers, and land more deals when done well. According to a recent report, 76% of sales reps feel their enablement prepares them to make quota.

of reps feel enablement preps them to meet quota
0 %

Sales enablement tools greatly impact the success (or failure) of any sales enablement program. It’s important to choose your tools wisely.

But sifting through all the options can feel pretty overwhelming. There’s tons of information, from review sites and analyst reports to the good old Google search. Whether you’re running short on time or just beginning your search, We’re here to help.

Today, we’ll explore 20 of the best sales enablement tools. We’ll break down each tool so you can determine which is best for supercharging your sales performance and taking your sales enablement program to the next level.

The best sales enablement platforms on the market today

Let’s jump in head first with a list of the best revenue enablement software tools today. Later on, we’ll take a closer look at each of these top tools.

    1. Mindtickle
    2. Seismic
    3. Highspot
    4. Gong
    5. Showpad
    6. Allego
    7. Brainshark/Bigtincan
    8. Paperflite
    9. Salesloft
    10. Chorus
    11. Spekit
    12. Whatfix
    13. Outreach.io
    14. Klue
    15. SalesHood
    16. Guru
    17. Intercom
    18. Storylane

    19. Hubspot
    20. Salesforce

What is a sales enablement platform?

Let’s define a platform before discussing the 20 best sales enablement tools.

Modern B2B buyers have high (and ever-growing) expectations. Meeting those expectations isn’t always easy. Sales enablement is a practice that equips sellers with the sales training, tools, information, and content they need to effectively and efficiently engage with buyers and close more deals.

A sales enablement platform is a software solution that enables organizations to build and deliver enablement programs that ensure sellers have what they need to engage buyers and convert more of them to customers.

Some sales enablement tools focus on a single aspect of sales enablement. For example, a learning management system (LMS) focuses on delivering training content, while other enablement platforms focus more on delivering, tracking, and sharing sales content.

There are also integrated sales enablement platforms that address all of the different elements of sales enablement – all in one software solution. Some of the key components to look for in an integrated sales enablement platform include:

  • Sales onboarding
  • Ongoing training
  • Sales coaching
  • Role-plays
  • Sales content
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Digital sales rooms
  • Robust data and analytics

How do you choose the right sales enablement tool?

There are countless vendors, each offering solutions that promise to increase the effectiveness of your sales enablement program. But not all sales enablement tools are the same. Each has its own set of features, functionality, and support.

How can you choose the right sales enablement tool for your organization? First, consider your organization’s most important use cases.

Let’s examine a few.

Your sales enablement goals and program scope

When choosing sales enablement tools, you must consider the goals and scope of your sales enablement program. Then, you can look for a sales enablement solution with features and functionality that’ll properly support your program and help you achieve your sales enablement goals.

For example, if content delivery, sharing, and tracking are part of your sales enablement purview, be sure to find a solution with robust sales content management capabilities and analytics.

Your budget

Nearly all sales enablement tools have a cost. It’s important to find one that fits your budget.

But don’t make your decision solely based on price.

It’s important to determine the value of a solution for your business. If one sales enablement platform is more expensive than the others but delivers more value, it may be the better option. As you evaluate vendors, it is helpful to create a business case to determine what solutions you will be replacing or consolidating and the ROI you can model with each solution.

User experience

If a sales enablement tool is difficult to use, user adoption will be low. Be sure to look for a sales enablement platform that’s easy for both sellers and enablement teams to use.

Point vs. integrated sales enablement tools

Some organizations use different tools to address different aspects of sales enablement. For example, they might use different tools for sales content management, training, and coaching.

However, using disparate tools may not be the right approach to achieving your sales enablement goals.

A recent survey found around 70% of sales reps are overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use to do their jobs. Furthermore, according to a Harvard Business Review report, sellers who feel overwhelmed by technology are 43% less likely to meet their quotas.

of reps are overwhelmed by the number of sales tools used in their daily work
0 %

Many go-to-market organizations are streamlining their tech stacks (and increasing adoption) by investing in an integrated sales enablement solution. These all-in-one solutions holistically address the myriad elements of sales enablement – all from one platform.

Customer feedback

Researching and requesting demos is a great way to learn about different sales enablement tools. In addition, be sure to seek feedback from those already using various sales enablement platforms.

 

Case studies and testimonials are one way to see how similar companies use different sales enablement tools to achieve their goals. Another way to get feedback from current and existing customers is to read user reviews on G2.

The top sales enablement platforms, tools, and software

Now, let’s look at 20 of the most popular sales enablement tools for increasing sales productivity and revenue growth.

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
Price: Mindtickle offers multiple pricing tiers. Contact the company for customized pricing.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that empowers your go-to-market team to deliver outstanding experiences that drive revenue and retain happy customers.

Enablement professionals turn to Mindtickle to deliver personalized enablement programs and report the impact enablement has on revenue outcomes. Mindtickle Copilot, an AI-powered assistant, makes creating and deploying sales enablement programs even easier for teams.

Sellers use Mindtickle to access onboarding, training, content, coaching, Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs), conversation intelligence, AI role-plays, and more from one platform. Mindtickle leverages AI to streamline tedious, time-consuming tasks so sellers can spend more time building authentic customer relationships. The DSRs enable sellers to create tailored rooms for every opportunity and accelerate deals to close fast.xz

Teams can also measure sales enablement KPIs and use those insights to optimize their programs accordingly.

Notable features

  • Sales onboarding helps your new sellers hit the ground running so they can start contributing to revenue growth faster.
  • Ongoing individualized training allows each seller to strengthen key skills.
  • Mindtickle Copilot, the platform’s AI sales assistant, enables sellers to ask questions and get instant, accurate answers as well as surface relevant content and training.
  • Mindtickle Copilot makes it faster and easier to develop new sales enablement modules.
  • Sales content management enables sellers to surface the right content at the right time to engage buyers and move deals forward. Mindtickle Copilot can even draft a contextual email to accompany content.
  • Sales coaching enables sellers to access individualized coaching that improves long-term behaviors and performance.
  • AI role-plays empower sellers to practice their skills in engaging, interactive scenarios while getting real-time feedback for improvement.
  • Conversation intelligence records and summarizes calls, and Mindtickle Copilot makes it easy for sellers to quickly surface top insights. This intel can help sellers determine what step to take next to move the deal forward.
  • Digital sales rooms provide a single source of truth for everything related to a deal. Sellers can share relevant content with buyers, and both parties can collaborate and communicate in one central location. Sellers can see how buyers engage in the digital sales room, which can help them adapt their strategy for better outcomes.
  • Rich analytics enable teams to measure the impact of enablement. They can see how sellers engage with enablement and how that engagement impacts the metrics that matter most.

Best for

Mindtickle is used by several roles across the organization, including:

  • Sales/revenue enablement
  • Sales reps
  • Frontline managers
  • Sales leadership
  • Sales operations
  • Marketing
  • Customer success

Mindtickle has over one million users at companies ranging from startups to large enterprises. Mindtickle supercharges enablement programs for industries including automotive, medical devices, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, manufacturing, chemicals, technology, and many others.

What customers say

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5

Price: Seismic offers multiple pricing tiers. Contact the company for customized pricing.

Seismic is a unified sales enablement platform that helps organizations engage customers and grow revenue. It equips customer-facing teams with the right skills, tools, content, and data to win more deals. Marketing teams leverage Seismic to create more effective content that’s actually used by sellers and buyers. 

Notable features

  • Robust content management features that make it easy for enablement professionals to develop new content and for sellers to find the content they need.
  • Extensive reporting and analytics, including the ability to see how content is being used.
    Integrates with your business-critical tools, including Microsoft, Salesforce, Google, and Adobe.

Cons

Many of the downsides of Seismic cited by G2 users are related to user experience. For example, many users mention challenges with navigation, and some feel the platform isn’t intuitive.

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5

Price: Highspot offers several different pricing options. Contact the company to discuss the right model for your organization.

Highspot is a unified enterprise sales enablement platform. Highspot incorporates many key components of a holistic sales enablement practice, including sales training, content management, sales playbooks, and analytics. 

Notable features

  • Learning management capabilities to quickly onboard new sellers and ensure knowledge retention.
  • Detailed reporting helps sellers understand when deals are at risk so they can take corrective action.
  • Highspot leverages AI across workflows to help teams work smarter.

Cons

Many of Highspot’s downsides are related to user experience. Reviewers mention layout issues and difficulty with navigation. Getting up to speed with Highspot can be challenging, as many users mention a steep learning curve. 

4. Gong

Gong logo

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5

Price: Gong pricing varies based on several factors, including organization size and selected features. Contact the company for a customized price quote.

Gong is an “all in one” revenue intelligence platform. Gong leverages AI to empower businesses to capture and analyze customer interactions, including calls, emails, and live chat. Gong then delivers actionable insights to go-to-market teams, which they can use to drive better outcomes and increase revenue growth. Gong is trusted by 4,000+ customers across the globe.

screenshot of Gong's beat call timeline product

Notable features

  • Gong collects and analyzes customer interactions from various sources, including phone calls, emails, text, and web chat.
  • More than 40 AI models to help you understand your customers’ interactions
  • Robust insights help you coach buyers, understand the voice of your customers, and improve sales outcomes.
  • Gong may seamlessly integrate into your existing tech stack.

Cons

While Gong has strong call insights, it lacks key training and onboarding capabilities typically sought in a sales enablement platform. Gong users cite several downsides to the platform, including AI inaccuracy and issues with recording. Some users also feel there are missing features, such as pausing the tool during meetings. 

5. Showpad

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Price: There are three pricing plans for Showpad Coach and two for Showpad Coach. However, the company doesn’t publish pricing information. Contact Showpad for detailed pricing information.

Showpad eOS® is an all-in-one enablement platform where sales and marketing teams collaborate to provide sales reps with the right content and training to effectively engage buyers. The platform features two distinct components: Showpad Content and Showpad Coach. Showpad Content equips sellers with the right sales content at the right time. Showpad Coach allows enablement teams to deliver onboarding, training, and coaching so sales reps can build the skills to foster customer relationships and close more deals.

Notable features

  • AI powers real-time feedback so sellers can hone the right skills on their own time.
  • Showpad Content leverages AI to curate relevant content, allowing sellers to become trusted advisors.
  • Robust analytics and insights help teams understand which content and training resonates with buyers and sellers, enabling organizations to optimize their enablement strategies.
  • Showpad has 65+ integrations and an open API.

Cons

Showpad users mention several cons related to user experience. For example, many feel the platform is not unintuitive, while others find the interface clunky. Some reviewers also mention that Showpad has fewer features than other sales enablement tools today. 

6. Allego

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Price: Allego offers its products ala carte. Additionally, customers can bundle products, which consolidate seven tools into one. Pricing varies based on the number of users and the contract duration. Contact Allego for detailed pricing information.

Allego is a revenue enablement platform that empowers go-to-market teams to deliver experiences that meet modern buyers’ expectations. It includes content management capabilities, which ensure sellers can find the right content at the right time. Allego also incorporates sales training and coaching, as well as conversation intelligence to analyze what’s happening in the field. Digital sales rooms round out Allego, enabling buyers and sellers to communicate and collaborate throughout the purchase journey.

Notable features

  • Tools to easily create and deliver personalized training, enablement, and reinforcement.
  • Digital sales rooms enable collaboration between buyers and sellers and enable sellers to understand buyer engagement.
  • Conversation intelligence records and analyzes calls and delivers real-time coaching to sellers.
  • Content management capabilities allow you to easily create, organize, and personalize sales content. Sellers can also track sales content performance.

Cons

Some reviewers mention a steep learning curve with Allego, which can negatively impact user adoption and impact. Others mention the platform isn’t intuitive and is poorly organized. Another common review theme is that Allego lacks key features common in other sales enablement tools. 

7. Paperflite

G2 rating: 4.5 out of 5

Price: Pricing starts at $50 per user per month, with a five-user minimum. A free trial is available. Contact the company for customized pricing information.

Paperflite is a sales enablement tool that’s primarily focused on sales content management. Paperflite centralizes all sales content into a single hub and leverages AI to help sellers surface the right content at the right time for the right prospects. Paperflite delivers insights on how content is being used and how it’s impacting deals. That way, marketing teams can optimize their content programs for greater impact.

Notable features

  • This sales enablement tool leverages algorithms, user behavior, and AI to help sellers surface the right content for each sales scenario.
  • Engaging, personalized microsites enable sellers to share relevant content with buyers.
  • Sellers can access real-time insights on how buyers engage with content, enabling them to tailor their follow-up properly.
  • Insights on content ROI help marketing teams focus on content that makes an impact.

Cons

Paperflite primarily focuses on sales content, which means businesses must use other solutions to address the other aspects of holistic sales enablement. Common themes in G2 reviews include limited features and platform limitations. Some users also mention issues with the platform’s layout. 

8. Bigtincan/Brainshark

**Note**: Bigtincan acquired Brainshark in 2021 and will eventually combine their offerings. For now, they are separated in this list to evaluate their still separate features and functionality.

Bigtincan G2 rating: 4.3 out of 5

Bigtincan Price: Bigtincan offers customized packages based on an organization’s needs. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Bigtincan offers sales enablement tools that prepare customer-facing teams to deliver great buying experiences. The Bigtincan platform has three parts: Readiness, Content, and Engagement. It can be customized to your organization’s needs and evolve as your business does.

Notable Bigtincan features

  • Centralized repository for all sales content, so sellers can easily find what they need, when they need it – and tailor if for each buyer.
  • Tools to quickly create and deliver just-in-time training and enablement so sellers can master the necessary skills.
  • AI-powered sales coaching so sellers can perfect their skills before they take them into the field.
  • Robust analytics to understand how buyers engage with sales content so sellers can adapt their strategies.

Cons

One of the most common themes of negative reviews on G2 is that Bigtincan lacks many of the features of other sales enablement platforms. Comments about user experience are also common. For example, one reviewer said they must make several clicks to complete simple, routine actions.

Brainshark

G2 Rating: 4.4 out of 5

Price: Brainshark offers two tiers, Pro and Premier. Each tier is available as an annual subscription using a per-user pricing model. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Brainshark is a data-driven sales readiness solution that equips client-facing teams with information, skills, and insights to reach their full potential. With Brainshark, businesses can deliver training, coaching, and enablement and measure the impact of these initiatives on sales readiness. Brainshark has customers in various industries, including IT, manufacturing, insurance, banking, and others. Brainshark was acquired by Bigtincan in 2021.

Notable features

  • Content authoring capabilities make developing and deploying new learning content easy.
  • Onboarding and ongoing training help sellers learn and retain the skills they need to be ready for any deal.
  • AI-powered coaching enables sales reps to get real-time feedback without waiting on their manager.
  • Readiness scorecards help sales leaders identify sellers’ skills gaps so they can proactively address them and improve performance.

Cons

Negative reviews for Brainshark most often focus on the platform’s limited features compared to other solutions on the market. Reviewers also cite difficulty with reporting and limited opportunities for customization. 

9. Salesloft

G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Price: Salesloft offers two pricing editions: Advanced and Premier. Contact the company for pricing information on both tiers.

Salesloft is a “revenue orchestration platform” that helps sellers more effectively engage with prospects. The platform leverages AI to analyze buyer signals, then delivers insights that help sellers know the right steps to take at the right time to engage prospects. Salesloft has more than 5,00 customers across the globe, including Google, IBM, and Cisco.

Notable features

  • Salesloft’s AI-powered engine integrates buyer signals so sellers can understand the urgency and act immediately.
  • Conversation intelligence transcribes and analyzes customer calls so sellers can tailor their follow-up.
  • Robust reporting and analytics enable organizations to improve processes and sell better.

Cons

While Salesloft includes impressive outreach capabilities, many G2 reviews mention that It lacks key features standard in other sales enablement tools, like robust training and onboarding capabilities. Reviewers also mention call issues and challenges with integrations. 

10. Chorus by ZoomInfo

G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Price: Chorus does not publish pricing information. Contact the company for more pricing information.

Chorus is an AI-powered conversation intelligence tool. The platform records and analyzes customer engagement across phone calls, email, and video meetings. These insights can help

Notable features

  • Instant insights on any customer interaction help sellers tailor their follow-up.
  • Sellers get instant feedback for behavior improvement.
  • Data enables teams to benchmark sales conversations on metrics like talk-to-listen ratios and the use of filler words.
  • Powerful insights inform more accurate sales forecasting.

Cons

Similar to Gong, Chorus focuses more on the conversation intelligence piece of sales enablement, with limited training and onboarding support. Negative reviews for Chorus mention various technical issues, including call and recording issues. Several reviews also mention accuracy as a concern. 

11. Spekit

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Price: Spekit doesn’t publish pricing information. Contact the company for customized pricing information.

Spekit is an AI-powered sales enablement platform. Spekit centralizes everything related to enablement and makes it easy for sellers to find the answers, training, and content they need – whenever and wherever they need it.

Notable features

  • A centralized repository to organize, share, track, and analyze all sales content and training.
  • AI-powered content creation makes it quick and easy to spin up new content.
  • AI-powered recommendations help sellers surface the right content to engage buyers and accelerate deals.

Cons

Several G2 reviews mention challenges related to search. For each, reviewers find search functionality inadequate or limited. Some reviewers also feel the platform’s features are limited. For example, one reviewer wishes they could provide more complex knowledge checks and more in-depth options for sellers to provide feedback on content. 

12. Whatfix

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Price: Whatfix offers multiple pricing tiers and add-ons. Contact the company for personalized pricing information.

Whatfix is a digital adoption platform that helps companies onboard, support, and train their application users. With Whatfix, businesses can create and deliver customized content – such as videos, help tips, links, and text – within the app experience. Users don’t have to leave the platform to get the information they need, which increases user engagement.

Notable features

  • In-app guidance enables users to learn within the flow of work.
  • Self-help, which integrates with existing knowledge repositories, provides users with quick answers whenever a question arises.
  • In-app surveys collect user feedback to inform product and process optimizations.
  • Guidance analytics help you understand how users are engaging with in-app content.

Cons

While What Fix helps guide teams and boost productivity, it is not meant to be used standalone for sales enablement. Many reviewers note that getting up and running with Whatfix is not easy. Some mention a steep learning curve, while others state the platform isn’t as intuitive as they’d like. 

13. Outreach.io

G2 Rating: 4.3 out of 5

Price: Outreach offers multiple pricing packages. Contact the company for customized pricing information.

Outreach is a “sales execution platform” that increases sales productivity and empowers sales teams to create and close more pipeline. Outreach equips teams with AI-powered workflows to understand what steps to take when and which messages will resonate with which prospects. AI also streamlines tedious, time-consuming work so sellers can focus on engaging with prospects. To effectively increase pipeline conversion and seller productivity, sales leaders turn to Outreach to get a complete picture of the sales cycle.

Notable features

  • Sequences and playbooks empower sellers to build a healthy pipeline.
  • Conversation intelligence helps sellers pinpoint trends, competition, and deal threats.
  • Rich insights help teams prioritize winnable opportunities, identify at-risk deals, and take action to increase win rates.

Cons

While Outreach has strong sales execution capabilities, it lacks key training and onboarding capabilities typically sought after in a sales enablement platform. Many G2 reviewers mention Outreach’s steep learning curve, which can negatively impact user adoption and impact. Technical issues and integration issues are other common themes in reviews. 

14. Klue

G2 Rating: 4.8 out of 5

Price: Klue does not publish pricing information. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Klue is a competitive intelligence solution that combines market, competitor, and buyer insights into one AI-powered platform. With Klue, businesses understand what they’re up against and what they need to do to win.

Notable features

  • Competitor tracking from millions of sources – all in one platform.
  • Battlecards and other content feature quick-hit competitive insights that help sellers position their solution as the best choice.
  • In-depth reporting on your competitive program’s ROI can help you make data-based optimizations.

Cons

While Klue excels in competitive intelligence for sales teams, it lacks key training and onboarding capabilities typically sought in a sales enablement platform. The topic of user experience often comes up in Klue’s negative reviews. For example, one reviewer noted, “Klue’s UI can be very confusing across the platform.” In addition, many users feel Klue offers limited or incomplete features. Klue also offers limited opportunities for customization. 

15. SalesHood

G2 Rating: 4.6 out of 5

Price: SalesHood offers three pricing packages, starting at $40 per user per month. Contact the company for personalized pricing information.

SalesHood is a revenue enablement tool that helps sellers understand what to do and what to share in order to effectively engage buyers throughout the purchase journey. SalesHood incorporates many sales enablement components, including sales content, answers, digital sales rooms, training, and coaching – all in one, integrated platform. SalesHood also offers robust analytics that help organizations understand the impact of enablement on seller productivity and revenue growth.

Notable features

  • Digital sales rooms enable reps to deliver engaging buying experiences and track prospects’ engagement with content.
  • Sales content management capabilities allow organizations to centralize and organize all content in one location and understand its impact on sales outcomes. AI also delivers recommendations to help sellers share content that will resonate with buyers.
  • AI-powered role plays allow sellers to practice and hone their pitches.
  • Robust reporting and analytics help you understand the impact of enablement so you can optimize programs accordingly.

Cons

Navigation challenges are a recurring theme in G2 reviews. One user noted that the platform has an overwhelming number of features, which makes it difficult to navigate effectively. Another common frustration is the lack of customization options. 

16. Guru

G2 Rating: 4.7 out of 5

Price: Guru offers multiple pricing options, starting at $15 per user per month. A free trial is available.

Guru is an AI-powered knowledge management platform that enables users to get answers and assistance right within the flow of work. That means your sellers can spend less time switching between tools to hunt down information and answers and more time engaging with buyers and closing deals.

Notable features

  • Provides a single source of truth by connecting existing apps.
  • Generative AI makes it easy to create new content.
  • Integrates with existing tools and technology, including Slack, Google Chrome, ChatGPT, OneDrive, Salesforce Service Cloud and many others.
  • Enterprise governance keeps your knowledge safe and sound.

Cons

While Guru excels in content management for sales teams, it lacks key training and onboarding capabilities typically sought after in a sales enablement platform.Challenges with search functionality are a common theme in G2 reviews for Guru. For example, multiple users mention that queries on Guru pull up too many results, which makes it difficult to sort through to find the most relevant answers and content. 

17. Intercom

G2 Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Price: Intercom offers multiple pricing tiers, starting at $39 per user per month. A free trial is available.

Intercom is an AI-first customer service solution that enhances the customer experience and increases operational efficiency. With Intercom, customers get fast, accurate answers to most questions and agents no longer have to dig around for answers and information. In addition, organizational leaders can access insights to improve their business.

Notable features

  • Fin AI Agent, Intercom’s chatbot, instantly resolves customer challenges and provides fast, accurate answers, decreasing case volume for live agents.
  • AI tools enable your agents to find quick answers so they can spend less time hunting down information and more time fostering relationships with customers.
  • Reporting and insights enable organizational leaders to pinpoint opportunities for improvement.
  • Intercom integrates with over 100 apps.

Cons

While Intercom excels in customer service and AI, it lacks key training and onboarding capabilities typically sought after in a sales enablement platform.A common theme in G2 reviews is that Intercom lacks desired features. For example, one user cited wanting a CRM feature to measure health scores. Some users also mentioned challenges with integrations. 

18. Storylane

G2 Rating: 4.8 out of 5

Price: Storylane offers multiple pricing editions, including a free one. Paid editions start at $40 per user per month. Free trials are available upon request.

Storylane is a sales enablement tool that allows sellers to build interactive demos for prospects. With Storylane, you can create a frontend copy of your product, edit it without code, add widgets to call out specific product elements, and share with prospects. Sellers can see how buyers engage with demos, so they tailor their follow-up and focus their efforts on those most likely to convert.

Notable features

  • Sandbox demos create an instant copy of your app in a customizable environment.
  • Demo hub allows prospects to explore different use cases – all in one spot.
  • Rich insights allow sellers to understand how prospects engage with demos and which are most likely to convert.

Cons

While Storylane excels in interactive demos for sales teams, it is missing key training and onboarding capabilities typically sought after in a sales enablement platform. Some G2 reviews mention technical difficulties when getting up and running with Storylane. Some also express a desire for a more intuitive user interface. 

19. HubSpot Sales Hub

G2 Rating: 4.4 out of 5

Price: HubSpot Sales Hub is available in various tiers, from free to $150 per user per month.

HubSpot Sales Hub is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform. Its free plan includes content management capabilities so sellers can access the right content at the right time. Enablement content like playbooks and battle cards can help sellers engage buyers and close more deals.

Notable features

  • Email templates that can be personalized to each sales scenario, as well as AI to help sellers draft communication.
  • Content management so sellers can find what they’re looking for and understand how it’s used.
  • Automated workflows so sales reps never miss a beat.
  • Integration with myriad other sales enablement tools.

Cons

Hubspot Sales Hub isn’t a standalone sales enablement tool, as it lacks training and onboarding capabilities. Instead, it works better in combination with other sales enablement tools. In addition, some reviews mention a steep learning curve and missing product features. Others mention that HubSpot is an expensive solution for what it offers. 

20. Salesforce

G2 Rating: 4.4 out of 5

Price: Salesforce pricing varies across different tiers, with Sales Cloud starting at $25 per user per month for Essentials and going up to $300 per user per month for the Unlimited plan.

Salesforce is a widely-used customer relationship management (CRM) platform designed to support various business functions, including sales, marketing, and service. It offers powerful tools to manage customer interactions and streamline sales processes. With robust reporting and forecasting capabilities, Salesforce helps sales teams monitor performance and identify growth opportunities.

Notable features

  • Lead and opportunity management to track prospects through every stage of the funnel.
  • AI-powered Einstein analytics to provide predictive insights and recommendations.
  • Customizable dashboards and reports to visualize key sales metrics in real-time.
  • Extensive integrations with third-party tools, enabling seamless workflows.

Cons

Salesforce has a reputation for being complex to set up and manage, especially for small businesses. Some users report that its customization options, while powerful, can be overwhelming without proper training. Others find the cost of Salesforce high, especially as additional features often require expensive add-ons.

Supercharge your sales performance with the right sales enablement platform

When done well, sales enablement can have a large, measurable impact on the metrics that matter most to your business. But a winning sales enablement strategy requires the right tools.

There’s no one-size-fits-all sales enablement tool that’ll work for every organization.

Instead, assessing your goals, needs, and budget is important. Then, you can look for a platform with the right features and functionality to help you achieve your sales enablement goals. The sales enablement tools we explored in this blog are a great place to start.

However, it’s important to remember that many sales enablement tools are point solutions. In other words, they address a single element of sales enablement – such as conversation intelligence or sales training. Adding another tool to a bloated tech stack can lead to tool fatigue and disengagement.

Consider streamlining your tech stack by trading your point solutions for an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

With Mindtickle, your sellers always have the training, tools, and information they need to build the right skills to effectively and efficiently engage buyers. Furthermore, when all your sales enablement lives under one roof, it’s easy to holistically measure the impact of your programs so you can optimize them for even bigger results.

See Mindtickle in Action

Now that you've seen what's on the market, are you ready to see what makes winning sales orgs choose Mindtickle as their revenue enablement platform?

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What is the Difference Between Training and Development? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-the-difference-between-training-and-development/ Mon, 21 Oct 2024 15:34:58 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20329 The life of a B2B sales rep isn’t easy. Sellers must consistently meet buyers’ lofty expectations – which gets complicated when products, markets, competitors, and customer preferences are constantly in flux. It’s no wonder why less than half of B2B sales reps make quota. of B2B reps make quota < 0 % Sales training and …

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The life of a B2B sales rep isn’t easy. Sellers must consistently meet buyers’ lofty expectations – which gets complicated when products, markets, competitors, and customer preferences are constantly in flux.

It’s no wonder why less than half of B2B sales reps make quota.

of B2B reps make quota
< 0 %

Sales training and development equip sellers to overcome challenges and effectively engage buyers. Every sales rep—from your top performers to your newbies—needs workplace training and development to be successful.

But what is training and development?

Training and development are two words we hear a lot. Yet, there’s a lot of confusion about how sales training and development are similar, how they’re different, and why each is important to the success of a revenue organization. In this post, we’ll clear up that confusion.

What is training and development?

First things first: what is training and development?

While these two words are often used interchangeably, but they’re different. Let’s start by defining both training and development.

What is training?

In sales, training teaches sellers the skills and information they need to perform their jobs. In other words, sales training is focused on ensuring sellers have what they need to do their jobs well.

Often, organizations take a structured approach to learning. For example, new sellers may be required to complete sales onboarding to ensure they’re up to speed and understand the skills and knowledge they’ll need in their new role.

Sales training programs can be delivered to a larger group of people—like a specific team or a group of new hires—or to individual sellers. For example, a seller may undergo additional sales training on objection handling if this is an area where they struggle.

What is development?

Every seller has unique skills and knowledge. Development is a practice focused on building off existing skills and knowledge.

Effective development empowers sellers to improve and grow. Of course, this growth enables them to be more effective in their current role. It can also prepare them to take the next step in their career path within the organization.

For example, a sales rep may focus on developing their leadership skills so they can apply for a sales manager job within the next year.

What is the difference between training and development?

The definitions we shared for training and development make it clear that these concepts are related, but they’re not synonymous.

So, what’s the difference between training and development?

The best way to answer that question is to examine the key factors that distinguish these two practices. We’ll also examine training and development examples to clarify the differences further.

Factor #1: Focus

Sales training focuses on providing employees with the skills and knowledge they need to excel in the role they were hired for.

Development is focused on growing capabilities so employees can improve their performance in their current roles and potentially explore more advanced roles within the organization.

Factor #2: Objectives

Sales training empowers employees to grow the skills and competencies necessary for success in their current roles. Development aims to strengthen an employee’s capabilities and unlock advancement opportunities.

Factor #3: Audience

Sales training programs are typically created and delivered to a specific group. For example, new hires must complete a training program. Or, sellers in certain roles may be required to complete a role-specific sales training program.

On the other hand, development is tailored for each employee. Each seller has a unique background, set of skills, and goals. Development opportunities are tailored to address the needs of each employee.

Factor #4: Timing

Training is typically time-bound. For example, new sellers may undergo onboarding within 90 days of joining the company. Or, all sellers may be required to complete training before a new product launch or when a new CRM is rolled out.

Development, on the other hand, is typically a long-term process. For example, a sales rep may express interest in moving into a managerial role and seek out relevant development opportunities over the next two years.

Factor #5: Tactics

Workplace training and development employ different tactics.

Onboarding is one type of training. However the best revenue organizations also deliver ongoing training to ensure sellers have up-to-date knowledge and opportunities to learn key skills.

Some examples of training topics include:

  • Company training
  • Product training
  • Industry training
  • Sales technique training
  • Technology training (ie when onboarding a new CRM)

Some examples of development include:

  • Career path discussions
  • Mentoring
  • Job shadowing
  • Performance reviews
  • Networking at industry events

Factor #6: Who takes the lead

The employer typically leads training. For example, sales enablement teams may lead new sales rep training with support from other teams, including HR, sales, marketing, and sales operations.

In development, sellers take a more active role. They must take the initiative to set goals, communicate them to their manager, and identify opportunities to grow their skills to improve performance in their current role and be prepared to step into the next one.

Factor #7: Measurement

Training is measured by knowledge and skills mastery – and determining how that mastery impacts job performance. For example, quizzes and tests can gauge a rep’s mastery of new material. Role-play and sales call recording scores can measure a rep’s mastery of skills and behaviors. Sales certification programs can help gauge a seller’s readiness.

Organizations must also determine how mastery of key knowledge and behaviors correlates with job performance. For example, does a sales rep close more deals after mastering their objection-handling skills?

On the other hand, development is measured by examining a seller’s long-term growth and career progression within the organization. For example, an organization can gauge how an employee’s performance has improved over time and how many promotions they’ve earned within a certain time period.

Factor #8: How a revenue enablement platform is used

A revenue enablement platform is an important training and development tool. But the way the tool is used varies.

A revenue enablement platform can deliver onboarding and ongoing training to ensure sellers have the right skills and knowledge for their roles. The right tool can help you measure sellers’ mastery of knowledge and skills and how that mastery correlates with sales outcomes.

A revenue enablement platform is also a powerful tool for development initiatives. One way a platform can be used for development is to deliver personalized coaching to help sellers grow their skills and competencies. Sales leaders can also use the revenue enablement platform to track a sales rep’s growth over time.

Why is training and development important for revenue organizations?

We’ve now answered the questions “what is training and development?” And, we’ve explored the similarities and differences of these two practices.

So, when it comes to training and development, which is the better option? The truth is revenue organizations need both.

There are a few key reasons why workplace training and development are both important for revenue organizations.

Training and development helps reps ramp faster

The sooner new reps are ramped up, the sooner they can start contributing to revenue growth. With a strong training program, your sellers will be ready to hit the ground running—faster.

For example, MongoDB has reduced ramp time by 45% by revamping the way it onboards new customer-facing roles. This means that sellers can get out in the field and start selling faster.

reduction in ramp time
0 %

Aurigo is another company that has seen big benefits from optimized sales training. The company created structured onboarding and sales enablement processes for reps using Mindtickle, and as a result, they’ve reduced the average number of days to the first opportunity from 25 days to 16 days.

improvement in time to first opportunity
0 %

Training and development boosts job performance

When sellers have the right skills and knowledge (and opportunities to level up their existing skills and knowledge) they’re better equipped to perform in their roles. Your go-to-market teams will have what it takes to win and retain more customers. And that means your revenue will grow.

For example, Trimble Viewpoint, a software solution provider for the construction industry, finds that sellers engaged with training via the Mindtickle platform are 50% more likely to exceed quota.

In addition, Juniper Networks revamped its training and development programs, contributing to 47% year-over-year sales growth.

Training and development programs increase employee satisfaction and retention

When employees are dissatisfied at work, they’re likely to jump ship. That means you’ll have to spend time and effort filling vacant roles.

On the other hand, when you provide your teams with training, development, and career growth opportunities, their satisfaction will grow. Happy employees are more likely to perform well – and stick around long-term.

When employees are dissatisfied at work, they’re likely to jump ship. That means you’ll have to spend time and effort filling vacant roles.

On the other hand, when you provide your teams with training, development, and career growth opportunities, their satisfaction will grow. Happy employees are more likely to perform well – and stick around long-term.

A LinkedIn report states eight in 10 people say learning adds purpose to their work. The report also found that organizations with strong learning cultures see significantly higher employee retention rates.

Deliver effective training and development at scale with Mindtickle

Training and development are both key to the success of any go-to-market team. Now’s the time to build a culture of learning at your organization.

If you’re looking to deliver effective training and development that improves seller performance and retention, Mindtickle can help.

With Mindtickle’s all-in-one revenue enablement platform, you can deliver winning onboarding programs that set new sales reps up for success at your organization. You can also deliver ongoing sales training, enablement, and learning paths personalized to each seller’s needs – wherever they are on their career path. Your sellers will master the skills and competencies they need to close more deals faster. And that means your revenue will grow.

Mindtickle also features AI-powered role-plays, enabling new and veteran sellers to develop and perfect key skills. Sellers engage with an AI bot in a realistic sales scenario and get real-time coaching to improve their performance before money is on the line.

Sales training in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help you build a learning culture and deliver personalized training and development that prepares sellers to crush quota

Get Your Demo

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Automotive Industry│Mindtickle Inc https://www.mindtickle.com/industry/automotive-industry-mindtickle-inc/ Fri, 18 Oct 2024 05:24:37 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=industries&p=20319 Unlock Peak Performance for Automotive Sellers Transform each dealer seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle. Request a personalized demo Leaders in every industry trust Mindtickle “When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience was a driving factor. I’ve …

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"When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience was a driving factor. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback thus far. In an ideal world, I would track everything with Mindtickle.”

Chelsey Moon, Director of Learning and Development, PureCars
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Personalize training for automotive sellers

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Generic training for automotive sellers leads to high turnover and fewer sales. Conventional training methods aren’t enough.
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After

Personalize training for automotive sellers

Before

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Generic training for automotive sellers leads to high turnover and fewer sales. Conventional training methods aren’t enough.
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Keep dealer sellers up to pace with innovations and regulations

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Keep dealer sellers up to pace with innovations and regulations

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Boost Your Automotive Sales Team’s Performance with Mindtickle

Tailor buying experiences to accelerate deal cycles and boost post-sale revenue

Sellers can personalize the buyer experience, share approved product collateral, and engage customers past the initial dealership visit.

Elevate your team’s expertise through personalized training and certification programs

Build personalized automotive sales manager training and provide sellers with engaging programs that are tailored to their books of business.

Enable your sales force with cutting-edge AI role-plays and practice sessions

  • Prep sellers for the showroom floor with AI-powered interactive roleplays.
  • Customize your roleplay personas, give sellers instant feedback, and grade roleplays with AI so managers aren’t bogged down with timely manual reviews.

Enable on-the-go-learning

Dynamic mobile learning environments make training convenient and accessible for distributed automotive sales teams.

Tailor buying experiences to accelerate deal cycles and boost post-sale revenue

Sellers can personalize the buyer experience, share approved product collateral, and engage customers past the initial dealership visit.
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Elevate your team’s expertise through personalized training and certification programs

Build personalized automotive sales manager training and provide sellers with engaging programs that are tailored to their books of business.

Enable your sales force with cutting-edge AI role-plays and practice sessions

  • Prep sellers for the showroom floor with AI-powered interactive roleplays.
  • Customize your roleplay personas, give sellers instant feedback, and grade roleplays with AI so managers aren’t bogged down with timely manual reviews.
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Enable on-the-go-learning

Dynamic mobile learning environments make training convenient and accessible for distributed automotive sales teams.

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The 20+ Sales Coaching Metrics You Should Measure for Effective Skill Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-20-sales-coaching-metrics-you-should-measure-for-effective-skill-coaching/ Tue, 15 Oct 2024 11:41:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14961 It’s no secret that proper sales coaching can majorly impact sales performance. A recent analysis found that top sellers receive significantly more sales coaching than their lower-performing peers. That’s no coincidence. Chances are, there’s plenty of deal coaching happening at your organization. That’s the kind of coaching focused on discussing open opportunities, how they’re progressing, …

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It’s no secret that proper sales coaching can majorly impact sales performance. A recent analysis found that top sellers receive significantly more sales coaching than their lower-performing peers. That’s no coincidence.

Chances are, there’s plenty of deal coaching happening at your organization. That’s the kind of coaching focused on discussing open opportunities, how they’re progressing, and what needs to happen to get them across the finish line.

Skill coaching, however, often gets pushed to the back burner. That’s unsurprising, as skill coaching typically requires more time and effort than deal coaching. But it’s also problematic, as skill coaching is critical to improving your reps’ behaviors long-term – and their performance in the field.

With some guidance, you can ensure skill coaching is consistent across your organization and impacts rep performance quarter after quarter.

Read on to explore what skill coaching is, why it’s important, and what metrics you need to start measuring to deliver more effective skill coaching that boosts your bottom line.

What is skill coaching?

First, let’s give a quick overview of skill coaching and how it differs from deal coaching.

Focuses on the deals in front of a seller, and the open opportunities they have and are actively working. This type of coaching typically takes place between a manager and a rep weekly, discussing the details of each deal, any blockers, the next steps, and the probability of closing.

Focuses on the seller themselves, and more specifically the key skills they need to be successful at their job. Skill coaching sessions typically happen on a monthly or quarterly basis, as it takes time to show improvement.

Orgs that pair deal and skill coaching together see a

Improvement in win rate
0 %

Deal coaching and skill coaching are both strategic techniques for guiding sellers on how they can be more effective. Paired together, they can result in an improvement of win rates by 27% or more.

Why do skill coaching metrics matter?

Now that you know the why of skill coaching – what is the point of measuring and tracking performance related to skill coaching?

Metrics matter because they are the driving force behind delivering effective skill coaching.

If you have a team of reps and want to focus on delivering skill coaching without any data, you may pick one skill to coach your team each month.

For example, you choose discovery and focus on assessing and building this skill for each rep. If one member is already very strong in his or her discovery skills, this could be a waste of time for this person. At the same time, another member may have a larger gap in discovery skills and needs more than a month to develop this skill.

Without metrics, you can’t deliver tailored skill coaching that focuses on each team member’s individual skill gaps.

20+ coaching metrics for effective skill coaching

In order to start tracking skill coaching metrics, you must first know exactly what skills make up a top performer in your organization. And this varies by role, industry, and product/service offering.

For example, a Sales Development Representative at a tech company may need strong skills in:

  • Active listening: Being attuned to a prospect’s verbal and nonverbal communication so you can understand where they’re coming from and respond appropriately.
  • Market research: Conducting research about prospects to determine who is (and isn’t) a good fit for your solutions.
  • Written communication: Effectively communicating via email and other written communication.
  • Self-motivation: Staying on task and productive without someone standing over your shoulder.

While a seasoned Account Executive at a manufacturing company needs strong:

  • Discovery: Effectively engaging with a prospect early in the purchase journey to determine whether they’re a good fit and entice them to take the next step
  • Problem-solving: The ability to identify solutions to challenges and objections that arise throughout the sales process.
  • Negotiation: The back-and-forth discussions are often required to reach a mutually beneficial agreement.
  • Presentation: Clearly conveying information and the value of your solution throughout the purchase journey.

Using these competency frameworks, you can now start measuring the critical metrics that will drive your skill coaching efforts for each of your customer-facing roles.

Let’s break down the metrics by commonly used skills for go-to-market roles. Low scores in any of these areas can indicate a need for additional coaching.

Product and service knowledge metrics

Your reps are responsible for articulating the value of your solutions day in and day out. As such, they must become experts on your products and services.

You can measure product and service knowledge using a variety of metrics including:

  • Product/service program scores
  • New product/service release update scores
  • Correct answers on assessments and quizzes
  • Certification completions

Active listening metrics

The best sales reps are those who have mastered the art of active listening. They remain present and avoid distractions during their interactions with prospects. These reps also ask the right questions to keep buyers engaged and ensure they understand what their prospects are communicating.

Some key metrics to gauge active listening skills include:

  • Conversation intelligence call scores
  • Talk time % on calls vs attendees
  • Conversation rate of calls to meetings booked

Written communication metrics

In the past, many B2B deals were struck in the boardroom or on the golf course. Today, many deals happen without a buyer and seller in the same room.

Modern sellers must have strong written communication skills to effectively engage with buyers via email, messaging applications, digital sales rooms, and other digital communication channels.

Written communication skills can be measured using metrics like:

  • # of emails sent
  • Sentiment score on emails
  • # of responses to emails vs emails sent

Rapport building metrics

According to a recent report, 84% of business buyers expect sales reps to act as trusted advisors. When a sales rep can build rapport and earn a prospect’s trust, the prospect is more likely to make a purchase.

Some metrics for tracking a rep’s ability to build rapport include:

  • Conversion rate of calls to meetings booked
  • Conversion rate of emails to meetings booked

Presentation metrics

There’s no way around it: sales reps must have excellent presentation skills. Sellers must be able to effectively and efficiently present information to prospects to propel them forward in the sales cycle.

Video role-play scores are one way to track sellers’ presentation skills. Sellers can practice their skills by recording a role-play, and they receive AI-powered scores and feedback in real-time.

Another key metric to track is conversion by deal stage. If a seller has excellent presentation skills, their prospects are more likely to advance to the next deal stage.

You can also use conversation intelligence tools to track presentation metrics including:

  • Talk time % on calls vs attendees
  • Filler words used
  • Sentiment on calls
  • Questions asked by prospects on calls
  • Questions asked by presenter
  • Monologue length

Multi-threading metrics

Multi-threading is a strategy that involves building more than one relationship within a business. Strong multi-threading skills are necessary, as the typical B2B buying group includes up to 10 stakeholders.

Multi-threading skills can be measured using metrics like:

  • # of contacts engaged per opportunity
  • # of contacts accepted/attending meetings
  • # of C-level contacts engaged per opportunity

Objection-handling metrics

Sales reps are bound to encounter objections from prospects. Objections don’t necessarily mean a deal is doomed. If reps have mastered objection-handling skills, they can overcome these obstacles – and move more deals forward.

Some key metrics to track to measure mastery of objection-handling skills include:

  • Sentiment on calls
  • Questions asked by prospect in calls
  • Questions asked by presenter
  • Competitor mentions

Key metrics for effective skill coaching

Product/service knowledge Product/service program scores
New product/service release update scores
Correct answers on assessments and quizzes
Certification completions
Active listening Conversation intelligence call scores
Talk time % on calls vs attendees
Conversion rate of calls to meetings booked
Written communication # of emails sent
Sentiment score on emails
# of responses to emails vs emails sent
Building rapport Conversion rate of calls to meetings booked
Conversion rate of emails to meetings booked
Presentation Video role-play scores
Conversion by deal stage
Talk time % on calls vs attendees
Filler words used
Sentiment on calls
Questions asked by prospect in calls
Questions asked by presenter
Monologue length
Multi-threading # of contacts engaged per opportunity
# of contacts accepted/attending meetings
# of c-level contacts engaged per opportunity
Objection handling Sentiment on calls
Questions asked by prospect in calls
Questions asked by presenter
Competitor mentions

Measuring the impact of your skill coaching

Seeing all of these metrics in one list can be a bit overwhelming. We recommend starting small. Focus on 2-3 top skills for your direct reports and start tracking a handful of metrics for each of these skills to gauge where individuals are excelling or where they may need some focused skill coaching. Then, you can continue tracking these metrics over time to determine the effectiveness of your coaching and add additional metrics to track.

Remember, all of these skills should be measured against larger KPIs and business goals of your reports, like:

  • Revenue generation
  • Quota attainment
  • Pipeline conversion
  • Average deal size
  • Conversion by deal stage

Tap into technology to deliver effective skill coaching at scale

Deal coaching is an important way to improve the outcome of a single deal. But winning revenue organizations know they must also deliver skill coaching to improve reps’ long-term behaviors and sales performance.

It all starts with tracking the right metrics. Once you know each sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses, you can deliver tailored coaching to close skill gaps and improve performance.

The right technology is key to delivering scale effective deal and skill coaching. But adding a point solution may not be the right approach.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform for training, coaching, content, conversation intelligence, digital sales room, and more. With Mindtickle, you can easily pinpoint each rep’s weaknesses and deliver tailored coaching that improves skills and performance.

Measure Sales Coaching

Make sure skill coaching is consistent and impacts rep performance quarter after quarter.

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in November 2022, updated in September 2023, and again in October 2024. 

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How to Analyze Sales Call Recordings to Uncover Valuable Customer Feedback https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-analyze-sales-call-recordings-to-uncover-valuable-customer-feedback/ Mon, 07 Oct 2024 08:03:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/how-to-analyze-sales-call-recordings-to-uncover-valuable-customer-feedback/ In the past, a seller relied on their memory and their messily scrawled notes to recall what happened during a sales call and determine what steps to take next. Today, many organizations use conversation intelligence tools to record, analyze, and share sales calls. Call recordings are an invaluable way to unlock insights from customers and …

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In the past, a seller relied on their memory and their messily scrawled notes to recall what happened during a sales call and determine what steps to take next. Today, many organizations use conversation intelligence tools to record, analyze, and share sales calls.

Call recordings are an invaluable way to unlock insights from customers and prospects. Sharing these calls amongst the team encourages collaboration and promotes best practices.

Last year, nearly half a million sales calls were recorded using Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence feature. But how do winning revenue organizations use these sales calls to improve performance and close more deals?

Last year nearly

calls were recorded by Mindtickle customers
0

In this post, we’ll discuss why sales call recordings are important and how you can start analyzing them to uncover valuable customer feedback and maximize sales performance across your entire team.

Call recordings reveal the “why” behind customer decisions

Knowing the “why” behind the customer’s decision is critical. Did sellers fail to articulate the value of your solution? Did the messaging miss the mark? Was another vendor’s pricing more competitive? Did the seller lack the competitive intelligence to address the customer’s questions or objections adequately?

Not understanding the wants, needs, concerns, and expectations of buyers and lacking insight into the customer experience during sales calls can have dire consequences for your business, including:

  • Deals are lost to better-prepared competitors
  • Key business initiatives – competitive and market strategies, sales methodologies, etc. – fail too frequently
  • Best practices are difficult to identify, share, or replicate
  • Outdated messaging affects deal outcomes
  • Fewer reps make quota
  • Churn increases
  • Your company misses revenue targets

Sales organizations can automatically capture and transcribe live sales conversations using conversation intelligence and call recording tools to reveal the “why” behind wins and losses. Your sales managers get access to invaluable insights about your customers and their interactions with your sales teams so you can better understand:

  • How customers perceive your brand
  • What they think about your solution and its value
  • How they view the competition
  • What objections they have
  • Why a deal may be in jeopardy
  • What more they expect from your company

Call recordings uncover sales training and coaching opportunities

AI-driven analysis of sales call recordings can reveal a seller’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as trends such as the talk-to-listen ratio, the frequency of objections or how often customers mention a specific competitor across all calls. Your sales managers can identify areas for improvement by digging into high points or shortcomings during conversations. They can understand the topics and themes discussed and the overall impact of the interaction.

Then, using these data-driven insights, your managers can diagnose conversations, identify personalized sales coaching opportunities, implement best practices across your teams, and ensure sales methodologies and training align with the needs and expectations of the buyers in your market.

How to create a customer feedback loop to improve your go-to-market strategy

Analyzing call recordings can deliver actionable insights that extend across the organization. To ensure ongoing alignment and to optimize your organization’s go-to-market strategy, you can use call recordings to establish a strong feedback loop across sales, customer success, and marketing.

Most sellers want feedback on their performance but are hesitant to ask for it. On top of that, most feedback from sales managers is anecdotal and not based on any objective assessment. An effective feedback loop incorporates insights from call recordings and enables managers to identify and close gaps in knowledge and skills.

Managers can provide direct feedback to individual sellers by commenting on specific recording snippets – offering critiques, comments, or advice. Using insights gleaned from call recordings, managers can recommend or request specific coaching and sales training opportunities to address competency or skill gaps and then continue to analyze future customer calls to gauge performance improvements. 

The majority of sellers want to know your top rep’s secret sauce. They’re seeking inspiration and guidance on creative ways to position and address questions. Using call recordings, managers can share best practices from key snippets to motivate sellers and inform ongoing training. For example, during sales onboarding, new hires can review recordings and snippets from the best sales conversations and then practice through role-play so managers or other team members can offer qualitative and quantitative feedback submitted by new sales reps.

Call recordings can ensure nothing gets lost in translation between sellers and customer success teams. Sellers can share account history, information, and updates to execute a seamless handoff. Customer success teams can share recordings, snippets, and information with sellers if they identify new issues or opportunities within an account.

Call recordings give marketing direct insight into the voice of the customer, providing an insider’s view of buyer pain points and challenges. Marketing teams can team create, campaigns and messaging that speak directly to customer needs. Call recordings may uncover that current positioning is not resonating with customers or differentiated enough from the competition.

Customers are telling you what they think; you just need to listen

Some leaders might be unsure about call recordings because they don’t want to come across as intrusive. The value of analyzing call recordings isn’t to spy on buyers or sellers, but to reveal direct, actionable insights into the buyers in your market – their wants, needs, perceptions, and objections.

It’s also important to remember that the most successful reps have a growth mindset. They don’t let embarrassment or insecurity get in the way of their professional growth. Call recordings help identify sellers’ strengths and weaknesses so managers can give them advice, feedback, training, and tools to help them succeed. 

Call recordings help pinpoint what’s working and what’s not, establishing a continuous feedback loop between sales, customer success, and marketing to ensure ongoing visibility and continuous improvement. Using insights gleaned from the voice of your customers gives your organization a significant competitive edge:

  • Sellers are empowered to win against more poorly prepared competitors
  • Key business initiatives are far more likely to succeed because they’re informed by critical field-based evidence
  • Best practices are easy to identify, share, and replicate
  • Marketing can craft messaging that aligns with buyer needs
  • More sellers will make or exceed quota
  • Your organization will meet or exceed revenue targets

Best practices for analyzing and using sales call recordings

Recording and analyzing sales calls can help teams uncover insights that can be used to improve customer experiences and sales performance. There are a few best practices to keep in mind.

Choose the right call recording tool

Several software solutions are available that offer the ability to record sales calls. Be sure to define your goals for recording sales calls – and then find a solution offering features and functionality to help you achieve those goals. Reading peer reviews on a site like G2 can provide insight into what customers like (and don’t like) about any solutions you’re considering.

Leverage AI to analyze sales calls

Recording your sales calls doesn’t provide much value if you don’t do anything with the recordings. But analyzing sales calls requires a lot of time and effort.

Look for ways to leverage AI like Mindtickle’s Copilot to effectively and efficiently analyze your sales calls. For example, AI can summarize call recordings and help you pinpoint key moments in a call. A sales rep can use AI to ask a question like, “Which competitors did my customer bring up on this call?” Then, the sales reps can use these insights to tailor their follow-up and combat objections.

Deliver instant feedback to sellers

Today, some conversation intelligence tools provide a score and feedback immediately after each sales call. For example, the tool might provide feedback on things like use of filler words, longest monologue, sentiment, and number of questions asked and answered. Sellers can use this real-time feedback to sharpen their skills and improve the outcome of a deal.

Share insights cross-functionally

Per our 2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report, 25% of calls are shared across the organization. That makes sense, as sales call insights can benefit many teams.

For example, sales managers can use call insights to understand where their sellers are (and aren’t) excelling. This can inform training and sales coaching opportunities. Marketing teams can use call recordings to access voice of the customer insights, which can help them develop more effective campaigns.

Be sure your call recording or conversation intelligence tools make it easy to share calls so different individuals and teams can benefit from the insights.

Provide proper training

When rolling out any new tool or technology, providing proper training is important. Rolling out a call recording tool is no exception.

Be sure your revenue teams know how you use your conversation intelligence tool and how to access and use insights to improve skills and sales outcomes.

Tap into your sales call recordings and start closing more deals

Sales call recordings provide insights for improving customer experiences and sales performance. But simply recording your sales calls isn’t enough.

Instead, you must analyze your sales calls to understand what’s really happening in the field and turn those insights into action. The right conversation intelligence tool is a must.

Conversation Intelligence in Mindtickle

Learn more about conversation intelligence and how Mindtickle's Call AI is helping other organizations get actionable data from customer calls.

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in May 2021, updated in July 2023, January 2024, and again in October 2024. 

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15 Sales Discovery Questions to Help You Fill Your Sales Pipeline  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/15-sales-discovery-questions-to-help-you-fill-your-sales-pipeline/ Wed, 02 Oct 2024 15:48:39 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20169 Discovery calls are a critical part of the sales cycle. They allow you to build rapport with prospects, learn more about their challenges and priorities, and determine whether you have the right solution to address their problems. When a sales discovery call goes well, you can guide a qualified prospect further down the funnel. But …

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Discovery calls are a critical part of the sales cycle. They allow you to build rapport with prospects, learn more about their challenges and priorities, and determine whether you have the right solution to address their problems.

When a sales discovery call goes well, you can guide a qualified prospect further down the funnel. But the deal may be doomed when a discovery call goes off the rails. No pressure, right?

The good news is that with plenty of preparation and the right sales discovery questions at the ready, you can knock your sales discovery calls out of the park every time.

But what sales discovery questions do you need to ask, and is there a certain discovery call template to follow?

In this post, we’ll discuss:

  • What sales discovery calls are
  • Why they’re important
  • 15 must-ask sales discovery questions
  • Best practices for more productive sales calls

What is a discovery call?

Every sales rep is responsible for conducting sales discovery calls. But what is a discovery call?

A sales discovery call is the initial conversation a B2B seller has with a buyer who has expressed interest in their offerings. During the call, the seller asks a series of sales discovery questions to quickly uncover the prospects’ pain points and determine whether the prospect is a good fit for the products or services the rep is offering.

Why are discovery calls important?

Discovery calls – when they’re done well – can help sellers achieve the following objectives:

This is foundational to delivering a solution that fits their needs. Recent research found 86% of B2B buyers are more likely to buy when their goals are understood.

It’s important to ensure you’re spending time with prospects that are a good fit for your products or services. Otherwise, you’re wasting your time.

You can do this by delivering value and fresh insight right from the start.

Discovery calls are an opportunity to build trust and pique prospects’ interest so they take the next step. Great sales discovery calls help build and maintain a healthy sales pipeline and accelerate deals.

What are the different types of sales discovery questions?

Productive sales calls are all about asking the right questions. Sales reps ask a wide variety of sales discovery questions. However, they typically fall into one of three categories:

  • Closed-ended questions: These are questions that elicit a quick, straightforward answer. For example, a seller may ask, “This is a problem many in your industry face. Does this challenge sound familiar?”
  • Open-ended questions: Typically, these sales discovery questions yield more detailed responses. These detailed responses are rich with insights you can use to guide your sales approach.
  • Probing questions: These are questions that invite a prospect to tell you more about something. For example, you might ask, “What else can you tell me about that?”

So, which of these three types of sales discovery questions is the best? The truth is, there’s no single type of sales discovery question that’s better than the others. The best approach is to combine the three types of questions to make the conversation natural, interactive, and engaging.

What is the sales discovery process?

Sales discovery calls are a key component of the larger sales discovery process. What exactly is the sales discovery process?

The sales discovery process describes all the steps involved in discovering all you can about a prospective customer. Some of those steps include:

  • Researching potential prospects. Modern sellers have plenty of information at their fingertips to learn as much as they can about a prospect before they’ve even made contact.
  • Prospect outreach. This could involve making a cold call or reaching out to a prospect who has signaled interest in your offerings.
  • Asking sales discovery questions. The right discovery questions for sales enable you to quickly understand a prospect’s needs and pain points and whether your products and services are a good fit for them.
  • Answering prospects’ questions. The discovery process is a time for both parties to determine whether it makes sense to move forward. So be ready for your prospects to ask questions.
  • Following up. If a prospect is a good fit, it’s important to follow up with them promptly to move the deal forward.

15 sales discovery questions to nail your next call

Asking the right sales discovery questions is key to maximizing the effectiveness and efficiency of your discovery calls.

But what discovery questions for sales do you need to ask?

The truth is, it depends. Your list of sales discovery questions must be personalized to each prospect. However, the following are some of the best sales discovery questions, so they’re a great place to start.

#1 Tell me more about your role at [company name].

The answer to this question can give you insight into what a “day in the life” of your prospect looks like. You’ll understand their day-to-day responsibilities, what types of decisions they make, and where they fit iton the larger organization. They may also share some of their job frustrations – which you may be able to help solve.

All of these insights can help you tailor your sales pitch.

#2 What challenges are you currently experiencing?

You can’t offer a solution if you’re unsure of your prospect’s problems. Your prospect’s response to this question can help you determine if they’re a good fit for your products or services. It can also help you start formulating a customized solution.

#3 Why is this challenge or pain point important to you?

You know your prospect’s challenges. This question can help you understand why this challenge matters.

For example, is there a directive from higher management to solve this challenge because it greatly impacts the entire business? Or is it something that personally impacts your point of contact?

#4 What solution or process are you currently using to address this challenge?

Your prospect may be using a competitor’s solution and looking to make a switch. Or, they may be doing nothing at all to address their problem. It’s important to know so you can adapt your pitch accordingly.

#5 What do you like/not like about your current solution?

Knowing what your prospect likes about their current solution can help you anticipate objections. For example, let’s say there’s a particular feature your prospect loves about their current solution – but your solution doesn’t offer it. This allows you to anticipate their objection and be prepared to overcome it.

On the other hand, understanding the downfalls of your prospects’ current solution can help you position your company as a better option.

#6 What would happen if you did nothing to address this challenge?

Asking this question forces your prospect to really consider the costs of maintaining the status quo. For example, if they don’t find a solution to a problem, they might lose time or money or slip behind the competition.

This question can also help you start to build urgency. In other words, it can help your prospect understand why now is the time to take action.

#7 Where does this rank on your list of priorities?

Is this a problem your prospect needs to address ASAP? Or is it something they can live with for a while – and they’re just starting to casually explore their options? Asking this question can help you understand where your prospect’s head is at in terms of timing and urgency.

#8 What would solving this problem mean for you?

This question can help you understand what success looks like for your prospect. Would solving this problem free up their teams’ time, allowing them to focus on more strategic work? Or would it help their brand stand out in a crowded marketplace—and therefore generate more revenue?

Or perhaps success is more personal. For example, solving this problem may elevate your prospects’ exposure within the company or score them a promotion.

Knowing what success looks like can help you understand how to frame your solution’s value.

#9 Who else wants to solve this problem?

According to Gartner, the typical B2B buying group includes six to 10 stakeholders. This question can shed light on who these stakeholders are and the roles they play in the buying group.

The typical B2B buying group includes up to

stakeholders
0

For example, you can determine who has the authority to make purchasing decisions and who will influence them.

#10 Why do these stakeholders care about this problem?

Each stakeholder in the buying group will have different needs, opinions, and requirements. This question can help you understand who cares about what. You can use this intel to deliver personalized experiences that resonate with every buying group member.

#11 Can you tell me about a time you faced a similar challenge and successfully addressed it?

This can give you an idea of your prospect’s thought process and their path to solving problems and making decisions. They may also mention roadblocks, which will help you anticipate them.

#12 If I propose a solution and you are on board, what would we need to do to make this happen?

Every business follows its own process for choosing and onboarding a new vendor. A prospect’s answer to this sales discovery question can give you an idea of the steps you can expect to take to get this deal across the finish line. Their answer can also help you anticipate any roadblocks you might encounter along the way.

#13 What is your budget?

Sometimes, there’s some wiggle room when it comes to pricing. But if your prospect’s budget is significantly lower than your solution’s price, it doesn’t make sense to move forward. You’re better off spending time on prospects who can afford your solutions.

#14 What else can you tell me about that?

Sometimes, a prospect will give a short answer to a question, but you want to dig deeper. A probing sales discovery question like this can encourage them to dig deeper.

#15 What questions do you have for me?

Ideally, a discovery call should be a two-way street. You and your prospect should both ask questions to explore whether it makes sense to move forward. If you find your prospect reluctant to ask questions, this prompt can help.

Top sales discovery call best practices

Now, you’ve got a good list of sales discovery questions to use in your next call. Let’s explore some additional best practices to help you nail your next sales discovery call.

Show up prepared to every discovery call

Research shows that 82% of B2B buyers feel sales reps are unprepared. Attending sales discovery calls is a great way to stand out from the crowd.

of B2B buyers feel reps are unprepared
0 %

You can use the internet and prospecting tools to do your research beforehand. That way, you can demonstrate your knowledge and deliver your prospect a new insight or perspective. In addition, you can use the discovery call to ask questions that yield answers beyond what you could uncover on your own.

Schedule enough time for your sales discovery calls

A recent Mindtickle analysis found that the average length of a discovery call is 36 minutes. Consider scheduling your sales discovery calls for 45 minutes. That way, you don’t have to worry about running over. If the call runs short, you can give some time back to the prospect.

The average discovery call is

minutes long
0

Ask the right number of sales discovery questions

If you don’t ask enough questions, you won’t walk away with the information you need to qualify the prospect and move the deal forward. If you ask too many discovery questions for sales, you risk overwhelming the prospect.

It’s important to strike the right balance. Our analysis found that on average, sales reps ask 20 questions during discovery calls. If you ask significantly more or less sales discovery questions, you may want to rethink your approach.

Answer prospects’ questions

Sales discovery calls should be a dialog, rather than a monologue. After all, your prospect is also deciding if it makes sense to move forward with learning more about your solution.

Be sure to give your prospects plenty of opportunities to ask their own questions. On average, sales reps answer 12 questions from prospects during sales discovery calls.

Limit yes/no questions

When a prospect answers a question with a simple “yes” or “no,” it can feel like you’re hitting a wall. Try to keep your yes/no sales discovery questions to a minimum. If a prospect does give a quick answer, use a probing sales discovery question like, “Tell me more about that,” to get them to talk more.

Leverage conversation intelligence

Often, sales reps are so focused on taking notes during sales discovery calls that they’re not truly present. This can be a big turnoff to prospects, and it makes it easy for a sales rep to miss an important insight.

Instead, use a conversation intelligence solution to record and analyze your sales discovery calls. That way, you can focus on the meeting itself, rather than taking notes.

Conversation intelligence software and AI make it easy to uncover insights you may have missed during a sales discovery call. For example, with Mindtickle Copilot (Mindtickle’s AI productivity assistant) you can ask a question like, “What competitors did my prospect mention on this call?” Then, you can use the insights to prepare for your next interaction.

A conversation intelligence solution also provides a score for each call with real-time feedback on tone, sentiment, and use of filler words. Sales reps can use this feedback to improve their sales discovery call skills, and managers can look for trends to inform sales coaching opportunities.

Follow up swiftly

Be sure to follow up with your prospects shortly after your sales discovery calls. Conversation intelligence software and AI can help you identify insights that can allow you to personalize your follow up. By following up quickly, you’re more likely to keep prospects engaged.

Deliver proper sales discovery training

Your sellers need to master certain skills to excel at sales discovery calls. Be sure to provide personalized sales discovery training and enablement so your entire sales team can master the necessary skills.

Certification

Provide sellers with AI role-plays

Role-plays are a great way for sales reps to practice their sales discovery questions before money is on the line. However, traditional role-plays often require sellers to wait for feedback from their sales managers.

Today, innovative revenue organizations leverage artificial intelligence to provide sellers with realistic, interactive role-play experiences that don’t require a sales manager’s time. With AI role-plays, sales enablement teams can easily spin up different sales scenarios. Then, sales reps can practice with an AI bot in realistic scenarios.

Take your sales discovery calls to the next level with Mindtickle

A sales discovery call can make or break a deal. It’s important to nail every sales discovery call, every time.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that ensures your sellers have what it takes to lead engaging sales discovery calls that illuminate challenges and entice buyers to take the next step in the purchase journey.

With Mindtickle, you can provide personalized sales discovery training and enablement so your sellers can master the right skills. Mindtickle also features AI role plays, which empower your sales reps to practice their sales discovery skills with an AI-powered bot in realistic sales scenarios. These AI role plays deliver ongoing feedback so sellers can improve their skills before they take them into the field.

Mindtickle also integrates conversation intelligence, which records and analyzes every sales discovery call. Sales reps get immediate feedback they can use to improve outcomes. With Mindtickle Copilot, reps can easily identify insights they can use to appropriately follow up with prospects.

Better Sales Discovery With Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can empower you to create an entire team of sales reps who are ready to master any sales discovery call that comes their way?

Request a Demo

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Automotive Old https://www.mindtickle.com/industry/automotive-old/ Mon, 30 Sep 2024 12:21:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=industries&p=20146 Unlock Peak Performance for Automotive Sellers Transform each dealer seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle. Request a Demo Request a personalized demo Leaders in every industry trust Mindtickle “When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience was a …

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Unlock Peak
Performance for
Automotive
Sellers

Transform each dealer seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle.

Request a personalized demo

Medical Devices Demo

Leaders in every industry trust Mindtickle

darktrace
tenable
vericast
Navistar
chelsey moon

"When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience was a driving factor. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback thus far. In an ideal world, I would track everything with Mindtickle.”

Chelsey Moon, Director of Learning and Development, PureCars
Before
After

Personalize training for automotive sellers

Before

Mindtickle

Generic training for automotive sellers leads to high turnover and fewer sales. Conventional training methods aren’t enough.
automotive-before
Before
After

Personalize training for automotive sellers

Before

Mindtickle

Generic training for automotive sellers leads to high turnover and fewer sales. Conventional training methods aren’t enough.
automotive-before

Keep dealer sellers up to pace with innovations and regulations

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Keep dealer sellers up to pace with innovations and regulations

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Tailor buying experiences to accelerate deal cycles and boost post-sale revenue

Sellers can personalize the buyer experience, share approved product collateral, and engage customers past the initial dealership visit.
automotive-elevate-your-teams-expertise

Elevate your team’s expertise through personalized training and certification programs

Build personalized automotive sales manager training and provide sellers with engaging programs that are tailored to their books of business.

Enable your sales force with cutting-edge AI role-plays and practice sessions

  • Prep sellers for the showroom floor with AI-powered interactive roleplays.
  • Customize your roleplay personas, give sellers instant feedback, and grade roleplays with AI so managers aren’t bogged down with timely manual reviews.
automotive-enable-on-the-go-learning

Enable on-the-go-learning

Dynamic mobile learning environments make training convenient and accessible for distributed automotive sales teams.

Explore how customers use Mindtickle

Mindtickle reviews sourced by G2

Elevate your automotive
sales performance with Mindtickle.

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What is Virtual Selling and How Has it Evolved? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-virtual-selling-and-how-has-it-evolved/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-virtual-selling-and-how-has-it-evolved/#comments Wed, 25 Sep 2024 07:25:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17704 In the past, many B2B deals were struck face-to-face. Today, virtual selling has become the norm. But the shift to virtual selling didn’t happen overnight. Over time, many consumers started embracing the convenience of browsing and buying online. Inevitably, the preference for digital interactions started to carry over to the business world. Of course, the …

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In the past, many B2B deals were struck face-to-face. Today, virtual selling has become the norm.

But the shift to virtual selling didn’t happen overnight. Over time, many consumers started embracing the convenience of browsing and buying online. Inevitably, the preference for digital interactions started to carry over to the business world.

Of course, the pandemic quickly accelerated the shift to virtual selling. And though the pandemic lockdowns are behind us, virtual selling is here to stay. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of interactions between B2B buyers and sellers will occur via digital channels.

By 2025, Gartner predicts that

of interactions between B2B buyers and sellers will occur digitally
0 %

What is virtual selling?

Virtual selling, as you’ve probably guessed, is a sale completely orchestrated by technology. However, it’s not the same as simply making a sale online — so what is virtual sales and what does the term really mean?

The difference is that the former uses technology to complete a process designed for in-person interactions. The latter is built from the ground up to be an entirely virtual experience — one that reimagines sales rather than just repackaging it.

Part of this difference is due to evolution driven by B2C buying experiences and expectations. Virtual selling is a response to changing customer demands; for example, 56% of surveyed shoppers said they like the flexibility of shopping on their own schedule, while 50% noted they like the convenience of avoiding shopping trips.

These preferences carry over into the business world. That means B2B buyers prefer (and expect) virtual sales experiences to cater to their needs.

10 challenges of virtual selling

Although the right virtual selling software and skills can make digital interactions feel as real as face-to-face experiences, this method has certain drawbacks. Here are a few key examples:

Sales reps may feel that their interactions are more limited and their ability to personalize service is reduced. This can leave virtual sales feeling a bit distant, hollow, or mechanical.

Many reps find it easier to build trust in face-to-face interactions where body language, proximity, and even a friendly handshake are all at their disposal. While connection over a distance is one of the biggest benefits of virtual selling, it can also be a drawback.

Virtual communication means there can be a lot of noise during a deal – whether it’s in the form of emails, Zoom meetings, phone calls, etc. Sellers have to rely on virtual-only communication with a prospect and it’s more likely that things can get lost (or go completely unseen) when shared digitally.

In some industries, demonstrating and showing a product in person is a huge differentiator. In-person product demos also allow sellers to give buyers hands-on experience and create a lasting impression. When everything is virtual, the power of the product can sometimes be lost.

33% of employees worry about what remote work can do to company culture, especially when it comes to connection, communication, and collaboration. That’s particularly relevant for sales, marketing, and customer success teams, who need to be on the same page to manage virtual selling tools and experiences.

A virtual selling environment may not be as engaging to some customers because it isn’t as immediate and all-encompassing. For example, shoppers in a conference room can’t exactly switch to another tab to check the weather or browse social media while a rep talks to them.

When you’re in the same room as a buyer, you can get their feedback right away. With virtual selling, there may be a lag in communication.

Distractions can include kids, pets, home noise, and all kinds of tech trouble. This can make virtual sales feel more disconnected for both the reps and the customers.

A sales rep that excels in face-to-face sales isn’t automatically adept at virtual selling. That’s because virtual selling and face-to-face selling require a different set of skills and competencies. Organizations must provide the right training and sales enablement to ensure sellers build the right skills for virtual sales.

Virtual selling requires the use of technology. Of course, challenges can occur anytime technology is involved.

Research shows challenges with virtual selling

[Source: The RAIN Group Virtual Selling Skills and Challenges Report]

Gaining a buyer's attention and keeping buyer engaged
91%
Changing buyer's point of view on what's possible or how to solve a problem
89%
Developing relationships with buyers virtually
88%
Connecting with buyers and building rapport
87%
Overcoming objections and dealing with resistence
87%
Collaborating and interacting with buyers virtually
82%
Prospecting and filling the pipeline virtually
81%
Making the transition to virtual selling
80%
Leading virtual needs discovery
80%
Educating buyers with new ideas and perspectives
79%

Best practices for virtual selling

While there are certainly challenges in virtual sales, there are also plenty of remote-selling best practices to set your reps up for success. And virtual selling does work. According to McKinsey research, 75% of decision-makers think virtual engagement serves buyers equally well or even better than the shift to remote work.

According to McKinsey

of decision-makers think virtual engagement serves buyers equally well or better than in-person
0 %

Here are some tips for making sure your virtual meetings are successful:

  • Have a professional setup: Good lighting and technology can make a huge difference, especially when it comes to eliminating distractions. Blur your surroundings or use branded background images to keep the focus on you — and don’t forget to dress to impress.
  • Take every virtual selling training opportunity: Virtual selling skills aren’t the same as in-person selling skills. Use training and coaching as a chance to learn more about the environment, customer expectations, best practices, and more.
  • Share data-driven sales materials: Different kinds of media can help grab and keep a prospect’s attention. Use videos, infographics, product images, and any data-driven sales collateral you can offer virtually.
  • Create follow-up and nurture strategies: Losing contact in the virtual world is easy. Make sure you follow up with prospects to stay top-of-mind — and always leverage nurture strategies to gradually reel them in over time.

4 best virtual selling tools

To capture all the benefits of virtual selling, you need a fully digitized environment, including sales rooms, enablement materials and more. Remember, you can’t just adapt existing sales techniques to the digital world; you have to completely reimagine them and build every step with technology in mind.

Here are some of the best virtual selling software options:

  • B2B database: Zoominfo

    One of the biggest challenges of B2B sales is connecting with prospects. This can be even more difficult in the world of virtual selling. ZoomInfo is a business-to-business (B2B) tool that connects revenue teams to customers. With ZoomInfo, remote sellers can access the right data to identify which prospects are a good fit for their products and services.. In addition, ZoomInfo provides insights on the best way to connect with each prospect. This platform also unites sales, marketing, and sales operations so these teams can build and deliver seamless, engaging experiences, whether the prospect is interacting with a sales rep or navigating the purchase journey independently.

  • Video conferencing: Zoom

    At the end of 2019, Zoom had 10 million daily meeting participants. By April 2020, that number exploded to 300 million. By now, the video conference platform is familiar to just about everyone. Zoom is flexible, easy to use and full of additional features such as email and calendar integration. With Zoom, sellers have the opportunity to engage with buyers face-to-face – regardless of geographic location. These face-to-face interactions help sellers build trust.

  • Document sharing: Google Drive

    Virtual selling involves the exchange of different types of documents and information. It’s important to house these documents in a single repository so revenue teams can always find what they need, when they need it. If you’re looking for cloud storage and document sharing, Google Drive is one option.. Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms — Google Drive enables you to share documents of all kinds and even integrates with the company’s email and conferencing offerings.

The above examples are great virtual selling tools, but you’d need to juggle more than one to succeed. This can lead to tool overload. Consider that 66% of sales reps are overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use.

Mindtickle is an integrated platform that eliminates jumping back and forth between different tools.

With Mindtickle, all your sales and revenue activities are together in one place. From sales onboarding and virtual selling training to forecasting and analytics, you’ll have access to a full lineup of solutions. This enables all your teams to communicate and collaborate in a shared digital environment, allowing you to build digitally native processes tailored to your virtual selling best practices.

In addition, Mindtickle incorporates digital sales rooms, which are online portals where buyers and sellers can communicate, share content, and collaborate on deals – virtually. Sellers can also see how buyers engage in the digital sales room, which can help them adapt their strategy and improve deal outcomes.

Future trends in virtual selling

As more companies discover the benefits of virtual selling, the platforms necessary to enable it, and the skills that make it more profitable, the environment will continue to shift. Trends will likely include:

  • Personalization and customization: To overcome the inherent limitations of virtual selling, reps will find new ways to personalize interactions and build sales around customized digital experiences. Marketing and sales teams will likely need to keep conversations going across multiple platforms. For example, a prospect who reaches out on social media will want continuity when switching to email or video chat.
  • AI and automation: From workflow automation to AI sales assistants, new tools will make it even easier to build digital-first processes and eliminate manual tasks that slow down your reps’ days.
  • Self-service: Self-service solutions enable prospects to do their research, essentially letting them be their own sales reps until they need more in-depth support. This saves time and money while boosting customer satisfaction.

How Mindtickle supports virtual selling

If you’re looking for a way to integrate virtual selling tools, skills, best practices, and whole teams, this is it.

Mindtickle doesn’t just put your processes in one place. It enables reps to do more and sell more by better utilizing digital tools, data, sales enablement materials, and even coaching opportunities. Top solutions include:

  • Sales training: Individualized goals, AI-supported lessons, practice opportunities, and consistent reinforcement — that’s all part of Mindtickle sales training.
  • Analytics: Role-based dashboards and customized insights help you track your teams’ progress and identify skills or knowledge gaps in real time.
  • Conversation intelligence: Help your reps sharpen their virtual selling skills by tapping into sales conversations, identifying best practices, and supporting growth across your team.

See Mindtickle in Action

Enable your reps to do more and sell more by better utilizing digital tools, data, sales enablement materials, and coaching opportunities.

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in June 2023, updated in December 2023, and again in September 2024.  

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Why You Need a Buyer Enablement Strategy (and How to Build One That Works)  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/buyer-enablement/ Mon, 23 Sep 2024 20:51:56 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20131 The B2B purchase journey isn’t linear. Instead, it’s complicated – and often filled with unexpected twists and turns. This often results in frustration among B2B buyers. A staggering 77% of B2B buyers indicate their last purchase was very complex or difficult. of B2B buyers say their last purchase was very difficult 0 % B2B teams …

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The B2B purchase journey isn’t linear. Instead, it’s complicated – and often filled with unexpected twists and turns.

This often results in frustration among B2B buyers. A staggering 77% of B2B buyers indicate their last purchase was very complex or difficult.

of B2B buyers say their last purchase was very difficult
0 %

B2B teams must do all they can to help buyers make confident purchase decisions. A solid buyer enablement strategy is a must.

But what is buyer enablement?

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about this important (but often overlooked) practice. We’ll explore:

  • What buyer enablement is
  • Why it’s important
  • How buyer enablement differs from sales enablement
  • How to build a winning buyer enablement strategy
  • Best practices for more effectively engaging with B2B buyers

What is buyer enablement?

First things first, what is buyer enablement?

Buyer enablement provides B2B buyers with the tools, information, and support they need to successfully navigate the buying journey and make confident purchase decisions.

B2B buyers must complete a variety of tasks throughout the purchase journey, including (but not limited to):

  • Pinpointing the problem
  • Identifying potential solutions
  • Gathering requirements
  • Engaging with potential vendors
  • Gaining consensus across the entire buying team

A strong buyer enablement strategy helps ensure buyers can more easily complete these tasks. By removing friction from the purchase journey, you increase the likelihood that buyers will choose your business.

Of course, not everyone navigates the purchase journey the same way. Generally speaking, there are four main types of B2B buyers:

  • Amiable buyers
  • Analytical buyers
  • Expressive buyers
  • Driver buyers

Effective buyer enablement takes a personalized approach that resonates with each type of B2B buyer.

Why is buyer enablement important for B2B businesses?

Making a B2B purchase might seem simple enough. But more often than not, that’s not the case. As mentioned earlier, over three-quarters of B2B buyers feel their most recent purchase was extremely complex or difficult (or both!).

There are a lot of factors that contribute to the complexity of B2B sales.

The first is the size of buying committees. According to Gartner, a typical buying group involves six to 10 stakeholders. Each of these stakeholders has different wants and needs, and they each look at a B2B purchase from a different perspective.

A typical buying group involves up to

stakeholders
6

Another key factor is the sheer volume of information buyers have.

The easy availability of information is a good thing in some ways. Modern buyers are in the driver’s seat and can learn much about vendors before contacting a salesperson. They can even get feedback from their peers by reading reviews.

However, according to Gartner, every buying committee member consults four to five sources of information. When you multiply that across a large buying team, things get complicated fast.

Businesses that stand out will make it easy for buyers to navigate the purchase journey – and the firehose of information. That’s what buyer enablement is all about.

With buyer enablement, your buyers are equipped to make informed purchase decisions. This will help you grow sales and increase customer retention.

Cross-functional collaboration is key to buyer enablement

Various teams contribute to a buyer’s experience with a business. For example, marketing teams are responsible for developing content buyers will consume before contacting a sales rep. On the other hand, sales reps are responsible for providing personalized experiences and solutions.

As such, buyer enablement must be a cross-functional effort.

B2B buyers demand seamless experiences throughout the purchase journey. Per Salesforce, 79% of respondents expect consistent interactions across departments.

of buyers expect consistency between teams
0 %

A business’s ability to deliver connected experiences throughout the purchase journey greatly impacts sales outcomes. According to Gartner, Buyers are 2.8 times more likely to complete a high-quality deal when they perceive high information consistency between a supplier’s website and that supplier’s representatives. On the flip side, 72% of B2B buyers will actively look for another vendor if a business doesn’t deliver consistent experiences across channels.

of buyers will look for another vendor if there isn't consistency
0 %

Seamless, connected experiences throughout the purchase journey can only happen with strong cross-functional collaboration.

How to create a buyer enablement strategy

With proper buyer enablement, your prospects can make confident purchase decisions – faster and easier. That means you’ll close more deals with good-fit buyers that’ll stick around long-term.

How can you develop an effective buyer enablement strategy? There are a few steps you must take.

Align teams

Buyers must be properly supported throughout the entire purchase journey, whether they’re doing their own research or engaging with a sales rep. As we explored earlier, this requires close collaboration among teams, including sales, marketing, and customer success.

Be sure your teams are aware of your buyer enablement goals and the role they plan in achieving them. Close collaboration will improve outcomes.

Define your target audience

Buyer enablement is all about making it easier for your prospects to make confident purchases. Your buyer enablement strategy must be centered around your buyers’ needs. As such, it’s important to define who those buyers are.

If you haven’t already, be sure to develop ideal buyer profiles, which lay out the characteristics of a business that fits your products and services well. You should also create buyer personas, which define the characteristics of the folks you’re aiming to engage with at those companies.

In addition, be sure to factor in the different types of buyers you’re likely to encounter, including amiable, analytical, expressive, and driver buyers.

Map the buyer journey

Lay out the journey your prospects take on their way to becoming buyers. This shouldn’t be based on guesses or gut feelings. Instead, leverage data and talk to your sales reps and existing customers.

Understanding buyers’ different tasks when navigating the purchase journey is important. You’ll also want to identify the common hurdles they face.

Develop buyer enablement tools

Once you’ve identified your buyers’ challenges, you can develop tools to help them overcome them.

What types of buyer enablement tools should you create? It depends on the needs of your buyers. Here are a few buyer enablement examples you may want to explore:

These can help buyers pinpoint their biggest challenges.

Interactive calculators can help buyers understand the cost of their challenges – and the ROI of investing in the right solution.

Different types of sales content will resonate with buyers at different stages of the purchase journey.

These can help buyers understand firsthand how your solution will help them solve their problems.

These portals provide buyers with a one-stop shop for accessing all buyer enablement content and communication related to a deal.

 A growing portion of B2B buyers prefer to navigate the purchase journey on their own. A self-service portal makes this possible.

Reviews enable buyers to get authentic feedback from their peers.

Measure and optimize your buyer enablement strategy

Once you’ve developed and launched your buyer enablement strategy, it’s important to consistently measure impact. With regular measurement, you can understand how (and whether) your efforts positively impact buyers’ experiences – and where opportunities exist to provide more support.

Sales enablement vs buyer enablement: What’s the difference?

Today, 84% of C-suite executives invest in a sales enablement team. So chances are, you’re quite familiar with the concept of sales enablement.

Buyer enablement and sales enablement share a common word. But while buyer enablement and sales enablement are related, they’re not the same thing.

Sales enablement and buyer enablement both aim to grow revenue, but the two practices approach this from different angles.

Sales enablement is focused on equipping sellers with the training, information, and tools they need to engage buyers and close deals. In other words, it’s all about supporting sellers. When sellers have the right support, they can more effectively and efficiently engage buyers and move deals across the finish line.

Buyer enablement, on the other hand, is all about supporting buyers. Buyer enablement aims to provide prospects with tools and information so they can make confident purchase decisions.

When it comes to the question of sales enablement vs buyer enablement, which is the better option? The reality is that you need both. By equipping sellers and buyers with the right tools and information, you’ll close more deals, and your revenue will grow.

Best practices for engaging B2B buyers

The B2B purchase journey is complex. Buying committees are large, and each member has a different agenda.

Organizations must be strategic when aiming to attract and engage B2B buyers. Here are a few best practices to keep in mind.

Center the customer’s needs

Your customers should be your north star. Everything you do should be centered around their needs.

While this seems obvious, the data tells a different story. A recent survey found that 78% of B2B buyers expect companies to adapt to their changing needs and preferences. But about half feel that most companies treat them like numbers.

Provide your sellers with the right training and coaching to hone their discovery skills. For example, be sure they know what questions to ask to quickly uncover customers’ needs. Then, they can adapt their approach accordingly.

In addition, consider leveraging conversation intelligence tools. These tools record and analyze sales calls, using AI to help sellers quickly uncover insights. For example, a seller can ask, “What pain points did my buyer mention in the call?” Then, sales reps can use these insights to personalize their follow-up.

Deliver integrated experiences

Today, many B2B buyers navigate at least a portion of the purchase journey independently. In fact, 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience. A self-service portal is a buyer enablement example that can drive engagement among those who prefer to do so.

of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience
0 %

But it’s important to remember that buyers make better decisions when a sales rep is involved. Gartner research tells us B2B buyers are “1.8 times more likely to complete a high-quality deal when they engage with supplier-provided digital tools in partnership with a sales rep rather than independently.”

Be sure you support buyers, no matter how they engage with you. In addition, be sure the experiences you offer are consistent across channels.

Deliver the right content at the right time

Content is a powerful buyer enablement example that prospects depend on to make informed purchase decisions. In fact, over half of B2B buyers rely on content more now than they did a year ago.

But sharing generic buyer enablement content will not work. Instead, organizations must get the right content in front of the right buyers at the right time.

The right sales content management system enables sellers to surface the right content at the right time. For example, SaaScend, a revenue operations consultancy, centralizes all its sales content in Mindtickle. The company leverages filters based on factors like persona, industry, and firmographics, which help sellers quickly find and share content tailored to each prospect’s needs.

Also, some sales content management systems incorporate artificial intelligence, which suggests content based on buyer signals and data on what has (and hasn’t) worked in the past.

Provide a single source of truth

Throughout the B2B purchase journey, content and information are often shared via email. That means prospects have to dig through long email threads anytime they’re looking for a specific piece of content or information. This can get overwhelming and lead to disengagement.

Providing a single source of truth for buyers can be a powerful way to boost engagement and accelerate deals. Digital sales rooms are one buyer enablement example. With digital sales rooms, buyers can easily find everything related to the purchase journey – all in one spot.

SaaScend is one company that leverages digital sales rooms to engage buyers. With digital sales rooms, buyers can educate themselves on their own time – without waiting on responses via email and Slack.

As an added bonus, digital sales rooms enable sellers to see how buyers are engaging. Sellers can use these insights to adapt their strategy and increase buyer engagement.

Start engaging more buyers with Mindtickle

The B2B purchase journey is often complicated – and frustrating for buyers. Businesses must make it easier for buyers to make confident purchase decisions. A solid buyer enablement strategy is a must.

Your sellers play a critical role in the customer journey.

Buyer Engagement with Mindtickle

With Mindtickle, your go-to-market teams always have the information, tools, and resources to effectively engage buyers and guide them through the purchase journey.

Request Your Demo

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The Ultimate Guide to Sales Enablement Frameworks https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-sales-enablement-frameworks/ Tue, 17 Sep 2024 21:46:46 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20116 By now, the vast majority of organizations are investing in sales enablement. In fact, recent research found that sales enablement and training is the #1 growth tactic among today’s sales leaders. It’s easy to see why. Sales enablement – when it’s done well – prepares sellers to overcome challenges, engage buyers, and close more deals. …

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By now, the vast majority of organizations are investing in sales enablement. In fact, recent research found that sales enablement and training is the #1 growth tactic among today’s sales leaders.

It’s easy to see why. Sales enablement – when it’s done well – prepares sellers to overcome challenges, engage buyers, and close more deals. A survey found that 92% of respondents feel that having a dedicated sales enablement team has improved sales performance.

A recent study found that

of respondents said dedicated sales enablement improved performance
0 %

But sales enablement success just doesn’t happen by chance. Instead, it requires plenty of planning and a strong foundation. It all starts with building a sales enablement framework.

Developing a winning sales enablement framework doesn’t have to be overwhelming. In this blog, we’ll define a sales enablement framework and share a four-step approach to building one that will serve as the foundation for sales enablement success.

What is a sales enablement framework?

Later on, we’ll explore the steps involved in building a sales enablement framework. But first, let’s take a step back to define the term.

A sales enablement framework is the foundation of your sales enablement function. The sales enablement framework outlines how you’ll support your sellers with the right tools, sales training, and resources so you can grow an entire team of top performers who consistently crush quota.

You can also think of it as a sales enablement roadmap. You’ll use this map to effectively enable your sellers so they can reach their full potential and you can achieve maximum revenue growth.

Why is a sales enablement framework important?

When sales enablement was in its infancy, many organizations took an ad hoc approach. For example, a manager might step in to do deal reviews. Or, the marketing team might create a new asset when a sales rep asks for it.

Even today, some organizations continue to take a reactive approach to sales enablement. But it’s not effective or sustainable.

Organizations that take a more formal approach to sales enablement achieve greater impact than those that adopt an ad hoc approach. Building a sales enablement framework is foundational to formalizing your approach to sales enablement.

How to build a sales enablement framework

Sales enablement can have a large, measurable impact on the metrics that matter most, including win rates, quota attainment, and sales cycle lengths. Building a sales enablement framework is the first step towards improving your sellers’ effectiveness and efficiency.

Building a sales enablement framework (or roadmap) from scratch can seem overwhelming. But if you take it step by step, it doesn’t have to be.

Step 1: Research and plan

Alexander Graham Bell is often quoted as saying, “…preparation is key to success.” This certainly rings true for sales enablement.

Research, planning and preparation are the first steps of developing a winning sales enablement framework. This involves several moving pieces, including:

Choose your sales methodology: A sales methodology is a framework that guides how your sellers engage with buyers and articulate the value of your solutions. If you haven’t already, it’s critical to determine which sales methodology is the best fit for your business.

Align key teams: Sales enablement strategies and programs can’t be created in silos. Instead, sales enablement requires close collaboration among teams including sales, marketing, and customer success. When these teams are aligned, everyone understands the larger strategy and the role they play in it. This leads to better outcomes.

One way to ensure alignment is to hold standing meetings with key teams. You might designate a point person to represent each team.

Understand your target audience: Your customers should be at the heart of everything you do. Ensure you thoroughly understand who your target audience is, what challenges they face, and the value your solution delivers.

If you haven’t already, be sure to develop ideal customer profiles, which outline the characteristics of a company that is a good fit for your products or services. You also need to create buyer personas, which are snapshots of the people your go-to-market teams will aim to attract and convert.

Determine your goals: Go-to-market teams should come together to establish sales enablement goals. Remember: your sales enablement goals must align to the greater business objectives.

Stay away from vague goals like “improve team performance.” Instead, set sales enablement KPIs that are specific and measurable. Also, determine which metrics you’ll track to gauge your progress toward your goals.

Take stock of your current state: Take an honest look at the state of your go-to-market team today. Assess their strengths and weaknesses. Also, assess the tools and resources they currently have – and which they may need to drive better performance.

Step 2: Develop and execute your sales enablement framework

You can create your sales enablement framework once you’ve completed the initial step. This framework will outline out the training, tools, and resources your go-to-market teams need to be successful in their roles.

Some examples of tools and resources include:

Sales onboarding: This is the first experience new sellers will have with your organization. It’s a great opportunity to get your reps off to a great start.

Ongoing training and enablement: Onboarding is a great start. But on its own, onboarding isn’t enough to prepare sellers to effectively and efficiently engage buyers.

Things are always changing – including product offerings, marketplace conditions, customer expectations, and competitive landscape. Even the best reps need ongoing sales training and enablement to ensure they’re ready to conquer any deal that comes their way.

One-size-fits-all training won’t cut it. Effective sales enablement and training is that which is tailored to the unique needs of each seller.

Sales coaching: Sales coaching can have a big impact on sales performance. Like training, it must be personalized to each seller’s needs.

Sales content: Sales enablement content helps sellers move prospects through the funnel. With the right sales content management solution, sales reps can easily find the right content for each selling scenario.

Consider incorporating AI into your sales content strategy. That way, sellers can get content suggestions based on past performance and a prospect’s behaviors.

Role-plays: Role-plays allow sales to practice their skills before money is on the line. With artificial intelligence, sales reps can get feedback on role-plays in real time without having to wait on their manager. In addition, innovative revenue organizations are leveraging AI to develop interactive role-plays in which sellers interact with an AI bot in realistic sales scenarios.

interactive role-play

Conversation intelligence: A conversation intelligence solution records sales calls and delivers real-time feedback to sellers. Sales reps can use this feedback to improve behaviors and increase their chances of closing a deal.

mt-platform-conversation-intelligence-screen

With AI, sellers can also quickly pull insights from sales calls and determine what action to take next.

Once your sales enablement framework and supporting resources are created, you can deliver them to your customer-facing teams.

The right sales enablement technology is critical

Technology is key to building and executing your sales enablement framework and programs.

The right sales enablement (or revenue enablement) software should make it easy for enablement teams to create resources that empower sellers to hone the skills that matter. Sales enablement software should also allow revenue leaders to understand reps’ strengths and weaknesses – and deliver learning paths that address the needs of all sellers.

Choosing the right sales enablement software is also important for your sellers. The easier you make it for sellers to engage with your enablement resources, the more likely they are to do so.

Step 3: Deploy your go-to-market teams

This stage of the sales enablement framework is where the rubber meets the road. It’s where sellers apply the skills and information they’ve learned while interacting with customers.

There are several components of this stage.

Putting learning into practice: Your sellers have used various sales enablement resources to build their skills. Now, it’s time to use those skills with prospective buyers.

Of course, just because sales reps engage with sales enablement programs doesn’t mean their behaviors will improve. Conversation intelligence software enables revenue leaders to understand how each sales rep is performing in the field. Sales managers can use these insights to provide targeted coaching to boost weaker skills.

Using data to drive action: With the right sales enablement framework, strategy, and tools, your sellers can access the data they need to make better decisions.

Consider sales enablement content as one example. Often, sales reps guess which content to use based on gut feeling. With the right sales enablement framework and technology, sellers can tap into data to determine which content will resonate with which prospects.

Sellers can also receive AI-powered recommendations on what to do next with a buyer based on historical data and the prospect’s behaviors.

Step 4: Measure and optimize your sales enablement framework

Remember those sales enablement goals you set back in step one? It’s important to continuously measure your progress towards those goals.

Track KPIs: Be sure to track key metrics to determine how (and whether) your sales enablement framework and program impact results. The metrics you track will vary based on your sales enablement goals.

In addition to tracking metrics across the revenue organization, be sure to determine how different programs are helping teams and even individual reps improve behaviors and sales performance.

Solicit feedback: Don’t shy away from feedback from your sellers. They interact with customers every day and can offer unique insight into what’s working and what’s not.

Optimize accordingly: A sales enablement framework isn’t something to create. Rather, it’s important to continuously leverage data and feedback to optimize your sales enablement framework.

Build a winning sales enablement framework and program with Mindtickle

Technology is a key component of any sales enablement strategy. Some organizations use point solutions, each addressing a specific sales enablement component. But increasingly, teams are streamlining their tech stacks by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

With Mindtickle, revenue enablement teams can deliver and deliver training and enablement programs that are tailored to the needs of each seller. Mindtickle also features robust sales enablement content management capabilities, which make it easy to equip sellers with the right content for any selling scenario.

With Mindtickle Copilot, the platform’s AI productivity assistant, revenue enablement teams can quickly and easily develop enablement, assessments, and role-plays by inputting key details.

Copilot - Assessment

Revenue enablement teams can launch programs quickly, which means they can have a more immediate impact on sales productivity and performance.

Mindtickle provides sales reps with a one-stop shop for everything related to enablement, including sales content, training, coaching, role-plays, conversation intelligence, and more. That means they can spend less time hunting down what they need and more time delivering great experiences that convert prospects to customers.

Mindtickle Copilot streamlines and simplifies the tedious tasks that take up so much of sales reps’ time. For example, sellers can quickly surface insights from call recordings so they can follow up accordingly. Mindtickle Copilot can also suggest next steps to take. For example, the AI sales assistant can suggest sharing a piece of relevant content and even draft a contextual email to accompany the asset.

Today, some of the world’s best revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to ensure sellers always have what it takes to reach their sales targets. And with Mindtickle Copilot, teams can work even faster and smarter.

See Mindtickle Copilot in Action

Want to see how other orgs are using Mindtickle to make their sellers work smarter so they can focus on closing deals? 

Request Your Demo

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How to Develop a Solid Sales Enablement Content Strategy https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-develop-a-solid-sales-enablement-content-strategy/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-develop-a-solid-sales-enablement-content-strategy/#comments Mon, 16 Sep 2024 02:48:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18818 Sales enablement content plays a large (and growing) role in the B2B path to purchase. Recent research found that 55% of B2B buyers rely on content to guide their purchase decisions more now than a year ago. And 62% of buyers engage with three to seven pieces of content before connecting with a sales rep. …

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Sales enablement content plays a large (and growing) role in the B2B path to purchase. Recent research found that 55% of B2B buyers rely on content to guide their purchase decisions more now than a year ago. And 62% of buyers engage with three to seven pieces of content before connecting with a sales rep.

of buyers rely on content to guide purchasing decisions
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When sellers have access to the right content at the right time, they can effectively and efficiently engage and nurture more buyers and close more deals.

But not all sales enablement content works. A recent Mindtickle analysis found that on average, 10% of sales content drives 50% of engagement. That means a large portion of sales is underused – or not used at all.

A solid sales enablement content strategy ensures you have the right mix of content that’ll resonate with sellers and buyers alike.

In this post, we’ll share tips and best practices for creating an effective sales enablement strategy that’ll empower your sales teams to confidently take on any deal that comes their way.

What is sales enablement content?

Sales enablement content is a powerful asset for new and veteran sellers alike. When sales reps have the right sales enablement content, they’re better able to attract, engage, and convert buyers.

But what is sales enablement content? Essentially, sales enablement content is any content asset developed to help a sales rep succeed in the field.

Some sales enablement content is developed for internal use. Typically, the goal of this content is to provide education to sellers. For example, some organizations create sales battlecards to help sales reps understand how they stack up against their competitors. Often, these sales battlecards are for internal use only.

Other sales enablement content is for external use. Members of the revenue team can share this sales enablement content with prospects as a way to convey or reinforce information about their products or services. For example, a sales rep might share a case study with a prospect to help them understand how a similar company overcame challenges by using a specific product or service.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

What are some sales enablement content examples?

There are many different types of sales enablement content used by sales teams. Let’s take a closer look at some common sales enablement content examples.

Scripts

Often, sales organizations provide scripts to help sales reps scale their outreach while ensuring they stay on message. The organization may develop call scripts, including those for cold calls and demos. In addition, organizations may equip their sales reps with email templates that they can use as a starting point for their digital outreach.

Competitive battlecards

Per Semrush, 57% of all sales deals are competitive. That number is even higher in certain industries.

Sales battlecards are sales enablement content that helps sales reps understand how their solutions slack up against their competitors. Some sales battlecards compare a company’s offerings to a single competitor. Other sales battlecards compare a company’s solutions to multiple competitors. In addition, some sales battlecards are for internal use only, while others are developed to be shared with prospects.

Enablement collateral

Often, teams create various sales enablement content that sales reps can share with prospects throughout the sales cycle. Those assets might include sales presentations, one-pagers providing an overview of specific product offerings, ebooks, and case studies.

Marketing collateral

Some marketing teams develop assets including ebooks and whitepapers. Typically, these assets are designed to educate prospects on a specific industry issue or challenge; they’re not usually promotional. Ebooks and whitepapers can be great resources to share with prospects to demonstrate thought leadership and bolster trust.

Case studies and testimonials

Case studies are a common type of external sales enablement content. They tell the story of how your solution has helped other companies solve their challenges. Case studies provide social proof, which can be a powerful motivator for buyers. They are especially effective for prospects who are further along in the funnel.

Videos

Videos are a more interactive form of sales enablement content. Videos can be internal. For example, the sales enablement team may create a video series to educate sellers on a new product. Or, videos can be customer-facing. For example, the marketing team may develop a demo video for sales reps to share with prospects.

What is a sales enablement content strategy and why is it important?

All too often, organizations develop content that they think will help sales reps – and then hope for the best. The result is that teams spend valuable time creating these resources, but they end up sitting unused. In addition, new sales enablement content is created on an ad hoc basis.

It’s not surprising that this approach isn’t effective.

Instead, organizations need a sales enablement content strategy. But what is a sales enablement content strategy? And what are some sales enablement strategy examples?

A sales enablement content strategy is the foundation for success with sales enablement content. It ensures all stakeholders (including sales, marketing, sales enablement, customer success, and product – among others) are aligned on the organization’s content initiatives.

A documented sales content strategy spells out:

  • What your goals are for your sales enablement content
  • Who the audience is for your sales enablement content
  • What types of content you’ll create to achieve your goals (including the sales enablement content examples we outlined earlier)
  • How you’ll measure the success (or failure) of your sales enablement content

A solid sales enablement content strategy can help boost seller performance. A great sales enablement strategy helps ensure sellers have the information, knowledge, and resources they need. That means they’re more likely to be successful in the field.

In addition, a sales strategy can help improve the sales process. Today’s buyers do plenty of research before reaching out to a buyer. A sales enablement strategy ensures sellers can share content that adds value and goes beyond the basic information buyers can easily uncover on their own.

How to create a sales enablement content strategy

Creating a great sales enablement content strategy can boost seller performance and improve customer experiences. But creating a sales enablement content strategy can seem overwhelming, especially if you’re used to a more random approach to sales enablement content development.

Creating a sales content strategy doesn’t have to be a daunting process. Here are some proven tips you can use to make the process easier.

Your sales reps are meeting with prospects all day long. Ask them for feedback on what challenges they regularly face in the field. In addition, ask them what types of content they typically use – and what additional types of content they think would be helpful. You may also want to ask them why they don’t use certain sales enablement content assets.

Take inventory of your sales enablement content. If you use a sales content management platform, this should be relatively easy.

Your inventory should include both internal and external content. Make a note of which content is in need of updates – and which should be eliminated completely.

In addition, tap into data to see what content is being used, how often it’s being used, and whether it’s improving outcomes. Your sales content management platform should provide data, analytics, and dashboards that shed light on usage and effectiveness of your existing sales enablement content.

Different sales enablement content is effective at different stages in the buying process. For example, a thought leadership piece like an ebook or a whitepaper is a great asset for prospects early on the purchase journey. A case study, on the other hand, is more likely to resonate further down in the funnel.

Be sure to map your customer journey. Then, identify which existing sales enablement content fits into each stage.

Once you’ve gotten feedback from your sales team, taken an inventory of your existing sales enablement content, and mapped that content to your customer journey, you should have a good idea of where there are gaps.

Once you’ve identified gaps in your sales enablement content, it’s time to create content to fill those gaps. This should be a collaborative effort among teams including sales, marketing, and sales enablement.

In some cases, sales enablement content is distributed through email. Other sales organizations use a service like Google Drive or Dropbox to store and distribute sales enablement content.

These approaches make it difficult for sellers to find the content they need. Furthermore, your sellers are likely using outdated sales enablement content.

A better approach is to store your sales enablement content in a complete revenue productivity platform that incorporates sales enablement content management capabilities. That way, sales reps can easily find the content they’re looking for – any time and from any device. The right sales content management platform also helps ensure sellers are always using the most up-to-date sales enablement content.

Developing great sales enablement content is important, but so too is ensuring your sellers know it exists and how to use it. Be sure to provide sales enablement, training, and coaching so your sellers know how to use the sales enablement content that is available to them effectively.

It’s important to measure the performance of your sales enablement content on a regular basis. That way, you know whether your sales enablement content is helping you achieve your goals.

Ongoing measurement can shed light on opportunities to eliminate content, create new content, and update existing content to improve efficacy.

Developing a sales enablement content strategy isn’t a one-time event. Instead, you should regularly revisit your strategy to ensure it keeps up with the evolving needs and goals of your business.

Sales enablement content best practices

The right sales enablement content strategy can significantly impact sales outcomes. As you develop your strategy and assets, consider these best practices.

Collaborate cross-functionally

Sales enablement content shouldn’t be created in silos. If it is, your marketing team may be wasting their time creating sales enablement content that isn’t used or doesn’t resonate with buyers.

Instead, sales enablement content must be collaborative among key teams, including sales, marketing, and sales enablement. That way, marketing spends its time on content that sellers will actually use, and enablement teams provide the proper support to ensure reps know how to use the content.

Help sellers surface the right content at the right time

Sales reps have a limited amount of time. But often, they spend too much time hunting down content, or even creating their own.

Ensuring sellers can easily surface the right content at the right time is essential. With the right sales content management system, you can organize and tag your content to make it easy for sellers to find what they need. If you leverage artificial intelligence, your sellers can even get content suggestions based on the buyer’s engagement and data about what content has worked in the past.

Share content via digital sales rooms

Often, sales reps share content via email. But this can get complicated when multiple people are on a buying committee—and each cares about different things.

A better way to share content is through a digital sales room,  a portal for buyers and sellers to exchange content and collaborate throughout a deal. A DSR enables sellers to get the right content in front of the right members of the buying committee. In addition, sales reps can track how each person engages with the content they share. That way, sellers can adapt their strategy accordingly.

Measure content engagement and impact

While some sales enablement content will resonate with buyers and help move deals forward, others will fall flat. It’s important to determine which is which.

Be sure to measure whether sellers use content and how (and whether) buyers engage with it. In addition, track how each content asset impacts deal outcomes.

Measure content engagement and impact

While some sales enablement content will resonate with buyers and help move deals forward, others will fall flat. It’s important to determine which is which.

Be sure to measure whether sellers use content and how (and whether) buyers engage with it. In addition, track how each content asset impacts deal outcomes.

The top 10% of orgs update content every

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In addition, don’t be afraid to eliminate some content. If it’s not being used, having it doesn’t make sense.

Take your sales enablement content strategy to the next level with Mindtickle

Great sales enablement content helps sellers confidently navigate every deal that comes their way. A solid sales enablement strategy is foundational.

But creating a sales enablement content is just the first step. Sales organizations must also ensure their sellers know what sales enablement content is available, where to find it, and how to use it.

Mindtickle Asset Hub

Mindtickle’s sales enablement content management capabilities allow reps to quickly and easily find the right content for each sales scenario. In addition, sales enablement teams can deliver training and enablement to ensure sales reps know how to use the content that’s available to them. Finally, sales leaders can measure the effectiveness of each sales enablement content asset. They can see whether the asset is being used – and whether it’s improving seller performance and deal outcomes. These insights can help ensure organizations prioritize their time on sales content that’s proven to work.

 

Sales Content Management in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can equip your sellers with the sales content, training, and insights they need to close more deals?

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in December 2023 and was updated in September 2024. 

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What is Revenue Optimization? (+ How to Get Started with This Powerful Strategy)  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-revenue-optimization-how-to-get-started-with-this-powerful-strategy/ Wed, 11 Sep 2024 14:26:12 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20104 Revenue growth is a top priority of any organization. Just ask any room full of chief revenue officers. But you can’t just wish for revenue growth and expect it to happen. Furthermore, the burden of growing revenue can’t rest solely on the shoulders of your sales reps. Instead sustainable, predictable revenue growth requires plenty of …

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Revenue growth is a top priority of any organization. Just ask any room full of chief revenue officers.

But you can’t just wish for revenue growth and expect it to happen. Furthermore, the burden of growing revenue can’t rest solely on the shoulders of your sales reps.

Instead sustainable, predictable revenue growth requires plenty of planning, strong cross-functional collaboration, and ongoing revenue optimization.

But what is revenue optimization? We’re glad you asked.

In this post, we’ll explore revenue optimization and why it matters. We’ll also share some revenue optimization strategies and tips that’ll get you well on your way to a healthy sales pipeline – and a bigger bottom line.

What is revenue optimization?

Every organization wants to grow. Revenue optimization is key to achieving that goal.

So, what is revenue optimization?

Revenue optimization is the practice of optimizing acquisition, retention, expansion, and pricing strategies to maximize revenue growth.

When it comes to revenue optimization, many companies focus on just one or two of the following strategies:

  • Customer acquisition: Generating leads and converting them to customers
  • Customer retention: Delighting and supporting customers so they stick around long-term
  • Expansion: Cross-selling or upselling existing customers
  • Pricing: Identifying the right pricing for your products and services

But to accelerate sales and maximize your growth, you must take a holistic approach to revenue optimization that incorporates and balances all four.

So, who is responsible for revenue optimization?

It’s not the responsibility of one team or individual. Instead, effective revenue optimization requires close collaboration across different customer-facing teams, including:

  • Marketing
  • Sales
  • Customer success

Why does revenue optimization matter?

Now we’re clear on what revenue optimization is. But why is it so important?

Organizations that embrace revenue optimization see several key benefits. Let’s look at some of the benefits that top the list.

Diverse revenue streams drive sustainable growth

All too often, organizations focus on a single source of revenue. For example, they focus solely on growth via customer acquisition.

Relying on a single source of income isn’t an effective strategy. For example, focusing solely on customer acquisition – but doing nothing to retain your existing customers – isn’t sustainable.

A revenue optimization strategy ensures you rely on different channels to grow your revenue – including acquisition, retention, expansion, and pricing. This approach makes your company more resilient. If one of your sources of revenue takes a hit, you’ll still be able to thrive.

Better cross-functional collaboration

When we think of revenue generation, we often think of the sales team. But in reality, multiple teams, including marketing, sales, and customer success, play a role in revenue growth.

While marketing develops campaigns that capture the right people’s attention in the right places, sales is responsible for fostering relationships and closing deals. On the other hand, customer success is responsible for supporting existing customers so they stick around long-term.

But often, these teams work in silos. Teams are focused on their work – without much visibility into the bigger picture.

A revenue optimization strategy drives cross-functional collaboration. Teams understand the revenue organization’s strategy and goals—as well as their role. When teams are aligned, outcomes improve. In fact, according to Gartner, sales organizations that prioritize alignment with marketing are nearly three times more likely to exceed their customer acquisition targets.

Sales orgs that prioritize alignment with marketing are

more likely to exceed customer acquisition targets
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It’s important to note that a revenue operations strategy is also key to improving cross-functional collaboration.

Better customer experiences

According to a recent report, 79% of buyers expect consistent interactions across departments. However, reality often doesn’t align with these expectations.

of buyers expect consistent experiences across departments
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For example, a buyer might have an outstanding experience with their sales rep. But things go south once the ink has dried on the contract and the customer has been handed off to customer success.

Revenue optimization focuses on optimizing all aspects of revenue generation. This leads to better, more consistent customer experiences. When customers consistently have great experiences, you’ll close more deals and boost retention rates. Furthermore, your happy customers will be more open to cross-sales and up-sells.

How to get started with revenue optimization

You can drive sustainable, predictable revenue growth with the right revenue optimization strategy. Here are a few revenue optimization strategies and tips to get you started.

Define your target audience

You must determine your target audience before developing a revenue optimization strategy. If you haven’t already, now’s the time to develop your ideal customer profiles (ICPs) and buyer personas.

An ICP is a tool for describing the characteristics of a company that would be a good fit for your products or services. On the other hand, a buyer persona describes the characteristics of an individual who works for a good-fit company.

Why is it important to develop your ICP and buyer personas?

These tools help ensure the entire revenue team is focused on prospects who are a good fit for your offerings. Marketing can use the ICP and buyer personas to develop campaigns to attract good-fit prospects. Furthermore, sellers can focus on prospects who are more likely to convert and stick around long-term.

Diversify your revenue streams

Focusing on a single revenue stream isn’t a sustainable strategy. For example, you’ll never get ahead if you’re focused solely on acquisition but your churn is high.

Be sure to incorporate multiple sources of income into your revenue optimization strategy, including acquisition, retention, cross-sells, and pricing.

Make a plan to support existing customers

All too often, customers have a great purchasing experience, but they’re left high and dry after the deal goes through. Be sure to have a solid plan to support, delight, and retain existing customers.

When you properly support your existing customers, they can be a significant source of revenue growth. Happy customers are more likely to renew their contracts. In addition, they’re typically more open to cross-sells and upsells, and they may even refer your business to others in their network.

Optimize your pricing

If your products are priced too high, you won’t attract customers, and you won’t make any money if your products are priced too low. Striking the right balance between pricing and revenue optimization is important.

When determining your pricing, you’ll need to consider many factors including demand, competitive landscape, and the value your product delivers to customers. Pricing your products higher than your competitors isn’t necessarily a bad thing – as long as your customers derive significantly more value from your solution.

Tap into technology to streamline tedious tasks

Members of the revenue team are bogged down with tedious, time-consuming tasks. This means they have less time to engage with customers and prospects.

Look for opportunities to leverage revenue optimization solutions to streamline or automate routine tasks that take up a lot of your sellers’ time.

For example, consider sales content. Marketing teams create a ton of content for sales and customer success to use throughout the customer lifecycle. But often, sellers spend a lot of time searching for the right content – or even creating their own.

An integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle makes it easy for sellers to find the right content for their needs. They can also get insight into how buyers are engaging with their content so they can optimize their strategies accordingly.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

Consider the work involved with conducting a sales call. A solution like Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence records and analyzes customer calls. Sellers can quickly uncover insights that can help them determine what step to take next in the sales process.

Mindtickle Call AI with conversation intelligence insights

Leverage data

Data is foundational to your revenue optimization strategy. Data should drive everything you do. Be sure you have access to the right data and a means to analyze it to uncover insights.

For example, content analytics can help you understand what content types improve deal outcomes. Also, revenue intelligence can help you understand the health of each deal and where there are risks. That way, your teams can take the appropriate action to improve outcomes. These insights can also inform better revenue forecasting.

mt-platform-forecasting-screen

Solicit customer feedback

Understanding how your customers feel is key to effective revenue management. So don’t shy away from customer feedback.

Ask for feedback from your customers to understand what they like about partnering with your business and where there are opportunities for improvement. Look for trends in feedback to determine where there are revenue optimization cycle opportunities. You may also discover opportunities for cross-sales or future product enhancements.

Feedback can also help customer success teams understand when a customer is at risk of churning. The team can use this insight to more effectively support the customer – and increase their chances of renewal.

How can a revenue enablement platform help with revenue optimization?

Revenue optimization sets up your organization for sustainable growth. With a solid revenue optimization strategy, you’ll have a healthy sales pipeline and predictable revenue growth.

Technology is key to any revenue optimization strategy. An especially important tool is a revenue enablement platform.

How does a revenue enablement platform help with revenue optimization?

All your customer-facing teams need to master certain skills and behaviors to successfully engage customers and grow revenue. A revenue enablement platform ensures your entire revenue team – including sales, marketing, and customer success – can access the tools, training, resources, and coaching they need to build the right skills.

A conversation intelligence tool within the revenue enablement platform helps ensure sellers are applying the skills they’ve learned while interacting with customers. Conversation intelligence delivers feedback to sales reps after each call, which they can use to sharpen their skills. In addition, conversation intelligence makes it easy for sellers to identify insights from calls so they can follow up appropriately.

A revenue enablement platform also incorporates revenue intelligence, which helps teams gauge deal health and identify at-risk deals. These insights can fuel better sales forecasting and enable sales reps and managers to work together to turn winnable deals around.

A revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle also features robust data and analytics to understand what’s working and what’s not. Some revenue intelligence platforms leverage AI to help you identify what action to take based on data.

Revenue Enablement in Mindtickle

Leading organizations turn to Mindtickle to help power their revenue optimization strategies. Ready to see how Mindtickle can help you maximize revenue growth?

Get Your Demo

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Cisco Increases Deal Size 31% With AI Role-Plays https://www.mindtickle.com/customer-stories/cisco-increases-deal-sizes-31-with-ai-role-plays/ Wed, 11 Sep 2024 05:52:34 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=customer_stories&p=20101 Chris Jackson, Distinguished Solutions Engineer Discover how Cisco leveraged Mindtickle’s AI role-plays to execute the largest pitch contest in the company’s history for 7,200 sellers. Key outcomes include: 31% rise in average deal size 25% increase in book deal values $110,000 more in security bookings Saved 38 weeks of manager time or 6,000 hours The …

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Chris Jackson, Distinguished Solutions Engineer

Discover how Cisco leveraged Mindtickle’s AI role-plays to execute the largest pitch contest in the company’s history for 7,200 sellers. Key outcomes include:

  • 31% rise in average deal size
  • 25% increase in book deal values
  • $110,000 more in security bookings
  • Saved 38 weeks of manager time or 6,000 hours

The use of Copilot resulted in faster feedback and enhanced pitch quality, demonstrating the powerful impact of pitch mastery on sales performance.

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Sales Cadence 101: Why You Need One and How to Build One https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-cadence-101-why-you-need-one-and-how-to-build-one/ Thu, 05 Sep 2024 20:45:48 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20094 Let’s face it: B2B buyers are a tough bunch. Day in and day out, these buyers get calls and emails from sales reps. But they’ll only engage with those who meet (or exceed) their high expectations. If a sales rep expects to get a buyer’s attention (and hold it), they must consistently engage with them …

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Let’s face it: B2B buyers are a tough bunch. Day in and day out, these buyers get calls and emails from sales reps. But they’ll only engage with those who meet (or exceed) their high expectations.

If a sales rep expects to get a buyer’s attention (and hold it), they must consistently engage with them at the right time through the right channels. A sales cadence is an important tool that helps sellers do just that.

In fact, with a solid sales cadence (and the right sales enablement to support it), sales reps can improve their outreach, engage more buyers, and ultimately, close more deals.

But what is it?

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know on the topic, including:

  • What it is, and why it’s important to have one
  • How to create one
  • Sales cadence examples
  • Best practices for driving great results

What is a sales cadence?

One of a sales rep’s primary responsibilities is engaging with prospective customers. However, determining how best to engage with each prospect can be difficult and time-consuming. That’s where a sales cadence comes in.

A sales cadence is a defined series of touchpoints a sales rep uses when engaging with a prospect. With the right one, a sales rep knows when and how to reach out to a prospect. It’s like a roadmap for effective sales engagement and outreach.

Typically, it includes a variety of different types of touchpoints, including:

  • Emails
  • Phone calls
  • Videos
  • Social media engagement
  • In-person meetings

Sales cadences vary based on several different factors, including industry, product or service offering, and company size – among others. Developing one that fits your business’s unique needs and yields the best results is important. Later on, we’ll share some tips for developing your own sales cadence and an example to get the ideas flowing.

Why is a sales cadence important?

Engaging with customers and delivering great experiences is key to closing more deals. But many sellers don’t have the time to do so effectively. Consider the fact that, on average, sellers spend less than 30% of their time selling.

Sellers spend less than

of their time selling
0 %

A sales cadence gives reps a framework for effective sales engagement. Sellers don’t have to sink time into reinventing the wheel for each prospect that comes their way. Instead, they can use a cadence to understand how and when to engage with prospective customers.

When sellers use a data-driven cadence, they’re better able to move prospects through the funnel – and eventually convert them to customers. Sales reps can spend less time developing outreach strategies and more time engaging with buyers.

In addition, it can help new sales reps get ramped up faster. Sales reps don’t have to figure out what type of outreach to use (and when). Instead, they can leverage a sales cadence – and close their first deal faster.

Finally, it helps ensure a consistent customer experience. Every prospect gets the same level of attention, regardless of who their sales rep is.

How to build an effective sales cadence

There’s no one-size-fits-all cadence that works for every organization. Instead, you must develop one that works for your organization and yields great results.

But great sales cadences don’t happen by chance. Instead, there are certain steps any organization must take to build an effective one that empowers sellers to improve sales engagement and close more deals.

Understand your target audience

Before determining how to engage with your audience, you must take a step back to understand who your audience is. After all, different people have different needs and preferences. You wouldn’t (and shouldn’t) engage with the founder of a startup in the same way you’d engage with a marketing manager at a Fortune 100 company.

Consult your buyer personas to ensure you understand key things about your target audience, including (but not limited to):

  • Industry
  • Company size
  • Job title
  • Opportunities
  • Pain points
  • Communication preferences

If you haven’t already created buyer personas, now’s a good time. They’re foundational for any sales and marketing strategy.

Develop a schedule of touchpoints

Once you understand who you’re trying to reach, it’s time to develop a list of outreach touchpoints. This will include initial contact and a series of follow-up touchpoints.

Use what you know about your target audience when creating this schedule. In addition, be sure to leverage data. For example, analyze the touchpoints in closed won deals to see what works. In addition, look at what your top sales reps are doing differently regarding outreach.

Be sure to incorporate a mix of different channels to increase your chances of getting the prospect’s attention. Some channels might include email, phone, LinkedIn messages, and videos.

Determine timing and frequency

If you reach out too often, you risk overwhelming prospects. If you don’t reach out enough, buyers may forget about you and take their search elsewhere.

What’s the best frequency for your sales cadence? There’s no easy answer.

Start with best practices for your industry. In addition, leverage data to understand the timing and frequency of touchpoints that led to closed won deals.

Develop consistent messaging

Prospects should experience consistent, on-brand experiences and messaging, no matter which sales rep they engage with.

Be sure to develop messaging sales reps can use throughout the sales cycle. This might include:

  • Email templates
  • Phone and voicemail scripts
  • LinkedIn message templates

However, it’s important to empower sellers to personalize messaging as appropriate. After all, modern B2B buyers have come to expect tailored communication and experiences.

Measure sales cadence performance and optimize accordingly

It’s not enough to create a sales cadence and hope for the best. Instead, you must continuously measure your sales cadence to determine what’s working and what isn’t.

Be sure to track key metrics related to sales cadence performance and engagement. Some examples include:

This includes metrics like email opens, click-through rates, and response rates. If a touchpoint is generating low sales engagement, you may want to replace it, change the timing, or eliminate it altogether.

 This measures how many leads take the desired action at each step of the sales cadence. Examples of these actions might be booking a call, watching a video, or purchasing. If the conversion rate is particularly low on one sales cadence touchpoint, there may be an opportunity to optimize it.

Churn rate can help you understand where you’re losing prospects during the sales cadence. For example, they might unsubscribe to your email or ask that you stop reaching out.

This is the average amount of time it takes for a buyer to complete the entire sales process—from initial contact to closed deal. If you notice customers stalling at a specific point in the sales cycle, there may be an opportunity to optimize the sales cadence.

 ROI is calculated by comparing the costs of running the sales cadence with its revenue. The goal is to ensure revenue far exceeds costs.

Be sure to examine these metrics across the entire sales team – as well as for specific teams and even individual sales reps. For example, if a particular metric for one sales rep is far lower than average, there may be an opportunity to provide additional training and coaching.

Also, be open to feedback from your sales reps. They’re engaging with prospects and have good insight into what’s working and what isn’t.

You can use metrics and feedback to optimize your cadence for better results.

Sales cadence example

As we’ve mentioned before, there’s no single sales cadence that’ll work for every business. Instead, it’s important to analyze what works (and doesn’t) for your company and what resonates with your target audience. Then, you can build one that works for your revenue organization.

But creating a cadence from scratch can feel overwhelming. Starting with a template or seeing some examples can be helpful.

With that in mind, let’s look at an example:

In today’s world, many ways exist to engage with prospects. But phone calls are still a great way to reach people.

Kick off your sales cadence by picking up the phone to briefly introduce yourself and your business. If there’s no answer, leave a brief voicemail.

 

You may not receive a response to your initial call. If that’s the case, follow up with a personalized email.

Don’t go hard on your sales pitch. Instead, use this as an opportunity to introduce yourself and gauge your prospect’s interest in continuing the conversation.

LinkedIn is a popular social media channel for professionals. At this point in the cadence, contact your prospect via LinkedIn. Send a personalized connection request if you’re not already connected to them.

Make another attempt to get your prospect on the phone. If they answer, you can use this as an opportunity to discover. If they don’t answer, leave them a message telling them you plan to follow up via email.

Send a follow-up email to the prospect. Consider including a resource relevant to their company or industry, such as a video, report, article, or guide.

If they answer, you can use this to do more discovery. If they don’t answer, leave a personalized voicemail that speaks to their needs and challenges.

Send a direct message via LinkedIn and/or engage with the prospect’s content on LinkedIn.

Try one more time to get the prospect on the phone.

If there has been little to no sales engagement up to this point, it’s time to end the sales cadence. Thank the prospect for their time, and let them know you’ll no longer be following up. However, leave the door open for the prospect to reach out to you in the future should their needs and priorities change.

Sales cadence best practices

A sales cadence can be a great tool to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales reps. But creating one doesn’t mean it’ll generate great results.

Read on to explore some best practices to help your sellers engage prospects and convert more of them to customers.

Personalize each touchpoint

A report from Adobe found that 66% of B2B buyers expect fully or mostly personalized content when buying a product or service. Generic touchpoints and experiences simply won’t cut it.

of buyers expect personalized content
0 %

Templates and scripts are key to a sales cadence. But be sure your sellers understand the importance of personalizing their outreach based on what they know about a prospect. After all, tailored, relevant communication is more likely to capture your prospects’ attention.

Provide a flexible framework

A cadence helps reps understand what types of outreach to do and when. But it’s important to note that a sales cadence isn’t set in stone. Sometimes, a sales rep can (and should) adjust the sales cadence based on the prospect’s behaviors, responses (or lack thereof), and preferences.

For example, let’s say your cadence includes three phone calls. However a prospect indicates they only want to be contacted via email. In this case, the rep should adapt the cadence accordingly.

In addition, you can use revenue intelligence to understand which deals are most likely to go through. This information can be used to make adjustments to the cadence.

Provide proper training and coaching

Whether it’s a sales battlecard or a cadence or something else – it’s important to ensure your sellers know how to use the tools and resources available to them.

Let’s say you spend a ton of time and resources developing a winning sales cadence. But if your sales reps don’t know how to use it, it won’t have an impact.

Ensure your entire sales team knows your cadence and how to use this tool. Of course, you’ll want to cover it as part of sales onboarding. However, it’s also important to provide ongoing training, coaching, and sales enablement so sales reps can hone their skills.

Be sure to measure KPIs related to sales cadence regularly. That way, you can understand each sales rep’s performance and determine when they might need additional training, coaching, and enablement.

Revisit your sales cadence often

As we’ve already mentioned, it’s important to track cadence performance and optimize accordingly regularly.

But there are also other times you should revisit your cadence. Some examples include:

  • When you’re releasing a new product
  • When you’re breaking in to a new market
  • When there’s increased competition

Leverage the right sales cadence tools

A sales cadence has several moving pieces. Multiply that by several prospects, which can be difficult for a sales rep to manage.

Look for opportunities to leverage sales cadence tools and technology. These tools can help you streamline and automate your sales cadence and improve outcomes.

For example, you can use an AI sales assistant tool to automate follow-up emails. Or, you can use an AI-powered tool like Mindtickle Copilot to draft personalized, contextual emails to accompany a piece of sales collateral you’re sharing with a prospect.

With the right sales cadence tools and technology, sales reps can spend less time on tedious, time-consuming tasks and more time building customer relationships and closing deals.

Set your sellers up for success with a winning sales cadence

Modern B2B buyers are busy, and they have high expectations. A proper, data-driven sales cadence ensures your reps know how to reach out to these busy prospects at the rights times and in the right ways. With this framework, sales reps can move more prospects through the funnel – faster.

With Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform, your sales reps have the training, coaching, and tools to master the sales cadence – develop all the other skills they need to crush quota.

Close Deals Faster with Mindtickle

Curious why winning revenue organizations choose Mindtickle?

Get Your Demo

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The Complete Guide to AI Sales Assistants  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-complete-guide-to-ai-sales-assistants/ Wed, 04 Sep 2024 13:25:37 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20086 In the past, artificial intelligence was nothing more than a nebulous concept for most people. But today, it’s a must-have technology for any organization looking to stand out and grow in an increasingly competitive market. In fact, a recent survey found that most revenue organizations already use AI sales assistants and other AI sales tools; …

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In the past, artificial intelligence was nothing more than a nebulous concept for most people. But today, it’s a must-have technology for any organization looking to stand out and grow in an increasingly competitive market.

In fact, a recent survey found that most revenue organizations already use AI sales assistants and other AI sales tools; only 24% don’t.

of orgs already use AI sales tools
0 %

It’s no wonder why so many revenue leaders are investing in AI. AI sales assistants streamline and automate tasks and processes so sellers have more time to engage with buyers. When sellers have more time to engage with buyers, they can close more deals faster.

But what is an AI sales assistant – and how does this technology boost sales productivity and performance? You’ve come to the right place to find out.

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about AI sales assistants, including:

  • What an AI sales assistant is and how it works
  • How this technology compares to conversation intelligence
  • Why a growing number of revenue teams are embracing AI-powered sales assistants
  • Some of the best AI sales assistant software options on the market today

What is an AI sales assistant?

First things first: what is an AI sales assistant?

The sales cycle consists of countless tasks and processes. Each one is necessary, but it requires a lot of time and effort.

An AI sales assistant is a tool or application that leverages artificial intelligence (including machine learning, natural language processing, and predictive analytics) to streamline and simplify the sales process and support sellers. AI sales assistants are also referred to by other names including

  • Virtual sales assistants
  • AI-powered sales assistants
  • AI virtual sales assistants

AI-guided selling tools can streamline simple yet time-consuming tasks like data entry and meeting scheduling. This technology can also be used for more complex tasks, including prospecting, meeting preparation, and follow-up. We’ll look closely at specific use cases for AI sales assistants later.

Why are so many revenue organizations embracing AI sales assistants?

Why are so many revenue organizations embracing AI sales assistants?

AI virtual sales assistants streamline and automate many tasks that sellers once had to do independently. That means sellers have more time to provide personalized experiences that resonate with buyers and earn their business. Sellers can close more deals faster.

Furthermore, AI-powered sales assistants take the guesswork out of the sales process. Rather than acting on a hunch or gut feeling, sales reps can leverage data to determine what action to take next. This improves outcomes and accelerates the sales cycle.

The bottom line? AI sales assistants can increase the effectiveness and efficiency of your sales reps and streamline the sales cycle. Your sellers will be better equipped to engage buyers and close deals, and your bottom line will grow.

Conversation intelligence vs. AI sales assistants

You’ve probably heard the term “conversation intelligence” at least once or twice. But is conversation intelligence the sales thing as an AI sales assistant?

Conversation intelligence and AI sales assistants are certainly related, but they’re not the same.

What is conversation intelligence?

Conversation intelligence (or an AI sales call assistant) is a technology that leverages AI to record, transcribe, and analyze sales calls to provide more insight into customer interactions.

A conversation intelligence solution like Mindtickle’s Call AI analyzes each call and provides a score as well as feedback on things like:

  • Sentiment
  • Questions asked and answered
  • Monologues
  • Use of filler words
  • Competitor mentions
  • Objections
  • Pain points

With a conversation intelligence solution, sales reps can focus on the call rather than taking notes. Reps can use conversation intelligence to review calls and follow up with AI-generated action items. In addition, conversation intelligence provides sales reps with real-time feedback on each call, which they can use to improve their behaviors and chances of closing the deal.

Sales managers can also use AI sales call assistants to see how things are going in the field without sitting in on sales reps’ calls. Managers can use the insights from conversation intelligence to provide targeted coaching that improves sales reps’ skills and behaviors.

What’s the difference between conversation intelligence and AI sales assistants?

AI-powered sales assistants are a technology category that streamlines sales processes and tasks and supports sellers. Conversation intelligence is one type of AI sales assistant specifically addressing customer interactions.

However, other AI sales assistants address another element (or elements) of the sales process.

How can you use an AI sales assistant to support your sales team?

AI sales assistants can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of your sellers. But getting started with an AI-powered sales assistant can seem overwhelming.

It doesn’t have to be. Start with one or two use cases, optimize them, and grow from there.

Here’s how AI sales assistants can empower your sellers to close more deals.

Delivering powerful insights for data-driven decision-making

Chances are, you have no shortage of data. But analyzing it and determining how to act on it can seem impossible.

AI sales assistants can analyze data from disparate sources and provide meaningful insights, fueling better decision-making.

Enabling sellers to prioritize their time properly

Sales reps only have so many hours in the day. Of course, you want them to spend their time with prospects most likely to convert. But often, this requires a lot of guesswork.

An AI sales assistant can leverage predictive analytics to determine which leads will likely convert to customers. Then, your teams can use that insight to prioritize properly.

Analyzing customer interactions

Every interaction with a customer is rich with insight. An AI sales assistant can transcribe and analyze each interaction to deliver insights that enable sales reps to improve the customer experience and sales outcomes. Sales reps can also use these insights to determine next steps and prepare for future meetings.
Accessing real-time feedback to improve skills

Sales coaching is key to improving performance, but sales reps can’t afford to sit around and wait for feedback from their managers.

An AI sales assistant can analyze client interactions and recorded Role Plays and provide real-time feedback for improvement. Sales reps can use feedback delivered via AI sales coaching to sharpen their skills and increase their likelihood of closing deals.

Some innovative vendors also offer interactive, AI-powered Role Plays, which allow sales reps to practice their skills in realistic scenarios with an AI bot.

Getting proven content recommendations

Content is an important part of the B2B sales process. But often, sales reps waste precious time searching for content – which may or may not work for a specific sales scenario.

An AI assistant can leverage data and buyer signals to recommend the right content for every situation. Rather than guessing what will work, sales reps can use content that’s proven to work. An AI sales assistant can even draft a contextual message for the sales rep to send alongside the content.

Answering customers’ questions – quickly

Prospects are bound to have questions. It’s important to get them accurate answers – quickly.

In the past, a sales rep would pose a question (perhaps on Slack or another communication channel) and then wait for a response from a subject matter expert. With an AI sales assistant, the rep can ask their question and get an answer—along with approved, relevant resources to share with the customer.

Automating tedious tasks

According to Salesforce research, sales reps spend less than 30% of their time selling. That’s because tedious (but necessary) tasks often bog them down.

Sales reps spend only

of their time selling
0 %

An AI sales assistant can automate many of these mundane tasks. That means sellers can spend more time engaging buyers, delivering great experiences, and closing deals.

What is the best AI sales assistant software?

With the right AI sales assistant software, you can significantly improve the performance of your entire sales team. But what’s the best AI sales assistant software available today?

There’s no easy answer. The best AI sales assistant software is the one that addresses the needs and goals of your organization.

However, some AI sales assistant software tools are particularly popular.

Mindtickle

Some AI sales assistant software addresses a single challenge or pain point. Mindtickle addresses several.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that incorporates onboarding, sales training, content, coaching, conversation intelligence, and more—all from one platform. Revenue enablement teams can build, deliver, and measure personalized programs that address the needs of each seller. Sellers can access everything they need to be ready for any deal—all from one platform.

Mindtickle Copilot, Mindtickle’s AI sales assistant tool, enables sales reps to work smarter and faster.

With Mindtickle Copilot, sales reps can automate tedious tasks, freeing up their time to delight customers. For example, sales reps can use Mindtickle Copilot to draft follow-up messages and identify insights from previous customer interactions. They can also ask questions and get real-time answers, along with supporting resources.

In addition, Mindtickle Copilot enables sellers to leverage data to make better decisions. Sales reps can determine what action to take next to move a deal forward or get suggestions for content that has resonated in similar scenarios to share with a seller.

Mindtickle also leverages AI to deliver real-time feedback to sales reps. For example, a seller receives a score and feedback from each sales conversation via conversation intelligence. They can use this feedback to improve and increase their chances of closing the deal.

Sales reps can also submit recorded Role Plays or engage in interactive, AI-powered Role Plays. In either case, the rep gets immediate feedback for improving their behaviors without having to wait around for a sales manager.

interactive role-play

Drift

Increasingly, B2B buyers make decisions based on their experiences with a business. Drift is an AI sales assistant tool that listens and learns from buyers. It uses this data to provide personalized experiences to buyers throughout the purchase journey. Revenue teams use Drift to engage with prospects, book meetings, and pre-qualify leads.

Clari

Clari is a popular revenue platform that helps teams engage buyers, optimize the sales process, and predict revenue outcomes. It incorporates Clari Copilot, an AI sales assistant that makes it easier for teams to make revenue calls, analyze deals, forecast sales, and more.

ZoomInfo

Any sales rep knows that prospecting is important. But it can take a lot of time and effort to ensure you’re connecting with the right people at the right companies. ZoomInfo is a popular prospecting platform that helps sales reps ensure they’re connecting with people who are a good fit for their products or services. ZoomInfo Copilot is an AI sales assistant that helps sellers know which accounts to prioritize and how best to engage them.

Gong

Gong is a popular revenue intelligence platform that helps teams better understand customer interactions. It leverages AI to deliver insights based on customer interactions. When you better understand your customer interactions, you can more effectively act on them and know what step to take next to engage them.

It’s time to embrace AI sales assistants to supercharge sales performance

Already, winning revenue organizations are tapping into AI sales assistants to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of their sales teams and deliver winning experiences that delight customers.

Competition is fierce. You risk getting left behind if you’re not already leveraging AI today.

Now’s the time to identify ways your organization can leverage AI sales assistants to streamline the sales process and support sellers as they engage buyers and close deals.

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10 Sales Training Topics to Help Your Team Get (and Stay) Sales Ready https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/10-sales-training-topics-to-help-your-team-get-and-stay-sales-ready/ Wed, 04 Sep 2024 08:58:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13654 Sales training and coaching are often reserved for new hires and low performers. For the rest of the team, training may be limited to a brief refresher during the annual sales kickoff. But this approach to sales training isn’t as effective as we’d like to think. In many cases, this is because revenue organizations only …

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Sales training and coaching are often reserved for new hires and low performers. For the rest of the team, training may be limited to a brief refresher during the annual sales kickoff.

But this approach to sales training isn’t as effective as we’d like to think. In many cases, this is because revenue organizations only cover a few training topics with their sales professionals.

To improve the effectiveness of training (and your entire sales enablement program), you must continually cover a full range of sales training topics. This will help all your reps build the skills and knowledge required for any selling scenario.

Sales training topics

  1. Pipeline management
  2. Prospecting and outreach
  3. Qualifying leads
  4. Call planning
  5. Building relationships with customers
  6. Identifying customer needs
  7. Presenting the value of your products
  8. Competitor knowledge
  9. Managing objections
  10. Closing deals

1. Pipeline management

Your sales reps need to be able to build their pipeline, prioritize leads and prospects based on lead quality and sales urgency, and measure their results.

In fact, research suggests that effective pipeline management is closely linked to rep performance.

However, a recent survey found that generating and converting a healthy pipeline is a top challenge among revenue professionals.

Training in pipeline management can set junior team members up for success. They’ll be able to keep track of all their deals in your CRM, know what pipeline stage their deals are at, and determine whether they have enough conversations in progress to hit quota.

2. Prospecting and outreach

Sales prospecting and outreach are two competencies that go hand in hand. Business development reps (BDRs) need to find and identify good-fit potential customers and then craft compelling messages to engage them. According to a Salesforce report, sellers spend about 17% of their time each week prospecting and researching potential customers to ensure they fit your ideal customer profile (ICP).

Sellers spend about

of their time prospecting and researching
0 %

Top performers spend even more time researching their prospects. According to a LinkedIn report, 82% of top performers say they always perform research prior to reaching out to prospects, compared to 49% of other sellers.

Cold calling and outreach emails are essential skills for BDRs to master if they want to bring new prospects into their pipeline. You can provide training and coaching via verbal and written role-plays to help reps practice these core skills. In fact, we found that learning to prepare cold email intros is the top use case for written role-plays by BDRs in the Mindtickle platform.

3. Qualifying leads

Nurturing or repeatedly contacting bad-fit leads is a waste of your reps’ time and energy. Furthermore, following up with a prospect they know isn’t interested is one of the top frustrations reps have with their jobs. And if a lead is a bad fit, they’re more likely to book time with your reps but never show up.

One way to cover this in sales training and revenue enablement is to share bite-size quizzes to test reps’ ability to qualify leads and their familiarity with your ICP. Then, if you identify knowledge gaps that may be affecting their lead qualification capabilities, you can follow up with AI-driven coaching.

4. Call planning

Your sellers need to know how best to prepare and plan for a call with a prospect at every stage of the sales cycle. For initial calls, sellers need to make a good first impression. They must build rapport with prospects and become trusted advisors for later calls.

Oracle found that 11% of prospects ignore sellers because the seller wasn’t properly prepared for their conversation. Call planning is essential for all sellers.

of callers ignore sellers because the seller wasn't prepared
0 %

You can create training materials such as pre-call checklists or run practice calls for product demos, discovery calls, or closing calls. These will allow your sellers to appear professional, knowledgeable, and trustworthy to prospects.

5. Building relationships with customers

Relationship building is another essential skill because, even in B2B sales, you’re still dealing with another person. According to research from Forrester, trust is the most important factor contributing to whether or not a company will do business with you. So it’s essential that your reps get training and coaching to help them foster relationships and earn prospects’ trust.

Trust is the most important factor contributing to whether or not a company will do business with you.
Forrester Research

Use tools like Mindtickle’s Call AI to record and analyze calls with prospects. It looks at reps’ confidence, talk time, clarity, and sentiment to understand their behavior on calls. It then identifies areas to improve. You can use these insights as a starting point for your coaching sessions or share dedicated training exercises to help them further develop the necessary skills.

6. Identifying customer needs

Research tells us nearly nine in ten B2B buyers are more likely to purchase if the seller understands their goals. Yet, nearly 60% of these buyers say most sales reps don’t take the time to understand their needs and goals.
of buyers say reps don't understand their needs or goals
0 %

This is an immediate deal killer.

Sellers need to be able to identify customers’ pain points so they can show how your product will solve them. If they can identify customer challenges and needs, they can tailor the conversation to address those challenges and focus on the features and use cases that are most relevant to the customer.

You can listen back to call recordings or view call analyses, then score reps based on their ability to identify customer needs. If reps struggle with this, you can run training exercises such as practice calls or role-plays to give them more opportunities to develop their abilities in a low-pressure setting. Manager-led coaching helps provide personalized coaching to all your sellers, targeted to their individual needs. 

7. Presenting the value of your products

Sellers not understanding their product or service is another deal killer for many buyers. Your reps need to be able to provide effective demos that illustrate how your products will save buyers time, money, or effort. They need to be able to show the value of your product and not just run through a list of features.

You can provide different training formats for this:

  • Short quizzes to test product knowledge
  • Practice demos and virtual role-plays
  • Dedicated training sessions from your product team when you roll out new features

Product training will help your reps learn how to use your product and ensure they can accurately present its value to potential customers.

8. Competitor knowledge

Prospects will not just speak to your sales team but also compare different product options. A recent survey found that 57% of sales leaders feel competition has increased since last year.

of sales leaders feel competition has increased in the last year
0 %

You need to be able to show how you measure up against your competitors. Familiarity with other products in your space is essential knowledge for sales reps, as not understanding competitors’ products and services may make buyers less likely to continue with a specific seller.

Train your reps on your competitors’ products by creating battle cards or in-depth instructor-led training sessions to review the key differences and where your product excels against the competition. Then, test reps’ knowledge with quizzes that review the training session’s material. Spaced reinforcement helps improve information retention, so your reps can speak confidently about your competitors months after their training session.

9. Managing objections

Our research found that 54% of sales calls contain “more negative sentiment than positive,” with negative sentiment “including anger, uncertainty, hesitancy, competitive mentions, objections, disappointment, and tentativeness.”

of sales calls contain more negative sentiment than positive
0 %

Managing objections is an important skill to master because no buyer will say “yes” right away. Your reps need to be able to confidently address concerns to reassure prospects that they’re making the right choice with your product.

Dedicated training will help reps improve their ability to handle the most common objections in the sales process. To practice this essential skill, you can have reps complete practice calls or virtual role-plays.

10. Closing deals

If an account executive can’t close a deal, they won’t last long in sales. Fortunately, research has identified some of the most important factors that consistently influence buyer behavior – and a rep’s ability to close deals:

  • Trust in the brand
  • Price
  • Return on investment
  • Trust in the salesperson
  • Salesperson’s industry knowledge

If you’ve already worked the nine previous topics into your sales training, you’ll be well on your way to addressing all of these, but you can also provide specific coaching to help your reps master conversations around pricing.

Improve rep performance by covering a wide range of sales training topics

Sellers face constant change, so the more frequent and varied training and coaching you can provide, the better equipped they are to adapt to different selling conditions, buyer needs, and market changes. Don’t limit sales training to just onboarding or a couple of topics during sales kickoffs. Instead, create a culture of continual learning and improvement to help your sellers excel.

Technology is a key component of any sales training strategy. With the right sales training software, you can deliver relevant sales training that empowers each seller to master the knowledge and skills they need for success.

Sales Training in Mindtickle

Ready to see why Mindtickle is ranked as the #1 sales training and onboarding solution on G2 based on feedback from your peers?

Get Your Demo

This post was originally published in May 2022 and was updated in September 2024. 

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Mindtickle Named G2’s #1 Sales Training & Onboarding Solution For 5th Year in a Row https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mindtickle-named-g2s-1-sales-training-amp-onboarding-solution-for-5th-year-in-a-row/ Tue, 03 Sep 2024 13:57:16 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20021 Every sales leader knows onboarding and ongoing sales training are key to preparing sellers for success. A strong program – powered by the right sales onboarding platform – ensures your sellers have what it takes to deliver winning experiences, delight customers, and close deals. But what is the right sales onboarding product for your organization? …

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Every sales leader knows onboarding and ongoing sales training are key to preparing sellers for success. A strong program – powered by the right sales onboarding platform – ensures your sellers have what it takes to deliver winning experiences, delight customers, and close deals.

But what is the right sales onboarding product for your organization? If you’re like most people, you turn to G2 to get insight on the best sales onboarding and training solution for your business.

Mindtickle is G2’s #1 sales training and sales onboarding solution

No matter your business challenge, numerous vendors offer solutions to address it. In fact, many buyers find themselves overwhelmed with the number of options available to them.

G2’s rankings enable software buyers to make better purchase decisions.

Sales onboarding software shoppers rely on peer reviews

Each sales onboarding tool is unique. Each comes with its own set of features and functionality. It can be challenging to sift through your options and determine which solution will solve your business’s unique challenges and deliver ROI.

Modern consumers rely on feedback from their peers when purchasing just about anything. Software is no exception. According to G2, 86% of buyers use peer-review sites when purchasing software. In addition, 31% of buyers consult review sites more frequently than any other source.

Today, many sales enablement solutions address just one or two challenges to preparing sellers for success. This approach is ineffective and inefficient and leaves sellers feeling overwhelmed.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one platform that incorporates sales training, onboarding, content, digital sales rooms, and more. It combines on-the-job learning with deal execution, which improves reps’ behaviors and performance.

With Mindtickle, you can build, deliver, and measure personalized sales training and enablement programs that boost performance across your entire team – all from one location. In addition, Mindtickle delivers a seamless experience for your revenue teams. Sellers have a single source for everything they need to grow their skills, engage buyers, and close more deals.

of buyers use peer review sites
0 %
consult them more than other sources
0 %

G2 is the go-to destination for accessing your software options. It’s no wonder why more than 90 million people turn to G2 to research, compare, and purchase software each year.

Mindtickle tops the list of sales training and sales onboarding software

B2B buyers depend on G2 to identify top software solutions. Since 2019, Mindtickle has ranked as G2’s #1 sales training and onboarding solution based on authentic user reviews.

In fact, Mindtickle ranks #1 both in terms of user satisfaction and market presence.

What sets Mindtickle above the rest?

Today, many sales enablement solutions address just one or two challenges to preparing sellers for success. This approach is ineffective and inefficient and leaves sellers feeling overwhelmed.

See why Mindtickle ranks as G2’s #1 sales training and onboarding solution

Sales training and onboarding are foundational to ensuring your sales reps have what it takes to engage buyers and close deals. Choosing the right sales onboarding solution is key.

With Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement solution, you can deliver effective, holistic sales training, onboarding, and enablement that improves your sales team’s behavior. As team performance improves, your revenue will grow.

See for Yourself

Ready to get a closer look at G2’s #1 sales training and onboarding solution?

Get a Personalized Demo

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The End of Traditional Sales Coaching: Why AI Role-Play is Taking Over https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-end-of-traditional-sales-coaching-why-ai-role-play-is-taking-over/ Fri, 30 Aug 2024 14:51:49 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20078 Each seller on your team needs consistent, quality sales coaching to be successful. That includes your all-stars, your lowest performers, and everyone in between. When done well, sales coaching contributes to better outcomes. Research tells us that effective sales coaching can boost key metrics, including win rates and quota attainment—not to mention engagement and retention. …

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Each seller on your team needs consistent, quality sales coaching to be successful. That includes your all-stars, your lowest performers, and everyone in between.

When done well, sales coaching contributes to better outcomes. Research tells us that effective sales coaching can boost key metrics, including win rates and quota attainment—not to mention engagement and retention.

A recent analysis found that top-performing sales reps receive four times more coaching than the average rep. That’s no coincidence.

Top-performing reps receive

more coaching than the average rep
0 x

But traditional sales coaching methods are rapidly becoming obsolete in today’s sales environment.

Today, innovative sales leaders are turning to AI-driven coaching solutions to ensure each sales rep has what it takes to deliver outstanding experiences and close more deals. Read on as we explore why this shift is necessary – and how it’s transforming sales coaching dynamics.

The rise of AI feedback

Sales reps have always relied on manager feedback to improve performance and outcomes.

But traditionally, sellers were at the mercy of their manager’s schedule. When sellers wanted real-time feedback, they had no choice but to wait around for it.

The era of waiting around for manager feedback is over. Modern sales reps seek immediate, actionable insights they can leverage to hone their skills immediately. AI makes this possible with AI Role Plays that facilitate on-demand simulated sales conversations in hyper-realistic sales scenarios and give immediate qualitative and quantitative feedback.

interactive role-play

Not surprisingly, generative AI Role Play scenarios are becoming sellers’ preferred choice. These AI-powered role-plays provide real-time feedback on your sentiment, speech pace, objection handling, and much more, empowering sales reps to refine their techniques more efficiently than traditional coaching ever would. Sales reps can fine-tune their skills faster, which means they can accelerate and close more deals.

An AI-first coaching approach is favored by sales reps and managers

Both sales reps and managers are gravitating toward an AI-first approach to sales coaching. It’s easy to see why.

An AI approach enables sales managers to boost performance across their entire team by addressing each sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses. However, sales managers don’t have to waste time on ineffective, inefficient sales coaching practices.

On the other hand, reps appreciate the opportunity to practice role-playing with an AI buyer multiple times in a no-judgment environment. This repetitive practice—coupled with instant feedback and suggestions for improvement from AI—ensures that sales reps’ skills are significantly honed when they seek input from their manager.

The practice itself is the goal, not perfection. We see that our customers practice 4-6 times before they submit.

Mindtickle customers practice

times before submitting
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This practice with a dynamic AI buyer who throws out objections allows reps to get comfortable with their talk tracks and be ready to tackle any real customer’s objection.

Traditional coaching has limitations

The responsibility of sales coaching once rested solely on the shoulders of sales managers. But as the size of their teams and list of responsibilities grow, many sales managers simply don’t have enough time to spend on one-to-one development.

That means sales coaching often goes by the wayside. In 2023, the average number of monthly coaching sessions a rep receives decreased year over year.

Traditional coaching methods are slow and resource-intensive. Sales managers must listen to live or recorded sales calls or role-plays and then deliver meaningful feedback. Multiplying this across a team of reps quickly becomes a heavy burden for even the best sales managers.

AI can simulate a wide range of realistic sales scenarios, from discovery conversations to competitive differentiation conversations to price negotiation conversations. This allows reps to practice their skills and get meaningful feedback without taking valuable time from their managers.

The role of sales leaders in coaching is evolving

AI is transforming sales coaching, but that doesn’t mean sales managers will soon be uninvolved.

It will just change.

Direct interaction between a manager and a rep is key to building trust, strengthening interpersonal relationships, and improving performance. That will never change. However, sales managers’ role in coaching is evolving – arguably for the better.

Today, AI is equipped to handle the bulk of feedback and practice—the time-consuming, day-to-day elements of delivering a personalized sales coaching program.

For instance, say your reps struggle with discovery. Sales enablement can work with sales managers to set up a hyper-realistic scenario that maps to your industry and buyer persona that reps can use to practice their discovery chops. The more they practice, the better they will get at uncovering buyer pains and needs.

This role-play practice can lead to real and meaningful skill coaching rather than the tactical deal coaching that often tends to bring in revenue.

Thanks to AI, sales managers are no longer bogged down by the details of day-to-day coaching. Instead, they can focus on overarching goals and personalized team development plans.

Sales coaching will never be the same

Sales coaching will always be a key ingredient of sales success. But the landscape of sales coaching is fundamentally changing. And that’s a good thing.

Self-serve, contextual AI-driven role-plays and feedback in the flow of work won’t just enhance how sales reps practice their skills but will be the death of traditional sales coaching.

Combining AI efficiency with strategic oversight from sales leaders creates a more dynamic, effective coaching model.

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Mindtickle Named a Leader in the 2024 Forrester Revenue Enablement Wave https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mindtickle-named-a-leader-in-the-2024-forrester-revenue-enablement-wave/ Wed, 28 Aug 2024 16:59:47 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=20072 We’re honored to announce that Mindtickle has been recognized as a leader in The Forrester Wave: Revenue Enablement Platforms, Q3 2024. We believe this rating highlights our commitment to evolving the modern revenue org’s approach to enabling their reps to generate, grow, and protect revenue. What is the Forrester Wave™? Forrester publishes Wave reports for …

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We’re honored to announce that Mindtickle has been recognized as a leader in The Forrester Wave: Revenue Enablement Platforms, Q3 2024. We believe this rating highlights our commitment to evolving the modern revenue org’s approach to enabling their reps to generate, grow, and protect revenue.

What is the Forrester Wave™?

Forrester publishes Wave reports for various software categories, authored by their analysts who work closely with companies making purchasing decisions in these spaces.

This new report is Forrester’s first covering revenue enablement platforms, characterized by a consolidated approach to supporting Sales Readiness and Sales Content management. It lists the 12 most significant vendors in the space, compares their functionality, and describes their offerings for those looking to purchase.

Forrester’s evaluation is important because it represents an authoritative, third-party perspective on a growing list of competitive providers.

Using the Wave, buyers can make more informed decisions that prioritize the functionality and use cases that are most important to them.

We believe being recognized as a Leader in this report validates Mindtickle’s current offering and underscores our innovative outlook as we plan for the future.

Results of the 2024 Forrester Revenue Enablement Wave

Naming Mindtickle as a Leader, report author Eric Zines states, “Mindtickle delivers a full-featured platform backed by a strong innovation roadmap.” He describes our offering, including some important details for those evaluating Mindtickle for revenue enablement.

“Mindtickle delivers a full-featured platform backed by a strong innovation roadmap.”
Eric Zines
Principal Analyst, Forrester

Our key takeaways

As a “full-featured platform,” we received on-par or better scores in every criterion in the report. This reflects our ability to serve a wide array of use cases and meet customers where they are with solutions for onboarding, everboarding, buyer enablement, and more.

Receiving top scores possible in the “Innovation” and “Roadmap” criteria indicates that we have a strong plan for our product and will continue to drive this space forward. Partnering with our customers, we hope to build and validate use cases that will be included in similar future reports.

Forrester also sourced feedback from users of the revenue enablement vendors in the report. According to the Forrester report, Mindtickle’s “reference customers rave about Mindtickle’s dedication to customer success…” We believe that what truly separates vendors from each other is how well they partner with their customers to make them successful, so we couldn’t be prouder to hear this feedback.

Forrester choosing to publish a new Wave report in this category will help solidify the value of a consolidated revenue enablement platform for B2B buyers. Instead of acquiring and paying for numerous point solutions, companies can invest in one platform that meets their needs for readiness, sales content management, Digital Sales Rooms, coaching, and more. Doing so positions them to benefit from cross-platform workflows, including AI capabilities that drive efficiency through a centralized seller experience.

As we continue to lead the charge in revenue enablement, we remain dedicated to evolving our solutions to meet the market’s ever-changing needs.

The Forrester Wave: Revenue Enablement Platforms, Q3 2024

Get the full report for more information on how Mindtickle can help your organization achieve its sales and revenue goals.

Get a Copy

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Mindtickle Named a Leader in Revenue Enablement Platforms by Top Analyst Firm https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-named-a-leader-in-revenue-enablement-platforms-by-top-analyst-firm/ Tue, 27 Aug 2024 04:32:21 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=news&p=20059 SAN FRANCISCO – August 27, 2024 – Today, Mindtickle has been recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Revenue Enablement Platforms, Q3 2024. This is the first time Forrester has published an evaluative report on vendors in this category, which author Eric Zines characterizes as a convergence of the Sales Content Management and Sales …

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SAN FRANCISCO – August 27, 2024 – Today, Mindtickle has been recognized as a Leader in The Forrester Wave™: Revenue Enablement Platforms, Q3 2024. This is the first time Forrester has published an evaluative report on vendors in this category, which author Eric Zines characterizes as a convergence of the Sales Content Management and Sales Readiness categories. Forrester used 32 criteria to evaluate the 12 most significant revenue enablement platforms, ranking Mindtickle the highest possible score in nine criteria, including “efficiency/upside benefits” for sellers and managers/coaches.

According to the Forrester report, “Mindtickle delivers a full-featured platform backed by a strong innovation roadmap,” adding that “Mindtickle is best for enterprise-level customers who want an integrated enablement solution from a vendor that values collaboration in their development roadmap and has the ability to transform their sales L&D efforts.” Forrester weighs current offerings in its evaluative reports and vendors’ vision and direction.

“This recognition as a Leader not only highlights for us our innovation but also our deep commitment to our customers’ success,” said Krishna Depura, CEO and co-founder of Mindtickle. “We believe that our true impact is measured by the results we help our customers achieve—results that empower them to reach and exceed their revenue goals.”

As part of the process, Forrester received direct input from current customers of the participating vendors. According to Forrester, “Reference customers rave about Mindtickle’s dedication to customer success and highlight the ease of sharing content…in a tailored, elegant manner that provides insights and feedback on content usage.”

The Mindtickle Revenue Enablement Platform helps companies win more and expand fast, keeping teams up to speed with market changes and buyers’ needs with training, content management, coaching, call insights, and digital sales rooms. Mindtickle serves the entire revenue organization, powering sales, marketing, customer success, and more.

In the report, Forrester emphasized how revenue enablement platforms leverage AI to make sellers and managers more efficient and effective. Over the past year, Mindtickle has invested significantly in generative AI, enhancing efficiency and customer value with Copilot. Mindtickle’s latest Copilot functionality includes interactive AI role-plays, enabling revenue teams to deliver realistic practice scenarios at scale so reps can perfect their pitch before money is on the line.

To learn more about why Forrester Research named Mindtickle a Leader in revenue enablement platforms, read the report here.

About Mindtickle

Mindtickle is the market-leading revenue enablement platform that combines on-the-job learning and deal execution to drive behavior change and get more revenue per rep. Mindtickle is recognized as a market leader by top industry analysts and is ranked by G2 as the #1 sales onboarding and training product. This year, Mindtickle won a Bronze Stevie Award for Technology Excellence.

Media Contact:
Andrea Weinfurt
andrea.weinfurt@www.mindtickle.com

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5 Essential Sales Productivity Tools to Boost Sales Team Performance  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-essential-sales-productivity-tools-to-boost-sales-team-performance/ Wed, 21 Aug 2024 08:47:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=16010 Even the best sales teams have room for improvement. According to Salesforce research, 84% of sales reps missed quota in 2023, and 67% don’t expect to meet their targets this year. According to research of reps don’t expect to make quota this year 0 % It’s no wonder why so many revenue teams invest in …

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Even the best sales teams have room for improvement. According to Salesforce research, 84% of sales reps missed quota in 2023, and 67% don’t expect to meet their targets this year.

According to research

of reps don't expect to make quota this year
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It’s no wonder why so many revenue teams invest in tools and technology to boost sales productivity and performance. Around 70% of sales leaders report 10 or more tools in their tech stacks.

There’s certainly no shortage of solutions to your sales productivity challenges. But investing in a sales productivity tool doesn’t guarantee it’ll impact team performance.

Instead, it’s important to determine which sales productivity tools will drive a return – and then invest accordingly.

Read on as we explore:

  • The advantages the right sales productivity tools can provide to your company
  • The essential solutions and features to look out for when improving sales productivity at your company
  • The top five sales productivity tool “must haves”
  • Our recommendations and best practices

What is sales productivity?

Simply put, sales productivity is how efficient and effective your sales executives are at hitting various revenue milestones and goals. Of course, just because reps make more calls and send more emails does not necessarily mean they are progressing sales or generating revenue.

So what is a sales productivity tool? 

At Mindtickle, we define a sales productivity tool as anything that improves and measures reps’ skills, will, and in-field behaviors.

That might include tools that hold reps accountable, such as email and call activity tracking; those that empower reps to better prepare for meetings and follow-up, such as Content Management Systems (CMS); and solutions that arm reps with insights that help them drive specific deals and accounts forward more effectively.

After reading this post, you’ll be able to understand:

  • The advantages the right sales productivity tools can provide to your company
  • The essential solutions and features to look out for when improving sales productivity at your company
  • The top five sales productivity tool “must haves”
  • Our recommendations and best practices

Why are sales productivity tools important for your business?

The most powerful benefit of sales productivity tools is that they help reps win more business by holding reps accountable, saving them time, and helping them deliver a better, faster customer experience.

This has a butterfly effect that improves revenue metrics like quota attainment, pipeline coverage, number of at bats, average contract value, average cycle time, and even customer lifetime value.

At the same time, these tools align cross-functional members of revenue teams by providing a high degree of transparency and visibility while centralizing access to things like content, training, and insights.

With sales productivity tools, your team can do things like:

  • Search for potential buyers to set meetings with them
  • Grow, develop, and convert sales opportunities throughout the sales cycle
  • Understand areas of opportunity to improve their performance
  • Do more with less time and facilitate better hand-offs or deal collaboration
  • Access content and insights that can help move deals forward faster and personalize the customer experience
  • Learn from the winning attitudes and skills of top peers
  • Keep up-to-date on new strategies, product launches, competitors, and market approaches
  • Keep track of activity, pipeline, and progress toward goals

Modern sales productivity tools make your entire sales process more simple, measurable, and effective. This can result in benefits like:

  • Faster onboarding and revenue contribution
  • More opportunities in the pipeline
  • Higher conversion and win rates
  • Improved performance against competitors
  • Better understanding of winning playbook
  • Increased renewal rates
  • Improved rep performance and retention
  • Improved forecasting
  • Tighter alignment around customer needs

What are the top benefits of sales productivity tools?

Now that we know what sales productivity tools are and why they’re important for your business, let’s look at the top five benefits these tools deliver.

1. Manual data entry & note-taking is eliminated

In 2024, the days of manually inputting deal data into Salesforce and trusting it’s correct are over. This method wastes a lot of time and often results in a complete, inaccurate view of your sales pipeline. It also gravely reduces your organization’s ability to compete by limiting access to voice of customer insights.

Investing in tools like revenue and conversation intelligence that automatically transcribe every call, email, and meeting while scoring deal health is critical.  After all, teams that use conversation intelligence have lower churn rates and close more deals.

These tools also help reps self-coach by proactively flagging any deal risks, issues with buyer sentiment, or competitor mentions that must be addressed to move deals forward faster. As reps move into new roles or leave the company, it’s much easier to ensure no deal or account falls through the cracks by facilitating best-in-class hand-offs.

2. Personalized customer experience

To improve sales productivity, it’s critical that reps can quickly find relevant content to nurture leads, follow up with prospects promptly, and convince important decision-makers of the value your products provide.

Today, half of all customer engagement comes from only 10% of content created. That’s why investing in a sales content management system, or CMS, that helps reps know what content is new, suggested, and preferred by peers is key to boosting customer engagement and wins. The ideal content management system to improve sales productivity helps reps know what content they can use to drive a deal forward without even thinking.

Ideally, it will be integrated with your conversation and revenue intelligence solutions so that the system can suggest valuable assets to reps based on what was said in previous emails and calls, such as a competitor mention.

At the same time, your CMS should include a feature like Digital Sales Rooms to help reps personalize the buyer experience and understand which assets buyers viewed or shared. Since improving pipeline is critical to sales productivity, DSRs automatically identify new potential leads who visit and automatically upload them to your CRM so they can be nurtured through marketing programs.

3. Valuable voice of the market and financial insights

Since it’s a given that today’s inside sales teams must use a tool to email and call prospects en masse, such as Outreach.IO, we’re not going to put that on our list of must-haves. But sending generic emails and making calls is not enough. Every interaction must provide value and be highly personalized.

There are many ways to do this at scale. The first is to use a tool like Databook to uncover market and financial insights that will help your reps prioritize accounts and determine what business challenges your solution will need to solve. These insights can also help you write emails that inspire urgency, build better proposals, and make ROI-driven business cases.

When paired with tools like conversation and revenue intelligence that summarize key themes discussed in calls and emails that you can reference in follow-ups and suggest next steps or action items, reps can quickly ensure they’re doing the right things to drive deals home.

Insights on buyer engagement, such as whether reps have the right volume and title of prospects accepting their meetings and responding to emails, are also crucial to ensuring reps focus on truly winnable deals and don’t waste time.

4. Opportunities to practice and self-coach

A traditional approach to enablement does not drive sales productivity on its own. Reps need to quickly learn best practices from peers, practice, and improve independently.

Another way conversation intelligence solutions can improve sales productivity is by providing reps with access to call snippets and playlists of best practice calls. Organizations can build playlists around key competencies such as discovery calls, objection handling, how to lead the perfect demo, competitor smackdowns, pricing/negotiation, and more. They also share examples of what top reps do and say on calls about new products and services.

enablement-certification-white

At the same time, these tools provide immediate feedback to reps on how they compare to peers. Some of the best conversation intelligence insights reps can use to self-coach include understanding if they’re driving a customer monologue of a minute or more, measuring if they’re getting customers to ask or answer 12-14 questions, and trying to maintain a balanced talk time where reps speak 60% of the time or less.

5. Scale and measure coaching

Last but certainly not least, it’s critical that you not only provide sales productivity tools for reps but also for your front-line managers. One of their biggest challenges is they cannot find the time to coach and get pulled into too many different directions. When they have time to show up for 1-to-1s and offer coaching, they do not often have valuable, highly relevant data on how to help each rep and simply resort to doing deal reviews on the fly.

This is not productive, and it does not scale.

Instead, managers need sales productivity tools to run an end-to-end coaching workflow and measure performance improvement over time.

At Mindtickle, our coaching workflow starts with conversation and revenue intelligence. Every day, our managers can see exactly which deals are healthy and a detailed snapshot of all the calls, emails, and meetings associated with them. They can then show up to 1-to-1s more prepared to discuss how healthy a rep’s pipeline is and where they might be able to offer deal-specific support.

At the same time, our enablement team provides managers with a detailed report on which skills and competencies their team and individual reps need to develop each quarter. This data is provided via our Sales Readiness Index, a comprehensive way to benchmark which reps have the skills, will, and demonstrated in-field behaviors they need to drive deals home – or not.

Based on data like the Sales Readiness Index, managers can see how reps compare to their peers on various competencies, such as buyer engagement, outreach activity, objection handling, competitor win rates, and more. By comparing how reps perform on various competencies to the ideal rep profile created for each role on the revenue team, managers can know exactly who to coach on what topics without much thinking.

Managers can then immediately create and track the coaching as complete. Or, they can sort and filter through a list of recent calls to provide more comprehensive feedback on specific interactions with call scorecards.

At the same time, managers can collaborate closely with enablement and revenue operations teams by helping them understand which reps are ready to hit quota and where they can provide cross-functional support.

What are some of the best sales productivity tools?

Sales productivity tools can deliver significant benefits to both sellers and sales managers. With the right tools, your entire sales team can be more effective and efficient. In other words, sellers can close more deals—and do so faster.

Today, many tools are available that promise to boost sales productivity. But every sales productivity tool is different.

Which sales productivity tools are the best for your business? There’s no easy answer. It’s important to determine your goals and challenges when it comes to sales productivity. Then, you must find the sales productivity tools that best suit your unique needs and goals.

The truth is, there’s no “one-size-fits-all” sales productivity tool. However, the following are some of the most popular sales productivity tools on the market.

Mindtickle

Often, organizations purchase myriad solutions that address a single challenge related to sales productivity. However, a better approach is to adopt an integrated solution that addresses several common sales productivity challenges. Integrated tools like Mindtickle drive sales productivity in several ways – without requiring sellers to switch between different, disparate tools.

Mindtickle incorporates conversation and revenue intelligence, recording and transcribing calls while scoring deal health. This means sellers don’t have to take notes during calls; they can pay attention to the meeting. In addition, sales managers can leverage analysis of call recordings to determine where a sales rep might need additional training and coaching.

Mindtickle also incorporates sales content management. Sellers can easily find the content they need for any selling scenario, spending less time searching and more time actually selling.

Mindtickle’s integrated sales productivity platform includes many other features and functionalities that boost sales productivity. For example, sales reps can use Mindtickle to practice skills and unlock self-coaching opportunities on their own time. Sales managers can also leverage Mindtickle to deliver personalized coaching to sales reps and measure how (or whether) their efforts improve seller productivity and sales performance.

Other sales productivity tools

A few additional top sales productivity platforms include:

Salesforce is one of the most popular CRMs in the world. The platform incorporates myriad features that empower teams to increase sales productivity and performance. Salesforce unifies data across multiple sources to provide teams with a single source of truth for all customer information. Salesforce also leverages AI to drive sales productivity and enable better customer experiences.

This is an AI-powered workflow platform. Sellers that use it are better equipped to delight customers throughout the customer journey and close deals. Salesloft also equips sales managers with data and insights that enable them to more effectively coach and lead their teams. In addition, Salesloft provides features and functionality that allow for more accurate forecasting.

Calls and emails aren’t always the most productive forms of outreach. With LinkedIn Sales Navigator, sales reps can tap into LinkedIn to engage buyers and increase sales productivity. LinkedIn Sales Navigator also provides insights to help sellers understand which accounts they should prioritize. That way, they can spend their time on the deals they will most likely win.

Outreach is a sales productivity platform that enables SDRs and other sales team members to engage prospects throughout the sales cycle. With Outreach, sellers can automate their outreach processes – which means they can achieve more in less time. Outreach also gives sales leaders a complete picture of the sales cycle to increase deal velocity and sales rep productivity more effectively.

Databook is a Strategic Relationship Management Platform (SRM). This tool illuminates market and financial insights that help reps prioritize accounts and understand their business challenges. As a result, sales reps can spend less time researching and more time creating and articulating solutions.

Our recommendations and best practices

Now that we’ve covered five benefits of sales productivity tools and some of the top tools in the market, we’ve got a few recommendations and best practices to share.

Centralize tools & simplify the rep experience

Not all tools are created equal, but you must simplify the sales rep experience in mind.

That’s why we believe centralizing and consolidating as many tools as possible is the best way to help drive sales rep productivity, as well as get more out of your tool investments. That means everything related to onboarding, training, ongoing coaching, content, and access to voice of customer or performance insights should ideally be in one place.

Doing so also provides you with a single data model to understand revenue enablement and performance and a single model for compliance and security.

Increase cross-functional collaboration

Driving sales productivity is the responsibility of every division at your company – not just sales. That means teams like product and marketing need frontline access to the valuable insights gauged from your sales interactions, such as competitor mentions or product feedback requests.

At the same time, in modern-day sales, you must ensure that your entire revenue team, including BDRs, sales, SEs, and CSMs are working together to understand deal or account health and drive those opportunities home.

Ensure that whatever solution you are using is standardized across your revenue org, focusing on providing the utmost transparency into what’s going on with key accounts and deals.

Improve visibility into what top performance looks like

Sales productivity is simply impossible if all of the roles on your team aren’t crystal clear about what success looks like in their role. How can I improve if I cannot know if I’m saying, showing, and doing the right things? If I don’t understand how my emails, calls, and how I engage prospects and customers compare to my peers, how will I even know what to do better next time?

That’s why your sales productivity tools must clarify best-in-class performance during every interaction and stage of your sales process.

Sales Productivity Tools FAQs

What is sales productivity?

Sales productivity measures how effective and efficient your reps are at meeting their sales goals. You can measure sales productivity across the entire organization, as well as at the team and individual rep levels.

Why is sales productivity important?

Simply put, unproductive sellers are ill-equipped to engage buyers and close deals. In today’s competitive market, that simply won’t cut it.

When seller productivity increases, so too does revenue generation. Productive sales reps can effectively and efficiently engage buyers and close deals. In other words, they can close more deals, faster, which leads to revenue growth.

What are KPIs used to measure sales productivity?

Ongoing measurement is key to assessing and improving sales productivity. However, there’s no single metric you can use to determine sales productivity. Instead, you must measure it by tracking a variety of metrics, including:

  • Quota attainment
  • Sales cycle length
  • Conversion rates
  • Annual recurring revenue
  • Sales rep habits, such as number of calls made and emails sent

What is a sales productivity tool?

A sales productivity tool is any solution that improves the effectiveness and efficiency of sales reps. In other words, it’s a tool that increases the productivity of sellers.

Reps only have so many hours in the day. A sales productivity tools helps ensure they make the most of that limited time.

What are some of the best sales productivity tools?

There is no single sales productivity tool that’ll solve all challenges for all businesses. Instead, the right sales productivity tools depend on the needs and goals of your organization.

However, some sales productivity tools are particularly popular today. Those include:

  • Mindtickle
  • Salesforce
  • Salesloft
  • LinkedIn Sales Navigator
  • Outreach
  • Databook

Sales Productivity in action

Learn more about how to consolidate your sales tech stack while driving more revenue per rep.

Get a Mindtickle Demo

This post was originally published in January 2023, updated in February 2024, and again in August 2024. 

The post 5 Essential Sales Productivity Tools to Boost Sales Team Performance  appeared first on Mindtickle.

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The 8 Essential Features Your Sales Enablement Tool Should Have  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-8-essential-features-your-sales-enablement-tool-should-have/ Tue, 13 Aug 2024 08:46:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/the-8-essential-features-your-sales-enablement-tool-should-have/ According to Forrester, more than half of sales reps miss their quota. That’s not very good news, considering new sales revenue streams are an organization’s bread and butter. According to Forrester of reps miss their quotas + 0 % So, the question is, how can we empower our sales teams to reach their sales quotas …

The post The 8 Essential Features Your Sales Enablement Tool Should Have  appeared first on Mindtickle.

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According to Forrester, more than half of sales reps miss their quota. That’s not very good news, considering new sales revenue streams are an organization’s bread and butter.

According to Forrester

of reps miss their quotas
+ 0 %

So, the question is, how can we empower our sales teams to reach their sales quotas successfully?

The simple answer: introduce sales enablement tools.

With sales enablement tools, you can train your sales reps to effectively target new customers, tackle difficult negotiations, close more deals, and increase your company’s bottom line.

Once you’ve read this article, you’ll have learned about:

  • The advantages that the right sales enablement tool can give your company
  • The essential features to look out for in sales enablement tools — and why
  • The top five sales enablement tools
  • Our helpful recommendations

Why are sales enablement tools important for your business?

The most powerful feature of sales enablement tools is their ability to centralize knowledge between the sales and marketing departments.

This has a butterfly effect, increasing revenue, boosting quota attainment, and solidifying brand identity across the company.

When sales and marketing departments have centralized access to content, insights, and approaches, it impacts sales revenue through streamlined processes, provides successful strategies, and shapes sellers with winning behaviors and skills.

With sales enablement tools, your business can:

  • Align sales and marketing teams with clear goals, tasks, and knowledge sharing. This is important, as many teams need additional resources to execute enablement tasks properly.
  • Learn winning attitudes and skills from top-performing sellers and transform those behaviors into skills for other sellers to learn and replicate.
    Optimize material for better win rates with content insights.
  • Accelerate the onboarding ramp process for new hires. In turn, this sets up new hires for success.
  • Keep sellers updated on new strategies, product launches, and market approaches.
  • Track KPIs and goals. Companies with clear sales KPIs are more likely to reach their sales quotas.

The benefits that sales enablement tools bring to your team

Modern sales enablement solutions make all of your sales processes simpler, more measurable, and more actionable.

1. Centralize access to content

Sales enablement tools help reps understand what content is available and how to use it in their sales interactions.

With half of all customer engagement coming from only 10% of a company’s content, reps need to quickly find relevant sales material to nurture leads, follow up with prospects, and convince important decision-makers of the value of your products.

But Forrester found that “not having the right content” is one of the biggest challenges for sales teams. Sellers reported that finding content and information is a significant productivity obstacle, affecting their daily work.

With a sales enablement tool, your enablement team can tag content to categorize it based on buyer persona, stage in the sales funnel, customer outcome, or the stakeholder it’s most relevant to. This includes:

  • Case studies
  • Whitepapers
  • Sales playbooks
  • Competitor comparisons
  • Microlearning modules
  • Training call recordings

Then, your reps can search for key content terms and easily find relevant sales enablement content. This system equips sellers with the knowledge and content they need to progress conversations with prospects, helping them improve their win rates and close more deals.

2. Increase collaboration between sales and marketing

LinkedIn found that 85% of survey respondents believe that better marketing and sales alignment would provide major business growth. Unfortunately, sales and marketing teams often fall into silos with little communication between them.

Sales enablement improves alignment between these teams and gives better visibility into the effectiveness of their processes. Marketers can see how sellers use marketing content in their sales conversations and get measurable data on how different content types impact the sales process.

Additionally, sellers can see what content the marketing team has produced and get updates about new case studies or product sheets they can use in their nurturing flows.

Both teams can see which messaging, content, and campaigns are working so they can collaborate to improve overall sales performance.

3. Improve visibility into team performance

Sales enablement gives sellers access to content, resources, and training materials to help them build the necessary skills and knowledge.

Sales leaders can see their reps’ performance data alongside insights into their content usage and training completion.

This helps managers understand how the content, resources, and training provided affect the sales team’s performance.

With access to data on how training content and exercises affect team performance, managers gain insights into providing a data-informed and personalized approach to sales coaching programs for each team member.

8 features you need in your sales enablement tool

Organizations in the market for a sales enablement tool should look for the following key features:

  1. Insights and analytics
  2. Onboarding management
  3. Gamification
  4. Automated workflows
  5. Program management
  6. Content management
  7. Integrations
  8. Governance

1. Insights and analytics to optimize sales efforts

Most organizations spend a great deal of time, money, and resources training their sales teams. But without a way to measure those efforts, it’s hard to understand what’s working and what parts of the training process need improvement.

With sales enablement tools, you get detailed analytics and insights into what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

With data and insights from your sales enablement platform, you can make data-driven decisions to improve sales initiatives or develop a specific skill in individual reps.

For example, managers can benchmark a sales rep’s performance in a key area, like closing. After training sessions and 1:1 coaching designed to improve closing skills, the manager tracks the close rate and other closing-related KPIs to see how the rep’s performance changes. The manager can adjust the training program accordingly based on those measurable results.

Also, sales enablement tools show how much time and money it costs to train each sales representative. If costs are higher than managers would like them to be, they can take steps to reduce inefficiencies and improve productivity.

2. Onboarding management and accelerating ramp time

Sales enablement tools help onboard new sales hires with the knowledge and training they need to succeed in their roles.

During the sales onboarding process, it can be a challenge to keep reps engaged, track their readiness, and provide them with easy access to forms, manuals, and other onboarding materials.

 

However, using sales enablement tools for onboarding helps teams to:

  • Improve learning and testing through automated training paths that get reps ramped up faster.
  • Ensure better communication by keeping reps constantly updated and thoroughly engaged, leading to higher productivity and fewer turnover costs.
  • Enhance coaching by leveraging the tools and content that empower reps and managers to identify and address any areas — like knowledge and skills — requiring improvement.

3. Gamification to motivate sales reps

It’s not easy to keep sales representatives engaged during sales onboarding and continuous training.

That’s where gamification comes in.

Through gamification, organizations can turn routine tasks into enjoyable activities that motivate and incentivize sales reps to develop their skills.

 

Through gamification, managers encourage friendly competition, break learning into bite-sized segments, offer relevant games and quizzes, and introduce real-life scenarios.

Gamification can also add a social element to onboarding and training and promote open communication among sales representatives.

Gamification can be used by new reps during the onboarding process and by seasoned reps who need to consistently build upon their skills and experience. It can assist with continuous training and skill fine-tuning, all in a fun environment.

4. Automated workflows to streamline sales strategies

Collaboration and accountability are common struggles for organizations. Automated workflows make it easy to collaborate and hold all the right people accountable.

For example, automated workflows can create a seamless feedback loop between managers and sales reps. Here, audio or video recordings submitted by sales reps are sent automatically to sales managers who can offer qualitative and quantitative feedback. This removes manual reminders and a continual back and forth, streamlining the learning process.

Automated workflows help managers and sales representatives tackle tasks instantly and through a centralized process that tracks progress.

5. Program management to reach strategic goals

Program management helps sales teams reach their targets through strategic initiatives, such as voice of the customer programs or sales onboarding programs.

These initiatives include multiple connected projects, with a project manager overseeing the team members who are focused on different projects.

These projects are bigger than the individual sellers working on their deals. Instead, they involve different teams, such as leadership for strategic direction, marketing for content creation, and IT for technical implementation.

If your sales enablement tool doesn’t have a program management feature, it’s difficult to manage and execute these strategic initiatives, which can negatively impact your sales enablement efforts.

But with a program management feature, program managers can ease some of the stress they face by creating and structuring programs, adding and managing collaborators, creating and publishing relevant content, and automating communication.

6. Content management and centralized resources

Throughout the sales cycle, sales representatives depend on a variety of content to increase buyer engagement and understanding.

The challenge with all of this content is that it must be well-organized so that it can be easily located and fully utilized.

A content management feature makes it simple for sellers to access sales material quickly. By having a simple and accessible content management system, you empower sellers to utilize the correct content at the right time within the sales journey.

Asset-Hub-DSR

Additionally, enabling multiple people to collaborate in the content authoring process, whether in PowerPoint, PDF, or video, empowers teams to bring shared experiences and best practices into play.

An effective sales enablement tool helps your team track content usage and gives insights into the content with the highest engagement rate and how to properly use and introduce content resources.

7. Integrations to facilitate organizational planning

As sales enablement practices evolve within organizations, new tools are purchased. This can overload users with numerous platforms and multiple logins.

The solution for consolidating disparate tools is to integrate them with a sales enablement tool.

A sales enablement tool that offers integrations helps organizations keep their communication, calendaring, CRM, reporting and business intelligence, content management, and other tools all in one place.

Integrations allow sales representatives to spend less time digging through multiple platforms and more time doing what matters: selling and improving their skills.

8. Governance to organize tasks and data insights

Sales enablement programs have a lot of moving parts. Therefore, you’ll need to operate under complete confidence that your organization is using its resources efficiently and securely at scale.

Platform governance allows you to set up different access levels across multiple user roles and locations.

This helps you simplify coaching workflows and roll-up reports based on organizational hierarchy and define custom roles for those who need special access.

The 5 best sales enablement tools to improve revenue

Tech marketplace and review site G2 lists over 140 tools in the sales enablement category. So, if you’re looking for sales enablement software, you have plenty of options.

We’ve picked five top-rated tools to help you find the best one for your sales team.

A powerful and comprehensive sales enablement tool

Mindtickle’s platform increases sales rep revenue by 64%. This is because Mindtickle’s strong combination of sales enablement features with advanced insights continuously works to improve seller and content performance.

Mindtickle’s Revenue Enablement Platform provides tools and processes to help sellers increase their knowledge, enhance performance, and go into every customer conversation ready to succeed.

One of the biggest challenges of traditional sales enablement is that reps quickly forget their sales training, so they cannot make the best use of the content and resources available to them.

Mindtickle helps reps build and maintain their knowledge and skills through gamification, reinforced training, continuous skill assessments, and coaching exercises.

Our platform combines sales enablement, content management, conversation intelligence, sales training, and manager-led coaching. It provides continuous training, content, and enablement to ensure that sellers remember — and use — the knowledge and skills they’ve learned in their training and coaching sessions to move sales conversations forward.

We make sales enablement best practices an ongoing part of the sales process rather than a siloed additional tool or exercise that sellers only think about a few times a year.

Notable Mindtickle features:

  • Centralizes content management and provides content insights to personalize materials to mimic winning strategic approaches
  • Records phone calls and interactions and, using AI, provides feedback on tone, sales opportunities, and future insights
  • Identifies winning behaviors from sales reps across the company to propose skill development and training
  • Analyzes real-world data to suggest relevant training and role-plays to improve the sales approach
  • Centralizes the sales stack with CRM integrations and APIs
  • Creates an ideal rep profile to track KPIs and training progress
    Includes a mobile app for sellers to always be prepared — even on the go

Pricing
Schedule a demo to see Mindtickle in action and learn about current pricing.

Mindtickle G2 rating: 4.7

To break down marketing and sales silos

HubSpot is best known for its CRM and inbound marketing platform, but it also offers a Sales Hub to help companies already using its marketing tools break down the silos between their sales and marketing departments by getting everyone on the same platform.

HubSpot Sales Hub is primarily an easy-to-use CRM that gives sellers and their managers greater visibility into their deal pipeline and task list.

However, its free plan includes content management to give sellers easy access to sales content. Enterprise customers can use sales management playbooks such as battle cards and call scripts to enable sellers better to close deals.

While the most robust sales enablement features aren’t available to all customers, HubSpot integrates with more than 148 other sales enablement tools so that it may work well in combination with other instruments in your tech stack. Additionally, HubSpot has a vast library of training content and certifications to help sellers master best practices and essential skills.

Notable HubSpot Sales Hub features:

  • Email templates that can be personalized to prepare your team for success
  • Email tracking to keep up to date on lead health and opportunities
  • Document management and content tracking that can be directly sent through email inboxes
  • Automated sales workflows to keep sellers on top of tasks
  • Phone calls logged in your CRM
    Conversation intelligence to find opportunities for improvement in phone calls

Pricing
HubSpot offers multiple pricing tiers, ranging from $0 to $150 per sales seat per month. The higher the tier, the more robust the features.

HubSpot Sales Hub G2 rating: 4.4

For personalized and engaging content materials

Seismic is one of the leading dedicated sales enablement platforms. Its standalone platform provides a centralized hub where sellers can access the content and resources they need to engage with their prospects.

It recommends content and training at the time when they’re most relevant to your sellers. For example, when a prospect moves from a sales-qualified lead to an opportunity, it shows content and resources relevant to that stage of the buyer journey.

As a dedicated sales enablement platform, it’s a better choice for sales enablement teams than a tool that’s a CRM with enablement functionality added on. It has a great reputation and established customer base in the finance industry — particularly for wealth management, asset management, and banking organizations — which makes it a trustworthy option for companies operating in those spaces.

Notable Seismic features:

  • Offers resource personalization with advanced content management
  • Provides learning and onboarding courses to train new hires
    Integrates with almost all platforms
  • Connects and logs prospects through social media, email, and phone

Pricing
Pricing information is not available. Businesses must contact Seismic to access pricing information.

Seismic G2 rating: 4.7

For sales enablement with strong CRM features

Salesforce is one of the best-known sales tools available. There are split opinions in the sales world: some companies love it, and others find it has a steep learning curve and is difficult to implement for their business.

Like HubSpot, Salesforce is a CRM first, with additional features and functionality built on top. 

If your company already uses Salesforce for its CRM, then its sales enablement add-on may be the simplest option for your team. However, it probably isn’t worth switching to Salesforce just for its sales enablement tool.

Notable Salesforce features:

  • Forecasts pipelines with the help of KPI management and logged interactions
  • Manages accounts through logged communication history and internal notes
  • Uses process workflows to automate business processes and save time
  • Mobile app for ease of use outside the office

Pricing
Salesforce offers multiple pricing editions, ranging from $25 to $330 per user per month. The Salesforce sales enablement tool is a paid add-on for its Sales Cloud product.

Salesforce G2 rating: 4.4

To understand prospect health and upsell approaches

Showpad is a revenue enablement platform that helps sellers prepare for each sales conversation and gives them the resources to ensure each call or sales interaction makes a positive impact on the customer.

It combines training and coaching functionality with content management, ensuring sellers have access to the content they need. Its platform is split into two parts: Content and Coach.

Each is an essential part of sales enablement, but the two parts of the platform are priced separately. This means companies need to pay twice to benefit from the full sales enablement functionality they can get from other tools.

Notable Showpad features:

  • Tracks content ROI and enforces brand compliance in content creation
  • Lets users identify upsell and cross-selling opportunities as well as in-deal coaching
  • Share information through brand microsite for prospects to share content with their internal stakeholders
  • Gauges and tracks prospect interest to understand next steps

Pricing
Showpad offers multiple pricing tiers. However, they do not publish pricing information.

Showpad Content G2 rating: 4.6

The tool you choose needs to support your team’s growth for ongoing success

The best sales enablement tool will be the one that your team will find the easiest to adopt in their everyday tasks and responsibilities.

It’s important to keep in mind your company’s growth as you choose your sales enablement tool. You want to be sure that it’ll continuously grow and adapt to your business needs, market changes, and new product releases.

This support comes with insights and data that continuously update with each interaction and sales training that prepares your sales team for success through engaging and motivating material and courses.

Mindtickle can help support your team with its comprehensive sales enablement platform that provides direction and new skills to your sales team.

Learn more about Mindtickle’s sales enablement tool, or play around with our demo and take a peek into how we continuously help companies reach their revenue and growth goals.

Find the sales enablement tool that works for you

Talk to our team about your challenges and we'll show you how Mindtickle can scale and grow your sales enablement efforts so your team is hitting quota every quarter. 

Get a Demo

Sales enablement tool FAQs

What is sales enablement software?

Sales enablement software provides a centralized place for the training, resources, and data needed to help salespeople sell more effectively.

Sales enablement software:

  • Helps sales reps easily access training materials, product documentation, and other content (no matter where it is stored)
  • Records key sales metrics, so managers can identify opportunities to improve certain skills through coaching
  • Tracks reps’ progress against development goals
  • Improves visibility and alignment between sales and marketing teams
  • Enables micro-learning and virtual training to teach and reinforce key skills

At its core, a sales enablement tool does much more than just support a more efficient and effective sales team. With the proper tool, all types of organizations can boost their sales processes to enhance every step of the sales journey. And, what’s more, the right tool supports sales teams by providing them with the content and information they need to successfully engage with customers the first time and every time.

What are the benefits of a sales enablement tool?

A sales enablement tool significantly benefits sales reps, sales enablement professionals, and sales leaders.

With the right sales enablement tool, sales reps can easily find the training, information, tools, and content they need to prepare for any sales scenario—all in one location. That means sales reps spend less time searching for materials and more time engaging buyers and closing deals.

Integrated sales enablement software provides enablement teams with a one-stop shop for creating, delivering, and measuring enablement programs. Sales enablement teams can quickly and easily build and deploy learning programs and paths tailored to the needs of each sales rep. Then, they can measure the impact of those programs and optimize accordingly.

Sales enablement software also allows sales managers to track reps’ progress. Sales managers get insight into a sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses, which empowers them to deliver targeted, effective sales coaching that closes skill gaps.

What are the best sales enablement tools?

The best sales enablement tools that have the most impact on your company are:

  • Mindtickle
  • HubSpot Sales Hub
  • Seismic
  • Salesforce
  • Showpad

For a full list of all the sales enablement tools and features, read our guide.

What are the essential features of a sales enablement tool?

The features that your sales enablement tool should have are:

  • Integrations
  • Content management
  • Program management
  • Automated workflows
  • Gamification
  • Governance
  • Onboarding management
  • Insights and analytics

How much should I spend on sales enablement tools?

Every company’s budget is different, as are their definitions of success. To understand how much you should be spending on sales enablement tools, you need to understand how the ROI of sales enablement can be measured. This will give you a better understanding of the benefits a sales enablement tool will have on your company.

Now with all of this knowledge, you’ll be empowered to make an educated choice on the best sales enablement tool for your team.

Sales Enablement in Action

Connect with our team to learn more about how Mindtickle helps you prove the ROI of your sales enablement efforts. 

Request a Demo

This was originally published in May 2022, updated in December 2022, November 2023, and again in August 2024. 

The post The 8 Essential Features Your Sales Enablement Tool Should Have  appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Video: How an AI-Driven Pitch Contest at Cisco Saved Managers 38 Weeks https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-how-an-ai-driven-pitch-contest-at-cisco-saved-managers-38-weeks/ Mon, 05 Aug 2024 17:51:33 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19992 What are interactive role plays? Interactive role-plays are training simulations where reps can practice their pitches, objection handling, and other sales skills in a safe, controlled environment. These role-plays often involve AI-driven scenarios that mimic real-life conversations with buyers, allowing sellers to refine their skills without the pressure of a live sales situation. Key aspects …

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What are interactive role plays?

Interactive role-plays are training simulations where reps can practice their pitches, objection handling, and other sales skills in a safe, controlled environment. These role-plays often involve AI-driven scenarios that mimic real-life conversations with buyers, allowing sellers to refine their skills without the pressure of a live sales situation.

Key aspects include:

  • Sellers can engage in simulated conversations that resemble real-world interactions with customers, allowing them to practice and improve their techniques.
  • These role-plays use AI to provide feedback on the seller’s performance, highlighting areas for improvement and helping them fine-tune their approach.
  • By incorporating AI, companies can scale role-play sessions across large teams without requiring significant time from managers.
  • Interactive role-plays can be used in various scenarios, including onboarding new reps, practicing for specific sales calls, and certifying sellers on new products or sales methodologies​

Key highlights

  • Cisco ran a sales pitch contest involving around 3,500 sellers. The winner received a lease for a Porsche. The contest was designed to drive adoption and engagement among the sellers.
  • They used Mindtickle Copilot to help sellers practice their pitches. The AI provided feedback, allowing sellers to refine their pitches in three parts before submitting a final version.
  • AI was crucial in reducing the burden on managers. Reviewing all pitches would have taken an estimated 38 weeks of manager time.
  • Analysis revealed that sellers who continued to practice and refine their pitches were more successful. These sellers moved up in the competition brackets and generated larger sales opportunities than those who practiced less.

Video transcription

[For our] “Sales Superstar” pitch contest – the winner actually won a lease of a Porsche. It was a big deal, you could say. That got a lot of attention. And there was a good way to drive adoption.

[There were] some good rewards. It was a little bit shocking for all of us. Obviously, there were other rewards for being nurturers for coaching. And I’ll explain a couple things.

With the pitch contest, we started by targeting our technical sellers. The goal was to have a 10-minute pitch that was decided by an EVP and targeted at a specific customer. The goal was really to make it focus on the customer. As we were rolling it out, we got a lot of other teams interested in participating as well, so we had to come up with different alternatives.

One of the things that Leah Madson, our senior PS consultant from Mindtickle, worked with Cameron to calculate, okay, how the heck are we going to get all this done? And it came out that it would take 38 weeks of manager time to do the reviews, because earlier, you talked about manager time and reduce. And that’s a real number. Part of the decision was how can we use AI to reduce that burden on the managers.

We did a couple of things. We used the traditional AI already built into Mindtickle, but then we also used Copilot. We allowed the sellers and technical sellers to do practice pitches and get feedback. Because the pitch has three different parts, they had three different options. They could practice each and finally submit a final pitch once they were done.

We’ve found some interesting behaviors by the sellers. In the data analysis, some of the interesting things we found were that those sellers who continued to practice would get better. If they moved up as far as moving in the brackets, we got on the outcome side that they created larger opportunities than those who were lower down. So it does show that practice does make perfect.

Interactive Role-Plays with Mindtickle

Ready to see how AI-driven interactive role plays can transform your team's performance, just like they did at Cisco? 

Get a Demo

The post Video: How an AI-Driven Pitch Contest at Cisco Saved Managers 38 Weeks appeared first on Mindtickle.

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4 Steps to an Effective Sales Enablement Session https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/steps-to-an-effective-enablement-session/ Tue, 30 Jul 2024 04:02:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/steps-to-an-effective-enablement-session/ By now, organizations of all sizes and industries are embracing sales enablement. That’s not surprising; a solid sales enablement strategy coupled with the right technology can significantly impact sales performance. But all too often, an organization launches a sales enablement initiative—and it falls flat. Perhaps sellers aren’t engaging with the sales enablement program. Or maybe …

The post 4 Steps to an Effective Sales Enablement Session appeared first on Mindtickle.

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By now, organizations of all sizes and industries are embracing sales enablement. That’s not surprising; a solid sales enablement strategy coupled with the right technology can significantly impact sales performance.

But all too often, an organization launches a sales enablement initiative—and it falls flat. Perhaps sellers aren’t engaging with the sales enablement program. Or maybe they are, but they’re not applying what they’ve learned in the field.

What can sales enablement professionals do to ensure their strategies and programs are engaging and effective?

In this post, we’ll explore some key steps revenue enablement leaders must take to ensure their programs are set up for success.

#1. Lay the groundwork for success

Before you pull your reps off the floor for the next sales training exercise or activity, ensure alignment and support from sales leadership. It is important to proactively address natural skepticism about enablement initiatives and ensure sales leadership understands how you will help improve their team’s effectiveness.

Provide visibility and seek feedback early and often. Sales leaders can help identify potential objections that you may have missed. They can also help you articulate the WIIFM—what’s in it for me—to help you “sell the seller” and land the desired training outcomes.

Ask sales leadership to partner with you on holding their teams accountable for leveraging and practicing the new training in the field while measuring impact. Soon, your teams will look forward to your training, knowing how much value it brings.

#2. Ask and address key questions

Great outcomes start with a great understanding of what you’re looking to accomplish. Before you build your plays and training content, you must have a clear vision of the business goal and the outcomes you strive to impact.

This will also help you prove the ROI of your sales enablement efforts. To ensure your training and sales plays resonate, ask six foundational questions:

Examples: Increase win rate, grow pipeline, shorten deal cycle, customer retention, etc.

Examples: Sales, account management, customer success, etc.

Examples: Industry, company size, region, buyer persona, etc.

Examples: Product marketing, sales enablement, front-line sales manager

Examples: In the discovery phase, during customer implementation, etc.

Examples: Hit quota faster, increase ASP to close fewer deals, recognition from leadership, etc.

Strong answers to these questions will be essential in getting buy-in and feedback from your sales managers. To further win over managers, determine whether you can plug into an existing sales event rather than create a new one.

To motivate sellers and increase engagement during the training, assign pre-work and reading before the training begins. A blended framework that includes pre-work, self-paced content, virtual role-plays, and webinars creates an engaging training experience. 

interactive role-play

For example, having a sales leader record a video demonstrating a best-in-class pitch or demo is a great way to keep learners engaged.

Self-paced voice-over slideshows and pre-recorded videos that teach information and show what great looks like can help with pre-training engagement. Save the live training session for discussions and Q&A.

With clear goals, managers on your side, and an established training format, you’ll have laid the foundation for effective sales enablement.

#3. Plan for in-training engagement (and disengagement)

We’ve all been met with blank stares during our training sessions before. A primary reason for lack of engagement is your sellers not understanding what’s in it for them.

In their eyes, you may be taking an hour away that could have been spent generating more leads or making prospecting calls. It’s your job to “sell the sellers” and convince them that your training will help them drum up higher–quality leads faster.

Capture attention immediately by previewing your next-generation sales play. Gone are the days of traditional, one-size-fits-all sales playbooks. A dynamic sales environment demands a dynamic playbook. With advanced sales enablement technology, you can provide your sellers with plays that contain both content and guidance designed to prepare your team with what they need to know, say, show, and do in every unique selling scenario.

 

Make your session interactive and engaging. Ask questions, have sellers share their stories, or break into groups for activities to help connect the dots between the training and action. With the right play and training delivered in an interactive, audience-first way, your salespeople will begin to look forward to your sessions, knowing the knowledge provided will ultimately make them and the company more successful.

#4. Build a post-training plan

As impactful and inspiring as your training might have been, salespeople juggle dozens of daily tasks. Your training will quickly be forgotten unless it is reinforced and muscle memory is built in the field.

Promote the play or training materials via multiple channels such as email, your CRM, and your sales enablement platform, so it’s easily accessible where reps spend their time. To overcome the forgetting curve that naturally happens after training, it’s important to include spaced reinforcement of knowledge and training after the event to ensure reps have adopted product messages and have time to internalize that information.

Ongoing training will also play a critical role. You might provide courses, quizzes, sales coaching sessions, and more directly within your sales enablement platform to help your reps improve their skills.

To gauge your enablement effectiveness, you can measure sales enablement KPIs that indicate whether or not your training landed internally and helped reps take off externally with their customer conversations. Metrics, like sales play adoption, curriculum completion, and pitched content performance, can all indicate enablement success.

In addition, use technology to request feedback on what worked, what didn’t, and what could be improved moving forward. Showing that you heard and acted on feedback will make sellers more likely to show up, engage, and share.

Bring your sales enablement strategy to life with Mindtickle

Developing a sales enablement strategy doesn’t guarantee success. Instead, you need to take certain steps to ensure you can bring your strategy to life – and make a real impact on sales performance.

The right sales enablement technology is foundational to success. More and more revenue organizations are trading their learning management systems (LMS) and other point solutions for an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

With Mindtickle, you can build and deliver tailored sales enablement programs that ensure each seller has what it takes to be successful in the field. In addition, Mindtickle makes it easy to holistically measure the impact of sales enablement so you can prove ROI and course correct as needed.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see why more and more sales enablement organizations are partnering with Mindtickle?

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This post was originally published in July 2020 and was updated in July 2024. 

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How Top Revenue Enablement Leaders Prove ROI https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-top-revenue-enablement-leaders-prove-roi/ Fri, 26 Jul 2024 14:45:25 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19943 Ongoing measurement is an important step in any revenue enablement program. When you track the right revenue enablement KPIs, you gain insight into how (and whether) your revenue enablement program is impacting sales performance and business outcomes. When you can prove revenue enablement impact, you’re better positioned to retain your existing revenue enablement resources and …

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Ongoing measurement is an important step in any revenue enablement program. When you track the right revenue enablement KPIs, you gain insight into how (and whether) your revenue enablement program is impacting sales performance and business outcomes.

When you can prove revenue enablement impact, you’re better positioned to retain your existing revenue enablement resources and potentially secure additional investments.

While proving the value of revenue enablement investments is important, it’s not always easy. Recently, we asked revenue enablement leaders from some of the most successful organizations how they prove ROI.

In this post, we’ll explore why companies invest in revenue enablement and how top organizations, including PayPal, Paytronix, and Webflow, prove enablement’s value.

Why businesses are investing in revenue enablement programs

It was once rare for an organization to have a dedicated revenue or sales enablement team. Today, it’s become the norm. Recent research found 84% of organizations invest in a revenue enablement team.

of orgs invest in a revenue enablement team
0 %

Revenue enablement ensures all revenue team members – including sales, marketing, and customer success – have the tools, resources, and information they need to deliver great experiences throughout the customer’s journey. When it’s done well, revenue enablement can have a big impact on factors including:

  • Sales productivity
  • Win rates
  • Quota attainment
  • Sales cycle length
  • Customer retention
  • Customer lifetime value

However, revenue enablement leaders must prove that their efforts are actually making a difference in order to maintain (or even increase) investments.

How top organizations prove revenue enablement ROI
Revenue enablement can have a big impact on business outcomes. But it can take time to prove revenue enablement impact.

Recently, Mindtickle asked enablement leaders from some of the world’s top organizations to share advice on proving revenue enablement ROI based on their real-life experiences.

One piece of advice we heard repeatedly is that it’s important to become data-obsessed.

“Begin by aligning your efforts with the metrics that truly matter to your stakeholders,” said Crystal Nikosey, VP, of Sales Transformormation at The Sales Collective. “Take a strategic approach, tracing back from these metrics through competencies and behaviors until you align them to your enablement programs. By being prescriptive in what you deliver, you establish a consistent guiding beacon to shape and assess your initiatives.

"Take a strategic approach, tracing back from these metrics through competencies and behaviors until you align them to your enablement programs."
Crystal Nikosey
VP, of Sales Transformormation at The Sales Collective

Mercy Bell, Revenue Enablement at Webflow, advised enablement professionals to ensure their activities are tightly aligned with revenue-driving activities. “Pinpoint critical metrics like sales conversion rates and deal velocity, directly impacted by enablement,” she said. “Craft initiatives that visibly influence these metrics. Implement robust tracking systems to gauge effectiveness — leverage data analytics to furnish concrete evidence of enablement’s revenue impact. Regularly communicate progress with clear benchmarks. By showcasing how enablement directly fuels revenue growth, you’ll clarify the value to leadership and get the headcount you need.”

"Pinpoint critical metrics like sales conversion rates and deal velocity, directly impacted by enablement."
Mercy Bell
Revenue Enablement, Webflow

Adam Whiddon, Sales Enablement Trainer at Paytronix, emphasized the importance of ongoing collaboration and communication with organizational leaders. “Double down on aligning with the leaders and teams you support and ask for honest, balanced feedback,” he said. “While in that process, dig deeper into the various metrics that your initiatives and programs are trying to support or improve, including your SVP’s/CROs top three metrics they’re tracking for the year, and correlate how you’re initiatives and training programs are impacting it, or if there is a need to adjust course.”

"Dig deeper into the various metrics that your initiatives and programs are trying to support or improve, including your SVP's/CROs top three metrics they're tracking for the year, and correlate how your initiatives and training programs are impacting it, or if there is a need to adjust course.”
Adam Whiddon
Sales Enablement Trainer, Paytronix

Aneet Narang, Head of Global Revenue Enablement at Paypal, reminded enablement professionals that a customer-focused mindset is essential. “One piece of advice for those struggling to prove ROI is to prioritize fostering a customer-centric mindset, particularly by focusing on sales managers and implementing data-driven decision-making processes,” she said. “By emphasizing the importance of delivering value to customers and leveraging data to drive strategic decisions, organizations can better demonstrate the impact of their initiatives on the bottom line.”

"Prioritize fostering a customer-centric mindset, particularly by focusing on sales managers and implementing data-driven decision-making processes."
Aneet Nurang
Head of Global Revenue Enablement, Paypal

The challenges of proving the revenue enablement ROI

Proving the impact of your sales enablement program is extremely important. But for many organizations, it can be a major challenge.

Some common challenges include:

Not knowing what metrics to track

There are so many different revenue enablement metrics you can track. It can take time to identify the right ones to prove impact.

Focusing on the wrong metrics

All too often, revenue enablement organizations focus on vanity metrics. For example, they can quickly find out how many times a piece of content has been viewed by sales reps or how many sellers completed a recent training module.

While these metrics are important, they don’t convey these initiatives’ impact on business outcomes.

Not having the right revenue enablement tools in place

You may be using multiple disparate tools for different areas of business enablement, and each provides its own sales enablement analytics. But when using multiple point solutions, it’s difficult – if not impossible – to holistically measure the impact of revenue enablement.

Today, many revenue operations teams are streamlining the tech stack by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform. That way, you can access all the revenue enablement data you need – all from a single platform.

Ready to get more insights from the revenue enablement experts?

Proving revenue enablement impact is key to maintaining your current resources – and securing additional resources. But it isn’t always easy.

Showing Sales Enablement Impact

Ready to access more tactical advice on how to prove revenue enablement ROI? Download the entire eBook. 

Get Your Copy

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How Mindtickle’s Mobile App for On-The-Go Sellers Helps Close More Deals https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-mindtickles-mobile-app-for-on-the-go-sellers-helps-close-more-deals/ Wed, 24 Jul 2024 18:33:23 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19927 In B2B sales, sellers need seamless, in-the-moment access to the materials that will engage buyers and close deals. And there’s a lot on every seller’s plate. Reps often must balance meeting customers, attending events, and closing deals. In these fast-moving conditions, having the right tools at sellers’ fingertips can make all the difference. Mindtickle’s app, …

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In B2B sales, sellers need seamless, in-the-moment access to the materials that will engage buyers and close deals.

And there’s a lot on every seller’s plate.

Reps often must balance meeting customers, attending events, and closing deals. In these fast-moving conditions, having the right tools at sellers’ fingertips can make all the difference.

Mindtickle’s app, available for iOS and Android, is designed for the needs of these on-the-go sellers.

In this blog, we’ll explore how the Mindtickle mobile app significantly boosts your organization’s sales by enhancing training, collaboration, and productivity.

The evolution of sales enablement

Sales enablement has evolved from a non-strategic support function to a critical component of a high-performing sales organization. Its primary goal is to provide sales teams with the tools, content, and training they need to reach their sales objectives and boost revenue while effectively engaging buyers.

With the advancement of mobile technology, sales enablement jumped forward, offering perpetual access to sales training and content. Mindtickle’s mobile app reflects this evolution, offering a comprehensive application that empowers on-the-go sellers to access sales content, training, and customer conversations right at their fingertips.

What’s in the Mindtickle mobile app?

Mindtickle’s mobile app is designed to offer a Netflix-like user experience to modern-day sellers. It offers instant access to sales training and collateral. Using Mindtickle’s mobile app, organizations can offer remote onboarding and ever-boarding to their sales representatives. Sellers can consume content, collaborate seamlessly on customer calls, and share sales assets using the app.

Compatible with both iOS and Android devices, Mindtickle’s app supports 19 languages, catering to the needs of a globally diverse sales organization. The Home tab offers a personalized experience with interactive widgets, ensuring easy access to relevant content. The app eases content discovery, engagement, and completion by adapting to user preferences.

Users can access various learning site homepages, including default and custom options, and explore admin-assigned, subscribed, and publicly available programs. The assets tab hosts the Asset Hub, providing a central location for sales-related content. Within this tab, users can navigate through sections such as Assets and Interactions, tracking engagement metrics for shared content.

Additionally, the Coaching tab offers access to Coaching Rooms, facilitating seamless interaction between managers and learners. The Call AI tab features Mindtickle’s conversational intelligence bot, enabling users to review, analyze, and gain insights from call recordings for improved sales conversations.

Users can access the app even when they do not have an active internet connection. The app offers robust offline capabilities and access to certain functionalities. Users can download and access training, assets, and calls without worrying about connectivity.
Mindtickle’s mobile app provides sales reps with comprehensive resources and tools to optimize their performance.

Key benefits of Mindtickle’s mobile app

Now that you know what our mobile app includes, what are the benefits you and your sellers can expect? 

1. Seamless access to training and onboarding

One of the key features of Mindtickle’s app is the ability to search and access sales training and onboarding materials. Offering an AI-powered semantic search, the app ensures that sellers can seamlessly search and browse through relevant content thus equipped with the latest knowledge and best practices.

Using the Mindtickle app, sellers can access relevant training, listen to customer calls, and refer and share sales assets on-demand, whether a seller is waiting for a meeting to start or traveling between customer sites. This immediacy reduces downtime and fosters productivity.

2. Sales assets can be shared instantly

The ability to share sales assets directly from the app is a game-changer. Sellers can instantly respond to prospects’ questions by sharing relevant sales collateral in real-time.

This capability enhances the overall customer experience by ensuring prospects receive the right information at the right time, accelerating the sales cycle. Sellers can seamlessly share critical sales collaterals such as product brochures, case studies, or demo videos with their prospects or customers. Having these assets readily available at all times while the seller is on the move significantly impacts their ability to move critical deals through the sales funnel.

3. Efficient collaboration with Call AI

Call AI integration within the mobile app allows sellers to access, review, and collaborate on calls seamlessly. This feature is valuable for refining sales pitches and strategies based on real customer interactions.

Using Mindtickle’s mobile app sellers can listen to call recordings, collaborate, and receive immediate feedback that can help them align their sales strategy to the dynamic needs of a prospect. By leveraging AI-driven insights, sales managers can review calls that need immediate attention, understand customer preferences, coach their sales team and tailor their communication for better sales outcomes.

4. Offline access to training and assets

In addition to online capabilities, Mindtickle’s app supports offline access to training, collateral, and sales assets. This feature is crucial for sellers who may only sometimes have reliable internet access. Whether traveling or in remote locations, sellers can continue learning and have essential materials at their fingertips. This ensures that no matter the circumstances, sellers remain prepared and informed.

5. Real-time notifications

The app’s real-time notifications inform sellers about important updates, new training modules, and critical tasks. These notifications ensure sellers get all the essential information and can act promptly. Real-time notifications keep the sales force aligned and proactive, whether a reminder about a coaching session or an alert about a new sales asset.

6. Access to Coaching Rooms dashboard

Coaching is a vital aspect of sales enablement, and having it accessible on the go ensures continuous improvement and skill development. With Mindtickle’s coaching room, managers can conduct and review coaching sessions directly, provide feedback, and track progress from their mobile devices. This means sellers can receive continuous guidance and support on crucial deals regardless of location.

The impact on sales performance

Sales performance hinges on the ability to adapt and excel. Mindtickle’s mobile app empowers sales teams by enhancing learning and development, improving customer interactions, enabling data-driven decision-making, and increasing agility and responsiveness. Here’s how Mindtickle is making an impact on sales performance.

1. Enhanced learning and development

Continuous learning is a hallmark of high-performing sales teams. Mindtickle’s app facilitates this by making training and onboarding materials accessible anytime, anywhere. Sellers can engage with content at their own pace, revisit materials as needed, and stay updated with the latest best practices. This flexibility in learning translates to better-prepared sellers who can confidently engage with prospects and close more deals.

For example, a multinational automaker that designs, manufactures, and sells a wide range of automobiles, including cars, trucks, and SUVs, uses the Mindtickle mobile app to improve, enable, and engage dealer employees—especially younger ones who are accustomed to binge-watching videos—and help dealers and the company sell its newly launched EV product line.

2. Improved customer interactions

With instant access to sales assets and the ability to share them in real time, sellers can provide a superior customer experience. Prospects appreciate timely and relevant information, and the ability to deliver this boosts credibility and trust. Enhanced customer interactions lead to higher conversion rates and a more robust sales pipeline.

3. Data-driven decision making

The integration of Call AI and the insights it provides enable data-driven decision-making. Sellers can analyze their performance, understand customer behavior, and adjust their strategies accordingly. This analytical approach helps identify strengths and areas for improvement, leading to more effective sales techniques and better results.

4. Increased agility and responsiveness

The real-time nature of the app, combined with offline access and notifications, ensures that sellers are always in the loop. They can quickly adapt to new information, respond to prospects’ needs, and stay ahead of the competition. This agility is a significant competitive advantage in the fast-paced world of sales.

A major consumer goods sought a way to deliver a modern yet scalable training curriculum across its global team of sellers covering multiple divisions and business units. Mindtickle provided a mobile white-labeled solution that allowed around 30,000 learners to access ongoing enablement utilizing the mobile app. Mindtickle sales enablement platform has shortened the deployment from 2 years to ~3 months to ship enablement adjustments to all learner groups as leadership identifies gaps and strategy optimizations.

Months to deploy

without Mindtickle
0
with Mindtickle
0

5. Consistent coaching and feedback

The Coaching Rooms dashboard ensures that sellers receive regular coaching and feedback, regardless of location. Continuous coaching helps reinforce best practices, address challenges, and maintain high-performance standards. For managers, the ability to track progress and provide timely feedback ensures that the entire team is aligned and moving toward common goals.

What the Mindtickle app gives you

Mindtickle’s mobile app is a critical tool that empowers your sales force to achieve their sales goals. Providing seamless access to training, sales assets, Call AI, and collaborative tools prepares your sales teams to perform at their best, no matter where they are. The app’s features, including offline access, real-time notifications, instant access to sales assets, and Call AI, ensure that sellers are always prepared, responsive, and continuously improving.

Incorporating Mindtickle’s mobile app into your sales strategy is critical in boosting your organization’s sales performance. The app enhances learning, improves customer interactions, enables data-driven decision-making, and builds a coaching culture in your organization. 

Mindtickle's Mobile App in Action

Embrace a mobile-first approach, watch your sales team be more productive, and close even more deals.

Get a Demo

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10 Common Sales Enablement Challenges (and How You Can Overcome Them) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/10-common-sales-enablement-challenges-and-how-you-can-overcome-them/ Wed, 24 Jul 2024 14:48:32 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19932 By now, most revenue leaders understand the impact of sales enablement. When done well, it drives a large, measurable impact on sales productivity and performance. It’s no wonder why 84% of organizations now invest in a sales enablement function. But along with those benefits, you may experience some sales enablement challenges. If that’s the case, …

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By now, most revenue leaders understand the impact of sales enablement. When done well, it drives a large, measurable impact on sales productivity and performance.

It’s no wonder why 84% of organizations now invest in a sales enablement function.

But along with those benefits, you may experience some sales enablement challenges. If that’s the case, you’re not alone. Even the most successful organizations have their fair share of sales enablement problems.

But the good news is, that organizations can overcome these sales enablement challenges. In this post, we’ll explore 10 common sales enablement challenges – and how an integrated revenue enablement platform can help you overcome them.

Sales enablement has a powerful impact on sales performance

Sales enablement is a relatively new concept. But it’s one that’s grown quickly.

But why is sales enablement important for revenue organizations?

Modern sellers can’t deliver a generic pitch to every buyer and expect great outcomes. Instead, they must work to understand each buyer’s needs and deliver tailored experiences and solutions throughout the customer journey. Plus, because customers’ priorities and expectations often shift, sales reps must be ready to pivot quickly.

Sellers must meet customers’ expectations if they expect to close deals. But often, that’s not the case. Recent research found only a third of B2B buyers feel their sales reps are genuinely helpful during the purchase journey.

Research found that only

of B2B buyers think reps are helpful during the buying journey
0 %

A solid sales enablement practice ensures every seller on your team has the tools, information, and training they need to deliver winning buying experiences that meet customers’ expectations. When sellers are equipped to meet customers’ expectations, they’ll close more deals faster.

Sales enablement is complex

Sales enablement is an effective practice. But it tends to get complicated.

For one, there are a lot of people involved. That’s a good thing. The most effective sales enablement programs require strong collaboration among teams, including sales, marketing, sales enablement, sales operations, and customer success. But with so many people involved, it can get complicated.

In addition, a holistic sales enablement practice has several different components, which may include:

  • Sales onboarding
  • Ongoing sales training
  • Reinforcement and practice
  • Sales coaching
  • Sales content
  • Conversation intelligence

Each domain has several moving pieces, and some organizations use a separate piece of technology to power each. This adds a lot of complexity to a sales enablement practice.

Change is another key reason why sales enablement is complex. Change is constant. Products, markets, and customer preferences are always in flux. Sales enablement professionals must be agile and adapt their programs to reflect these changes.

What are the common challenges of sales enablement?

Sales enablement is a must for any revenue organization. But it presents some unique challenges.

Let’s look at 10 of the top sales enablement challenges.

Challenge #1: Key teams are often misaligned

Sales enablement requires ongoing collaboration among teams including sales, marketing, sales enablement, and revenue operations. But often, that’s not the case.

Instead, teams often work in silos. Each is focused on their duties and responsibilities – and doesn’t see the bigger picture. For example, the marketing team may sink a ton of time into creating sales content – but sellers are frustrated that they don’t have the right content for the right situations.

Cross-functional collaboration is key to sales enablement success. Scheduling regular check-ins and ensuring everyone is using the same sales enablement software are just a few ways you can ensure teams are aligned on sales enablement goals and understand their role in achieving those goals.

Challenge #2: Sellers are overloaded with tools

It’s important to equip your teams with the right sales enablement tools. But often, sellers are provided with an overwhelming number of tools. For example, you might use different sales enablement tools for training, content, coaching, and conversation intelligence.

This can be overwhelming for sales reps. A Salesforce survey found that almost 70% of sellers are overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use.

of sellers are overwhelmed by sales tools they're expected to use
0 %

Furthermore, this approach causes chaos for sales enablement professionals. They’re forced to juggle multiple solutions – which may or may not integrate.

Consider streamlining your sales enablement stack by investing in an integrated sales enablement platform with robust features and functionality. Then, your entire team can access everything they need from a single, integrated platform.

Challenge #3: Sales enablement content is poorly managed

Content is a key component of sales enablement. Internal sales enablement content helps sellers sharpen their skills, while external content enables reps to engage prospects and move them closer to the finish line.

But often, sales reps spend a ton of time searching for the right content for the right situation. And often, they’re simply guessing what content is right.

Revenue organizations must take control of their sales content management.

All content should be stored in a sales content management solution and organized so that sales reps can easily find what they need. It’s also important to take the guesswork out of sales content. Look for a sales content management solution that recommends content based on what’s worked in similar situations.

Challenge #4: It’s hard to deliver personalized learning that addresses the needs of each seller

Often, sales enablement teams develop training and assign it across the entire revenue team. This approach doesn’t work.

Sales training must be tailored to the strengths and weaknesses of each seller. But that can seem downright impossible.

For starters, organizations often lack insight into sellers’ skills. A recent report found just 40% of C-level executives can identify rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training. Furthermore, delivering customized learning across a sales team would take time and effort.

But personalized learning doesn’t have to be a pipe dream.

enablement-certification-white

With the right sales enablement platform, revenue leaders can quickly and easily identify each sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, they can develop and deliver personalized sales training paths that help reps improve their lagging skills.

Challenge #5: Sales reps aren’t retaining knowledge

You put a lot of time and effort into your sales training. But sellers aren’t retaining the knowledge – much less applying it in the field.

Unfortunately, your suspicions are correct. Gartner research found that B2B sellers forget 70% of learning within a week of training.

Sellers forget

of learning within a week
0 %

Fortunately, there is a way to increase knowledge retention and application.

Be sure to incorporate spaced reinforcement exercises into your sales enablement programs so learning sticks.

Also, provide reps with role-play opportunities so they can get feedback (either AI-powered or from a manager or peer) and perfect their skills before money is on the line. Innovative revenue enablement platforms are tapping into AI to allow reps to practice their skills with an interactive bot in realistic scenarios.

Challenge #6: Sales managers don’t have the time to deliver personalized coaching at scale

Sales coaching is key to improving sales performance. A recent Mindtickle report found that top sales reps get four times more sales coaching than average.

In addition, leading sales enablement platforms leverage artificial intelligence to score customer calls and provide feedback for improvement. That way, sellers can get instant insights on improving, and sales managers can get intel on how their sellers perform in the field.

Top sales reps get

more coaching than average
0 x

Often, sales managers deliver generic, one-size-fits-all coaching to every team member. That approach does little to nothing to improve sales outcomes.

Sales managers know personalized coaching will have a bigger impact, but they lack the time or resources to deliver tailored coaching for each sales rep.

With the right integrated sales enablement platform, sales managers can easily identify each sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses. This intel can inform coaching conversations that improve performance.

In addition, leading sales enablement platforms leverage artificial intelligence to score customer calls and provide feedback for improvement. That way, sellers can get instant insights on improving, and sales managers can get intel on how their sellers perform in the field.

Challenge #7: Measuring sales enablement ROI is tough

Proving the ROI of sales enablement is key to maintaining the sales enablement resources you have. What’s more, if you can prove sales enablement ROI, you’ll have an easier time securing additional investments.

But often, revenue organizations struggle to measure sales enablement impact. That could be for many different reasons. For example, they may only track asset views or training consumption, which doesn’t convey true impact. Or perhaps they use multiple solutions to power different parts of their sales enablement program, and they struggle to measure the impact of their program as a whole.

Sales enablement leaders must go beyond vanity metrics to convey how their initiatives impact sales enablement KPIs like conversion rates, quota attainment, and sales cycle length. With an integrated sales enablement platform, these leaders can holistically measure the impact of their entire program on key outcomes.

Challenge #8: You don’t know what’s happening in the field

Let’s say a seller completed all their assigned training and enablement and aced all their assessments. But their deals are still going south.

Their sales manager asks what’s going wrong, but the seller can’t articulate the problem. The sales manager isn’t sure what to do to help, and they simply don’t have the time to sit in on every call the seller has.

Fortunately, this sales enablement challenge is a relatively easy one to solve.

Leading revenue enablement software incorporates conversation intelligence capabilities. With a conversation intelligence solution, sales calls are recorded and scored, and sellers receive feedback on their performance. Furthermore, sales managers can look for trends to see what’s happening in the field. Then, the sales manager can use these insights to provide coaching to improve outcomes and the rep’s long-term behaviors.

Challenge #9: You have plenty of data – but you can’t make sense of it

Data drive the most effective sales enablement strategies and programs. Chances are, you have no shortage of data available. But it can be hard to analyze this volume of data and determine what actions to take based on it. This is especially true if you’re using multiple sales enablement solutions – each providing its own data and analytics set.

Consolidating your sales enablement tech stack is a key way to overcome this challenge. When you use a single, integrated revenue enablement platform, all your data and analytics are in one spot. Some revenue enablement platforms, like Mindtickle, even leverage AI to summarize data and analytics and recommend actions based on the data.

Challenge #10: You’re experiencing seller resistance and low adoption

It’s probably obvious, but your sales enablement programs and initiatives will have no impact if ignored.

There are several reasons why sales enablement adoption may need to be higher. Sellers are busy and may feel they need more time to engage with sales enablement. Or, they may not think the effort is worth it.

You may also encounter resistance if you roll out a new sales enablement tool. Don’t be discouraged. Some level of resistance is normal.

Gaining executive buy-in is foundational for overcoming resistance and increasing adoption. It’s also important to articulate the value of sales enablement for your sellers. In other words, be sure they key what’s in it for them.

Finally, remember that some sellers may equate sales enablement to lengthy, dull training sessions. Be sure your sales enablement program includes plenty of bite-sized content that sellers can consume on their own time.

How Mindtickle can help you overcome key sales enablement challenges

While sales enablement has many benefits, it also presents many challenges. With the right sales enablement solution, you can overcome these common sales enablement problems.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue enablement platform that incorporates all the key components of sales enablement, including sales training, content, coaching, and conversational intelligence, into one platform. With Mindtickle, you’ll increase sales rep adoption. Sellers only have one tool to use for enablement – rather than several disparate platforms. Furthermore, you’ll improve cross-functional collaboration when everyone works from one, integrated sales enablement platform.

Mindtickle’s sales content management capabilities ensure sellers can always find the most up-to-date content for any sales scenario. The platform even provides recommendations based on what’s worked for other sellers in similar scenarios.

With Mindtickle, sales managers and enablement teams can easily identify the strengths and weaknesses of each sales rep. Then, they can work to provide personalized training, enablement, and coaching to improve those lagging skills. Finally, they can leverage conversation intelligence to see if learning is being applied in the field.

Of course, ongoing measurement of your sales enablement program is key to proving ROI and identifying optimization opportunities. With Mindtickle, you can holistically measure the impact of sales enablement on business outcomes. Then, you can make data-based decisions to increase the program’s impact.

Sales enablement in Mindtickle

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Data-Driven Sales Coaching: How to Use Data to Drive Coaching Conversations https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/data-driven-sales-coaching-how-to-use-data-to-drive-coaching-conversations/ Thu, 18 Jul 2024 14:12:57 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/data-driven-sales-coaching-how-to-use-data-to-drive-coaching-conversations/ As a revenue leader, you’re likely well aware of the potential impact of great sales coaching on team performance. In fact, the power of sales coaching is proven. A recent analysis found that top sellers receive significantly more sales coaching than average. But generic, one-size-fits-all sales coaching doesn’t work. Furthermore, while deal coaching may improve …

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As a revenue leader, you’re likely well aware of the potential impact of great sales coaching on team performance. In fact, the power of sales coaching is proven. A recent analysis found that top sellers receive significantly more sales coaching than average.

But generic, one-size-fits-all sales coaching doesn’t work. Furthermore, while deal coaching may improve the outcome of a single deal, it won’t have much of an impact on a rep’s long-term behaviors and sales performance.

Instead, sales managers must deliver tailored skill coaching that addresses the strengths and weaknesses of each of their sales reps. But first, they must have the right data to understand what those strengths and weaknesses are.

In this post, we’ll explore why your current approach to sales coaching isn’t working – and why data-driven sales coaching is the answer.

Why coaching conversations must change

Having conversations about performance can be hard, especially if a rep isn’t doing well. It can be especially difficult to call out areas for improvement when you don’t have the specifics to back it up. Relying on data makes these conversations easier.

For sales managers, being able to track and analyze seller performance all in one place using revenue enablement software provides concrete insight into every time you say “you’re doing a great job” or “there’s room for improvement.” Your feedback is rooted in actual performance metrics, rather than running the risk of being considered your opinion rather than fact.

Data also helps us to identify the exact ways each seller can improve. Perhaps one rep is weaker in their competitor knowledge while another may need more support when it comes to operating sales technology. By digging into the data, an effective sales coach can identify opportunities for improvement and, in turn, maximize each rep’s performance.

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What a data-driven approach looks like

In order to adopt a data-driven coaching approach, you should have a clear understanding of the key metrics you should be looking at. These will help you gauge the overall success of your sales force, but really allow you to dig into individual performance to fuel more impactful coaching conversations.

Below we’ve highlighted some key criteria you’ll want to evaluate—and how you can gather the data.

Product knowledge: Assess and certify sellers on their product knowledge with quizzes using different formats. You can create a proficiency threshold score for reps to show they’re knowledgeable experts on your product, which you can test through multiple-choice quizzes, checklists, and written tests.

Reps can also be assigned role-plays to see if they can demo the product, describe what it does and accurately express the value of the product. If you’re using sales readiness technology, all of this can be easily reviewed and scored through artificial intelligence (AI).

Selling behavior: Evaluate how articulate and enthusiastic a rep is on a call, voicemail or presentation as well as the tone. You can also keep track of how many filler words are used. This will gauge their overall confidence in selling your solution.

Selling skills: By tracking sellers’ progress in real-time, sales coaches can get data insights on each rep’s ability to demo, use a sales methodology (e.g. MEDDPIC) on a call, challenge competition, handle objection questions, and evaluate whether or not the correct terms are used to describe the product.

Message consistency: AI-powered keyword analysis is a great way for sales coaches to get better insight into individual competencies and needs based on live interactions during the selling process. When you analyze sales calls (and leave the hard work to AI), you can uncover key problems in deals that didn’t close and start training on common questions you’re finding reps are being asked in the field.

Technology skills: How well do your reps use sales tools? Assess sellers on their knowledge (and correct use) of sales stack tools like Outreach, Ring, Zoom, and Salesforce to see how effectively they’re being put into action.

Using a revenue enablement platform, reps can actually record themselves using the tools, which can then be evaluated and scored. This will give sales coaches visibility into any challenges with tech on the team.

Your new approach to coaching starts now

On top of using data to coach reps, this data-driven approach also empowers you to establish a “profile of excellence” on your sales team. This helps sales managers to identify their best performers and replicate their skillset amongst other reps through training and coaching.

While it certainly makes it easier to track and report on these metrics with revenue enablement technology in place, it’s not impossible to do without. However you gather the data, it’s important to start bringing it into coaching conversations in order to pinpoint areas for improvement, provide more specific feedback, and ultimately empower you as a sales coach to help your team succeed.

Start delivering effective, data-driven coaching at scale with Mindtickle

The impact of sales coaching can’t be denied. However, in order to be effective, sales coaching must be tailored to the needs of each sales rep.

With Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform, you can start delivering data-driven coaching that’ll improve reps’ behaviors and grow sales performance.

With Mindtickle, you can easily understand deal risk and buyer engagement. Then, you can use those insights to provide coaching to improve the outcome of deals.

Mindtickle also empowers you to go beyond deal coaching to deliver skill coaching that improves long-term results. With Mindtickle, you can understand how reps are performing in the field and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Then, you can use this intel to deliver coaching to improve lagging skills and long-term behaviors and performance.

Of course, delivering coaching and hoping for the best isn’t an effective approach. With Mindtickle, revenue leaders can actually understand the impact of their coaching efforts. Then, they can optimize their approach for even better results.

This post was originally published in June 2021 and updated in July 2024.

Data Driven Sales Coaching with Mindtickle

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AI in Learning and Development: How AI Enhances Your L&D Programs https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/ai-in-learning-and-development/ Thu, 18 Jul 2024 13:59:33 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19871 The whole world is buzzing about artificial intelligence. Everywhere we go – from industry conferences and boardrooms to news publications and social media sites – we hear conversations about the large (and rapidly growing) impact of AI. Already, the most innovative organizations are leveraging AI in learning and development initiatives. Those that embrace AI in …

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The whole world is buzzing about artificial intelligence. Everywhere we go – from industry conferences and boardrooms to news publications and social media sites – we hear conversations about the large (and rapidly growing) impact of AI.

Already, the most innovative organizations are leveraging AI in learning and development initiatives. Those that embrace AI in learning and development are better equipped to build and deliver programs that grow skills and improve business outcomes. 

In fact, as an L&D leader, you simply can’t afford to ignore AI in learning and development.

If you’re looking to supercharge your learning and development efforts with AI, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about AI in learning and development. We’ll cover topics including:

  • The role of AI in learning and development
  • Why AI in learning and development is important
  • Top challenges of implementing AI in learning and development programs 
  • How the right technology can help you capitalize on the opportunities of AI in learning and development while overcoming the key challenges.

The role of AI in learning and development

Chances are, you always strive to hire the strongest candidates for every open position. Most organizations do!

But every employee – from the lowest performers to the all-stars – need ongoing learning and development to be successful in their roles. With a strong learning and development program, employees have opportunities to grow their skills. When every employee has access to the right learning and development opportunities, performance improves across the entire organization. 

As an added bonus, a strong learning and development program increases engagement among employees. When you prove you’re invested in your employees’ learning and growth, it boosts employee satisfaction and retention. 

But where does AI fit in?

One-size-fits-all learning and development doesn’t work. Instead, the best L&D programs are tailored to the unique needs of each employee. Organizations must also be able to measure the impact of their learning and development program and make data-based adjustments as necessary.

Pulling this off requires a ton of time and effort – especially for enterprises with hundreds or even thousands of employees. In fact, it can feel downright impossible.

That’s where AI in learning and development comes in. 

When you strategically leverage AI, you’re able to develop and deliver effective, personalized training and learning that address the needs of each learner. That means every member of your team has the right opportunities to build the skills and behaviors they need to be as successful as possible.

Why do you need AI in learning and development?
 

AI isn’t just a buzzword or a passing fad. Instead, it’s becoming a critical component of any effective learning and development program.

Not sure why you need generative AI in learning and development? Let’s take a look at some of the key reasons innovative L&D teams are already incorporating AI in learning and development.

Faster creation of L&D programs

Strong learning and development programs can significantly improve performance. But building and launching impactful programs takes time. Chances are, you don’t have much to spare.

Today, winning organizations leverage AI to create learning modules quickly and easily. The sooner you launch a program, the sooner you’ll see an impact.

Personalized L&D programs that address the skill gaps of each employee

There was a time when learning and development was limited to onboarding, and programs were one-size-fits-all. That approach will no longer cut it. L&D needs to be personalized to the unique needs of each employee.

Organizations leverage AI in learning and development programs to recommend L&D that’s relevant to each employee. For example, AI for training can deliver recommended learning and development based on factors like:

  • Job title
  • Skill gaps
  • Learning preferences
  • Content they’ve already consumed

Self service learning opportunities

With AI in learning and development, employees don’t have to wait around for content or a training module to be assigned to them. Instead, they can access individualized training and other learning whenever and wherever they need it.

For example, a sales rep can type in a question they’ve received from a prospect. AI will analyze all the content that’s available to provide an answer. AI will also recommend additional, related resources (like microlearning and sales content) the sales rep can use to learn more.  

Immersive practice opportunities to perfect skills 

Ideally, employees would remember everything they learned in training and apply it in the real world. But that’s not reality. 

Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve tells us employees forget half of all new information within a day; they forget 90% within a week of learning it. 

It’s important to provide employees reinforcement and practice opportunities. Role-plays are one example. However, traditional role-plays require a lot of a manager’s time.

That’s not the case with AI. 

Learning and development teams can create realistic scenarios and assign specific characteristics to an AI bot. Then, employees can engage with the bot to practice and hone their skills. 

Timely coaching and feedback

Employees depend on coaching and feedback from their managers to improve behaviors and performance. But delivering meaningful feedback takes time and effort, and employees can’t afford to sit around waiting.

AI for coaching is the answer. 

Today, sales enablement teams use AI to record and analyze sales reps’ calls. At the end of the call, the rep receives a score and real-time feedback for improvement. In addition, sales managers can look for trends (for example, a high volume of calls with low scores) to identify opportunities to deliver additional coaching to sales reps. 

Data analysis

Data is key to L&D success. Chances are, you have plenty of data available to you. For example, you likely have data related to how employees are engaging with different learning and development programs and how they’re performing on the job.

But it can be hard to make sense of the huge volume of data available to you.

Innovative teams use AI in learning and development to analyze data and provide summaries. AI can also make data-based recommendations for next steps.

Top challenges of implementing AI in learning and development

Leveraging AI can have a huge, positive impact on your L&D program. But implementing generative AI in learning and development also presents some unique challenges. 

Let’s take a look at some of the top challenges of implementing AI in development and learning.

Challenge #1: Integration with existing tools

Chances are, you already use certain tools to power your L&D program. You can’t bring a new tool or technology into your ecosystem and hope for the best. Instead, you must make sure it integrates with your existing tools.

Talk to your existing vendors to learn about the existing or upcoming AI capabilities of the learning and development tools you already use. If you’re searching for a new learning and development solution, look for an option that incorporates AI in innovative, impactful ways.

Challenge #2: Costs

Integrating AI in learning and development costs money. For example, you may need to purchase new learning and development tools. You must also consider the costs of training the members of your learning and development team.

In the best of times, it can be challenging to secure funds to invest in AI. This is especially true in today’s economy. 

Challenge #3: Training

Of course, you must train your L&D team on how to use your AI in learning and development solutions. You must also train employees who will be consuming your learning and development programs.

Developing and delivering training on AI requires time and effort. Employees have to set aside time that they would typically use for other tasks. 

Challenge #4: AI limitations

Make no mistake: incorporating AI in learning and development can dramatically impact the effectiveness of your programs. However, AI isn’t magic. There are limitations.

It’s crucial to understand those limitations. It’s also important to remember that AI outputs are only as good as the data behind them. 

Maximize the impact of your L&D initiatives with Mindtickle’s rich AI features 

Artificial intelligence is here to stay. Now is the time to determine how to incorporate AI in learning and development. Your competitors are already using AI in learning and development initiatives, and you can’t afford no to.

Today, some organizations continue to use a traditional learning management system (LMS) to deliver their learning and development programs. However, a growing number are trading their LMS for an integrated, AI-powered revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

The Mindtickle platform incorporates a number of powerful AI features that enable organizations to deliver engaging, effective learning and development at scale. 

For starters, Mindtickle leverages AI to allow training, development, and revenue enablement teams to spin up new learning experiences quickly and easily. The faster you develop programs, the sooner you’ll start seeing an impact. 

In addition, Mindtickle uses AI to help employees surface relevant learning resources, such as individualized training, content, and microlearning. That means employees can find the learning resources they need, when they need them. Mindtickle also offers AI-powered role-plays that ensure employees have opportunities to perfect their skills in realistic, dynamic scenarios. 

Finally, Mindtickle leverages AI to help organizational leaders make sense of the large volume of data available to them – and act on those insights in a way that improves sales performance and business outcomes.

AI-Powered Learning with Mindtickle

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Say Goodbye to Deal Delays: Discover the Power of Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/say-goodbye-to-deal-delays-discover-the-power-of-mindtickles-digital-sales-rooms/ Wed, 10 Jul 2024 15:42:04 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19859 When we talk to buyers and sellers about the buying/selling process, they frequently complain about the same thing: deals take longer than they need to because of friction, confusion, and opacity. So, if buyers and sellers want the same thing, what’s stopping them from aligning around the objectives of speed, clarity, and transparency? The truth …

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When we talk to buyers and sellers about the buying/selling process, they frequently complain about the same thing: deals take longer than they need to because of friction, confusion, and opacity.

So, if buyers and sellers want the same thing, what’s stopping them from aligning around the objectives of speed, clarity, and transparency?

The truth is that deals are becoming increasingly complicated. There are more competitors to evaluate, more stakeholders to align, and more legal and regulatory requirements to meet. When multiple conversations occur across multiple email threads and different folks join each sales call, information gets siloed, and deals get delayed.

Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms were built to solve this problem and drive alignment between buyers and sellers throughout even the most complex deal cycles. By consolidating all communication, call recordings, collateral, documents, etc., into one persistent, collaborative space, Mindtickle’s deal rooms keep deals on track as both parties push toward their shared objectives.

What makes digital sales rooms so powerful?

You can think of a digital sales room as a dedicated virtual conference room where buyers and sellers can collaborate, find information, and complete their buying and selling tasks.

Without a digital sales room, you can only impact a small portion of the buying process – the time you spend with buyers on calls and any time they spend reading your emails or reviewing collateral you sent over. With a dedicated deal room for the opportunity, buyers have a place to go to research, get answers to their questions, and get other stakeholders up to speed.

By making your digital sales room the easiest place for buyers to get answers about your product and competing products and giving them a place to complete their buying tasks, you can influence a greater portion of the buying decision. You’ll know what content they are looking at, what questions they’re asking, and what needs to happen to push deals forward.

Why are Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms the best option for modern sales orgs?

Unlike other deal room offerings in the market, Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms allow for unlimited collaboration between unlimited participants on both the buying and selling sides. The rooms maintain a static link throughout the entire customer lifecycle, so the same room can be used pre-sale (for deal acceleration) and post-sale (for implementation and customer success) and simply swap ownership from an account executive to a success manager.

Mindtickle’s deal rooms boast best-in-class analytics, including granular engagement data on all room visitors and their content interactions. Even when someone you haven’t already met from a buying organization visits a digital sales room, Mindtickle automatically enriches that contact and writes it to the CRM opportunity record, so you always know who is involved in the deals you’re working.

What makes Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms special is how much sellers love using them. As Mindtickle customer Sirion discovered, their reps took so quickly to making deal rooms that they reached over 50% utilization in new deals within 90 days of launch. This is not a unique case. digital sales rooms are Mindtickle’s most highly adopted product, and they have been shown to drive adoption in other areas of Mindtickle’s comprehensive revenue enablement platform.

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What benefits are Mindtickle’s customers seeing from digital sales rooms?

At a recent Sales Enablement Society event in New York, Mindtickle hosted a session with Digger McElligott, the Vice President of Sales at Paytronix, to discuss Paytronix’s success with Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms. Digger discussed his sales org’s aggressive goal to double their win rates in 2024 and highlighted that they’re getting ⅓ of the way there simply by using digital sales rooms.

Aside from Sirion’s adoption metrics we discussed earlier, they’ve also enjoyed significant gains in buyer engagement. In one deal with a Fortune 100 tech company, they received over 100 visitors from the buying organization to their digital sales room powered by Mindtickle, logging over 1000 hours of total self-service engagement. And because Mindtickle’s deal rooms enriched those contacts and tracked all the engagements, they knew exactly who looked at which pages and slides for how long in every one of those visits.

Once digital sales rooms are enabled, we see a greater than 200% increase in content utilization across our entire customer base. With all the data that content utilization generates, marketers can understand how their message is resonating and take action to optimize their content strategy accordingly.

Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms aren’t just for sales anymore.

While our customers continue to see increases in win rates and buyer engagement, what’s been perhaps the most exciting development is learning about all of the unexpected use cases they are discovering for Mindtickle’s flexible deal rooms:

  • Marketing teams are using them to replace landing pages as more engaging and dynamic lead-generation assets.
  • Enablement teams are setting up rooms for groups of new employees onboarding together. They use the room to build community, work on group projects, and track their progress through onboarding.
  • HR teams use the rooms to recruit new hires, send offers, and track each candidate’s engagement with the hiring materials.

  • Success orgs are setting up customer groups and generating collaborative interaction in shared rooms.

Ultimately, whenever you need a persistent shared space for digital interaction and collaboration, Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms give you exactly that, whether for internal or external audiences.

Best practices for leveraging digital sales rooms

Here are a few tips we’ve compiled to make sure you get the most out of your Mindtickle-powered digital sales rooms:

Mindtickle’s deal rooms leverage a template library to make it simple for sellers to launch new rooms in minutes. Keep the process simple and manageable by making templates for the most common product packages, personas, verticals, etc., so when a seller scores a new opp, they can easily find the right template and get a room out immediately.

With just a click or two, a rep can add a mutual action plan to any digital sales room powered by Mindtickle. Start from a standard template for your sales process and customize it as needed to reflect the buyer’s intended journey. Assign tasks to buyers or sellers, track milestones, and set due dates to ensure deals stay on track. And when they don’t, you’ll know exactly what’s holding it up.

Invite sellers who built rooms that generated the most alignment in key deals to show off their rooms. You’ll incentivize your team to push the envelope in creating engaging, bespoke rooms. You can even create templates based on the best-performing rooms.

Ready to start seeing those increased win rates? Ready to start generating twice as much engagement with your thoughtfully built content? Contact us today to learn more about digital sales rooms powered by Mindtickle. Talk with one of our reps, and they’ll create a room just for you to see it in action.

Digital Sales Rooms in Mindtickle

See how Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms can eliminate deal delays and boost your sales efficiency.

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What is Sales Training?  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-training/ Tue, 09 Jul 2024 11:20:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14999 Hiring strong sales reps with the right mix of skills and experience is important. But sales training is key to ensuring all sales reps (even your top performers) are properly equipped to close more deals, faster. In fact, sales training is an essential component of any winning sales enablement strategy. When it’s done well, training …

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Hiring strong sales reps with the right mix of skills and experience is important. But sales training is key to ensuring all sales reps (even your top performers) are properly equipped to close more deals, faster.

In fact, sales training is an essential component of any winning sales enablement strategy. When it’s done well, training can have a big impact on sales outcomes.

But what exactly is it?

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about sales training, including:

  • What it is and why it matters
  • How it can benefit your revenue organization
  • How you can build and deliver the best program
  • Key pitfalls to avoid when building your  program

Sales training: What it is and why it matters

First things first, what exactly is sales training?

Sales training ensures your sellers have the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to be ready for every step of the sales journey – from prospecting to closing the deal.

Going beyond sales onboarding

At most organizations, the training journey starts with onboarding. Sales onboarding is an important way to get new reps up to speed with your organization, products, and goals – as well as their role in achieving those goals. It makes sense why organizations invest in sales onboarding. When it’s effective, onboarding can greatly impact key business outcomes.

But all too often, it ends at onboarding. Per an analysis of Mindtickle users, onboarding took 21-22 days in 2023, compared to 58 days the year prior. 

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However, sales training shouldn’t stop at onboarding. Why? There are a few important reasons.

For starters, sellers are thrown a lot of information during sales onboarding. Even if you’ve built a great, engaging sales onboarding program, new reps are going to forget some of what they’ve learned. In fact, they’re going to forget most of it. Per Gartner, sellers forget 70% of the information they learn within just one week of training. Ongoing training (what we at Mindtickle refer to as “everboarding”) ensures learning sticks – and that sales reps are actually applying what they’ve learned to drive sales.

In addition, it’s important to remember that change is the only constant – both in life and in sales. Products, markets, competitors, and priorities are constantly changing. All reps – from the newest to the most seasoned – need ongoing training to ensure they’re up to speed on these changes and ready for whatever comes at them in the field.

The key benefits of sales training

There are many benefits of sales training. Here are two of the most important.

1. It positively impacts sales growth

Today, many sales leaders buy into the 80/20 rule, which is the outdated notion that 80% of sales will be driven by 20% of your reps. That means the vast majority of your reps will miss their sales quotas quarter after quarter.

But there’s a way to make sure all your sellers are meeting and beating their quotas.

With a strong program, you can create an entire team of sellers that are equipped to close deals and meet quota. Of course, when more sellers are closing more deals, that’s going to lead to more revenue growth.

2. It improves seller engagement and retention

When a great rep decides to leave, it’s costly to your company. For starters, you’re losing revenue the rep would have generated. Plus, you have to factor in the costs of recruiting, hiring, and training a new rep to replace them. It adds up! In fact, according to research from DePaul University, it costs nearly $115,000 to replace a sales rep.

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Either way, the message is clear: when you find great reps, it’s important to do what you can to retain them.

Research tells us you can lose upwards of 60% of your entire workforce within four years if your sales reps don’t feel like they’re learning and growing at your organization. Providing ongoing sales training is a great way to engage your sales reps and give them opportunities to learn and grow. This will boost job satisfaction, which will increase retention. Higher retention will save you the headache and costs of filling vacant roles – or the pressure of meeting your sales goals with a leaner team.

Six tips for more effective sales training

The potential benefits are clear. However, claiming to deliver training isn’t enough to see the benefits. In fact, according to ES Research, between 85% and 90% of training has no lasting impact.

What is it that sets great training apart from the rest?

Here are six tips to improve the effectiveness of your program.

Tip #1: Don’t stop at onboarding

We’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: training should extend beyond sales onboarding.

Sellers forget the vast majority of what they learned during onboarding. What’s more, products, markets, and selling landscapes are constantly changing and evolving.

Ongoing training is a key component to ensuring all of your reps are ready to sell. Training should be delivered regularly for maximum impact. According to a Heinz Marketing and Mindtickle report, among respondents who hit 75% or more of their quota, 90% participate in monthly training.

Tip #2: Define excellence

Sales training aims to create more, great sellers. But first, you have to determine what a great seller looks like.

Chances are, you have an ideal customer profile (ICP), which outlines what a good fit customer looks like for your business. But it’s just as important to define your ideal rep profile (IRP), which is the skills and competencies a seller needs to succeed in your organization.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Then, you can plan courses and programs that map to each key area. That way, you can be sure your training is helping sellers boost the skills and competencies they need.

Tip #3: Make it personal

Imagine you have two sellers in the same room. One is a veteran seller, and has been with your company for a few years. The other is a recent college grad with big potential – but only a year of sales experience. Does delivering the same training to those two sales reps make sense?

Absolutely not. The newer seller likely needs more training on being a great seller. But if you deliver that same training to the veteran seller, they’ll get bored and disengaged.

Of course, there will be certain training all sellers need to complete. But as a general rule, it shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, sales leaders must work to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each seller. The best way to do this is to measure each rep against your ideal rep profile. By doing so, you’ll see where they’re shining and where there are gaps. Then, personalized training can be delivered to each rep to close gaps – and improve sales performance.

Tip #4: Reinforce training

It’s disappointing, but it’s true: sellers will quickly forget what they learned in training. If you want that learning to stick (who doesn’t?), you’ve got to reinforce it.

Be sure to incorporate reinforcement exercises into your strategy. For example, after a training session, assign your sellers a quiz. If they earn a low score, assign them bite-sized video modules reinforcing the concepts presented during the training session.

It’s a best practice to house all  materials within a single sales training platform. That way, reps have a one-stop-shop for everything they need.

Tip #5: Mix up the format

The phrase “sales training” might conjure images of an instructor standing at the front of a room filled with sales reps. Sure, real-time training sessions – in-person or via video – are an important part of it. However, it also makes sense to incorporate other types of training.

For example, you might assign bite–sized training modules for sales reps to complete on their own time. You might also assign a quiz to test knowledge. Another idea is to assign role-plays to allow reps to practice their new skills and get feedback from either their manager or peers (or both).

Again, it’s important to ensure all training material is housed within a single platform so reps can easily find what they need.

Tip #6: Measure the impact

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. And without regular measurement, it’s impossible to determine what (if any) impact your training has on reps’ performance.

Many organizations measure completion rates. While this is important, it doesn’t tell the whole story. A seller may fly through their assigned training but fail to perform when interacting with buyers.

As such, it’s key to measure how your training impacts key business outcomes, such as quota attainment and win rates. In addition, be sure to continuously measure your reps against your ideal rep profile. That way, you can understand how training is positively impacting skills and in-field behaviors.

Sales training vs. sales coaching: What is the difference?

Training and coaching are key components of a sales enablement strategy. Often, these phrases are used interchangeably. Training and coaching are two pieces of the same puzzle, but they’re not the same.

At each organization, there are a certain set of skills and competencies a seller needs to be successful throughout the sales cycle. Training is focused on delivering knowledge to help reps learn those skills and competencies.  Classes and modules can be focused on any number of things, including (but not limited to):

  • Product knowledge
  • Sales methodology
  • Ideal customer profiles
  • Pitch delivery
  • Objection handling
  • Use of tools, including CRM

Sales coaching is aimed at improving sales performance. However, the delivery methods and tactics are different. The goal of sales coaching is to improve sales performance through strategies including:

  • Relationship-building
  • Knowing and analyzing what’s happening in the field
  • Delivering individualized plans to improve deal outcomes and build key skills for each sales rep

When it’s done well, sales coaching can extend the impact of training and have a big impact on sales results. In fact, effective sales coaching can boost win rates by as much as 29%

What exactly does sales coaching look like?

The most effective managers work closely with each sales rep to understand their unique strengths and weaknesses. In addition, they leverage meeting intelligence to see firsthand how reps are performing in the field. Armed with these insights, sales managers can deliver sales coaching that helps reps capitalize on strengths and improve weaker skills and competencies.

Often, sales coaching is limited to deal coaching. In other words, a rep and manager regularly review in-flight deals and determine how to move them forward. However, it’s also important to provide skills coaching. Skill coaching drives long-term behavior change and helps reps hone the skills they need to close deals.

Training and coaching shouldn’t be viewed as an either/or choice. Instead, both are key to ensuring reps are ready to move deals through the funnel and eventually close them.

Sales training mistakes to avoid

Many organizations invest time and resources into developing sales training programs. However, the harsh reality is that these programs often fail.

If you’re looking to increase the effectiveness of training at your organization, be sure to avoid these four common sales training mistakes.

Mistake #1: Taking a “one and done” approach 

It’s not realistic to deliver training one time and expect the entire team to retain what they learned and apply it in the field. Instead, it’s important to deliver training on an ongoing basis and provide reinforcement exercises and practice opportunities.

Average companies

Winning companies

role-plays a year
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role-plays a year
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Role-plays are one popular way to allow sales reps to practice their new skills, and they’re correlated with sales success. A recent analysis found that the average company has sellers complete 13 role-plays in a year. However, top companies have sellers do an average of 80 role-plays per year.

Mistake #2: Requiring every seller to complete every training

It’s not effective to create a generic sales training that requires every member of the revenue team to complete. If a sales training is focused on a skill a seller has already mastered, they’ll be disengaged. Plus, they’ll be wasting time that could be better spent engaging with buyers and closing deals.

Instead, measure each sellers’ mastery of the skills and behaviors that matter most. Then, assign relevant training that helps each seller strengthen their weaker skills.

Mistake #3: Only measuring success with completion metrics

Ongoing measurement is a key component of any sales training program. However, many organizations focus on completion metrics. In other words, they measure what percentage of sales reps complete a specific training.

Revenue organizations must go beyond completion metrics to understand the actual impact. Be sure to track sales training completion and how it is (or isn’t) impacting sales productivity.

Mistake #4: Depending on an outdated LMS to power your sales training program

A learning management system (LMS) can be a great solution for more general training, such as that that HR and IT teams deliver. However, an LMS isn’t built for the unique needs of the sales team.

A better approach is to invest in an integrated revenue enablement solution that incorporates all the key elements of revenue enablement, including sales training, sales coaching, sales content, and conversation intelligence. That way, sellers can access everything they need in one location. This is great news, as Salesforce research found that 66% of sales reps are overwhelmed with the number of tools they’re expected to use.

Salesforce research found that

of reps are overwhelmed with sales tools
0 %

Furthermore, an integrated revenue enablement platform allows enablement teams to create and deploy personalized programs that meet the needs of every seller – at scale. Enablement teams can also holistically measure the impact of all their initiatives on sales productivity and performance.

Supercharge your sales training program with Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform

Hiring experienced sellers is one piece of the puzzle. But even the most seasoned sales reps need ongoing training to ensure they’re ready to conquer any deal.

Generic sales training simply won’t do. Instead, revenue enablement teams must work to define what excellence looks like – and then deliver personalized sales training and sales enablement to ensure every seller has what it takes to succeed.

Today, some revenue organizations continue to leverage a learning management system (LMS) to deliver sales training. However, a growing portion are trading in their LMS for an integrated revenue enablement platform.

With an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, revenue organizations can power their entire revenue enablement program – including sales training – all from one central location. That means revenue enablement leaders can build, deliver, and measure the impact of sales training and sales enablement initiatives – all in one platform. Furthermore, sellers can easily access the sales training, coaching, content, conversation insights, and other information and resources they need to close more deals, faster.

Sales training in Mindtickle

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This post was originally published in November 2022 and updated in July 2024. 

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Are You Reducing Your Sales Enablement Budget? Tips for Staying Ahead https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/are-you-reducing-your-sales-enablement-budget-mindtickle/ Fri, 05 Jul 2024 10:55:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14379 While the threat of recession may be fading, we’re still facing a lot of economic uncertainty. It’s not surprising that many organizations continue to monitor spending closely. Revenue enablement teams are feeling the effects. Today, many revenue enablement teams deal with flat (or even reduced) budgets. Yet, the expectations placed on these teams only continue …

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While the threat of recession may be fading, we’re still facing a lot of economic uncertainty. It’s not surprising that many organizations continue to monitor spending closely.

Revenue enablement teams are feeling the effects.

Today, many revenue enablement teams deal with flat (or even reduced) budgets. Yet, the expectations placed on these teams only continue to grow.

In other words, revenue enablement teams are pressured to accomplish more with smaller revenue enablement budgets.

Are you a revenue enablement professional looking to maintain (or even increase) the impact of your program – even when you’re forced to trim your sales enablement budget? If so, you’ve come to the right place.

In this post, we’ll share four powerful tips for effective sales enablement – even when you’re facing a flat (or reduced) budget. We’ll also explore four key elements to incorporate into your organization’s revenue enablement budget.

Tip 1: Retain and develop your existing sellers

In today’s economy, many organizations aren’t replacing sellers who leave the organization – at least for now. But often, sales goals remain the same.

Revenue teams must boost performance and reduce turnover – even when hiring new sales reps isn’t an option. Upskilling your existing sales team is the most effective approach.

Upskilling is the process of providing existing sales reps with ongoing learning, support, and reinforcement so they can develop knowledge, skills, and behaviors that’ll help them meet (or even exceed) their goals.

Learning and support can (and should) take many different forms. For starters, revenue enablement teams must provide training materials to develop sales reps, including:

  • Live training
  • Videos
  • Product sheets
  • Quizzes

Revenue enablement teams must also provide sales reps opportunities to practice their new skills. Role-plays are one popular example. Sales reps can record their pitches and get instant input from artificial intelligence and feedback from sales managers and peers.

Sales reps must also receive regular, personalized one-on-one sales coaching for guidance and feedback and sales content to use with buyers throughout the sales cycle.

With the right sales enablement platform, sales leaders can track performance on the team and individual levels. This enables leaders to understand each seller’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, revenue enablement teams and sales managers can deliver additional, personalized sales enablement and coaching to strengthen lagging skills.

Tip 2: Examine what you might have missed

It’s hard to look ahead without considering how you’re doing things now. Look back at workflows and pipeline management processes to identify gaps and inefficiencies. Are you optimized to move opportunities through every stage of the sale?

A great way to get started is to perform a win/loss analysis, where you examine deals that were won and deals that were lost. Have sellers answer specific questions for each, like:

  • Where did you find the lead?
  • How did you initially reach out to the customer?
  • Who did you talk to first and who were you in contact with throughout the process?
  • How did the first conversation go? What was the next step?
  • What were the customer’s pain points at the time?
  • What were the customer’s goals at the time?
  • Was the customer looking at competitors at the same time?
  • How did you know this was a good deal to pursue (or what were the signs that it wasn’t)?
  • How did you present the value proposition/use case?
  • Who within the customer’s buying team made the final decision?

Revisiting opportunities allows you to determine what types of engagement and content led to success — and whether recently disqualified opportunities were properly disqualified or are still warm enough to warrant reaching back out.

Tip 3: Quantify your impact

Besides making changes to your approach, you must also prove the value of your sales enablement function when navigating budget discussions. This means being able to present numbers that demonstrate how enablement projects directly impact revenue.

Look at factors like content engagement and role-plays and how they correlate with quota attainment and revenue generation.

For instance, how likely are sellers who engage with enablement content to reach or exceed quota? Do sellers who practice with role-plays ask more questions in real-world buyer conversations or have more success in moving an opportunity forward? Putting numbers to these key performance indicators (KPIs) enables you to align efforts to stakeholder goals.

This is also an ideal time to ensure your current customers have clear benchmarks and KPIs to measure success. Dig into what they’re already measuring and discuss how those metrics can be used to understand their progress with your product. If they don’t have data to analyze, work with customer champions to establish easy KPIs to start measuring immediately. If their own organization is looking to consolidate technology, those champions can tie those KPIs to revenue and defend your product.

Tip 4: Automate tedious tasks

Recent Salesforce research found that sales reps spend a mere 28% of their time each week actually selling.

Sales reps spend just

of their time selling
0 %

When reviewing your sales processes, look for tasks that can be automated to help sellers focus on sales activities and boost sales productivity. Clunky, manual work like toggling between tools or scouring different folders to find specific content wastes time that could be spent on revenue-generating activities.

In these instances, there are likely ways to automate or consolidate programs in your tech stack to save sellers’ time and effort. Many sales technologies have integration capabilities to alleviate frustration and streamline methods for transferring customer data, sharing content, reporting, and more. If yours doesn’t, it’s probably time to look elsewhere.

The same Salesforce report cited earlier found that 66% of sellers are overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use.

of sellers are overwhelmed by sales tools
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So, when evaluating new solutions for your sales organization, consider vendors who provide at least several functionalities in your current tech stack within a single platform. This way, your sales team members and adjacent and supporting teams, like marketing, are working from a single source of truth, and all know where to find what they need. Revenue teams will spend less time hunting for what they need, switching between tools, and more time selling.

For example, an integrated revenue enablement platform has enablement and training, content management, conversation intelligence, coaching, and analytics all in one place. By delivering time-saving abilities and the assurance that every rep is using the most up-to-date internal and customer-facing content, an integrated revenue enablement platform lets sellers focus on sales activities that drive outcomes and revenue growth.

4 key elements of a sales enablement budget

In the best of times, a sales enablement budget is an essential piece of your sales enablement strategy. Today, when organizations closely watch their spending, creating a sales enablement budget is even more important.

If you’re building a revenue enablement budget from scratch (or revising an existing budget), you should incorporate four key elements.

Fixed costs

Variable costs

Unexpected costs

ROI

#1 Fixed costs

Fixed costs are any sales enablement expenses that stay largely the same. Some examples of fixed sales enablement costs include:

  • Sales enablement team member salaries
  • Monthly or yearly cost of sales enablement platforms and tools

These fixed costs are easy to predict because they remain steady – even as your business encounters change.

In general, fixed costs represent your sales enablement program must-haves. They’re things you need for your sales enablement team to be successful.

#2 Variable costs

Variable costs are expenses that can (and often do) vary based on the ever-evolving needs of the business. Some examples of variable sales enablement costs include:

  • Travel
  • Consultant work
  • Vendor costs

Because these costs are variable, they’re trickier to plan for. It’s always better to overestimate variable costs than to underestimate them.

#3 Unexpected costs

Unexpected costs are – you guessed it – expenses that aren’t expected or planned for.

It’s important to consider any upcoming changes that could impact your budget. However, it’s impossible to anticipate everything. As such, it’s a good idea to build some wiggle room into your sales enablement budget so you have the funds to cover unexpected costs.

#4 ROI

Sales enablement’s goal is to positively impact sales productivity and performance. It’s important to prove that your sales enablement program is impacting the metrics that matter most to your business.

Your ability to convey return on investment (ROI) is key to maintaining the revenue enablement budget you already have. Proving ROI may also help you secure additional budget and resources.

Maximize the impact of revenue enablement with Mindtickle

When it’s done well, revenue enablement can have a large, measurable impact on sales productivity and performance. Yet, in today’s uncertain economy, many sales enablement teams have flat or reduced sales enablement budgets.

Using the tips in this post, you can maximize the impact of sales enablement—even when budgets and resources are tight.

Streamlining your sales enablement technology is one powerful way to maximize your sales enablement budget. Now’s the time to trade disparate point solutions for an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

Mindtickle incorporates all the key elements of revenue enablement – including onboarding, ongoing training, sales content, sales coaching, and conversation intelligence – all in one platform. Your sellers can find everything they need in one spot, so they’ll spend less time hunting down materials and more time engaging buyers and closing deals.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Curious why the world’s best revenue organizations are choosing Mindtickle?

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This post was originally published in October 2022 and updated in July 2024. 

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The Top 5 Features to Look for When You’ve Outgrown Your Learning Management System (LMS) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-top-5-features-to-look-for-when-youve-outgrown-your-learning-management-system-lms/ Tue, 02 Jul 2024 20:21:55 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19805 When a start-up excitingly experiences enough growth to consider a solution for onboarding and compliance, a learning management software ticks the boxes of automating employee training and information delivery. Alternatively, large, historied, traditional companies often prioritized ensuring compliance training first and never updated to new, more sophisticated solutions that would help them with the continued …

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When a start-up excitingly experiences enough growth to consider a solution for onboarding and compliance, a learning management software ticks the boxes of automating employee training and information delivery.

Alternatively, large, historied, traditional companies often prioritized ensuring compliance training first and never updated to new, more sophisticated solutions that would help them with the continued development of their workforce.

But in a world where people are accustomed to a curated “For You” page and information is available in quantities that were unheard of when PCs were first introduced to consumers, your employees’ need for effective, personalized skill training, coaching, and continued development past onboarding means making the switch to a new solution.

Behavior change for competency building

Reliably delivering information across an organization is an excellent foundational goal for any organization. Achieving this fundamental first step is an achievement, but it’s only the first step on a journey for an organization’s learning and development program.

Ultimately, today’s workforce demands an employee experience where they develop skills and competencies during their tenure at a company. This means going through an onboarding process and completing compliance training annually will only contribute to low morale and high attrition.

So what does it take for them to stay?

Personalization/relevance of training

We’re flooded with information everywhere we turn. According to the Harvard Business Review, information overload cost the U.S. economy $900 billion in 2009.

And it’s only gotten worse.

So why would you also subject your employees to unnecessary training and information?

Instead, tailor what they see based on their roles and responsibilities and make sure their time is used to address their growth opportunities instead of taking training courses for areas they already excel in.

So what are the features to get you there? 

#1. Role-based home pages

Make sure the solution you choose can connect to your HR management system so the employee’s learning experience can be automatically tailored based on their title and team.

For example, suppose someone has just joined the customer service team. In that case, they’ll be assigned only the courses necessary for general compliance and to help them provide a stellar service experience in any customer interaction they may face. This could mean courses about the escalation process or regulating their emotions when the other party is heightened emotionally.

#2. Competency profiles

Another requirement you should include when looking for a new solution is the ability to evaluate every demonstrated person’s strengths and weaknesses compared to an ideal benchmark at scale. This information will take your employee development to the next level, enabling you to customize their course assignments automatically and see whether their courses translate into execution and skills.

Beyond looking at the individual level to tailor the learning experience, you can make more informed decisions about where to invest resources based on the strengths and weaknesses of various teams or the organization.

In this example, the West sales team is strong in rapport-building skills but struggling with negotiation. If we zoom out further, we can see that the sales organization as a whole could improve its negotiation skills. Based on this insight, the team can decide to develop a new course, run a workshop, or even bring in an expert in negotiations to motivate them.

Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

Changing behaviors for skill development

People don’t achieve new goals by doing what they’ve always done. It takes change. And it takes a concerted effort to make that change stick.

Give your employees tools that help them apply their learning through practice, and receive feedback quickly so they can practice and reinforce the right behaviors.

For example, if you have a junior HR employee with less experience than the rest of the team, have them go through a role-play exercise simulating a meeting to resolve a conflict between an employee and their manager.

Here’s what to look for.

#3 AI-powered role-plays

A safe environment to practice before the pressure of a real-life situation is crucial for desired behaviors to become second nature. Some interesting new point solutions provide an AI bot that will simulate a conversation with your employees to help them put the concepts they learned into practice.

However, finding a consolidated platform solution with this functionality is a better investment. The results from these role-play exercises can inform your employees’ competency profiles, with all the benefits mentioned above. They can also be used with the next feature to magnify the effects of your employees’ and managers’ efforts to improve.

interactive role-play

Investing in a culture of data-informed coaching

Practicing with AI-powered feedback will kick-start the behavior change process, but it can’t compare to consistent, high-quality coaching from a manager equipped with the skills and tools to mentor their teams.

Create a culture of excellence, transparency, and accountability around coaching and encourage a growth mindset in your employees. Set benchmarks for manager competencies and give them the training they need based on the strengths and weaknesses in their competency profiles.

What are the features to look for to get you there? 

#4 Integrated coaching forms

As you coach the coaches, find a solution that gives your managers integrated coaching forms to guide their coaching sessions, assign tasks, and send reminders about conducting coaching sessions regularly. This feature should feel like it is woven into the rest of the platform by providing:

  • Ways for your managers to watch and provide their feedback on role-play submissions
  • The ability to assign courses to their team members
  • If your organization records calls with customers and prospects, the option to bring those call recordings from real-life scenarios into coaching sessions

These aspects of the feature help employees understand what good looks like and see their progress toward their goals.

#5 Robust data and analytics

Hold your managers accountable by finding a solution with nuanced data from features like coaching forms, competency profiles, and all the table stakes data from foundational training features. Track the progress of each manager’s team over time, whether through the frequency and results of the coaching sessions, the changes in their competency profiles, or even in comparison to other top managers.

Relying on these metrics is better than relying on lagging indicators like employee satisfaction or retention rates, which forces leaders to react instead of proactively making decisions to improve the employee experience before they leave.

A world beyond LMS

Outgrowing technology is a great problem. When evolving past an LMS, consider consolidated readiness solutions to reap all the benefits of a one-stop shop for employees to learn, practice, receive coaching, and more.

Move Beyond Your LMS

Mindtickle is here to grow with the needs of every organization, from start-ups to enterprises. To see how take a look here or book a time with us for a more personalized demo.

Request a Demo

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8 Ways To Increase Sales Acceleration https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/8-ways-to-increase-sales-acceleration/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/8-ways-to-increase-sales-acceleration/#comments Tue, 02 Jul 2024 08:37:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17508 In the world of B2B sales, time really is money. The faster your reps can close deals, the bigger the impact on your bottom line. But simply telling your reps to “speed things along” isn’t the right approach. If you push too hard, prospects feel pressured. You’re likely to lose their trust, and deals will …

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In the world of B2B sales, time really is money. The faster your reps can close deals, the bigger the impact on your bottom line.

But simply telling your reps to “speed things along” isn’t the right approach. If you push too hard, prospects feel pressured. You’re likely to lose their trust, and deals will stall – or disappear altogether.

Sales acceleration is essential, but it’s not just about going faster. It’s about removing friction and optimizing every step of the sales process so sellers can work smarter, stay focused, and close more deals with confidence.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales acceleration really means and share eight practical tips for ramping up velocity without sacrificing deal quality or customer experience.

What is sales acceleration?

Let’s define sales acceleration and explore its implications for your company and your customers.

Sales acceleration is the process of improving your approaches and strategies to move prospects through the sales funnel more efficiently.

Sales acceleration is a classic win-win scenario. For your company, it means more deals and fewer resources expended. For your customers, it means less wasted time and a better overall experience.

Does sales acceleration help grow revenue?

While we’re on the topic of old adages, we should address another one: What happened to “slow and steady wins the race”?

That’s not the case when it comes to sales acceleration. Sure, you don’t want your reps to rush through sales discovery calls or other customer interactions, but one of the best ways to grow revenue is to take your time and use it more effectively. Sales acceleration allows you to identify better and take advantage of existing revenue opportunities.

For example, say you use one sales acceleration strategy: lead qualification. When you qualify leads before contacting them, you save time on people who are likely to buy and get better results from the same amount of resource expenditure. This leads to more revenue because you’re focused on leads that show proven interest or receptiveness.

And the faster, the better. Lead qualification success is reduced 10x when reps wait longer than five minutes to respond to a form fill or inquiry. At anything over 10 minutes, that decrease in success jumps to 400%.

Lead qualification is reduced

when reps wait more than 5 minutes to respond to a form fill
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The same idea applies to all sales acceleration tools and strategies. The time, resources, and leads are out there; sales acceleration improves revenue by cutting waste and putting your focus in the right places.

8 tips to increase sales acceleration

Ready to accelerate sales? Here are just a few tips to get you started:

#1: Use the right tools

Sales acceleration tools help your reps know what to say, show or send, giving them the visibility necessary to determine which deals need particular attention. For example, the best sales acceleration software allows you to keep track of details such as:

  • Whether prospects are mentioning your competitors
  • Whether deals are multi-threaded
  • What messaging is used on calls, and whether this aligns with your most up-to-date recommendations

Based on this information, sales acceleration tools can surface the best training solutions and identify top revenue-driving content, helping move deals forward. This could include building digital sales rooms to set up a mutual action plan.

#2: Improve your sales onboarding and training

To accelerate sales, you need to build out your onboarding and training materials with processes that clearly connect to real-world scenarios. One of the best ways to do this is to deploy sales plays with all necessary information — including everything a rep needs to say, show and do — to sell a new product or build relationships with particular personas.

To make these trainings even more effective, consider using clips from recorded calls or top practice sessions — and don’t forget to make this content available on-demand in a training or onboarding library. 

#3: Get more from your notes

Instead of having reps waste valuable time — and potentially distract themselves — by taking notes on calls, use sales acceleration tools to automate notetaking, transcribe communications and gather voice-of-market insights.

This doesn’t just make it easier to learn from every interaction and identify areas for improvement; it also helps you uncover trends that enable reps to choose the right messaging at the right time. They’ll have what they need to use revenue-driving content to win more deals.

#4: Foster better deal collaboration and coaching

To accelerate sales, perform accurate revenue forecasting and more, you need clear communication across multiple roles and departments. Fostering this collaboration requires smoothly sharing the most important content.

For example, have your Business Development Representatives (BDRs) share call snippets with reps and reps share call snippets with Sales Engineers (SEs) and Customer Success Managers (CSMs) to make hand-offs simpler and more effective. You should also empower managers with a coaching workflow based on real data from multiple sources. This enables them to see how healthy their team’s deals and calls are — plus, they can make actionable plans to coach at key intervals.

#5: Align sales and marketing on content

Content plays an important role in the B2B path to purchase. But when sales and marketing teams are misaligned, content can actually slow down cycles, rather than accelerate them.

It’s imperative to align sales and marketing around content. This ensures the right content is created and sellers can easily find the right content at the right moment – without wasting time looking for it. With the right sales enablement platform, you can also track which assets move deals forward. That way, you can double down on content that’ll engage buyers and accelerate sales, and eliminate assets that aren’t used or don’t make a positive impact.

#6: Consolidate everything

From data and background information to training material and sales enablement content, reps can juggle a lot when navigating a single call or communication. Give them access to everything they need, but don’t overwhelm them with unnecessary or poorly organized information. Instead, provide a more streamlined user experience to reduce clicks and save time. This makes reps more agile and better able to respond in unfamiliar scenarios, but it also speeds up prospect communication and makes your sales funnel faster and simpler.

#7: Prioritize the right deals

Not all opportunities are created equal, and sales reps only have so many hours in the day. If they’re focused on the wrong opportunities, it can drag the sales cycle down for all of their deals.

One of the fastest ways to accelerate sales is to help sellers focus on the deals that are most likely to close. With lead scoring software, your sellers can determine high quality opportunities based on signals like buyer engagement, stage velocity, and stakeholder involvement. That way, reps can spend their time on promising deals, instead of spinning their wheels on dead-end leads.

#8: Adjust your sales acceleration strategy regularly

A sales acceleration strategy depends heavily on best practices, up-to-date messaging, new sales enablement materials, and even the latest version of your sales acceleration software. That means there are a variety of changes that can impact your strategy.

There may be opportunities to refine your sales processes that you follow in order to accelerate deals. You can run reports on average deal cycles by industry/segment and which stage of the sales process deals are getting stalled most often. See what training reps have gotten on this stage – it could mean there is an opportunity to reinforce best practices or re-evaluate your sales stages.

Benefits of implementing a sales acceleration strategy

Once you’ve implemented all the right tips and your sales acceleration approach is well underway, you could start seeing benefits around every corner. For example:

  • Filled quotas: With a solid sales acceleration solution at your reps’ fingertips, more of them can achieve their quotas faster. That means more deals won, more experience with different persona types, and more revenue.
  • Better wins: Bigger, better, faster wins are possible using the right sales acceleration tools. You’re connecting dots to streamline experiences, improving the deals, not just the processes that build them.
  • Smoother hand-offs: A completed deal is a product of multiple teams and departments. Sales acceleration makes it smoother and quicker to communicate key points and create better internal and external experiences.
  • Reduced churn: Grow your customer base and reduce churn simultaneously. It’s all possible thanks to better processes and more prepared reps.
  • Scalable sales motion: Make your sales motion repeatable and scalable with best practices, training, and other sales acceleration solutions. 
  • Adoption: Accelerating sales allows you to more easily adapt your sales process and methodology to a “win every stage” approach. This also means improving your stage-to-stage conversions.

Types of sales acceleration tools

There are various tools in the market to help with sales acceleration. Let’s take a closer look at some of the common types of sales acceleration tools.

#1 Prospecting tools

Prospecting is foundational to the sales process. After all, if you can’t find the right prospects, you won’t have anyone to sell to. Prospecting tools allow you to find and contact prospects who are a good fit for your product or service more effectively.

#2 Lead scoring tools

Sellers only have so many hours in the day. You want them to spend their time with prospects most likely to convert. Lead scoring tools help revenue teams identify which leads are the most valuable.

#3 Contact management tools

Contact management tools help revenue teams keep track of details for their current and prospective customers.

#4 Activity tracking tools

Each deal has several moving pieces. Activity tracking tools enable sellers to keep track of all their interactions with prospects.

#5 Revenue enablement tools

Sellers need the right tools, training, and resources to be effective and efficient. An integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle provides sales teams targeted training, personalized coaching, and real-time insights. Our integration of conversation intelligence and ability to set and track challenging yet achievable goals ensures a complete approach to driving sales success.

#6 Sales dialers

Sales reps spend a large portion of their time making calls. While these calls are necessary, manually typing in hundreds of numbers is tedious and time-consuming. Sales dialers are a sales acceleration tool that automates outbound calling.

#7 Sales engagement tools

Modern B2B sellers expect tailored communication and experiences throughout the purchase journey. However, meeting these expectations and effectively engaging buyers is time-consuming.

Sales engagement tools automate communication with prospects. With the right tools, sellers can deliver personalized, targeted outreach at scale.

#8 Sales forecasting tools

Accurate forecasting is important. The right sales acceleration tools empower teams to create more accurate forecasts. In addition, these tools can flag at-risk deals so sales managers can step in to provide guidance and coaching to improve the deal’s outcome.

How to choose a sales acceleration platform for your business

Investing in the right tools can have a major impact on sales acceleration. But the wrong tools can actually slow things down by adding complexity, creating friction, and making it harder to close deals.

So how can you be sure you’re making the right choice?

There’s no one-size-fits-all solution. The best sales acceleration platform for your business depends on your specific goals, processes, and challenges. That said, here are a few key features to look for when evaluating your options.

1. AI-powered insights and automation

The strategic use of AI can significantly boost sales acceleration. Look for sales acceleration solutions that leverage AI to help sellers work smarter. This might include surfacing the right content at the right moment, delivering real-time feedback to support skill development, or suggesting next-best actions to keep deals moving forward.

2. Integration with your existing tools

he right platform should simplify your tech stack, not complicate it. Make sure the solution integrates seamlessly with your CRM, sales engagement tools, content management solutions, and other key tools. That way, everything flows in one streamlined workflow, and your sellers don’t have to waste time toggling between tools or duplicating work.

3. Customization and scalability

Your sales process is unique, and your sales acceleration platform should reflect that. Choose a solution that’s flexible enough to match your workflows, team structures, and KPIs. The platform should also be scalable so it continues to meet your needs as your business grows or evolves.

4. Centralized training, content and coaching

Sales acceleration depends on giving reps the right support at the right time. Rather than juggling point solutions, look for a platform that centralizes sales training, content, and coaching in one place. That way, reps can quickly find what they need, without wasting time asking around or searching multiple tools.

5. Real-time analytics and reporting

Sales acceleration starts with awareness. A strong platform should offer real-time insights into things like deal health, rep performance, and coaching opportunities. These analytics help leaders identify roadblocks, double down on what’s working, and make data-driven decisions that speed up the sales cycle.

Start accelerating sales with Mindtickle

Every sales leader wants to close more deals, faster. Fortunately, accelerating sales doesn’t require a massive overhaul. You just need the right strategy and the right tools to support it.

With the right sales acceleration platform, you can reduce friction, empower your reps, and shorten the sales cycle – all without sacrificing deal quality or customer trust.

Mindtickle goes beyond traditional sales acceleration software. It’s a unified, AI-powered revenue enablement platform that brings together sales training, coaching, content, and performance insights. With Mindtickle, your sellers have everything they need to work smart and close deals faster and more effectively.

Ready to Move Faster?

Find out how Mindtickle combines enablement, training, coaching, content, and conversation intelligence to help reps sell smarter and faster.

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in May 2023, updated in December 2023, August 2024, and again in July 2025. 

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Sales Enablement for the Chemical Industry Reps https://www.mindtickle.com/industry/chemical/ Mon, 01 Jul 2024 04:50:44 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=industries&p=19785 Sales Enablement for the Chemicals industry Set every rep up for success with personally relevant learning and convenient, up-to-date product knowledge and messaging content Request a Demo Request a personalized demo Leaders in every industry trust Mindtickle “When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience …

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Sales Enablement
for the
Chemicals industry

Set every rep up for success with personally relevant learning and convenient, up-to-date product knowledge and messaging content

Request a personalized demo

Medical Devices Demo

Leaders in every industry trust Mindtickle

scientia
Integrace-logo
veracyte
chelsey moon

"When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience was a driving factor. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback thus far. In an ideal world, I would track everything with Mindtickle.”

Chelsey Moon, Director of Learning and Development, PureCars
Before
After

Personalize training for sellers

Before

Mindtickle

One-size-fits-none training for chemicals sales reps leads to wasted potential and gut-based decision-making
Chemical-Before
Before
After

Personalize training for sellers

Before

Mindtickle

One-size-fits-none training for chemicals sales reps leads to wasted potential and gut-based decision-making
Chemical-Before

Provide top-notch, personalized enablement for every channel seller

Use Mindtickle to manage the role-specific training needs of your sellers, from onboarding to continuous training, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge and the skills to use that knowledge in any selling situation

Provide top-notch, personalized enablement for every channel seller

Use Mindtickle to manage the role-specific training needs of your sellers, from onboarding to continuous training, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge and the skills to use that knowledge in any selling situation

Tailor buyer experiences to accelerate deal cycles and increase lifetime value

Give sellers the power to provide a stellar personalized buyer experience by sharing relevant content and managing end-to-end customer interactions
training-programs
Certification

Build your team’s confidence and expertise through personalized training and certification programs

Make learning fun to ensure knowledge retention and sharpen the skills of both managers and sellers for maximum productivity

Enable your sales force with cutting-edge AI role-plays and practice sessions

  • See how sellers perform in the real world with AI role-plays and call recordings.
  • Use a hybrid of automated and human-powered assessment tools, plus robust analytics, to evaluate seller strengths and opportunities for improvement.

Enable on-the-go learning

Dynamic mobile learning environments make training convenient and accessible for teams who spend significant time away from their desks

Elevate your chemicals
sales reps performance
with Mindtickle.

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How 3 Medical Device Companies Use Mindtickle to Help Their Reps Close More Deals  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-3-medical-device-companies-use-mindtickle-to-help-their-reps-close-more-deals/ Fri, 28 Jun 2024 15:18:44 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19776 In medical device sales, staying ahead requires more than constant product innovation—it requires a flexible and adaptive approach to enabling your reps to sell your rapidly evolving product line. Enter Mindtickle, an AI-powered revenue enablement platform transforming how medical device companies support their go-to-market reps. By making it easy and fast to create engaging training …

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In medical device sales, staying ahead requires more than constant product innovation—it requires a flexible and adaptive approach to enabling your reps to sell your rapidly evolving product line.

Enter Mindtickle, an AI-powered revenue enablement platform transforming how medical device companies support their go-to-market reps.

By making it easy and fast to create engaging training content and serve up-to-date sales collateral to medical device reps, Mindtickle helps health tech and med tech companies stay ahead of the curve and the competition.

Today, we explore how three leading medical device companies have embraced Mindtickle to enhance sales effectiveness and drive more successful outcomes. From streamlining onboarding processes to refining pitch delivery and mastering complex product knowledge, these companies are leveraging Mindtickle to empower their sales teams like never before.

Let’s dive in.

Company #1 – A fast-growing global diagnostics provider

This medtech company has been using Mindtickle for over five years, and during that time, it has more than doubled the size of its go-to-market function.

Before Mindtickle, their sales enablement efforts were manual and analog. They needed a way to make their approach more scalable, data-driven, and mobile-friendly for their on-the-go reps. They chose Mindtickle mainly for its ability to drive onboarding and messaging certification programs for their new reps.

As their team has grown, this company has found the most value in two of Mindtickle’s varied learning modalities: virtual role-play exercises and quick updates. Reps must meet a minimum score threshold on several role-play exercises to meet their certification requirements. These exercises certify their ability to deliver the company’s message in an accurate, customer-friendly way that meets their high standard for regulatory compliance.

Quick updates are bite-sized training content that this company uses to notify its reps quickly of additions to its product lines, new competitor insights, and updates regarding the regulatory environment.

Mindtickle enabled this customer to grow quickly, powered by a scalable and data-driven approach to onboarding quickly and supporting new reps.

Customer #2 – A “MedTech Global Big 100” provider of medical devices and software systems

This customer came to Mindtickle because they were fed up with their inability to track and report progress with their traditional learning management solution. Similarly to the previously discussed customer, they were frustrated that their training was unavailable on-demand via mobile devices in the field.

After signing with Mindtickle, they’ve made all their training and sales collateral available via a dedicated mobile app provided by Mindtickle. They’ve also established a scalable, repeatable reporting system on enablement outcomes via Mindtickle’s Readiness Index. Not only have they transformed their approach to sales enablement, but they’ve been impressed with how surprisingly easy it has been to do so, thanks to Mindtickle’s support team and “impressive SLAs.”

Customer #3 – The medical device division of a Fortune 500 company

This customer approached Mindtickle intending to digitally transform their manual approach to training their sales reps. Specifically, they needed a solution for their trainers to use to deliver training in a more scalable, consistent, and frequent manner, as well as a solution to help enable their team of expert trainers and standardize their approach.

Having no previous formal means of delivering digital enablement, they conducted pilots with Mindtickle and a competing sales readiness solution. Ultimately, they chose Mindtickle because of our support, services, and superior capacity to deliver adaptive, role-specific learning paths.

Since partnering with Mindtickle, this customer has been impressed with how Mindtickle’s varied approaches to learning keep their reps engaged as they build their skills through onboarding and beyond. They’ve found particular value in Mindtickle’s virtual role-play exercises, especially in how they allow them to scale practice and coaching via AI feedback and grading on these exercises, removing the bottleneck of a manager requirement to review all submissions.

Mindtickle manager command center product image

These customers are just a few examples of how medical device companies are using Mindtickle to:

  • Transform their enablement with a scalable and data-driven approach
  • Deliver learning and training on-demand to reps in the field
  • Keep their teams up-to-date with their evolving product lines, market conditions, approved messaging, and compliance information

Want to learn more about how your company can experience the same benefits from a modern, seller-centric approach to revenue enablement? 

Mindtickle for Medical Device Reps

See how Mindtickle makes it easy to create engaging, effective training content for your medical device reps.

Get a Demo

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Mindtickle vs Docebo https://www.mindtickle.com/mindtickle-vs-docebo/ Wed, 26 Jun 2024 04:53:27 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=19756 Need more than Docebo can offer? Why customers switch to Mindtickle Training the revenue team with the rest of your org in Docebo and falling short? It’s natural to outgrow an LMS. Mindtickle centralizes training and empowers revenue teams to replicate winning behavior. Request a Demo Signs you should switch from Docebo to Mindtickle You …

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Need more than Docebo can offer?
Why customers switch to Mindtickle

Training the revenue team with the rest of your org in Docebo and falling short? It’s natural to outgrow an LMS. Mindtickle centralizes training and empowers revenue teams to replicate winning behavior.

Request a Demo

Signs you should switch from Docebo to Mindtickle

You keep wondering, “Is our training actually building skills?

You’re trying to build a coaching culture.

You’re looking to consolidate content, learning, and possibly more.

Both Mindtickle and Docebo are excellent for compliance and training. But revenue teams need more.

vs

docebo

Categories

Mindtickle Docebo
Sales enablement and training

Easy SCORM, PPT, video, and other content creation types

Award badges and certifications and rank sellers with leaderboards

Individualized learning paths based on demonstrated strengths and weaknesses

Gamify learning, including live challengs, and award points for questions, assessments, and more

Just-in-time enablement and AI-powered strategic recommendations

Practice and reinforcement

Virtual scenarios, including pitches, presentations, demos, emails, and more for role-play practice and testing

AI-powered insights and manager grading to deliver sellers instant feedback for submission improvement

Coaching

Sales coaching guides that focus on key competencies

Sales coaching forms and templates for standardized progress tracking

Integrated call reviews in coaching sessions

Digital Rooms for internal teams and buyers

Build personalized curated digital resource experiences for detailed insight into content engagement, centralized communication, and collaboration

Accelerate action with mutual action plans

Conversation intelligence

Revenue intelligence

Learn how SCI Maps its Competency Framework with Mindtickle

  • Give your sales reps a curated experience that serves up content and training based on their goals and the competencies needed to achieve them.
  • Certify knowledge and ensure confident delivery in the field through scaleable coaching and practice.
<

Mindtickle leads the pack in the sales training and onboarding category

Docebo is categorized as a Corporate Learning Management System. One-size-fits-all realistically fits no one well.

Ready to create more top sellers?

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What is Sales Engagement and How is it Different From Sales Enablement? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-engagement-and-how-is-it-different-from-sales-enablement/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-engagement-and-how-is-it-different-from-sales-enablement/#comments Mon, 24 Jun 2024 06:25:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18839 There’s a lot of digital noise out there – the average person gets 121 emails a day. For sales reps, standing out in someone’s inbox or a cold call can be a tall task. Effective sales engagement can make a rep stand out, but it takes a strong foundation to give reps the training and …

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There’s a lot of digital noise out there – the average person gets 121 emails a day.

For sales reps, standing out in someone’s inbox or a cold call can be a tall task. Effective sales engagement can make a rep stand out, but it takes a strong foundation to give reps the training and tools they need to do it well.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales engagement is, why it’s important, and how sales engagement differs from sales enablement. We’ll also explore steps you can take to create a plan that empowers your sales reps to build relationships, foster trust, and close more deals.

What is sales engagement?

Sales leaders recognize the need for effective sales engagement. Recent research from Gartner found that 90% of sales leaders plan to invest in “technologies and methodologies to help their sellers engage effectively with prospects and customers.”

Gartner research found that

of sales leaders plan to invest in technologies to help sellers engage prospects
0 %

But what is sales engagement?

The term refers to all interactions a sales rep has with their buyers. This includes:

  • Email interactions
  • Phone calls
  • Interactions on social media
  • Face-to-face interactions

Why is sales engagement important?

Now, we’re in alignment about what sales engagement is. But why does it matter?

Great products and services are still important. That will never change. But the experiences a buyer has with your brand also have a big impact on whether they choose your solution – or opt for another.

A sales rep who effectively engages with a buyer is more likely to earn their trust – and ultimately, their business. After all, people want to do business with people they like and trust. Of course, when sellers close more deals, your business’ revenue grows.

On the flip side, if a seller struggles to engage buyers, they’re more likely to lose deals. Over time, this will have a negative impact on your bottom line.

Sales engagement vs sales enablement: How are they different?

These two terms are often used interchangeably. Though they’re certainly related, they’re not the same thing.

As we’ve already covered, sales engagement is focused on the interactions a sales rep has with their prospective buyers. As a general rule, better sales engagement leads to better sales outcomes.

On the other hand, sales enablement is focused on providing sales teams with the tools, training, information, content, and support they need to close more deals. Every seller needs a certain set of tools and competencies to be successful in the field, and sales enablement is focused on ensuring sellers master those skills and competencies.

There is often overlap between the two. For example, a sales enablement team may develop a training module on more effective email communication. Or, they may provide the sales team with email templates for sellers to use in their interactions. These are both examples of sales enablement. However, the goal of these initiatives is to improve sales engagement.

How to create a sales engagement plan

Leaving your sellers to their own devices usually isn’t the best approach. Instead, it’s best practice to develop a plan first.

What is a sales engagement plan?

Think of your plan as a documented outreach roadmap for your sales team. It’s a framework that outlines how and when sellers should engage with buyers. It should also cover how sales reps can leverage the technology that’s available to them to improve sales engagement.

A sales engagement plan isn’t based on what sales leadership thinks will work. Instead, it’s based on what’s proven to work for that particular organization.

Your plan must be flexible. For example, if a prospect is largely sharing negative feedback during interactions, it’s probably best to back off, rather than proceed with the next outreach effort.

Tips for developing an effective sales engagement plan

What does a winning plan look like? There’s no easy answer. The right plan is the one that works best for your business.

However, there are certain steps you can take to help ensure you create an effective one.

Before developing a plan, it’s important to take a step back to define who it is your sellers are engaging with on a daily basis. You should define who these prospects are, what titles they hold, and what their key challenges and pain points are (among other things). You may already have this information documented in ideal customer profiles (IDPs) or buyer personas.

At many organizations, marketing teams spend time creating content to support sales engagement. For example, a marketing team might develop email campaigns tailored to specific industries. Or, they might develop social media content that sales reps can post on their own social media channels. Those are just a couple examples.

But all too often, marketing content is created in a vacuum – without input from the sales team. That’s a big mistake.

Instead, marketing and sales teams must be aligned on content creation. A great way to do this is to schedule a recurring meeting between the two teams.

During these meetings, sales teams can provide feedback to marketing teams on their challenges in the field. Then, marketing teams can create content that addresses those challenges.

When marketing and sales teams are aligned, sales reps are more likely to have the content they need to increase sales engagement and ultimately, close more deals.

There are many stages of the sales journey – from prospecting to closing the deal. It’s important to define what this journey looks like for your customers. Your sales team can provide great insight on this topic.

Once you’ve defined the customer journey, you can create a plan to effectively engage prospects every step of the way.

After you’ve documented the customer journey, it’s time to determine the key touchpoints a sales rep will have throughout the journey. This might include:

  • Marketing emails
  • Emails from the sales rep
  • Phone calls
  • Voicemails
  • Engagement on social media

This will provide reps with a framework they can use to understand what step to take when.

How many customer touchpoints should there be? Again, there’s no easy answer. It depends on a number of factors including industry and how engaged the buyer is.

The right content can help your sales reps effectively engage with buyers. Sales and marketing teams should take an inventory of existing content and determine where there may be gaps. Then, these teams can work together to develop content to engage buyers throughout the purchase journey.

The best place to store completed sales content is in a sales content management solution. That way, sellers can always find the latest versions of any content they need – all in one place. In addition, organizations can track how both buyers and sellers are engaging with this content – and how (or whether) it’s impacting sales outcomes.

It’s important to remember that buyers are more informed than ever before. Often, they’ve done plenty of research on their own.

As such, generic, one-size-fits all outreach, communication, and campaigns aren’t effective. Instead, it’s important to develop targeted, personalized campaigns that address the challenges and pain points of each prospect.

You can’t simply develop your sales engagement plan – and then never think about it again. Instead, it’s important to monitor and measure the success of your sales engagement plan on an ongoing basis.

Make it a priority to examine your sales engagement and sales enablement dashboards and analytics on a regular basis. In addition, ask for feedback from your sales team. Your top sellers have great insight into what’s working and what isn’t. Then, use the insights you uncover to make impactful changes to your sales engagement plan.

How to choose a sales engagement platform for your business

The right technology is essential to a successful strategy. After all, sellers need the right tools to effectively engage with buyers.

Increasingly, sales teams are leveraging B2B sales engagement software to improve sales engagement at scale. In fact, research from Gartner tells us that 87% of sales teams use a sales engagement platform.

According to Gartner

of sales teams use a sales engagement platform
0 %

Not all tools are the same, though. It’s important to find the right sales engagement platform for your organization. The right platform will have robust features and functionality that automate and optimize sales engagement and improve your organization’s outcomes.

A solution can also help ensure sellers are ready to engage with buyers throughout the sales cycle.

Revenue enablement platforms like Mindtickle equips sellers with the training and content they need to engage sellers throughout every stage of the sales journey effectively. In addition, a revenue productivity platform with conversation intelligence helps sales managers understand how sales reps engage with buyers on calls. These insights can shed light on opportunities for additional coaching to improve sales engagement.

Finally, strong revenue productivity solution provides robust analytics that help sales leaders understand how buyers and sellers are engaging throughout the sales cycle. Sales leaders can use these insights to optimize their sales engagement plan and ensure their sellers have what it takes to effectively engage with any buyer.

Taking the next steps toward better sales engagement

A well-crafted sales engagement plan is essential for standing out in today’s crowded digital landscape. Sales reps can build meaningful connections and close more deals by personalizing outreach, maintaining consistent follow-ups, and leveraging data.

Investing in the right sales engagement platform, such as Mindtickle, can significantly enhance your team’s ability to engage effectively with prospects and customers, ultimately driving revenue growth. 

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle helps winning sales organizations boost sales engagement at scale?

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in December 2023 and was updated in June 2024. 

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Revenue Enablement vs. Sales Enablement: What’s Right for You? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/revenue-enablement-vs-sales-enablement-whats-right-for-you/ Thu, 13 Jun 2024 18:22:25 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19724 Revenue leaders always look for strategies and tactics to boost sales performance and revenue growth. Sales enablement is one particularly popular strategy. In fact, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement. But sales reps aren’t the only ones responsible for revenue growth. As such, many revenue organizations are extending the impact of their enablement efforts …

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Revenue leaders always look for strategies and tactics to boost sales performance and revenue growth. Sales enablement is one particularly popular strategy.

In fact, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement.

But sales reps aren’t the only ones responsible for revenue growth. As such, many revenue organizations are extending the impact of their enablement efforts by investing in revenue enablement teams and tools.

You may be wondering which is the right choice for improving performance at your organization: revenue enablement vs sales enablement. If so, you’ve come to the right place.

In this post, we’ll examine revenue enablement and sales enablement in depth. We’ll explore how these practices are similar and different and which approach best fits your organization.

Sales enablement vs. revenue enablement: What’s the difference?

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are two terms that are often used. It’s easy to assume they are synonymous.

That’s not the case.

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are certainly related. Although the two practices share many key similarities, they also have significant differences.

What is sales enablement?

Chances are, you’re familiar with the concept of sales enablement. It’s a practice that equips sales reps with the tools, training, and information they need to be effective and efficient. Some such tools and information include:

The goal of sales enablement is to improve sales performance. With the right sales enablement strategy and tools, sales reps can close more deals faster.

What is revenue enablement?

Now we’re clear on what sales enablement is. But what is revenue enablement?

Think of revenue enablement as the next iteration of sales enablement. It’s a practice that leverages many of the same programs and tactics as sales enablement – including ongoing learning, content, and coaching. However, there are some significant differences between sales and revenue enablement practices.

How goals and audiences differ

The goals and audience of sales enablement and revenue enablement are different. Sales enablement focuses solely on ensuring sales teams have what they need to engage buyers and close deals. On the other hand, revenue enablement aims to equip all customer-facing roles with the tools, information, and resources they need to engage customers – wherever they are in the customer lifecycle. In addition to the sales team, revenue enablement often supports:

  • Marketing teams
  • Customer success teams
  • Customer support teams

How each practice measures success

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are measured differently.

Some sales enablement teams track adoption and completion metrics. In other words, they track metrics to understand what portion of sales reps are completing sales enablement activities.

While completion metrics are important, the best sales enablement teams understand it’s more important to track how their sales enablement programs and initiatives impact sales outcomes.

Sales enablement teams track KPIs, including new rep ramp time, quota attainment, and average deal size. The right sales enablement analytics software makes it easy to keep a constant pulse on the metrics that matter most.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

Revenue enablement teams also track adoption and completion metrics. They also gauge the sales impact of their programs by tracking KPIs like quota attainment, conversion rates, and average deal size. However, revenue enablement teams also track how their efforts are impacting the business’ long-term relationships with customers and revenue generation with metrics like:

  • Customer retention rates
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Customer lifetime value
  • Customer referrals
  • Cross-sales and upsells
  • Revenue growth

Revenue enablement vs. sales enablement: Who owns each function

Another key difference between sales and revenue enablement is who is responsible for it. Increasingly sales enablement is led by a dedicated sales enablement team. This team often reports up to the chief sales officer (CSO) or other sales leader. Revenue enablement, on the other hand, is led by a revenue enablement team. Typically, this team reports up to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or other revenue leader.

Sales enablement vs revenue enablement: What’s the difference?

How does revenue enablement work?

Revenue enablement empowers organizations to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey. But how exactly does revenue enablement work?

Mapping the customer journey

First, key teams must come together to map the customer journey. In other words, organizations must define the path their customers take, incorporating everything from initial contact to ongoing, post-sale engagement.

Building enablement programs for all customer-facing roles

Then, organizations can build revenue enablement programs. These programs ensure each customer-facing team has the tools and resources to deliver outstanding, connected experiences throughout the customer journey.

Revenue enablement can’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, programs and initiatives must be customized to the needs of specific teams and team members.

Measuring the impact of revenue enablement

Finally, revenue enablement teams must measure the impact of their strategies and programs. Consistent measurement helps them understand what’s working and where there is room for improvement. Teams can leverage these insights to optimize the revenue enablement program.

Finding the right sales enablement tools

The right revenue enablement software is key to any revenue enablement program. With an integrated revenue enablement platform, teams can build and deliver personalized enablement programs and initiatives to all customer-facing roles. In addition, revenue enablement teams can use the revenue enablement platform to measure impact. These insights can help revenue enablement teams optimize their programs and initiatives for maximum impact.

Who owns revenue enablement?

Sales enablement is often managed by a dedicated sales enablement team. But who owns revenue enablement?

Increasingly, revenue enablement is also led by a dedicated revenue enablement function or team. The revenue enablement team is typically led by a revenue enablement manager.

However, effective revenue enablement isn’t the sole responsibility of just one person or team. Instead, it requires the close collaboration of key teams, including:

Each team brings a unique perspective and is responsible for different holistic revenue enablement strategy elements.

For example, the marketing team may be tasked with developing an email campaign to increase engagement and product feature adoption among existing customers. However, they need insight into which types of content are useful for new customers.

Why revenue enablement is the right approach for your business

So, which approach is right for your business: sales enablement vs revenue enablement?

Customer experience drives behavior

Increasingly, B2B buyer behavior is driven by their experiences with a business. They choose businesses (and whether or not to stick with those businesses) based on their interactions across the customer journey. Research tells us that eight in 10 customers say experience is as important as a company’s products or services.

of customers says experience is important as products or services
0 %

Sales teams are key in delivering great experiences and providing trusted advice that helps B2B customers make informed purchase decisions. So it’s no wonder why so many organizations invest in sales enablement to ensure sales teams have the right tools, resources, and information to engage buyers and close more deals.

Customer experience is a team sport

But sales reps aren’t the only employees interacting with customers and prospects. Many other teams—including marketing, customer success, and customer care—play an important role in engaging customers across the entire lifecycle. It’s critical to ensure all customer-facing teams are prepared to deliver outstanding, seamless experiences, whether a customer is making initial contact or seeking help after they’ve purchased a solution.

Consider a business that focuses solely on enabling the sales team. Sure, prospects have excellent, personalized experiences during the sales cycle. But after they purchase a solution, their experiences as a customer fail to meet their expectations. As a result, they’re likely to churn.

Now, consider a business that invests in revenue enablement. The customer has a consistent experience every step – from their initial interactions with the business to their ongoing engagement with their assigned customer success manager. This happy customer is likelier to renew, purchase additional solutions, and refer your business to others.

Revenue enablement is key to delivering outstanding, consistent customer experiences
A holistic revenue enablement practice ensures that all customer-facing teams are equipped to interact effectively and efficiently with buyers.

As Doug Bushée, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, put it, “[Revenue enablement] provides buyers and sellers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”

“[Revenue enablement] provides buyers and sellers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”
Doug Bushée
Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Enabling your entire revenue team will boost customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue generation. Revenue enablement is a more effective, holistic strategy for growing revenue long-term.

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

A winning revenue enablement program requires the right technology.

Some organizations purchase point solutions that address a different sales or revenue enablement element. For example, they use different tools to address sales content management, training, and coaching. Or, organizations use a sales enablement platform for their sales team – but use entirely different platforms to train and enable other customer-facing roles.

This approach often leads to bloated tech stacks. A recent report found that 63% of sales leaders say their current tech stacks include 10 or more tools.

of sales leaders say their current tech stacks have 10+ tools
0 %

However, simply having a tool doesn’t mean it’s being used. The same report found a trend where the number of tools in the tech stack often exceeds the number of tools that are actively used daily.

Today, leading revenue organizations are streamlining their tech stacks (and equipping all customer-facing roles for success) by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform.

Mindtickle is an award-winning, integrated revenue enablement platform that ensures all your customer-facing teams have what they need to be ready for any customer interaction. The best revenue enablement teams use Mindtickle to create and deliver winning enablement programs – and then measure their impact on revenue performance. In addition, revenue-generating teams – including sales, marketing, and customer success – turn to Mindtickle to access the tools, training, and resources they need to engage with customers throughout the customer lifecycle effectively.

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

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6 Steps to a Winning Sales Enablement Program for Med Device Reps https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/6-steps-to-a-winning-sales-enablement-program-for-med-device-reps/ Wed, 12 Jun 2024 15:30:04 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19707 Medical devices and pharmaceutical companies play a critical role in our society. After all, these businesses are laser-focused on developing and delivering products that improve medical outcomes and enhance patients’ health and quality of life. But the life of a medical device or pharma sales rep isn’t easy. Day in and day out, these sellers …

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Medical devices and pharmaceutical companies play a critical role in our society. After all, these businesses are laser-focused on developing and delivering products that improve medical outcomes and enhance patients’ health and quality of life.

But the life of a medical device or pharma sales rep isn’t easy. Day in and day out, these sellers must contend with a whole host of unique challenges, including (but not limited to) heavy regulation, crowded marketplaces, and demanding buyers.

Today, winning medical device and pharma businesses are investing in sales enablement. For good reason. With the right sales enablement strategy and tools, med device and pharmaceutical sales reps are equipped to deliver engaging, compliant experiences throughout the purchase journey – and ultimately close more deals.

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need about sales enablement for medical device reps. You’ll walk away with a clear understanding of:

  • What sales enablement for medical devices is
  • Why medtech and pharma companies are investing in sales enablement
  • 6 practical steps you can take to create a high-performing sales enablement program for your medical device or pharma business

What is sales enablement for medical device reps?

As a revenue leader in the medical technology sector, you’ve likely heard the term “sales enablement.” But what exactly is sales enablement for medical device or pharma reps?

Sales enablement is designed to increase sales reps’ effectiveness and efficiency. It involves equipping revenue teams with the training, tools, information, and compliant sales content to engage buyers throughout the sales cycle.

While sales enablement is a relatively new concept, it’s quickly caught on in all industries – including medical devices and pharmaceuticals. According to the 2024-2025 Chief Revenue + Sales Leader Outlook Report, the vast majority – 84% – of organizations are investing in a sales enablement function.

of orgs invest in sales enablement
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Sales enablement for medical device reps is an enablement practice focused on addressing the unique needs of sales reps in the medical device industry. Later, we’ll look at some of those unique challenges and how medical device sales enablement addresses them.

You may wonder who is responsible for medical device or pharma sales enablement. It varies from organization to organization. But a dedicated sales enablement team is increasingly tasked with managing sales enablement for health tech.

What is a medical device sales enablement platform?

A sales enablement platform is a tool that powers a sales enablement program. A sales enablement platform centralizes everything related to sales enablement. Sales, marketing, and sales enablement teams can always find what they need – all within one platform.

A medical device or pharmaceutical sales enablement platform is a sales enablement tool equipped to meet the unique needs of medical device and pharmaceutical companies. Think of it as a one-stop shop for everything related to medical device or pharmaceutical sales enablement.

Enablement teams use a medical device sales enablement platform to build and deliver programs and initiatives. These teams can also use the medical sales enablement platform to measure the impact of their programs and optimize accordingly.

Medtech sales reps turn to a medical device sales enablement platform to access everything they need to engage with buyers and close deals in a complex, competitive, and highly regulated industry, including:

  • Onboarding
  • Ongoing learning
  • Reinforcement and practice opportunities
  • Coaching
  • Compliant sales content

A medical device sales enablement platform also incorporates robust analytics that can fuel better decision-making. For example, a sales enablement platform can help sales reps determine what step to take next or what content to share based on customer engagement and the historic performance of sales content.
Why should you implement sales enablement for medical device sales?
Let’s face it: medical device and pharma sales reps face a lot of challenges. Some key challenges include:

  • Navigating a heavily regulated industry with big penalties for non-compliance
  • Crowded markets and fierce competition
  • Ever-evolving product offerings
  • Increasingly large buying committees
  • Lengthy enterprise sales cycles
  • Shifting sales climate
  • Heightened buyer expectations

That’s just to name a few.

The most successful med device companies are turning to sales enablement to ensure medtech sales reps have everything they need to overcome these challenges and close more deals faster.

Let’s examine some of the key reasons leading med tech and pharma organizations are investing in sales enablement teams, plans, and tools.

Alignment between marketing and sales

Sales and marketing teams both aim to close more deals and grow revenue. But often, these teams work in silos. They’re so focused on their own work – without regard to what the other team is doing.

This misalignment can cause big problems.

For example, a marketing team might spend much time and effort creating sales content. But if this content isn’t used by sellers or doesn’t improve sales outcomes, the marketing team is wasting its time. They need hard data and feedback from sales teams to create content that resonates with buyers and helps move them through the sales funnel.

Effective sales enablement requires sales and marketing teams to come together to ensure revenue teams have what they need to be effective and efficient. This alignment is a powerful way to improve outcomes.

Companies with aligned sales and marketing teams experience
faster growth rates
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faster growth over a year
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Research from Forrester found that companies with aligned sales and marketing teams experience 24% faster growth rates and 27% faster growth over the period of a year.

A single source of truth for compliant information and sales content

The medical device and pharma industries are heavily regulated. Furthermore, medtech and pharma products always evolve, requiring sales collateral updates. Ensuring sales reps always have the latest, greatest, compliant collateral to use with prospects can be challenging.

A sales enablement platform enables organizations to house and organize all sales content in one location. That means sellers can easily find relevant, compliant sales content for any sales scenario. Furthermore, sales enablement teams can easily update content to ensure sales reps have the most current, compliant versions.

Training and coaching that’s relevant to the needs of each seller

It’s well understood that training and coaching both help improve seller performance. But often, organizations take a generic approach to learning and coaching. In other words, they develop generic training and learning initiatives and assign it to all reps – regardless of whether or not it’s relevant.

Training and coaching must be personalized to be effective. Yet, a recent report found that just 40% of C-level executives can identify sales rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training.

A solid sales enablement strategy and the right technology allow enablement teams to understand each seller’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, they can deliver training and coaching that addresses those unique needs.

Engaging buying experiences across the purchase journey

Selling medical devices and pharmaceuticals is getting more and more complicated. Sales cycles are long, and buying committees are growing. Furthermore, each stakeholder involved in a purchase has different needs and challenges.

It can be difficult for medical device and pharma sales reps to keep large buying committees engaged throughout the sales cycle – especially when most interactions take place remotely.

A sales enablement practice ensures that medical device and pharmaceutical sellers have the skills, tools, and content to keep buyers engaged throughout the purchase journey.

For example, some sales enablement platforms incorporate digital sales rooms, enabling all buying and selling team members to align, communicate, and share content. When everyone is on the same page, deals can progress faster.

Data and insights to fuel better sales outcomes

Making decisions based on hunches isn’t an effective approach. Instead, revenue teams must leverage data.

A sales enablement platform can provide robust data and analytics that can be used by sales, marketing, and sales enablement needs. For example, a pharma sales rep can see how different buying committee members interact with a specific piece of content. This intel can help inform next steps.

In addition, some sales enablement platforms incorporate revenue intelligence, which helps medtech sales leaders better predict sales outcomes. If a winnable deal is at risk, sales managers can work with their reps to improve its outcome.

mt-platform-forecasting-screen

6 steps to develop an impactful sales enablement program 

Sales enablement can have a large, positive impact on sales performance. But how can you ensure your sales enablement teams and programs run on all cylinders?

Certain steps are essential when developing a sales enablement program for your medical device or pharmaceutical sales team.

Step 1: Collaborate cross-functionally

It’s important to identify who will own sales enablement within your organization. In the past, sales or marketing often owned sales enablement. But increasingly, organizations are investing in dedicated sales enablement teams.

However, sales enablement teams can’t (and shouldn’t) do it alone. Successful sales enablement requires ongoing collaboration from key teams – including enablement, sales, and marketing. You will likely achieve your sales enablement goals when these key teams are aligned.

Step 2: Determine your sales enablement goals

Without goals, creating effective medtech sales enablement initiatives and measuring their impact is impossible. As such, it’s critical to determine your sales enablement goals. In other words, what do you hope to accomplish with sales enablement for medical device reps?

While setting goals for program adoption and completion are important, you shouldn’t stop there. Instead, be sure you’re setting goals related to how your programs and initiatives will positively impact the metrics that matter most to your business – like quota attainment and revenue generation.

Avoid vague goals like “improve sales performance.” Instead, develop goals following the SMART methodology. SMART sales enablement goals are:

  • Specific
  • Measurable
  • Attainable
  • Relevant
  • Time-specific

You will also need to decide what medical device sales enablement metrics to track to determine whether you’re on track to achieve your sales enablement goals.

Step 3: Define sales excellence

Sales enablement for medical device reps aims to build a team of excellent performers. But first, you have to define excellence.

Look at your best medtech sales reps and determine what makes them different. Use these insights to develop an ideal rep profile (IRP), which spells out the skills and behaviors a medical device or pharma sales rep needs for success at your organization.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Once you’ve developed your IRP, you can measure each rep against this gold standard. It’s a great way to determine where they’re shining and where there are opportunities for improvement.

Step 4: Develop sales enablement programs to support your goals

Once you have a clear idea of what you hope to achieve with sales enablement, you can start building programs and initiatives to help you achieve those goals.

Among countless other factors, sales enablement initiatives vary widely based on goals, team size, and budget. However, some common initiatives include:

Step 5: Tap into the right sales enablement technology

Technology is a key component of any sales enablement strategy for medical devices. Today, some organizations use point solutions to address specific aspects of sales enablement. For example, a medical device company may use one tool for sales content, one for sales training, and one for conversation intelligence.

Requiring your teams to switch between tools can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Furthermore, using point solutions makes it nearly impossible to get a holistic view of how sales enablement for medical device reps is actually improving sales outcomes.

mt-platform-conversation-intelligence-screen

Instead, consider streamlining your sales enablement tech stack by leveraging an integrated medical sales enablement solution. An integrated medical sales enablement tool incorporates all the key components of sales enablement – all from one platform. Those key components include:

An integrated sales enablement platform like Mindtickle empowers enablement teams to create, deliver, and measure their programs – all in one tool. Furthermore, revenue teams can access everything they need to engage prospects and close more deals.

Step 6: Measure and optimize

Launching a sales enablement for a health tech program and hoping for the best isn’t a good approach. Instead, you must measure consistently to ensure you’re on track to achieve your goals. Regular measurement also enables you to identify problems early on. Then, you can optimize your sales enablement programs to improve outcomes.

Build an entire team of top medtech sellers with Mindtickle

Sales reps in the medical device and pharma industries face significant hurdles. A solid sales enablement strategy – paired with the right sales enablement for health tech platform – empowers sellers to overcome challenges, deliver engaging experiences across the entire sales cycle, and close more deals.

Today, some of the world’s best medical device and pharmaceutical companies—including Integrace Health and Janssen India—depend on Mindtickle to equip their revenue teams with the training, tools, content, and insights they need to crush quota consistently. 

Sales Enablement for Med Devices

Want to learn more about how Mindtickle enables med device and pharma reps to hit quota every quarter?

Learn More About Mindtickle for Med Devices

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Customer Enablement: The Secret to Increasing Customer Loyalty and Retention  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/customer-enablement-the-secret-to-increasing-customer-loyalty-and-retention/ Tue, 11 Jun 2024 18:29:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19705 Customers are the lifeblood of any organization. Without customers, you won’t make any money or be in business for long. Modern B2B customers have high expectations. Businesses must prioritize meeting these expectations across the customer lifecycle. Establishing a solid customer enablement strategy is key to ensuring that your customers are happy and that they’ll stay …

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Customers are the lifeblood of any organization. Without customers, you won’t make any money or be in business for long.

Modern B2B customers have high expectations. Businesses must prioritize meeting these expectations across the customer lifecycle.

Establishing a solid customer enablement strategy is key to ensuring that your customers are happy and that they’ll stay long-term.

But what is customer enablement? You’ve come to the right place if you ask yourself that question.

In this post, we’ll answer all of your burning questions about customer enablement, including:

  • What is it?
  • What are the top benefits?
  • What’s the difference between customer enablement and sales enablement?
  • What does a customer enablement manager do?

What is customer enablement, and why is it important?

In B2B, the word “enablement” comes up a lot. You’re at least somewhat familiar with concepts like sales enablement, revenue enablement, marketing enablement, and others.

But what about customer enablement?

B2B buyers expect a lot from B2B businesses. If you deliver outstanding experiences before purchase, a prospect is more likely to convert. If you continue to provide the right tools and experiences post-sale, your customer retention rate will grow.

It’s key to making that second part possible.

Also known as client enablement, it’s a business practice focused on improving customer experiences. It’s focused on improving customer experiences and ensuring each customer has the tools and resources they need to get the most from your product or service.

Why does customer enablement matter?

Customers’ satisfaction increases when they have what they need to succeed with your product. Happy, satisfied customers are more likely to stick around long-term – and refer your business to others in their network. As a result, your revenue will grow.

What are some customer enablement examples?

These initiatives can take a number of different forms. Initiatives vary based on factors including:

  • Your goals
  • Your customers’ needs
  • Your budget

For example, an organization’s customer enablement strategy may be to provide new customers with a named customer success manager (CSM). A large enterprise customer may even have a dedicated CSM. The CSM will schedule recurring calls with the customer to get them up to speed with the platform, answer their questions, and provide ongoing support and information to ensure they get the most from their investment.

Customer education is another example. For example, a B2B SaaS company may create a customer webinar series that shares best practices for using the SaaS solution. Some organizations even offer formal training courses, and customers can receive certifications for completion and mastery.

Customer feedback is another common component of a customer enablement program. Asking for feedback is the only way to know whether your products and experiences are meeting a customer’s expectations. If there are problem areas, you can work to improve – and increase the customer’s satisfaction and likelihood of retention. Customers may also share feedback that can help inform future product developments and enhancements.

What are the benefits of customer enablement?

When it’s done well, customer enablement can deliver some big benefits. Let’s look at some of the top benefits.

Better customer experiences

Modern B2B buyers have high expectations for great experiences. Furthermore, experiences have a large (and growing) impact on customer conversion and retention.

According to Salesforce, eight in 10 customers say a company’s experience is just as important as its products or services.

of customers say experience is just as important as its product or service
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B2B companies must prioritize consistently delivering experiences that meet (or even exceed) customers’ expectations. Improving customers’ experiences is a key goal of any strategy or initiative.

Increased retention

Acquiring new customers is important. But it’s equally important to retain the customers you have. After all, acquiring a new customer is significantly more expensive than retaining an existing customer.

Successful initiatives boost customer satisfaction. Happy, satisfied customers are more likely to renew.

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can lead to a

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Even a small increase in retention can positively impact revenue. Research tells us that even a 5% increase in retention can increase revenue up to 95%.

Upsell and cross-sell opportunities

When customers are satisfied with their experiences, they’re more open to hearing about additional product offerings. So, by prioritizing customer enablement, you can increase upsells and cross-sales.

More referrals

Successful initiatives boost customer satisfaction. Satisfied customers are more likely to refer your product or service to others. In fact, 85% of business buyers have recommended a company to others based on service.

Research tells us referrals convert 30% better than leads generated elsewhere. Plus, they have a 16% higher lifetime value.

Actionable insights for improvement

Customer feedback is an important part of any program. Asking for feedback is an important way to show your customer that you truly listen and value their input.

The feedback you receive provides insight into what a customer is happy about and where there are opportunities for improvement. Then, you can step in when necessary to help improve the customer’s experience. This will increase their satisfaction and decrease their likelihood of canceling.

It’s also important to look for themes in customers’ feedback. These themes can shed light on opportunities to enhance existing products or services or even develop new ones.

Customer enablement vs sales enablement: What’s the difference?

They are certainly related. But they aren’t the same thing.

Sales enablement aims to ensure sales reps have the training, tools, content, and information needed to engage prospects and close deals. Enablement professionals leverage sales enablement analytics software to understand how their initiatives are (or aren’t) impacting sales performance.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

On the other hand, customer success enablement is focused on improving customer experiences and ensuring each customer has everything they need to be successful with your product or service.

They are both key ingredients to customer satisfaction. Sales enablement ensures prospects have great experiences during the sales cycle. Customer enablement ensures they have great experiences after they’ve signed on the dotted line.

Customer enablement vs. sales enablement: What’s the difference?

Roles and responsibilities of a customer enablement manager

It isn’t the responsibility of a single person. Instead, it’s a team effort.

The team must collaborate closely with other key functions, including (but not limited to) sales, marketing, implementation, and customer success. The manager leads the charge.

The responsibilities of a manager vary from organization to organization. However, their responsibilities often include:

  • Collaborating with key teams – including sales, marketing, and customer success – on an ongoing basis
  • Creating strategies that increase product adoption and boost customers’ success
  • Developing training, which may include a mix of formats like webinars, recorded videos, and written materials
  • Leveraging tools to create and implement initiatives and measure their impact
  • Analyzing usage data to understand how customers are currently using the product and where there may be underutilized features and functionality
  • Developing relationships with customers and soliciting feedback that will help inform future programs and initiatives
  • Making continuous optimizations to the strategy and program based on data and feedback
  • Leading a team

How customer enablement managers measure success

Clearly, customer enablement managers have a lot of responsibilities. How do they measure success?

It varies from organization to organization. However, some metrics teams must track include:

  • Adoption of training and other programs
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS)
  • Customer retention rates
  • Lifetime value
  • Referrals

Boost loyalty and retention with customer enablement

Today’s B2B buyers have high expectations. Businesses must make it a priority to deliver outstanding experiences across the entire customer lifecycle.

Sales enablement ensures sales reps have the training, tools, and information they need to engage buyers before purchasing. However, customer enablement is key to ensuring your customers have outstanding experiences after they’ve signed on the dotted line.

Customer enablement ensures customers have the right tools, information, and support to get the most value from your solutions. It sets your customers up for success, which increases satisfaction. These happy, satisfied customers are more likely to be long-term customers and spread the word about your solutions to others.

Customer Enablement with Mindtickle

Ensure your customer-facing teams are well-equipped with the knowledge and skills needed to engage and support customers effectively.

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5 Scientific Tips to Measure Sales Productivity  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-scientific-tips-to-measure-sales-productivity/ Thu, 06 Jun 2024 09:34:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=15047 In ongoing economic uncertainty, many sales orgs struggle to meet their goals. According to Forrester, more than half of B2B sales reps aren’t achieving quota. But even in these trying times, it is possible to grow a team of top sellers that are equipped to overcome challenges, deliver winning experiences, and close more deals. All …

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In ongoing economic uncertainty, many sales orgs struggle to meet their goals. According to Forrester, more than half of B2B sales reps aren’t achieving quota.

But even in these trying times, it is possible to grow a team of top sellers that are equipped to overcome challenges, deliver winning experiences, and close more deals.

All sales leaders understand that improving sales productivity is key to improving sales outcomes. After all, sales productivity measures how effective and efficient your sales reps are. When a sales rep improves their effectiveness and efficiency, they’ll close more deals – faster.

But many sales leaders aren’t quite sure how to best measure sales productivity. We’re here to help solve the mystery.

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about measuring sales productivity – the scientific way. We’ll cover:

  • How Mindtickle measures sales productivity
  • The problem with how sales organizations often measure sales productivity
  • How Mindtickle tracks sales productivity KPIs
  • 5 scientific tips for measuring your team’s sales productivity

How Mindtickle measures sales productivity

At Mindtickle, we define sales productivity as the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales executives in hitting a variety of revenue milestones and goals. Of course, just because reps make more calls and send more emails does not necessarily mean they are progressing sales or generating revenue.

That’s why, in addition to accountability around activity tracking, measuring preparation and improving effectiveness is key.

Here, we use our Sales Readiness Index to measure which reps demonstrate the right skills, will, and in-field behaviors. With our readiness index, we cross-reference who is hitting quota with who is doing all of the other activities that make a rep successful, such as:

  • Conducting effective outreach
  • Engaging buyers
  • Sending educational content
  • Completing new product and competitor training
  • Practicing via AI video role-plays
  • Achieving high call scores
Screenshot of Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

At the same time, we use revenue intelligence and AI forecasting software through our technical partner BoostUp to help our sellers call their numbers with higher accuracy and confidence.

Deal risk analytics give detailed signals that help reps know exactly what action they need to take when they follow up, such as better multi-threading with a higher number of senior-level contacts.

Salesforce - Revenue Intelligence

Our sales enablement function moved from a traditional approach, where most time was spent creating content and delivering training, to focusing on call and deal reviews. We call this revenue enablement and have rallied our entire organization to ensure sellers focus on closing more deals confidently.

The problem with how sales organizations measure sales productivity today

Many organizations use Salesforce to track revenue metrics and sales productivity. Yet, not long ago, sales professionals started to game the system to hit their numbers. Maybe they exaggerated prospecting or sandbagged their forecast so they could sweep in as the hero at the end of the quarter or got overly optimistic about pricing and happy ears.

Here at Mindtickle, our revenue intelligence and forecasting solution is built into our readiness platform, so our sales managers use a new workflow to gain deeper transparency into deals, calls, and buyer engagement.

You can see that workflow in our interactive sales manager product tour here.

Instead of looking at lagging indicators of success, such as who has the most pipeline or who has historically hit their numbers, we look at what our reps do holistically to prepare for the future climate. We better understand where our reps put their time and calories and have implemented accountability systems to help them uncover risks and focus on truly winnable deals.

This means our executives have real-time visibility into every call, email, and meeting, and they spend more time helping reps uncover deal blockers so they forecast more accurately and help reps deliver faster, better wins.

How Mindtickle tracks sales productivity KPIs

Sales productivity can be tracked in many ways. Here are some metrics we use to keep our sellers and BDRs on track.

With our revenue intelligence solution,every deal is scored and labeled red, yellow, or green so reps know exactly why a deal is at risk, and how to address it.

With our Call AI solution, we score every call against the winning behaviors from top reps on every team, including BDRs, account executives, sales engineers, and customer success executives

We look at not only the number of emails and dials our reps make but also the percent of those connected touchpoints that convert. This helps us understand quantity and quality.

We look at not only the number of meetings that are scheduled but also those that were completed and deemed sales-qualified or not by our reps.

By analyzing all of the calls, emails, and meetings that take place, we are able to uncover keywords associated with deal risks or positive/negative buyer sentiment. Increasingly, buyer engagement and sentiment are a really important metric for us as we look to forecast more accurately and truly assess deal health.

Our sales content management solution tracks metrics beyond just asset views and also looks at content adoption. This includes the number of times each asset has been used in the sales process, the percentage of sellers who have used each asset, and the number of times each asset has been shared in deals progressing in stages including closed/won.

This includes onboarding and ramp-up metrics for new hires like time to onboarding completion, time to first deal/revenue, average ramp time, annual number of new hires, and yearly rep attrition.

We also look at everboarding or ongoing readiness metrics like seconds of training videos watched, pages of documents read, correct answers on assessments and questions asked over time, scores on video role-plays, overall team performance on programs, certification completions, rep feedback on program efficacy, and overall engagement.

We look at whether reps, teams, and regions have enough pipeline coverage to hit their numbers.

5 scientific tips to measure sales productivity

So, how do we measure all of this vast data and make sense of it without creating a ton of work for our operations team, which is in charge of measuring sales productivity and forecasting?

1. End manual data entry

The days of relying on manually entered Salesforce data and trusting it’s correct are long dead. We implemented revenue intelligence and forecasting through our BoostUp integration to track the activities that meaningfully move deals forward (or stall them).

To do this, we started by tracking buyer engagement across every call, email, and meeting – all of which we transcribe and tag when we uncover an important voice of customer insight, such as a competitor or product mention, next step, or strong instance of buyer hesitation.

We use this information to score every deal and proactively uncover risks. At the same time, we improved the way we manage opportunities by pulling together a rich visualization of all of the activity that has taken place—including what emails buyers and sellers have sent, what calls have taken place, what meaningful sales themes have been mentioned, and even whether or not our sellers have created a Digital Sales Room to engage customers with educational content.

This helps us offer reps self-coaching by nudging them with activities we know will move a deal forward, such as follow-up content they might want to send or battle cards they should review before their next call.

Our enterprise team takes a more account-based approach. We track the number and percentage of accounts in each rep’s territory that haven’t had activity logged in the last 30 days.

To ensure our enterprise and commercial teams are multi-threaded, we track the number of personas engaged in an opportunity and whether we’ve reached the VP+ level.

Content analytics are also important to us. This year, we launched our Digital Sales Rooms, a digital buyer experience that helps reps share content, understand what content customers and prospects are engaging with, link to call recordings, and manage the next steps.

Digital sales rooms have helped our sellers better multi-thread and improve engagement with our content by 300%.

2. Cut meetings in half, and reserve more time for practice & coaching

One invaluable tool for sales productivity is Call AI – our conversation intelligence technology that records, transcribes, and analyzes every call while making calls easily shareable with other departments, such as product or marketing.

Now that our sellers can listen to calls on 2X that they weren’t a part of and don’t have to spend time on internal updates calls and hand-offs, it’s faster and easier for every relevant person here at Mindtickle, such as our CSMs, to get the deep details on every deal or account while attending fewer but more valuable meetings.

Where did we reinvest those hours of precious extra time each week?

Into practicing via AI video role-plays and data-driven call coaching.

3. Create better buyer experiences

Sales productivity has never been about drowning customers in emails and cold calls. It’s been about connecting with the right person, at the right time, with meaningful information that helps them solve significant business challenges.

That’s why we started using Databook to provide our sales reps with better information on how their accounts are doing financially and their “big bets.”. This enables reps to provide hyper-personalized outreach and follow-ups.

At the same time, we regularly share call recordings with our customers so that they can include others who may have missed a meeting without slowing the sales cycle down.

4. Leverage AI for more accurate pipeline & sales forecasting

Earlier in this blog, we discussed how sales productivity is a better leading indicator to drive scalable, repeatable sales and enable fact-based forecasting.

Perhaps no group in our organization is better at reaping the rewards of our newfound focus on sales productivity than our operations organization.

Whereas before, reps and regional vice presidents would manually call their number, we now use revenue intelligence and forecasting software to analyze that number and how realistic it is with AI. Then, we uncover pipeline trends and risks that may prevent us from hitting it.

We can also examine week-over-week and month-over-month waterfall charts to analyze where our pipeline is growing and decreasing and better address issues with enablement programs.

This saves our revenue operations more than 30 hours previously spent on manual reporting a week.

5. Consolidate redundant sales technologies

In this economic moment, it’s common for sales teams to be asked to reduce their sales technology budgets by 30-50%, or even more. That’s a lofty challenge, but it’s also a painful reminder that too many teams are using bloated, expensive sales tech stacks that aren’t helping improve their ability to hit their number.

Our 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report found that 66% of respondents indicate there are 10 or more tools to support their tech stack.

of orgs have 10 or more tools in their tech stacks
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However, investing in a sales tool doesn’t necessarily mean the sales team will use it. The same analysis found a consistent pattern: the percentage of tools in the tech stack is often higher than the percentage of tools used daily.

Here are some solutions we use at Mindtickle:

  • Our platform, through which we run enablement, manage content, and operate all of our conversation intelligence, revenue intelligence, and forecasting solutions, including enabling our reps to update Salesforce
  • Outreach.IO for BDR prospecting
  • Databook to uncover personalized account-based insights
  • LinkedIn Navigator & ZoomInfo to find prospects and contacts across our accounts

Supercharge your sales productivity with Mindtickle

Every sales leader out there wants to boost quota attainment. However, focusing solely on what number will or won’t be hit has never helped sales leaders hit quota. Often, numbers are settled well before you enter the quarter. And in this economy, even deals that once looked highly winnable may be lost.

Instead, focus on leading indicators – like sales productivity. Doing so provides a better way to understand how prepared your reps are to sell and how quickly your team is improving. By using the tips we shared in this blog, you can start measuring sales productivity – in a scientific way.

Increasing sales productivity doesn’t happen by chance. Instead, you must equip your sales reps with the right tools, training, information, and sales content they need to be effective, efficient sellers.

Better sales productivity with Mindtickle

The world’s best revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to ensure their teams have everything they need to increase sales productivity – all in one platform.

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in December 2022 and was updated in June 2024. 

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What is a Revenue Enablement Platform? (+8 Must-Have Features of Any Solution) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-a-revenue-enablement-platform-8-must-have-features-of-any-solution/ Wed, 05 Jun 2024 14:41:15 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19683 Every profession has certain “tools of the trade.” A carpenter needs a hammer and nails. A nurse requires a thermometer and a stethoscope. Revenue teams also need certain tools to do their jobs well. A revenue enablement platform is one such tool. The right platform empowers organizations to create a team of top performers that …

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Every profession has certain “tools of the trade.” A carpenter needs a hammer and nails. A nurse requires a thermometer and a stethoscope.

Revenue teams also need certain tools to do their jobs well. A revenue enablement platform is one such tool.

The right platform empowers organizations to create a team of top performers that consistently crush quotas.

But what is a revenue enablement platform, and what are the must-have features of such a platform?

In this guide, we’ll set the foundation by discussing a revenue enablement platform and how the right platform can boost your revenue team’s performance. We’ll also explore the key features to look for when deciding which platform fits your team and share some of the best platforms in the market today.

What is a revenue enablement platform?

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “revenue enablement platform” before, but you’re not exactly sure what it is. Or maybe you have a better idea of what a revenue platform is. Regardless of where you are on your revenue enablement journey, we’ve got you covered.

Revenue enablement, defined

To explain a revenue enablement platform, let’s first define revenue enablement.

Today, most organizations are familiar with sales enablement. A recent report found that 84% of organizations are investing in it. Sales enablement equips sales teams with the tools, training, information, and content they need to deliver engaging buying experiences and close more deals. Many organizations use a sales enablement tool (or tools) to power their programs and initiatives.

Think of revenue enablement as the next iteration of sales enablement. While sales enablement focuses on supporting the sales team, revenue enablement takes things a step further, ensuring all customer-facing functions are aligned around the customer journey and have what they need to deliver outstanding experiences.

Revenue enablement platforms, defined

A revenue enablement platform is an essential component of any revenue enablement strategy. An integrated revenue enablement tool centralizes everything related to revenue enablement, serving as a single source of truth for the entire revenue team.

Enablement teams use a revenue enablement tool to create and deliver programs, initiatives, and content and measure their impact. Customer-facing roles leverage revenue enablement solutions to access the tools, training, content, and information they need to engage with customers effectively – no matter where they are on the purchase journey.

We’ll look closer at a revenue enablement platform’s key features later.

How a revenue enablement platform can boost your business results

Organizations that adopt an integrated platform experience several benefits. Let’s look at a few that rise to the top.

Better sales content management

Modern B2B buyers depend on content to make informed purchase decisions. Many marketing teams invest significant time and resources into developing content, but sales reps often struggle to find relevant, up-to-date content.

An integrated revenue enablement platform simplifies content management, allowing reps to spend less time searching for content and more time engaging with prospects. With a platform, all content is housed in a single, searchable location. Some solutions offer AI capabilities that suggest content proven to work in similar sales scenarios. This helps sellers more effectively leverage content to engage buyers.

Personalized training and coaching for reps

A one-size-fits-all approach to sales training and coaching is ineffective. Instead, organizations must deliver personalized training and coaching that addresses each rep’s needs.

With the right revenue enablement platform, organizations can pinpoint which skills each rep has perfected and which they need to continue to practice. Then, organizations can deliver customized training and coaching that addresses their needs – without bogging them down with unnecessary, irrelevant training.

Streamlined analytics and reporting

Ongoing measurement is key to determining whether revenue enablement initiatives positively impact the metrics that matter most to revenue teams.

Some revenue organizations use multiple point solutions that each address a specific component of revenue enablement. For example, an organization may use a content management system to house and organize content, and another solution to create and deliver sales training. These point systems include analytics, but it can be challenging to cobble them together to determine overall impact.

An integrated platform streamlines sales enablement analytics and reporting into a single platform. Organizations can get a holistic picture of how revenue enablement efforts are helping sales reps sharpen skills, engage buyers, and close more deals.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

Better alignment of customer-facing teams

All too often, marketing, enablement, and customer-facing teams work in silos. However, when these teams are aligned, it improves business results. Research tells us that when sales and marketing teams work in coordination, businesses can see 27% faster profit growth.

Businesses can see

faster profit growth when marketing and sales teams work together
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A revenue enablement platform can significantly improve alignment by providing these key teams with a single source of truth for everything related to revenue enablement.

More accurate sales forecasting

An integrated platform equips organizations with revenue intelligence, which analyzes data across customer interactions. With these insights, sales leaders can more accurately predict outcomes and provide the right support to help sales reps close winnable deals.

Salesforce - Revenue Intelligence

Improved revenue operations

Revenue teams depend on the right tools to do their jobs. But adding a ton of tools can create chaos for revenue teams.

An integrated platform allows revenue operations teams to streamline the tech stack – while still ensuring sales reps have what they need to be productive and effective.

8 Must-have features of a revenue enablement platform

The right revenue enablement platform can greatly impact the effectiveness of your enablement program and the performance of your entire revenue org. Perhaps you’ve heard the message loud and clear and have begun shopping for a platform for your organization.

Many vendors offer solutions that promise to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of your revenue team. Weighing your options can be confusing, especially when you’re not sure what features and functionality are most important.

Each platform incorporates unique features and functionality. It is important to find the option that works best for your organization.

That said, certain must-have features should be incorporated into every revenue enablement platform. Let’s explore eight.

#1 Sales content management

According to Salesforce research, sales reps spend a mere 28% of their time selling. The rest is spent on meetings and admin work, including hunting down the right sales content.

Furthermore, while your marketing team may spend a lot of time creating content, there’s a good chance a lot of that content is sitting unused. That could be because sales reps don’t know it exists, don’t know how to use it, or find it irrelevant.

Any revenue enablement solution you’re considering should incorporate content management capabilities. That way, sales reps can easily surface content that’ll resonate with any prospect – no matter where they are in the purchase journey. Keep an eye out for a solution that incorporates AI. That way, your sales reps can get suggestions for content based on a prospect’s behavior and how content has performed in similar scenarios.

Your chosen platform should also feature robust analytics that helps you understand how content is (or isn’t) being used and how it is (or isn’t) impacting sales outcomes. That way, you can invest more in effective content and eliminate assets that aren’t working.

#2 Sales onboarding

Sales onboarding helps new reps get up to speed with your company, its goals, and their role in achieving those goals. Be sure your chosen platform incorporates features that allow you to develop and deliver sales onboarding programs that get your sellers ready to hit the ground running.

#3 Continuous learning

Learning shouldn’t stop after onboarding. Instead, revenue teams need continuous learning to ensure they’re always ready to deliver engaging customer experiences. Your revenue enablement software should incorporate features and functionality that allow you to deliver engaging, ongoing learning that helps revenue team members stay fresh.

Ongoing learning shouldn’t be “one-size-fits-all.” With the right revenue enablement platform, you can assess the strengths and weaknesses of each revenue team member. Then, you can deliver personalized learning opportunities that address the needs of each sales rep, without bogging them down with irrelevant training.

#4 Engaging reinforcement and practice opportunities

Research from Gartner found that B2B sales reps forget 70% of what they learn within a week of training. 

B2B sales reps forget

of what they learn within a week of training
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For example, leading revenue enablement platforms allow you to build virtual role-plays. Sellers can record themselves giving a practice pitch, and they get instant, AI-powered feedback for improvement. They can also submit their role-plays for their manager and peers’ feedback.

#5 Sales coaching

It’s no secret that sales coaching improves performance. According to the 2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report, top-performing sales reps receive more coaching than their lower-performing peers.

While the importance of sales coaching is clear, it can be difficult to deliver effective coaching at scale.

Revenue enablement platforms incorporate revenue intelligence, which helps sales managers understand where there are risks. That way, the manager can provide deal coaching to help improve the deal’s outcome.

In addition, a platform provides managers with robust data that sheds light on where sales reps excel and where they need improvement. The best platforms also offer conversation intelligence capabilities which help managers understand how sales reps are performing on calls. With these insights, sales managers can provide personalized skills coaching that improves reps’ behaviors and long-term performance.

#6 Sales call recording and analysis

A sales rep may complete all assigned training and enablement activities. But that doesn’t mean they’re applying what they’ve learned.

However, sales managers can’t sit on every sales call to identify a rep’s strengths and weaknesses.

Winning revenue enablement incorporates conversation intelligence capabilities, which record and analyze reps’ calls. Each call is scored, and reps receive real-time feedback for improvement. Reps can use this feedback to improve their approach. In addition, sales managers can look for trends to see where additional skill coaching may be needed.

#7 Revenue intelligence

Accurate sales forecasting fuels better decision-making about key factors like goals, budgeting, and prospecting. But often, sales leaders aren’t confident in their forecasts. According to the Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, 34% of organizations say inaccurate forecasts and limited predictability in the business are some of their top pain points.

of orgs say inaccurate forecasts is their top challenge
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The best revenue enablement platforms feature revenue intelligence capabilities, which allow revenue leaders to predict outcomes more accurately. Revenue intelligence also flags at-risk deals so teams can take action to improve outcomes.

#8 Robust data, analytics, and dashboards

When it comes to revenue enablement, ongoing measurement is key. Regular measurement allows you to see what’s working and identify areas for improvement.

Your revenue enablement platform should make it easy to surface insights that matter most to your business. In addition, look for a platform that uses AI to analyze reports so you can get the answers you need. Your chosen platform may also use AI to suggest actions to take based on your data.

The best revenue enablement platforms

When researching revenue enablement platforms, you may wonder which one is best. There’s no simple answer. The best solution incorporates features and functionality that meet your revenue organization’s needs and goals.

That said, the following are some of the most popular tools on the market today.

Mindtickle

Mindtickle is an award-winning, integrated revenue enablement platform used by top revenue organizations across the globe.

Winning revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to streamline revenue operations and improve sales results. With Mindtickle, enablement professionals can quickly and easily develop and deliver engaging, effective training and enablement programs that ensure revenue teams are always ready to sell. Enablement professionals can also use Mindtickle to measure the impact of their programs and initiatives on sales performance.

Mindtickle also offers a user-friendly experience to sales reps. Sellers can easily find the training, enablement, and content they need to deliver engaging experiences and close deals.

With Mindtickle, revenue leaders always have easy access to the data and analytics that matter most. Sales managers can understand reps’ skill development and how they’re performing in the field. These insights help them deliver personalized coaching that improves reps’ long-term performance. Sales leaders can also access revenue intelligence, which fuels more accurate sales forecasting, pipeline, and deal confidence.

Seismic

Seismic is an enablement, training, and coaching tool that sales and marketing teams use. Sales reps turn to Seismic to access content, tools, and insights to engage prospects and convert them to customers.

Allego

Allego is a revenue enablement platform that provides sales teams with knowledge and content to move deals forward. Allego also provides actionable insights that revenue teams can use to maximize the potential of each sales rep.

Highspot

Highspot is a software company offering a revenue enablement solution that promises to improve sales performance. Highspot equips revenue teams with the tools, information, and content needed to improve behavior and close more deals, faster.

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

Modern revenue teams face more challenges than ever before. It’s no wonder why so many sales reps fail to meet their sales quotas.

Today, many organizations are investing in revenue enablement teams and programs to ensure the entire revenue team is aligned and ready to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey.

The right revenue enablement tools are key to success. But not all revenue enablement solutions are the same. It’s important to find the option that best fits your organization’s needs.

While some organizations opt to invest in multiple point solutions, a growing number are streamlining their tech stacks by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

With Mindtickle, your entire revenue team has easy access to the tools, information, and content they need to effectively engage with buyers and close more deals – all in one platform.

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

Give your entire revenue team access to the tools, information, and content they need to effectively engage with buyers and close more deals – all in one platform.

Request a Demo

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What is a Sales Playbook and How Do You Build One?  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-a-sales-playbook-and-how-do-you-build-one/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-a-sales-playbook-and-how-do-you-build-one/#comments Wed, 29 May 2024 04:45:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18713 Every sales leader wants their sales reps to close more deals – faster. But it’s not enough to tell your sales reps to do better. Instead, you must equip them with the tools they need for success. Sales playbooks are one key type of sales tool. Today, some of the best revenue organizations use sales …

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Every sales leader wants their sales reps to close more deals – faster. But it’s not enough to tell your sales reps to do better. Instead, you must equip them with the tools they need for success. Sales playbooks are one key type of sales tool.

Today, some of the best revenue organizations use sales playbooks to boost sales results. Sales playbook adoption is correlated with success. According to the Aberdeen Group, sales reps using sales playbooks are significantly more likely to meet their sales target than those not.

Perhaps you’re unfamiliar with the concept of sales playbooks. Or, maybe you’ve spent time developing playbooks – but they’re not having the impact you hoped for, and you’re looking for ways to improve. Whatever the case, you’ve come to the right place.

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about playbooks. We’ll answer key questions, including:

  • What is a sales playbook?
  • What is included in a sales playbook?
  • How can I create a winning one?
  • What are some key challenges I’ll face when creating and implementing a playbook – and how can I overcome these challenges?

What is a sales playbook?

Before we discuss how to create a sales playbook, let’s define what it is.

A sales playbook is a guide that outlines your organization’s sales strategies, processes, procedures, and best practices. Playbooks aren’t simply a collection of generic tips and practices. Instead, they outline strategies, processes, and techniques that have been proven to work at that specific organization.

There are many benefits. But at the end of the day, a playbook is a great resource for engaging any buyer at any point in the sales cycle. When sellers employ the strategies in the playbook, they can close more deals, hit quota, and grow revenue.

A playbook is a powerful tool. However, sales organizations must deliver training and ongoing learning opportunities to ensure sellers master the strategies outlined in it. In addition, sales managers must deliver sales coaching to help sellers understand how to use the strategies and best practices in the sales playbook.

What is included in a sales playbook?

There is no single sales playbook that works for all companies. Instead, they vary from company to company, depending on factors including industry and audience (among others).

However, you’ll find some common elements across most sales playbook templates. Let’s look at a few of those B2B sales playbook components.

Company overview

This section of the sales playbook includes high-level information about your company, its goals, and the role of sellers in achieving those goals. That information includes the organization’s:

  • Mission
  • Values
  • Strategy

This section also includes an organizational chart to help sellers understand who reports to whom – and how the organization fits together. There may also be a section in the enterprise sales playbook that outlines the roles and responsibilities of each individual on the sales team.

Product information

Successful sellers must become product experts. This section of the B2B sales playbook includes details about each of your product or service offerings – including pricing. Here, sellers can better understand:

  • What you sell
  • What your products and services do
  • How your products and services help buyers solve challenges and address pain points
  • How much your products and services cost

This section should also include details and pricing for any packages your company offers.

Compensation structure

HR should communicate a rep’s compensation structure during the hiring process. However, it’s also important to incorporate information about the compensation structure. Be clear and transparent. This will help sellers understand what to expect and eliminate confusion down the road.

Sales methodology

In the world of sales, there are myriad sales methodologies. Some of those methodologies include:

An organization must identify the sales methodology that best aligns with its goals and values.

Be sure to outline your organization’s chosen methodology in your enterprise sales playbook. This will serve as a framework for every deal your sellers face. In addition, you may want to include information about why this methodology was chosen.

Sales process

The sales process section should take up a good portion of your B2B sales playbook. Essentially, it explores each step sellers must take during the sales process – from identifying prospects to closing the deal. This section is a key resource for helping sellers understand what they need to do to be successful at each stage of the selling cycle.

Ideal customer profiles

Your reps have limited time. As such, you want them to spend their time with good-fit prospects.

Your ideal customer profiles outline the key characteristics of a prospect that’s a good fit for your offerings. The ICP can include information such as:

  • Company size
  • Industry
  • Geographic location
  • Job title
  • Challenges
  • Goals

Of course, a rep may engage with multiple personas during the sales cycle. For example, a rep selling sales enablement software might interact with sales, marketing, and sales enablement professionals. Including these personas in your sales playbook can help your sellers understand who these people are and what matters to them.

Sales plays

This critical section provides sellers to follow in a specific sales scenario – whether it be lead qualification or negotiation. Remember: sales plays shouldn’t be based on hunches. Instead, they should be rooted in practices proven to work at your organization.

Sales messaging

It’s important to ensure sellers are aligned on company messaging. This section helps sellers know what to say in certain circumstances. It might include messaging for:

  • Prospecting via phone or email
  • Delivering an elevator pitch
  • Handling objections
  • Asking questions
  • Closing deals

KPIs

Sellers must have a good understanding of what’s expected of them. That way, they can prioritize their time accordingly. Be specific about the seller’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and keep them in the loop if those KPIs change.

Additional resources

Most likely, your sellers have plenty of additional resources at their disposal to help them move deals forward. For example, they may have access to internal sources, including:

  • Training
  • Battle cards
  • Sales decks

They may also have access to customer-facing content, such as:

  • Sales sheets
  • Case studies
  • Product presentations

This section of your enterprise sales playbook should outline what resources are available to sellers and where they can find these resources.

How to create a sales playbook

Sales playbooks are unique to each organization. So it’s not as simple as running a Google search for “sales playbook” – and then adopting one of the top results as your own.

So, how can you build one that works for your organization?

Some organizations start with a template. In addition, there are some key sales playbook best practices to keep in mind.

1. Form your team

A sales playbook can’t be a single-person effort. Instead, it requires cross-functional collaboration. Typically, you need to include representatives from the following groups:

  • Sales leadership
  • Top sales reps
  • Marketing
  • HR
  • Product development
  • Executive team

While this is a collaborative effort, one person should be tapped to lead the project. This person will coordinate the entire process and ensure the team develops an effective sales playbook.

2. Do your research

Once you’ve established your team, it’s time to audit your organization’s current processes. During this stage, your goal is to understand what processes, strategies, and resources are currently being used in the field – and how (or whether) they’re driving reps’ success. You’ll also want to identify common challenges and pain points.

Your sales reps are a great source of information. After all, they’re in the field interacting with buyers all day. Top sellers can convey what they do, which sets them apart. In addition, sellers of all experience levels can share insights on their processes and key challenges.

3. Determine your sales methodology

A sales methodology sets the tone for how your sellers interact with buyers. If you haven’t already, now is the time to determine which sales methodology fits your organization’s goals and values best. Be sure to include details on your chosen sales methodology in your playbook.

4. Map the sales process

To create an effective playbook, it’s key to understand how buyers and sellers navigate the sales process.

Based on your research, map the sales process – both from a buyer’s and a seller’s perspective. Be sure to define the common needs and pain points at each point in the purchase journey.

Then, identify which tactics and techniques are most effective for moving buyers from one stage of the sales process to the next.

5. Design sales plays based on what works for your top sellers

Sales plays are a key component of a sales playbook. But those sales plays shouldn’t be based on what should work. Instead, they must be based on strategies and techniques that are proven to work. Your top sellers are a great source of information for what works well.

6. Create your sales playbook

Once you’ve done all the background work, it’s time to write and format your sales playbook.

One common question is, “How long should a sales playbook be?” There’s no easy answer. It’s important to include all necessary information. But don’t be needlessly verbose. Sellers are more likely to read the entire playbook if it’s clear and concise.

Regardless of length, be sure to include a table of contents. While sellers should read the playbook, they will also use it as a reference guide. A table of contents helps them easily find exactly what they want.

In addition, be sure to consider format. Some organizations use printed playbooks. However, this approach isn’t usually effective. A better approach is to ensure sellers can digitally access it – and all supporting resources – within a single platform. With such a platform, you can also make updates digitally. That means sellers always have access to the latest and greatest version of the sales playbook.

7. Revisit your sales playbook often

In the world of business, change is constant. Markets evolve, and product and service offerings change. New sales techniques and tactics emerge that help sellers successfully close more deals. Your sales playbook must evolve to keep up.

Be sure to track the usage of the playbook. In addition, ask for feedback. This will help you understand what’s working – and what’s not. Then, you can use those insights to optimize your sales playbook regularly.

Sales playbook templates and examples

There’s no one-size-fits-all playbook that’ll work for every company. Instead, it’s important to build a playbook that’ll work for the needs of your revenue team.

That said, a template can serve as a starting point. You can then customize it to meet your organization’s needs.

Sales playbook templates vary. However, some common components should be included in every template. Let’s take a look at a few examples.

This section focuses on information about your company, including its mission, vision, values, and strategy. It may also include an organizational chart so sellers can understand where they fit and who they will work with.

Sales reps must become product experts. This section provides a breakdown of your products including what they do, how they help buyers, and how much they cost.

This section should outline how sellers are being paid.

This section should spell out the sales methodology your revenue organization has chosen as well as background information on why it was chosen.

These personas should give your sales reps a picture of an ideal customer. That way, they know where to focus their attention and how they can customize their outreach.

This outlines the steps the sales rep must go through in order to close a deal. You may also want to incorporate any messaging templates (such as email templates and elevator pitch scripts) that sales reps can use throughout the sales process.

This section spells out best practices for moving deals through the funnel. Remember: best practices aren’t created based on hunches. Instead, they’re based on what’s proven to work.

This section helps reps understand how success is measured – both at the team and individual levels. That way, reps can focus on what matters most.

Seeing real-life sales playbook examples can be extremely helpful when developing your own sales playbook. But generally, sales playbooks are only used internally. Companies don’t typically share their sales playbook examples with the public.

Key challenges when creating and implementing a sales playbook

A sales playbook serves as a guide to help sellers successfully navigate deals. As such, it’s well worth the time and effort required to create an effective sales playbook.

However, there are some challenges organizations face when creating and implementing a sales playbook. Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges.

Change can be difficult in all facets of life – including business. When you introduce a sales playbook, this is a change for your sellers. Some sellers and sales managers will resist this change

The market is always in flux. It’s important to ensure your sales playbook serves your sellers today – and in the future. However, it can be challenging to ensure your sales playbook always reflects these constant changes in the market.

Ongoing feedback is key to creating an effective sales playbook. Early on in the process, sales feedback ensures you understand what techniques and strategies are (and aren’t) working in the field. You’ll also have sellers who share feedback after the sales playbook has been created and distributed.

It can be challenging to collect feedback in a way that represents all sellers. In addition, it’s tough to distill this feedback into actionable insights you can use to improve and enhance your sales playbook.

The most effective sales playbooks are those that are revised regularly to reflect changes and feedback. However, regular updates increase the likelihood that sellers are using an outdated version of the sales playbook. This is especially true if you use printed sales playbooks or PDF versions that are distributed via email.

Using a revenue productivity platform can help. Your sales playbook – as well as all accompanying training and resources – are all housed in a single platform. It’s easy to make changes to the sales playbook and you can be sure your sellers are always turning to the most up-to-date version of the sales playbook.

Elevate your sales performance using sales playbooks

Sellers have a limited number of hours in the day. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for each deal – especially when there are strategies that are proven to work.

Sales playbooks are a powerful tool for new and veteran sellers alike. Sales playbooks – when they’re done well – equip sales reps with proven tools and strategies to move any deal forward. When sellers have access to a proven formula, they’re more likely to close deals and drive revenue growth.

Printed and PDF playbooks aren’t the best approach as they quickly become outdated. A better approach is to create your sales playbook with a revenue productivity platform like Mindtickle. With Mindtickle, your sellers always have access to the sales training, enablement, and call insights they need to close more deals – all within a single platform.

Build a better selling team

Ready to see how Mindtickle empowers sales teams to identify and scale best practices that lead to better outcomes? 

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in November 2023 and updated in May 2024. 

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Your Guide to the B2B Sales Funnel: What is it and How to Optimize Yours  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/your-guide-to-the-b2b-sales-funnel-what-is-it-and-how-to-optimize-yours/ Wed, 22 May 2024 17:36:37 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19626 In some product categories, the purchase journey is short and sweet. Consider a consumer going to a grocery store to buy cereal. They weigh their options for a few minutes, and then they make their selection. The B2B customer journey, on the other hand, is often a lot more complicated. The B2B sales funnel is …

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In some product categories, the purchase journey is short and sweet. Consider a consumer going to a grocery store to buy cereal. They weigh their options for a few minutes, and then they make their selection.

The B2B customer journey, on the other hand, is often a lot more complicated. The B2B sales funnel is a common way to illustrate this complex journey.

But what is a sales funnel?

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need to know about B2B sales funnels. We’ll start with the basics, like what a sales funnel is and what the B2B sales funnel stages are. Then, we’ll share practical tips for optimizing your sales funnel to drive better results.

What is a sales funnel?

First things first: what is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is a high level model of how prospective buyers move through the purchase journey. It illustrates their entire journey – from initially learning about a brand to making a purchase.

A B2B sales funnel is a funnel that specifically illustrates how B2B prospects move through the purchase journey.

As you probably guessed, sales funnels are depicted in the shape of a funnel; they’re wider on top and gradually become more narrow. Typically, sales funnels are labeled by stage. Some use general stages, like:

  • Top of funnel: Early parts of the purchase journey
  • Middle of funnel: Middle parts of the purchase journey
  • Bottom of funnel: Late parts of the purchase journey

Other sales funnels are labeled with more specific stages, which we’ll explore later.

B2B sales funnels are a useful tool for sales teams to determine where their prospects are in the purchase journey. Then, sellers can use a sales playbook to engage any buyer, no matter what stage of the sales funnel they’re in. This will increase sales acceleration. In other words, sales reps will be able to move more prospects through the sales funnel – faster.

Of course, not every prospect follows the same purchase journey. While some prospects progress through each sales funnel stage, others take a less linear path. For example, a prospect might proceed through the sales funnel – but then realize the specific product they’re considering isn’t the right fit for them. So, they may jump back up to earlier stages of the funnel as they consider their other options.

As such, a sales funnel should be seen as a broad overview of the purchase journey rather than a rigid set of steps prospects must complete.

What are the stages of a B2B sales funnel?

A quick Google search will show you many B2B sales funnel examples. Not every revenue organization uses the same B2B sales funnel.

As we mentioned earlier, some B2B sales funnels use general terms for the parts of the sales funnel – like top of the funnel, mid-funnel, and bottom of the funnel. Others use more specific terms to describe the stages of the B2B sales funnel.

While each B2B sales funnel is different, certain stages are common.

Stage #1: Awareness

Awareness is the first stage of the purchase journey. As you probably guessed, it’s the stage when prospects become aware of your brand.

There are many ways a prospect may become aware of your brand. Often, the marketing team owns these awareness-stage initiatives.

For example, a prospect may see a paid post on LinkedIn, promoting an upcoming thought leadership webinar focused on industry trends. Or one of your blogs might show up in Google search results when the prospect searches for solutions to solve one of their pain points.

Stage #2: Interest

The prospect is now aware of your brand. The next challenge is to build their interest.

During the interest stage of the B2B sales funnel, brands must build relationships with potential customers and help them see the impact their challenges have on their effectiveness and efficiency. At this point, the prospect isn’t ready to buy, so it’s best to avoid delving into the ins and outs of your product offerings.

There are several channels organizations can use to build prospect’s interest, including:

  • Blogs
  • Webinars
  • Ebooks
  • Email campaigns

Stage #3: Consideration

During the consideration stage, prospects know they have a problem and are actively seeking a solution.

During this stage, sales and marketing become more focused on the product. For example, marketing teams may develop case studies that convey how customers have used specific products and services to overcome their challenges.

Stage #4: Intent

During this stage, buyers take action that demonstrates their intent to purchase. They know they want to buy but are unsure which brand or product best suits them.

For example, a prospect might reach out to a sales rep to ask questions. Or, they might schedule a live demo.

Demos – one-on-one or in a group webinar format—are important tools at this stage of the B2B sales funnel. Some revenue organizations also offer “self-guided tours,” which allow prospects to better understand the ins and outs of a product or service.

Stage #5: Evaluation

The evaluation stage of the sales funnel is when the prospect weighs their options and makes a purchase decision. Prospects make their decision based on all the information they’ve gotten up to this point – including:

  • Sales collateral
  • Sales battle cards
  • Pricing information
  • Demos
  • Free trials
  • Testimonials and reviews from existing customers

Negotiations are common at the evaluation stage of the sales funnel.

Stage #6: Purchase

You’ve been working toward this stage. It’s when the prospect signs a contract and officially becomes a customer.

Of course, that doesn’t mean the work is over. It’s important to ensure the customer has an excellent implementation experience and feel supported during the initial rollout and throughout their relationship with your company. This will boost satisfaction – and customer retention.

B2B sales funnel vs. B2B sales pipeline

Sales funnel and sales pipeline are two phrases often used interchangeably. While they have similarities, they aren’t the same.

A sales funnel is a visual representation of the stages a buyer goes through during their purchase journey. However, buyers aren’t required to go through every stage of the B2B sales funnel to make a purchase.

Sales pipelines are visual representations of the B2B selling process. They include every stage of the sales process – from prospecting to retention. B2B sales pipeline management is the process of overseeing the sales pipeline.

Prospects may skip stages of the sales funnel. However, sales reps can’t skip stages of the sales funnel. Each step is required in the sales process.

B2B sales funnel vs B2C sales funnel: What’s the difference?

B2B and B2C customers navigate a journey before making a purchase. As such, both B2B and B2C businesses can use sales funnels to illustrate these journeys.

But B2B and B2C sales funnels aren’t the same.

B2B sales are typically more complex than B2C sales. In B2B deals, there is usually more money on the line and more people involved in the evaluation process. So it’s unsurprising that the B2B sales cycle often takes much longer than the B2C sales cycle.

As such, B2B SaaS sales funnels are typically more complex than B2C sales funnels. B2B sales funnels are often longer and incorporate more stages. In addition, B2B buyers often spend more time in each stage of the sales funnel than their B2C counterparts.

Tips to improve your B2B sales funnel

Perhaps you’ve never created a B2B sales funnel. Or maybe your revenue organization uses one, but it’s not working.

Whatever the case, there’s always room for improvement.

Let’s explore some tips for creating (or improving) your B2B sales funnel.

Leverage data to understand the customer journey

There are plenty of B2B sales funnel examples out there. But they may not be relevant to your business.

It is important to leverage data to understand how your customers navigate the purchase journey. Then, you can use those insights to develop a relevant B2B sales funnel for your business.

Identify your ideal customers

You may have many people in your B2B sales funnel, but you’ll be wasting your time if they aren’t a good fit for your products and services.

It’s important to document your ideal customers. A great starting point is to analyze your existing customer base.

Then, you can develop buyer personas, which will help inform content development. Buyer personas will also help your sales reps prioritize their time on good-fit prospects.

Align sales and marketing

All too often, sales and marketing teams act in silos. They each focus on their initiatives without much insight into what the other team is doing.

This misalignment causes big problems in the B2B sales funnel.

For example, your marketing team may devote much time to developing webinars and reports. But the leads that result from these initiatives may never convert. Without this feedback, marketing teams will continue doing what they’re doing, and sellers will continue getting unqualified leads.

Instead, sales and marketing teams must act as partners. That way, marketing can prioritize content and campaigns that attract the right people and guide them through the sales funnel. And, sales will get qualified leads that are more likely to become customers.

Develop content for each stage of the B2B sales funnel

Modern B2B buyers depend on content to make informed purchase decisions. But generic content won’t cut it. Instead, sellers need content that’ll resonate with each customer – no matter where they are in the B2B SaaS sales funnel.

Sales and marketing teams should collaborate to develop content for sellers during each sales funnel stage. All content should be stored in a single content management system so sellers can easily find the right sales content for each sales scenario.

Ensure sellers know how to use content

You might have great sales content. But if your sellers don’t use it (or don’t know how to use it), it won’t help you close more deals.

Be sure to provide training and enablement to help sellers learn how and when to use key content assets. In addition, be sure they know exactly where to find the content they need. That way, they’ll spend less time searching and more time building relationships with prospects.

Prioritize good fit leads

Salesforce research found that sales reps spend only 28% of their time selling. The rest is spent on internal meetings, data entry, and other manual tasks.

Research found that reps only spend

of their time selling
0 %

Because sales reps have such limited time, they need to prioritize prospects who are a good fit for their products and services. For starters, marketing teams must ensure their initiatives are actually yielding high-quality leads. In addition, sales reps should know their ideal customer profiles inside and out and have the skills needed to quickly determine whether or not a prospect is a good fit.

Don’t check out after the deal is closed

You might think the work is done once the prospect has signed the dotted line. Well, think again.

Instead, revenue organizations should continue to engage with customers. For example, they could invite them to a webinar where another customer shares how they use a specific product feature. Or, they could add them to an email campaign that shares tips for making the most of their investment.

Staying engaged with customers will increase their satisfaction. That means they’ll be more likely to stay a customer – and recommend your company to those in their network.

Analyze and optimize your sales funnel regularly

Your sales funnel shouldn’t be set in stone. Instead, it’s important to track B2B sales funnel metrics. For example, measure prospects’ conversion rates at each stage of the B2B sales funnel. Then, use that data to make optimizations.

Engage with buyers – wherever they are in the B2B sales funnel

A B2B sales funnel is a great tool for visualizing the B2B purchase journey. When sales reps understand where buyers are in their journey, they can better determine how to engage with them.

Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform equips your entire revenue team with the training, enablement, content, and call insights they need to deliver outstanding experiences across the sales funnel – and close more deals.

Training, enablement + Content In Mindtickle

Ready to see firsthand why companies are choosing Mindtickle?

Get Your Demo

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The Ultimate Sales Hack: Mindtickle’s Call AI Turbocharges Your Team’s Productivity https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-ultimate-sales-hack-mindtickles-call-ai-turbocharges-your-teams-productivity/ Thu, 16 May 2024 19:43:29 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19611 Meeting revenue targets isn’t just a goal—it’s a priority that comes “BAE” (Before Anything Else). At Mindtickle, our mission revolves around assisting our customers in overcoming obstacles that obstruct the productivity of their sales teams. Central to this mission is our product offering: Call AI, a conversation intelligence tool enablement and sales teams leverage to …

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Meeting revenue targets isn’t just a goal—it’s a priority that comes “BAE” (Before Anything Else).

At Mindtickle, our mission revolves around assisting our customers in overcoming obstacles that obstruct the productivity of their sales teams.

Central to this mission is our product offering: Call AI, a conversation intelligence tool enablement and sales teams leverage to access customer conversations in one central repository while enabling them to analyze seller interactions and track deal progression effortlessly.

As we launch new features, we build solutions that address daily challenges that enablement teams and sales managers experience to enhance enablement and sales team experiences and improve overall productivity.

Let’s look at how Mindtickle’s latest set of features are simplifying the lives of enablement and sales teams.

Evaluating Call AI adoption

Enablement admins use several tools and platforms daily. While managing these tools and platforms is a top priority, understanding how they are used regularly and their adoption is critical to ensuring maximum utilization.

The challenge is that several existing solutions in the market do not provide these insights, leaving admins unable to gauge the effectiveness of their tool adoption strategies.

Our latest release addresses these challenges for our Call AI admins by providing frequent and timely insights into adoption trends. Whether analyzing calls reviewed by sales managers, feedback shared with sellers, or sharing calls internally or externally by sellers. We provide a holistic view of adoption metrics. These insights empower enablement admins to assess user behaviors and refine their Call AI adoption strategies.

Real-time access to Call AI data on the new data platform

Enablement admins need access to raw data beyond the standard reports available in Call AI analytics. However, there is no way to extract this data in real time we are addressing this challenge by providing real-time access to this data via Snowflake (NDP). Another challenge we saw while working with our customers was the inability to continuously develop dedicated integrations with each dialer in the market today.

In our upcoming release, we address this challenge by introducing a seamless SFTP-based integration solution that bridges the gap between Call AI and dialer systems.

Customers can now integrate Call AI with any dialer in the market, improving customer engagement, agent performance, and overall business outcomes. The solution ensures:

  • A seamless integration with dialers via a secure SFTP-based mechanism.
  • The highest level of data security, compliance, and encryption.
  • Insights and analytics derived from conversations.
  • Compatibility with a wide array of dialer systems facilitated through a secure SFTP mechanism.
  • User-friendly interface for easy adoption and utilization.

Empowering sales managers to select other stakeholders to coach sellers

Sales managers managing big teams are often inundated with so many other responsibilities that providing personalized coaching to sellers on calls is hard. Additionally, not having the ability to assign an expert or external training prevents sellers from being coached for specific calls could delay the effectiveness of sellers in the field.

In this release, we are addressing this challenge by enabling sales managers to assign a coach to reps whether it be:

  • Their reporting manager
  • An assigned mentor or peer to coach the seller
  • An external trainer or a group of trainers (coaching is outsourced) who can coach a rep on calls

This makes sales managers more efficient and ensures sellers receive the right guidance without unnecessary roadblocks.

Giving time back to sellers

Sales managers can find reviewing each seller call tedious. With a conversation intelligence tool, sellers can have all the sales calls in a centralized location. Mindtickle’s Call AI provides a Copilot interface to ask important questions and get appropriate insights.

However, this is not scalable if a sales manager has to listen to many calls.

Mindtickle Call AI summaries

We addressed this challenge by helping sellers stay on top of their calls. After each call, Call AI automatically generates a call summary that captures key highlights, attendees, and any action items for follow-up.

This summary is easily accessible for sales managers within the Call AI details page, via email, or available directly in the call record in Salesforce. The call summary ensures you have all the crucial information of the deal at your fingertips, saving time and keeping everyone aligned.

To learn more about how we continue to innovate and empower enablement and sales teams worldwide to improve productivity and achieve unprecedented revenue growth and success, register for the upcoming webinar, Sales Superheroes Unleashed: Transforming Sellers into Superstars with AI, on June 5, 2024.

Mindtickle's 2024 Spring Announcement webinar

Learn how forward-thinking teams can change sales behaviors at scale. Speakers from Cisco and International (formerly Navistar) will discuss how they use AI and other capabilities to positively impact their businesses.

Save Your Spot

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7 Sales Pitch Examples (+ 10 Tips for A Winning Sales Pitch) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-sales-pitch-examples-10-tips-for-a-winning-sales-pitch/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-sales-pitch-examples-10-tips-for-a-winning-sales-pitch/#comments Thu, 16 May 2024 09:01:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18355 There’s no overestimating the importance of a good sales pitch — but where do the best pitch ideas come from? Do you always have to use sales pitch templates or is it better to do what feels best? And is there even a “right” way to sell something? At the end of the day, it’s …

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There’s no overestimating the importance of a good sales pitch — but where do the best pitch ideas come from? Do you always have to use sales pitch templates or is it better to do what feels best? And is there even a “right” way to sell something?

At the end of the day, it’s up to you and your teams to perfect your approach. Fortunately, there are plenty of good sales pitch examples out there to light the way.

Here’s how to make a sales pitch that really shines.

  1.  What is a sales pitch and why is it important?
  2.  What makes a good sales pitch?
  3.  Types of sales pitch
  4.  Mistakes to avoid while creating your sales pitch
  5.  Craft your perfect sales pitch

What is a sales pitch and why is it important?

According to Merriam-Webster, a sales pitch is “a speech that is given […] to persuade someone to buy something.” Seems simple, right?

Not so fast.

The complexity comes in when you consider a few key parts of that definition:

  • Format & pacing: How long should this pitch be? What format should it take?
  • Interactivity & engagement: Should you talk the whole time, or can customers ask questions?
  • Trust, credibility, & persuasion: What words do you use to establish trust, credibility, and persuade someone ? How much pressure is the right amount of pressure? What stats, testimonials, and other validation can you use to build trust?
  • Someone: Who is the customer? What do they want? What do they not want?
  • Something: What are you selling, what problem does it solve and how are you going to frame that?

That’s why it can be so difficult to know how to pitch a product: These variables mean there’s no “magic bullet” that will always win you a sale. Still, pitches are vital to customer experiences, relationships and potential transactions — so you can’t afford to wing it.

Instead, you need to find a template or approach that can be changed on the fly. The bones stay the same, but you dress them up in different ways depending on factors such as “who,” “what,” “why” and “how.”

Your mission is to build good bones — and that requires knowing what makes a good sales pitch.

What makes a good sales pitch?

Just a few factors are standing between compelling, memorable sales pitch ideas and totally forgettable ones:

Research

If you want to master the “who” and “why” elements of your pitch, it’s critical to research your target audience and create buyer personas. This helps you know how to tailor your message depending on buyer intent, job description, pain points and more.

Unique selling proposition

Your unique selling proposition, or USP, is the thing that makes you stand out from the crowd; it’s the “what” and “how.” In many ways, all sales pitch templates should be built around your USP — because otherwise, you could be selling any product or service in the world.

Goals

Clear goals and objectives help keep your pitch on track. They also give you an easy way to judge success after the conversation — and to make improvements where necessary.

Structure

A sales pitch should always follow some kind of structure, for the same reason good stories have clear plots: You don’t want to lose your listener. The most basic example is:

  • Opening statement: This is your hook, where you get the customer’s attention or pique their curiosity.
  • Body: Here, you’ll share specific details, stats, use cases or benefits that highlight your USP and put your product or service in the spotlight.
  • CTA: The call to action inspires the customer to — you guessed it — take a specific action.

7 good sales pitch types

Need an example of a sales pitch? Look no further:

#1: Email sales pitch

All good sales pitch email examples have one thing in common: brevity. Here, powerful subject lines and preview text can work wonders — and simple, compelling body copy (ideally with bullet points) is your best friend. Most of the power rests on an eye-catching CTA button with clear value for your reader.

Example:

Hey [Recipient’s Name],
Hope you’re doing well. I came across your [work/article/profile] recently and was genuinely impressed. Would love to chat and share some ideas around [helping you solve Y problem]. Are you up for a virtual coffee next week?

Cheers, [Your Name]

#2: Phone pitch/cold call script for B2B sales

Business-to-business or B2B sales pitch examples are a little more difficult to pin down, particularly when they’re done over the phone. Cold calls can still work — they should just be highly personalized, relevant, and full of immediate value.

“Hey [Recipient’s Name], it’s [Your Name] here from [Your Company/Organization]. I stumbled upon your [work/profile/website] recently, and [X specific thing] caught my attention. Got a quick moment to chat?”

#3: Sales presentation pitch

If you go looking for sales pitch presentation examples, you’ll probably find a whole lot of PowerPoint. That’s not a problem, but it can be a limitation if you don’t follow best practices. Focus on creativity and clarity, keep your customer’s attention, and use the format to your advantage (that is, don’t just read exactly what’s written on your slides — let the media enhance your message).

What a great sales deck should include:

  • Strong opening: Capture your audience’s attention immediately. Start with a compelling customer story or fact related to your product or service.
  • Problem statement: Clearly identify the problem your product or service solves.
  • Solution: Introduce your product or service as the solution to the previously stated problem.
  • Benefits: Highlight the key benefits of your product or service, and how it stands out from competitors.
  • Testimonials and case studies: Showcase success stories or quotes from satisfied clients or customers.
    Product Demo or
  • Screenshots: If applicable, visually demonstrate how your product works.
  • Pricing and packages: Clearly lay out the cost and what’s included.
  • Team: Introduce key team members and their credentials, especially if they add credibility to your offering.
  • Call to Action: End with a clear CTA, whether that’s scheduling a follow-up meeting, starting a free trial, or another desired next step.
  • Contact Information: Always include an easy way for potential clients or investors to reach out.

#4: In-person sales pitch

In-person pitches present unique opportunities for connection. You can use tone indicators and body language cues that might not work as well in other formats — plus, you can read these same things from your customer. Build these pitches around real-time interactions and physical examples or visual aids where possible.

  • Build rapport: Utilize face-to-face interactions to create a personal connection. Start with small talk, read body language, and establish trust
  • Physical materials: Take advantage of tangible materials like brochures, samples, or prototypes.
  • Engage with demos: Live product demos can be more interactive. Let prospects touch, use, or experience your product/service.
  • Read the room: Observe audience reactions and adjust your pitch on-the-fly based on their body language and facial expressions.
  • Q&A: Spontaneous questions can arise, and you have the opportunity to address concerns immediately.
  • Venue considerations: Think about the location’s logistics, seating arrangements, audio/visual capabilities, and potential distractions

#5: Elevator pitch

An elevator pitch summarizes a lot of details in a short period of time — which means it has to be informative and compelling at the same time. Prioritize the most important, interesting, or valuable parts of your story and leave the details for a longer conversation.

Here’s an example of an elevator pitch you can use in your own outreach:

“Hi, I’m Alex from AquaPure.

Did you know that over 2 billion people lack access to safe drinking water? Our portable, eco-friendly water purification system can purify any freshwater source in just 30 seconds, making it safe to drink.

We envision a world where clean drinking water is always within reach, no matter where you are. Imagine the impact we could make together!”

This pitch is effective because it:

  • States the problem: Highlights a significant global issue.
  • Introduces a solution: Describes the product’s unique selling point.
  • Invokes emotion: The idea of making a positive change in the world.
  • Ends with a Call to Action: Invites the listener to be part of the solution

#6: Follow-up sales pitch

When making a follow-up sales pitch, the focus is on continuing, expanding, and enriching a conversation to close more deals. That means you want to recall specific details from the previous interaction and respond intuitively to approaches that worked.

Subject: Thank you for Yesterday’s Discussion – Next Steps for [Your Product/Service]

Hello [Recipient’s Name],

I hope this email finds you well. Firstly, thank you for taking the time yesterday to discuss [Your Product/Service]. I appreciate your insights and feedback on how it aligns with [Recipient’s Company’s objectives/needs].

To recap our conversation:

  • Benefit A of our product can address [specific challenge they have].
  • Our recent success with [similar company or case study] showcases the results you can anticipate.
  • I’ve attached [a case study, product specs, trial version, etc.] for your further consideration, as discussed.

You had a great question about [specific question]. I’ve looked into this and [provide a detailed answer or solution].

#7: Social media pitch

With internet users worldwide spending an average of 151 minutes per day on social media, this is a perfect chance to reach customers where they’re at. Social media pitches should be slightly less formal, more action-oriented and — above all — brief.

Here’s an example of a social media pitch:

Hi [Recipient’s Name],

I hope this message finds you well. I’ve been following [Company’s Name] and am truly impressed with your recent [specific campaign or content piece, e.g., “brand relaunch”]. As a Content Marketing Strategist with over 7 years in the industry, I’ve assisted brands like [Brand A, Brand B] in boosting their online engagement by an average of 40%.

I see potential areas where [Company’s Name] could further enhance its content reach and engagement, especially in [specific area, e.g., “interactive content” or “SEO-driven blog posts”]. I’d love to discuss a few strategies that could align with your current efforts and drive tangible results.

Would you be open to a brief call or discussion next week? I promise to keep it concise and value-packed.

Best regards,
[Your Name]

Mistakes to avoid while creating your sales pitch

Fine-tune your sales pitch templates with these 10 tips:

Do

Don't

Craft your perfect sales pitch

At the end of the day, all the B2B sales pitch examples in the world won’t make a difference if you don’t have the right content management and sales enablement solutions on your side. Fortunately, Mindtickle is here to help.

By providing the perfect coaching and training to your reps, Mindtickle helps you master the “who,” “what,” “why” and “how.” Deliver the right content at the right time, learn from previous conversations, and help your teams bring sales pitch templates to life.

Train all your sellers on the perfect pitch

Connect with our team to see how Mindtickle will help you build a team of sellers who can deliver the perfect pitch each time.

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in September 2023 and was updated in May 2024. 

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Build Good Habits and Change Bad Ones with the Mindtickle Platform https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/build-good-habits-and-change-bad-ones-with-the-mindtickle-platform/ Wed, 15 May 2024 14:54:54 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19587 Targeting and changing a specific sales behavior is tough. It requires concerted, organized effort from the individual rep and their manager and enablement to empower a cycle of benchmarking, knowledge acquisition and retention, practice, monitoring, and good, actionable feedback. The right tool can amplify that effort, while a poor one will nullify it. Give everyone …

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Targeting and changing a specific sales behavior is tough.

It requires concerted, organized effort from the individual rep and their manager and enablement to empower a cycle of benchmarking, knowledge acquisition and retention, practice, monitoring, and good, actionable feedback.

The right tool can amplify that effort, while a poor one will nullify it.

Give everyone the best chance to drive that change with a solid foundation of proper access, seamless and time-saving integrations, and metrics for more personalized, impact-driven programs.

Mindtickle is proud to launch features this Spring that support those conditions for change.

Meet everyone where they are with what they need

One of the most crucial aspects of changing behavior is the ability to review and receive feedback on what’s happening on sales calls. And in today’s buying environment, tethering your reps to their laptops or desktops wastes those on-the-go moments of downtime.

Give learners the power to review and reflect on past calls to prep for the next meeting or identify where to focus their efforts to improve themselves instead of doom-scrolling on X (formerly Twitter), all from their smartphone.

Enable managers to provide invaluable feedback to their reps efficiently, from anywhere, with call insights, summaries, and transcripts that help them jump to key moments to review, comment, and tag the right people to take action.

AI for semantic search

Apologies to everyone who has developed “a particular set of skills” to pinpoint the best search term for keyword-driven searches. Back then, an exact match of a word or phrase was your best bet to find what you were looking for.

Now, the Mindtickle search bar understands the underlying meaning of your search to bring you more relevant results.

Prevent overwhelm and maintain data privacy

Many think giving everyone access to everything will resolve complaints about transparency or inefficient workflows. There is such a thing as too much access since the human attention span only has so much capacity to parse and filter what is in view. Mindtickle helps admins make the best use of every iota of attention with features like restricting different folders in our Content Center or sharing reports to user groups so they don’t have to dig through the data themselves.

Provide managers with a limited view of analytics and reports based on organizational hierarchy or log the download and export activities to maintain learner data confidentiality.

Bring in your content from Sharepoint and Egynte

Duplicate, menial work can grind away at a person’s morale and drive, resulting in more mistakes when getting training and marketing content into Mindtickle. Automating content sync up from Sharepoint, Egnyte, or several other content repositories can mitigate human error and save time and effort for admins without disrupting the content creation or content management processes that have worked for your organization.

Competencies for scalable, personalized, enablement, coaching, and behavior change accountability

Trying to change behavior is meaningless if you don’t have a target or goal. This is where the ideal rep profile and Mindtickle’s Readiness Index come in. Outline the set of competencies a rep needs in their position to start your journey to correlating engagement with enablement, training, and coaching with outcomes.

You can do this in a few minutes by using our Ideal Rep Profile templates, built by our experts for common roles like Account Executives, Business Development Reps, or Solutions Consultant/Engineer. Adjust the weights on each competency to tailor our recommendations to your organization’s needs and priorities, then start tagging your content with our suggested tags.

product imagery of the Mindtickle readiness index

Hone in further on the unique profiles for the different roles in your company over time by editing the weights on competencies, creating and tagging new programs and coaching forms, and editing the competencies themselves. Our templates serve as a solid foundation for gauging behavior change and impact on outcomes as your team and enablement grow and mature.

More to come for Mindtickle

Like how we encourage and guide our customers to foster a growth mindset for their organizations, Mindtickle is committed to continuously learning and growing. We’re always looking to our customers to understand their current needs. We hire empathetic product teams to anticipate and solve their problems in the future, even if it means building something the market has never seen or tested.

Mindtickle 2024 Spring Announcement

Register for the webinar, Sales Superheroes Unleashed: Transforming Sellers into Superstars with AI, to learn more about the Spring launch and hear customer stories firsthand.

Save Your Spot

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Change Sales Behaviors Using AI with the Mindtickle Spring 2024 Launch https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/change-sales-behaviors-using-ai-with-the-mindtickle-spring-2024-launch/ Wed, 15 May 2024 07:43:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19561 Forward-thinking GTM teams today focus on driving behavior change to achieve superior seller performance. With Mindtickle’s Spring 2024 launch, we want to give you the power of generative AI and analytics to make behavior change easy, convenient, and at your fingertips. With this launch, you can: Give your sellers superpowers Enable your teams in the …

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Forward-thinking GTM teams today focus on driving behavior change to achieve superior seller performance.

With Mindtickle’s Spring 2024 launch, we want to give you the power of generative AI and analytics to make behavior change easy, convenient, and at your fingertips. With this launch, you can:

  • Give your sellers superpowers
  • Enable your teams in the flow of work
  • Empower your sales managers

Mindtickle has been a consistent innovator in the revenue productivity space, and we strive to give you the best that technology offers. Here’s what Nishant Mungali, Mindtickle’s co-founder and Chief Product Officer, said about the Spring launch:

“As AI technology progresses and matures, our product team will be at the forefront, putting it to good use to serve our customers. In our first iteration, we made revenue teams more efficient. With every subsequent iteration we will make them more effective as well. This will give valuable time back to our customers so they can do more long-term, strategic thinking.”
Nishant Mungali headshot
Nishant Mungali
Mindtickle Co-Founder + Chief Product Officer

Give your reps superpowers

According to the Harvard Business Review, in the B2B buying journey, buyers spend just 5% of their time with sellers. With so much information easily available online, buyers want to engage with sellers less and less.

So, how can your sellers engage buyers better? With AI superpowers, they can. Introducing Copilot for sellers, giving them the power of AI so they can be on their A game anytime, all the time.

Buyers constantly have questions and curveballs for sellers.

  • “How are you different from Competitor X?”
  • “I don’t have budget this quarter.”
  • “Can you integrate into my system of record?”

With Mindtickle Copilot for sellers, your sellers can strategize deals, tackle objections, and find answers to complex questions at their fingertips. Sellers will be more responsive to customers, seem like the smartest person in the room, and close deals faster.

What’s more, sellers also become more productive as Copilot for Sellers automates the grunt work of drafting emails and updating CRM.

Let your sellers practice their craft in a scalable way

Another way to drive seller behavior change is through role-plays. Sellers want to practice their pitches, but sales managers have little time to practice, review pitches, and give constructive feedback. Many role-play initiatives at large organizations fail because managers don’t have the time to review hundreds of pitches.

To solve this problem, we put AI to work at multiple levels. First, we got it to grade pitches, and now, in the Spring launch, we made it interactive, which means sellers can practice with AI live and have engaging conversations in realistic selling scenarios.

interactive role-play

Just last month, a large Fortune 100 tech customer put the AI grading to test. They launched a pitch contest for a new product line. About 3,500 sellers submitted over 6,000 pitches and the contest got a 95% adoption. Sales managers couldn’t review these 6,000 pitches, so AI did the heavy lifting, giving the reps textual, keyword, and emotional feedback for every submission. 

This saved over 30 weeks of sales managers’ time, and the reps got plenty of practice on their new pitch. Over the last six months, Mindtickle received more than 100,000 video role-play submissions that AI reviewed and graded fully. 

weeks saved when Copilot reviewed pitches + gave feedback
0

After this success, our product teams continued to iterate with AI. We know sellers crave immersive learning experiences, so we wanted to deliver something truly immersive and impressive.

With the newly launched interactive AI role-play, sellers can practice with an AI avatar and focus on beating the bot. They can practice pitches, objection handling, and difficult conversations endlessly with the avatar to become their best version in a safe and scalable environment.

Here’s what the head of enablement at a Fortune 500 chemicals company had to say after checking out the Interactive AI role-play capability,

"That was awesome. I can see how we can use it to help in teaching our negotiation program. We have super manual two-way role-play at the moment, this interactive AI role-play way exceeded my expectations. I had more lag time than it did."
Head of Enablement
Fortune 500 Chemicals Company

Sellers benefit in three ways:

  • They can become the best version of themselves without depending on their managers for feedback
  • They get immersive, on-the-job learning 
  • They are motivated to keep practicing their pitches till they score 100%

Empower your sales managers

Frontline sales managers have one of the toughest jobs across your company. They are always hard-pressed for time between account planning, trying to keep their forecast from slipping, and rolling up their sleeves to save at-risk deals.

Despite their obvious pains, they have been an underserved persona in technology. With the launch of the Manager Command Center, we want to change that.

product screenshots from Mindtickle's manager command center

When sales managers log into Mindtickle, they will get an experience tailored to their daily needs and priorities. They get prescriptive and actionable insights that drive team performance and behavioral change. At a glance, managers can see:

  • The team’s activities, be it meetings and calls
  • Who needs coaching, and on what
  • Who’s behind on training completion
  • The team’s skill gaps

The idea is that even if a sales manager gets 30 minutes of free time, they can effectively coach a B player into an A player and drive team performance.

Give time back to sales enablement teams with AI

We often hear sales enablement teams are short-staffed and spend the bulk of their time creating content. Creating content from scratch takes too long and is very labor-intensive. So, we put AI to work for our third persona.

With this new feature, AI-program outline creation, enablement admins can give a few simple prompts and get a very well-fleshed-out AI-generated course outline that includes passive and active learning such as courses, role-plays, coaching sessions, and assessments. You can customize the program outline to meet your organization’s needs.

Mindtickle Copilot

This is on the back of AI for assessment creation which has become quite popular with our customers. As per the 2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report, at least 5% of all assessments in Mindtickle are created by AI.

With this capability, enablement managers can simply point to a course and ask AI to create an assessment for it. AI will create it quickly, resulting in significant time savings.

Time to create an assessment

minutes without Copilot
0
minutes with Copilot
0

Have fun using AI

We had fun building these cool new capabilities using the latest technologies to serve sellers, sales managers, and sales enablement teams. We hope you have as much fun using it.

Register for the upcoming webinar, “Sales Superheroes Unleashed: Transforming Sellers into Superstars with AI,” on June 5, 2024, to learn more about the Spring launch and hear customer stories firsthand.

Unleash Your Sales Superheroes

Register for our upcoming webinar to learn more about the Spring launch and hear customer stories.

Save Your Spot

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Mindtickle Announces Revenue Enablement and AI Capabilities to Elevate Sales Behavior https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-announces-revenue-enablement-and-ai-capabilities-to-elevate-sales-behavior/ Wed, 15 May 2024 07:25:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=news&p=19579 New Features Automate Readiness and Deal Execution for Sales and Support Teams SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — May 15, 2024 — Mindtickle, the market-leading revenue productivity platform, today introduced new enablement and AI capabilities to improve behaviors for customer-facing teams. These new capabilities, powered by rapid progress in enablement and generative AI technologies, turn revenue teams …

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New Features Automate Readiness and Deal Execution for Sales and Support Teams

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. — May 15, 2024 — Mindtickle, the market-leading revenue productivity platform, today introduced new enablement and AI capabilities to improve behaviors for customer-facing teams. These new capabilities, powered by rapid progress in enablement and generative AI technologies, turn revenue teams into superheroes by making them more effective in their jobs.

These new advancements empower sellers, revenue managers, and enablement teams through AI workflow automation, seamless integrations, and actionable insights that save time, engage buyers, and enhance team performance. With this latest update, Mindtickle customers can also personalize content for each prospect, resulting in improved engagement and higher conversion rates.

These new capabilities build on a foundation of innovative AI offerings previously announced, such as AI-graded roleplays. Mindtickle uses AI to review video submissions from reps and provide contextual and pointed feedback for self-improvement. This breakthrough technology has enabled Mindtickle customers to implement large-scale role-play programs that were previously manual and difficult to grade and scale. Over the last six months, Mindtickle received more than 100,000 video role-play submissions that were fully reviewed and graded by AI. Companies like Flexential took advantage of this unique capability to deploy large-scale practice and reinforcement programs.

“We’ve integrated Mindtickle Copilot into our workflow for crafting emails, developing assessments, and designing quizzes, and the results have been overwhelmingly positive,” Kortnie Elkins, Senior Manager, Field Sales Enablement at Flexential, said. “This tool empowers Flexential sales reps to tailor content specifically to each prospect’s needs, ensuring personalized and impactful communication. By harnessing the capabilities of Mindtickle Copilot, our reps can deliver targeted messaging that resonates with our clients, ultimately driving stronger engagement and conversion rates.”

With every release, Mindtickle iterates on all Copilot capabilities and gives go-to-market teams the best technology to simplify their lives, free up time, and focus on strategic thinking.

For this latest release, Mindtickle announced new capabilities:

For go-to-market (GTM) reps (Sales, Pre-Sales, Support, Partners):

  • Copilot for sellers — According to the Harvard Business Review, in the B2B buying journey, buyers spend only 5% of their time with sellers. Copilot for Sellers gives sellers superpowers with AI. It guides sellers through every step of every deal to better engage customers and close deals faster. Guided selling means sellers get strategic recommendations on the next best actions, account research, objection handling, and competitive positioning.
  • Interactive AI role-plays – Sellers want to practice pitches, but managers have little time for role-plays. With Interactive AI role-plays, AI-generated customers jump on live conversations with reps so they can practice pitches, objection handling, and difficult conversations. Live role-plays with AI help reps become their best versions in a safe and scalable environment while saving managers time.
  • Outreach and LinkedIn integrations – Sellers don’t want to leave their workflow to share content with prospects across different channels. With the latest integrations, sellers and business development reps (BDRs) can share marketing-approved assets with prospects through Outreach and LinkedIn emails, tracking prospect engagement at a granular level. This is on the back of recent integrations with Google Drive, Sharepoint, Egnyte, and deeper integration with Salesforce.

For managers:

  • Manager Command Center — Sales managers have one of the toughest jobs in any company. They are always stretched for time and don’t always have a methodical way to drive team performance. That changes with the launch of the Manager Command Center, giving frontline managers a cockpit view into their team’s skills, actions, and performance gaps. Managers get prescriptive and actionable insights tailored to their priorities.
  • Readiness Index templates — Benchmarking sellers is easier with Ideal Rep Profiles, which give visibility into each rep’s strengths and weaknesses based on top industry standards. Mindtickle curated the competencies that truly matter based on a rich and diverse set of customers ranging in size and industry. Selling organizations can now decode sellers’ competency gaps so they can truly move the middle and drive superior sales performance.

For revenue enablement teams:

  • AI content creation – For sales enablement managers, training content creation takes up most of their time. Enablement admins can now give simple prompts and get an AI-generated course outline combining active learning, passive learning, and assessments.

Nishant Mungali, Mindtickle’s co-founder and chief product officer, said, “As AI technology progresses and matures, Mindtickle is at the forefront, putting it to good use to serve our customers. In our first iteration, we made revenue teams more efficient. With every subsequent iteration, we will make them more effective as well. This will give valuable time back to our customers so they can do more long-term, strategic thinking.”

To learn more about Mindtickle’s latest product announcement, register for our webinar on June 5.

About Mindtickle

Mindtickle is the market-leading revenue productivity platform that combines on-the-job learning and deal execution to drive behavior change and get more revenue per rep. Mindtickle is recognized as a market leader by top industry analysts and is ranked by G2 as the #1 sales onboarding and training product. This year, Mindtickle was recognized for its outstanding customer support winning a Bronze Stevie Award for Sales and Customer Service.

Media Contact:
Public Relations at Mindtickle
mindtickle@sourcecodecomms.com

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Challenger Sales Model: The What, Why and How https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/challenger-sales-model-the-what-why-and-how/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/challenger-sales-model-the-what-why-and-how/#comments Mon, 06 May 2024 09:36:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18491 You’ve probably heard of the Challenger Sales methodology. With such an evocative name, you may wonder if it could fit your business. Before you decide that, though, you need to ask yourself a few questions — such as, “What is Challenger Sales?” and “It is really right for us?” Today, we’re rounding up those answers …

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You’ve probably heard of the Challenger Sales methodology. With such an evocative name, you may wonder if it could fit your business. Before you decide that, though, you need to ask yourself a few questions — such as, “What is Challenger Sales?” and “It is really right for us?”

Today, we’re rounding up those answers and more. Here’s our in-depth look at Challenger Sales methodology and how to leverage it.

Key takeaways

  • Evaluate your sales team’s skills, personalities, and market context to determine if the Challenger Sales model is a good fit.
  • Provide training and education to equip sales reps with the knowledge, skills, and mindset needed to become effective Challengers. 
  • Equip your sales team with the necessary resources, content, and tools to support their adoption of the Challenger methodology.

What is the Challenger Sales model?

There are a lot of different sales methodologies to choose from. The challenger selling model is just one, and it’s well-known in the industry because it is the methodology that helped top sales reps win throughout the 2008 Great Recession.

Proposed by Brent Adamson and Matthew Dixon in “The Challenger Sale,” this approach is based on the personalities of your sales team. You’ve got archetypes like the hard worker, relationship builder, and lone wolf — but the challenger is the one to keep an eye on.

This person “challenges” the status quo by addressing needs your customers may not even know they have. It’s all about presenting new possibilities — not just a sales call, but a truly collaborative conversation. The results can include more deals, stronger connections, and better business.

Hard worker
Challenger
Relationship-builder
Lone wolf
Problem solver

It can be especially helpful during periods of economic difficulty where budgets are restricted, and products become harder to sell.

While other approaches may assume the customer knows best, Challenger Sales methodology training helps push your sales reps to use their own intuition and insights. The idea is to challenge the buyer with ideas they may not have considered, placing your company and offering in a high-value position.

Is every sales team a good fit for the Challenger Sales model?

The Challenger Sales process is built around a specific personality type. It’s best for reps and teams who can:

  • Take control without being aggressive.
  • Translate insights into actionable value for customers.
  • Present disruptive ideas as helpful and constructive.

Not everyone fits this description—and that’s okay. There are plenty of other sales models that may be a better fit for different personalities, unique skill sets, and simpler sales cycles.

Challenger Sales model steps

There are plenty of Challenger Sales model examples out there, but they all boil down to a few basic steps:

Start a conversation by asking a disruptive, highly relevant question and “challenging” what the customer thinks they know.

Deliver insights by connecting that question to a problem buyers may not have considered.

Build your case with data, examples, logic, and emotion.

Present an answer that neatly addresses the customer’s new concerns.

Showcase your offering as the best way to reach out and grab that answer.

Remember, the success of the Challenger Sales process depends on your reps being both sellers and teachers. Don’t just throw them into this role; build your sales team’s skills to help develop confidence and encourage creativity.

 

Adopting the Challenger Selling model

Ready to get started? Here’s how to adopt the Challenger Sales model:

Use a variety of assessments to determine how your teams approach tasks, handle virtual selling challenges and leverage their talents.

 

Build Challenger Sales training opportunities to help reps learn how to disrupt without offending and teach without patronizing. This often requires a shift in existing mindsets, which may prioritize relationships and “protecting the status quo.”

Provide how-to guides, Challenger Sales model examples, mock sales calls, and sales enablement tools to set your reps up for success.

 

Roll out the Challenger Sales methodology to one rep or team. Compare results against other models to see whether the model is a good fit. For instance, consider using conversation intelligence technology to see if your teams are applying challenger in the field.

Gather and analyze data to better understand what your teams are doing, when, and why. Provide feedback through coaching and ongoing training to help turn every rep into an effective challenger.

Although each of these steps is important, you should prioritize training and content. That’s because these two elements can make the difference between success and failure for many reps. After all, the Challenger Sales model might feel like a departure from what they originally learned, what they’re comfortable with, and — sometimes — what they believe about sales overall.

Pros and cons of the Challenger Sales model

Remember, the Challenger Sales methodology is just one option, and it may not work for every team. It’s important to do your research well ahead of time and pay close attention during the Challenger Sales training phase; that way, you can identify whether obstacles are just part of the learning curve or signs that this may not be the right approach for you.

Consider these pros and cons of the Challenger Sales model:

Pros

Cons

The key takeaway here is that you can’t adopt the Challenger Sales model — or any sales methodology — as a one-size-fits-all solution. You have to take everything into account, from your reps’ unique personalities to your customers’ expectations. That’s how you stay flexible, scalable, and customer-centric in an increasingly complicated (and competitive) market.

Implementing the Challenger Sales method

To get your team started with the Challenger Methodology, start by taking these first few steps: 

  1. Assess your sales team’s current capabilities, strengths, and areas for improvement. Identify reps who align with the characteristics of successful Challengers and evaluate your organization’s readiness to embrace a new sales approach. This assessment may involve conducting personality assessments, skill evaluations, and market analyses to understand the context in which the Challenger methodology will be applied.
  2. Provide comprehensive training and education to equip your sales team with the knowledge, skills, and mindset necessary to become effective Challengers. This training should cover not only the principles of the Challenger Sale but also practical strategies for implementing these principles in real-world sales scenarios. Offer workshops, seminars, and coaching sessions to reinforce learning and encourage the adoption of Challenger behaviors and techniques.
  3. Equip your sales team with the resources, content, and tools needed to support their implementation of the Challenger methodology. This may include developing tailored sales collateral, presentation materials, and messaging frameworks that align with the Challenger approach. Additionally, leverage technology and sales enablement tools to streamline processes, gather insights and provide ongoing support to sales reps as they navigate the Challenger journey.

Helping your teams become challengers

The Challenger Sales process may feel like a new approach, but it’s based on things you already know — like how to get more out of a customer conversation and which skills to encourage among your reps. If you want to succeed with this model, you’ll need an in-depth understanding of your market, customers, and offerings — plus teaching techniques, assertiveness skills, coaching opportunities, and more.

To integrate all of these things, it’s best to unite your approach with sales training software like Mindtickle. Whether you’re exploring the Challenger Sales model, onboarding new team members, providing ongoing training, or just communicating helpful feedback, sales training software keeps your most important tasks in one place.

Scale Up your Sales Training

Want to see for yourself? Schedule your free Mindtickle demo today.

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in October 2023 and was updated in May 2024.

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How to Achieve Sales Excellence Through Sales Management Training https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-achieve-sales-excellence-through-sales-management-training/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-achieve-sales-excellence-through-sales-management-training/#comments Tue, 23 Apr 2024 14:29:45 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19460 In business, it’s often assumed that a person who excels as a sales rep will also be successful as a sales manager. As such, top sales reps are often promoted to sales managers and left to find their way into their new roles. This approach simply doesn’t work. Success as a sales rep doesn’t guarantee …

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In business, it’s often assumed that a person who excels as a sales rep will also be successful as a sales manager. As such, top sales reps are often promoted to sales managers and left to find their way into their new roles.

This approach simply doesn’t work.

Success as a sales rep doesn’t guarantee success as a sales manager, as each role requires different skills and qualities. Even the most seasoned sales reps need proper training to be effective sales managers.

When it comes to sales management training, you may have questions like:

  • What is it?
  • What are the benefits?
  • How can you build a more effective program?

Read on as we answer these and other key questions about the role of sales management training in driving sales excellence.

What is sales management training?

A sales manager is one of the most important roles in a company. After all, they are responsible for building, supporting, and leading a team of sellers so they have what it takes to close deals.

A sales manager’s job isn’t easy, especially as sales teams grow in size. According to Gartner, the average sales manager oversees 7.5 sellers.

The number of sellers the average manager oversees
0

Sales managers must master a certain set of skills to be successful in their roles.

Of course, sales managers must be experts in the market and their company’s products and services. Typically, these are topics covered in sales rep training.

However, sales managers must also master key management and leadership skills like:

  • Hiring new sales reps
  • Setting sales goals
  • Tracking sales quotas
  • Motivating team members
  • Monitoring sales performance
  • Delivering personalized coaching to sellers at scale
  • Sales forecasting
  • Building sales plans

That’s where sales management training comes in.

It’s training that’s specifically focused on helping sales managers build the skills they need to be effective in their roles.

Common sales manager training topics

Effective sales management training covers various topics, which vary from organization to organization. However, some sales manager training topics are common across all organizations.

Sales coaching

According to research from the Sales Management Association, companies that provide effective sales coaching can see a 16.7% revenue increase. 

Companies that provide effective sales coaching can see a

increase in revenue
0 %

Managing team performance

Sales managers must be trained on the many elements of managing sales rep performance. This includes setting goals, tracking metrics, and delivering feedback to improve sales rep and quota performance.

Leadership

Sales managers set the tone for the entire team. Therefore, sales manager training must include honing managers’ sales leadership capabilities.

Recruiting

Filling open positions isn’t enough. Instead, sales managers must be trained to fill the right roles with the right people.

Sales forecasting

Sales managers are responsible for predicting revenue and accuracy matters. Yet, recent research found that 34% of sales organizations cite inaccurate forecasts and limited predictability in the business as one of their top challenges. Sales management training must incorporate training that enables sales managers to create more accurate sales forecasts.

Communication

Effective communication skills are essential for any sales manager. These leaders must be skilled at communicating internally and with prospects and customers.

Sales management training formats

When you hear the phrase “sales management training,” you might picture a conference room with sales managers gathering to learn about a specific topic. You aren’t wrong. Some sales manager training takes place in person. However, there are other popular sales management training formats.

Training can be live but remote. Everyone participates simultaneously, but they do so from different locations. Many sales organizations also deliver on-demand, bite-sized learning and practice opportunities that sales managers can complete independently.

How does sales management training benefit organizations?

Sales leadership training benefits sales managers. With the right training, sales managers are better equipped to do their jobs well.

However, effective management training also benefits sales reps and the organization.

More effective manangers
Higher-performing reps
Improved retention

More effective sales managers

The most obvious benefit is that it helps create more effective sales managers. Sales managers learn the necessary skills, which means they can be successful in their roles.

In addition, ongoing training helps sales managers feel supported. When they feel supported, they’re more likely to stick around long-term.

Higher-performing sales reps

Sales managers play a key role in the performance of their sales reps – for better or worse.

Take, for example, sales coaching. As we mentioned earlier, effective sales coaching boosts seller performance. But sales managers can’t deliver generic, one-size-fits-all coaching to everyone on the team and expect to see great results. Instead, they need the right training and tools to deliver personalized coaching that addresses the needs of each seller. When a sales manager’s coaching skills improve, so too do their sellers’ performance.

On the flip side, a poor sales manager negatively impacts team performance. One study found that a poor-performing sales manager can cost a team a staggering $3.5M.

Improved sales rep retention

Sales reps leave for a variety of reasons. But often, the sales manager is at last partially to blame. Research tells us that 60% of sales reps are likelier to leave a position if their manager is a poor coach.

A great sales manager ensures employees feel supported and appreciated. When sales reps feel their sales manager is invested in their success, they’re likelier to stick around long-term. That means you don’t have to spend time and money recruiting for vacant roles constantly.

How to create an effective sales management training program

Effective sales management training helps ensure your sales managers have what it takes to build and lead a team of top-performing sales reps. But how can you create a great sales leadership training program? Explore some top tips for building an effective sales management training program.

Determine sales management training topics

Of course, your training program should incorporate training on timely topics, such as new product offerings or a shift in the marketplace. But you should also incorporate evergreen topics.

How should you decide on the right sales management training topics? First, you need to identify the skills and qualities of your most successful sales managers. Then, you can build training focused on helping all sales managers master these key sales management training skills and competencies.

Consider the format of your sales management training

What’s the best format for your sales management training? It depends on the topic and the needs of your organization. Some of the best sales organizations leverage real-time training with bite-sized learning that sales managers can complete independently.

Incorporate reinforcement

Delivering sales management training to those new to the company or the role is important. However, sales leadership training can’t be a one-time event. After all, Gartner research found that 70% of information covered during sales training is forgotten within a week.

Gartner found that

of sales training is forgotten within a week
0 %

Be sure to provide ongoing learning and reinforcement opportunities to ensure your training sticks. For example, you can incorporate bite-sized learning modules to reinforce concepts covered during live training. You can also include quizzes and assessments to gauge mastery of key topics.

Provide opportunities for practice and feedback

A sales manager might complete an entire training series on a specific sales management training topic. But that doesn’t mean they know how to put this knowledge into practice.

Be sure to provide opportunities for your sales managers to practice their new skills. For example, managers might record themselves role-playing a coaching session. The sales manager can then watch the recording to observe their performance. They can also get real-time input via artificial intelligence (AI) on how they can improve. In addition, sales managers can share their role plays with sales leadership and their peers to get feedback on improving their skills.

Include sales certifications

Consider adding a sales certification at the end of some of your sales management programs. Earning a certification is a great way for sales managers to demonstrate that they’ve mastered the skills needed for success.

Coach the coach

The importance of coaching sales reps is well understood. But sales managers need coaching too!

Be sure to incorporate sales managers into your coaching program. Sales managers can be coached by their own manager, a more seasoned sales manager, or a combination of the two.

Leverage the right tools

A well-run sales management training program involves several moving parts. Ensuring you have the right technology to power your sales management training program is important.

There are many tools available today that can help you improve the effectiveness of your sales management program. However, many of these tools address just one aspect of sales management training. For example, a company might use sales training software to develop and deliver training. They may also use a sales content management system to house sales content related to sales management training. That company might use a completely different tool to power its sales coaching program.

Switching between several tools takes time and effort. Furthermore, this “tool switching” negatively impacts productivity.

Instead, consider adopting an integrated sales productivity platform. For example, Mindtickle’s integrated platform incorporates training, sales content, coaching, enablement, and conversation intelligence into one solution.

Measure and optimize accordingly

Once you’ve developed a sales management training program, you can’t put it on autopilot. Instead, you need to measure its effectiveness regularly.

Leverage key sales training and sales enablement analytics to understand performance. Then, you can use these insights to optimize your program for even better results.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

Build a winning sales management training program with Mindtickle

Sales managers play a critical role in the success of their sales team. But often, they don’t receive the training needed to build and hone the skills they need to be effective in their roles.

Sales management training is key to ensuring sales managers have what it takes to build, lead, and motivate their teams. A strong sales management training strategy is essential, and it requires the right tools.

Today, some of the world’s best revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to power their sales management training program. With Mindtickle’s integrated sales productivity platform, sales managers have the training, enablement, coaching, sales content, and call insights they need to be successful – all in one location.

Sales Excellence with Mindtickle

Are you ready to see why the best sales organizations choose Mindtickle’s award-winning platform?

Request a Demo

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Sales Mirroring: What is it and How to do it Well https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-mirroring-what-is-it-and-how-to-do-it-well/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-mirroring-what-is-it-and-how-to-do-it-well/#comments Thu, 18 Apr 2024 17:45:27 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19437 Building relationships is essential in sales. Once you’ve established rapport and earned a prospect’s trust, they’re more likely to make a purchase and stay long-term. Modern sales reps leverage many different techniques to build rapport. Sales mirroring is one that’s especially common and effective. In fact, research shows that sales mirroring can increase sales reps’ …

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Building relationships is essential in sales. Once you’ve established rapport and earned a prospect’s trust, they’re more likely to make a purchase and stay long-term.

Modern sales reps leverage many different techniques to build rapport. Sales mirroring is one that’s especially common and effective. In fact, research shows that sales mirroring can increase sales reps’ closing rates by 17%.

Sales mirroring can increase closing rates by

0 %

But what it? And what techniques can help you close more deals?

In this blog, we’ll discuss what mirroring in sales is and why it’s a powerful approach for closing more deals. We’ll also explore some techniques to consider – and some common pitfalls to avoid.

What is sales mirroring?

Sales mirroring (also known as sales mimicking) is a strategy sales reps use to build rapport and earn their prospects’ trust. But how exactly does it work?

Sales mirroring is based on psychology. Essentially, it involves a seller observing a prospect’s verbal and non-verbal cues – and then “mirroring” that communication style. The prospect feels heard and understood, which increases their likelihood of purchasing from the seller.

Sales reps can use mirroring when interacting with prospects at every stage of the sales cycle—from initial outreach to discovery to demo to negotiation to close—and everything in between. Sales mirroring (when it’s done well) can significantly impact a rep’s ability to move deals through the sales pipeline and ultimately close more of those deals.

Of course, mirroring can be used during verbal communication – such as sales calls and video conferencing. However, this technique can also be used in email and other written communication.

What are the benefits of sales mirroring?

In today’s world, 78% of B2B buyers expect companies to understand and adapt to their changing needs and preferences. Rattling off a generic list of product features and benefits won’t cut it.

of B2B buyers expect companies understand and adapt to their needs and preferences
0 %

Many sales reps practice sales mirroring to build customer relationships and earn trust. But why is this approach so popular?

Let’s examine some key reasons why sales mirroring is an important (and popular) tool for sales reps.

Sales mirroring helps sales reps build trust with prospects

When a seller earns a buyer’s trust, they’re more likely to win their business. Research from Forrester found that 83% of B2B buyers would recommend a trusted vendor to others outside the company.

The bottom line is that earning a prospect’s trust is foundational to winning and retaining customers.

Mirroring is a powerful way to build trust with prospects. When sales reps use sales mirroring, the buyer feels heard and respected, which increases trust and the prospect’s likelihood of making a purchase.

Sales mirroring builds relationships

Any successful sales rep knows that relationship-building is key. Strong relationships lead to more deals, renewals, and referrals.

Practicing mirroring is an effective way to grow relationships with customers. For starters, sales mirroring helps sales reps demonstrate commitment to understanding a customer’s challenges. When a buyer feels understood, they’re more likely to listen to a seller’s recommendations.

In addition, mirroring can help a prospect and sales rep identify things they have in common. These commonalities can help build strong, long-term relationships.

Sales mirroring helps sales reps understand a customer’s needs

Before recommending a solution, a seller must understand a buyer’s needs. Sales reps who practice mirroring observe a buyer’s verbal and nonverbal cues. By listening to what the prospect is saying—and how they’re saying it—the sales rep can truly understand the prospect’s unique needs. Then, they can develop a solution to address those needs.

Sales mirroring helps reps close more deals faster

Putting a lot of pressure on a buyer can seem like an effective way to move a deal forward. But the truth is, this approach often has the opposite effect. When a sales rep is pushy, it can scare buyers off for good.

On the other hand, when a sales rep uses mirroring, their buyer doesn’t feel pressured to buy a product that may or may not truly fit their needs. Instead, they know the seller understands their needs. This reduces the buyer’s resistance and can speed up the sales cycle.

How to practice sales mirroring

Mirroring can effectively build rapport, earn a prospect’s trust, and, ultimately, close more deals. But how exactly does it work?

Let’s take a closer look at some proven sales mirroring techniques.

#1 Listen to the prospect

Verbal cues are important, so pay attention to what the prospect says and how they say it.

Take note of their speaking cadence. For example, do they talk quickly or take frequent pauses? In addition, take note of the words or phrases they use often.

You’ll also want to pay attention to their speaking style. Are they formal, casual, or somewhere in between? Do they incorporate humor, or are they all business?

Use these verbal cues to adapt your speaking style. But find ways to do so subtly. If you go overboard, you’ll come across as insincere.

#2 Tune into non-verbal communication cues

Research tells us that at least 50% of communication is nonverbal. As such, it’s imperative for sales reps practicing mirroring to pay attention to body language. Be sure to pay attention to non-verbal cues, including (but not limited to):

  • Eye contact
  • Posture
  • Hand gestures
  • Facial expressions
Eye contact
Posture
Hand gestures
Facial expressions

This is certainly easier to do in person. However, with the rise of video conferencing, sales reps can more easily notice a prospect’s nonverbal cues even when they’re not sitting in the same room.

For example, if you notice a prospect sitting tall in their chair, do the same. If the prospect looks more relaxed, change your posture accordingly. If the prospect maintains consistent eye contact, try to do the same.

Again, be sure to incorporate these non-verbal cues into your communication subtly.

#3 Find common ground

Some prospects join a call, ready to get down to business. Others prefer to chat first. Gauge your prospect’s preference – and adapt accordingly.

For example, if the prospect shares a story about a recent trip or special interest, reciprocate by doing the same. Ideally, you’ll find something in common to help build the relationship. But don’t force it, lest you come across as phony.

#4 Perfect the art of asking questions

Asking the right questions is key to uncovering your customer’s unique needs and challenges. According to the 2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report, sales reps ask an average of 20 questions during discovery sales calls.

Sales reps ask an average of

questions during discovery calls
0

So get your prospects talking. Avoid yes/no questions as much as possible, and opt for open-ended ones. You’ll get more valuable information from your prospects and have more opportunities to observe their communication and practice sales mirroring.

#5 Practice active listening

When a prospect answers a question, don’t zone out. Instead, remain present in the conversation and follow up by summarizing what the prospect has said. This will show that you’ve made the effort to truly know and understand them. It’ll also allow them to delve deeper into something you may have missed, which will help you develop and deliver the most relevant solutions possible. Finally, actively listening will give you more insight into the prospect’s communication style and more insights for sales mirroring.

5 Sales mirroring mistakes to avoid

Mirroring can be an effective strategy for building rapport and trust. However, sellers often approach it incorrectly.

If you want to succeed with mirroring in sales, you must avoid a few common mistakes.

When it comes to sales mirroring, less is more. It’ll turn off prospective buyers if your mirroring is too obvious.

So, don’t go overboard in your sales mirroring. Instead, keep it subtle and natural.

Emulating body language is a component of sales mirroring. However, sales reps should only attempt to mirror a prospect’s body language if it’s positive or neutral.

In other words, if a prospect is scowling and defensively crossing their arms, this shouldn’t be emulated by the sales rep.

Listening to a prospect – and then summarizing what they’ve said – is a key part of sales mirroring. However, simply repeating what a prospect says without taking the time to understand isn’t the way to do it.

Instead, tune in to what the prospect is saying and seek to understand. Ask follow-up questions to dig deeper. In addition, consider using a conversation intelligence solution (like Mindtickle’s Call AI) that records and analyzes sales calls. That way, you can remain present and not have to spend your time taking notes.

When engaging with a prospect, you may notice they frequently use certain unique words or expressions. Avoid mirroring these specific words or expressions. It can be phony (at best) or mocking (at worst).

Instead, the goal should be to mirror the prospect’s general behavior. Speak naturally while incorporating some general traits you’ve noticed during your encounters with the prospect.

Asking questions is key to getting the prospect to open up. But you have to ask the right questions.

Avoid asking questions that can be answered with a simple yes or no. In addition, avoid general questions that you could have answered independently with some research. Instead, pose questions that demonstrate you’ve done your homework.

Empower your reps to master the art of sales mirroring

Mirroring in sales is an effective way to build rapport with prospects. With it, reps can earn prospects’ trust – and their long-term business,

While mirroring is popular, not all sellers know how to do it well. Revenue organizations must ensure sellers have what it takes to be successful.

Winning revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle’s integrated sales productivity platform to deliver the training, sales enablement, reinforcement, and coaching sellers need to perfect the art of sales mirroring.

Of course, completing a sales mirroring training or sales enablement exercise doesn’t mean a seller is putting these skills into practice while in the field. Mindtickle incorporates Call AI, a conversation intelligence solution that records, analyzes, and scores sales calls. Sales reps get real-time feedback on improving deal outcomes, and managers can easily identify when they need additional coaching on sales mirroring or other key skills.

In addition, Mindtickle incorporates revenue intelligence, which helps revenue teams boost their forecasting, pipeline, and deal confidence.

With Mindtickle, you can boost your team’s productivity with sales training, enablement, call insights, and revenue intelligence – all from a single, integrated platform.

Close more deals with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s award-winning revenue productivity platform can help your entire sales team master the skill of sales mirroring – and start closing more deals?

Request a Demo

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6 Reasons Your Sales Conversion Rates are Slipping and How to Fix It https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/6-reasons-your-sales-conversion-rates-are-slipping-and-how-to-fix-it/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/6-reasons-your-sales-conversion-rates-are-slipping-and-how-to-fix-it/#comments Wed, 17 Apr 2024 17:15:08 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19425 We live in the age of data. But, as it has been said, “Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you will do with it before you collect it.” This is especially true in sales; no metric is used or tracked as much as the win or conversion rates. Despite its importance, many businesses …

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We live in the age of data. But, as it has been said, “Data is like garbage. You’d better know what you will do with it before you collect it.” This is especially true in sales; no metric is used or tracked as much as the win or conversion rates.

Despite its importance, many businesses struggle with low conversion rates and cannot explain where they are going wrong.

In this blog post, we’ll explore the reasons behind low conversion rates and provide actionable strategies to boost your win rates.

What is the sales conversion rate, and why is it important?

Sales conversion rate refers to the percentage of prospects who convert into customers or take a desired action. It is a key performance indicator for sales teams and representatives, offering insights into the effectiveness of their sales efforts and the overall health of the business. Typically, 40-50% conversion rates are considered the standard in B2B.

standard conversion rate in B2B
40 %

prospects and driving desired outcomes. It signifies efficient lead nurturing, effective sales pitches, and successful closing techniques.

Conversely, low conversion rates suggest gaps in the sales process, pipeline quality, or sales reps’ execution quality.

There could be many reasons behind low conversion rates:

Failing to understand your target audience’s needs, pain points, and preferences can lead to misaligned sales strategies and low conversion rates.

A disjointed or inefficient sales process can cause prospects to drop off at various stages of the buyer’s journey, resulting in low conversion rates.

If your product or service lacks a compelling value proposition or fails to communicate its benefits effectively, prospects may be reluctant to purchase.

Trust is essential in the sales process. If prospects don’t trust your brand or sales reps, they won’t convert.

The sales team’s ability to establish rapport with the customer is sometimes as important as the product and brand quality.

Neglecting to address objections or concerns raised by prospects can undermine trust and confidence in your offering, leading to lost sales opportunities.

Long story short, there could be multiple reasons and checkpoints why your quota attainment and conversion rates slip.

How to calculate sales conversion rates?

While there are many variations of the sales conversion rate, typically, companies look at only eligible opportunities as the starting point and then see how many of those are converting into customers:

sales conversion rate calculator equation

What constitutes a genuine opportunity can vary from company to company. Typically, most companies mark an opportunity once an initial meeting with the prospect has taken place, the sales rep has done their discovery and qualified the prospect as genuinely looking to purchase something in the immediate future.

For some companies, this can happen over a simple phone call, while for others, it might take multiple meetings, depending on the complexity of their offering and the typical sales cycle in their industry.

The sales cycle also plays an important role in determining the frequency at which win rates must be measured. This and the degree of change in the industry dynamics are good indicators to determine the sales conversion rate calculation cadence. A longer sales cycle of 3-6 months means there would be significant data to calculate win rates only monthly or quarterly. But, if the industry is undergoing dramatic shifts or the sales cycle is less than a month, it makes sense to have weekly or biweekly tracking.

How can you boost your sales conversion rates?

Here are four ways to start boosting your win rate:

Know your audience inside out

Invest time in understanding your target audience’s demographics, preferences, pain points, and buying behaviors. Tailor your sales approach to resonate with their specific needs and motivations.

Having a strong conversation intelligence tool to track what’s working v/s what’s not and identify key trends across customer conversations is critical for any successful sales team

However, a CI tool alone is never enough; it needs to be paired with strong training, coaching, and role-play abilities to ensure the insights coming through the tool are inculcated throughout the GTM team. This is where Mindtickle’s consolidated offering plays a major role in ensuring the success of your GTM teams.

Streamline your sales process

Map out your sales process from start to finish, identifying potential bottlenecks or areas for improvement. Minimize friction and ensure a smooth customer journey from initial contact to conversion. This requires regular monitoring of how deals play out, which can only be achieved through a tightly integrated revenue and conversation intelligence product. Mindtickle’s revenue intelligence ties the training on the platform with how well the sales process is being followed on the ground.

Salesforce - Revenue Intelligence

Craft a compelling value proposition and address objections proactively

Clearly articulate your product or service’s unique value proposition. What sets you apart from the competition? How will your offering better solve your customers’ problems or fulfill their desires than alternatives?

This requires a strong understanding of your product and the ability to engage with the customer effectively. A strong content management offering paired with a Digital Sales Room can ensure that the right messaging is delivered to the customer in a highly customized and engaging manner, with everything placed in a single location to help discovery and tracking.

Asset-Hub-DSR

Continuously measure and iterate

Monitor your sales performance metrics closely and identify areas for improvement. This requires a strong data-driven sales process that constantly monitors deals and rep performance. This can be done only if all your data flows across your sales tech stack, and you can link reps’ skills with their performance on the ground.

Making it a reality at your org

Boosting sales conversion rates requires strategic planning, customer-centricity, and continuous improvement. By driving effective sales enablement and implementing targeted strategies to enhance your sales process, you can make sure all your reps are ready to close deals. Remember, improving conversion rates is an ongoing pursuit, so stay vigilant, adapt to feedback, and keep improving and optimizing your sales process.

Boost Win Rates with Mindtickle

Are you ready to elevate your sales game and boost your win rates?

Get Your Personalized Demo

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The 3 Most Important Skills for Every Role On Your Sales Team https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-3-most-important-skills-for-every-role-on-your-sales-team/ Fri, 12 Apr 2024 08:14:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13910 Today’s sellers face a ton of challenges. They need the right skills to overcome these challenges and emerge successful. There’s a subset of top performers on every sales team. These are the folks who are adept at building relationships and closing deals—even in less-than-ideal circumstances. In a perfect world, you could clone these top sales …

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Today’s sellers face a ton of challenges. They need the right skills to overcome these challenges and emerge successful.

There’s a subset of top performers on every sales team. These are the folks who are adept at building relationships and closing deals—even in less-than-ideal circumstances. In a perfect world, you could clone these top sales reps.

Of course, this isn’t possible. But the most successful revenue organizations are doing the next best thing. They’re spending time figuring out what makes their top sellers so great and then working to replicate those skills and behaviors across the entire revenue organization.

Taking this approach, you can create an entire team of top performers. It starts with determining what skills are needed for each role on your sales team.

Defining what sales excellence looks like

Sellers have limited time, and it behooves them (and their organization) to focus their time on the prospects that best fit their offering. To help ensure that’s the case, most organizations identify and document their ideal customer profile (ICP).

Far fewer businesses take the time to identify and document their ideal rep profile (IRP), which is the list of skills, competencies, and behaviors a revenue team member needs to succeed in their role. However, the IRP continues to be a growing trend among sales productivity practitioners.

The growth of this trend makes sense. After all, how can a revenue organization drive excellence when it doesn’t even know what excellence looks like?

The IRP is essential to true sales productivity

The first step in driving org-wide excellence is to take the time to identify and document the skills needed for success. The most successful sales organizations define IRPs for their go-to-market (GTM) or customer-facing roles. The most common roles for which organizations define their IRP are:

  • Account executives (AEs)
  • Business development representatives (BDRs)
  • Channel sales specialists (CSSs)
  • Customer success managers (CSMs)
  • Sales engineers (SEs)

Team members should be continuously measured against this “gold standard” to identify each individual’s learning gaps. Then, organizations can deliver individualized learning and sales coaching that closes these gaps and creates more peak performers.

The top 3 skills for every member of the revenue team

Sure, it’s key to identify the skills each member of your revenue team needs to succeed. But what exactly are those skills?

Of course, these vary by role. The skills needed to be a successful BDR differ from those needed to excel as a sales engineer.

Recently, we analyzed activity from more than a million users at 400+ companies to understand how the best organizations are getting their sales teams ready to close more deals. We shared our key findings in our State of Revenue Productivity 2024 Report. Based on this analysis, we’ve identified the top three skills needed by five key revenue team members.

The 3 most important skills for account executives

Account executives work day in and day out to understand the needs and challenges of businesses — and then provide solutions to address them. The three most important skills for success in this role are:

Once an AE has determined the buyer’s needs, they must have the skills to articulate their solution’s value.

Our analysis found that over half (54%) of sales calls include more negative sentiment than positive. Objections are one example of negative sentiment. AEs should expect objections— and have the skills to address and overcome them.

Prospects often don’t accept an offer as-is. Instead, they want to negotiate. This is especially true in today’s economic climate. AEs must have the skills to navigate the negotiation stage of the sales cycle expertly.

The 3 most important skills for business development representatives

BDRs are often the first touchpoint a prospect has with your company. They need to master these three skills:

BDRs must know your ICPs inside and out — and be able to quickly and accurately determine if a prospect is a good fit for your company’s offerings.

Like AEs, BDRs must be prepared to expect resistance from prospects and equipped to handle it. The right enablement and coaching can ensure they’re ready to address any objection that comes their way.

Strong communication skills include both speaking and listening. BDRs must master active listening skills so they can understand what a prospect is saying and respond thoughtfully.

The 3 most important skills for channel sales specialists

Channel sales refers to the practice of a third party (also known as a partner) selling your company’s products. The top three skills needed for channel sales specialists are:

Channel sellers must know a product inside and out — and be equipped to handle any question. Continuous enablement and coaching ensure they always have current, accurate product knowledge.

Like AEs, channel sellers must be experts at conveying the value of a particular solution to the prospect.

Prospects are more likely to make a purchase from a sales rep who’s taken the time to get to know them and earn their trust. As such, relationship-building skills are essential for any channel sales specialist.

The 3 most important skills for customer success managers

Customer success managers spend most of their time meeting with current customers to address any issues and ensure the customer gets the most value from the product provided. As well, they’re often responsible for upsells and renewals. They must have a solid mastery of the following three skills to be successful in their roles:

CSMs spend a lot of time interacting with customers via phone and email. Often, they need to share feedback from customer interactions with other departments, including sales and product. Solid written and verbal communication skills are a must.

It’s less expensive to retain an existing customer than it is to obtain a new one. As such, CSMs must perfect their renewal skills. Renewal time can also be a great opportunity for upsells. CSMs should be skilled at identifying upsell opportunities and articulating the value of the upsell to the customer.

The CSM is typically their go-to if a customer runs into a problem. Customer success team members must have solid problem-solving skills to help resolve issues quickly and effectively.

The 3 most important skills for sales engineers

A sales engineer is a member of the B2B sales team whose specialty is selling complex technical products and services. They must have a mastery of these three skills:

Sales engineers must be well-versed in the myriad ways companies use a solution and can use this knowledge to articulate how the solution can work for a specific prospect.

Similar to other roles, sales engineers must be experts at articulating business knowledge to prospects.

Prospects often come to sales engineers with technical questions and objections. Sales engineers

Start building a winning revenue team

Today, many revenue leaders accept that great sellers are born, not made. They either have what it takes, or they don’t.

But that isn’t reality. Sales excellence can be taught.

First, organizations must identify the success-related skills for each revenue team role. Then, they can measure all revenue team members against their IRP to understand where they’re shining and falling short. Equipped with these insights, revenue teams can deliver personalized training, enablement, and coaching to ensure each master the skills that matter most in their role.

Mindtickle Readiness Index

In other words, you can build a team of top performers – no cloning machine required.

But not all enablement and productivity programs drive results. Instead, you need the right, data-driven strategy and technology to power your sales enablement and sales productivity programs.

Revenue Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle empowers winning revenue organizations to build enablement and productivity programs that drive sales excellence and revenue growth?

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in June 2022 and was updated in April 2024. 

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3 Types of Coaching Sessions You Need to Have With Your Sales Reps  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/types-of-coaching-sessions-you-need-to-have-with-your-sales-reps-mindtickle/ Mon, 08 Apr 2024 10:39:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14001 Today’s sales managers have a lot of their plates. From meetings to administrative work to team leadership, they rarely have a moment to spare. Yet, when managers were asked what their most important task is, coaching their reps was the most popular response. Why? Because sales coaching, when it’s done well, empowers sellers to close …

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Today’s sales managers have a lot of their plates. From meetings to administrative work to team leadership, they rarely have a moment to spare.

Yet, when managers were asked what their most important task is, coaching their reps was the most popular response.

Why? Because sales coaching, when it’s done well, empowers sellers to close more deals, faster. In fact, nine out of ten sales managers agree that coaching positively impacts their team’s performance.

But taking an ad hoc approach to coaching won’t cut it. To see real results, a structured coaching strategy is key. You also need to ensure your managers are equipped with the skills and tools needed to effectively lead three essential types of coaching sessions.

So, what types of sales coaching sessions do you need to have with your sales reps? Read on to find out.

Coaching must go beyond deal reviews

Creating a “coaching culture” is often identified as a priority for selling orgs. We define a coaching culture as ongoing, data-driven, and infused into every manager and seller interaction.

When done well, it works. 

Research shows that coaching can positively impact the sales metrics that matter most, including win rates and quota attainment.

Unfortunately, many orgs struggle to create this coaching culture and instead take an ad hoc approach focused on short-term fixes. This approach is almost always primarily focused on deal reviews.

Of course, as-needed deal reviews are an important way to improve the outcome of a given sale. But on its own, deal coaching isn’t enough to improve long-term results.

The best sales orgs take a different approach to coaching. Rather than focusing solely on deal coaching, they deliver a blend of coaching types provided delivered at regular intervals to improve long-term success

 

How the best sales managers are coaching their reps

When athletes ask for coaching, it’s usually to address a specific issue with their game. 

The same can be said for sales reps.

However many orgs struggle to identify rep weaknesses, which makes effective coaching a struggle. 

According to our 2024 Chief Revenue Officer and Sales Leader Outlook Report, only 40% of C-level executives said they can identify rep strengths and weaknesses.

The first step to effective coaching is to understand rep strengths and weaknesses. To do this, you can take a look at your win/loss reports as well as call recordings to get a better understanding of where reps need improvement. From there, you can equip managers with what they need to “fix” those issues and get your reps back into the field with the skills they need to close more deals, 

Let’s take a closer look at the three types of coaching the best sales managers are delivering to reps — and how often they’re doing so.

#1 Opportunity sales coaching

When someone hears the phrase “sales coaching,” their mind might immediately go to opportunity coaching. That’s not surprising, as it’s the most common type of sales coaching. Our research found that 85% of sales reps report being coached on open deals.

Opportunity coaching is an important way to improve the outcome of a deal. For example, a sales manager might identify that something in a deal isn’t going as planned. This might be based on feedback from the rep during a pipeline review meeting. Or, they could get insight by leveraging a conversation intelligence solution that sheds light on how the rep is performing.

Salesforce- Coaching

In either circumstance, the manager can provide opportunity coaching to help the rep steer the deal back on course. And this will improve the chances of them ultimately closing the deal.

How often are the best managers delivering opportunity coaching? Sometimes, this coaching happens at a regular cadence — for example, during a weekly pipeline review. At these meetings, reps and managers discuss current opportunities and how to move them forward.

Often, though, opportunity coaching is delivered as needed, like when a rep raises a question or concern or meeting intelligence uncovers an issue.

#2 Skills sales coaching

In general, skills coaching is a lot less common. A mere 24% of reps report being coached on skills. 

While opportunity coaching improves the outcome of a single deal, skills coaching is required to ensure reps have the skills and behaviors needed to close deals consistently.

The best sales managers recognize the importance of skills coaching on long-term behavior. As such, they aim to deliver at least one skill-based coaching session per month per rep.

What skills do they focus on? The short answer is, it depends. The first step is for organizations to identify the knowledge, skills, and behaviors a rep needs for success by developing an ideal rep profile (IRP).

Ideal rep profile competencies

Then, each rep should be measured against this gold standard. This helps managers identify where there are skills gaps. Armed with this data, sales managers can deliver targeted, personalized skills coaching that addresses the needs of each individual rep.

#3 Targeted sales coaching

If there’s one thing sellers can count on, it’s that things are always changing. New products are released. Pricing or packaging is adjusted. A new competitor enters the marketplace. And those are just a few of the many changes faced by reps.

The best sales managers deliver coaching sessions to address changes and ensure reps are equipped to adapt. Typically, targeted coaching is a single session on a specific, targeted topic — often followed by enablement content such as content, training, or a role-play exercise.

When it comes to sales coaching, follow-up is key

Sales managers are busy. But the best ones know that coaching is worth the time and effort. On average, top managers complete 12 coaching sessions per month.

But coaching isn’t a one-time event. For example, a manager can’t simply deliver a skills coaching session focused on objection handling, check it off the list, and never think about it again — at least not if they expect actual improvement.

The best managers know that proper follow-up and ongoing reinforcement are key to effective coaching. Our analysis found that top managers are three times more likely to assign content, training or a role-play as a follow-up to a coaching session.

This follow-up is paying off. Reps who are assigned follow-up actions post-coaching see an average improvement of 13 points in Sales Readiness Index scores.

Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

How to measure sales coaching effectiveness

The goal of sales coaching is to increase the effectiveness and efficiency of sellers. With the right blend of sales coaching types, you can not only improve the outcomes of individual deals but also drive skill development and lasting behavior changes among your sellers.

But without continuous measurement, it’s difficult to gauge whether your sales coaching is actually driving meaningful results.

That’s why it’s essential to measure the effectiveness of your sales coaching. This allows you to identify what’s working (so you can do more of it) and refine your approach when needed to maximize impact.

But how can you measure sales coaching effectiveness? There are a few factors you’ll need to consider.

One of the most straightforward ways to determine the effectiveness of sales coaching is to track key performance metrics like:

  • Win rates
  • Average deal size
  • Sales cycle length
  • Quota attainment

If you see improvements to these metrics over time, it may indicate your sales coaching is making an impact. If these sales metrics worsen, there may be opportunities to optimize your sales coaching efforts.

Every sales rep needs certain skills and competencies to be successful. The purpose of skills coaching is to ensure sellers have mastered these essential skills.

Be sure to track the development of your reps’ skills over time. Improvements in these areas suggest sales coaching is making an impact.

A sales rep may be actively engaged in every sales coaching session. But that doesn’t necessarily mean they’re applying your feedback while in the field.

Be sure to track behaviors over time. For example, if you have a seller who dominates conversations or uses a lot of filler words, track to see how this changes over time. You can do this by observing the seller during calls or using conversation intelligence tools. If you see improvements in behaviors, it’s a sign that your sales coaching is effective.

Ask your sales reps for honest feedback on your sales coaching. Chances are, you’ll get valuable insight into what you’re doing well and what you can do differently to better support and coach each sales reps.

Start closing gaps and optimizing seller performance with coaching

Sales coaching can have a significant impact on the bottom line. With consistent, data-based coaching, you can build an entire team of sellers that’s always ready to engage buyers and close deals.

But deal coaching alone won’t cut it. Instead, sales leaders must use a blend of deal, skills, and targeted coaching to ensure each seller has the support they need to refine their skills and behaviors and close more winnable deals.

Sales coaching doesn’t have to be complicated. With Mindtickle’s AI-powered revenue enablement platform, you can start delivering effective sales coaching at scale.

With Mindtickle’s sales coaching tools, you can pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of each seller. You can use these insights to deliver both manager-led and AI-powered sales coaching to improve deal outcomes and long-term skills and behaviors. With Mindtickle, you can keep a pulse on sales metrics and skill development to see whether sales coaching is making an impact and where there are opportunities to optimize for greater impact.

Sales Coaching in Mindtickle

Ready to see why leading revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to deliver data-driven, effective sales coaching at scale?

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This post was originally published in March 2024, updated in April 2025.

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How To Choose A Conversation Intelligence Platform https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-choose-a-conversation-intelligence-platform/ Thu, 28 Mar 2024 08:49:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=15243 Sellers are no strangers to phone calls. Whether they like it or not, making sales calls is a key part of the job – and essential for hitting their sales targets. Every conversation between a sales rep and a prospective buyer contains valuable insights. These insights not only help sellers better understand and address buyers’ …

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Sellers are no strangers to phone calls. Whether they like it or not, making sales calls is a key part of the job – and essential for hitting their sales targets.

Every conversation between a sales rep and a prospective buyer contains valuable insights. These insights not only help sellers better understand and address buyers’ needs, but they also give sales managers a clear picture of what’s actually happening in the field.

With the right conversation intelligence platform, sellers and sales managers alike can easily tap into these insights to improve buyer experience and sales performance.

There are several conversation intelligence platforms on the market today. While choosing the right conversation intelligence platform can seem daunting, it doesn’t have to be. In this post, we’ll explain what a conversation intelligence platform is, how it can benefit your business, and key factors to consider when choosing the platform that best suits your needs.

What is a conversation intelligence platform?

The conversation intelligence platform is quickly becoming the cornerstone of the sales tech stack for companies who recognize the old methods are no longer sufficient. These systems use artificial intelligence and machine learning to gather and analyze sales conversation data from calls and emails; accurately measure customer sentiment; and compile insights for improved sales performance.

In fact, studies have shown conversation intelligence can drive at least a 64% increase in revenue generated by reps in their first quarter and a 50% average reduction in ramp-up time for new hires.

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Conversation intelligence technology provides unparalleled insight into conversations with potential customers. It enables more accurate deal health assessment and forecasting by objectively tracking deal risk indicators across 100% of your sales pipeline interactions.

This data also gives managers and reps a single system of record to elevate rep performance during customer interactions, incorporating:

  • Call recordings
  • Call scoring and analytics
  • Customer sentiment analysis
  • In-line coaching
  • Best practices

This visibility is key to identifying opportunities to improve sellers’ skill sets while also helping you understand the tactics top performers are using, so you can ensure salespeople are equipped with the skills and best practices they need to win more deals.

Conversation intelligence helps managers create coaching blueprints to provide the right training and support for salespeople. It also supports faster and more effective hiring and onboarding of new team members.

Common conversation intelligence use cases

Conversation intelligence software works across multiple channels, improving performance and motivation throughout the organization, from sales reps to sales leadership. It enables companies to:

  • Help sales reps actively listen instead of note-take and share calls across the organization to facilitate better hand-offs
  • Improve conversion rates throughout each stage of the sales process by providing data on what interactions drive deals forward (or not!)
  • Help customer-facing roles improve the sales experience
  • Make it easier for managers to support and coach sales reps
  • Assist leaders in developing effective product and marketing strategies that drive revenue and growth

Today, two-thirds of companies feel their enablement programs fall short. For front-line sales managers, conversation intelligence platforms help them know when to have one-on-one training sessions and how to coach their salespeople in a more relevant and effective manner.

The platform’s sentiment analysis capabilities empower you to keep deals advancing through the sales process or proactively address deal risks while improving metrics like close rates and deal value.

These same capabilities can also help customer success managers improve Net Revenue Retention (NRR) as well as tailor their coaching to reps’ true needs.

For revenue leaders, conversation intelligence means improved deal intelligence — providing complete real-time visibility into the health and status of your accounts’ deals. It also empowers more accurate sales forecasting, helping leaders and teams plan, budget, hire, and allocate resources more effectively.

Lastly, conversation intelligence gives product managers easy access to user feedback so they can make data-informed decisions about product features and priorities.

How can a conversation intelligence platform help you grow your business?

No matter how knowledgeable and experienced a leader is, making effective decisions and driving growth can be challenging without the necessary data and insights. Unfortunately, these are often lacking, which weakens results across organizations.

Sales leaders often have limited visibility into how customers feel about new products and services. As a result, they struggle to pinpoint blockers that reduce productivity.

Revenue teams lack a macro view of how every program and person in the sales organization is performing. They also struggle to track customer interactions, making it difficult to align efforts across teams and develop accurate forecasts.

Enablement leaders have difficulty demonstrating examples of winning behaviors in their training programs or measuring the impact of their efforts on business outcomes.

Conversation intelligence provides the insight you need to overcome these challenges and drive growth by providing 100% visibility into calls.

This helps you improve the customer experience both during the sales process and in the successful adoption of your solutions after the deal is closed.

For sellers, productivity improves because they have access to a unified platform where they can find everything they need, including the transcript and a list of action items or next steps, as well as get immediate feedback after their calls.

And for your go-to-market strategy, conversational intelligence offers individualized, high-value analytics and reporting, insight into the voice of the customer, sentiment analysis, and suggestions to improve messaging to align with the customers’ needs.

8 considerations for choosing a conversation intelligence platform for your business

Investing in a conversation intelligence platform can have a positive impact on your business. But there are many different conversation intelligence platforms on the market today, and they’re not all the same.

It’s important to find a conversation intelligence platform that aligns with the unique needs of your business. To help with this, here are eight factors you’ll need to consider.

Nearly every function at your company can benefit from and use conversation intelligence — from sales leadership to product, marketing, managers, reps, enablement, and operations. Look for a solution that’s easy for each of these groups to use. A simple, intuitive solution will lead to greater adoption, which will increase ROI.

Sales calls are rich with insights that can shape sales coaching, strategy, and forecasting. It’s essential that a conversation intelligence platform accurately records, transcribes, and analyzes these calls. Without a high degree of accuracy, there’s a risk of making decisions and shaping strategies based on incorrect information.

Conversation intelligence provides powerful insights into key deals and accounts. But building a business deal by deal won’t scale. Instead, look for a solution that helps you uncover the ideal competencies that lead your top reps to crush quota and achieve sales outcomes. We call those “winning behaviors,” and we use data from real conversations to model them out.

One key to successfully implementing a new software solution is to choose a platform that adapts to your team members’ workflow rather than making them adapt to it. Finding the right fit will make collaboration between departments easier, visibility more targeted, and teams more organized and productive.

To avoid unnecessary legal issues, reputation damage, or hefty fines, you need to make sure your conversation intelligence platform is secure and compliant. This allows you to safely and consistently offer top service.

Today, more than 63% of sales leaders indicate they have at least 10 tools in their tech stack. So it’s not surprising that 70% of sellers are overwhelmed by the number of tools they’re expected to use. Disparate tools can make sellers’ lives harder, rather than easier. Furthermore, they can create data silos. So when considering conversation intelligence platforms, it’s important to find one that seamlessly integrates with your existing tech stack.

Every revenue organization is unique, which means there’s no “one-size-fits-all” conversation intelligence solution. Instead, seek out a conversation intelligence platform that offers flexibility and can be customized to the needs of your organization.

When you hear the word “value,” price might be the first thing that comes to mind. Pricing does matter, and it’s important to find a conversation intelligence platform that fits your budget. However, it’s just as important to consider the value the platform will deliver to your business. If one platform costs more than another but offers a higher ROI through time savings and improved sales performance, it can be well worth the investment.

Features to look for when considering a conversation intelligence platform

Each conversation intelligence platform comes with a unique set of features and benefits. It’s important to find a solution that aligns with your needs.

That said, there are certain key features any conversation intelligence solution should have. Let’s explore 10 must-haves.

Accurate recording and analysis is the foundation for accurate analysis. Be sure any conversation intelligence solution you are considering offers highly accurate recordings and transcriptions of sales conversations. The platform should be able to easily record conversations and convert them to text with high accuracy – even for varied vocal patterns and noisy environments.

Look for a conversation intelligence platform that provides call scores after each sales conversation. These scores help sellers understand how they performed and enable sales managers to look for trends and opportunities for coaching.

Sentiment analysis provides insight on the tone and emotions behind what a prospect is saying, which can help the seller understand how the prospect feels. This information helps both reps and managers spot potential issues early on and be prepared to address them.

Every successful sales rep understands the importance of timely follow through. A conversation intelligence solution should have the ability to identify tasks and follow-up actions mentioned during a call, such as scheduling a meeting, sending a piece of sales collateral, or circling back on a question or concern. That way, critical tasks aren’t overlooked and sellers can follow up quickly to keep deals on track.

The insights from a single sales call can benefit numerous teams and individuals. If a conversation intelligence platform has call sharing capabilities, you can easily share recorded or transcribed calls with others in the organization.

Call recordings can help sales managers identify areas where a seller may need additional coaching. Choose a conversation intelligence platform that has embedded coaching forms, which make it easier for you to deliver coaching that improves the outcome of a specific deal – as well as the rep’s long-term skills and behaviors.

Sales reps often work remotely. It’s important to ensure your chosen conversation intelligence platform is easily accessible and functional from any device.

There are likely tools and technology that your sales teams use on a daily basis. It’s important to find a conversation intelligence platform that seamlessly integrates with these existing technologies, including your CRM. This allows for a more cohesive workflow and better data synchronization.

Data is key to improving sales processes and seller performance. Seek out a conversation intelligence platform that offers robust data and analytics at both the team and individual rep levels.

Sellers and managers often lack the time to listen to lengthy call recordings. Look for a conversation intelligence platform that leverages an AI assistant to quickly surface insights from calls. For example, a seller can ask the AI assistant to identify the objections a prospect raised during their last call. The rep can use these insights to properly prepare for their next interaction with the buyer.

Unlock the call insights you need to close more deals with Mindtickle

Sales conversations are full of insights that can help you improve buyer experience and sales performance. With the right conversation intelligence platform, you can unlock the insights you need to understand your buyers and deliver experiences that align with their expectations.

But chances are, you’ve already got several tools in your sales tech stack. Rather than adding a stand-alone conversation intelligence solution to the mix, consider investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform with conversation intelligence tools.

Mindtickle is an award winning revenue enablement platform with conversation intelligence tools built right in. With Mindtickle, your sellers always have easy access to the training, content, call insights, and coaching they need – all in one place. That means sellers can spend less time searching for what they need and more time delivering outstanding experiences that win buyers.

Conversation Intelligence in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence tools can give you complete visibility into real-world interactions with customers across your organization?

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in January 2023 and was updated in January 2024 and March 2025.

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How To Build a Sales Pipeline: The Step-By-Step Guide https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-build-a-sales-pipeline-the-step-by-step-guide/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-build-a-sales-pipeline-the-step-by-step-guide/#comments Tue, 19 Mar 2024 04:27:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17556 There’s an old saying in sales that “pipeline saves lives.” So it’s not surprising that everyone at an organization’s go-to-market team is responsible for building a strong sales pipeline. It can be a struggle though. Finding the right prospects and nurturing those relationships can be broken down into a step-by-step process. Key takeaways There’s a …

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There’s an old saying in sales that “pipeline saves lives.” 

So it’s not surprising that everyone at an organization’s go-to-market team is responsible for building a strong sales pipeline

It can be a struggle though. 

Finding the right prospects and nurturing those relationships can be broken down into a step-by-step process. 

Key takeaways

  • There’s a difference between your sales pipeline, sales process, and sales funnel. We break them all down. 
  • From prospecting to post-purchase, we explain each stage of the sales pipeline as well as key challenges + technologies for each one. 
  • A step-by-step guide to putting together your own sales pipeline. 

Here’s how to build a sales pipeline and why it matters.

What is a sales pipeline?

A sales pipeline is a series of stages, often represented visually. It’s built around a prospect’s experiences as they get closer to becoming a customer. This helps sales reps better understand what a potential buyer needs and when.

Let’s say the sales pipeline really is like a road. That would mean you need two perspectives:

What processes are required to build the road? Where does it begin and end? Does it need ongoing maintenance and repairs?

How does it feel to use this road? Are there bumps, potholes or other frustrations that might make a driver turn around? Why did the customer turn onto the road in the first place and what do they hope to find at the end?

Simply put, a sales pipeline empowers your sales team with the information they need to engage more empathetically based on what stage a prospect is in.

Sales pipeline vs. sales process

You might think the sales process is a similar concept, and you’d be partially right. The difference is that a sales process is focused on your internal team and the steps, decisions and procedures involved in closing deals. A sales pipeline, on the other hand, encompasses the sales team and prospect perspectives in one ecosystem. You can think of it as the quality and conversion rates of the important touch points along the way that roles like marketing, BDRs, and sales reps use to drive customers forward, It may be helpful to think of a sales process as part of a sales pipeline.

Sales pipeline vs. sales funnel

Another similar concept is the sales funnel — but once again, this term isn’t synonymous with “sales pipeline.” The former is more about numbers, while the latter is about experiences and interactions.

Imagine the shape of a funnel: It’s wide at the top and narrow at the bottom. This describes the dwindling number of prospects as they make their way toward sales and deals. Meanwhile, a pipeline is straight and horizontal. It keeps track of experiences leading to a sale, not necessarily the number of prospects taking part.

For best results, it helps to put these two together. Here’s how they help inform one another and your sales activity:

Here are the steps a prospect takes to become a customer and which interactions happen at which stage. 

Here’s where some prospects abandon the pipeline and who goes on to become a customer.

Stages of a sales pipeline

A sales pipeline generally has seven stages:

  1. Prospecting
  2. Lead qualification
  3. Demo/meeting
  4. Proposal
  5. Negotiation/Commitment
  6. Win
  7. Post-purchase

Each stage involves different experiences, needs, and goals for both the prospect and your sales team. While you could combine or eliminate some of these stages — for example, a particularly qualified lead might want a proposal as part of your initial meeting — it’s wise to keep this standard pattern in mind. Why?

  • It helps space out interactions to keep your sales activity from feeling pushy or spammy.
  • It gives your sales reps a more organized structure for what to say and when to say it.
  • It enables granular visibility into successful messaging, revenue forecasting, churn rate predictability, the effectiveness of sales enablement content, and more.

The seven stages of a sales pipeline

Building a sales pipeline means taking disparate experiences and uniting them based on how they progress through the customer journey. If you want to learn how to build a sales pipeline, look no further than these seven stages and the tech, roles, and processes that make them possible:

Stage 1: Prospecting

Much like lead generation, this first stage is about building familiarity and creating interest. Your goal is to reach people who may be interested in your brand, product or service.

Top challenges

For many companies, prospecting feels like starting at zero. Common struggles include:

  • Getting a prospect’s attention.
  • Receiving substantial responses.
  • Lack of appropriate skills or training for the prospecting phase.
  • Managing the number of prospects.

Key tech

The best technology for this stage depends on your approach. Common examples include social media and email platforms, but you might also want:

  • Sales prospecting tools
  • Live chats
    Self-service options that automatically capture and flag noteworthy interactions

Important roles

Depending on the nature of your prospecting activity, your sales reps might not be involved yet. Instead, your social media team, email marketers, content writers, and other experts may be doing the heavy lifting. Other approaches, such as cold calls and events, may require sales team input.

Vital processes

At the prospecting stage, the most important thing a sales rep can do is communicate — whether with other teams (such as marketing) or directly with potential customers. It’s equally important to keep track of key data, flag skill or information gaps, and create tentative plans for promising prospects.

Stage 2: Lead qualification

Much like lead generation, this first stage is about building familiarity and creating interest. Your goal is to reach people who may be interested in your brand, product or service.

Top challenges

At this point, you might notice stumbling blocks such as:

  • Too many low-quality or disinterested leads — a problem that drains resources and indicates flaws in the prospecting phase.
  • The wrong skills or approaches may indicate that your team is too sales-driven this early in the pipeline.
  • Lack of integration makes it difficult to qualify leads from various channels.
  • Disjointed processes result in delays, which can let a potentially high-quality lead go cold.

Key tech

At this stage, you’ll want to start relying on your customer relationship management (CRM) software. You’ll also need lead enrichment tools, call tracking and analytics, various chatting options, and more.

Important roles

Just as lead generation can be a team effort, lead qualification might require work from both marketing and sales teams. This all depends on your processes — and for best results, it should depend on the lead, too. Respond to prospects based on the approach that first sparked their interest; that way, you build relationships and leverage personalization early on.

Vital processes

Lead management is key during this phase. Your sales reps need to know which leads have been qualified and which haven’t. There also needs to be a clear, cross-departmental understanding of what “qualified” means so reps can take appropriate next steps.

Stage 3: Demo/meeting

Prospecting and lead qualification set the stage; the demo or meeting phase is your sales team’s opportunity to start the show. This is where you’ll have your first formal interaction with a prospect, and the stakes are a little higher on both sides because there’s proven interest. In many ways, it’s like a first date.

Top challenges

At this point, your sales team might note challenges including:

  • Difficulty getting a prospect to agree to a meeting.
  • Trouble scheduling or sudden silence from prospects after indicating they want to meet.
  • Lack of skills and tools necessary to properly manage a demo, ask the right questions, and get the right information.
  • Inability to address certain problems, requests, or customer concerns due to gaps in training.

Key tech

Video conferencing, screen sharing and transcription tools are among the most important solutions for the demo/meeting stage. You’ll also want call tracking and analytics software to help you learn more about how your sales team handles these opportunities and where your training or enablement content can be improved. Sales enablement platforms come in handy, too.

Important roles

Your sales team is front and center. They should stay in contact with anyone involved in prospecting and lead qualification, however — because if someone made a promise during those phases, your sales reps need to follow through. This is also a great time for sales leaders and coaches to take an active role in addressing skills gaps, training new hires, recording best practices, and gathering key data for sales forecasting.

Vital processes

The most important tasks in the demo/meeting phase include:

  • Preparing questions and talking points.
  • Sharpening time management skills.
  • Ensuring sales enablement and demo content are readily accessible.
  • Sending agendas ahead of time.
  • Researching the individual/s who will be present at the meeting.

Stage 4: Proposal

If everything else goes well, this is the stage where a sales rep gets to put your offerings on full display. A proposal should always be customized to meet the potential customer’s needs as discussed in all the previous phases. It’s not just proof of what you can do; it’s proof that you listen as well.

Top challenges

During the proposal, sales reps may struggle with:

  • Poorly managing the tone, coming across as either too modest or too overconfident.
  • Providing too much information or not enough.
  • Failing to refer to pain points or topics mentioned in previous interactions.
  • Not getting the right information from cross-departmental teams.

Key tech

Sales proposal software is particularly effective at this point, as is sales enablement software and any communication or conferencing platform you’ve already been using. Sales reps need to keep track of the promises they’re making so other team members know how to follow through.

Important roles

While your sales team is still taking the lead in this part of the process, they might need input from legal, product, or service experts. If there are any special offerings or discounts, a sales manager or other leader might need to give the green light, too.

Vital processes

Drafting and checking the proposal is perhaps the most important step your teams will take at this point. Verbiage needs to be clear and concise without making any guarantees you can’t deliver upon; there also generally needs to be some acknowledgment of:

  • Price points
  • Delivery or due dates
  • Contract terms if relevant
  • Expectations on both sides

Stage 5: Negotiation

This stage is highly variable and depends on your prospect, sales team, relationship management and plenty of other factors. If negotiation is necessary, remember that it’s a built-in part of the sales process and is a stepping-stone to commitment.

Top challenges

At this point, challenges may include:

  • A prospect continually changing their request.
  • Seemingly endless negotiations due to a lack of sales rep comfort or skills.
  • Unclear next steps.

Key tech

Most of the tech required for negotiation and commitment is related to strong communication. That means email platforms, CRM tools, and video conferencing solutions should all be top priorities.

Important roles

If your sales rep needs an extra push to get a prospect over the line, they might call in help from a leader or manager to help with negotiations. You may also need particular people in a meeting depending on the nature of the commitment or contract.

Vital processes

Consistent communication should be at the heart of this sales pipeline stage. However, capturing sales rep habits and data is equally important, as this is an opportunity to record best practices, make targeted improvements and keep track of any offers or promises.

Stage 6: Win!

When your sales reps close deals, there’s plenty to do — such as informing other departments about upcoming work. It’s also key to reflect on the processes, decisions and sales activity that made this possible.

Stage 7: Post-purchase

Winning deals doesn’t mean your reps can sit back and relax. They still need to build relationships in the post-purchase phase, which can involve everything from answering questions to up- and cross-selling.

Top challenges

After a purchase, sales teams might struggle with:

  • Staying in contact with customers.
  • Responding effectively to questions or requests that may fall outside the sales team’s expertise.
  • Navigating negative feedback or reviews.

Key tech

CRM software is perhaps most important during this stage, as it helps keep track of a customer’s purchase history and what that means for the ongoing relationship. Sales enablement material should become product or service support material at this point, but sales reps should still know how to access and share it with customers.

Important roles

Now that the deal is complete, some sales reps might take a back seat while others — such as the product and shipping teams — take over. However, customers may still see the sales team as their main point of contact, so this is far from the end of the story.

Vital processes

The key to succeeding in post-purchase relationships is to provide what the customer needs, whether that’s answers, support, exchanges or refunds, additional products, or just an opportunity to offer feedback.

Putting it all together: Building a strong sales pipeline

Once you have all the individual pieces figured out, you’ll need to unite them in a cohesive sales pipeline. Follow these steps to get started:

Outline each step

Think of your sales pipeline as a roadmap and outline every “stop” a prospect will make before they reach their destination, which is a purchase or deal with your company. Think about what a potential buyer needs at each stop and how your sales team can deliver without pushing the prospect too quickly (or letting them lose interest).

Prepare your technology

Every stage of a sales pipeline relies on intuitive, integrated technology. Get rid of single-function tools where possible and use platforms that unite:

  • Sales enablement
  • Conversation intelligence
  • Sales content
  • Sales onboarding and training
  • Sales coaching
  • Performance measurements
  • Revenue forecasting

Create your sales enablement strategy

Sales enablement strategy planning helps you make use of all the moving parts in a sales pipeline. When you can analyze key data, better understand sales reps’ needs and make targeted improvements, your prospects and your pipeline will benefit. You’ll also have the information you need to define different stages of the sales process and how this impacts your reps.

Prepare for the future

Ensure that your sales team approaches each stage of the sales pipeline as a springboard to the next level. If they get too caught up in one area or task, they might lose out on their next big sales opportunity. Often, this means providing the training, enablement material, and ongoing support they need to adapt to changing market conditions and anticipate customer demand.

Update as necessary

Part of building a sales pipeline is reviewing your current stages, habits, and processes to find more effective paths forward. Use call recording and analytics, CRM tools, deal health insights, and other key data to establish best practices, then get to work on sharing those changes with your teams.

Get the sales pipeline support you need

If you’re still wondering how to build a sales pipeline and what to do once it’s completed, you aren’t alone. Sales pipeline management requires skills, technology, and insight that don’t just appear out of thin air.

That’s why many businesses turn to a platform like Mindtickle’s revenue productivity platform that’s so much more. From sales enablement and training to analytics, dashboards, conversation intelligence, and more, this is your single home for all things sales.

Build Better Pipeline

Want to see how Mindtickle helps organizations train their sellers to build strong pipeline quarter after quarter? 

Get a Personalized Demo

This post was originally published in May 2023 and was updated in March 2024. 

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How to Measure the Impact of Your Sales Training Program https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/measure-impact-training-program/ Mon, 04 Mar 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17868 Sales leaders increasingly see the importance of investing more in their sales training programs. But are they investing in the right things? While the majority of organizations are investing in a sales enablement department (84%), only 40% of these C-level executives said they can identify rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training. You should constantly …

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Sales leaders increasingly see the importance of investing more in their sales training programs. 

But are they investing in the right things? 

While the majority of organizations are investing in a sales enablement department (84%), only 40% of these C-level executives said they can identify rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training.

You should constantly evaluate your sales training program so you can make the most of your investments. Evaluating your sales training allows you to see what areas of training need more or less resource allocation, so you can improve performance and reach your goals.

Why do you need to measure your sales training impact?

The core question at the heart of sales training evaluation is: Did your results benefit the organization in some way? If your training is going to be impactful, it has to provide measurable ROI. Evaluating the impact can be done by measuring how much time was saved, how much money was made, and/or how many clients were gained as a result of your program.

Evaluating your sales training program enables you to:

  • Identify what the organization gained.
  • Determine the costs versus benefits of the gain.
  • Determine justification for continuing training.

If you’re not measuring and evaluating the results of your efforts, you won’t be able to see how well your sales training program is working. By creating a clear evaluation process — and a timeline for studying results — you can help everyone stay focused on the end goal.

  • Step 1. Set a goal & define metrics

Every sales training program should have a goal or desired outcome. Then you can use that goal to define the metrics that will measure progress toward that goal. For example, if your goal is to increase the number of new accounts opened by 20% over the next six months, then you’ll need to define what that looks like and how you’ll measure it.

First, define your goal. Most goals fall under one of three categories: time-related, quota-related, or revenue-related. Here are a few examples:

Goals that deal with getting your sales team trained during a certain time frame. These include decreasing time to productivity or time to the first milestone.

Goals that focus on making sure your sales team meets their quota. For example, your goal might be to increase quota attainment by X% in the next year.

Goals that focus specifically on increasing revenue over time. For example, your goal could be to increase sales revenue by X% in the next year.

  • Step 2. Establish sales training costs

To know if you’re getting a return on your training investments, keep a record of the costs associated with the program. The costs associated with your sales training program will be both indirect and direct. You have to consider not just the cost of what you spend directly on the training program but also the cost of time spent on training and time spent away from work.

The standard formula for calculating your training ROI is: ROI (percentage) = [(Monetary benefits – Training Costs)/Training Costs] x 100. ROI can also be measured in terms of decreased product cost or time.

Salaries, benefits of personnel, technology, tools, and other equipment

Sales onboarding costs, training material, technology costs, facilities, travel, communication and marketing of the program, instructor’s salary, and benefits

The salaries and benefits costs that will be dedicated to the time spent on training

Cost of time spent away from work

Cost of time needed for your employees to adapt to new practices and ways of working after the training program

Cost of incentives (tangible and intangible) put into place to foster wanted behavior after training

Evaluating training costs can be challenging without having a system in place. Here are some areas to consider when building an all-inclusive training cost analysis framework:

Once you’ve established the full costs associated with the program, you can figure out the monetary benefits — the revenue your sales training has generated for your company — and calculate the ROI. For example, have there been significant sales increases after employees have gone through training or a noticeable boost in productivity? These are tangible areas that can be measured by looking at the before and after stats.

  • Step 3. Gather feedback from sales representatives

Feedback from your sales reps will be crucial to understand what is and isn’t working with the program. It’s important to make sure that the program you’ve put together for them is effective in helping them meet their individual goals and, therefore, helping the company meet its commercial goals.

Use quarterly surveys, anonymous feedback forms they can submit anytime, and one-on-one meetings with managers to find out how employees feel about the sales training program. Here are some example questions to ask to get the answers you need:

  • Are you able to easily apply what you’ve learned from the training program to your job?
  • Did you learn a new skill or enhance an existing one?
  • Do you believe the training program helps you bridge any gaps in your knowledge or skills?
  • Has the training program been effective in helping you meet your goals?

Use these open-ended questions to build a dialogue between sales reps and sales leadership.

It’s important to understand that not all feedback will be feedback that you implement. Your sales leaders will have to evaluate all feedback to decide whether or not to implement it. For example, some feedback may not improve the sales training program or won’t be feasible to implement.

  • Step 4: Continually assess results + implement feedback

Establish a cycle of assessing results using these steps and then implementing team feedback so that you can identify and improve areas of weakness in the sales training program.

Evaluating the program can help you identify problems in the sales training program that need to be fixed or components of the program that need more resources allocated. If the results show that your training program has weak areas, you can make a plan to identify specific bottlenecks or issues within the program.

 

Sales coaching report card in Mindtickle

Sales coaching timeline

Sales coaching in Mindtickle

For example, if you see that your training program isn’t helping your sales reps improve their win rate, that’s something that needs to be assessed. Maybe they need more sales coaching or skills training to increase their confidence. These are weak areas that an evaluation of your training program can uncover.

Make an ongoing plan to set aside time (e.g., every quarter or twice a year) to go over the training program and compare it to the goals you set for the program and the sales outcomes from that time period. Go through any feedback you’ve received from sales reps to identify areas where specific improvements could be made. For example, if several sales reps leave feedback about needing more resources for cold calling, you can easily add more resources to the program. This small change could have a big impact on your sales reps and their confidence in making calls and talking to customers, leading to more deals closed.

Effective sales training yields stronger sales enablement and productivity

By taking some time to evaluate your current sales training program, your team will be better prepared to meet their goals and achieve success. Regularly evaluated training is crucial if you want to create a winning sales team for the long term. It’s not enough to just hope that your staff will improve on their own. In order to prepare your sales reps to be ready to confidently sell your product, they need resources, knowledge, the right content, and coaching. Your sales training program has to provide that for them.

Mindtickle has a comprehensive suite of sales enablement and productivity tools to provide your sales team with a positive learning environment that engages them and sets them up to succeed. With Mindtickle, you can easily create sales training programs that reinforce knowledge quickly to improve your overall sales process.

Are you able to show the ROI of your efforts?

Learn how you can stand up effective sales training in Mindtickle that actually impacts revenue.

Request a Demo

This post was updated in August 2023 and again in March 2024. 

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Revenue Productivity for HealthTech, MedTech, and Medical Devices│Mindtickle Inc. https://www.mindtickle.com/industry/medical-devices/ Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:07:49 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=industries&p=19047 Sales Enablement for Health Tech & Medical Device Reps Give your sales team everything they need to maximize their productivity in a constantly shifting sales environment. Request a Demo Request a personalized demo Trusted by world-class revenue teams. “Mindtickle gave us the biggest support while we made that very agile transformation to 100% virtual; we …

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Sales Enablement for Health Tech & Medical Device Reps

Give your sales team everything they need to maximize their productivity in a constantly shifting sales environment.

Request a personalized demo

Medical Devices Demo

Trusted by world-class revenue teams.

PartsSource-logo
scientia
veracyte
medtech-testimonial

"Mindtickle gave us the biggest support while we made that very agile transformation to 100% virtual; we didn’t drop the ball.”

Anindya Bhattacharyya, Director and Head – Sales and Marketing Academy, Cipla
Before
After

Personalize training for each of your sellers

Before

Mindtickle

Generic training for health tech and medical device sellers leads to fewer, slower sales and inefficient use of their time. Conventional training methods aren’t enough to drive real change.

medtech-before
Before
After

Personalize training for each of your sellers

Before

Mindtickle

Generic training for health tech and medical device sellers leads to fewer, slower sales and inefficient use of their time. Conventional training methods aren’t enough to drive real change.

medtech-before

Struggling to sell new products with old methods?

Stop falling behind and give your healthcare reps a leg up on the competition with targeted, timely, and trackable coaching and training. Build clinical literacy, reinforce winning behaviors, and deliver recommended content to help them deal with any and all field scenarios.

Struggling to sell new products with old methods?

Stop falling behind and give your healthcare reps a leg up on the competition with targeted, timely, and trackable coaching and training. Build clinical literacy, reinforce winning behaviors, and deliver recommended content to help them deal with any and all field scenarios.

Accelerate enablement for medical device reps

Build engaging medical device sales training experiences faster with templates and ready-to-use content. You can even create exercises and assessments instantly with AI.

Learn how Mindtickle’s Copilot can help you create engaging and impactful programs quickly.

Built so you and your reps can focus on the most important jobs – selling more and delighting customers.

Create a culture of data-driven coaching.

Create coaching cadences and frameworks to help turn your managers into mentors. Gather and track timely feedback from coaching sessions and ride-alongs, and measure your coaching impact on key seller skills.

Onboard and everboard with ease.

Shorten your new reps’ time to productivity with engaging, varied learning mechanics. Help veterans navigate the changing healthcare purchasing landscape with timely reinforcement, role-plays, and coaching.

medtech-make-compliance-easier-than-ever

Make compliance easier than ever

Foster and enforce regulatory compliance throughout all your digital sales motions, while keeping your reps on-brand and on-message. Easily deliver recommended, compliant content for your reps to use in the flow of work.

Ready to create
more top sellers?

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Transforming Seller Productivity for the Automotive Industry│Mindtickle Inc https://www.mindtickle.com/industry/automotive/ Mon, 26 Feb 2024 11:06:49 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=industries&p=19043 Unlock Peak Performance for Automotive Sellers Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle. Request a Demo Leaders in every industry trust Mindtickle “When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience was a driving factor. I’ve gotten …

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Unlock Peak Performance for Automotive Sellers

Transform every automotive seller into a top-notch product specialist and deliver tailored buying experiences with Mindtickle.

Leaders in every industry trust Mindtickle

darktrace
tenable
Navistar
chelsey moon

"When we first started, most of our reps were out in the field. So having a mobile-first experience was a driving factor. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback thus far. In an ideal world, I would track everything with Mindtickle.”

Chelsey Moon, Director of Learning and Development, PureCars

Keep automotive sellers up to speed with innovations and regulation

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Request a personalized demo

Empower continuous learning

Ensure automotive sellers are up-to-date on product knowledge and sales strategies

Boost seller
confidence

Prepare sellers to capitalize on every conversation by having them practice real-world sales scenarios.

Enhance buyer experiences

Elevate buyer experiences by creating personalized digital showrooms or sales rooms

Personalized coaching and training

Tailor training programs to build skills and knowledge.

Leading organizations unlock transformative
results with Mindtickle

0 %

increase in average deal sizes

0 %
reduction in seller ramp time
0 %
increase in seller productivity
Before
After

Personalize training for automotive sellers

Before

Mindtickle

Generic training for automotive sellers leads to high turnover and fewer sales. Conventional training methods aren’t enough.
automotive-before
Before
After

Personalize training for automotive sellers

Before

Mindtickle

Generic training for automotive sellers leads to high turnover and fewer sales. Conventional training methods aren’t enough.
automotive-before

Keep dealer sellers up to pace with innovations and regulations

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Keep automotive sellers up to pace with innovations and regulations

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Keep dealer sellers up to pace with innovations and regulations

Use Mindtickle for your automotive sales training programs to onboard and continuously train sellers, ensuring they have up-to-date product knowledge.

Boost your automotive sales team’s performance with Mindtickle

Tailor buying experiences to accelerate deal cycles and boost post-sale revenue

Sellers can personalize the buyer experience, share approved product collateral, and engage customers past the initial dealership visit.

Elevate your team’s expertise through personalized training and certification programs

Develop personalized automotive sales manager training and provide sellers with engaging programs tailored to their books of business.

Enable your sales force with cutting-edge AI role-plays and practice sessions

  • Prep sellers for the showroom floor with AI-powered interactive role-plays.
  • Customize your role-play personas, give sellers instant feedback, and grade role-plays with AI so managers aren’t bogged down with timely manual reviews.

Enable on-the-go-learning

Dynamic mobile learning environments make training convenient and accessible for distributed automotive sales teams.

Explore how customers use Mindtickle

Mindtickle reviews sourced by G2

Resources for automotive companies

Elevate your automotive sales performance with Mindtickle.

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Subscription Services Packages https://www.mindtickle.com/subscription-services-packages/ Fri, 23 Feb 2024 12:35:19 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=19029 Subscription Services Packages Description of Subscription Services Packages Readiness Package Comprehensive sales enablement including training, virtual roleplays, coaching, and analytics. Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. Give users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays, simulated customer scenarios, and AI-powered feedback. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to …

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Subscription Services Packages

Description of Subscription Services Packages

Readiness Package

Comprehensive sales enablement including training, virtual roleplays, coaching, and analytics.

Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. Give users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays, simulated customer scenarios, and AI-powered feedback. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams.

Modules included in the Readiness Package:

  • Course
  • Quick Update
  • Checklist
  • Certifications
  • AI Co-pilot
  • Instructor-Led Training
  • Assessment
  • Spaced Reinforcement
  • Virtual Role-Plays
  • Readiness Index
  • Coaching Rooms
  • Analytics

The Readiness package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of one Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Readiness  package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness,  Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

Enable Package

Comprehensive sales enablement including training, content, and coaching.

Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams.

Modules included in the Enable package:

  • Course
  • Quick Update
  • Checklist
  • Certifications
  • AI Co-pilot
  • Instructor-Led Training
  • Assessment
  • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
  • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
  • Readiness Index
  • Asset Hub
  • Digital Sales Rooms
  • Coaching Rooms
  • Analytics

The Enable package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of two Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Enable package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

Transform Package

The complete revenue productivity platform to optimize go-to-market teams.

Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams. Analyze reps’ activities in the field with call recording, transcription, and insights.

Modules included in the Transform package:

  • Course
  • Quick Update
  • Checklist
  • Certifications
  • AI Co-pilot
  • Instructor-Led Training
  • Assessment
  • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
  • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
  • Readiness Index
  • Asset Hub
  • Digital Sales Rooms
  • Coaching Rooms
  • Call AI
  • Analytics

The Transform package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of three  Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Transform package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

LMS Package

Engage and upskill teams with individualized, adaptive, and gamified learning programs at-scale. Create and deliver thematically grouped, visually rich learning paths leveraging depth and breadth of learning modules to keep learners engaged. Modules include:

  • Assessments
  • Certifications
  • Courses
  • Checklists
  • Instructor-led Training (ILT)
  • Quick Updates
  • Readiness Index
  • AI Copilot
  • Analytics

The Readiness package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of one Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Readiness  package.

RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of LMS, Readiness,  Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

Call AI

Mindtickle’s Call AI solution helps world-class companies be ready to grow revenue by recording, transcribing, and analyzing sales calls for customer insights and coaching. With conversational insights tightly integrated into sales training and content programs, Call AI helps revenue teams achieve a continuous state of excellence and be ready for every selling situation. Call recordings will be subject to applicable laws as set forth at our Privacy Policy.

Asset Hub

Mindtickle aligns sales content around the needs of sellers in the field. Sales organizations get more use and value from their content, without sacrificing security and governance. Automation and streamlined content management reduces admin burden. With Mindtickle’s Asset Hub, sellers spend less time searching for content and more time using it to close deals.

Seller Intel

Mindtickle Seller Intel drives immediate and longer-term quota achievement by combining seller signals with deal signals to recommend winning actions.

Coaching

Mindtickle sales coaching optimizes the performance of sales teams by identifying lagging skills and providing a suite of tools to deliver data-driven, individualized sales coaching. Measure in-field performance and reinforce coaching efforts with customized training and enablement content that drives higher quota attainment and long-term skill development.

Sales Forecasting Revenue Operations & Intelligence (RO&I)

Sales Forecasting Revenue Operations & Intelligence (RO&I) provides forecasting and pipeline analysis. Forecast AI learns from your historical data, applies real-time deal by deal risk scoring of your current pipeline and predicts in-quarter pipeline creation pacing to give you an accurate forecast you can rely on.

Digital Sales Rooms

Custom sales rooms for every opportunity. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, and real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

Asset Hub + DSR

Mindtickle aligns sales content around the needs of sellers in the field and allows sellers to curate sales rooms for every opportunity. Automation and streamlined content management reduces admin burden. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

Customer Success Services

Mindtickle will provide the following Customer Success Services.

  1. Access to newly released product features
  2. Access to an analytics dashboard
  3. On-going communication of best practices

(Cost of Customer Success Services is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

Salesforce Integration

Mindtickle’s Salesforce integration enables Salesforce users to engage with their Mindtickle training experience directly within the Salesforce platform, and access contextually aware training within each of their Salesforce opportunities.

White Labelled Mobile Application

White Labelled Mobile Application is Mindtickle’s Platform related assistance through which Mindtickle assists the Customer to personalize the look and feel of Mindtickle’s mobile application of the Platform to align it with Customer’s brand identity. Mindtickle supports White Labelling of its mobile app which is limited to app branding. Mindtickle does not support app customization, as further described in the White Label Application Description and Scope.

Packages powered by Baker Communications, Inc. (“BCI”)

1) Mindtickle Sales Excellence Series by BCI. This package includes individualized competency-based sales training curriculum from BCI. This module is available only with Premier and Professional Packages.

2) Seller Excellence Foundations Package by BCI. This package includes Ready to deploy foundational seller training program comprised of skill development content, exercises, tools and certification.

Additional terms applicable for Packages powered by BCI:
Customer agrees and acknowledges that it shall not create derivative works based on the material provided by BCI (“Baker Materials”). Customer further agrees that it shall not make the Baker Materials accessible to third parties other than authorized Users, without the prior written permission from BCI.

Additional Terms applicable to Mindtickle Copilot:
Mindtickle Copilot features are enabled by default. You may opt out at any time by contacting Mindtickle Support or your CSM. Mindtickle AI Terms apply to the Customer’s access and use of any AI Feature(s) that are part of the Mindtickle Platform purchased under the respective Order.

Support Services

Mindtickle provides Standard and Premium Support as described in the Support Services and as per scope mentioned below.

Standard Support

  1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 business days
  2. Support Channels: Online case submission
  3. Training and Education (in English):
    1. Online/self-paced training
    2. Video tutorials
    3. Comprehensive documentation
    4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

(Cost of Standard Support is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

Premium Support

  1. Designated Customer Success Manager
  2. Initial Response Time: 1 business hour
  3. End-user Support Channels:
    1. Online case submission
    2. Scheduled phone support
    3. 24/5 Live chat (for administrative users only)
    4. 24/7 Critical support
  4. Training and Education (in English):
    1. Online/self-paced training
    2. Video tutorials
    3. Comprehensive documentation

Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

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How Teradata Transforms Their Sales Enablement Strategy with Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-teradata-transforms-their-sales-enablement-strategy-with-mindtickle/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-teradata-transforms-their-sales-enablement-strategy-with-mindtickle/#comments Wed, 21 Feb 2024 17:47:20 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19021 Not that long ago, it was rare for an organization to have a dedicated sales enablement team. But today, a whopping 84% of organizations invest in a sales enablement function. 0 % of organizations invest in sales enablement That’s not surprising. When it’s down well, sales enablement has a powerful impact on sales productivity, sales …

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Not that long ago, it was rare for an organization to have a dedicated sales enablement team.

But today, a whopping 84% of organizations invest in a sales enablement function.

of organizations invest in sales enablement
0 %

That’s not surprising. When it’s down well, sales enablement has a powerful impact on sales productivity, sales performance, and revenue growth.

But establishing a sales enablement function doesn’t guarantee great results. The most successful organizations are those with the right sales enablement strategy and sales enablement tools.

Teradata, a software company providing cloud database and analytics-related solutions, has experienced the powerful impact of adopting the right sales enablement tools. Recently, we sat down with Morgan Clawson, Senior Manager, GTM Readiness at Teradata, to learn more about how the company has transformed its B2B sales enablement strategy for the better with Mindtickle.

Establishing a capability framework for go-to-market roles

In any revenue organization, certain capabilities are needed for success. Those capabilities vary by role. For example, those on the commercial sales team at Teradata require different skills than those on the technical sales team. Yet, many revenue organizations don’t define the competencies needed for success.

With Mindtickle, Teradata has established its first-ever go-to-market capability model, which defines the skills and knowledge each team needs to succeed in the field. Mindtickle provides a place for Teradata’s account teams and their managers to reflect on their sales productivity and efficiency in terms of those key capabilities. The teams also pull data from Mindtickle by capability, which sheds light on the areas where additional enablement is needed.

“This gives us a data-driven approach, which is extremely effective in ensuring the enablement we’re putting out is relevant and meaningful. The more relevant and meaningful it is, the more account teams will consume that enablement.”
Morgan Clawson headshot
Megan Clawson
Senior Manager, GTM Readiness at Teradata

With Mindtickle, It’s easy for the Teradata sales enablement team to measure progress – both in terms of completion and in terms of skill development. “We can show the progression of the teams as they’re participating in enablement and how they’re moving through and mastering different capabilities,” Clawson said.

Transforming Teradata’s approach to sales enablement

Oftentimes, organizations take a “one-size-fits-all” approach to sales enablement. Taking a more personalized approach requires these organizations to understand what kind of sales training and support each seller needs. But often, organizations lack those insights.

In fact, per our Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, a mere 40% of C-level executives can identify strengths and weaknesses to develop customized sales training.

Only

of C-level execs can identify rep strengths + weaknesses
0 %

Mindtickle enables Teradata to group sellers by proficiency level on their capability model. Then, they can provide targeted and relevant enablement to the people who actually need it.

“Mindtickle has transformed our ability to deliver enablement to those who actually need it,” explained Clawson. “Mindtickle allows us to maximize the seller’s time so they’re actually in the field participating and engaging with customers in the ways we’d like them to, as opposed to feeling like they’re chained to their computer taking enablement that doesn’t apply to them.

In addition, Mindtickle has empowered Teradata to take a more collaborative approach to learning and sales enablement. For example, the company uses a lot of coaching forms and missions – which are different module types in Mindtickle.

“With those modules, managers are really able to take a front seat in the enablement activities and exercises that directly impact the efficacy of their sellers,” said Clawson. “Also, they’re able to participate in these really robust feedback loops related to specific sales situations. That more structured feedback loop that Mindtickle facilitates for us is really crucial to helping uplevel our teams.”

Increasing mastery of knowledge and skills

Mindtickle has transformed the way Teradata trains sellers, provides practice opportunities, and reinforces learning. Mindtickle’s certification and badging features have been key to this transformation.

“With Mindtickle, we’re able to build learning paths and missions that demonstrate real-world mastery of concepts and selling motions that are critical to Teradata’s sales strategy,” explained Clawson. “This means our sales teams are actually going into the world with proven, advanced knowledge and skills. They’re equipped to have confident, knowledgeable conversations about the value our solution can bring to our customers. They’re able to get all that information, practice it, and prove they can do these things through the badging program that Mindtickle helps us to facilitate.”

Earning these badges and sharing them on LinkedIn boosts the confidence of sellers. It also boosts buyer confidence. “[Buyers] know when they’re interacting with us we have teams out there that are going out there prepared and ready to deliver value to their customers,” said Clawson.

Working with a partner that’s committed to innovation and customer success

The team at Mindtickle is committed to ensuring the platform meets the needs of its customers – both now and in the future. As Clawson put it, “Mindtickle’s product team is an absolutely phenomenal group of people who are actually working on the platform and making it something that’s actually relevant and meaningful to us enablement professionals.”

The product team regularly meets with customers – including Teradata – to understand their unique needs and challenges. This input informs future innovation. 

“Mindtickle has always been really proactive in seeking to understand what our unique challenges are at Teradata and also finding ways to elevate the platform so it works for us.”
Morgan Clawson headshot
Morgan Clawson
Senior Manager, GTM Readiness at Teradata

Clawson and her team have also found the support team at Mindtickle to be knowledgeable and extremely responsive. “It’s really helped to establish credibility and fidelity with our teams,” said Clawson. We’re seeing a huge uptick in adoption of the platform in our go-to-market teams. I think this is partially due to the quick responsiveness and how helpful Mindtickle is.”

Proving impact and elevating the sales enablement function within the organization

In the best of times, sales enablement teams are under pressure to demonstrate value. This is especially true in today’s economic environment.

Without the right tools, it can be difficult (or even impossible) to demonstrate how B2B sales enablement is impacting the metrics that matter most to businesses. Mindtickle makes it possible.

“If you’re an enablement professional looking for ways to highlight the value and impact of your team to the greater org, Mindtickle allows you to do that,” said Clawson. “We can see very specific correlation metrics to the enablement activities we are producing. I can show very clearly the value my team is bringing to Teradata as a whole, and it’s a great feeling as a supervisor to elevate my team.”

Better Sales Enablement with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help your sales enablement org can make a bigger business impact? 

Request a Demo

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Video: How to Use CRM Data and Conversation Intelligence to Inform Your 2024 Enablement Plan https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-how-to-use-crm-data-and-conversation-intelligence-to-inform-your-2024-enablement-plan/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-how-to-use-crm-data-and-conversation-intelligence-to-inform-your-2024-enablement-plan/#comments Tue, 20 Feb 2024 16:13:26 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=19004 Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared some tips on reducing the chaos in your tech stack. (You can check out Rahul’s video on accelerating bigger, faster deals with consolidation and Elisha’s tips for using your CRM, enablement analytics, and Call AI to inform better coaching.) Today we’re sharing one of our most popular videos, …

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Over the past few weeks, we’ve shared some tips on reducing the chaos in your tech stack. (You can check out Rahul’s video on accelerating bigger, faster deals with consolidation and Elisha’s tips for using your CRM, enablement analytics, and Call AI to inform better coaching.)

Today we’re sharing one of our most popular videos, which features Helen Waite from our product marketing team sharing ways for enablement professionals to streamline their tech stack and enhance their 2024 enablement plans.

Key takeaways:

During sales stage review:

  • Use CRM data to analyze conversion rates at different sales stages.
    Identify specific stages to see where win rates may decline.
  • Leverage conversation intelligence tools to review calls from the identified stage.
  • Examine whether sales methodologies are consistently followed.
  • Take corrective actions, such as reinforcing training or coaching, to address weaknesses in specific stages.

For a product or service launch:

  • Evaluate revenue performance against goals for previous product or service launches.
  • Assess how reps messaged, used content, and addressed prospect concerns.
  • Refine content based on reps’ understanding, prospect engagement, and feedback for future launches.
  • Incorporate learnings into the plan for subsequent product or service launches in the coming year.

To help ramp time for new reps:

  • Look at your CRM to determine the time to first deal for new hires.
  • Assess coaching effectiveness and manager involvement for new reps in the field.
  • Conduct role-plays to prep new reps for real-world selling scenarios.
  • Implement a new hire survey to gather feedback on the onboarding process.
  • Use feedback to improve coaching strategies, enhance onboarding processes, and reduce ramp time.

Transcription

Hey there. I’m Helen Waite from the product marketing team here at Mindtickle. And today I will talk a little about how to reduce your tech stack chaos. And really how enablement professionals can use all the different tech they use in their day-to-day job to better inform their 2024 calendar enablement.

Professionals, just like sales reps, are juggling a ton of different tech just to get their job done. Sometimes this means we’re not always using all the insights data and reports from these different systems to best inform a cohesive strategy.

Today, I’ll cover three ways that our customers have shared that they’ve used specifically their CRM data, and their conversation intelligence data, to better inform their enablement calendar.

As we’re getting into planning season, think of these three tips and how they can help you. First, we’ll look at a sales stage review. How CI and CRM data can play into looking at the individual stages your reps go through and how they perform in each stage? Then we’ll look into how to use this data to inform a product or service launch you may have coming up next year. And finally, we’ll look at ramp time. If you have new reps coming on board next year, how can you use learnings from this year to inform that plan? So let’s get into it.

The first tip is around a sales stage review.

A customer came to us who saw a massive spike in a decrease in their win rates at a certain sales stage, the discovery stage. How can they use the data points they have from their CRM and conversation intelligence to better attack this sales stage for the coming year? So in this scenario, the report you’re going to use will come from your CRM, and that’s your conversion rates by sales stage.

In this example, this customer saw this discovery stage was declining in their win rates; their win rates weren’t good and discovery, so the enablement team wanted to look into why that was. You’ll take action to review calls from the discovery stage of those reps to look at what’s happening in these discovery calls. And what’s the action that you’re going to take?

In this case, you can look at sales methodology. Is the methodology that you’ve implemented being followed? Or are there certain stages in discovery where MEDPICC is not being adhered to? You can look at the types of questions that your reps are asking or the content that they’re sharing in this stage, what is being evaluated across several different calls, and then take those findings and make sure that’s implemented in our 2024 plan, that could be in the form of reinforcement.

If a certain stage has declining win rates, you may need to focus on reinforcing training around that stage; what are your best practices that reps, or BDR, is depending on the stage you should be doing? And then also look at how role plays or coaching can play a hand in reinforcing this sales stage performance. By doing these call reviews, looking at if there’s a certain sales stage where you’re losing more than you were before, how can you find similarities across these calls and implement this as part of your plan for next year?

Our second tip is around a product or service launch.

In the next year, if you are launching a new product or service, take learnings from the previous year; how you’ll do that is looking at a report for a new product or service launch, what the revenue you made on that launch was versus your goal.

Maybe you launched a new service into the market and you’re looking at how you achieved how you performed on that launch versus your goal. Maybe you didn’t quite reach that revenue goal for that new product or service, and you want to reinforce that going into the new year. Maybe you have an additional product or service launch where you want to take learnings from that initial one last year.

Look at your revenue versus goal. The action you will take is digging into each of the calls where this product or service was pitched. So you can do this in conversation intelligence tools by easily searching the product name you’re looking for. You can drill down into the calls where this was discussed. To analyze what happened in those calls, what content was used or not used? How was the rep landing the messaging for this product or service launch? Was it aligned with what marketing or product marketing put together? Were they using the content correctly? Did the prospect understand the new product or service? Did it fit with their use case or help them solve a problem for them?

And then your action, how this will inform your plan for next year, is any launch plan adjustments, maybe there was some content missing that the rep didn’t have, to speak to this product or service?

Maybe there’s team-specific enablement where your reps were able to nail the messaging for this product. But when it comes to implementation, things fell short of what the customer expected. Or maybe the implementation wasn’t as smooth as possible. That could be something that you want to focus on for next year. And then, finally, content refinement. How was the content that you had for this new product or service? Did the reps understand it? Did they use it? Did prospects engage with it? Are there learnings from prospect reactions to further pass on to marketing or product marketing for next year?

Finally, ramp time evaluation. So if you have new reps coming on board, you are always looking at that time to first deal for new hires. How long is it taking for them to get revenue in the door? That’s the report you’ll look at in CRM. And then the action you’ll take is looking at these new reps when they’re in the field. How are they being coached? Is this an opportunity to coach the coach where their managers weren’t as present, or do they need more feedback and guidance from their managers? Maybe their managers need a little help on how best to coach new hires coming in.

You can also look at role plays. So preparing them for the field by doing several simulations that prepare them for real-world selling scenarios. And finally, doing a new hire survey. What is the feedback from new hires on their onboarding process? What do they think could be improved? Make sure all of that is incorporated into your plan for next year.

Those three tips can help you use your CRM data in your conversation intelligence data to help inform your 2024 enablement plan. For more actions and insights into how you can help plan and use all of your different tech and reduce some of that tech stack chaos, scan the QR code here to get more tips from our team. Thanks so much.

Tech Consolidation in Mindtickle

Want to see how Mindtickle can help you use your CRM data and conversation intelligence to inform your enablement plan?

Request a Demo

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5 Types of Sales Metrics to Understand and Improve Performance https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-types-of-sales-metrics-to-understand-and-improve-performance-mindtickle/ Tue, 20 Feb 2024 06:26:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17870 Sales performance metrics tell the story of your business and its role in customers’ lives. These metrics don’t just empower your sales team and help them improve; you can also use this information to increase visibility for planning and reporting. Once you’ve started using metrics to track sales performance, there’s only one question: How do …

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Sales performance metrics tell the story of your business and its role in customers’ lives. These metrics don’t just empower your sales team and help them improve; you can also use this information to increase visibility for planning and reporting.

Once you’ve started using metrics to track sales performance, there’s only one question: How do you use those metrics meaningfully? Fortunately, there are several best practices for tracking and analyzing this information.

Here’s a look at the five most important types of sales metrics and how to use them to your advantage.

What are sales metrics?

Sales metrics are data points that represent the performance of an individual salesperson or a full sales team. Management and other leaders use different types of sales metrics to track progress, identify issues and prepare for future growth.

Sales management metrics aren’t just for visibility. They’re also a great way to incentivize sales teams to hit targets consistently. Sales leaders can use metrics to fine-tune training and make any necessary adjustments to individual learning, contributing to better overall performance.

Essentially, sales performance metrics aim to steer sales teams in the right direction. This information helps identify problems in the sales process, grow revenue, and increase competitiveness in today’s marketplace.

How to choose the most important sales performance metrics to track

Different businesses need to track different types of sales metrics. It’s up to you to decide which are most important for your industry, customer base, and individual teams — but it’s always smart to keep these ideas in mind:

  • Have a goal: Every tracked metric should have a purpose, such as supporting sales enablement or providing insight into your sales onboarding process.
  • Unite your data: Sales metrics don’t exist in a vacuum. Ensure they work together to create visibility into your entire sales process and customer journey.
  • Skip the vanity metrics: Vanity metrics, such as views or attendee numbers, don’t actually contribute to your sales performance or revenue. Don’t get too caught up in this information.
  • Stay consistent: You don’t have to track the same metrics all the time, but always use a single method for tracking and recording data so your numbers remain consistent.
  • Learn: When choosing which sales metrics to track, remember that you’re supporting your sales team, sales forecasting, and more. Learn from your data and put those insights to good use for your business overall.

The 5 most important types of sales metrics

Since there are a plethora of sales metrics available, it can be difficult to figure out which ones to track. Let’s take a closer look at five of the most important sales metrics:

1. Sales KPIs

Sales KPIs are connected to company-wide goals or objectives, which means this data allows organizations to measure overall performance. Managers often depend on sales KPIs to make informed business decisions. That’s because sales KPIs help identify key gaps related to product-market fit, sales team efficiency, and more.

The most important sales KPIs include:

  • Customer lifetime value (CLV): The amount of money a customer will spend during their entire relationship with your business.
  • Revenue from new customers: The revenue you get exclusively from new business or first-time buyers.
  • Revenue from existing customers: The revenue you earn from up- or cross-selling to current or previous customers.
  • Year-over-year growth: Your sales performance compared to the same time period last year.

2. Hiring and onboarding metrics

With the right hiring and sales onboarding observations and metrics, managers can fine-tune job descriptions and reduce the risk of future hiring mistakes, which can cost a great deal of time, money and headaches down the road. Sales leaders will also have valuable data that informs them of when and how to recruit new candidates.

The top hiring and onboarding metrics include:

  • Sales ramp-up time: Average time for new sales representatives to be completely productive.
  • Productivity: The ratio of sales to quota capacity, and the actual monetary impact of an increase or decrease in this productivity.
  • Retention: The number of new hires who stay with the company.

3. Training and coaching metrics

Without a strong sales enablement strategy, it’s nearly impossible to create and maintain a successful sales team. Therefore, training and coaching metrics are invaluable to those in sales, marketing, management, and just about anyone else involved in sales enablement.

These metrics include:

  • Efficiency: Time spent on training compared to time spent answering team member questions during sales processes.
  • Satisfaction: Sales representative satisfaction and engagement during onboarding, training and coaching.
  • Manager effectiveness: Quality of interaction in shadowing, ride-alongs, 1:1 reviews, two-way feedback loops, and more.
  • Cost of training: Average cost per sales representative in both money and time.

4. Outreach metrics

If your sales representatives focus on closing deals via phone, email, and social media, outreach metrics can be very beneficial, particularly when tied back to training content (learning) and skill-building activities (practice). Managers and trainers can use them to determine which outreach methods require greater attention.

Email

  • Open rate: How many customers open an e-mail.
  • Response rate: How many customers reply directly to an e-mail.
  • Engagement rate: How many customers click a link or otherwise engage with content in an email.

Phone

  • Call-backs: Percentage of prospects who call back to follow up.
  • Conversations: Percentage of prospects who agree to talk with your sales team.
  • Conversions: Percentage of prospects who move to the next steps.

Social media

  • Requests: Percentage of LinkedIn connection requests accepted.
  • Interactions: Number of likes, shares, and comments on social media posts.
  • Meetings: Number of meetings set through social media.
  • Opportunities: Number of qualified opportunities generated.

5. Pipeline metrics

Through pipeline metrics, sales managers can thoroughly understand their success throughout the entire pipeline. They can also provide insights into how their organization is dominating the market and what kind of demand there is for their products or services.

The most important pipeline metrics are:

  • Sales cycle length: How long it takes to move from prospect to customer.
  • Sales per rep: How many sales each representative makes in a given time period.
  • Sales by region: How many deals are closed in each area.
  • Average deal size: Average amount of revenue per sale.
  • Churn rate: How many customers are lost in a given time period.
  • Quota attainment: The average percentage of quota completion.

The importance of tracking and analyzing sales metrics

By making it a priority to track sales performance metrics, sales-driven organizations can:

Better optimize the employee experience

There’s a direct correlation between employee experience and customer experience. By tracking and analyzing sales metrics, organizations can gain valuable insight into what is working for their employees and what isn’t.

Provide insightful training feedback

While sales leaders can ask their new sales representatives how they feel about their training, the answers likely won’t be thorough enough to accurately gauge how they’re doing. With sales metrics within reach, however, teams can figure out exactly how effective their training program is and where they need to improve.

Increase customer retention

Retention efforts increase customer lifetime value and boost revenue as a result. To increase customer retention, sales representatives must engage existing customers to continue to buy an organization’s products or services.

There are a number of sales metrics such as customer churn, time between purchases, and loyal customer rate that can give sales leaders and the management team a close look at how well their organization is retaining clients.

How technology can help

An analytics interface is one of the easiest and most effective ways to track and manage key sales metrics. When shopping around for sales enablement analytics software, organizations should be on the lookout for the following important features:

  • Real-time alerts: An interface should offer data on real-time changes in the market.
  • Filters: Whether it’s a high-level view or a highly specific look at particular metrics, filters should allow you to customize your parameters for any given goal.
  • Sharing: Data, tools and tasks should be easy to share via email for internal parties or through public URLs for external users.
  • Collaboration tools: Dashboards should allow users to make comments, share key metrics and create slideshows. Automation features such as report scheduling and program notifications are important, too.

Mindtickle helps you make the most of sales data

Finding a sales metrics example that resonates with your team is one thing. It’s another thing entirely to use that sales metric to your advantage — and to combine it with all the other data you have at your disposal. You need a way to keep this information in one platform — a shared workspace that sales teams and other departments can access, contribute to and utilize at will.

Mindtickle’s revenue productivity platform is designed to help you understand and quantify the strengths and weaknesses of your sales team, then take data-driven steps to improve sales capabilities. With Mindtickle, you can leverage built-in reporting and analytics to measure seller effectiveness and track progress against KPIs.

Sales Performance in Mindtickle

Learn more about how Mindtickle helps you track sales performance and all sales metrics.

Request a Demo

This article was originally posted in April 2020, updated in March 2023, and again in February 2024. 

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The Ultimate Guide to Sales Forecasting https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-sales-forecasting/ Fri, 16 Feb 2024 01:11:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=16050 Sales forecasting is foundational for any revenue organization. With accurate forecasting, sales teams can make smarter decisions about revenue generation factors, including goal-setting, budgeting, hiring, and prospecting. But all too often, sales forecasts aren’t accurate. In fact, Gartner found that less than half (45%) of sales leaders have high confidence in their forecast accuracy. According …

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Sales forecasting is foundational for any revenue organization. With accurate forecasting, sales teams can make smarter decisions about revenue generation factors, including goal-setting, budgeting, hiring, and prospecting.

But all too often, sales forecasts aren’t accurate. In fact, Gartner found that less than half (45%) of sales leaders have high confidence in their forecast accuracy.

According to Gartner Research

of sales leaders have high confidence in their forecast accuracy
0 %

Furthermore, per the Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, over a third (34%) of sales organizations cite inaccurate forecasts and limited predictability in the business as one of their top challenges.

Inaccurate forecasting can negatively impact your entire organization – both in the short- and long-term. As such, revenue teams must have the right forecasting processes and tools in place to ensure more accurate forecasts.

In this post, we’ll look at what sales forecasting involves and why it’s often a struggle for revenue organizations. We’ll also share top tips and best practices to increase the accuracy of your sales forecasts. We’ll cover:

What is sales forecasting?

Sales forecasting is the process of predicting revenue for a certain period of time. It drives helps you understand where you’re off base. It also helps you find risks in your pipeline so you can correct them and close more deals.

Effective forecasting requires certain elements such as:

Consistency brings predictability. If your sales process and practices change every quarter, you’ll struggle to get correct data to create an accurate forecast. Consistent processes can even help make up for CRM data hygiene issues (though keeping your data clean is far better!).

If you’re transparent with your numbers and calls throughout your organization, everybody will have a better idea of where your business stands. Transparency works as a great behavior change mechanism for sales reps, as it gives them visibility into your numbers, how you got to them, and the next steps to follow to hit them.

Different segments in your business require different forecasting methods to reflect specific sales motions. If you use a one-size fits all approach to your forecasting, you’ll lose valuable insights and data from specific processes, and your forecasting will be limited.

Using multiple forecasting models brings you further insights and better results while helping you map out your numbers more effectively.

Following the idea of using multiple models to get accurate forecasts, here are some of the most common forecasting methods:

Pipeline forecasting method

This is a highly data-reliant method, which makes it one of the most accurate forecasting tools. It assesses the likelihood that a deal will close after analyzing company information like opportunity value and your rep’s win rate.

It can be quite straightforward if you’re using a program that automatically provides you with correct real-time data relevant to your forecasting, boosting its accuracy and helping you understand where everything is in your business. However, if the data you’re providing isn’t accurate or updated, this method will provide zero value to your organization, as it will only give you inaccurate and incomplete forecasting.

Intuitive forecasting

This method is based on your reps’ opinion of their ability to close a deal in a specific time, excluding objective data. The thinking behind this is that your reps are the ones working directly with your prospects, and, as such, they should be able to give you an accurate assessment of their chances of closing the deal.

However, this method is very risky and inconsistent. It’s an approach you can’t scale or unify, and the calculations you get will be different depending on how each of your sales reps is forecasting. Another downfall is that your reps’ forecasts can be quite optimistic — especially if they feel pressure to hit their quotas — and you may end up with forecast numbers far higher than you’re likely to reach.

Historical forecasting

This method is quick and easy, relying on past data to help you forecast. You look at the revenue generated at a specific time and assume that the revenue you’ll make for that matching period will be equal or greater.

This method doesn’t consider seasonality or changes in your buyers’ demand. In an economy where markets change constantly, this can be a questionable method to base your forecasting on. Still, it’s great to help you understand how your business is doing compared to previous quarters or years.

Opportunity stage forecasting

This method also relies heavily on historical data and it works by analyzing how far your prospects are along your pipeline and calculating the chances of the deal closing. This also helps you estimate the rates of success for the different stages of your pipeline.

Despite this method being quite data-driven, it doesn’t account for specific features of every deal, such as the size of the deal or how long the prospect has been in your pipeline. This means this calculation can bring you the same chances of closing a deal with a lead in your pipeline for two weeks or with one who’s been there for three months. If you don’t get high-quality, updated data, your forecast can be highly inaccurate.

Multivariable analysis forecasting

This is considered one of the most accurate forecasting methods. It analyzes different variables such as rep performance, the average length of a sales cycle, and the probability of closing a deal based on the specific opportunity.

This method is tailored to your organization’s systems and processes but requires detailed, accurate data. Your reps should ensure they’re keeping their data up-to-date, and better still, you should employ an advanced revenue intelligence solution.

Salesforce - Revenue Intelligence

Length of sales cycle forecasting

This method looks at how long a lead takes to convert into a paying customer. It encompasses data from different sales cycles, depending on their age and size, so you can group each deal type by average sales cycle duration.

This works well if your prospects are being tracked through your pipeline and your records are accurate. Conversation intelligence tools can help you record and analyze prospect interactions while ensuring your reps aren’t spending too much time inputting data.

Mindtickle Call AI with conversation intelligence insights

Challenges to accurate forecasting

Whatever method you use, producing highly accurate forecasts can be tough, and there are lots of challenges that can make it even more difficult:

Any company changes to systems, processes, or policies will affect sales. For example, if you implement new policies dealing with commissions or discounts, your revenue will likely fluctuate until things settle down. You must account for these details to get a highly accurate forecast.

When employees leave or are fired, revenue decreases until your new hires are ready to start closing deals. This too affects your forecasting.

Markets are always changing and it’s important to keep up to date with market and industry changes to get an accurate forecast. Seasonality also enters the game when it comes to market changes, as some services or products are in high demand at a certain time of the year.

When things are looking bright and the economy is strong, buyers are more likely to increase their budgets and spend more. When the economy isn’t looking its best, the sales cycle takes longer, and buyers are likely to need more reassurance before committing. They may also push harder for lower prices.

Whatever your competitors do affects you and your sales. If they lower their prices, your team will have to find a way to compete. If they go out of business, you may see an influx of new customers. Watch your competitors closely when you’re compiling your forecasting data.

Salespeople tend to be overly optimistic about closing a deal and with only 43% of reps hitting their targets, it’s easy to see how this can negatively impact your forecasting.

If you’re introducing new features, products, or pricing plans, your reps may be able to close more deals or close them faster.

7 steps to get started with sales forecasting

Let’s look at how to get started on the right foot with sales forecasting:

  1. Lay out a sales process your team can follow. When you have a detailed and consistent system in place, and everybody knows about it, it’s far easier for your reps to hit their quota, improving your forecasting accuracy.
  2. Set individual and team quotas. Working alongside sales leaders and reps to establish your ideal quotas is very important for your business’s long-term success and it substantially informs your sales forecasting.
  3. Budget for good softwareCustomer Relationship Management (CRM) tools can help your reps track opportunities and close deals better by giving them an accurate database. Revenue operations & intelligence software analyzes your team’s activities and deals, making your forecasting more accurate and efficient.
  4. Pick a sales forecasting method that works for you. Review the different forecasting methods. You need to make sure you pick one that works for the specifics of your business needs, capabilities, and goals.
  5. Use comprehensive data. When you include data from marketing, product, and finance, you get a better insight into your business situation, which helps you get more accurate forecasting. This can include automatically pulling data from every call and email transcript, as well as calendar invite data, to ensure the right title and number of contacts on an account have accepted invitations recently.
  6. Review previous sales forecasts. Compare current data with past data helps you notice any trends or discrepancies, which in turn helps you adjust your business plans effectively and get accurate data for your forecasting.
  7. Inform your sales teams and keep them accountable. Any changes you make to your system need to be communicated to your teams so they can be on the same page as you and understand how the changes affect them. Gather feedback from your team regularly also helps you see what works and what needs to be improved to make sure everybody is working to the best of their ability.

Sales forecasting best practices

Once you’ve looked at the steps above, you might want to consider the best practices within the industry. These are easy to follow, and implementing them from the get-go will save you some headaches in the future. Some of these best practices include making sure you’re prioritizing the processes and deals that need it most, standardizing all your processes, getting access to high-quality data, inspecting your deals regularly, and involving stakeholders from all departments within your team.

Some useful tips to hit the ground running when it comes to forecasting are:

End manual data entry

Revenue intelligence and forecasting tools complete data entry tasks faster and more accurately than your reps, freeing their time to do more beneficial things for your business.

Consolidate your tech stack

If you consolidate all your software into a unified platform, you’ll be saving your reps time by giving them easy access to all the information they need — and you’ll be saving yourself money by getting all the services you need in one place.

Create better buyer experiences

The right software gives you the right information about your prospects at the right time, helping you deliver a truly personalized experience and enhancing the likelihood of getting repeat orders from your customers over and over again. Consider solutions that allow you to see whether sales methodologies like BANT or CHAMP are being followed, whether or not sales reps are creating Digital Sales Rooms personalized to customers to share content, and what’s actually happening in emails and on calls.

Sales forecasting mistakes to avoid

Accurate sales forecasting helps you drive revenue and business growth, but there are some things to avoid if you want to make sure you’re getting the most out of your data, such as:

  • Relying on input from sellers. Some forecasting methods rely too heavily on sales reps to give you predictions about current deals, which is entirely subjective and often inaccurate.
  • Thinking of your forecast as an isolated process. Forecasting must be executed with an all-encompassing approach that includes all departments and key players in your organization.
  • Relying on intuition. Intuition isn’t data-driven and, as such, it doesn’t have a lot of value for your forecasting.

Improve your revenue operations with artificial intelligence

Sales forecasting is much easier and more accurate when you have the right data, and the easiest, quickest way to get that is by using artificial intelligence (AI). But it’s not just about better forecasting — the benefits extend across your sales organization:

Optimized revenue at every level

AI can bring all your revenue data together and turn it into complete visibility into the sales process so you can discover pipeline risks, improve operational efficiency, boost win rates, and drive predictable growth.

Increased sales team productivity

Data-driven AI software helps your sales reps get tailored coaching opportunities from their line managers. It gives your managers insights into every call, email, or meeting, helping them identify deal blockers for their sales team. This improves the productivity and efficiency of your salespeople and empowers them to close more deals faster.

Pipeline visibility and operational efficiency

Another perk of AI forecasting software is that it automatically analyzes your data to tell you where your pipeline is growing or decreasing, helping you take the right next steps. It also reduces the need for manual input, allowing your rev ops team to focus on maximizing your revenue and impact.

Unification of your tech stack

Having everything you need automatically and accurately collected in one platform makes everyone’s job easier. Good AI forecasting software brings everything you need into one single dashboard, helping your team access relevant information without having to log into different platforms. (We found out that 51% of sales leadership professionals indicated they were using 10 or more tools.)

Bottom line: Data-driven AI software is a great tool to get highly accurate forecasting, drive your business’s growth, and keep your teams efficient and motivated.

Mindtickle helps you boost your revenue by offering you full visibility into your business’s health while giving you and your teams all the information you need in one single platform.

Sales Forecasting with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can jumpstart your sales forecasting efforts? 

Request a Demo

This post originally published in February 2023 and was updated in February 2024. 

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The 6 Best Sales Enablement Tools of 2024 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-11-best-sales-enablement-tools-of-2022-mindtickle/ Thu, 15 Feb 2024 08:09:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14316 Only 43% of salespeople reach their quota. On top of that, without the proper tools, it’s hard to tell what problems make them miss their quota. But with sales enablement tools, you can understand the attitudes, content, and skills that help your sales reps reach their objectives. With features like personalized skill development and user …

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Only 43% of salespeople reach their quota. On top of that, without the proper tools, it’s hard to tell what problems make them miss their quota. But with sales enablement tools, you can understand the attitudes, content, and skills that help your sales reps reach their objectives.

With features like personalized skill development and user analytics, sales teams can improve closing rates, strengthen communication skills, sales coaching, and provide insights to enhance sales cycles.

What to look for in a sales enablement tool

Sales enablement tools help teams understand the health of a sales cycle, spot weaknesses, and manage content that reduces a company’s risk of falling behind its goals by 27%.

Understanding analytics and finding material should be easy. And, as sales reps are always on the go, opt for cloud-based and mobile-friendly tools that are always accessible.

You should be able to extract insights to perform better and points to improve on for future sales.

Merge contact information with the sales cycle so sales reps can personalize the right content and approach for each contact, depending on previous sales history.

Content distribution and storage is important for fast and accessible material. It is also important to track data to show which content performs the best depending on the user profile.

Insights on sales rep performance can spot weaknesses and strengths. These data points capture roadblocks in the sales process, and you can offer sales rep coaching and training when needed.

The following list goes over the best sales enablement tools of 2024. Each platform has strong features that offer support for your sales team.

  1. Mindtickle
  2. Seismic
  3. Highspot
  4. Showpad
  5.  Allego
  6.  Gong

Mindtickle

Mindtickle is a market-leading sales enablement platform that helps revenue leaders boost sales through analytics, skill development, and content management. The platform has proven to increase sales rep revenue by 64%.

Benefits of Mindtickle

The biggest benefit of Mindtickle is the integrated platform of sales enablement insights, content management, conversation intelligence, coaching, and training.

Here’s why.

The platform records each interaction with customers, the content used, and the sales courses that the sales rep has completed. Not only that, but Mindtickle also compares every sales rep’s behavior and tone through recorded calls and emails to find the winning strategy and improve its sales recommendations.

With all this data, Mindtickle gives a full understanding of weaknesses in the sales pipeline and what skills a sales rep should learn to improve their sales rate.

In turn, the continuous development of sales reps increases win rates whilst simultaneously improving sales strategy and learning pitches for future suggestions to other sales reps.

Lastly, Mindtickle sales training differentiates itself by using gamification and video to tap into personal motivation and encourage employees to develop their skills. The platform uses engagement tactics like quizzes and role plays to ensure learned skills are applied to everyday tasks.

This is especially helpful for new hires and developing managers. In fact, Mindtickle was able to cut Janssen India’s onboarding ramp time in half.

Features

  • Analyzes account interactions and sales rep negotiations to identify winning behavior.
  • Centralized content management accesses situation training, tools, and marketing content and provides insights on when and how to use each piece of content to suit the customer target.
  • AI engines give feedback on tone, keywords, and pace of conversations. Then, the conversation insights are used to create training programs and personal coaching.
  • AI-recommended next steps and deal risks are identified with health scores, calls, and email sentiments.
  • Predictive revenue models use real-world pipeline data to suggest training with role-plays and recommended content.
  • Integrates with CRMs, APIs, calendars, and most platforms to centralize the sales stack. This avoids lost information and reduces scheduling, account notes, and communication time.
  • Mobile experience for sales reps on the go.

Price

Schedule a demo to learn about Mindtickle’s offer and experience a personalized walkthrough of the platform.

Final thoughts

Mindtickle was ranked the highest-rated sales enablement platform by G2. The platform’s ability to translate sales rep performance into insights helps teams improve and integrate new skills in a way that is evident in their future sales interactions.

Additionally, the app has the best adoption and is rated the easiest to use by G2.

G2 rating: 4.7 

Seismic

Seismic equips sales teams with training and content to close deals. The biggest differentiator is the ability to pull data from CRMs and create personalized charts, presentations, and other sales material automatically.

Benefits

Seismic can personalize the buyer experience with customizable dashboards that give detailed buyer insight and recommend actions. The platform pulls data and content performance insights from CRM data.

It gives sellers ownership over the sales materials with centralized content management, where reps customize materials to add personalization to their deals.

Features

  • Content management for teams to create, organize, control, and take ownership over content.
  • Automate and personalize content with data integrations to deliver a customized workflow.
  • Learning and coaching courses to onboard and improve sales skills.
  • Integrates with all types of platforms, from analytics to CRM.

Price

Prices are unavailable.

Final thoughts

Seismic is helpful for teams looking to automate and customize their sales materials. And Seismic’s strong analytics helps sales reps improve their sales and onboarding.

G2 rating: 4.4

Highspot

Highspot focuses on coaching and measures seller behavior to give recommendations that improve sales.

Benefits

Highspot aligns sales templates with selling scenarios to suggest the appropriate approach. The training portal helps sellers follow role-specific courses to improve knowledge retention by engaging in virtual selling activities.

Highspot integrates with social media platforms to directly pitch to customers through their network.

Features

  • Content management stores personalized content and uses AI management to highlight resources relevant to existing workflows.
  • Integrates with over 100 platforms.
  • Reps have access to sales templates that are industry best practices.
  • Analytics on content usage, sales performance, and interactive data reports to pinpoint content performance.
  • Personalization of landing pages, emails, and micro-portals.
  • Sales performance using scoreboards and customer scenarios.

Price

Prices are unavailable.

Final thoughts

Highspot provides industry context recommendations which are helpful for teams learning different industries that need fast adaptation. ROI pinpoints successful content in the pipeline, which is helpful for companies who require high buyer engagement to invest in products.

However, Highspot doesn’t offer call monitoring and feedback.

G2 rating: 4.7

Showpad

Showpad improves B2B selling by giving reps guided experiences for each scenario. It has two main solutions that can be used separately or together. Showpad Coach is for sales training and coaching. Showpad Content is for content creation and distribution.

Benefits

For companies with many different industries and target audiences, Showpad’s sales plays help reps with new client relationships. Reps are given seller information, industry insights, and opportunities for upselling or cross-selling.

And to ensure each team member is working towards better selling behavior, Showpad uses quizzes and tests to identify any skill gaps for training.

Features

  • Tracks buyer interest to recommend which customers to invest time in.
  • Analytics to gather top performance and replicate behavior.
  • Content management identifies opportunities for cross-selling and recommends next steps.
  • Powerful integrations and collaboration features for content creation and management.
  • Sales forecast predictability.
  • Videos embedded for personal workflows.

Price

Prices are unavailable.

Final thoughts

Showpad continuously trains employees and has analytics to understand skill gaps. Its content management stores and distributes selling content easily. Although Showpad does identify winning sales behavior, it doesn’t offer an ideal rep profile for selling behavior reference.

G2 rating: 4.6

Allego

Allego’s platform is comprehensive with analytics, skill training, conversation monitoring, and content management. The differentiation comes with using video for learning and communication.

Benefits

Allego records pitches and asynchronous communication, and course creation are easy with content tools that publish new lessons onto the platform.

Analytics monitors conversations, gives sellers feedback, and gives written suggestions when reps feel stuck in customer interactions.

Features

  • Accessible content management and analytics show ROI, instructions, and peer examples.
  • AI-powered coaches recommend next steps and courses.
  • Conversation intelligence to improve the conversation.
  • Pre-board new hires with onboarding channels and virtually show good examples.
  • Insights on calls and deals to identify weaknesses in pipelines.
  • Score sales readiness to assess the probability of sales closing rates.

Price

Not available

Final thoughts

Allego has extensive AI-powered metrics for sales readiness, sales content, and courses. Although Allego analyzes words spoken, it doesn’t provide feedback on tone or presentation to improve sellers’ communication skills.

G2 rating: 4.6

Gong

Gong captures customer interactions and analyzes salesperson behavior for communication risks and improvement opportunities.

Benefits

The benefit of Gong is the amount of analysis and reports given to coaches from sales rep interactions.

Front-line managers receive insights on sales reps for improvement, but successful sales cycles record talk tracks so the next sales rep knows exactly what to say to close a deal.

And for busy sales reps, Gong ensures no actions are missed with real-time alerts when actions are required.

Features

  • Shares top-performing salespeople strategies.
  • Identifies weaknesses in sales rep interactions and provides insight for improvement.
  • Helps strategize buyer path from other successful reps.
  • Comprehensive integrations with every type of platform.
  • Centralizes the content for revenue teams to work together and collaborate on accounts.

Price

Not available.

Final thoughts

Gong’s platform transforms each interaction into insights. However, there’s little onboarding and educational training for sales reps to work and develop their skill set. And Gong doesn’t offer video role plays or practice situations to reinforce learned behaviors.

G2 rating: 4.7

Whatever you choose, your sales enablement tool should scale as your company grows

Your sales enablement tool choice should complement your team’s needs. As your company grows, your choice of sales enablement platform must scale with you. So it’s important to look for a solution that gives support to growing roles and content libraries.

When companies grow, their products and offers expand. It’s important to ensure your sales team feels supported with the tools to navigate growth and new clientele without losing the brand’s guidelines and company objectives. That’s why clear content management and analytics help sales teams keep content that performs and organize material that drives revenue.

And this can come in the form of courses and knowledge tests to onboard new hires into the company with clear expectations and ideal rep behavior. The insights from winning sales rep behavior ramp up the onboarding process and empower hires with knowledge and traits to reach their quota.

Mindtickle supports your team with its content management system, sales readiness, analytics, and courses to provide support and direction for your team to grow.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Want to learn more about how Mindtickle can help revenue enablement teams build + scale programs that impact business outcomes? Let's see if we're a fit for one another. 

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This post was originally published in September 2022 and updated in February 2024. 

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How to Use Your CRM, Enablement Analytics, and Call AI to Inform Better Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-use-your-crm-enablement-analytics-and-call-ai-to-inform-better-coaching/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-use-your-crm-enablement-analytics-and-call-ai-to-inform-better-coaching/#comments Mon, 12 Feb 2024 17:04:18 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18970 Today we’re re-sharing one of the most popular videos from our series focusing on reducing your tech stack chaos. In it, Elisha Zhang, one of our product marketing managers, shares insights on reducing chaos in sales onboarding by using CRM, enablement analytics, and conversation intelligence. Elisha shares three key takeaways: identifying short-term deal risks by …

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Today we’re re-sharing one of the most popular videos from our series focusing on reducing your tech stack chaos. In it, Elisha Zhang, one of our product marketing managers, shares insights on reducing chaos in sales onboarding by using CRM, enablement analytics, and conversation intelligence. Elisha shares three key takeaways: identifying short-term deal risks by aligning competencies with sales stages, mitigating systemic risks through targeted coaching, closing skill gaps, and building a coaching culture by evaluating teams based on CRM data. The approach enables accurate risk assessment, sustained improvement, and a culture of continuous improvement.

Key takeaways

Identify short-term deal risks

  • Align competencies important to roles with different sales process stages.
  • Develop skill profiles for each rep to identify strengths and gaps.
  • Utilize this information for more accurate short-term risk identification, especially in forecasting and deal reviews.

Mititgate systemic risks and closing skill gaps

  • Coach reps based on identified skill gaps, providing targeted support.
  • Leverage conversation intelligence to review previous calls and offer hands-on feedback for sustained improvement.
  • Evaluate teams or the entire organization on competencies within the CRM context to identify and remediate bottlenecks.

Build a better coaching culture

  • Use data sets to determine trends and root causes of deal challenges, fostering a culture of continuous improvement.
  • Validate hypotheses by reviewing calls from lost deals and incorporating insights into future coaching and training sessions.

Transcription

Hi everyone, my name is Elisha Zhang, and I’m a product marketing manager at Mindtickle. I know that I often find myself anticipating a lot of overwhelmed when it comes to onboarding with a new company, particularly because of all of the technology chaos that is out there in our modern world. I’m here today to help reduce some of that chaos as you enter the new year. In particular, we will discuss how you can use your CRM enablement analytics and conversation intelligence to better inform your coaching.

Once you have married your CRM, enablement, analytics, and conversation intelligence, and those three data sets are in harmony, you can do some things. The first is that you’ll be able to identify short-term risks when it comes to your deals more accurately. And then the second is that in the long term, you’ll be able to mitigate all of that risk, especially at a more systemic level. And you’ll be doing that by closing skill gaps that you’ve identified. Okay, so to actually identify that short-term risk, you will need to set yourself up for success by having competencies that are important to your role identified and mapped to the different stages of your sales process.

Once all of that is done, you’ll want to use those competency profiles and identify a skill profile for each rep, which will help you see if a person has this gap, and this person is very strong in this particular skill. Once you have this better understanding of folks individually, your managers will be better able to use the information in their CRMs for forecasting and deal reviews. That’s because if you see a particularly large deal, for instance, and you’re very excited about it for this quarter, you can go into see who the owner of that deal is and try to understand whether or not their current skill gaps are going to introduce any risk to the field.

For example, I might have a rep who is not particularly strong and negotiation. I can see that this quarter, they have a huge deal entering the negotiation stage and we really want to close it out this quarter. Once I really actually have identified that and see that that is a risk, then I’ll be able to coach them a little bit better because I will know the targeted skill that is going to be necessary to get them through and close this deal.

You’ll be able to do all of that with the help of conversation intelligence as well because you’ll be able to go back and review the calls previously held in the deal. As well as take a look at that rep’s calls from similar stages on different deals, and help provide feedback to help them improve as you give them a little bit more hands-on support.

Of course, once you start to coach folks on skills, you’ll find a lot more sustained improvement and mitigation of risk. In particular, if you can evaluate your teams or your entire organization based on those competencies in the context of your CRM data, it will help you with identifying and determining remediation for actually opening up the bottlenecks.

So perhaps it’s the case that many of your deals are getting stuck or being lost at the proof of concept stage. It might also be the case that you see as an organization that folks are not scoring terribly high on the demo role plays. Well, when you take these two things in combination, you will probably come up with the hypothesis that the demos that we’re doing are not very good. And as a result, we’re losing deals once we get into the proof of concept stage. Okay? Pretty simple. Let’s try and go validate that, take a look at all of your calls that are, or maybe a select few calls for particularly big lost deals from the last quarter or last year, and validate whether or not it was the demo, or maybe it was another skill that was lacking. It could be the case, for instance, that the demo itself was very good. But because we weren’t very good at active listening, it just was a generic demo, as opposed to something that was more tailored for the prospect.

Once you’ve gotten a better understanding and really determined exactly how you want to remediate, maybe you can go ahead and incorporate that into your next Escale. These are just a few ways to use these three data sets to build a better coaching culture. I hope this video has given you some tips on how you can reduce your technology chaos and build a better coaching culture in the new year.

Mindtickle in Action

Ready to learn more about how Mindtickle helps you use your CRM, enablement analytics, and conversation intelligence to inform better coaching?

Book a Demo

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What is Sales Collateral and How Does it Help Reps Close More Deals? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/why-is-sales-collateral-and-how-does-it-help-reps-close-more-deals/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/why-is-sales-collateral-and-how-does-it-help-reps-close-more-deals/#comments Thu, 25 Jan 2024 16:16:18 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18924 Any organization aiming to grow revenue must make sales engagement a priority. When buyers are engaged, they’re more likely to advance through the sales funnel – and make a purchase. In order to engage buyers, sales reps must deliver the right information at the right time. The right sales collateral is essential. In this post, …

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Any organization aiming to grow revenue must make sales engagement a priority. When buyers are engaged, they’re more likely to advance through the sales funnel – and make a purchase.

In order to engage buyers, sales reps must deliver the right information at the right time.

The right sales collateral is essential.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales collateral is, why it’s important, and what the different types are. We’ll also share some tips and best practices for creating more effective sales content that’ll help your reps close more deals.

What is sales collateral and why is it important?

First things first: what is sales collateral?

It’s any type of asset that enables sales reps to engage prospects and guide them through the sales funnel. It takes many forms, which we’ll explore in detail a little later on.

Print

Digital

Internal

External

Print vs. digital sales collateral

Today, some organizations continue to use printed sales assets. However, the vast majority of sales organizations are transitioning to digital collateral. This is especially true in today’s world, when many sales are conducted without a buyer and seller ever meeting face-to-face.

A best practice is to leverage a sales content management solution to centralize your digital collateral.

Internal vs. external sales collateral

Some sales collateral is used externally. In other words, this collateral is shared with customers and prospects. Some examples include case studies and data sheets.

Other collateral is for internal use only. This collateral (often referred to as sales enablement collateral) is developed only for use by the sales team. Some examples of internal collateral include sales playbooks and sales battlecards.

The importance of sales collateral

Now, we’re clear on what sales collateral is. But why is it important?

Sales collateral drives sales effectiveness and sales efficiency. When it’s done well, it engages buyers with the right information at the right time in the right format. Outstanding collateral can accelerate the sales cycle, which means sales reps can close deals faster. When reps can close more deals, your revenue will grow.

What are the different types of sales collateral?

There are many different types of sales and marketing collateral. Each type is especially effective in certain parts of the purchase journey. For example, a case study may be impactful for a prospect who is close to making a decision – but first wants to get a better idea of how other businesses have leveraged a similar solution to achieve their goals. However, the same case study may not resonate with prospects who are higher up in the funnel and just starting to research their options.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the different stages of the sales journey – and some of the best collateral for each stage.

Sales and marketing collateral for the awareness stage

During the awareness stage, prospective customers are aware that they have a challenge (or multiple challenges), and they’ve started to look for solutions to address it. B2B collateral is an important tool that helps ensure prospects become aware of your company and its solutions.

The purpose of collateral at this stage is to make your brand known – and demonstrate that your business is a thought leader. Some common types of collateral that resonate during the awareness stage include:

Blogs are a great way to demonstrate your thought leadership during the awareness phase.

Videos can convey key information in a format that’s easy to digest.

Enables prospects to see what’s new at your organization.

These are a great way to quickly convey a lot of information in an easy-to-digest format.

Regularly posting on key social media channels can increase prospects’ awareness of your brand.

Sales and marketing collateral for the consideration stage

During the consideration stage, prospects start weighing their options. They know about your organization and may have some knowledge about your products and services. But they’re not ready to sign on the dotted line just yet.

Collateral can help sellers build relationships and deliver value during the consideration phase with assets including:

These can be an effective way to present a large amount of information.

eBooks and guides are popular ways to add value during the consideration stage.

Conducting surveys – and then summarizing your findings in a research report – is a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

Webinars are an interactive way to share a variety of information and data with prospects.

At this stage, sellers should be sure to use B2B sales content that is industry-specific and speaks to the buyer’s specific challenges.

Sales and marketing collateral for the decision-making stage

At this stage, prospects are getting ready to buy. They’re likely considering your business – as well as a few competitors. The right collateral can build their confidence about your solution being the best option. Collateral that’s effective during the decision-making stage includes:

You can put together fact sheets to concisely convey key product information.

Tells the story of how a company has leveraged your solution to solve their challenges.

These customer quotes give prospects an idea of what it’s like to work with your company.

Provides prospects with concise feedback from your current customers.

Tools like ROI calculators can help prospects understand what they can expect from investing in your products or services.

Demos enable buyers to see your solution in action.

Sales and marketing collateral for retention stage

After you’ve closed a deal, the goal is to keep that customer around long-term. After all, retaining an existing customer is a whole lot easier (and less expensive) than acquiring a new one.

This can be a great way to share best practices to ensure customers are getting the most value from your solution.

Let customers know what’s new with your product and how it benefits them.

Newsletters are a great way to share what’s new at your company. They can also include links to other resources that’ll build customers’ knowledge and ensure they’re getting the most from your solutions.

You can engage customers by sending automated emails when they complete certain activities.

How do you create sales collateral for your business?

The right sales collateral can help you grow revenue. But creating collateral for the sake of creating collateral isn’t effective. After all, research suggests that up to 70% of B2B sales collateral sits unused.

Asking key questions for sales content development

It’s important to create collateral that resonates with buyers throughout the purchase journey – and is proven to move deals forward. It’s also imperative to ensure sellers know where to find the collateral they need – as well as how to use it.

So, how can you start creating more effective collateral for your team? The first, foundational step is to answer these five questions:

Question #1: Who is your customer?

Before developing any type of asset, you must have a clear understanding of who you are talking to. Today, many sales organizations develop buyer personas. Buyer personas are detailed descriptions of fictitious prospects who are a good fit for your organization’s products or services.

Question #2: What are your customers’ pain points?

Generic B2B sales content isn’t effective. Instead, it must speak to a customer’s specific pain points.

When developing your buyer personas, it’s important to understand their challenges. That way, you can develop sales content that specifically addresses those pain points.

Question #3: How can prospects trust your solution?

To close deals, you must articulate why your solution is the best option for solving your customers’ challenges.

Of course, it’s important to establish your brand messaging. However, incorporating the voices of your existing customers into your sales content can be a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

A recent Gartner study found that “third-party interactions, such as reading customer references or reviews and consulting directly with third-party experts, are better suited to provide customers with value affirmation.”

Question #4: What types of content will help in the buyer journey?

You know who your customers are and you understand their pain points. You also understand how your solution is ideal to address those pain points. Next, you have to determine what types of content are right for delivering your message throughout the purchase journey.

There’s no right answer here. As we discussed earlier, different types of sales collateral resonate with buyers at different points in the purchase journey. It’s important to determine the right mix of sales assets, measure regularly, and optimize accordingly.

Question #5: How can you retain your existing customers?

Often, sales content is focused on acquiring new customers. However, it’s also important to develop collateral that aids in customer retention.

It’s important to ask yourself what you need to keep your customers around long-term. Then, develop the right content to engage them.

You can use the answers to these key questions to develop the right sales collateral.

Streamlining  management

You’ve answered the key questions above and used the answers to develop sales collateral. What now?

It’s important to ensure your sellers know how to find and use your newly created sales content.

At some sales organizations, collateral is stored in multiple repositories or distributed by email. This makes it difficult for sellers to find the sales assets they need in a specific situation. In addition, it’s common for sellers to use outdated content.

A best practice is to store and organize your sales collateral in a single platform. Many revenue enablement solutions include content management functionality so you can store all content in one place. That way, sales reps can easily find the best content for any selling scenario.

In addition, sales enablement teams must provide training to ensure sellers know when and how to use the sales collateral that’s available to them.

Measuring and optimizing 

Sometimes, organizations develop a piece of sales collateral, upload it to a repository, and then never think about it again. This isn’t an effective approach.

Instead, it’s important to consistently measure usage of sales collateral. In other words, how often are sellers using a specific piece of sales collateral? And how are buyers engaging with it?

It’s also important to measure how (or whether) sales collateral is impacting sales outcomes. That way, you can understand which collateral has the biggest impact – and focus your efforts on those assets.

Increase the impact of your sales collateral with Mindtickle

Sales collateral – when it’s done well – can be a powerful tool for engaging buyers throughout the sales cycle. When sales reps are able to engage a buyer, they’re more likely to close a deal.

But generic collateral won’t cut it. Instead, organizations must equip sellers with content that resonates with buyers and is proven to improve sales outcomes. In addition, organizations must ensure this sales content is easy to find and that sales reps know how to use it.

Mindtickle’s revenue productivity platform incorporates sales content management, which enables organizations to centralize their collateral. That means sales reps can easily find the right sales content for any selling scenario. In addition, sales leadership can easily measure how collateral is being used and whether it’s improving sales outcomes.

Of course, it’s important to ensure sellers know how to use sales collateral. Mindtickle also enables organizations to deliver sales training and sales enablement to ensure sellers know how and when to use the sales assets that are available to them.

Sales Content Management in Mindtickle

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23 Sales Productivity Statistics to Inform Your Enablement Strategy in 2024 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/23-sales-productivity-statistics-for-2023-and-beyond/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/23-sales-productivity-statistics-for-2023-and-beyond/#comments Tue, 23 Jan 2024 08:47:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17327 In 2024, many sales organizations are focused on measuring and improving sales productivity. But what does that even mean? What is sales productivity? Simply put, sales productivity is how efficient and effective your sales reps are at hitting a variety of revenue milestones and goals. Of course, just because reps are making more calls and …

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In 2024, many sales organizations are focused on measuring and improving sales productivity. But what does that even mean?

What is sales productivity?

Simply put, sales productivity is how efficient and effective your sales reps are at hitting a variety of revenue milestones and goals. Of course, just because reps are making more calls and sending more emails does not mean they are necessarily progressing sales or generating revenue.

At Mindtickle, we define a sales productivity tool as anything that improves and measures the skills, will, and in-field behaviors demonstrated by reps.

That might include tools that hold reps accountable, such as email and call activity tracking; those that empower reps to better prepare for meetings and follow-up, such as Content Management Systems (CMS); and solutions that arm reps with insights that help them drive specific deals and accounts forward more effectively.

Read on to see some of the top sales productivity stats your organization must know and adapt to in 2024 & beyond.

Sales productivity stats & customer experience

  • The average enterprise B2B buying group consists of between five and 11 stakeholders, who represent an average of five distinct business functions. (Gartner B2B Buying Report).
  • Once you’re talking to a decision-maker, the ideal number of calls to win a sale is six. (Crunchbase)
  • 80% of sales occur after the fifth call.
  • The best time to make sales calls is within an hour of receiving their initial inquiry. (Callhippo)
  • Only 7 percent of companies respond within five minutes of a prospect’s form submission. But that can hurt you—35 to 50 percent of sales go to the company that responds first.
  • Although the number of buying interactions increases slightly every year (e.g., from 16 to 17 between 2017 and 2019), the number of buying interactions during the pandemic jumped from 17 to 27. – (Forrester’s 2021 B2B Buying Study).
  • 86% of sellers say they lost or delayed at least one deal in the past year because a key client stakeholder left the company. (LinkedIn State of Sales Report)

According to LinkedIn

of sellers say they lost a deal because a stakeholder left the company
0 %
  • Almost 40% of sellers have closed deals over $500,000 without ever meeting the customer face to face. (LinkedIn)
  • ​​In B2B sales, 84% of buyers start the purchasing process with a referral. (Harvard Business Review)
  • Peer recommendations influence 90% of all B2B buying decisions. (Harvard Business Review)
  • Referred customers have an 18% percent lower churn rate than customers acquired through other sources.

Referred customers have a

lower churn rate than customers acquired through other sources.
0 %
  • When consumers are acquired through referrals, they have a 37% higher retention rate, and they’re four times more likely to make a purchase.
  • 81% of sales reps say buyers are increasingly conducting their own research before reaching out. (Salesforce)
  • 87% of business buyers expect sales reps to act as trusted advisors. (Salesforce)
  • Buyers are 2.8 times more likely to make a purchase if there is a high level of information consistency between the vendor’s website and the vendor’s sales reps. (Gartner B2B Buying Report)

Sales productivity stats & rep time management

  • Sales reps spend a mere 28% of their week actively selling. (Salesforce )
  • 82% of top-performing salespeople always perform research prior to reaching out to prospects, compared to 49% of other sellers. (LinkedIn)
  • Three-quarters of sellers are doing “significantly more” or “more” research in the past 12 months. (LinkedIn)
  • On average, it takes eight cold calls to reach a prospect. (Crunchbase)

On average, it takes

to reach a prospect
-1 cold calls

Sales productivity stats for sales managers

  • 67% of sales managers say that overseeing a remote sales team is more challenging than they anticipated. (LinkedIn State of Sales Report).
  • The majority (71.4%) of sellers believe 50 percent of the prospects they speak with aren’t a good fit for the product or service they’re selling.

Sales productivity stats for sales enablement

  • Long-term training is important and—unfortunately—overlooked. 85 percent of reps report being coached on closing open deals, but only 24 percent report being coached on long-term skills.
  • Only 26% of sales professionals say they receive 1:1 coaching from their managers at least weekly. (Salesforce)
  • 90% of content is unused by sales. (American Marketing Association).

Sales productivity & technology usage

  • 63% of organizations have ten or more tools to support sales activities – but sellers incorporate fewer into their daily workflows. (Mindtickle).
  • 76% of organizations expect AI to significantly affect their day-to-day jobs over the next year. (Mindtickle)

Mindtickle research found that

of organizations expect AI to significantly affect their day-to-day jobs over the next year
0 %
  • The most common use cases for AI to drive sales productivity include analyzing call recordings (58%), helping reps get answers to customer questions in the flow of work (54%), and serving up recommendations for training (51%). (Mindtickle)
  • Gartner predicts that by 2028, 60% of B2B seller work will be executed through conversational user interfaces via generative AI sales technologies.
    How to improve your sales team using these statistics:

How to improve your sales team using these statistics

Based on these stats, we’ve got some recommendations for you below. Here are some of the top ways to apply these stats to put changes in place that actually improve your sales team’s performance and productivity. 

  • Roll out an enablement program around multi-threading to different personas. Make sure every rep understands how to drive urgency and qualify every persona. Consider creating a laminated “desk buddy” for each persona to help reps multi-thread.
  • Use a revenue intelligence or conversation intelligence tool to score deal health and know with data if reps have engaged the right title and number of contacts.
Salesforce - Revenue Intelligence
  • Refine your BDR process so that you are picking up the phone and reaching out to leads who visit your website right away. Consider an automated and highly personalized chatbot.
  • Build a playbook for what reps do when a champion leaves the company, which is more likely to happen in the current economy.
  • Put a really detailed referral program in place to incentivize reps to ask for customer referrals and customers to provide them.
  • Build a playbook around when/how reps can add value with each persona they engage.
  • Automate note-taking and account hand-offs with conversation intelligence
  • Ensure you have an up-to-date cold calling process and playbook in place – cold calling is NOT dead!
  • Implement MEDPIC, BANT, or another sales methodology to ensure sales reps are qualifying prospects. Track that this process is being completed in your CRM.
  • Provide sales managers with detailed sales manager training on how to coach. Measure how many calls and deals they review and track that coaching was complete.
Salesforce- Coaching
  • Go beyond deal coaching to focus on skill development. In month one, focus on discovery. In month two, focus on perfecting the demo and telling powerful customer stories. In month three, focus on differentiating and handling objections.
  • Put a tool in place to ensure top-rated and most viewed/shared content is easy for reps to find. Make sure reps can provide two-way feedback on the content you’ve created so that you know what is truly driving deals forward and what reps find useful.
  • When possible, consolidate tools and prioritize tools that enable you to automate processes or access voice of customer insights that will help your reps uncover deal risks, better compete, and win more

 

Sales Productivity in Mindtickle

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This post was originally published in January 2023 and updated in January 2024. 

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The Ultimate Guide to Building a Sales Enablement Strategy https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-ultimate-guide-to-sales-enablement/ Wed, 10 Jan 2024 08:56:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/the-ultimate-guide-to-sales-enablement/ When sales enablement is done well, we know it gets results. Research shows that orgs with sales enablement achieve a 49% win rate on forecasted deals, compared to 42.5% for those without. Win rates for orgs 0 % with sales enablement 0 % without sales enablement But there’s still a disconnect. According to CSO Insights, …

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When sales enablement is done well, we know it gets results. Research shows that orgs with sales enablement achieve a 49% win rate on forecasted deals, compared to 42.5% for those without.

Win rates for orgs

with sales enablement
0 %
without sales enablement
0 %

But there’s still a disconnect. 

According to CSO Insights, only 27.5% of stakeholders feel that sales enablement initiatives meet or exceed their expectations

A well-designed sales enablement strategy can provide the necessary tools, resources, and support to empower sales teams and drive revenue growth. 

In this guide, we will explore:

  • What sales enablement is
  • Why it is important
  • How to implement a sales enablement strategy
  • Best practices to consider
  • How to find the best sales enablement platform

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement is the training, tools, and resources provided to sales reps to help them successfully close more deals. The goal of sales enablement is to equip salespeople to be indispensable consultants to their buyers, build long-term customer loyalty, and drive profits for the organization as a whole.

With an effective sales enablement program, reps are better equipped to provide their customers with valuable information and offer insight that guides buyers into optimal purchasing decisions. Salespeople, therefore, become trustworthy resources that buyers rely on for the long haul.

Why is a sales enablement strategy important?

With a clearly defined sales enablement strategy, sales enablement practitioners can continually drive revenue and achieve key business objectives like quota attainment.

A sales enablement strategy encompasses a range of tactics and initiatives aimed at empowering sales teams with the necessary tools, knowledge, and support to drive success.

The importance of a sales enablement strategy lies in its ability to address common obstacles faced by sales teams, streamline processes, and maximize the potential of every salesperson. By aligning marketing and sales efforts, optimizing training and development, and providing the right resources, a sales enablement strategy can have a profound impact on an organization’s bottom line. Here are just a few hard-to-ignore benefits of sales enablement:

 

#1 Onboard new salespeople faster

Sales enablement is critical for organizations to onboard new salespeople faster, ensuring they are equipped with the knowledge and skills to contribute quickly. In fact, our 2022-2023 Sales Enablement Outlook Report found that almost a quarter (23%) of C-level sales executives said onboarding was a top priority in 2023. By reducing ramp-up time, organizations can accelerate the time it takes for new hires to become productive members of the sales team, resulting in increased revenue generation.

#2 Enable salespeople to spend more time selling

Almost 65 percent of a salesperson’s time is spent on tasks that don’t generate profits, such as administrative work or data entry. Effective sales enablement programs help an organization identify processes that waste time so reps can be more efficient and profitable. Some sales enablement technology can also automate CRM data entry and other repetitive, manual processes so reps can spend more time selling.

#3 Help retain sales talent and boost revenue

Sales enablement ensures that salespeople have the support and resources they need to succeed. This not only increases job satisfaction and reduces turnover but also helps drive revenue growth by equipping sales teams with the necessary skills and knowledge to close deals. Enablement driving more revenue means more sellers are meeting or exceeding their quota. In addition, an enablement strategy that encompasses sales coaching ensures a more positive relationship between sales reps and their managers, also reducing churn and turnover.

#4 Effectively meet next year’s increased quotas

An organization’s plans to increase sales quotas can be a stress point for sales managers. While most of the top salespeople will be ready for the higher requirements, many of the C- and B-players will need to be coached up to prepare. Sales enablement mitigates this challenge by using bespoke training processes that shorten sales cycles and boost sales rep performance.

#5 Maintain a long-term strategy in seasons of high growth

As the business grows, organizations experience new customer expectations, unexpected employee challenges, and other growing pains. When company leadership gets caught up in these urgencies, they’re usually focused on the here and now rather than long-term strategies and future growth. This approach, albeit understandable, leads to unpreparedness over time.

Effective sales enablement programs help organizations conduct effective sales training and coaching to prepare reps for future growth even while other priorities dominate leadership’s attention.

Naturally, all of these benefits work to achieve the most important goal of any sales team: driving revenue. Sales enablement empowers reps to become more knowledgeable, maximally efficient, and capable of building profitable client loyalty that the competition can’t match.

How to implement a sales enablement strategy

Because every organization is different, there isn’t just “one right way” to implement a sales enablement program. There are, however, a few important pillars to keep in mind. Here are a few non-negotiables:

The first step to creating your sales enablement process is to establish your sales enablement manager. This person will be responsible for unifying marketing and sales and overseeing the entire process, so the person should be a great fit for both areas and have the buy-in of executive leadership.

For a sales enablement process to succeed, your organization will need an environment of alignment and unification. No more silos, anywhere! The unification process might be one of the first tasks of the sales enablement manager.

First, the executive team must be aligned and supportive of the organization’s sales enablement mission. Next, all employees in the organization, especially marketing and sales, need to understand the role of enablement and how marketing and sales interact and support the enablement function. Some common frameworks, like RACI, can be really helpful here when outlining all of the priorities for enablement and how other teams will work together to achieve shared goals.

In collaboration with marketing, start developing your onboarding materials and an everboarding strategy. If there is onboarding already in place, interview newly onboarded reps on their experience and measure key indicators like time to first deal and time to fully ramped quota. Use this information to determine changes in your onboarding approach. Use best practices in enablement like making training engaging, using many modalities of instructor-led, bite-sized microlearning, and knowledge tests.

You’ll also want a sales coaching system in place for ongoing encouragement and development. This will require a strong partnership and buy-in from your sales management to implement. Check out our resources on implementing a coaching culture.

Next, equip reps with content and vital field resources that will help them effectively sell and provide value. These can include white papers, data sheets, sell sheets, product videos, and playbooks that outline effective next steps and milestones. An effective sales content management system can ensure your content is available to reps anytime, the content is up to date, and can be tracked as they share collateral with prospects.

Also, offer in-depth information about buyers and buyer personas so your team can effectively maintain long-lasting buyer relationships. This can include persona deep-dives, common pain points, industry knowledge, and use cases that solve persona challenges.

Now that you have the key pillars of your sales enablement strategy in place, ensure you have open channels for feedback from all stakeholders. This includes your reps, like issuing surveys and conducting interviews to gain insight into their experience going through onboarding and ongoing enablement. Meet regularly with your sales leaders and sales managers to stay apprised of challenges their teams are facing and how enablement can be nimble and release targeted programs to resolve these. Finally, attend weekly pipeline and forecasting meetings with your CRO or CSO to know how deals and teams are progressing, where gaps are related to deal stages or competitive hardships, and how enablement can be leveraged to accelerate and close more deals.

 

Sales enablement best practices

With a solid sales enablement foundation in place, you can now build on it. These best practices will help boost the effectiveness of any sales enablement program.

Just as the sales team should be aligned with the marketing department, sales enablement should be aligned with sales operations. The role of sales ops is to ensure that the sales organization is functioning efficiently. A sales enablement program should therefore be built and maintained with sales-ops in mind.

Sales enablement should glean from the data that sales ops uncovers. For example, sales ops might reveal certain stages in the sales cycle that are falling flat. When problems are flagged by sales-ops, sales enablement can roll up its sleeves and determine the best fixes.

Staggeringly, up to 80 percent of content created by marketing goes unused by sales teams. Much of the reason for this low usage stems from a lack of marketing-sales alignment. But another simpler reason is that reps either can’t find the content they need or they don’t even know a certain piece exists.

Lengthy course work is difficult to remember and frustrating to reps. Microlearning removes the frustration by presenting content in short, easy-to-consume training modules. Short and engaging learning sessions improve memory retention, reduce learner fatigue, and make training enjoyable. Microlearning modules are also easy to update and less expensive than traditional training formats.

Your sellers are just one piece of the revenue puzzle. Ensure your enablement extends beyond sales, to other revenue-generating roles such as:

  • Customer success
  • Presales
  • Sales engineers
  • Business development representatives
  • Marketing

This is becoming more popular in terms of revenue enablement. Some enablement departments even break their team members up to focus on enabling certain roles. If you are able to grow or restructure your enablement team, consider focusing resources on the additional revenue-generating roles outside of sales.

 

How to find a sales enablement platform and what to look for

When researching sales enablement platforms, begin with a list of must-have features based on your needs and nice-to-have features. Consider some of these table stakes capabilities when creating this list.

Trainers should be able to create engaging micro-learning modules and update them as needed. The modules should be mobile-friendly so reps can access them anytime and from anywhere. Automated training paths are a must for ensuring each team member is progressing in his or her specific role. Also, look for gamification capabilities that provide scoring, badges, and leaderboards for healthy team competition.

Look for a platform that provides sales certifications to help reps and managers track progress. If you can accurately gauge whether or not reps have acquired the intended knowledge and identify any gaps, you’ll be confident every time a rep comes face-to-face with a client.

Streamlining your sales and training content in a singular enablement platform is key. You want to ensure you can easily store and manage sales collateral, making it filterable and easy for sales reps to find in the moment. A huge plus in a sales content management platform is the ability for reps to share content with prospects and customers and track their engagement. We also suggest a content management provider that also has digital sales rooms for tailored buyer enablement.

You’ll want to find a sales enablement platform that enables you to incorporate a structured coaching program. Coaching paths should be guided by competency maps, and your coaches should be able to assign new training and micro-learning modules based on the results of the coaching. In addition, knowledge retention for a range of topics including products, services, and industry trends is critical for sales representatives to have educated, direct conversations with customers and prospects. In addition, the ability to deliver role-plays (including video-based and screenshare) and get immediate AI-powered feedback on role-plays are critical for skill development.

Sales Kickoff and events are intended to make a lasting impact on sales reps’ motivation and readiness. You’ll ensure time and money are well spent by leveraging the technology that a great sales enablement tool can offer. Find a platform that can collect, measure, and analyze feedback during every step of your SKO or event to determine what worked, what could be improved, and whether or not your desired objectives have been met. Even more, your platform should allow reps instant access to videos and presentations shown during the event, which will encourage teams to continue their engagement.

Look for a platform that provides the ability to integrate with CRMs, business intelligence tools, content management systems, and communication tools. This will provide a seamless and efficient sales enablement ecosystem.

There are table-stakes analytics and reporting that should be available like engagement, adoption, and performance on enablement programs. Also, seek platforms that can report on the impact enablement is having on business outcomes like quota attainment, win rates, and increase revenue. Bonus points for being able to import data into Business Intelligence tools for even deeper analyses.

 

Getting started with your sales enablement strategy

Now that you’ve learned the importance of enablement, how to structure a strategy, and how to implement that strategy it’s time to start driving revenue for your organization.

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

Request a demo to learn more about how the Mindtickle data-driven sales enablement platform can help your sales teams close more deals.

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in January 2020, updated in June 2023, and again in January 2024.

 

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5 Sales Performance Dashboard Examples CROs Must Have to Improve Sales Readiness https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-sales-performance-dashboard-examples-cros-must-have-to-improve-sales-readiness/ Tue, 09 Jan 2024 13:44:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/5-sales-performance-dashboard-examples-cros-must-have-to-improve-sales-readiness/ CROs today have no shortage of dashboards to access across tools and teams. Bloated tech stacks – more than a third of companies in our recent research indicate sales orgs are using 10+ tools – means that it’s not a matter of finding data, it’s about sorting through sales performance dashboards to understand what’s important …

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CROs today have no shortage of dashboards to access across tools and teams. Bloated tech stacks – more than a third of companies in our recent research indicate sales orgs are using 10+ tools – means that it’s not a matter of finding data, it’s about sorting through sales performance dashboards to understand what’s important and what to do about it.

Sales orgs are using

Tools in their tech stacks
0 +

And CROs don’t have time for that.

It’s pretty straightforward: here’s what they want to know:

  • Why deals are won or lost
  • When pipeline is at risk
  • Where managers are spending time in sales coaching efforts
  • Which enablement efforts are (or aren’t) working and scalable
  • How to get more sellers hitting quota

They need a whole view of sales performance that’s inclusive of data from sales, enablement, operations, and marketing activities and they don’t want to sort through 10 different dashboards to find that reporting.

Complete visibility is possible and in this blog post, we’ll lay out the sales performance dashboards that will help CROs create scalability and winning in their sales orgs.

In this blog post, we’ll talk about:

  • What is a sales performance dashboard
  • Why adoption is not a reliable metric for sales performance
  • 5 key sales performance dashboards for CROs

What is a sales performance dashboard?

A sales performance dashboard is a single hub for all your most important sales metrics including sales KPIs, hiring and onboarding metrics, training and coaching metrics, outreach metrics, and pipeline metrics. Broken down, here’s what RevOps and sales enablement leaders focus on:

Conversation intelligence, sales forecasting, and Digital Sales Rooms that also include integrations with CRMs and sales engagement tools

Revenue productivity, sales content management, and sales coaching data that also pulls data from tools like HRMS and sales performance solutions

A good sales performance dashboard should go beyond the stuff you find in the CRM and really help you understand which deals are at risk and answer questions like where you have issues with buyer engagement, potential issues with seller efficiency, who needs help on what topics, and how to win more.

For example, you should have visibility into which content and programs truly drive an ROI for customers, voice of market insights from calls on competitors, pricing, and so on.

On top of those considerations, best-in-class sales performance dashboards should also include the following:

This is the total amount of revenue generated by the sales team over a given period of time.

This is the percentage increase or decrease in sales revenue compared to a previous period.

This refers to the number and value of deals that are currently in progress and have not yet closed.

This is the percentage of leads that are converted into customers.

This is the average dollar amount of each closed deal.

This is the amount of time it takes to close a deal, from initial contact to signed contract.

This is the cost of acquiring a new customer, including sales and marketing expenses.

This is the total amount of revenue a customer is expected to generate over their lifetime.

This is a measure of how efficiently the sales team is working, such as the number of calls made or emails sent per day.

This is the percentage of deals that are won versus the percentage that are lost.

Why adoption is not a reliable metric for sales performance

To be blunt: CROs don’t care about adoption. They rely on their CRM to give them data about where deals and forecasts stand, but even those tools aren’t good indicators of whether or not the team will hit quota. Looking at adoption metrics gives a single view that doesn’t surface any valuable information about deal health.

For example, our research indicates this:

Average sales rep

Reps at winning orgs

Role-plays per year
0
Role-plays per year
0 +

It’s clear that adoption is important here — but that’s only part of the story. Without a way to track sales performance and connect them to the number of role-plays performed, you’ll never know exactly if those role-plays had any impact on the rep’s performance in the field and ultimately, any impact on closing deals.

Another example is a training module with assessments. Your entire team may have completed them, but if they don’t remember what they learned or apply it when interacting with prospects, that adoption metric doesn’t have any real impact on revenue productivity.

The takeaway is simple: No single sales metric tells a full story.

Adoption and engagement are important, yes — but to get real insight into sales performance, you need to track, analyze, and learn from a much wider variety of data. That’s why a complete sales performance dashboard that tracks metrics across all enablement activities – onboarding, ongoing training, conversation intelligence, sales content, and key competencies development – is the most effective way to see a full picture of sales performance and productivity.

What do CROs care about?

With the above in mind, it’s important to build reporting and dashboards that answer questions CROs are probably asking their teams weekly.

  • How healthy is my pipeline?
  • Which deals are at risk or progressing nicely?
  • Are reps doing the right volume of activities?
  • Are they prepared to hit quota?
  • What do my top reps do differently?
  • What do my top managers do differently?
  • What do my buyers and customers need from us in regard to positioning, pricing, our product, services, and integrations?
  • What content and enablement programs are truly driving an ROI and being used by my team?

5 key sales performance dashboards for CROs

CROs, CSOs, and sales leaders want to fully understand how their teams (and even individual sellers) are moving toward true revenue productivity. For example:

  • Is a new team or rep ready to sell?
  • What are the top skill gaps in the organization?
  • What do most reps do right (or wrong) in sales conversations?

In order to derive such insights, they’ve got to have the right data at the ready — visually presented in a way that’s easy to consume and take action on.

Though the sales performance metrics tracked vary from organization to organization, these are five key data reports all CROs need to improve sales performance.

Pipeline + deal risk

A pipeline deal risk dashboard is a visual representation of the various risks associated with pipeline deals that allow CROs to assess the risks involved in each deal, prioritize deals based on their risk level, and take appropriate measures to mitigate them. Typically, these dashboards include the following:

This provides an overview of the current pipeline deals, including the deal value, stage, and potential risks associated with the deal.

This section provides a detailed analysis of the risks associated with each deal. It includes factors such as the deal’s complexity, potential hurdles, and revenue impact. The risk assessment helps CROs identify the most significant risks so they can prioritize efforts accordingly.

This section provides updates on the progress of each deal, including milestones achieved, timelines, and any deviations from the original plan. It allows CROs to identify any potential issues early and take corrective action.

Sales Readiness Index

This dashboard helps organizations assess their sales team’s readiness to sell their products or services and provides an overall view of the sales team’s capabilities, identifying strengths and weaknesses that can be addressed to improve their sales performance. A Sales Readiness Index Dashboard typically includes the following components:

An overview of the entire sales team’s performance, including metrics such as revenue generated, deals closed, and sales cycle length.

Analytics related to the training programs that are available to the sales team. It includes metrics such as completion rates, satisfaction ratings, and the effectiveness of the training programs.

Metrics such as the number of touches required to close a deal, the average time it takes to close a deal, and the conversion rate at each stage of the sales process.

This outlines metrics such as the usage of sales content, feedback from the sales team, and the effectiveness of the content in helping to close deals.

Metrics such as adoption rates, usage, and the effectiveness of the technology in improving sales performance.

Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

Ideal rep profiles

An ideal rep profile (IRP) is a profile of a sales rep who is likely to succeed at a given organization. Much like an ICP includes characteristics that make the customer “ideal,” an IRP defines the competencies and skills a rep must have to regularly close deals and meet (and surpass) quota.

The initial step in implementing a more effective readiness approach is to establish your ideal rep profile (IRP). This involves identifying the skills and competencies that are associated with successful sales outcomes, based on observations of your top performers.

Since each organization is unique, the IRP will differ from company to company. It is essential to create an IRP that reflects your organization’s sales goals and aligns with the specific needs of your customers.

After setting up your IRP, it is crucial to evaluate your reps’ performance in comparison to these standards. This evaluation allows you to identify areas of strength and knowledge gaps that may hinder success. Understanding how each rep measures up to the benchmarks is essential in determining their skill level.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Sales coaching effectiveness

Overall, a sales coaching dashboard should provide sales coaches with the tools and information they need to improve the performance of their team and drive revenue growth. By tracking key metrics, providing targeted coaching, and enabling collaboration and communication, sales coaches can help their reps achieve their full potential and drive success for the organization.

A sales coaching dashboard should include the following metrics and features:

These should include key performance indicators (KPIs) such as win rate, deal size, and pipeline coverage.

These metrics can include things like product knowledge, selling skills, message consistency, and competitive knowledge.

Sales coaches should be able to schedule and track coaching activities such as role-play sessions, one-on-one meetings, and group training sessions. The dashboard should provide an easy way to monitor the progress of these activities and ensure that they are happening on schedule.

Conversation analysis tools can help sales coaches understand how reps are engaging with prospects and customers, identify areas of improvement, and provide targeted coaching. The dashboard should provide access to these tools and make it easy to review call recordings and other conversation data.

The dashboard should provide a way for sales coaches to collaborate with other members of the sales team and share best practices. It should also enable communication with reps to provide feedback, answer questions, and provide coaching tips.

The dashboard should provide access to sales enablement content such as training materials, playbooks, and battle cards. This content can help reps improve their skills and knowledge and enable them to engage with prospects and customers more effectively.

ROI of sales enablement efforts

This dashboard should calculate the ROI of sales enablement activities, based on the increase in revenue generated and the cost of sales enablement activities. This information can help sales leaders determine the value of sales enablement activities and make data-driven decisions about where to invest resources. It should include the following:

Includes KPIs like revenue generated, win rate, sales cycle length, and average deal size.

The dashboard should also track sales enablement activities such as training sessions, coaching sessions, and the creation and delivery of sales content.

Includes metrics that show how reps are engaging with sales enablement content, such as how often they are accessing content, which content is used most often, and the content’s impact on deal acceleration.

The dashboard should also track how sales enablement activities are impacting individual rep performance. This could include metrics such as the number of deals closed, the amount of revenue generated, and improvements in win rates and sales cycle lengths.

The dashboard should provide visibility into the cost of sales enablement activities, including the cost of creating and delivering content, and the cost of training and coaching sessions.

Access the insights you need to improve revenue productivity

Some sales metrics only tell part of the story. To fully track sales and revenue, you need a full sales performance metrics dashboard — one that helps CROs understand how training, enablement, and revenue productivity initiatives impact business results.

With Mindtickle, CROs have access to all of the performance dashboards they need to understand the impact of training and enablement on overall revenue productivity and take action to make data-based improvements. In fact, Mindtickle provides the right role-based reporting to every team member responsible for optimizing sales performance, from sales leaders to enablement to front-line managers.

Mindtickle in action

See how Mindtickle gives visibility into your sales team's performance so you can take action immediately and hit quota every quarter.

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This post originally appeared in October 2021, was updated in May 2023, and again in January 2024.

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What is Marketing Enablement and How is it Different From Sales Enablement? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-marketing-enablement-and-how-is-it-different-from-sales-enablement/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-marketing-enablement-and-how-is-it-different-from-sales-enablement/#comments Wed, 03 Jan 2024 18:34:43 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18876 Generic, one-size-fits-all marketing no longer works. Modern buyers expect personalized experiences – wherever they are on the purchase journey. But often, organizations struggle to deliver marketing that resonates with buyers. That’s where marketing enablement comes in. In this post, we’ll explore what marketing enablement is, why it’s important, and how it differs from sales enablement. …

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Generic, one-size-fits-all marketing no longer works. Modern buyers expect personalized experiences – wherever they are on the purchase journey.

But often, organizations struggle to deliver marketing that resonates with buyers.

That’s where marketing enablement comes in.

In this post, we’ll explore what marketing enablement is, why it’s important, and how it differs from sales enablement. We’ll also share tips and best practices for an effective marketing enablement plan.

What is marketing enablement?

Today’s B2B buyers are more informed than ever. Oftentimes, they’ve done plenty of research on their own before engaging with a sales rep. In addition, these buyers have high expectations for outstanding experiences.

Marketing teams are under pressure to develop campaigns, content, and initiatives that resonate with these discerning buyers. Marketing enablement can help marketing teams deliver.

Let’s set the stage with a marketing enablement definition.

marketing enablement definition on an orange background

Essentially, marketing enablement is a practice focused on equipping marketing teams with the tools, data, information, and training they need to be better at their jobs. When marketing teams have what they need, they can create more effective, efficient campaigns and content that attract prospects and help move them through the funnel.

Marketing enablement helps ensure marketing teams better understand their buyers. This is foundational to any successful marketing program.

Marketing enablement also equips teams with the marketing enablement tools and resources they need to develop content and campaigns that engage buyers throughout the sales cycle.

Finally, marketing enablement also equips marketing teams with data (often, within a marketing enablement tool) that enables them to understand how (or whether) their content, campaigns, and other initiatives are impacting sales outcomes. With these insights, marketing teams can better align with sales and focus their attention on creating optimized content and campaigns that will improve sales outcomes.

Marketing enablement vs. sales enablement: What’s the difference?

In the world of B2B sales, marketing enablement, and sales enablement are two phrases we hear often. Sometimes, marketing enablement and sales enablement are even used interchangeably.

Both marketing enablement and sales enablement have the power to improve sales engagement and drive revenue growth. But marketing enablement and sales enablement aren’t the same thing.

Marketing enablement

Aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing initiatives.

Sales enablement

Aims to ensure every seller is ready to take on any deal that comes their way.

Marketing enablement aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing initiatives. The goal is to ensure marketing initiatives – including content and campaigns – resonate with buyers. Optimized marketing activities increase buyer engagement. When buyers are engaged, it’s easier for sales reps to shepherd them to the next stage of the purchase journey.

On the other hand, sales enablement aims to ensure every seller is ready to take on any deal that comes their way. Sales enablement teams collaborate with key teams including sales, marketing, and sales ops to identify the key skills and competencies a seller needs to be successful in the field. Then, they develop and deliver myriad initiatives – including onboarding, training, content, information, and coaching – that enable those sellers to develop the skills and competencies needed to close more deals.

While marketing enablement and sales enablement are different practices, there are some similarities.

As we’ve already covered, both marketing and sales enablement can positively impact buyers’ experiences and enable reps to close more deals. In addition, both practices rely on the right data and technology to drive their activities. For example, sales enablement can leverage data available in their sales enablement platform to determine how many sales reps completed a recent training – and whether it impacted seller performance. On the other hand, marketing teams can leverage data in a marketing enablement platform to determine whether a piece of content is being used – and whether it’s impacting the outcome of deals.

Finally, effective marketing enablement and sales enablement both require a customer-centric mindset. Teams must understand their buyers – including their key opportunities and challenges. These buyer personas must be the north star of any marketing enablement or sales enablement activity.

What are the key benefits of marketing enablement?

Marketing enablement isn’t exactly a new concept. But recently, a growing number of organizations have started to adopt this practice.

The growing popularity of marketing enablement isn’t surprising. Marketing enablement – when it’s done well – delivers plenty of benefits. Let’s take a look at a few.

Improved alignment between marketing and sales

All too often, marketing and sales teams act as adversaries, rather than partners. Per a LinkedIn report, nine in 10 sales and marketing professionals indicate they are misaligned around strategy, content, process, and culture.

0 out of 10

Sales and marketing professionals think they're misaligned

This misalignment is costly. According to a Harvard Business Review article, misalignment between sales and marketing costs businesses an estimated $1 trillion each year.

0 %

Sales and marketing pros feel that aligned messaging and initiatives lead to better customer experiences.

Marketing enablement facilitates better alignment between these two key teams. Sales and marketing collaborate to ensure that marketing initiatives are aligned with sales processes and goals. This alignment allows for better experiences for buyers. The same LinkedIn report found that 90% of sales and marketing professionals feel that aligned messaging and initiatives lead to better customer experiences.

Of course, when customers have better experiences, they’re more likely to make a purchase.

More effective lead generation

A key responsibility of many marketing teams is to generate leads for the sales team. All too often, lead generation efforts fall short. Maybe a particular campaign delivered fewer leads than expected. Or perhaps another campaign generated a high volume of leads, but the conversion rate was extremely low because the leads weren’t a good fit for what sellers are offering.

Marketing enablement empowers marketing teams to boost their lead-generation efforts. By aligning with the sales process and understanding how buyers are engaging, marketing teams can develop compelling campaigns and content that attract a high volume of good-fit leads. Then, marketing can serve up these quality leads to the sales team, who can guide them through the sales process.

Better buyer engagement

Today’s buyers are more informed than ever before. Generic will no longer do. Instead, they expect content, information, and experiences that are tailored to their specific needs.

Marketing enablement ensures marketing teams have the data, tools, and resources they need to develop content, campaigns, and messaging that resonate with buyers throughout the purchase journey. When buyer engagement increases, so too does purchase likelihood.

Increased content ROI

In the past, marketing teams would develop and launch marketing campaigns and content – and then hope for the best. There was no easy way to understand how buyers and sellers were (or weren’t) engaging with content – and how specific content and campaigns were (or weren’t) impacting sales outcomes.

With marketing enablement, marketing teams have access to rich data and analytics that help them understand how their initiatives are performing. This includes:

  • Whether a piece of content is being used
  • How a piece of content is being used by both sellers and buyers
  • How an initiative is impacting revenue

With this insight, marketers can make optimizations, prioritize their time and effort on what’s proven to work, and drive better ROI from their content, campaigns, and other efforts.

Tips for an effective marketing enablement plan

The importance of marketing enablement is clear. Marketing enablement – when it’s done well – can enhance marketing effectiveness and efficiency. Better marketing leads to better sales outcomes.

But what does an effective marketing enablement plan look like? There’s no easy answer. It depends on many factors, including size, industry, and marketing scope – among others.

However, there are some best practices for developing a successful marketing enablement plan.

Determine goals
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Collaborate with sales
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Conduct an audit
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Store content
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Partner with enablement
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Analyze & improve
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What are the goals of your marketing enablement efforts? Be sure to document them. For example, you might aim to increase lead generation or improve the ROI of your content.

Be sure your goals are specific and measurable. In addition, they should align with the goals of your sales team and the organization as a whole.

A marketing enablement plan shouldn’t be created solely by the marketing team. Instead, it should be a collaborative effort, incorporating input from teams including sales and sales enablement.

Sales teams know their customers best. They can provide valuable insight into what is resonating with buyers – and what is making it easier (or harder) to close deals.

Marketing should also collaborate with sales enablement. After all, sales enablement teams help ensure sellers understand how to use the content that’s available to them.

One of the foundational steps of marketing enablement is to take an inventory of all existing marketing assets. Once all content is accounted for, the marketing team can determine which assets need to be refreshed and which should be eliminated.

After your content inventory is complete, map your existing assets to the customer journey. This exercise can help you understand where there is a need for additional marketing support.

Taking inventory of content seems simple enough. But that’s not always the case.

Oftentimes, marketing content is stored in multiple, disparate systems. It can be challenging to get a handle on all content.

A best practice is to store all marketing content in a single system of record. A content management system within a sales productivity platform is an ideal marketing enablement tool.

Storing your content in a central location ensures your sales reps can always find the latest and greatest versions of the content they need for any sales scenario. In addition, a content management system makes it easy to update, delete, or add new content.

Once you’ve developed new content and campaigns, it’s important to ensure sellers know about it. Sales reps need to understand how marketing initiatives fit in with their sales process – and how they can use marketing content to move deals forward.

Be sure to partner with the sales enablement team to develop a plan for enabling sellers.

Data is a critical component of an effective marketing enablement strategy. Be sure you’re tapping into technology to measure the effectiveness of your messaging, content, and campaigns. Then, use this data to optimize accordingly.

For example, you can leverage your sales productivity platform to understand how buyers and sellers are engaging with a particular piece of content and how it is (or isn’t) improving deal outcomes. These insights can be used to optimize content.

In addition, ask for feedback from sales on an ongoing basis. Sales reps are meeting with customers all day. They have a good understanding of what’s working and what’s not.

Supercharge your marketing enablement strategy with Mindtickle

Modern buyers have high expectations for outstanding experiences. Generic marketing initiatives won’t cut it.

Today, a growing portion of organizations are turning to marketing enablement to deliver marketing that resonates with buyers throughout the sales cycle. It’s a win-win for marketing and sales alike. Better marketing leads to greater customer engagement. Engaged buyers are more likely to make a purchase.

Effective marketing enablement requires the right marketing enablement tools. Today, some of the world’s best organizations turn to Mindtickle to supercharge their marketing enablement strategy.

With Mindtickle’s integrated revenue productivity platform, sellers can easily access the content they need in any sales scenario. They can leverage training and coaching to better understand how to use the content and messaging that’s available to them.

Marketing teams turn to Mindtickle to understand how sales reps and buyers are engaging with content – and whether it’s impacting sales results. Marketing teams can use these insights to make optimizations that lead to better performance and ROI.

Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can boost the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing? Contact us to schedule a live, personalized demo.

Get a Demo

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SKO Services Scope and Services Description https://www.mindtickle.com/sko-services-scope-and-services-description/ Wed, 06 Dec 2023 06:04:57 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=18766 SKO Services Scope and Description Table of Contents Mindtickle Resources Customer Responsibilities SKO Pro Content as a Service: (CaaS) Professional Services Managed services SKO Express Content as a Service: (CaaS) Professional Services: (PS) Managed services Place of Performance Acceptance Criteria Mindtickle will provide below a series of services (“Services”) delivered throughout the term mentioned in …

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SKO Services Scope and Description

Table of Contents

Mindtickle will provide below a series of services (“Services”) delivered throughout the term mentioned in the ordering document to support Customer’s Sales Kick Off or Annual Kick off (“SKO”) event. These Services are scheduled engagements that are coordinated via Mindtickle resources mentioned below.

Mindtickle Resources

Mindtickle will be responsible for staffing a Professional Services Consultant, Managed Services Admin and Content as a Service Resource who shall deliver the services.

 

Mindtickle Staff RoleDescription
Professional Services Consultant (PSC)
  • Guides on program setup and planning
  • Provides advisory consulting on program implementation, launch, reporting, and leading practices, change management, use case deep dive, gamification, engagement, reporting & analytics strategy, and others
Managed Services Admin (MS)
  • Performs admin related activities like adding/removing updating users
  • Program framework build and content upload into programs based on approved program structure, user invitation, email template updates & in-platform report assistance
Content as a Service (CaaS) Resource
  • Analyses the content, identify gaps, creates structure, develop Scripts, Storyboards, recommends Mindtickle best practices for content development
  • Develops the assets (Videos, PDFs, SCORMs) as mentioned in the structure
  • Reviews & tests the assets on the platform
  • Plans for Project to ensure timely completion, allocates resources, communicates updates to the customer
  • Ensures feedback implementation & completion of project as per customer expectations

Customer Responsibilities

Customer will staff a team responsible for the duties of the roles below and any additional roles as required. In addition, Customer will provide timely access to all necessary resources, including personnel, content, IT systems, etc. as necessary for Mindtickle to deliver the Services. 

In addition:

  • The Customer team will be required to do one round of review, and provide feedback and approvals at each stage of the content development as listed below:
    • Content Walkthrough
    • Prototype approval
    •  Alpha Version
    • Gold Version
    • Customer Sign-off
    • Content Upload
  • The customer will provide access to branding guidelines, an image library (if available).
  • The customer will also provide any internal videos (from leadership/Subject Matter Experts (SMEs)) that are needed to be used for the Sales Kick Off.
  • The packages are term-bound and thus to be able to meet the scheduled timelines, the customer will provide the inputs and approvals throughout the process as per the project schedule laid down for the implementation.

SKO Pro

Mindtickle will provide the following Services as part of SKO Pro package:

Content as a Service ("CaaS")

Scope of CAAS
  • Custom content development (Videos, PDFs, Interactive SCORMs, VoSS) for:
    • Pre and Post SKO material
    • Break out rooms during SKO
  • Custom landing and overview pages for hubs, series, home pages.
  • Any other custom platform collateral
  • Theme-based gamified learning on Mindtickle using leaderboard and badges
Out of scope
  • 3D animation/character based videos, Illustrated character based 2D videos.
  • Shooting and production of venue or in-person videos.
  • Event management and logistics
  • Onsite engagement
Assumptions
  • The overall content development across all the activities will be limited to a maximum of 1.5 hours of seat-time (average time required by a learner to consume the content)
  • All the content will be delivered in combination of output formats (such as PDFs, videos, PPTs, Interactive SCORM files, knowledge checks) and uploaded on the platform as decided in the outline defined and finalized before initializing development.
  • The CaaS team will provide a schedule and project plan once the requirements have been finalized.
  • Company branding guidelines, access to image library and all source material to build the content will be provided by the customer.

Professional Services ("PS")

Scope of PS :

Pre SKO
  • Build and manage a project plan for the SKO program in collaboration with the customer
  • Advice on SKO program content structure and design in the platform
  • Consult on best practices to manage groups and users access to the SKO program
  • Provide best practices for promoting adoption and excitement of the SKO event and prework
SKO
  • Advise on speaker session and breakout session structure
  • Help develop a plan for ensuring participants get the best experience out of the platform, are able to easily access their schedules, materials and other items needed during SKO
  • Provide best practices and use cases for gamification and driving engagement during the event
  • Be a POC (remotely) during the event for the client team to offer support and advice
Post SKO
  • Advise on the structure of any post-SKO learning being set up in the platform
  • Provide guidance on post-SKO series structure and invites
  • Best practices on how to drive engagement post the event
  • Advise on the best way to structure learning so that the excitement around the event continues and event learning is reinforced
Out of Scope
  • Onsite Engagement

Managed services

Scope of Managed Services:
Mindtickle Managed Services will support creating the SKO series and module structure, uploading existing content into the predetermined module types, and support content assignment for defined learners in Mindtickle based on a framework agreed between the customer and Mindtickle. Additionally, managed services can also perform the following:
  • User Management
    • Add/Update/Deactivate Users on the Platform
    • Create User Groups for SKO
    • Create automated rules for User profile management and user assignment
  • Copy/Configure Modules/Series
    • Move modules from one Series to another and publish Modules
    • Invite learners to Modules/Series part of Pre SKO, SKO or Post SKO
    • Change settings in all Module types, including email templates
    • Retrigger emails for specific learners within a Series/Modules
    • Configure group/collaborator settings as required
    • ILT Sessions configuration and learner management
  • Analytics
    • Configure in-platform analytics for the learning site including setting up hierarchy and manager rollup
    • Configure in-platform analytics to send cadence-based reports to Admins
  • Module updates
    • Appoint reviewers for Missions and Coaching sessions according to directions given by the Customer’s Admins
    • Replace/remove reviewers for Missions and Coaching sessions
    • Invite learners to ILTs and mark attendance
Out-of-Scope :
Managed Services Administrative Support does not perform the following:
  • Create or update program content
  • Provide any advisory or consulting on Mindtickle settings for optimum use of the product (provided by Professional Services)
  • Check the accuracy or validity of the content
  • Onsite Engagement

SKO Express

Mindtickle will provide the following services as part of SKO Express package.

Content as a Service

Scope of CAAS:
  • Access to any 2 RTDs (usage limited to a maximum of 300 Users) during the term of the contract.
  • Development of standard pre and post SKO material and platform collaterals
  • Refining existing content for breakout rooms during SKO
Out of scope:
  • 3D animation/character based videos, 2D videos.
  • Shooting and production of venue or in-person videos.
  • Theme based gamified learning
  • End to end program development for any use case other than SKO
  • Onsite engagement
  • Event management and logistics
Assumptions:
  • The overall content development across all the activities will be limited to a maximum of 30 minutes of seat-time (average time required by a learner to consume the content including the knowledge check questions and missions).
  • All the developed content will be uploaded on the platform as decided in the outline defined and finalized before initializing development.
  • The CaaS team will provide a schedule and project plan once the requirements have been finalized. 
  • Company branding guidelines, access to image library and all source material to build the content will be provided by the customer.

Professional Services

Scope of PS:
  • Advise on series structure and design. 
  • Consult on best practices to manage groups and users’ access to the SKO program
  • Provide best practices for promoting adoption and excitement of the SKO event and prework
  • Provide best practices and use cases for gamification and driving engagement during the event
  • Provide guidance on post-SKO learning activities which can be supported in Mindtickle
Out of Scope:
  • Onsite Engagement

Managed services

Scope of Managed Services:
  • User Management
    • Add/Update/Deactivate Users on the Platform
    • Create User Groups for SKO
    • Create automated rules for User profile management and user assignment
  • Analytics
    • Configure in-platform analytics to send cadence-based reports to Admins
  • Module updates
    • Appoint reviewers for Missions and Coaching sessions according to directions given by the Customer’s Admins
    • Replace/remove reviewers for Missions and Coaching sessions
    • Invite learners to ILTs and mark attendance
Out-of-Scope:
  • Managed Services Administrative Support does not perform the following:

    • Create or update program content
    • Provide any advisory or consulting on Mindtickle settings for optimum use of the product (provided by Professional Services)
    • Check the accuracy or validity of content
    • Onsite Engagement

Place of Performance

Mindtickle anticipates that the Services included will be provided remotely from Mindtickle offices.

Acceptance Criteria

    • Customer shall have the right to review the Services rendered within five (5) calendar days of receipt of subject Services from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle.
    • Before the end of the five (5) calendar-day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject Services is accepted by Customer.
    • If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period, subject Services shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    • If the Customer does not accept the subject Services, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period.
    • Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject Services and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    • Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each Service in scope.

For additional terms applicable to specific Services, please refer to:

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8 Cold Calling Tips for Sellers and Sales Leaders  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/8-cold-calling-tips-for-sellers/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/8-cold-calling-tips-for-sellers/#comments Tue, 05 Dec 2023 07:37:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17762 Let’s not beat around the bush: nobody likes getting cold calls. Buyers are already short on time, and the last thing they want is to listen to another sales pitch. As sellers, you’re even more in the hot seat. Research from our 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report found that during a call, buyers asked …

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Let’s not beat around the bush: nobody likes getting cold calls.

Buyers are already short on time, and the last thing they want is to listen to another sales pitch.

As sellers, you’re even more in the hot seat. Research from our 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report found that during a call, buyers asked an average of 18 questions, a significant increase from 13 questions in the 2022 report. This means customers are scrutinizing purchases more and are even more reluctant to take a cold call.

Number of questions buyers ask on calls
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Because many selling orgs maintain call quotas for their sales reps to achieve on a monthly or quarterly basis, sellers need tips on how to make these calls less cringe-worthy and more effective at getting that meeting booked.

Here are our tips for both sellers and sales enablement leaders on how to make your sellers amazing cold callers.

First things first: Is cold calling legal?

Yes, cold calling is generally legal, although specific regulations may vary depending on the country and jurisdiction. In many places, cold calling is allowed as long as it complies with certain rules and guidelines. For example, businesses may need to adhere to laws governing telemarketing practices, such as obtaining prior consent from recipients or respecting “Do Not Call” registries.

It’s critical for organizations to familiarize themselves with the relevant laws and regulations in their region to ensure compliance and maintain ethical business practices. Seeking legal advice or consulting industry-specific guidelines can help businesses navigate the legal landscape surrounding cold calling.

8 tips to nail your next cold call

Use these tips to warm up your cold calls and have more engaging and impactful conversations.

#1. Do your research

Do you actually know who you’re calling? No, we don’t mean their title, company, and industry — while this is important, to really engage the buyer, you must understand their pain points and business needs. The more information you have, the better you can gauge their level of interest and engage them with relevant messaging right off the bat. The following are some of the most effective methods for research:

  • Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner are keyword research tools that provide insight into what questions buyers are asking, what pain points they’re searching for, and what other brands are ranking for those keywords.
  • Posts on LinkedIn profiles and company pages can reveal what topics and challenges are most important to the buyer and their company/industry.
  • Search engines and social profiles provide insights into any events the company sponsored or attended, funding and other corporate milestones, and more.
  • Account intelligence tools like 6sense or UpLead dig even deeper to match online behaviors to certain IPs so you can identify a specific buyer’s activities and tailor your conversation based on them.

You may also find that the company isn’t a great fit for your product. In this case, you can cross them off your list and avoid wasting time for both parties.

Prioritize sales training that focuses on understanding buyer pain points and business needs for effective engagement.

Use keyword research, LinkedIn posts, search engines, social profiles, and account intelligence tools to gather relevant information.

#2. Don’t start with a sales pitch

In addition to knowing details about the person you’re calling, stand out from other vendors with a more conversational approach. Buyers are expecting a generic, robotic sales pitch — surprise them by aligning the value proposition to the research you’ve done. If your organization has a cold call script or template, try not to read directly from it — you’ll sound over-rehearsed as a result. Instead, use the script as a guide for staying focused and keeping the discussion on track.

Use a conversation intelligence tool to listen to calls to understand if sellers are immediately bombarding buyers with a sales pitch. Assign training to help them improve. 

If you sound like you’re reading from a script that pitches your product, your call will likely end sooner than you’d like. Simply use the script as a guide for the conversation to keep it on track.

#3 Keep things brief

Make sure you’re not disengaging the person from the outset by delivering a monologue about yourself and your company. Research from the 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report found that the average longest monologue delivered by reps is 2 minutes 43 seconds. The longest monologues happen when the rep either talks through a ton of content or provides a nervous response to a customer question that they were ill-prepared to handle. Talking in short snippets during cold calls is important to maintain engagement, convey key points efficiently, and avoid overwhelming the buyer with information.

Coach sellers on the art of orchestrating conversations rather than making presentations.

Don’t overwhelm the buyer by rapid-firing a monologue at them from the outset. Speak 1-2 sentences and then listen.

#4. Prove your value

You could talk all day about how effective your product is, but showing what your current customers have to say provides much more legitimate evidence of the value you can bring to the prospect. Share proof of the value of your company and products with the buyer, including first-hand customer testimonials and reviews on rating sites like G2. Awards and other professional recognition can also be testaments to how your organization serves its employees and customer base.

You can get valuable voice of the customer insights from a sales productivity tool. Infuse those learnings into your sales training so sellers can quickly and naturally mention those anecdotes during cold calls.

Real-life examples from customers tell the story better than you can. Make sure you have a few customer stories in your back pocket for every use case.

#5 Practice active listening

Just because you did some research upfront doesn’t mean you know everything about the buyer. In your first conversation with them, your focus should be on learning as much as you can about the team, company, industry, competitive landscape, existing tech stack, and more. This is a win-win: you get deeper, first-hand insights into this potential customer, and the buyer will appreciate you taking the time to understand the issues they’re facing and answer questions meaningfully.

Incorporate role-plays into your sales training program so sellers can practice cold-calling scenarios and get feedback about how well they’ve listened.

You’re there to learn. Give buyers the opportunity to talk about their pain points and make listening your main focus during cold calls.

#6 Find the best calling schedule

Don’t take advantage of a buyer’s time and be considerate about when you’re calling. They are likely tackling a long to-do list, and you will only irritate them if you call when they’re bogged down with meetings and other work. Calling closer to lunch or the end of the day, when people are preparing for a break, has a higher likelihood of success. Research shows that calls are most likely to be answered between 10 and 11am and 4 and 5pm. Remember, not everyone you call is in the same time zone, so be mindful of that before you dial.

Ask reps for feedback as part of your sales training program. If some reps have more success during a certain time of day, share that learning with the rest of your team.

Respect a buyer’s time by calling strategically only during optimal hours.

#7 Leave an impactful voicemail

Voicemails are tough. We know that only 11% of voicemails lead to a return call. Rather than giving up hopes of engaging the person on the other hand, leave them a message that will grab their attention. Demonstrate what you know about the individual, their company, their pain points, and how your solution can help. Avoid cramming too much information into the voicemail — keep it at a tight 20 seconds at most. Convey some energy and urgency and follow up within a week if you don’t hear back.

Use coaching sessions as an opportunity to coach sellers on how to leave an effective voicemail.

Leave attention-grabbing voicemails demonstrating knowledge, energy, and urgency. Follow up.

#8 Set proper next steps

You’re not closing any deals on the first call, so it’s important to establish clear steps agreed upon by both parties. These could include sending over additional resources, setting up a demo, or waiting a few months before touching base again. Rather than forcing them into your sales process, let the prospect bring you into their timeline and be respectful of how they would like to move forward. If they say they aren’t interested or ready, give them an appropriate amount of time before calling them again.

Coach sellers on how to create urgency with buyers so these cold calls lead to the next step.

Trust and listen to buyer’s process.

Other ways to reach prospects besides cold calling

Changing up your outreach methods helps relationship-building and engages buyers in a way that suits their preferences. Here are a few common ways to connect with buyers that don’t require picking up the phone:

Email marketing

Social media

Trade shows

Direct mail

 

Email marketing

Send your prospects personalized content that addresses their specific pain points. Make sure to use a combo of automated and personalized outreach but always ensure you’re sharing content that’s relevant to the buyer’s persona and pain points.

Social media engagement

Use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks to connect with buyers. This is also a place where you can show off your creativity and personalize your outreach. Like email outreach, make sure you’re sharing content or ideas that engage your buyer. Groups and discussion forums are also a great way to position yourself as a thought leader without coming across as “too salsey.”

Networking events and conferences

In-person events might seem like an obvious one but it’s true: Take advantage of industry-specific events, conferences, and trade shows to meet buyers face-to-face. Meeting buyers in person allows for more meaningful connections and gives you a chance to show off your products or services.

Personalized direct mail

While direct mail might have fallen out of style as an engaging outreach tactic, it’s made a comeback. A carefully crafted, physical piece of mail can stand out in a digital world and leave a lasting impression.

How else are you building pipeline?

Cold calling isn't the only way your sellers should be building pipeline. Here's our complete guide. 

Get the Guide

This post was originally published in June 2023 and was updated in December 2023. 

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What are Sales Battlecards and How Can Your Sales Team Benefit from Them? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-are-sales-battlecards-and-how-can-your-sales-team-benefit-from-them/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-are-sales-battlecards-and-how-can-your-sales-team-benefit-from-them/#comments Mon, 27 Nov 2023 19:03:35 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18742 Great sales reps must know their product and service offerings inside and out. That way, they can confidently recommend solutions that’ll address their prospects’ biggest challenges and pain points. But it’s equally important for reps to be well-versed in how their company stacks up against the competition. This knowledge is especially important to winning competitive …

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Great sales reps must know their product and service offerings inside and out. That way, they can confidently recommend solutions that’ll address their prospects’ biggest challenges and pain points.

But it’s equally important for reps to be well-versed in how their company stacks up against the competition. This knowledge is especially important to winning competitive deals, which are quite common. According to Semrush, over half (57%) of all sales deals are competitive.

Percentage of sales deals that are competitive
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Sales battlecards (also referred to as competitive intelligence battlecards, sales enablement battlecards, or simply battlecards) are one tool winning sales organizations use to ensure their sellers are always ready to conquer any competitive deal.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales they are, why they’re important, and how sales organizations can create effective ones to improve seller performance and close more deals.
What are sales battlecards?
Sales battlecards are an effective tool for ensuring reps are experts on their competitors’ offerings. But what are sales battlecards?

They provide an overview of how your company stacks up against the competition. Sales battlecards distill key factors about your own company and your competitors, which may include:

Products

Services

Features + functionality

Pricing

A sales battlecard may compare your company to a single competitor. For example, HubSpot might create one comparing their marketing automation offering to that of ActiveCampaign.

Other sales battlecards compare a company against multiple competitors. For example, a multi-competitor one might show how HubSpot stacks up against ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, Salesforce Marketing Cloud, and Marketo Engage.

Some sales battlecards are created as an internal resource for sellers to use. Others are developed as customer-facing collateral. We’ll explore the different types later on.

How are sales battlecards important for competitive selling?

Creating battlecards takes time. Is it really worth the effort?

Yes, without a doubt.

Competitive intelligence battlecards are a powerful tool for competitive selling. In fact, they’re proven to improve sales outcomes. According to research from Crayon, seven in 10 businesses that use them say they’ve boosted their win rates.

Competitive knowledge is key to sales success. But sales reps are busy people. They simply don’t have the time to keep up with every product or feature change announced by a competitor. Sales battlecards can help bridge the gap.

Here’s how battlecards help reps during the course of a deal:

Product and service offerings are always changing and evolving. Competitive intelligence battlecards help ensure sellers always have the latest information about their competitors – and how their own offerings stack up. However, it’s essential they’re updated on a regular basis.

One-size-fits all pitches don’t work. Instead, sellers must develop pitches that address the unique needs and challenges of each seller.

In some cases, a sales rep knows which competitors a prospect is considering. Sales battlecards can help reps tailor their pitches in a way that addresses how their offerings are a better solution than what the competition has to offer.

Sellers are no strangers to objections. A recent analysis found that 63% of sales calls have more negative sentiment than positive. Competitive mentions are one example of negative sentiment.

As such, objection handling is a key sales skill. Specifically, reps must be prepared to address objections related to competitors.

Imagine a prospect considering two competing products. They might raise objections such as:

  • Why does the competitor’s product have these features – and yours doesn’t?
  • Why are these product features important when your competitors don’t have them?
  • Why is the competitor’s product less expensive?

Battlecards help sellers understand how their offerings stack up against a competitor. That way, they can anticipate buyers’ objections – and be equipped to address them head-on.

What are the types of sales battlecards?

There are many different types of sales battlecards. Each type is used in different circumstances.

Single competitor vs. multi-competitor

You might develop a sales battlecard that compares your business to one competitor. These can be a great resource for sellers who are working with prospects who are further along in the sales funnel and have shared what other options they are considering. These single-competitor sales battlecards provide a detailed look at a competitor’s strengths and weaknesses.

Some organizations also develop a sales battlecard that pits the company against multiple competitors. They can be a great resource for reps when they’re working on deals that are higher up in the sales funnel. Typically, they include less detail than a single competitor battlecard.

Competitive

Competitive battlecards provide information on a company’s key competitors. This information might include:

  • Company information
  • Product and service information
  • Pricing
  • Target audience

They are a great resource for ensuring sales reps know how your company stacks up. Competitive battlecards also help sellers anticipate objections so they can be prepared to address them.

Product

These ensure sales reps know the ins and outs of the products they’re selling. These battlecards may incorporate information including:

  • Customer challenges
  • How the product helps address these challenges

Some product battlecards focus on a single product offering. Others compare multiple product offerings – and how they each address specific use cases.

Marketing

Marketing battlecards focus on the marketing strategies of key competitors. These zero in on who the competition is marketing to and what strategies they’re using to position themselves as the right choice for that market.

For example, one competitor may position themselves as the lowest-cost option. If your solutions are more expensive, your reps must be prepared to articulate why that is the case.

Marketing battlecards may also incorporate other information on competitors’ marketing strategies, including:

  • Strategic partners
  • Key marketing channels

Prospect-specific sales

Some battlecards can be used more generally. For example, a multi-competitor, customer-facing sales battlecard can provide a great overview of how your company differs from its key competitors.

However, there are times when it makes sense to create a prospect-specific sales battlecard. This sales enablement battlecard can address the specific, unique pain points of the prospect – and how your solutions stack up to your competitors in terms of solving those pain points.

How to create effective sales battlecards

Sales battlecards are a great resource for your reps. They can have a positive impact on sales outcomes – when they’re thoughtfully created and your sales reps know how to use them.

So, how exactly should you go about creating one? Here are a few best practices to guide the process.

Start with a template

Starting your sales battlecard from scratch can seem overwhelming. Instead, consider starting with template that suits your needs and use case. Using a template will save time – and it’ll help ensure they all have a consistent look and feel.

Remember: a template should only be a starting place. Be sure to adapt the template as needed so it works for your needs.

Choose your competitors

Start by making a list of your key competitors. Then, add details about how often and when each one typically comes up in the sales process. If you’re not sure, ask for insights from those who know best: your sales team.

These insights can help you determine what type is needed for each competitor. For example, if your sellers often lose deals to a specific competitor, it makes sense to develop a battlecard focused solely on that competitor. However, if there is another competitor that’s brought up earlier in the purchase journey – but you don’t often lose deals to them – you can include them in a multi-competitor sales battlecard.

Determine your sales battlecard focus areas

Next, you’ll need to determine the categories to include in your sales enablement battlecard. Some focus areas to consider are:

  • Product features
  • Cost
  • ROI
  • Customer support
  • Customization options

The focus areas of your sales battlecard will depend on the type you’re developing and the intended audience. For example, a customer-facing multi-competitor battlecard will likely include fewer focus areas than an internal, single competitor version.

Of course, you want to develop battlecards that put your brand and offerings in the best light. However, it’s important to be honest, too. If there’s an area where a competitor outshines you, be sure your sellers know how to articulate why this is the case.

Do your research

It’s important to ensure the information on your sales battlecards is accurate. If a prospect notices an error, you’ll lose your credibility – and likely, the sale.

As such, it’s important to do plenty of research when developing your them. Much of your research can be done online. For example, you can find product feature information on your competitors’ websites. In addition, you can read reviews from current and past customers to gain insight into user experience. A generative AI tool like ChatGPT can also be a great tool for doing high-level research about competitors.

In addition, ask for feedback from teams throughout the organization. For example, the sales team can provide insight into why deals are often lost to a specific customer. Marketing teams, on the other hand, likely have insight into a competitor’s online presence and marketing strategy.

Revisit them regularly

Sales battlecards aren’t a one-time project. Instead, they need to be revisited often.

Why? Your own products and features will change and evolve in the future. So will that of your competitors.

It’s important to ensure they always reflect the latest and greatest information about your own business as well as your competitors. That way, your sales reps can confidently share their knowledge and be equipped to overcome objections.

How to use them

Creating great battlecards is foundational. But it’s also important to ensure your sales reps know they exist and how to use them. Otherwise, the time and effort spent creating them will be wasted.

With that in mind, here are a few best practices for using them.

Do's

Don'ts

  • Store your them in a single location
  • Provide training, enablement, and coaching on how to use them
  • Ensure sellers know which ones are internal and which are customer-facing
  • Leverage conversation intelligence to ensure sellers are putting their knowledge into practice in the field
  • Communicate when a new one is available
  • Welcome feedback – especially from top sellers – and incorporate this feedback into new versions

 

  • Distribute them via email or store via disparate platforms
  • Assume sellers know how to use sales them
  • Distribute internal sales battlecards to prospects
  • Assume sellers are applying their competitive knowledge in the field
  • Make your reps find them on their own
  • Create the sales battlecards once and never revisit

 

#1: Ensure they are centrally located and easily accessible

Some sales organizations may still use printed sales battlecards. But most have made the transition to digital sales enablement battlecards. It’s important to ensure they are housed in a central location so your sales reps know exactly where to find them.

Some organizations opt to store them in Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, or a similar solution. However, a better approach is to store your sales battlecards within your revenue enablement platform. That way, sales reps can easily find exactly what they’re looking for – anytime and from any device.

In addition, a sales productivity tool with content management capabilities makes it easy to make updates to them. That means your sales reps can always access the latest and greatest versions of each sales one. You no longer have to worry about them using an outdated sales versions.

Empower your sellers to win more competitive deals
Sales reps must have deep knowledge of their own products. But they must also become experts on their competitors’ offerings.

Sales battlecards are a great resource for both new and veteran sellers. They provide reps with the information they need to confidently articulate how they differ from the competition. They also help sellers anticipate buyers’ objections – and ensure they’re ready to overcome those objections.

The best place to house your sales battlecards is within a revenue intelligence platform like Mindtickle. That way, your sales teams can access the sales training, sales enablement, sales content, and conversation intelligence they need to win against the competition – all in one place.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

#2: Provide enablement and coaching on how to use them

You’ve created a collection of sales battlecards. But you shouldn’t assume your sellers know what to do with them.

It’s important to provide sales training, sales enablement, and coaching to ensure your reps know how and when to use the sales battlecards available to them. Training, bite-sized exercises, and practice opportunities can help ensure sellers understand:

  • Which ones are available to them
  • The intended audience for each one (internal vs. external)
  • Which ones they should use in which sales scenarios

Sales managers can also leverage conversation intelligence to ensure sales reps are actually putting their knowledge into practice in the field. If there are knowledge gaps, sales managers can provide additional coaching to close those gaps – and improve sales outcomes.

#3: Communicate when there are new ones available

Over time, there may be a need to create additional versions. Each time a new one is available, make sure to let the sales team know. That new sales battlecard may just be the ticket to winning their next competitive deal.

#4: Ask for feedback

Your customer-facing teams interact with prospects day in and day out. They’re well aware of your key competitors and why they’re losing deals to them. So be sure to ask for their feedback on a regular basis. Incorporating feedback from your top sales reps can help improve the effectiveness of your sales battlecards.

Empower your sellers to win more competitive deals

Sales reps must have deep knowledge of their own products. But they must also become experts on their competitors’ offerings.

Sales battlecards are a great resource for both new and veteran sellers. They provide reps with the information they need to confidently articulate how they differ from the competition. They also help sellers anticipate buyers’ objections – and ensure they’re ready to overcome those objections.

The best place to house your sales battlecards is within a revenue intelligence platform like Mindtickle. That way, your sales teams can access the sales training, sales enablement, sales content, and conversation intelligence they need to win against the competition – all in one place.

Close every winnable deal

Want to see firsthand how Mindtickle prepares your sales teams to beat the competition?

Request a Demo

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How to Develop a Sales Training Program Personalized for Each Rep at Scale https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-develop-a-sales-training-program-personalized-for-each-rep-at-scale/ Mon, 27 Nov 2023 10:31:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=12957 Two sales reps walk into the office. (No, this isn’t the start of a joke — we promise.) One has two years’ experience and has been with your company that whole time. The other has decades of experience but joined a few months ago and has only recently completed their onboarding. Companies need to develop …

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Two sales reps walk into the office. (No, this isn’t the start of a joke — we promise.)

One has two years’ experience and has been with your company that whole time.

The other has decades of experience but joined a few months ago and has only recently completed their onboarding.

Companies need to develop personalized sales training programs for their sales teams at scale so they can achieve and maintain sales excellence across the organization. Otherwise, companies will see their sales teams living out the 80/20 rule, with the top 20% of their reps delivering 80% of their revenue and the rest of the team underachieving.

This blog is your guide to developing a sales training program that you can easily personalize for each rep — no matter the size of your sales team.

Given their different skills, knowledge, and experience, does it make sense for them both to go through the same sales training program?

Ad hoc sales training

Personalized sales training

  • One-size-fits all
  • Sporadic approach to training
  • Some reps benefit from your training
  • Low impact on overall team performance
  • One-and-done approach to training

 

  • Personalized to the needs of individual reps

  • Ongoing approach to developing skills 

  • All reps benefit from tailored training

  • Impact on overall team performance

  • Training is supported by reinforcement 

     

Define excellence for your sales team

Your reps need to master the right skills, knowledge, and behaviors if they’re going to successfully hit quota every month. Of course, you can train and coach reps to help them develop those abilities, but only if you’ve worked out what they need to learn.

Identify the skills and behaviors that correlate with positive sales outcomes. Then, use these to create an ideal rep profile (IRP) that documents the skills, knowledge, and behaviors your sales reps need to succeed. An IRP can be modeled on your top performers or based on competencies and skills you want to encourage in your sales team but don’t yet see in action.

 

Ideal rep profile competencies

 

Your IRP will combine product and industry knowledge, sales skills, and communication behaviors to build a detailed list of the competencies that will enable your reps to meet (or exceed) quota and improve their win rates. For example, you may want your sellers to excel at:

  • Using consistent product messaging on sales calls
  • Handling prospect objections effectively
  • Tailoring product demos to prospects’ needs or areas of concern
  • Using minimal filler words on calls so they sound confident
  • Getting the right balance of talk time and listening time, so they don’t dominate conversations with prospects

The examples in this list are some skills and competencies that make for a successful sales rep. But by looking at your recent deals, product, and reps’ skills, you can build out a more granular ideal rep profile that’s specific to your company and products.

Ideal rep profile key competencies

Define the outcomes for each sales training program

Once you’ve mapped out the IRP that your organization needs to succeed, you can plan out courses and programs that focus on each area. Start by defining the outcomes for each training program. The outcomes should align with the core skills, knowledge, and behaviors laid out in your IRP. For example:

  • Knowledge-based training programs based on role or different product features help reps manage the sales cycle and run product demos tailored to prospects’ needs
  • Behavior training programs help reps spot when they’re using filler words so they can reduce the frequency of using them on calls
  • Skills training programs on common objections help reps handle prospects’ objections confidently

Identify reps’ personalized sales training needs

Your sellers all have different levels of experience, skills, and knowledge gaps, which means they’ll get more out of personalized training programs than a one-size-fits-all training session. On small sales teams, managers may be able to assess their reps’ training needs by manually reviewing their work and listening back to their calls on a regular basis. But in large or fast-growing companies, managers can’t be as hands-on with their reps’ ongoing performance.

Instead, you can use technology to monitor performance, recording and analyzing customer calls and other interactions to understand how each rep conducts themself in real-world selling scenarios. A conversational intelligence tool like Mindtickle’s Call AI analyzes all your team’s sales conversations to identify skills and behaviors that need improvement, such as their tone, talk time, and use of filler words.

It’s easier to personalize training for your reps if you have multiple courses that map to different competencies rather than a single sales masterclass or lots of ad-hoc training activities without an overarching strategy.

Mindtickle Call AI with conversation intelligence insights

You can use that data to compare each rep’s skills, knowledge, and competencies against the standards set out in your ideal rep profile. This will help you identify areas where each rep excels and where they need to focus on improving.

Greg Myers, regional VP of sales at Turing Video, explained how Mindtickle helps him identify opportunities for his sellers to improve their messaging. “I can’t spend my entire workday listening to every single recorded meeting conducted by our sales reps, but it’s still important that I make sure their conversations are productive and on message,” he said.

"One of the best features of Call AI is its ability to search call transcripts for specific questions that should be asked. From there, we can start to refine reps’ questions to make sure we elicit the right information from the customer."
Greg Myers
VP of Sales, Turing Video

You can use the insights from call recordings and analysis to identify the key skills and knowledge each rep needs to develop. Identifying the skills gaps of each rep means you can determine the training programs that are most relevant to each person and will have the biggest impact on their work.

Topics for of sales training

  • Competitive intelligence
  • Sales methodology
  • Sales tools
  • Sales cycle processes
  • Product releases
  • Messaging & positioning
  • Onboarding
  • Campaign enablement
  • Marketing reports & resources
  • Pricing & packaging

Create a library of sales training materials

The most successful sales training programs combine self-guided learning with coaching to allow reps to learn the theory and then put it into practice. You need a library of training materials in different formats — educational content and interactive exercises — for sellers to work through for the self-guided part of their programs.

Your training library should include materials to help reps develop across all the areas defined in your ideal rep profile. Resources could include:

  • Datasheets on different product features
  • Video courses covering core skills like sales prospecting or outlining the different stages of your company’s sales process
  • Quizzes to recap courses reps have already reviewed to improve information retention through spaced reinforcement

Work with experts across your organization to build out training materials for your sellers. While sales training or enablement leaders may feel like they need to produce all the content themselves, they should engage other team members instead.

Your product team is an expert in that area, so they should help with modules about different features. Your marketing team can help you develop training on key messaging to help ensure there is consistency when sellers talk with prospects. And sales managers can help you put together courses to help reps learn about your sales process or ideal customer profile.

Using a revenue productivity platform like Mindtickle, you can set up a centralized content library in your sales content management system. You can build programs for different skills and topics, and your sellers can work through the programs that are most relevant to them. It is important that you can easily manage training content at scale, one where you can update or replace resources in just a few clicks.

Add dedicated sales coaching to self-guided learning

Traditionally, sales training has meant one-to-one coaching, where reps receive in-person training from their managers. But, in large organizations, remote companies, or fast-growing sales teams, your sales manager will become the bottleneck that holds back reps’ development because they don’t have enough time to train their teams and work toward the company’s revenue targets.

Technology like Mindtickle can help scale up your training and sales coaching by enabling reps to practice skills and sales scenarios on their own in a low-stakes environment. For example, they can complete virtual role-plays and record practice demos or training exercises on common sales scenarios like objection handling. Then they’ll receive AI-powered recommendations on their tone, length, pacing, and use of filler words to coach them on behavioral best practices.

Mindtickle Missions

The rep’s manager can then analyze their performance to identify skills and knowledge gaps without spending (at least) 30 minutes per rep watching their practice demo. After this analysis, the manager can compare the rep’s skills against the IRP. Then they can recommend specific training exercises or modules from your training library to any areas of weakness.

Sally Cox, instructional designer, global field enablement at Splunk, explained how using Mindtickle has helped them tailor coaching and training materials for their sales reps: “Managers can now create their own coaching content faster and personalize it to fit the specific needs of their reps.” Using technology to add coaching alongside self-guided learning makes it easier for managers to personalize training recommendations for their sales reps at scale.

Create ongoing training and coaching opportunities

Your sales training program shouldn’t just focus on teaching sellers new skills and sharing new information. If it did, you could get away with offering training once a quarter or on an ad-hoc basis. But sales reps need to have their skills, knowledge, and competencies regularly reinforced to ensure they retain important information and align with your company’s core messaging.

Companies need to think of sales training as a continuous process — something we here at Mindtickle call sales everboarding. The strongest sales teams (where all reps perform well rather than having a couple of top performers) have a culture of ongoing skills development and improvement through regular training and coaching.

You can develop a team culture of continuous improvement by providing ongoing training and coaching opportunities for reps and managers. Using a conversational intelligence tool like Call AI, you can analyze all your reps’ calls and sales interactions and automatically identify training opportunities and skills gaps. Managers can then recommend training programs and modules on an ongoing basis to help their reps improve.

You can also engage sellers with ongoing microlearning activities like live challenges and quizzes. These help reps improve information retention with spaced reinforcement and break their refresher training into bite-size chunks. And with an element of gamification, you can encourage some healthy competition between your reps to increase participation in your sales training.

Rethink traditional sales training with sales readiness

A structured sales readiness program is the best way for companies to change their traditional approach to sales training. The five-step framework encourages teams to pursue a continuous state of excellence across the whole sales organization by:

  1. Defining excellence
  2. Building knowledge
  3. Aligning content
  4. Analyzing performance
  5. Optimizing behavior

Instead of only providing reps with training during onboarding (plus your annual kick-off meetings), sales readiness creates a culture of learning through everboarding. By making training an ongoing process rather than an occasional investment, your sales team is always at its peak and ready for those high-value conversations with prospects.

Sales reps continually build knowledge through spaced reinforcement training exercises and microlearning activities tailored to areas where rep proficiency looks weaker. Then sales teams use AI-driven conversational intelligence to analyze reps’ performance on an ongoing basis. This enables reps (and their managers) to identify opportunities for improvement, where they can optimize skills and behavior with further personalized training.

Prioritizing sales readiness activities helps companies create a culture of sales excellence for their whole team, raising performance levels for all their reps, not just the historic top performers.

Build winning behaviors in your sales team with the help of Mindtickle

Personalized sales training programs help to set all your reps up for success and maintain a state of sales readiness. Mindtickle enables companies to move away from the cookie-cutter approach to sales training. Instead, you can build sales training programs that can be personalized to the needs of each individual rep — no matter how big or small your sales organization. 

Personalize Your Sales Training

See how Mindtickle helps you build and scale your sales training program. 

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in February 2022 and updated in November 2023. 

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How Managers Can Use Conversation Intelligence For Sales https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-managers-can-use-conversation-intelligence-mindtickle/ Mon, 20 Nov 2023 17:16:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14190 As conversation intelligence platforms become a cornerstone of the sales tech stack, sales leaders and their teams are exploring how sales managers can use them to boost results and create a team of top performers. To answer this question, we’ve put together an in-depth analysis of: What conversation intelligence is Why we believe conversation intelligence …

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As conversation intelligence platforms become a cornerstone of the sales tech stack, sales leaders and their teams are exploring how sales managers can use them to boost results and create a team of top performers.

To answer this question, we’ve put together an in-depth analysis of:

  • What conversation intelligence is
  • Why we believe conversation intelligence is worth the investment
  • How conversation intelligence works
  • The benefits of this new technology for sales teams
  • How managers can use conversation intelligence to improve sales performance

What is conversation intelligence?

Conversation intelligence is a technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to review sales conversations and compile data-driven insights for improved sales performance.

It gives your managers and reps a single system of record for elevating rep performance during customer interactions, including:

  • Call recordings
  • Call scoring and analytics
  • Customer sentiment
  • In-line coaching
  • Best practices

This gives your team a single data model to identify top seller behaviors and a single compliance model that ensures everyone is on the same page, implementing best practices.

Is conversation intelligence worth the investment?

The global conversation AI market is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 21.8%, delivering a market value of USD $18.4B by 2026, according to Markets and Markets.

Conversation AI market value by 2026
$ 0 B

It gives you complete visibility into what’s happening on deals by analyzing customer conversations on calls and meetings — giving you a 64% increase in revenue generated by reps in their first quarter and a 50% average reduction in new hire onboarding time.

After reviewing these numbers, the real question is: Can you afford not to invest in conversation intelligence?

How does conversation intelligence work?

You’ve no doubt been on a call where a bot is recording the meeting. But what happens with that recording after it’s delivered to a manager’s inbox or stored in the recordings section of a sales platform?

In most organizations: nothing.

But there’s far too much valuable insight there to be ignored or, worse, forgotten about. And that’s where conversation intelligence software comes in.

 

With this technology, your recordings can be used for more than playbacks. It makes it easy for reps and managers to quickly find information in calls. It also does the heavy lifting of analyzing calls and providing valuable feedback for improving customer experience and overall sales performance.

For reps, it shares actionable insights that allow for self-diagnosis and self-coaching. For new reps, it leads to faster onboarding and skill development. For managers, it gives a high-level overview of the team’s performance as well as data for understanding the behaviors of top performers.

Keep in mind that this technology isn’t spyware for keeping tabs on your reps. It provides deep intelligence that empowers managers and reps to get more done, more efficiently, so they can hit quota and beyond.

With conversation intelligence software, teams are moving deals forward faster and quickly identifying signals that indicate they’re stalling or are ready to close.

It’s also guiding product marketing messaging and offers, so future sales conversations become easier.

The benefits of conversation intelligence for your sales team

Conversation intelligence is often mistakenly compared to a transcription tool, but the benefits go far beyond transcripts. Here are some of the top benefits of using this technology for sales.

 

At the end of the day, conversation intelligence is about revenue and creating a better experience for the buyer or customer.

It does this by helping reps be better prepared, both before and during calls. It suggests relevant content that reps can review to prepare for calls. And it frees reps to stop taking notes so they can focus on the conversation.

Reps are able to pay more attention to their selling motions and actively listen to the buyer. As a result, the prospect feels like they’re being heard; like their issues are being addressed.

Conversation intelligence tools give sellers one source of record to get their job done. It provides a library of resources and training, benchmarks for their selling behaviors, and actionable metrics on their calls.

This empowers reps to evaluate and coach themselves, so they can level up quickly.

A 2023 Salesforce study found that sellers spend less than 30% of their time selling. The other two-thirds of their time is spent on everything else.

That’s why it’s vital that sellers have a single platform where they find everything they need in just one or two clicks and automation that frees up their time.

Conversation intelligence is a big step in that direction. The platform records their calls, provides feedback and links to useful content, while helping reps track prospect questions and objections.

Managers don’t always have the time and resources to give personalized coaching. But with conversation intelligence, coaching is built into the platform.

Every call is scored, giving reps immediate feedback on strengths and areas for improvement. And managers can quickly add recommendations and constructive feedback when they review calls.

With this level of feedback, reps are able to coach themselves or seek peer-to-peer assistance.

Managers need to coach sellers, perform call reviews, give feedback that impacts performance, keep tabs on pipeline, and make accurate forecasts. For all of these tasks, conversation intelligence does the heavy lifting.

It gives relevant, accurate data on performance, so managers know how to support reps. It automates call scoring, so call reviews are faster and more precise. And it flags moments in calls that signal intent, so it’s easier to keep prospects moving through the pipeline.

The insights available through conversation intelligence are key to every area of revenue, from marketing to sales enablement to customer support. The challenge has been finding an effective way to share that information.

With conversation intelligence, sales data, and competitive intelligence are readily available to any area of your organization.

With the deep insights available through conversation intelligence, reps get the insights they need to become top sellers.

Call scores tell them whether their messaging landed, what the prospect sentiment was, and how they can improve to stay on message.

They can get off one call, review the feedback provided in the system, and understand where they need to improve — then apply that learning to their next call.

Conversation intelligence also helps them understand whether their messaging is landing. This helps them adjust quickly, when needed, to keep deals moving forward.

Conversation intelligence gives real-time data that’s invaluable for understanding what sellers need to succeed. By reviewing the metrics and call scores, you can identify the skills, competencies, and content that need your focus:

  • Content needed to move a deal forward
  • More accurate customer profiles
  • Market research and competitive intelligence
  • Pre- and post-call coaching
  • Skills exercises and role-plays

 

What are the best ways for managers to use conversation intelligence?

As you can see, conversation intelligence has the potential to transform your sales team. But it only works if you know how to use it. So let’s explore seven ways managers can use conversation intelligence in their day-to-day activities.

1. Leverage data for better results

Conversation intelligence scores your reps’ calls and highlights key moments, so you can manage your reps’ performance in less time. The data will tell you:

  • Are they adhering to your sales methodology?
  • How are they handling objections?
  • What questions are they asking and receiving?
  • Which competitor mentions are they fielding?
  • How are pricing and negotiation conversations handled?
  • Are there words that need to be said or avoided?
  • Are their deals progressing smoothly?

How to use this intelligence:

Use the data provided in the conversation intelligence platform to help you understand reps’ behaviors. Then leave comments encouraging them, linking to content that can help them, and providing actionable feedback.

Stay alert for trends in calls. If all of your reps are struggling with the same issue, you may need to provide training to improve competencies or alert the leadership team of issues.

2. Study top performers and their processes

Conversation intelligence scores sales calls, so you can quickly identify the key behaviors of your A-sellers:

  • What are the themes they talk about
  • How do they handle objections and competitor takedowns?
  • How many exchanges do they have with a prospect?

This data is valuable for coaching other sellers to uplevel their skills.

How to use this intelligence:

Analyze your top sellers’ calls to identify the behaviors they use consistently to drive results. Use these insights to create a top-seller profile, so the entire team knows the behaviors they need to develop.

3. Faster (and better) onboarding of new team members

It can take six to nine months for new sellers to ramp, and another six months for them to become top performers, according to RAIN Group. And sales managers play a major role in this ramp-up period.

Conversation intelligence allows you to give quick feedback on reps’ performance and suggest content or exercises that will help them level up. By providing immediate, relevant feedback, you can reduce ramp time by as much as 45%.

How to use this intelligence:

Use call scores to identify new reps’ strengths and opportunities. After reviewing calls, add positive and constructive feedback — including inline commentary in their call recordings, so they can understand what they’re doing and how it impacts their performance. And recommend content that will help them boost their skill.

4. Create a continuous coaching culture

Your reps want to succeed. But they need a safe coaching environment, where the entire team works together to improve. With conversation intelligence, you can create that kind of environment.

It gives you a bird’s-eye view of your team’s performance as well as allows deep dives into individual sellers’ performance. It scores each call against best practices, so you understand the competencies that need work.

How to use this intelligence:

Develop quizzes, exercises, and activities that can improve your key performance metrics. Then encourage the team to work together on them.

While you may reward individual seller achievements, focus on the team’s progress. Your goal is to turn C-players into B-players and B-players into A-players.

5. Build seller confidence

Often, sellers are resistant to conversation intelligence technology because it pulls back the curtain on what they’re doing and how they’re doing it. It can feel like Big Brother is watching, making reps afraid of how that will impact their future with your organization.

But conversation intelligence isn’t a performance tracker. It’s a tool designed for sellers to help them succeed. For instance, after implementing this technology:

How to use this intelligence:

It’s important to explain to sellers why you’re implementing conversation intelligence. They need to understand its ability to:

  • Increase productivity
  • Discover self-coaching and peer-to-peer coaching opportunities
  • Gain real-world feedback on their performance
  • Collaborate better with other revenue teams

When introducing it to your team, demonstrate how the technology works, and show them how it can be used to help them get more done, in less time, and with better results.

6. Listen to the voice of the market

Conversation intelligence gives a full transcript of every call. It reveals the questions asked and received and captures prospects’ responses.

This gives you deep insight into the market’s needs. It tells you whether your messaging is landing, and reveals the features or benefits you need to lead with.

How to use this intelligence:

Mine sales calls for the specific words used by your prospects to express their needs, desires, and pain points.

As you review calls, listen to the prospect. What are they saying? What does this tell you about the market? These are points of intelligence that need to be shared with leadership, marketing teams, and other departments.

7. Review deals and base forecasts on real evidence

Ultimately, your job is to raise the sales team’s performance to drive consistent revenue growth. With conversation intelligence, you don’t have to depend on sellers’ reports of how their deals are progressing. With just a few clicks, you can review deals and see where they are in the pipeline.

How to use this intelligence:

This technology gives you a 360-degree view of your accounts and opportunities. Use it to keep your finger on the pulse of every deal where it is in the pipeline, how likely it is to move forward, and how fast.

Your forecasts won’t be guesswork. They’ll be based on in-field data. This allows you to give more accurate forecasts and hold yourself and your team accountable.

Bottom line

Conversation intelligence has transformed the sales floor, providing insights to improve onboarding, productivity, and performance.

The biggest challenge is getting sales teams to feel comfortable with this technology. Full transparency can be unnerving.

But if you focus on the benefits of conversation intelligence and the single system of record that elevates rep performance, you’ll get the buy-in you’re looking for.

Essentially, conversation intelligence is the cheat code for success — for managers and reps alike.

Conversation Intelligence in Action

Want to learn more about Mindtickle's conversation intelligence solution, Call AI? 

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in August 2022 and was updated in November 2023. 

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Content As A Service Scope And Services Description https://www.mindtickle.com/content-as-a-service-scope-and-services-description/ Thu, 09 Nov 2023 11:43:05 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=18660 Content as a Service Scope and Services Description Table of Contents Content as a Service (CaaS) Description: Deliverables Process Assumptions for hourly bundle or Enablement Partnership engagement Project timelines for hourly bundle engagement Acceptance Criteria Content as a Service (CaaS) Description During the CaaS term, Mindtickle will provide content services either as subscription to Ready …

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Content as a Service Scope and Services Description

  1. Content as a Service (CaaS) Description

    During the CaaS term, Mindtickle will provide content services either as subscription to Ready to Deploy Program or CaaS RTD Library or a bundle of hours of CaaS services or resource of a FTE or a fraction of an FTE equivalent or a combination of these services. These are further explained below:

    1. Ready to Deploy Program (“RTD Programs”) : These are pre-built programs or content that the Customer could subscribe to as laid out in the Order. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Programs are exclusively owned by Mindtickle since it contains pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle. The maximum number of programs that the Customer can access per year would be specified in the Order. On expiry or the termination of the Order, Mindtickle shall revoke access to the Ready to Deploy Programs subscribed by the Customer, unless an amendment or a new Order is executed to continue the access.

    2. CaaS RTD Library : CaaS RTD Library includes all the RTD Programs available during the subscription period mentioned in the Order. The maximum number of Users that can access or invited to the CaaS RTD Library would be specified in the Order. On expiry or the termination of the Order, Mindtickle shall revoke access to the CaaS RTD Library and all the RTD Programs subscribed by the Customer, unless an amendment or a new Order is executed to continue the access.

    3. Bundle of hours or an FTE engagement : Mindtickle would provide certain maximum CaaS hours or FTE resource(s) as scoped and specified in the Order, to provide the following services to the Customer:

      1. Custom content and collateral development : Mindtickle would develop customized content and collateral that is compatible with the Mindtickle Platform, based on specific requirements of the Customer. The Customer content that is unique to the Customer’s platform instance, excluding any pre-existing Mindtickle material and exclusively derived from Customer Data, would be handed over to Customer as exclusive Customer owned intellectual property upon completion of the project.

      2. Content planning and review : Mindtickle will recommend appropriate output format, best practices and structure of content to the Customer’s internal team and the Customer’s team would then develop the content required as per Customer’s requirements. This category of CaaS services only involves consulting activities by Mindtickle and does not involve content delivery.

  2. Deliverables

    The final deliverables for every custom content consultation or content development project will be in either one or combination of the below formats or any other format as mutually agreed with the Customer depending on the individual project :

    1. PowerPoint Deck (.PPTX)
    2. Videos (.mp4)
    3. Portable Document Format (.PDF)
    4. Word Documents (.DOCX)
    5. SCORM (.ZIP)
    6. Excel spreadsheet (.XLSX)
    7. Content or assets or settings on the Mindtickle platform
  3. Process

    Mindtickle will follow the process below to deliver each custom content design and development project to the Customer. Each of the steps below will have a Customer review and sign-off process before proceeding with the next step.

    1. Requirement gathering – Customer will explain the requirement, learning objective, learner profiles, and expectations around the module/project.
    2. Query resolution and output format – Customer will address Mindtickle’s queries and brainstorm to finalize the desired output format to meet the training objectives.
    3. Content walkthrough – Customer provides a walkthrough of the content, addresses Mindtickle’s queries, and provides a go ahead to start with the development.
    4. Content structure – Mindtickle recommends a structure for the project.
    5. Content design or development – MindTickle designs or develops content according to the project requirements.
    6. Mindtickle uploads all the developed content on the Customer’s Mindtickle instance according to the finalized content structure.
    7. Customer will sign off and launch/roll out the content to learners.

    CaaS team would be working with third parties to provide specialized resources for the translation and professional voiceover recording services.

    The above-mentioned process is only for reference purpose for the standard content development. For any content development requirement, the parties would mutually agree on a different process through a statement of work (“SOW”) or the Mindtickle team would share the process post the engagement kick-off with customer.

    In the event customer enters into a separate SOW with Mindtickle for scope of work or agrees to different process with Mindtickle, such SOW or different process will apply and will prevail over the Process mentioned hereinabove.

  4. Assumptions for hourly bundle or Enablement Partnership engagement

    1. The total number of maximum CaaS hours shall be specified in the Order.
    2. Mindtickle will maintain timesheets that will be shared regularly with the Customer to provide visibility on the hours consumed as well as the balance number of hours.
    3. The total number of consumed hours will not exceed the total CaaS hours agreed in the Order, except with the Parties’ mutual agreement as set forth in a separate Order or a change order as executed by the Parties.
    4. The maximum hours that Customer could utilize every month shall not exceed the range below, as per the hourly package subscribed in the Order, unless otherwise agreed in the Order:
      Maximum hours as per the orderMaximum usable hours per calendar month
      1 to 150Total hours in the contract
      151 to 500150
      501 to 1000200
      1001 to 2000300
      >2000400
    5. The Customer will provide the required subject matter expert support and the source content required for any custom content development project.
    6. CaaS Services consultants will work 10 am to 6pm (Monday to Friday) during their home office time zone. Meetings outside of these hours can be arranged as mutually agreed between Customer and Consultant.
    7. Hourly bundle or Enablement Partnership engagements purchased cannot be carried forward after the Term.
    8. For any project that will require professional voice-over recording services.
      1. Mindtickle will provide sample(s) to the Customer. Once Customer approves the voice-over sample as well as the voice-over script, Mindtickle will proceed with the recording.
      2. If there are any errors in the pronunciation and these are highlighted within 3 working days of voice-over delivery, the same will be re-recorded by the voice-over artist at no additional cost. However, re-recording resulting due to any changes to the voice-over script will require additional effort investment and additional Fees would be charged.
  5. Assumptions for FTE equivalent resource engagement : At Customer’s request, Mindtickle may provide designated resources (“Consultant/s”) for CaaS and such arrangement would be specified in the Order. The assumption for Consultant engagement are as follows:

    1. The term FTE means a ‘Full Time Equivalent’ providing not more than 8 hours per working day or 40 hours of Consultant(s) providing CaaS service per week subject to clause 4 below (pertaining to leaves). FTE engagement can be delivered by a resource or combination of resources on a non-exclusive basis unless otherwise expressly mentioned in the Order. Accordingly, the maximum available number of hours for a 1/2 FTE, 1/3 FTE and 1/4 FTE specified in the Order shall be prorated to 20 hours a week, 14 hours a week and 10 hours a week, respectively subject to reasonable allowances for time off. Any balance of unused time shall not be carried forward to the next day or week.
    2. The Consultant shall provide an estimate of the time required for completing the work post-content analysis phase. The development plan shall continue as per the provided estimates unless there is a change in the scope of work or re-prioritization of work by the Customer.
    3. Consultant will work 10 am to 6 pm (Monday to Friday) during their home office time zone. Meetings outside of these hours can be arranged as mutually agreed between Customer and Consultant.
    4. Consultant will be entitled to reasonable allowances for Paid Time Off, Administration, Sick Leave, and Training.
    5. Consultant will work from home or the Mindtickle office. Any travel to the Customer location will be billed as per Customer travel policies.
    6. Customer will provide the required subject matter expert support and the source content required for any custom content development project. The CaaS consultant would not source , draft or curate source content required for development of any training or enablement program. FTE engagements purchased cannot be carried forward after the Term.
  6. Project timelines for hourly bundle engagement
    1. On sharing a requirement, the Customer will provide Mindtickle, with a lead time of 5 working days to start working on the requirement.
    2. The timeline for every project/task will be defined and communicated to the Customer by Mindtickle following the “Query Resolution and Output format” step of the process.
    3. For projects/tasks with fixed, predefined timelines by the Customer, the Customer will notify Mindtickle at the earliest date possible. Mindtickle will then analyse the requirement, complete the “Query Resolution and Output format” step, and share the projected timeline to complete the project/task. If the projected timeline shared by Mindtickle does not meet the target timeline required by the Customer, Mindtickle and Customer will discuss and agree upon one or combination of more than one of the below options:
      1. Explore the possibility of adding an additional resource on the project to pull the expected timeline for completion. This can be explored only if –
        1. There is an available lead time of minimum fifteen (15) business days before a resource needs to be added; and
        2. The duration for which the additional resource is required is fixed and agreed upon.
      2. Decide on the minimum viable output to be delivered within the target timeline
      3. Explore the possibility of changing the output format in order to reduce the time investment required in development
    4. All timelines communicated by Mindtickle will be based on budgeted Customer review timelines and project steps as set out in the project schedule.
  7. Acceptance Criteria
    1. Customer shall have the right to review a deliverable within ten (10) calendar days of receipt of subject deliverable from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle. All the Customer feedback will be provided via email or in a format/template shared by Mindtickle.
    2. Before the end of the ten (10) calendar day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject deliverable is accepted by Customer.
    3. If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the ten (10) calendar day review period, subject deliverable shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    4. If the Customer does not accept subject deliverable, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the ten (10) calendar day review period.
    5. Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject deliverable and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    6. Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each deliverable in scope.
    7. If after a total of two attempts the deliverable fails to materially comply with the specifications, then Customer may reject the subject deliverable.
    8. Customer shall receive a credit or refund, as mutually agreed upon by both Parties, of sums owed or paid, as applicable, for the development of the rejected deliverable.

If Customer procured SKO Services through respective Order, the scope and description of SKO Services is described here

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How to Create a Sales Certification Program That Actually Build Sales Competencies https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/create-sales-certification-program-actually-builds-sales-competencies/ Thu, 02 Nov 2023 06:43:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17872 You wouldn’t put a pilot in a cockpit without ensuring they’d passed the simulator first, right? It’s the same idea behind sales certifications. It’s your way to measure whether a new hire is ready for actual sales — how much knowledge they retained, where the gaps are, and what they’ll be able to utilize when …

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You wouldn’t put a pilot in a cockpit without ensuring they’d passed the simulator first, right?

It’s the same idea behind sales certifications. It’s your way to measure whether a new hire is ready for actual sales — how much knowledge they retained, where the gaps are, and what they’ll be able to utilize when face-to-face with a customer. Sales certification or sales training programs include knowledge-based assessments and simulations to answer all those questions and more. All you have to do is determine which key skills a sales rep must demonstrate to pass.

Here’s what to know about sales rep certification, how it works, and what sales training programs should look like.

Defining sales certification

Sales certification is proof that a rep has completed assessments, exercises, or tests to demonstrate specific knowledge and skills. Certification can begin as early as onboarding, where reps learn what and how to sell and are ready for coaching; however, sales training certification programs can occur at all levels and take different forms depending on your goals.

Of course, there’s more to sales certification than just passing or failing. Sales reps should be able to demonstrate their knowledge and skills and how these meet customers’ business needs. Essentially, it’s important to set a standard of achievement.

What is a sales certification program?

Sales certification or sales training programs are the systems through which you deliver educational material and experiences. They can include courses, learning modules, role-plays, assessments, and more. Our research found that most sales certifications are completed in January and March.

January and March

Months when most certifications programs are completed

Good sales representative certification programs should provide visibility into every step of the learning process, allowing trainers to track progress, identify gaps in the material, and connect educational outcomes to future sales performance.

Sales training certification programs can be as basic or specific as necessary. You can choose the best training topics based on existing knowledge gaps, common questions during the onboarding process, and any relevant goals.

How to create a sales certification program for your sales reps

When you know what you want to assess, you need to design a sales certification program (or choose a premade option) that achieves your objectives.

Firstly, you need to set up an effective review process. No matter what assessment or sales certification training program you choose, a real person should review most exercises. That’s how you can determine whether the rep has “passed” and achieved their certification. This is also a great opportunity to learn more about your reps’ selling styles, habits and coaching needs — not to mention the effectiveness of your learning material.

Along the way, keep in mind that you’ll need to connect your learning objectives with business and revenue outcomes. That often means collaborating with leadership on multiple levels and going beyond the sales department to get the big picture. On top of that, you’ll need to balance the pacing of your sales training program; self-paced is often best, but you still need to be careful to avoid “information overload” — especially during onboarding.

As learners progress through your program, check in to evaluate engagement, readiness and confidence levels. If you notice your content isn’t “clicking” for new hires or existing reps, consider restructuring your approach so topics more gradually build on one another — and remember to utilize roleplaying to let sales reps cement their new skills and take a break from book learning.

You should also think about what happens after sales training. Once a rep has passed, remember they’ll need to hone their skills through:

  • Feedback sessions
  • Shadowing senior reps
  • Listening in on calls
  • Developing confidence and capability through face-to-face coaching

Noting all of these things is key to creating an effective sales certification program for your reps. When you know where you’re going, it’s much easier to create a path — or in this case, a program — to get you there.

Here are three different training approaches and how to leverage them:

Knowledge assessment

This assessment is focused on sales rep knowledge — what they’ve retained and understood — and how they apply it in the context of customer needs. Tests and quizzes are a common choice but roleplays can be particularly useful.

Knowledge assessments should include a range of materials and test structures to more accurately gauge different aspects of the training. For example, Mindtickle’s sales training software has eight quiz types — from multiple choice to label matching — that can all be performed using our online platform. The platform calculates whether the rep passes this section and is ready for the next level of certification.

Copilot - Assessment

There are two ways to structure these assessments:

Participants don’t have access to any resources, notes or supporting material. This is purely a test of what they’ve retained and how well they adopted key concepts or skills.

Participants have access to the sales enablement or support content they would utilize in a real scenario. This more closely simulates the job environment, where sellers have access to specific resources but have limited time to act.

Simulation missions

These “missions” are a dry run of the sales process and the associated techniques. For example, to test the rep’s ability to articulate your company’s value proposition, you could have them record their sales pitch. This video can be used to:

  • Help the rep get a more objective view of how they performed.
  • Inform trainers and coaches on knowledge gaps or problem areas.
  • Test the rep’s ability to respond to unfamiliar questions, situations, and objections.
Copilot - Mission review

To get even more out of these missions, create a library of sales pitches from all new hires. This library isn’t just a training tool; it’s also a way to gamify your sales training programs by using crowd voting to highlight pitching styles, share ideas, and get the whole sales team engaged.

Dummy leads

Another great exercise to test a sales rep’s understanding is to have them actually run through the sales process using “dummy leads.” This allows you to give out leads depending on what you need to assess; for example, one dummy lead might be a tough sell, making it a great way to test sales reps on their ability to position your value proposition.

Through this assessment process, sales reps can:

  • Identify and track leads.
  • Do background research on leads.
  • Populate the CRM.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of your systems and processes.

Better yet, the dummy lead approach can connect with a simulation mission for an even more in-depth process. This helps leaders, managers, and trainers know whether reps can juggle the right things when working with real leads.

Benefits of a sales certification program

Sales training certification programs aren’t just a great way to hone key skills, improve sales readiness and close more deals. They also have significant benefits for your teams, including:

Passing a training program gives reps the confidence and engagement they need to better connect with their roles.

Training courses provide vital performance information and can help address issues before they arise.

When reps know more about processes and tools, they spend less time asking questions or fixing mistakes.

Case studies

Want to see how four companies revamped their sales certifications and saw real benefits thanks to Mindtickle sales training programs? Here’s a quick look:

Introhive

Improved onboarding and used gamification, roleplays, and microlearning to grow certifications by 100% and shorten sales cycles. Read the full case study here

Trimble Viewpoint

Used analytics-driven enablement dashboards to reduce ramp time from 69 days to 52 days. Read the full case study here

Integrace Health

everaged manager dashboards and certification programs to win up to 82% sales rep approval ratings and reduce onboarding times from 22 to five days. Read the full case study here

MongoDB

Implemented a 30-60-90 day onboarding program to reduce ramp time by 45%. Read the full case study here

Plus, check out this case study from Wiley Publishing:

Get sales-ready with the right training programs

The right sales certification program can take your new hires from good to great. This is your chance to start them off on the right foot — not just for their own sake, but for the rest of their team, the company overall, and even the customers they’ll someday serve. Don’t forget that sales training certification programs benefit leaders and coaches with rich insights and valuable data, too.

Scale your sales certifications

Take your sellers' skills to the next level by building out your sales certification program in Mindtickle. 

Get a Demo

This post was originally published in February 2016, updated in April 2023, and again in November 2023. 

 

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8 Must-Try Sales Role-Plays That Will Prepare Your Team for Every Selling Situation https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/8-must-try-sales-role-play-scenarios-that-will-prepare-your-team-for-every-selling-situation/ Tue, 31 Oct 2023 02:11:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/8-must-try-sales-role-play-scenarios-that-will-prepare-your-team-for-every-selling-situation/ Whether you’re taking up a new hobby or developing on-the-job skills in a sales role, it’s true what they say: Practice makes perfect. There’s only so much that a seller can digest through sales onboarding and training content — and in order for a rep to truly hone their skills, they must practice through sales …

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Whether you’re taking up a new hobby or developing on-the-job skills in a sales role, it’s true what they say: Practice makes perfect. There’s only so much that a seller can digest through sales onboarding and training content — and in order for a rep to truly hone their skills, they must practice through sales role-plays.

Role-play sales training exercises have long been recognized as a powerful training tool for good reason — because they work. They’re a proven way to boost a seller’s confidence in new material, familiarize themselves with messaging, and learn how to handle objections in a risk-free environment.

The value of sales role-plays

Sales role-play scenarios are an especially valuable coaching technique right now. As many sales forces have shifted to remote work environments, it’s imperative that sales training role-plays become a part of every seller’s routine. Because sales is such a people-oriented profession, many of the skills learned on the job are developed through shadowing, coaching and mentorship.

When reps are on their own, and less likely to develop these skills organically as they’re not working alongside their peers in an office, it’s important to foster this skill set through designated training sessions. After all, role-playing helps sellers practice and prepare for real-world buyer interactions so they know how to handle every selling situation thrown their way.

That being said, role-play is traditionally considered a team sport. So you may be wondering how it can be approached effectively while everyone is working remotely. The key is to use a “smart” role-play tool that comes with AI. A tool like this allows you to use AI to analyze a transcript of your reps’ video recordings or presentation voiceovers, giving you insights (with the help of keyword analysis) into the presenter’s articulation, product knowledge, enthusiasm, confidence, and comprehensiveness of response.

 

Compared to a traditional role-play conducted in person, virtual role-plays give reps the opportunity to take multiple passes at a scenario at their own pace, while also equipping them with concrete feedback that they can put into practice immediately.

Top 8 sales role-play scenarios

If you’re a leader or manager looking for sales role-play ideas that will get your team thinking on their feet and mastering new scenarios, we’ve highlighted our eight tried-and-true favorites.

As you think about the different types of role-play scenarios to practice with your team, it’s a good idea to first identify the key areas where reps typically struggle or face challenges, and equip them with the tools they need to prepare for those scenarios in the field.

Below are the top role-play scenarios — along with some suggestions for how you can effectively execute them in a remote environment.

This is an essential exercise for any sales rep, but particularly BDRs who need support in identifying the buyers’ problems. With a smart role-play tool, you’ll be able to provide contextual, in-video comments on their role-play, so reps know exactly where they can refine their talk track or ask stronger probing questions

A good elevator pitch is everything to a sales rep. Reps can practice their elevator pitches on a call or in the form of a recorded practice, which can then be reviewed and evaluated by their manager and their peers.

This role-play sales training is especially valuable for those transitioning from field sales to inside sales. This type of role-play scenario allows reps to practice sales conversations remotely with other team members or their managers. This might include handling new sales software or adapting their talk track for a virtual meeting — both of which can be evaluated with the right technology in place.

Your reps’ messaging needs to be precise and their product knowledge evident during demos, so it’s always a good idea for reps to role-play a product demo with a more experienced colleague or sales manager. These can be analyzed for keywords, filler words and to gauge reps’ confidence in the material, especially when unexpected questions come their way.

Objection handling role-plays gives reps the chance to practice answering tough questions and combat objections from buyers. This can be done virtually with top-performing sales colleagues and helps give less experienced sellers the chance to hear firsthand the types of objections that a typical prospect would have, then use their training to try to answer their questions or mitigate their concerns.

Great sales reps are skilled negotiators. Develop this skill in your salesforce by creating role-plays simulating buyers asking for a lower price based on competitor pricing or budget. Using AI can be extremely helpful when evaluating negotiation role-plays because it identifies the number of filler words used, tone and confidence, which are typically more difficult to effectively provide feedback on without concrete data.

 

When competitors come up in sales conversations, you want your reps prepared and ready to handle those situations with ease. To do this, sellers can role-play conversations that mimic situations when a buyer mentions a competitor or asks about comparisons. You can also encourage reps to set competitive traps in their product positioning and scan their role-play transcripts to ensure they’re hitting the mark each time.

Buyers love seeing examples of how other customers use and benefit from your product. Customer storytelling role-plays allow reps to practice sharing their best customer use cases and stories. Using a smart role-play tool, you can leave comments at specific points in each recording where you think messaging could be refined or strengthened.

Role-plays coupled with expert coaching: a winning combination

When it comes to effective on-the-job learning, we know traditional training materials aren’t enough, but neither is sales coaching alone — no matter how good it is. To actually drive changes in seller behavior, reps must also have the opportunity to practice their skills in live situations.

By offering reps the opportunity to conduct virtual sales role-plays in a remote work environment, while also being able to provide accurate and timely feedback through some of the AI-powered tools on the market, you’ll be able to set your reps up for success whether they’re near or far.

 

Better role-plays = More productive sellers

Ready to see how Mindtickle can make your role-plays more effective? 

Request a Demo

This post was originally published in June 2021 and updated in October 2023. 

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Strobe Light Strategies: Illuminating Top Sales Enablement Tactics https://www.mindtickle.com/webinar/strobe-light-strategies-illuminating-top-sales-enablement-tactics/ Wed, 25 Oct 2023 13:56:56 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=webinar&p=18485 Now available on-demand from the Modern Sales Pros Sales Fever Summit! Just as the disco era had its iconic dance moves, the sales floor has its own choreography to ensure reps dazzle and deliver. In an ever-competitive world, equipping your reps with the right strategies is paramount. Slide into the spotlight as we break down …

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Now available on-demand from the Modern Sales Pros Sales Fever Summit!

Just as the disco era had its iconic dance moves, the sales floor has its own choreography to ensure reps dazzle and deliver. In an ever-competitive world, equipping your reps with the right strategies is paramount.

Slide into the spotlight as we break down the top 5 ways to set the stage for your reps, empowering them to sell, groove, and achieve more.

  • Tuning the Track: Product knowledge and its undeniable impact on sales performance.
  • Mastering the Moves: Role-playing and real-time feedback for honing skills.
  • Setting the Stage: Providing the tools and tech stack that accelerate sales cycles.
  • Reading the Room: Cultivating emotional intelligence and customer-centric selling.
  • Syncing the Beat: Continuous learning and adaptive training for the evolving market.
paul-butterfield
Paul Butterfield,
Founder & CEO,
Revenue Flywheel Group
Stephanie White,
Sr. Dr. Revenue Enablement,
Loopio
Teri-long
Teri Long,
VP, Global Enablement,
Mindtickle
melodie
Melodie Schwartz,
VP Enablement & Operations,
Spiff
Whitney Sieck,
VP of Revenue Enablement,
Demandbase

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Mindtickle’s New Features and Enhancements for Fall 2023: All Those in Favor, Say “AI” https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mindtickles-new-features-and-enhancements-for-fall-2023-all-those-in-favor-say-ai/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mindtickles-new-features-and-enhancements-for-fall-2023-all-those-in-favor-say-ai/#comments Wed, 18 Oct 2023 13:01:24 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18448 With the enormous advances in AI and automation, every member of your customer-facing teams can focus on using their human creativity and strategic thinking to deliver exceptional customer and buying experiences. Mindtickle’s 2023 Fall Announcement introduces the ability to scale the use of best practices and highlights winning behaviors with new features and updates, including: …

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With the enormous advances in AI and automation, every member of your customer-facing teams can focus on using their human creativity and strategic thinking to deliver exceptional customer and buying experiences.

Mindtickle’s 2023 Fall Announcement introduces the ability to scale the use of best practices and highlights winning behaviors with new features and updates, including:

  • AI search for fast, accurate results ​​based on a deeper understanding of language and search terms
  • AI-powered self-enablement with real-time answers to field questions on topics like pricing, or product features
  • and more.

Take a look at all the brilliant updates on the horizon and close out the year on a high note with us.

Find what you need, fast

Copilot’s AI Search

When searches require exact spelling or phrasing, it can become frustrating and a waste of time sifting through irrelevant search results. Save time and reduce friction when trying to find training, content, and calls in Mindtickle with smart search results using Copilot, eliminating the need for an exact keyword match.

Copilot’s AI-powered just-in-time enablement

Finding the right subject matter expert, asking them a question, and getting an answer can take anywhere from seconds to hours, or even days. Ensure teams are successful in every prospect or customer interaction by getting them timely answers to their questions using Copilot’s generative AI. Encourage self-sufficiency in your go-to-market roles and reduce the amount of time spent by subject matter experts answering common questions asked by field teams around topics like pricing or product features.

Ensure consistent deal execution

AI-powered call scoring

Have your sales calls scored based on how well the rep adheres to deal qualification frameworks to identify opportunities for coaching and training. Reinforce those sales methodologies at scale to ensure your teams are executing deals consistently.

Prevent overwhelm with curation

Role-based home pages and scoped DSRs, call library and content center access

Provide a more tailored user experience to enhance learners’ engagement and productivity. Role-based home pages allow for precise content targeting, ensuring reps access the most relevant training and collateral suited to their roles or based on sales stages. Limit which DSRs, call libraries, and areas of your content center various users can access for better control for admins and a more streamlined experience for those users. With attention being directed only to what is needed and relevant, learners can focus on upskilling to impact revenue.

More for Microsoft customers

Microsoft Teams instructor-led training integration

Schedule and manage your Microsoft Teams-hosted Instructor-Led Training sessions conveniently in the Mindtickle platform, with automatic attendance and engagement tracking so you can understand who is actively participating in your ILTs.

Outlook add-in

Ensure the assets that reps use to drive deals forward and broaden the scope of insight into engagement with your content by making finding and sharing the right asset for each email interaction easy and convenient.

Content sync with Sharepoint

Effortlessly maintain your content library in Mindtickle with an automatic content sync with Sharepoint to save time for admins and improve reps’ confidence in the relevance and accuracy of the content.

Mindtickle’s commitment to customer-centric innovation

Like the learners, managers, and creators who use Mindtickle, we strive to improve the customer experience and meet their ever-evolving needs. Mindtickle thrives on curiosity and pushes to anticipate and build what customers will need in the future, partnering with customers who provide feedback on trends they see, new creative ways they use our features, and constructive comments about our solutions.

Want to learn more about the new features and enhancements coming out through the end of the year? Schedule a demo.

Mindtickle's Fall 2023 Announcement

Want to learn more about the new features and enhancements coming out through the end of the year?

Learn More + Get a Demo

The post Mindtickle’s New Features and Enhancements for Fall 2023: All Those in Favor, Say “AI” appeared first on Mindtickle.

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Virtual Sales Training Programs: 10 Skills Every Seller Needs to Master https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/virtual-sales-training-programs-10-skills-every-seller-needs-to-master/ Fri, 13 Oct 2023 12:49:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14617 Some think great sellers are born, but more often than not, they’re made through virtual sales training, teaching, practice, and support. Considering that most selling is done virtually today, and that buyer journeys are becoming more complex, it’s never been more important for salespeople to refine their skills in order to effectively engage prospects and …

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Some think great sellers are born, but more often than not, they’re made through virtual sales training, teaching, practice, and support.

Considering that most selling is done virtually today, and that buyer journeys are becoming more complex, it’s never been more important for salespeople to refine their skills in order to effectively engage prospects and customers.

What is virtual sales training?

An essential part of virtual sales training is keeping the learner engaged by making training more consumable. Virtual sales training requires a completely different approach than classroom learning because it comes with its own different set of distractions and tactics for being effective. Below you’ll find some of the essential skills and knowledge to incorporate into your virtual sales training program.

Below we outline 10 skills your sales team can develop with help from a virtual sales training platform.

Top skills for virtual selling success

Discovery

To have any hope of making a sale, a seller must be able to find accounts and buyers that fit your target customer base and ask insightful questions in order to provide relevant and meaningful outreach and content.

Uncovering a prospect’s pain points, priorities, objectives, and buying team dynamics during discovery sales calls is crucial for continued engagement as the prospect moves further down the funnel. Have top-performing reps share best practices for discovery with others on the team to help everyone hone this skill.

Time management

In a perfect world, salespeople could devote 100% of their time to sales activities: sending emails, making sales calls, closing deals.

But today’s selling experience is complex, requiring a lot of tasks that are seemingly minor but in fact, largely contribute to a deal’s success. For this reason, reps must be able to juggle it all, prioritizing the highest-value items on their to-do lists and responding to buyer requests in a timely manner.

One-on-one coaching sessions between manager and seller are useful for finding ways the rep can manage their time and maximize productivity.

Technology use

Numerous sales tools have been introduced to automate, streamline, and/or measure sellers’ daily activities. Whether it’s a content management system, conversation intelligence, or a revenue productivity platform, reps must be able to use technology effectively. It’s up to IT, sales, and sales enablement leadership to ensure salespeople are adequately trained on these systems.

 

Relationship building

Regardless of what territory a seller has and the type of prospect they’re working with, developing authentic relationships with buyers is critical.

Executives and other business leaders are flooded with sales calls and emails on a daily basis and won’t give the time of day to a vendor who doesn’t care to hear their feelings and opinions.

Your reps can engage more meaningfully by forming and nurturing connections. The ability to do this can be passed from the top down; if sales leaders and managers are empathetic to their teams, reps will replicate this behavior with their prospects.

Effective communication

Written and verbal communication skills are not just important for interacting with buyers; they’re also required for impactful internal relationships, whether between members of the same team, between manager and rep, or with colleagues from other departments.

To be successful in sales, reps must be assertive while mastering tone and delivery of the information they’re delivering. Encourage reps to practice different messaging formats and techniques, share ideas, and provide feedback with one another.

 

Storytelling

Shaping messaging into a compelling tale is a distinct skill that goes beyond knowing how to communicate effectively. Telling an authentic story to demonstrate how other customers have solved business issues with your solution appeals to emotions and stokes action. As with other important sales competencies, crafting persuasive narratives takes practice, so give salespeople plenty of opportunity to do just that within coaching sessions and team meetings.

Product knowledge

Today’s buyers have high expectations and can see through salespeople who pretend to know what they’re talking about.

Rather than memorizing a minute-long product pitch, having extensive product knowledge allows sellers to share the value of products more creatively and meaningfully. It also enables reps to answer nuanced questions buyers have about features and functionality. Provide plentiful virtual sales training materials surrounding your product suite and walk your sales team through product demos so they know the ins and outs of what they’re selling.

Mindtickle Missions

 

Active listening

It bears repeating: Generic pitches and presentations don’t work with buyers today. Sales reps must demonstrate the value of their solutions differently based on a buyers’ unique use cases. And the only way to do that is by letting them tell you what those use cases are. Sellers must ask about goals, roadblocks, priorities — anything that gets them to the heart of what that buyer needs — and then stop and listen.

Active listening means staying in the present, taking in what the person is saying, and waiting until they’re finished to respond. By doing so, a rep builds further connection with that buyer and begins to position him or herself as a trusted advisor.

Negotiation

Once a proposal has been put together, sales reps must be able to command the subsequent negotiation process. This means not giving in to a prospect’s every demand and instead being assertive and presenting alternative solutions that benefit both parties. Train sellers on how to manage negotiations and give them the opportunity to practice with their peers.

Objection handling

It’s rare a buying team will accept everything a seller tells them without question. Rather than taking their challenges as obstacles, reps should take these as opportunities to get more visibility into how the buyers think. Ensure your salespeople are able to respond to common skepticism and objections with recorded role-plays scored by either AI or managers.

Sales Training in Mindtickle

Help your sales team master these skills and more with effective virtual sales training.

Request a Demo

 

This post was originally published in October 2022 and updated in October 2023.

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4 Objectives of Effective Sales Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/4-objectives-of-effective-sales-coaching/ Thu, 12 Oct 2023 08:57:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/4-objectives-of-effective-sales-coaching/ B2B customers only spend 17 percent of their interactions with a salesperson. This means that every second of an interaction counts. Effective sales coaching can empower sales reps with the resources and skills they need to leave a lasting impression. Amount of time B2B buyers spend with sellers 0%   Understanding the objectives of sales …

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B2B customers only spend 17 percent of their interactions with a salesperson. This means that every second of an interaction counts. Effective sales coaching can empower sales reps with the resources and skills they need to leave a lasting impression.

Amount of time B2B buyers spend with sellers
0%

 

Understanding the objectives of sales coaching and how to avoid the most common pitfalls won’t only strengthen your sales coaches’ influence — it will also improve the end performance of your sales reps..

What is sales coaching?

Sales coaching is the ongoing, one-on-one mentorship of each rep on a sales team. It is a conversation between the rep and a coach, where the rep does most of the talking while the coach listens, observes, and offers feedback.

Coaching is different from onboarding, where new information is presented to many reps at one time. It’s also unique from training, which can happen in many different forms, including virtual training and micro-learning.

Here are a few characteristics of coaching that make it different from training:

While a training event provides a baseline education or a foundation, coaching builds on this foundation with continual sessions. Many successful sales organizations make coaching a weekly practice, and some even establish daily coaching routines.

Unlike a training session that involves the whole sales team, each coaching session is tailored to the needs of an individual rep. The coach knows the rep, as well as their strengths, challenges, and areas needing improvement.

While training is designed to impart new information about products, customers, strategies, competitors, etc., coaching is behavior-based. It corrects a rep’s unfavorable behaviors and habits while reinforcing effective ones. In fact, quota attainment increases by 7% when coaches focus on sales rep behavior.

 

Why does effective sales coaching matter?

Having a strong coaching relationship is important to gain employee trust and work together to develop sales skills. But the secret sauce to coaching is making sure to build a program and approach where reps are coached the right way.

Apart from building an environment where growth is supported, sales coaching can also:

  • Optimize sales training information and skills to be incorporated into day-to-day practices.
  • Show sales reps you care about their personal development and growth in their role.
  • Create personalized KPIs and development plans that are tracked with employees.
  • Share, in a safe environment, valuable feedback for improvement.
  • Teach sales reps to leverage sales enablement tools to track and monitor their skill development progress.

 

The 4 key objectives of sales coaching

Research from our 2022 State of Sales Readiness found that 85% of reps report being coached on closing open deals but only 24% report being coached on long-term skills. The best sales managers make it a priority to deliver a mix of opportunity, skills, and targeted coaching to truly drive results.

Here’s how to build a coaching approach that focuses on developing long-term skills rather than just focusing on short-term deal remediation.

1. Ensure reps refine and improve their sales skills

Most sales reps forget 70% of their sales training, with 87% of sales reps forgetting that 70% within the first month of training. Sales coaching helps with this by reinforcing training concepts and applying them to the unique needs of each rep.

Coaching starts with analytics that pinpoint each rep’s strengths and weaknesses. For new hires, the sales coach might target foundational behaviors and best practices like empathetic listening and objection handling. Over time, the coach’s focus might transition to negotiation skills and effectively presenting value.

As the rep’s career progresses, they’ll flourish into a highly skilled advisor that buyers depend on.

2. Build confidence and encourage skill development

Many sales leaders incorrectly assume that coaching creates discouragement and a lack of confidence. Such leaders often come from organizations that only coach their reps after they’ve lost a deal. In that circumstance, coaching is viewed as a negative, as it is often read as a type of punishment.

Proper coaching, however, is an integral part of every sales rep’s daily or weekly routine. Effective coaches build confidence by praising their reps’ daily wins, along with helping them overcome their weaknesses.

3. Provide consistent practices and expectations across the sales team

It’s common for sales organizations to lack standard best practices for their teams to anchor themselves to. Without a standard set of guidelines and repeatable steps to take, it’s almost impossible to help reps correct their courses of action.

Successful sales organizations use onboarding sessions to teach reps about the organization’s best practices, and they reinforce these standards with coaching. These one-on-one sessions are a great opportunity to identify and correct behavior that doesn’t fit with the organization’s vision or standard process.

4. Increase revenue

Organizations that provide effective sales coaching enjoy 16.7% higher annual revenue growth than those that don’t. That’s why it’s important for sales leaders to resist the temptation to “be the hero” and take the reins of a lagging deal to score the big win. By taking over, sales leaders deprive their teams of the ability to refine their skills and improve.

Sales organizations that establish coaches rather than “heroes” are able to turn every member of their salesforce into competent deal closers. It’s more profitable to have 100 highly skilled closers than a handful of heroes.

The challenges of sales coaching

Most sales leaders understand the importance of coaching but struggle to find the time and support to implement an effective coaching program.

Here are the four most common challenges in sales coaching:

Some sales reps don’t feel they need sales coaching

Many reps want training and coaching because they understand that it boosts their career development. Others, particularly those who consistently hit their sales quota, are hesitant.

Reluctance to sales coaching can be solved by instituting a culture of coaching where everyone — including the coaches themselves — is mentored and coached.

Sales coaches and managers can lead by example by continuing to receive coaching and working to develop their own skills. It’s good practice to strike a balance between formal and informal coaching, as this will let your sales reps know they’re not being graded and evaluated but can use the coaching session as a tool for improvement. It’s especially important early in the sales coaching process — when reps are hesitant — to reinforce a culture of continuous improvement.

Leaders are unsure how to measure success

Many sales leaders want to make a business case for establishing a coaching process at their organization, but they have no idea how to measure success or ROI. Fortunately, the right sales coaching platform provides all the analytics capabilities and metrics needed for this

With the right sales enablement tool, you can set goals for the entire team as well as individual reps.

When you understand an individual rep’s strengths and weaknesses, you can set performance goals and coach toward these. Whether it’s contract value, win rate, time to productivity, or another sales KPI, you can track the individual’s performance on a given metric over time to evaluate the effectiveness of your coaching.

Teams don’t want to put forth the time and resources required

Time and resources are common challenges for organizations looking to expand their sales coaching. It takes time from both the sales rep who is being coached and the leader doing the coaching. It may involve implementing and learning new technology, adjusting schedules, and even changing the department’s culture.

This investment seems daunting, but the long-term value far outweighs the initial investment of time and effort. Organizations that spend time reinforcing skills and use coaching to reach set goals can raise sales rep productivity by 25% in as little as 18 months.

It’s a good idea to include a sales enablement platform that empowers both sales reps and coaches with insights, centralized content, and courses to help save time and track improvement. This shows sales reps insights into their improvement and encourages continuous development.

 

Lack of understanding of what makes a strong sales coaching program

What makes a good sales rep is often different from what makes a good sales coach. Unfortunately, many organizations promote high-performing reps without investing in training and ongoing development for the sales coach in their new role.

To create an effective coaching plan, it’s important to implement coach training in your organization. Have coaches complete their training before they begin coaching salespeople. And use one-on-one mentoring, virtual training, and other tools to ensure your coaches are well-equipped to develop sales skills in other reps.

The above challenges are temporary ones, and they are usually resolved as the coaching system progresses. Once all reps see the career advantages of coaching, and once top leadership understands the competitive benefits, you can encourage the entire department to embrace continuous development.

4 tips for measuring sales coaching effectiveness

Measuring the impact of sales coaching is important to help understand the ROI of time and other resources invested in coaching sales reps.

However, calculating sales coaching impact is a bit more tricky.

But don’t worry — we’ve got four simple tips that’ll help you measure your sales coaching effectiveness.

1. Keep track of sales performance

Forty-seven percent of companies look at the performance of the overall team to gauge the success of sales coaching. This will help you understand how behavioral change and skill development translate to higher win rates and improved performance.

To measure the impact of sales coaching, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the following sales metrics:

  • Sales cycle length
  • Quota attainment
  • Conversion by deal stage
  • Average revenue generation

Keep track of the skills developed through coaching sessions to see the influence they have on quota attainment. This will help you understand where your training has been the most useful and what skills need a little more improvement.

2. Assess sales reps’ skill development

With sales coaching, the goal is to identify weak sales traits and skills and then support sellers to grow their skills and knowledge.

Part of calculating the impact of sales coaching is to see how learned skills pass from theory into practice. You’ll want to ensure sales reps use their new skills in all their interactions and note the impact it has on closing rates.

Keep an eye on the following measurements to calculate the impact sales coaching has on sales reps’ skills:

  • Number of sales skills improved
  • Behavioral changes around selling approaches
  • Amount of new skills learned

 

You can use skill tests and quizzes to measure skill improvement. And sales enablement platforms can help automatically keep track of interactions and score each seller on their skill level.

3. Create anonymous surveys and feedback polls

Employee turnover is expensive, with the average cost of replacing a sales hire being 2.1-2.5 times their salary.

However, sales coaching and training can increase employee engagement by 10% and improve the overall employee experience. In fact, organizations that focus on personalized development increase retention rate by 34% on average.

Keep track of employee engagement through surveys and polls to understand the correlation between sales coaching and employee engagement.

Some good indicators to keep an eye on are:

  • Average employee engagement scores
  • Average employee turnover
  • Average employee satisfaction

Sales coaches are also at the front line to hear sales reps’ concerns and worries. This puts them in a position to proactively improve their employee experience and come up with solutions with the reps being coached.

Not only does this help with sales rep engagement, but it empowers employees to succeed in their roles while improving company profitability.

A sales coaching platform empowers your whole team

To coach effectively, you need a combination of data insights, content resources, and skill assessments. This requires content and course preparation and tracking abilities to measure sales reps’ improvement. This can be challenging if you don’t have a way to store and connect all the skills and sellers’ insights.

However, it doesn’t have to be.

A sales enablement platform like Mindtickle includes robust sales coaching features for your team to build on.

Moreover, Mindtickle offers bespoke competency maps to identify areas for coaching, micro-learning modules, insights to track improvement, and an ideal rep profile to inspire sales reps.

Sales Coaching in Mindtickle

Request a demo to learn how Mindtickle can help you develop and implement effective sales coaching in your own organization.

Request a Demo

 

This post was originally published in January 2020, updated in December 2022, and again in October 2023. 

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The Kirkpatrick Model: Measuring the Impact of Sales Training https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/kirkpatrick-model-measuring-impact-sales-training/ Mon, 09 Oct 2023 01:19:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/kirkpatrick-model-measuring-impact-sales-training/ One of the most common questions our customers ask is how to measure the impact of their sales training. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, the Kirkpatrick Model is a benchmark framework that has been used for over 60 years across many disciplines to measure training effectiveness. In this post, we’ll outline the Kirkpatrick Model and …

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One of the most common questions our customers ask is how to measure the impact of their sales training. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, the Kirkpatrick Model is a benchmark framework that has been used for over 60 years across many disciplines to measure training effectiveness. In this post, we’ll outline the Kirkpatrick Model and how it applies to sales training.

Orange pyramid of the Kirkpatrick model

 

What is the Kirkpatrick Model?

An integral part of any successful sales training program is measuring its contribution to skill building and improved performance. The Kirkpatrick Model is an internationally recognized tool for evaluating sales training results, taking any and all kinds of training into account, including formal, informal, in-person, and virtual.

With the level of visibility this model provides, sales leaders know which learning materials and formats are working to improve performance and which aren’t, helping to drive decisions and make changes that meet the team’s (and overall organization’s) needs.

The Kirkpatrick Model is comprised of four levels for evaluation:

Reaction
Learning
Behavior
Results

 

The four levels of the Kirkpatrick Model

Level 1: Reaction

This first level considers whether your reps found the sales training useful, engaging, and relevant to their role. It also allows you to discover topics that were missed in the training and topics that are redundant. Key to this level is actually utilizing the reactions and feedback you get to change the training program in ways that make a real difference.

  • Did your reps enjoy the sales training?
  • Was it a good use of your reps’ time?
  • Was the length of the training appropriate?
  • Did your reps feel comfortable participating?
  • Feedback from surveys and polls
  • Learning completion rates
  • Gamification scores
  • Grading via quizzes
  • Feedback on subsequent performance by managers

Much of this can be measured during and immediately after the training has been completed. You can also establish a specific cadence (monthly or quarterly, for example) in which to measure whether the learning has been both adopted and retained over time.

 

Level 2: Learning

Next, the model focuses on measuring how much reps’ knowledge and selling skills increased as a result of training. This will vary from one company to the next, according to their different business objectives. To get the most accurate measurement, set a baseline by testing reps prior to participating in the training.

  • Have your reps learned what they needed to?
  • Have reps’ skills improved in the way that was intended?
  • How much have the reps’ skills improved as a result of the training?
  • Knowledge certification
  • Sales skill certification
  • Program certification
  • Demo role-play certification

The degree to which some of these goals have been achieved can be measured during the training or immediately afterward. Others may require additional time to give reps the opportunity to absorb and practice selling skills. Again, the timeline is up to you based on how aggressive you want to be with developing competencies.

 

Level 3: Behavior

This measures how reps use what they have learned on a daily basis in their roles and how behaviors have changed as a result of the training. Managers must be very involved at this stage, in identifying and providing coaching to reinforce the changed behaviors.

  • Are reps using the knowledge and skills they learned?
  • How has performance changed as a result of the learning?
  • Have sales increased?
  • Did training help reps improve their selling skills?
  • Has time to productivity reduced? (for sales onboarding)
  • Are your sales reps aware that their sales skills have improved?
  • Manager-driven evaluations
  • Identifying and closing gaps
  • Reviewing sales performance by teams or individual reps over time

Some of these training goals can be measured immediately, but many will require performance reviews over a longer period of time. This could, for example, involve periodically evaluating improvements in sales performance.

 

Level 4: Results

This measures business outcomes and performance as a result of the training. You’ll have to determine which benefits, outcomes, or other results are most closely linked to the training and put a system in place for quantifying those outcomes moving forward.

  • Sales and revenue
  • Turnover of sales reps
  • Impact on specific stages of the sales funnel (e.g., demo conversions)
  • Number of calls/meetings held
  • Number of opportunities added to pipeline/CRM
  • Number of proposals/quotes submitted
  • Percentage of leads converted to opportunities
  • Percentage of opportunities converted to close
  • Average deal size per rep
  • Average deal cycle length
  • Percentage of forecast achieved

It’s important to look at these metrics in the early stages of a training program’s implemenation to see where performance has improved and to correct the course in areas that still need refinement. Continue tracking them over time for insights into long-term changes.

 

Benefits and limitations of the Kirkpatrick Model

As with any tool or initiative used within a sales organization, there are pros and cons to the Kirkpatrick Model.

In terms of pros, the model provides a scientific method for analyzing the impact of training. With its leveled approach, it offers clear steps to follow for evaluating reps individually, as well as gauging the performance of the greater team. The model works with different kinds of learning programs, whether you use a traditional program or a more sophisticated, digital solution.

However, there are a few downsides. While the Kirkpatrick Model has been continuously updated over time, its structure was developed over 60 years ago, and the way people learn and retain information has drastically changed since then — and it continues to evolve. Implementing the model will likely require a lot of time and resources and can be expensive to put in place. And finally, it doesn’t take into account how other factors like new leadership or a new technology, can influence results.

Mindtickle has the sales training solutions your team needs to kickstart a training program with ease. Quickly build competency and boost retention with tailored learning content for every sales rep. Learn more or request a demo today.

Sales Training in Mindtickle

Quickly build competency and boost retention with tailored learning content for every sales rep. Learn more or request a demo today.

Get a Demo

 

This post was originally published in August 2017, updated in November 2022, and again in October 2023.

 

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How 10 of the Best Conversation Intelligence Software Solutions Stack Up https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-10-of-the-best-conversation-intelligence-software-solutions-stack-up-mindtickle/ Tue, 12 Sep 2023 09:33:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14272 When sales teams are looking at conversation intelligence tools, it’s like shopping for the latest tech gadget—you want to make sure it does what you need it to. But if you pick the wrong one, you’ve just shelled out a ton of money for something that doesn’t do what you need. Evaluating a conversation intelligence …

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When sales teams are looking at conversation intelligence tools, it’s like shopping for the latest tech gadget—you want to make sure it does what you need it to.

But if you pick the wrong one, you’ve just shelled out a ton of money for something that doesn’t do what you need.

Evaluating a conversation intelligence tool is easier when you know what’s out there and the strengths and deficits of each. In this blog post, we’ll give you the rundown on what a conversation tool is, how it works, its benefits, and the top 10 tools on the market right now.

What is conversation intelligence?

Conversation intelligence, also known as Call AI, is technology that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to review sales conversations and compile data-driven insights for improved sales rep performance.

How does conversation intelligence work?

Conversation intelligence software automatically records, transcribes, and analyzes sales calls, providing direct visibility into what reps are saying and doing on calls every day. It surfaces the insights revenue leaders need to make sure their reps follow best practices, saying the right things in the right moments to increase win rates and close deals more efficiently.

What are the benefits of conversation intelligence?

Here are a few of the benefits the best conversation intelligence software solutions deliver:

Immerse them in the ways your best-performing reps approach discovery and handle objections.

Better understand the specific mix of sales training, coaching, and tools each individual rep needs to succeed.

See which enablement talk tracks, content, and training best practices are being used in the field — and which ones lead to closed-won deals.

Use real-world buyer interactions to personalize coaching to each rep.

Address the challenges that are blocking reps from progressing deals and improve win rates on complex deals.

Build deeper understanding of your ideal customer’s needs and drive go-to-market strategies, sales methodologies, and even product roadmaps.

Compare the best conversation intelligence software solutions

1. Mindtickle

Mindtickle delivers the only single, integrated platform to build and implement an effective sales readiness strategy. Revenue leaders rely on the conversation intelligence functionality in the platform to surface insights that help their teams increase knowledge, internalize ideal sales behaviors, and quickly adapt to change. Mindtickle also offers revenue intelligence technology to provide deal and account health scores after analyzing all of the calls, emails, and meetings that took place. Then it serves reps up with content to send to customers and trainings that will help them win more deals.

Feature highlights

Get everything sales reps and leaders need to be successful, all in one place. Mindtickle’s Call AI is built into a system of record that delivers customer insights, training, onboarding, and content all in one place. It’s one data model and one security model for all.

Automatically transcribe and analyze every sales conversation and unlock valuable insights that let you pinpoint and replicate winning rep behaviors.

Use data from real-world buyer interactions to inform more relevant and effective sales coaching. Drive meaningful behavior change through personalized, adaptive experiences.

Unlock deal and account health scores, including risk analytics, to guide reps on how to win more deals. Suggest relevant content and training based on a rep’s in-field performance.

 

Worth noting: G2’s audience of software users ranked Mindtickle #2 on the “Top 50 Best Enterprise Software Products” and #5 on the “Top 50 Sales Software Products” list for 2022.

Mindtickle’s revenue intelligence product is provided through a deep technical integration with BoostUp.ai.

2. Allego

Allego is an all-in-one, rep-centric platform that ensures sellers have the skills, knowledge, and content they need to optimize team success in a virtual world. Built-in functionality allows teams to analyze sales calls, demos, and meetings, identifying key moments to drive the best future outcomes.

Feature highlights

Transcribe and analyze conversations to help teams find key moments that provide a holistic view of what’s working and what’s not.

Learn how buyers respond to messaging and interact with content at each pipeline stage to accelerate future deals.

See how reps are handling calls and provide just-in-time learning or coaching based on the insights.

3. Chorus.ai

Chorus.ai transcribes and analyzes sales meetings in real time so revenue teams can identify winning behaviors and replicate them across teams, drive adoption of process best practices, and upskill teams at scale.

Feature highlights

Capture and analyze all customer meetings, calls, and emails in one place.

Surface which competitors are coming up in conversations, plus see common themes and questions on the minds of customers and prospects.

Give new reps access to a curated library of best calls with automatic recommendations on coachable moments. Smart Playlists automatically add new calls when they meet predefined criteria.

4. Salesloft

Salesloft is a sales engagement platform that offers sales execution, conversation intelligence, and opportunity management. Conversations is the AI-based call and meeting analysis product within the platform.

Feature highlights

Create an exact record for every call to understand what was said and who said it.

Help sales managers identify trends, understand where buyers lean in, and prioritize where sellers should best spend their time.

Build custom playlists featuring clips from the best and worst calls to help with coaching, onboarding, and ongoing skill development.

5. Gong

Gong autonomously captures frontline conversations to help revenue teams better understand deals, teams, and markets.

Feature highlights

Gather insights from calls, emails, in-person interactions, and CRM to show revenue leaders which deals are on track to close and which need course correction to continue moving forward.

Hear directly what buyers are saying and understand what a strong sales conversation looks like for your business.

 

Turn data-based guidance into coachable moments and share top-performers’ playbooks across the board to level up the performance of your entire team.

6. Observe.AI

Observe.ai transcribes call center agent conversations and analyzes them to surface insights that improve customer experience, drive revenue growth, boost operational efficiency, and mitigate compliance risk.

Feature highlights

Analyze conversation transcripts and get search results within seconds to help uncover trends and market needs, assess offerings, and expand your lens on your customer experience.

Organize and categorize conversations to better identify, track, and act on the moments that are most meaningful to your customer experience.

Get more comprehensive insights with recommended keyword and phrase variations that dig into the nuances of customer-agent communication.

7. Outreach

Outreach helps revenue organizations automate sales engagement and act on revenue intelligence to improve their efficiency, predictability, and growth.

Feature highlights

Use Natural Language Processing to understand the context of sales conversations. Track key moments in every conversation and prompt reps to self-correct when they’re doing more talking than listening.

Search keywords in transcripts, notes, or content cards to find relevant recordings and moments that give you visibility into your prospects’ pain points and requirements.

Monitor deals from one dashboard that shows the status of all deals and provides access to individual plans.

 

8. Wingman

Wingman is an actionable platform that unlocks insights from every sales interaction. Record calls, review deals, scale coaching, and build a repeatable sales machine.

Feature highlights

Get calls transcribed, analyzed, and organized into a searchable sales call library you can use for coaching, onboarding, and product intelligence.

Receive alerts that help you identify deals that need immediate attention.

Share playlists of winning sales tactics with your entire team to accelerate onboarding, promote peer learning, and improve internal team alignment.

9. Revenue.io

Revenue.io is a RevOps platform for conversation guidance, sales engagement, and live call insights and analytics. The Conversation AI product within the platform automatically surfaces the moments and conversations that are ripe for coaching.

Feature highlights

Get notified when a rep needs guidance or asks for help for easy identification of coaching moments.

Annotate and organize calls into libraries around key themes to simplify finding moments that matter for team onboarding and long-term support.

Correlate sales behavior with opportunities, revenue, and any other sales outcome that matters to the business.

10. Jiminny

Jiminny records, transcribes, and analyzes your sales team’s successes and learnings so your team is empowered to collaborate, coach, and improve revenue effortlessly.

Feature highlights

Get new hires up to speed in a third of the usual onboarding time. Use conversation playlists compiled by your more experienced sales talent to educate reps.

Capture key and shareable moments of calls then send them via email, links or MS Teams and Slack. AI-generated call summaries turn call transcripts into bullet-point lists of key conversation points.

Set up playbooks tailored by team, CRM activity, and conversation. Live Coaching adds real-time chat and scores to live conversations to refine technique on the fly.

Remember: Conversation intelligence is a means to an end

Conversation intelligence tools give revenue leaders the insights needed to help drive the right behaviors in the reps on the front lines of business every day.

With so many options to choose from, it’s important to consider a frictionless way to meaningfully impact rep readiness. The real power of conversation intelligence comes when the technology is plugged into a larger system of record that makes it push-button easy to help reps win more deals. To do that, you need to recommend relevant content, training, templates, and checklists once the insights are surfaced to not only provide value to your reps, but to drive real behavior change in the field.

Sales reps are busy and have a single-minded focus on making quota. Ease of use is key to the adoption of any technology you introduce to their workflow. At the end of the day, the best conversation intelligence software solution for your business is the one that your reps will actually use.

See Conversation Intelligence in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle's conversation intelligence solutions can help your reps improve and win more deals? 

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This post was originally published in September 2022 and was updated in September 2023. 

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The Five Pillars of Pharmaceutical Sales Training Excellence https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-five-pillars-of-pharmaceutical-sales-training-excellence/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-five-pillars-of-pharmaceutical-sales-training-excellence/#comments Mon, 28 Aug 2023 21:55:34 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18080 https://youtu.be/zRFLdZKHROk Complex pharmaceutical products, strict regulations, and the uniquely critical role healthcare professionals play in decision-making form a challenging selling landscape for pharma reps. To be successful, reps need a distinct skill set, comprehensive product knowledge, and a sharp awareness of ethical considerations. Given these circumstances, efficient and effective sales training is especially important in …

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Complex pharmaceutical products, strict regulations, and the uniquely critical role healthcare professionals play in decision-making form a challenging selling landscape for pharma reps.

To be successful, reps need a distinct skill set, comprehensive product knowledge, and a sharp awareness of ethical considerations. Given these circumstances, efficient and effective sales training is especially important in pharmaceutical sales.

In this blog post, we’ll outline the unique challenges faced in pharmaceutical sales training and provide practical solutions.

What are some challenges in pharmaceutical sales training?

Pharmaceutical sales training faces several unique challenges that require tailored approaches and solutions. These challenges include:

  • No insight into field activities

    Traditionally, it has been difficult for sales managers to gain visibility into the daily activities of their sales reps in the field. This lack of insight makes it challenging to provide timely feedback, identify sales coaching opportunities, and assess the effectiveness of sales strategies.

  • Hard to ramp new reps with breadth and depth of offerings

    The pharmaceutical industry offers a wide range of products, each with its own unique features, indications, and benefits. Onboarding and ramping up new sales representatives quickly and effectively, ensuring they have a comprehensive understanding of the product portfolio, can be a big challenge.

  • Less time in front of healthcare professionals

    COVID-19 drastically reduced the amount of face-to-face time sales reps have with healthcare professionals. This shift to virtual interactions requires sales training programs to adapt and equip representatives with the skills needed to engage effectively in a digital environment.

  • Strict regulatory requirements

    The pharmaceutical industry is subject to strict regulatory guidelines, including compliance with laws such as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulations. Sales representatives must be trained to ensure they adhere to these requirements in their interactions with HCPs. Furthermore, with compliance requirements changing regularly, pharmaceutical companies must ensure their field team has the most up-to-date versions of collateral.

5 must-haves for an effective sales training program for pharma reps

In order to tackle these challenges and develop pharmaceutical sales training that actually enables your reps, follow these five pillars.

1. Onboard and ramp new reps fast

To address the challenge of onboarding and ramping up new sales representatives quickly, leading pharmaceutical companies leverage technology-driven training solutions. E-learning platforms and virtual training sessions can provide comprehensive information on product portfolios, disease states, and selling techniques. Additionally, interactive modules and quizzes can assess knowledge retention, ensuring new reps are well-prepared to engage with HCPs.

Gone are the days of in-person onboarding and hours of snooze-worthy training videos. By using a platform created to train and enable sellers, you can transform your training approach from stand-and-deliver to engaging, real-world practice and reinforcement.

Key elements of your pharmaceutical onboarding and everboarding should include:

The ability to deliver bite-sized, engaging training in multiple modalities like videos, quizzes, and presentations.

A mobile-friendly delivery of content and training for reps to complete as they commute across their territories.

Everyone likes healthy competition, especially sellers, ensure you are incorporating leaderboards, badges, and scoring as part of your training programs.

2. Enable reps on new products & regulatory requirements quickly

Pharmaceutical companies frequently introduce new products and updates to existing ones. Training programs should incorporate efficient methods to disseminate information on new products and regulatory requirements. Utilizing online training modules, just-in-time content, and virtual workshops training and development departments can enable reps to quickly understand product features and newly issued regulatory guidelines.

Having a centralized and searchable platform for training and enablement means pharmaceutical reps can find the most up-to-date information on the products they are selling at any time, from anywhere. Ensure this platform supports offline browsing so that reps can access training and content even in remote areas or while commuting across their territory.

Ensure your sales training platform is compliant with applicable regulations, like HIPAA, ISO (ISO 9001:2015, ISO/IEC 27001:2013, and ISO/IEC 26580:2021), and FDA 21 CFR Part 11

3. Scale role-plays to practice before reps are in office

Leading sales training platforms facilitate role-play exercises to enhance sales representatives’ communication skills and fine-tune their product pitches. Previously done largely in-person or over a conference call, AI-reviewed role-plays allow reps to practice their presentations, handle objections, and refine their selling techniques remotely.

By setting parameters and giving examples of top pitches, reps can hone their messaging and pitches virtually, before they are in front of HCPs. These pitches are not only reviewed by AI, but managers, business unit leaders, as well as marketing can all review and provide feedback.

This scalable approach ensures reps gain experience and confidence before engaging with HCPs and verifies their ability to be on-brand and on-message.

Top role-play use cases for pharmaceutical reps:

Before launching a new product, test the effectiveness of your training on how well reps can pitch the new talk tracks with a new product launch role-play.

If there are critical regulatory changes that affect how reps can pitch products in front of HCPs, test their delivery with a regulatory role-play to ensure they are on-brand and use compliant language.

Have marketing set-up a role-play to test pitches of new collateral to see how comfortable reps are pitching updated or new marketing materials.

State common objections HCPs bring up to field reps, give a sample ‘top response’ as well as talking points, and have reps record how they would respond.

 

4. Document coaching and ride-alongs

Manager ride-alongs and coaching sessions are invaluable for sales representatives’ development. However, tracking and documenting these activities can be challenging. Oftentimes, there is no streamlined way to gather feedback from ride-alongs, resulting in a manager waiting until the end of the month or quarter to document their feedback to reps. This results in varied and generic feedback that doesn’t help the rep grow and perform better.

Utilizing a sales training platform, managers can review a rep’s performance during and right after a ride-along. This feedback can then be used to deliver targeted training and coaching for the individual to continually improve their in-person interactions and performance.

 

5. Improve rep coverage with data-driven insights

Pharmaceutical companies can leverage technology to gather data on sales representatives’ activities, including call frequency, territory coverage, and engagement levels with HCPs. Integrating their sales training platform with their CRM, like Veeva, enables training and development leaders to analyze what programs are most effective in driving business results.

Furthermore, leaders can uncover which managers provide the most valuable and consistent coaching, improving rep churn and performance.

Pharmaceutical sales are ever-evolving, especially with less and less time granted for reps to get in front of HCPs. With a data-driven approach to sales training, learning, and development leaders can ensure their reps are prepared for every interaction, are staying compliant, and delivering value to HCPs.

 

Supercharge Pharma Rep Training

Let's show you how Mindtickle can help you build a sales training program for your pharma reps that helps them win more deals. 

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Meet Mindtickle Copilot, Generative AI to Boost Productivity for Revenue Teams https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/meet-mindtickle-copilot-generative-ai-to-boost-productivity-for-revenue-teams/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/meet-mindtickle-copilot-generative-ai-to-boost-productivity-for-revenue-teams/#comments Wed, 23 Aug 2023 05:03:00 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=18057 Copilot is here! Mindtickle has released a suite of generative AI features across its revenue productivity platform to help everyone in the revenue organization. Generating revenue doesn’t fall on one department, it’s a critical responsibility across go-to-market teams including sellers, enablement, customer success, operations, and management. Yet 72% of salespeople expect their team to miss …

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Copilot is here! Mindtickle has released a suite of generative AI features across its revenue productivity platform to help everyone in the revenue organization.

Generating revenue doesn’t fall on one department, it’s a critical responsibility across go-to-market teams including sellers, enablement, customer success, operations, and management. Yet 72% of salespeople expect their team to miss annual quota in 2023 according to Salesforce.

Recent generative AI technologies have the ability to make these teams more productive so they can focus on their high-value revenue-generating activities.

That’s where Copilot comes in.

Copilot helps revenue teams:

  • Discover data-driven insights faster
  • Create personalized experiences quickly
  • Execute revenue-generating interactions exceptionally
  • Uphold security and ethical standards with a secure generative AI platform

This not only saves time for enablement professionals but also ensures that sales teams have access to up-to-date, engaging, and tailored content that resonates with their target audience.

Discover data-driven insights faster

Copilot gets you the answers you need to make data-based decisions, without reviewing lengthy calls or navigating dashboards and reporting pages.

AI call navigator

Get quick insights into every call fast

Copilot can analyze any call in seconds and answer top-of-mind questions without having to sift through a transcript. Sellers can get a quick call summary, craft detailed follow-ups, and receive self-coaching tips on how to improve future customer and prospect interactions. Managers can prioritize reps to coach by call scores and quickly review underperforming calls to foster detailed coaching sessions.

Copilot - Analytics

AI analytics navigator

Get the answers you need about your data in seconds

Copilot can efficiently analyze training and enablement reports in Mindtickle and produce succinct answers based on data. Empower all enablement and sales training professionals to derive quick and actionable insights from data, making informed decisions easier than ever.

Create personalized experiences quickly

AI-powered training creation

Copilot creates assessments based on training content and role-plays based on real-world selling scenarios

Have Copilot create an assessment based on learning content to quickly and succinctly test knowledge. Copilot reviews existing training content quickly and creates an assessment based on the parameters you outline to quickly reinforce training being delivered.

Copilot - Assessment

Copilot can also create a sales or renewal simulation to practice and hone skills and messaging before money is on the line. Give Copilot some guidance on the type of role-play you’d like to test teams on, and Copilot generates a detailed scenario, guidance, and scoring rubric.

Execute revenue-generating interactions exceptionally

Copilot - Mission review

AI-powered role-play reviews

Provide instant AI-powered feedback and scores of role-plays

Scale the mastery of new skills with role-plays reviewed by Copilot. Customer-facing roles can submit role-plays and receive automatic scoring, reviews and insights from AI to continually improve. Sellers can hone their pitches, presales can practice a new demo or flow, and customer success/account managers can test their renewal or upsell messaging with AI-powered insights on how to improve.

Copilot - Email

AI-generated content sharing

Generate contextual emails about content you are sharing with prospects

Quickly draft and send contextual and detailed emails to customers and prospects when sharing collateral with Copilot. When sharing an asset within Mindtickle, have Copilot generate the email copy based on the content being shared saving your sellers, customer support, and account teams valuable time.

Uphold security and ethical standards

Customers can ensure they are using a safe, enterprise-ready, and ethical version of AI with Copilot. Mindtickle has been driven by a security-first approach to implementing AI within the platform. Mindtickle’s model will not learn from or share customer data across instances, and ensures users’ personal data is not enriched and that information is only temporarily shared with machine learning systems. Mindtickle has also opted out of sharing customer information, even in the pseudonymized or anonymized form, to train or improve AI models.

Copilot is a tool that your revenue and security teams will love. For more on the Copilot release, check out our press release on the announcement. If you are a Mindtickle customer interested in getting on the Copilot waitlist, reach out to your CSM and click here if you want to see a live demo of Copilot.

See Mindtickle Copilot in Action

Set up time with our team to see Mindtickle Copilot for yourself.

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The 5 Core Pillars of Sales Enablement in Financial Services https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-5-core-pillars-of-sales-enablement-in-financial-services/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-5-core-pillars-of-sales-enablement-in-financial-services/#comments Mon, 31 Jul 2023 17:07:49 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17966 In the highly competitive financial services industry, effective sales training is a game-changer. Sales reps are crucial in promoting and selling financial products and services to a diverse customer base. To achieve success in this field, a well-trained salesforce that can communicate the value and benefits of the products they represent is essential. Let’s consider …

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In the highly competitive financial services industry, effective sales training is a game-changer.

Sales reps are crucial in promoting and selling financial products and services to a diverse customer base. To achieve success in this field, a well-trained salesforce that can communicate the value and benefits of the products they represent is essential.

Let’s consider some stats.

36%

Percentage of time spent actively selling

8%

Increase in win rates with coaching investments

Companies that don’t prioritize sales enablement see their reps spend just 36% of their time actively selling or even less. The average rep at these organizations spends more than nine hours each week searching for and customizing content alone. Conversely, companies that invest in coaching programs see an 8% increase in win rates.

The revenue and risk reduction impact of implementing best-in-class training is enormous for the average financial services organization.

In this blog post, we’ll outline the unique challenges faced in financial services sales training and provides practical solutions to excel in this critical area.

What we’ll cover:

  • Unique training challenges financial services companies face
  • Top use cases including
    Onboarding and ramping new reps fast
  • Enabling reps on new products & regulatory requirements quickly
  • Scaling role-plays to practice before reps are in the office
    Providing data-driven micro-coaching
  • Improving rep coverage with data-driven insights
  • DOs and DON’Ts of selecting a technology partner

Unique training challenges financial services companies face

In recent years, the financial services industry has been significantly disrupted by the shift from in-person to online and digital training programs. As fewer than 20% of financial services employees look to be in the office more than three days a week, it’s increasingly difficult for employees to keep up with new regulatory changes and technologies.

Some of the top challenges financial services enablement teams face include:

 

Traditional sales managers find it difficult to gain visibility into the daily activities of their account managers and sales representatives in the field. This lack of insight makes it challenging to provide timely feedback, identify coaching opportunities, and assess the effectiveness of sales strategies.

The financial services industry offers a wide range of products, each with its unique features and benefits. Onboarding and ramping up new sales representatives quickly and effectively, ensuring they have a comprehensive understanding of the product portfolio, can be a significant challenge.

he COVID-19 pandemic drastically reduced the amount of face-to-face time sales representatives have with prospects and clients. This shift to virtual interactions requires sales training programs to adapt and equip representatives with the skills needed to engage effectively in a digital environment.

The financial services industry is subject to strict regulatory guidelines. Sales representatives must be trained to ensure they adhere to these requirements in their interactions with prospects and clients. With compliance requirements changing regularly, financial services companies must ensure their field team has the most up-to-date versions of collateral.

 

5 pillars to excel in financial services sales training

In this section, we will delve into the key strategies that enable financial services companies to excel in sales training and empower their reps to thrive in this highly competitive industry.

  • Utilize technology-driven training solutions such as e-learning platforms and virtual training sessions to provide comprehensive information on products, services, compliance, and selling techniques.
  • Incorporate interactive modules and quizzes to assess knowledge retention and ensure new reps are well-prepared to engage with buyers and clients.
  • Utilize online training modules, just-in-time content, and virtual workshops to disseminate information on new products and regulatory requirements quickly.
  • Have a centralized and searchable platform for training and enablement, ensuring reps have access to up-to-date information anytime, anywhere.
  • Use AI-reviewed role-play exercises to enhance communication skills and refine product pitches.
  • Allow reps to practice presentations, handle objections, and refine selling techniques remotely, ensuring they gain experience and confidence before engaging in the field.
  • Utilize sales training platforms to access data on reps’ activities, behaviors, and in-field performance.
  • Leverage new technologies like revenue and conversation intelligence to provide targeted, data-driven coaching to reps.
  • Gather data on sales representatives’ activities, call frequency, territory coverage, and buyer engagement levels to make data-driven decisions.
  • Integrate sales training platforms with CRM to analyze the effectiveness of training programs in driving business results.

 

DOs and DON’Ts of selecting a financial services enablement provider

Now let’s dig into the essential dos and don’ts of selecting a sales enablement provider for your financial services organization. Making the right choice when it comes to partnering with a sales training provider can significantly impact the success of your sales team and overall business performance.

DOs

  • Define your requirements and the capabilities and resources you need.
  • Evaluate the provider’s financial services experience through case studies, references, and reviews.
  • Assess the provider’s technology for user-friendliness and integration capabilities.
  • Consider the quality and delivery of training and support.

DON’Ts

  • Choose a provider solely based on price.
  • Overlook the importance of user experience in the training platform.
  • Neglect to evaluate the provider’s ability to customize the platform to your organization’s unique needs.
  • Fail to consider the provider’s customer support and training resources.

What’s next for your org?

Implementing these five pillars will enable your organization to drive revenue productivity and achieve sales training excellence in the financial services industry.

Ready to learn more about how Mindtickle can help your organization? Set up time with our team to learn more about how financial services organizations can stand up sales enablement programs that drive more productivity and revenue.

 

Supercharge your enablement

Set up time with the Mindtickle team to talk through how helps other financials services orgs stand up their enablement programs. 

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How Customer-Facing Roles Can Harness the Power of AI and Generative AI https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-customer-facing-roles-can-harness-the-power-of-ai-and-generative-ai/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-customer-facing-roles-can-harness-the-power-of-ai-and-generative-ai/#comments Mon, 24 Jul 2023 18:15:35 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17945 https://youtu.be/AI9a0K8Q21U Reps and other customer-facing roles are constantly seeking ways to improve their efficiency and productivity. Enter AI and Generative AI. AI empowers sales reps, account managers, customer success teams, and presales in their day-to-day work, leading to better customer interactions and improved business outcomes. But let’s first define AI and generative AI before diving …

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Reps and other customer-facing roles are constantly seeking ways to improve their efficiency and productivity.

Enter AI and Generative AI.

AI empowers sales reps, account managers, customer success teams, and presales in their day-to-day work, leading to better customer interactions and improved business outcomes.

But let’s first define AI and generative AI before diving into how they can help customer-facing teams be more productive and effective.

Understanding AI and generative AI

Artificial Intelligence refers to the development of computer systems that can perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence, such as visual perception, natural language processing, and decision-making. Generative AI, a subset of AI, focuses on generating new content or data that possess similar characteristics to existing data sets, enabling creative and adaptive problem-solving.

Practical AI applications for customer-facing roles

Artificial intelligence is transforming customer-facing positions in various sectors. Chatbots and virtual assistants are elevating customer support through rapid and personalized responses. AI-driven sentiment analysis aids in assessing customer emotions, facilitating deeper comprehension and customized engagements. Recommender systems suggest products or services aligned with customer preferences, fostering opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. Additionally, AI streamlines mundane tasks, allowing sales representatives to concentrate on relationship-building. AI-powered customer analytics delivers valuable insights for precision-targeted marketing campaigns. These are just a few examples of how AI is revolutionizing the operations of revenue teams.

AI-powered tools can analyze customer data, previous interactions, and publicly available information to provide sales reps with valuable insights before making a call. By leveraging AI, reps can better understand customer needs, preferences, and pain points, enabling them to tailor their approach and deliver a personalized pitch that resonates with prospects.

Following up with customers is critical to maintaining relationships and moving deals forward. AI can streamline this process by automating personalized follow-up emails or messages based on previous interactions. By analyzing the content and context of previous conversations, AI can suggest appropriate responses, saving time and ensuring consistent communication.

Researching customers and prospects can be time-consuming. AI-powered algorithms can swiftly gather and analyze vast amounts of data from various sources, including social media profiles, company websites, and news articles. This information can provide sales reps with a comprehensive understanding of the customer’s industry, recent developments, and pain points, enabling them to have more informed and meaningful conversations.

Generating customized content for each prospect can be challenging and resource-intensive. AI and Generative AI can assist by analyzing customer data and preferences to create personalized proposals, presentations, and marketing collateral. This technology can help sales reps deliver compelling and tailored content that addresses the specific needs of each prospect, enhancing their chances of closing deals.

AI can also benefit customer success teams by helping them prepare for upsell and renewal conversations. By analyzing customer usage patterns, buying behavior, and satisfaction metrics, AI can provide insights into potential upsell opportunities or churn risk. Armed with this information, customer success teams can proactively address customer needs, offer relevant solutions, and nurture long-term relationships.

AI can also help practice pitches for upsell and renewals prior to calls with customers. By using AI roleplay capabilities, CSMs can give their pitch and get instant feedback from AI on how to improve and land the upsell opportunity.

Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) like presales and technical resources can practice new demo flows and technical or security conversations prior to their pitch and get AI-powered feedback on how to improve. Giving the opportunity to practice before conversations with customers and prospects ensures SMEs are prepped and ready to deliver their best messaging for every call.

Crafting effective messaging is crucial for sales reps. AI can assist in testing different messaging strategies by analyzing customer responses and engagement data. By leveraging AI algorithms, reps can identify the most resonant messages, optimize their approach, and increase the likelihood of capturing customer interest and closing deals.

 

Security and compliance considerations

AI tools offer significant benefits to sales reps and customer-facing roles, but it’s crucial to address security and compliance concerns to protect sensitive customer data and adhere to regulations. Here are key considerations:

  • Data privacy: Ensure compliance with data protection regulations like GDPR and CCPA. Implement encryption, access controls, and anonymization techniques to safeguard customer data.
  • Data security: AI platforms handle sensitive customer data, so work with IT and security teams to ensure strong security measures like encryption, secure storage, and access controls. Conduct regular security audits and vulnerability assessments.
  • Ethical use of AI: Use AI tools ethically and transparently. Remember that AI algorithms have limitations and should augment human capabilities, not replace them. Apply critical thinking and human judgment.
  • Training and awareness: Provide training to sales reps and customer-facing teams about AI risks and best practices. Educate them on data privacy, security protocols, and ethical considerations. Ensure they understand the AI tools they use.
  • Vendor due diligence: Conduct due diligence for third-party AI vendors. Evaluate their data handling practices, security measures, and compliance commitments. Establish contractual agreements for data ownership and protection.
  • Transparent communication: Maintain open communication with customers regarding AI use. Inform them about data usage, AI-driven insights, and privacy implications. Obtain customer consent for data processing.

By addressing these considerations, organizations can harness AI’s benefits while protecting customer data, complying with regulations, and upholding ethical standards in sales and customer-facing roles.

The rise of AI and Generative AI has brought about remarkable advancements in sales, customer success, and presales roles. By leveraging these technologies, professionals in customer-facing positions can enhance their call preparation, provide faster and more contextual follow-ups, conduct thorough customer research, create custom content, optimize upsell and renewal conversations, and test new messaging strategies. By embracing AI as a powerful ally, sales reps and customer-facing teams can unlock their full potential, drive customer satisfaction, and achieve impressive business results in today’s competitive landscape.

Interested in how to harness the power of AI for your customer-facing roles? Register for our live demo webinar of Mindtickle’s generative AI capabilities.

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Deal Coaching vs. Skill Coaching: What’s the Difference? (It’s Big and it Impacts Revenue) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/deal-coaching-vs-skill-coaching-whats-the-difference-its-big-and-it-impacts-revenue/ Wed, 05 Jul 2023 11:13:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/deal-coaching-vs-skill-coaching-whats-the-difference-its-big-and-it-impacts-revenue/ Managing your sales team involves a lot of responsibilities: from initial onboarding for new hires, to ongoing training and coaching, to regular performance assessments. Both deal coaching and skill coaching are strategic techniques for guiding sales reps, each with its own goals and procedures. Effective coaching can improve win rates by 27% or more — …

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Managing your sales team involves a lot of responsibilities: from initial onboarding for new hires, to ongoing training and coaching, to regular performance assessments.

Both deal coaching and skill coaching are strategic techniques for guiding sales reps, each with its own goals and procedures. Effective coaching can improve win rates by 27% or more — but which approach will help you hit that potential? 

Win rate improvement with effective coaching
0 %

Say you are an experienced rock climber, and you’re teaching a newbie the basics. In this scenario:

 

Deal coaching

Skill coaching

Deal coaching would be teaching this person exactly how to tackle the formation in front of them. You go through each foothold and each hand placement so they know exactly what lies ahead of them.

Skill coaching would involve going over a foothold that lies ahead, but also providing different scenarios you may encounter in the future and how to approach them.

 

Sales managers typically coach sellers through individual deals. While that’s important, skill coaching is imperative to building a coaching culture and preparing sellers for consistent quota attainment. Continue reading to discover the distinctions between the two and which will be more lucrative for your organization.

Deal coaching: Working through the pipeline

Deal coaching focuses on buyers and what resources are needed to engage them and move them further along the sales funnel. While typically unstructured, these sessions help reps work through specific deals in their pipeline for more immediate impact.

The goal of deal coaching is to remove stalled or unqualified deals, adjust effort toward real opportunities, and strategize how to tackle those opportunities. In deal coaching sessions, managers ask questions like:

  • What is this buyer’s business need?
  • What unique value does our solution bring to this buyer?
  • Who are the decision-makers?
  • What objections (if any) have there been thus far?
  • Who are we competing against for this buyer’s business?

By answering these questions together, manager and rep can together come up with the best plan of attack, determining what content and approach will be most relevant and drive the deal to close. And while this method may improve a single interaction with a buyer, its benefits tend to be temporary.

Skill coaching: Polishing the competencies that matter most

Skill coaching, on the other hand, focuses on the sellers themselves. Rather than walking through individual deals, its objective is to develop the knowledge and behaviors most critical to success. These may differ from one organization to another, but the following are the most common skills we see amongst top-performing salespeople:

Assessing tasks and prioritizing them

Capturing buyers’ attention and keeping them engaged throughout the sales cycle

Effectively express the business value to address buyer needs

Tuning into buyer challenges to adequately address them

Managing and mitigating buyer hesitation and/or doubts

Understanding customer pain points and how your solution helps to solve them

 

Skill coaching is an ongoing effort, promoting professional development, learning reinforcement, and evaluation. To contribute to their team’s growth, managers can send them to a class or seminar or assign them a book to read. Managers also assess reps’ training completion and performance for further insight into knowledge and skill improvement. Leveraging data, managers are empowered to have more personalized and relevant one-on-one coaching sessions with their reps.

Which coaching style drives results?

Managers have limited time with each rep, and coaching conversations often become deal reviews — with only 5% of time being spent giving useful feedback on next steps.

Deal coaching is advantageous in the short term; for instance, when a buyer has an immediate need or request. In this case, giving the rep training materials will not help; you’ve got to offer specific and timely advice that helps the seller quickly and competently resolve the problem.

But the most effective sales coaching should identify individual areas for improvement for each rep, then provide content and regular guidance to develop skills – in other words, skill coaching.

If you are teaching someone to rock climb, you need to prepare them for more than just what is in front of them. Teaching and mastering the basics will ensure they can tackle more difficult walls and structures in the future.

It’s a longer game, but working on the high-level abilities that lead to success pays off. Coaching sellers through skill gaps better positions them down the road so they’re able to navigate deals more effectively and, ultimately, close them.

Managers who use skill coaching also stand to be trusted mentors to the members of their teams. Investing time and effort into building a seller’s personal and professional growth earns their respect and loyalty.

Digital tools for successful skill coaching

While deal coaching has its benefits for short-term needs, skill coaching delivers results that generate long-term revenue growth. Using data to inform one-on-one sessions, providing the right learning content at the right time, and ultimately cultivating the behaviors and knowledge of top-performing sellers, your team will achieve peak productivity and revenue growth.

With data at the heart of skill coaching, leadership needs the right tools to administer learning materials and track both individual completion and performance. A revenue productivity platform automates onboarding and training so managers can focus on what’s important: giving sales reps what they need to reach success.

Mindtickle enables front-line sales managers to collaborate with sales reps to close knowledge gaps and achieve higher quota attainment. Kickstart a culture of coaching with tools that make sales readiness a reality for your team.


This post originally published in March 2021 and was updated in July 2023. 

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PreSales Academy Sees 84% Increase in Student Enrollment Using Mindtickle for Sales Training https://www.mindtickle.com/customer-stories/presales-academy-sees-84-increase-in-student-enrollment-using-mindtickle-for-sales-training/ Tue, 27 Jun 2023 08:57:24 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=customer_stories&p=17784 My experience with Mindtickle and the team has been nothing short of amazing. From incredible customer service to the overall functionality and power of the platform, we’ve been able to successfully train hundreds of individuals through our PreSales Academy and PreSales Collective enablement programs.

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About PreSales Academy:

  • The PreSales Collective focuses on building a community for people within presales and providing training for career changers through PreSales Academy.
  • The academy offers a training program to equip career changers with the knowledge and resources needed for their job search.
  • Detailed one-on-one coaching is provided by experienced sales engineers who volunteer as Career Advisors.

The challenges:

  • Growing demand for PreSales Academy led to re-evaluating their current processes.
  • The virtual training sessions scheduled at specific dates and times were inflexible and inconvenient for students, trainers, and volunteer coaches.
  • Coaches provided feedback in a single document with over 10 parameters, which became overwhelming for students to understand.
  • The lack of standardized feedback hindered the students’ ability to improve effectively.

The solutions:

  • Virtual training delivery: Mindtickle allows PreSales Academy to deliver the self-paced training phase virtually, enabling students to learn at their own convenience. This eliminates the need for scheduled training sessions and provides flexibility in learning.
  • Personalized recommendations: As learners complete training, Mindtickle recommends additional content and training based on their performance. This personalized approach helps students reinforce knowledge gaps and further enhance skills.
  • Resource library: PreSales uses Mindtickle to deliver a resource library to students. This library enables students to browse and access all available content, empowering them to self-serve their learning needs.
  • Virtual role-plays and coaching: Mindtickle’s virtual role-plays simulate interview scenarios. Students submit their responses, which are recorded and scored by Mindtickle’s AI-powered system. This feedback helps students perfect their pitch. Additionally, Mindtickle’s coaching forms facilitate quantitative and qualitative feedback from presales experts, streamlining the coaching process.
  • Progress monitoring and evaluation: Stremic, along with PreSales experts, monitors students’ progress through Mindtickle’s comprehensive dashboards and reports. The system provides role-play and coaching scores, evaluating and tracking student performance as they progress through each phase.

The impact:

  • Mindtickle enabled PreSales Academy to scale its training program, resulting in an 84% increase in student enrollment in two years.
  • Students’ scores in demo role-plays increased by an average of 22% due to targeted training and learning.
  • PreSales Academy received a 95% average student satisfaction rating and five-star reviews from graduates on review sites.
  • Graduates of PreSales Academy experienced an average salary increase of $80,000, with a median salary exceeding $118,000.

The vision for PreSales Academy:

With the successful growth and demand, PreSales Academy plans to scale the organization further and continue refining the program using online training, role-plays, and coaching through the Mindtickle platform.

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The Best Sales Glossary for Sellers https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-ultimate-sales-glossary/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-ultimate-sales-glossary/#comments Wed, 21 Jun 2023 14:00:55 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17639 In the world of sales, effective communication is the cornerstone of success. Whether you’re a seasoned sales pro or just starting your journey, understanding and speaking the language of sales is essential to connect with prospects, build relationships, and close deals. But let’s face it, the sales landscape is riddled with jargon and specialized terminology …

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In the world of sales, effective communication is the cornerstone of success. Whether you’re a seasoned sales pro or just starting your journey, understanding and speaking the language of sales is essential to connect with prospects, build relationships, and close deals.

But let’s face it, the sales landscape is riddled with jargon and specialized terminology that can be overwhelming.

That’s why we’ve created our comprehensive sales glossary, designed specifically for sellers like you. This invaluable resource will equip you with the knowledge and confidence to navigate sales conversations with ease, impress prospects, and elevate your selling game.

A strategic approach to sales that focuses on targeting and engaging specific high-value accounts with personalized and tailored messaging. It involves identifying key decision-makers within a target account, understanding their unique needs and challenges, and crafting customized solutions to address those needs. ABS aims to build strong relationships with individual accounts and deliver a personalized buying experience to drive higher conversion rates and revenue growth.

An account executive in sales is a professional responsible for managing and nurturing relationships with existing clients or prospective customers on behalf of a company. Their primary role is to drive sales by understanding the needs of clients, presenting products or services, negotiating contracts, and ensuring customer satisfaction.

Account executives typically serve as the main point of contact, working closely with clients to identify opportunities, address concerns, and provide ongoing support to maximize revenue and maintain long-term partnerships.

Annual Customer Value (ACV) is a metric used in business to calculate the average revenue or value generated by a customer over a one-year period. It takes into account factors such as recurring purchases, subscriptions, and contract renewals to determine the total value a customer brings to a company on an annual basis. ACV helps organizations assess the profitability and long-term worth of their customer relationships, allowing them to make informed decisions regarding customer acquisition, retention strategies, and resource allocation.

A Business Development Representative (BDR) is a sales professional responsible for prospecting, qualifying, and generating new business opportunities for a company. BDRs typically work closely with marketing and sales teams to identify potential leads, engage with prospects through various channels, and schedule meetings or demos for account executives or sales representatives. Their primary objective is to generate a pipeline of qualified leads and initiate the early stages of the sales process by nurturing relationships, conducting outreach, and gathering valuable market intelligence to support the company’s growth objectives.

B2B stands for “Business-to-Business” and refers to transactions, interactions, or relationships that occur between two or more businesses. It involves the exchange of products, services, or information between companies rather than between a business and individual consumers. B2B activities can include selling goods to other businesses, providing services, forming partnerships, or collaborating on projects. B2B transactions often involve larger quantities, specialized products or services, and negotiations tailored to the unique needs of the business customers involved.

B2C stands for “Business-to-Consumer” and refers to transactions, interactions, or relationships that occur between a business and individual consumers. It involves the sale of products, services, or information directly to end-users or customers for their personal use or consumption. B2C transactions typically occur through various channels such as online platforms, retail stores, or direct sales, and focus on meeting the specific needs and preferences of individual consumers. B2C businesses often employ marketing and advertising strategies to attract and engage with a wide range of consumers to drive sales and build customer loyalty.

BANT is an acronym commonly used in sales to qualify and assess potential leads or prospects. It stands for Budget, Authority, Need, and Timeline. Here’s a brief definition for each component:

  • Budget: Refers to the financial resources or funding that a prospect has allocated or is willing to allocate for a particular product or solution.
  • Authority: Indicates whether the prospect has the decision-making power or authority within their organization to make purchasing decisions.
  • Need: Determines the specific pain points, challenges, or requirements that the prospect has, which the product or solution can address and fulfill.
  • Timeline: Refers to the timeframe or urgency within which the prospect intends to implement or solve the identified need.

BANT serves as a framework for sales representatives to evaluate the viability of a lead, qualify them as a potential customer, and prioritize their efforts based on the prospect’s budget, decision-making authority, identified needs, and timeline for action

The Bottom of the Funnel (BOFU) represents the final stage in the buyer’s journey, where leads have progressed through the awareness and consideration stages and are now poised to make a purchasing decision. At this stage, prospects have a clear understanding of their problem, have evaluated various solutions, and are actively comparing options. Marketers and sales teams focus on providing detailed product information, addressing specific objections, and offering tailored solutions.

Tactics employed include personalized demos, free trials, case studies, pricing discussions, and contract negotiations. The primary goal is to convert qualified leads into customers by showcasing the value proposition, highlighting ROI, and addressing any remaining concerns, ultimately driving them toward a successful purchase.

Sales certification refers to a formal recognition or credential that validates an individual’s proficiency and expertise in sales-related knowledge and skills. It is typically offered by professional organizations, industry associations, or training institutions.

Sales certification programs assess and verify a sales professional’s understanding of sales concepts, techniques, best practices, and industry-specific knowledge. These programs often include comprehensive training, educational materials, assessments, and examinations to ensure that individuals meet the established standards for competence in the sales field. Sales certifications can cover a wide range of areas, such as consultative selling, sales management, relationship building, objection handling, negotiation, and ethical sales practices. Obtaining a sales certification demonstrates a commitment to professional development, enhances credibility, and may provide individuals with a competitive advantage in the job market or within their organizations.

Churn rate refers to the rate at which customers or subscribers discontinue or cancel their relationship with a company or cease using its products or services over a specific period. It is a key metric used to measure customer attrition or turnover and is typically expressed as a percentage. A high churn rate indicates a higher rate of customer loss, which can have negative implications for a company’s revenue and growth. Managing and reducing churn rate is an important focus for businesses as it impacts customer retention, profitability, and overall business success.

Closed rate, also known as the “closing rate” or “conversion rate,” is a sales metric that measures the percentage of successfully closed deals or sales opportunities out of the total number of qualified leads or opportunities. It represents the effectiveness of a sales team or individual in converting prospects into customers. A high closed rate indicates a higher success rate in closing deals, while a low closed rate may indicate areas for improvement in the sales process, such as lead qualification, objection handling, or negotiation skills. The closed rate is an essential metric for evaluating sales performance and optimizing sales strategies to maximize revenue and business growth.

In sales, “closed-won” refers to a status or outcome assigned to a sales opportunity when it has been successfully closed and resulted in a sale or a won deal. It signifies that a prospect has made the decision to purchase the product or service being offered, and all necessary agreements, negotiations, and contracts have been finalized. The closed-won status indicates a successful outcome for the salesperson or sales team, as they have successfully converted the opportunity into a customer and achieved their sales objective.

Conversation intelligence refers to the practice of capturing, analyzing, and deriving insights from sales and customer conversations. It involves leveraging advanced technologies, such as artificial intelligence and natural language processing, to automatically transcribe and analyze conversations between sales representatives and prospects or customers.

Conversation intelligence platforms enable organizations to extract valuable data and insights from these interactions, such as key talking points, sentiment analysis, objection handling, and competitive intelligence. By applying conversation intelligence, sales teams can gain a deeper understanding of customer needs, improve sales effectiveness, and enhance coaching and training efforts. It serves as a powerful tool for optimizing sales strategies, improving customer interactions, and driving overall sales performance.

A Digital Sales Room, commonly referred to as a DSR, is a single platform for deal planning, communication, and content sharing. A digital sales room refers to a virtual or online platform where sales professionals can engage with potential customers, share information, and facilitate sales interactions in a digital environment. It serves as a centralized hub where sales representatives can showcase products or services, provide demonstrations, share presentations, and address customer inquiries or objections.

Digital sales rooms often leverage technology such as video conferencing, screen sharing, document sharing, and real-time messaging to create an interactive and immersive sales experience. These platforms enable sales teams to collaborate with prospects remotely, deliver personalized sales pitches, and guide customers through the sales process, replicating many aspects of a traditional face-to-face sales meeting. Digital sales rooms offer convenience, flexibility, and accessibility, allowing sales professionals to connect with customers from anywhere and at any time, improving efficiency and expanding sales opportunities in a digital sales environment.

A Front Line Manager, also known as a First-Line Manager or Supervisor, is an essential position within an organization responsible for overseeing a team of employees at the operational level. They are typically responsible for ensuring the smooth execution of day-to-day activities, managing workflow, and maintaining productivity within their department or team.

Front Line Managers play a vital role in implementing organizational policies and procedures, providing guidance and support to team members, monitoring performance, and addressing any issues or challenges that may arise. Their strong leadership skills, effective communication, and ability to motivate and develop their team contribute to the overall success and efficiency of the organization.

Field sales, also known as outside sales, refers to a sales approach where sales representatives or account executives meet and interact with prospects or customers in person, typically outside the office or at the client’s location. Instead of conducting sales remotely or through digital means, field sales professionals actively travel to meet with clients, conduct sales presentations, demonstrate products, negotiate deals, and build relationships face-to-face. Field sales is often employed in industries or situations where personal interaction, relationship-building, and customized sales approaches are essential for driving business growth and closing deals successfully.

 

A profile of a rep that’s likely to succeed at a given organization. Much like an ICP includes characteristics that make the customer “ideal,” an IRP defines the competencies and skills a rep must have to regularly close deals and meet (or even surpass) quota. 

Learning that takes place where one or more educators, either virtually or in a classroom, teach skills through presentations, demonstrations, and discussions.

A lead in sales refers to an individual or business entity that has shown interest in a company’s products or services and has the potential to become a customer. It is typically a person or organization that has provided their contact information or engaged with the company through various channels, such as filling out a form, subscribing to a newsletter, attending an event, or expressing interest in a product demonstration. Leads are often considered as potential opportunities for sales teams to pursue and convert into paying customers through further engagement, nurturing, and the sales process.

Lead qualification is the process of assessing and evaluating potential leads or prospects to determine their suitability, readiness, and likelihood of becoming a customer. It involves gathering information, analyzing data, and applying specific criteria to determine whether a lead meets the requirements and characteristics of an ideal customer for a particular product or service. Lead qualification helps sales and marketing teams focus their efforts on leads that are most likely to convert, ensuring that resources and time are allocated effectively. It typically involves evaluating factors such as the lead’s budget, needs, timeline, decision-making authority, and fit with the company’s target market or buyer persona. The goal of lead qualification is to identify and prioritize high-quality leads that have the potential to drive successful sales outcomes.

Lead scoring is a methodology used in sales and marketing to assess and rank the quality or readiness of a lead based on predetermined criteria. It involves assigning numerical values or scores to leads based on factors such as demographic information, lead source, engagement level, behavior, and characteristics that indicate their likelihood of becoming a customer. Lead scoring helps prioritize and focus efforts on leads with higher potential or readiness, enabling sales and marketing teams to allocate resources effectively and prioritize follow-up activities. By using lead scoring, organizations can streamline their lead qualification process, improve lead-to-customer conversion rates, and optimize sales and marketing efforts.

A Learning Management System (LMS) is a software application or platform designed to facilitate the administration, delivery, and tracking of educational or training programs. It provides a centralized hub for managing and delivering various types of learning content, such as online courses, training modules, assessments, and resources. LMS platforms typically offer features such as user management, course enrollment, content creation and management, progress tracking, assessments, and reporting. They allow organizations, educational institutions, or trainers to create, organize, and deliver learning materials, track learner progress, and assess their performance.

LMS platforms can be used for a wide range of learning purposes, including employee training, professional development, compliance training, onboarding, and academic courses. They provide a scalable and efficient way to deliver and manage learning experiences, foster engagement and collaboration, and track the effectiveness of training initiatives.

Microlearning in sales training is an approach that delivers small, bite-sized units of targeted and focused learning content to sales professionals. It involves breaking down training materials into brief, easily consumable modules, typically ranging from a few minutes to 10-15 minutes in length. These modules are designed to address specific topics, skills, or knowledge gaps relevant to sales performance improvement.

Microlearning can take the form of short videos, quizzes, interactive exercises, or concise text-based lessons. By providing quick and easily accessible learning resources, microlearning allows sales professionals to engage in continuous learning and development on-demand, fitting into their busy schedules and facilitating knowledge retention and application.

MQL stands for Marketing Qualified Lead and refers to a lead or prospect that has been deemed as having a higher potential to become a customer based on their engagement with marketing efforts and meeting certain predefined criteria. MQLs are typically identified and qualified by the marketing team using a combination of factors such as specific actions taken by the lead (e.g., downloading a whitepaper, attending a webinar), their level of interest or engagement, and their fit with the target market or buyer persona. MQLs are then passed on to the sales team for further nurturing and conversion into customers through personalized sales efforts and follow-up activities.

The Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) refers to the second stage in the buyer’s journey, where potential customers have already shown interest in a product or service and are actively considering their options. At this stage, prospects are transitioning from the initial awareness stage to evaluating different solutions. Marketers and sales teams focus on nurturing leads, providing targeted and relevant information, and building trust and credibility.

MOFU involves tactics such as lead scoring, lead nurturing campaigns, personalized content, and engaging with prospects through channels like email, webinars, and demos. The goal is to educate and guide prospects toward making a purchase decision, ultimately moving them closer to becoming qualified opportunities for sales.

 

Net Promoter Score (NPS) is a widely used metric that measures the loyalty and satisfaction of customers towards a company or brand. It is based on a simple survey question: “On a scale of 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend our company/brand/product/service to a friend or colleague?” Respondents are categorized into three groups: Promoters (score 9-10), Passives (score 7-8), and Detractors (score 0-6). The NPS is calculated by subtracting the percentage of Detractors from the percentage of Promoters, resulting in a score that ranges from -100 to +100.

A higher NPS indicates higher customer loyalty and advocacy, while a lower score suggests areas for improvement. The Net Promoter Score provides valuable insights into customer sentiment and can guide businesses in enhancing customer experience and driving growth.

A pain point refers to a specific problem, challenge, or frustration that a business or individual within a target company is experiencing. It is a source of dissatisfaction or unmet need that creates a sense of urgency or motivation for the business to seek a solution. Pain points can arise from various aspects of the company’s operations, such as inefficiencies, high costs, lack of productivity, compliance issues, or competitive disadvantages. Identifying and addressing these pain points is a critical aspect of B2B selling, as it allows sales professionals to position their products or services as a solution that can alleviate the customer’s pain and provide tangible benefits or improvements.

Prospecting in sales refers to the proactive and systematic process of identifying and qualifying potential leads or prospects who have the potential to become customers. It involves searching for and evaluating individuals or businesses that fit the company’s target market or buyer persona. Sales professionals engage in prospecting activities to initiate contact, gather relevant information, and assess the viability and potential value of the leads for the sales pipeline.

Prospectors may utilize various strategies and techniques, such as cold calling, email outreach, networking, social media research, and attending industry events, to identify and connect with potential prospects. The goal of prospecting is to generate a pool of qualified leads that can be further pursued and nurtured through the sales process with the aim of converting them into customers.

A qualified lead, also known as a sales-qualified lead (SQL), is a potential customer who has been assessed and determined to have a higher likelihood of converting into a sale based on predefined criteria. These criteria may include factors such as their level of interest, fit with the target market or buyer persona, budget, authority to make purchasing decisions, and specific needs or pain points that align with the company’s products or services. A qualified lead has shown a certain level of engagement and meets the necessary requirements to move forward in the sales process. Sales teams prioritize qualified leads for further nurturing and active sales efforts to convert them into customers.

A sales quota is a predetermined sales target or goal set for an individual salesperson or a sales team within a specific time period. It represents the desired level of sales performance that the individual or team is expected to achieve. Sales quotas are typically established based on factors such as revenue, units sold, profit margin, or other key performance indicators (KPIs) relevant to the organization’s sales objectives.

Quotas serve as a means to motivate and incentivize sales professionals, providing a clear benchmark for performance evaluation and measuring the success of sales efforts. Meeting or exceeding sales quotas is often tied to rewards, commissions, bonuses, or other forms of recognition within the sales compensation structure.

Revenue enablement refers to the strategic process of equipping sales teams and other revenue-generating functions within an organization with the necessary tools, resources, and support to maximize their effectiveness in driving revenue growth. It encompasses a range of activities aimed at empowering sales professionals to perform at their best and achieve their revenue targets.

Revenue enablement involves providing comprehensive training, access to relevant information and data, sales tools and technologies, streamlined processes, and effective collaboration between sales, marketing, and other departments. The goal of revenue enablement is to optimize sales productivity, improve customer engagement, and ultimately increase revenue generation across the organization.

Revenue intelligence refers to the practice of capturing, analyzing, and leveraging data and insights related to revenue-generating activities within an organization. It involves using advanced analytics, automation, and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to gather and interpret data from various sources, such as customer interactions, sales pipelines, marketing campaigns, and financial systems.

Revenue intelligence provides a holistic view of the customer journey, sales performance, and revenue generation processes, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions and optimize their revenue strategies. It helps organizations identify patterns, trends, and opportunities to improve sales effectiveness, customer engagement, and overall revenue growth. Revenue intelligence tools and platforms can provide valuable insights into customer preferences, buying behavior, market trends, and competitive landscapes, empowering businesses to align their sales and marketing efforts, improve forecasting accuracy, optimize pricing strategies, and drive revenue optimization across the organization.

Revenue productivity is a set of processes, strategies, and technologies used to enhance sales performance by utilizing seller data, revenue analytics, sales enablement, and front-line sales coaching.

 

Revenue Operations, commonly known as RevOps, refers to the strategic alignment and integration of sales, marketing, and customer success operations within an organization. It focuses on optimizing revenue generation by streamlining processes, leveraging technology, and fostering collaboration across departments.

Revenue Operations brings together data, analytics, and insights to drive informed decision-making and improve overall operational efficiency. By breaking down silos and creating a unified approach to revenue management, RevOps aims to enhance customer experience, increase sales effectiveness, and maximize revenue growth. It serves as a bridge between different teams, aligning their goals and strategies to drive holistic revenue optimization and organizational success.

Sales coaching refers to the process of providing guidance, support, and feedback to sales professionals with the aim of improving their selling skills, performance, and overall effectiveness. Sales coaching involves a collaborative approach where a sales manager or experienced salesperson works closely with the sales representative to enhance their knowledge, abilities, and techniques in various aspects of the sales process. It may include activities such as role-playing, analyzing sales calls, reviewing sales metrics, offering constructive feedback, providing training on sales strategies, and setting performance goals.

The goal of sales coaching is to help sales professionals develop their strengths, overcome challenges, and achieve their sales targets by continuously improving their sales techniques, communication skills, relationship-building abilities, and overall sales effectiveness.

Sales content management refers to the strategic process of organizing, storing, and distributing sales-related content in a structured and efficient manner. It involves the systematic management of various types of content, including sales collateral, presentations, case studies, product information, and more. The primary goal of sales content management is to enable sales teams to easily access and utilize relevant and up-to-date content during customer interactions, thereby enhancing their effectiveness and improving the overall sales process. Effective sales content management ensures that sales representatives have the right information at their fingertips, empowering them to engage prospects, address their needs, and drive successful sales outcomes.

 

Sales enablement refers to the strategic approach of equipping sales teams with the resources, tools, and knowledge they need to effectively engage with prospects, close deals, and drive revenue. It involves the alignment of marketing, training, and sales efforts to enhance the overall sales process.

Sales enablement encompasses the development and delivery of training programs, creation of sales collateral and playbooks, provision of relevant and up-to-date product information, implementation of technology solutions, and ongoing coaching and support. By focusing on sales enablement, organizations empower their sales teams to deliver consistent messaging, address customer needs, overcome objections, and ultimately achieve their sales targets.

Sales onboarding refers to the process of integrating and orienting newly hired sales professionals into an organization, equipping them with the knowledge, skills, and resources necessary to succeed in their role. Sales onboarding typically involves training on product knowledge, sales techniques, company policies, and procedures, as well as providing access to tools and systems used in the sales process. The goal of sales onboarding is to accelerate the time it takes for new sales representatives to become productive and contribute to the organization’s sales goals.

Sales forecasting is the process of estimating or predicting future sales performance based on historical data, market trends, and other relevant factors. It involves analyzing past sales patterns, market conditions, customer behavior, and internal data to make informed projections about future sales revenue, unit sales, or customer acquisition. Sales forecasting helps businesses plan and make strategic decisions, such as budgeting, resource allocation, inventory management, and goal setting. It serves as a valuable tool for sales teams, executives, and stakeholders to anticipate and prepare for future sales outcomes and optimize business operations.

Sales force refers to the collective group of individuals within an organization who are responsible for selling its products or services. They are the front-line representatives of the company, engaging with customers, building relationships, and ultimately driving sales revenue. The sales force typically includes sales representatives, account managers, sales managers, and other supporting roles involved in the sales process. They are responsible for prospecting, qualifying leads, making sales presentations, negotiating deals, and maintaining ongoing customer relationships. The sales force plays a crucial role in driving business growth and achieving sales targets.

A Sales Kickoff (SKO) is an annual or periodic event held by an organization to energize, align, and equip its sales teams for success in the upcoming period. It serves as a launchpad to set sales goals, introduce new strategies, and foster team unity.

The Sales Kickoff brings together sales professionals, leaders, and executives to share insights, best practices, and industry trends. It typically includes engaging keynote speeches, workshops, training sessions, and team-building activities. The event aims to inspire and motivate sales teams, enhance their product knowledge, refine selling techniques, and strengthen collaboration, ultimately driving sales growth and fostering a positive sales culture within the organization.

Sales onboarding refers to the process of integrating and training new sales team members to equip them with the necessary knowledge, skills, and tools to succeed in their role. It involves providing comprehensive training and support during the initial stages of their employment to help them understand the company’s products or services, sales processes, target market, value proposition, and sales strategies.

Sales onboarding programs typically cover various aspects, including product training, sales methodologies, CRM usage, objection handling, and role-specific responsibilities. The goal of sales onboarding is to accelerate the ramp-up time of new sales hires, increase their productivity, and ensure they are equipped to effectively engage with prospects, close deals, and contribute to the overall sales goals of the organization.

Sales readiness refers to the state of preparedness and competency of sales teams to effectively engage with customers and close deals. It encompasses the knowledge, skills, and resources required for sales professionals to perform their roles successfully.

Sales readiness involves ongoing training, coaching, and enablement activities that ensure sales representatives have the necessary product knowledge, selling techniques, and understanding of the buyer’s journey. It also includes providing access to relevant sales tools, resources, and sales collateral. By focusing on sales readiness, organizations can equip their sales teams with the right capabilities to confidently engage with prospects, overcome challenges, and drive successful sales outcomes.

Sales training refers to the process of equipping sales professionals with the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to effectively perform their sales roles. It involves structured learning activities and programs designed to enhance the sales team’s capabilities, improve their understanding of sales strategies and techniques, and strengthen their overall sales performance.

Sales training may cover various areas, including product knowledge, sales methodologies, prospecting, lead generation, effective communication and listening skills, negotiation tactics, objection handling, closing techniques, and customer relationship management. The training can be delivered through workshops, seminars, online courses, role-playing exercises, mentoring, and on-the-job training. The objective of sales training is to empower sales professionals with the necessary skills and confidence to build relationships, address customer needs, overcome challenges, and ultimately drive sales success for the organization.

“Top of the funnel” refers to the initial stage of the sales and marketing process, where potential customers are first introduced to a company, product, or service. It represents the broadest part of the customer acquisition journey, encompassing the awareness and lead generation phase. At the top of the funnel, the focus is on capturing the attention and interest of a large audience and turning them into leads or prospects. Various marketing tactics, such as content marketing, social media campaigns, advertising, and events, are employed to attract and engage potential customers. The goal at this stage is to generate a pool of qualified leads who can then be further nurtured and guided through the subsequent stages of the sales funnel.

Upselling is a sales technique where a seller encourages a customer to purchase a higher-priced or more advanced product or service than the one originally intended or considered. It involves offering additional features, upgrades, or premium options that enhance the customer’s experience or provide added value. The objective of upselling is to increase the overall purchase value and maximize revenue by convincing customers to opt for a higher-priced option that better meets their needs or desires. Effective upselling requires understanding the customer’s preferences, identifying opportunities where a higher-priced offering aligns with their interests, and presenting persuasive arguments to encourage the upgrade.

A value proposition refers to a concise and compelling statement that communicates the unique value and benefits that a product, service, or solution offers to a business customer. It outlines the specific reasons why a customer should choose a particular offering over competing alternatives. A value proposition in B2B sales typically addresses the key pain points, challenges, or goals of the target customer and highlights how the product or service can address those needs effectively. It emphasizes the value, differentiation, and competitive advantage that the offering brings to the customer’s business, such as increased efficiency, cost savings, improved productivity, or competitive edge. A strong value proposition is critical for capturing the attention of B2B buyers and differentiating oneself from competitors in the marketplace.

Sales velocity refers to the speed or rate at which sales opportunities move through the sales pipeline and result in closed deals. It is a metric that quantifies the efficiency and effectiveness of the sales process. Sales velocity takes into account factors such as the number of deals in progress, the average deal size, the win rate, and the length of the sales cycle. By measuring and analyzing sales velocity, organizations can gain insights into the overall health of their sales pipeline and identify areas for improvement. Increasing sales velocity can lead to faster revenue generation and improved sales performance.

Virtual sales training refers to the delivery of sales training programs and resources through online platforms and virtual technology rather than in-person settings. It allows sales professionals to access training content, interact with instructors, and participate in learning activities remotely, regardless of their geographical location.

Virtual sales training utilizes various tools and methods, such as webinars, virtual classrooms, video conferencing, online modules, interactive exercises, and assessments, to provide sales training and development opportunities. Participants can engage in real-time discussions, receive instruction and feedback, collaborate with peers, and access training materials conveniently from their own devices. Virtual sales training offers flexibility in terms of timing and accessibility, enabling sales teams to receive training without the constraints of travel or scheduling conflicts. It can be an effective and efficient way to enhance sales skills, knowledge, and performance in a remote or distributed sales environment.

Voice of the Customer (VoC) refers to the insights and feedback collected from customers to understand their preferences, needs, and expectations regarding products, services, and experiences. It involves actively listening to and capturing customer opinions, perceptions, and sentiments through various channels such as surveys, interviews, reviews, and social media.

The Voice of the Customer provides valuable qualitative and quantitative data that organizations can analyze to gain a deeper understanding of their target audience, identify areas for improvement, and make data-driven decisions. By incorporating the Voice of the Customer into their business strategies, companies can enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention, ultimately driving long-term success.

 

As the sales landscape evolves, new concepts and buzzwords emerge. Our sales glossary is regularly updated to reflect the latest trends and industry developments, ensuring that you stay up-to-date with the ever-changing sales landscape. Consider it your trusted companion for continuous learning and professional growth. 

Want more guides and content to get you up to speed with all things sales enablement? 

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7 Takeaways from the 2023 Forrester B2B Summit https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-takeaways-from-the-2023-forrester-b2b-summit/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-takeaways-from-the-2023-forrester-b2b-summit/#comments Thu, 15 Jun 2023 15:05:56 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17723 Last week’s Forrester B2B Summit in Austin, Texas brought together revenue leaders, Forrester analysts, and rev-tech vendors to share their insights and strategies for revenue excellence. From discussions on sales competencies to aligning sales and marketing, the sessions offered valuable takeaways for businesses looking to thrive in the dynamic B2B landscape. In this blog post, …

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Last week’s Forrester B2B Summit in Austin, Texas brought together revenue leaders, Forrester analysts, and rev-tech vendors to share their insights and strategies for revenue excellence. From discussions on sales competencies to aligning sales and marketing, the sessions offered valuable takeaways for businesses looking to thrive in the dynamic B2B landscape.

In this blog post, we’ll share key highlights and actionable tips from the sessions we attended and led as well as conversations we had throughout the event. You can also check out a mini photo gallery of some of our team at the event. 

This post is for anyone who didn’t attend the Summit and wants to know our biggest learnings or for those who joined us in Austin and need a recap to reference as you start thinking about how to bring these learnings to your own revenue organization. 

The booth troop!

Packed house

80s theme night

Another great session

One of the essential ingredients for sales success is having a clear understanding of your sales competencies. Before seeking a vendor or investing in tools, it’s crucial to evaluate and define your sales capabilities. By identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, you can make informed decisions that align with your specific needs.

Measuring the success of your revenue enablement programs can be challenging, especially as they evolve over time. While initial indicators like adoption or consumption can be helpful, it’s essential to go beyond surface-level metrics. Gathering feedback on program quality and data on actual impact can provide valuable insights for continuous improvement. Measure how your programs are impacting field behaviors and how those behaviors are contributing to core revenue outcomes.

Revenue leaders and managers recognize the value of training coaches to be effective mentors. However, finding the time for sales coaching is often a challenge. To maximize impact, it’s crucial to prioritize coaching and invest in the development of your sales coaches. By equipping them with the necessary skills and tools, you empower them to guide and support your revenue generators effectively.

Forrester’s Phyllis Davidson and Peter Ostrow taught us how to avoid “sales content purgatory,” where reps have access to tons of content but can’t find what they need or figure out how to use it. This aligns with what we found in our 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report. The vast majority of content engagement comes from a small percentage of the content to which reps have access. To stay out of “purgatory” focus on quality over quantity. Prioritize high-value content and make derivatives of that content that apply to specific audiences, personas, and selling scenarios.

Continuing the motif of “quality over quantity,” Forrester’s Amy Bills and Jennifer Bullock applied this to the creation of customer case studies. Instead of producing a case study with every available customer, focus on creating a few high-quality stories that address common customer questions and concerns. Furthermore, involving the sales organization in the creation process ensures that case studies align with their specific sales motions. Remember, having case studies alone isn’t the solution; enabling sellers to effectively utilize them is key.

In a standing-room-only session, Kathleen Pierce proposed a shift toward mapping content to buyer questions as an effective structure for sales content. By aligning content with specific buyer questions, it becomes easier for reps to search for and find relevant content for the selling situations they encounter. It also maximizes content’s impact on buyer decisions. Work with your field teams to understand key questions and friction points, and implement a question-answer framework within your sales content management system.

Pierce and Anne Slough explored the challenges and potential of Digital Sales Rooms. While DSRs have promising benefits, widespread adoption struggles remain. Mutual action plans, real-time insights, and buyer collaboration are key value drivers for DSRs. Sales leaders should assign DSRs to solve problems such as substandard buying experiences, inefficient sales processes, and longer buying cycles. Communication of GDPR compliance and mapping DSRs to selling and buying processes are crucial for success.

Making these learnings a reality at your selling org

The Forrester B2B Summit delivered valuable insights and actionable strategies for businesses aiming to enhance their sales performance. Keep these takeaways in mind as you’re building out your revenue productivity strategy for the rest of the year.  

Want to see how Mindtickle can help make these learnings a reality at your selling organization?P

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Video: How Cisco Ties Enablement Efforts to Revenue https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-cisco-ties-enablement-efforts-to-revenue/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-cisco-ties-enablement-efforts-to-revenue/#comments Tue, 13 Jun 2023 17:44:53 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17698       Episode summary In this video, Chris Jackson, Distinguished Architect, Global Strategy & Operations at Cisco, talks through how his sales enablement organization is using Mindtickle for sales training. He walks through some of the programs they’ve launched, the KPIs they’re measuring, and how they’re showing value to leadership. Key takeaways Cisco leveraged …

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  • Episode summary

    In this video, Chris Jackson, Distinguished Architect, Global Strategy & Operations at Cisco, talks through how his sales enablement organization is using Mindtickle for sales training. He walks through some of the programs they’ve launched, the KPIs they’re measuring, and how they’re showing value to leadership.

    Key takeaways

    • Cisco leveraged Mindtickle to roll out training to 18,000 sellers to educate them on new workflows that would impact their compensation structure.
    • Measuring how training impacts revenue attainment is a key KPI for Cisco. They’re constantly updating their sellers with new messaging, pitches, etc, and can quickly update their teams using Mindtickle.
    • Mindtickle has democratized content distribution and helps their disjointed enablement org be more consistent and cohesive.
    • Visibility into enablement efforts has been key. Their leadership team is able to see engagement and feedback in the platform, positioning sales enablement as best-in-class.

    Video transcription

    Cisco uses Mindtickle today in a number of ways with our high-value programs. So anytime we have a program that we want to focus on revenue enhancement, or we want to focus on activation of a new skill, Mindtickle becomes the perfect platform to make it happen.

    As a quick example, we leveraged Mindtickle at the start of the year to roll out training to 18,000 of our sellers in roughly six weeks. The ability to be able to get this training was crucial because it was going to change the way that they were currently doing compensation. So it’s going to educate them on what they needed to do differently and the different workflows they needed to follow.

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    This training was rolled out very, very successfully. We also had an extremely high adoption rate for the training. And we really owe a lot of it to the Mintickle platform and working with Mindtickle professional services.

    Chris Jackson
    Cisco

    Some of the key KPIs that we’ve been looking to solve with Mindtickle, really focus on all the different ways in which we can measure how training impacts revenue attainment. A lot of the things we’re looking to try to achieve with our sellers is to be able to help them be better at what they do with their customers, giving them the latest messaging, and the latest pitches. Any time there’s a change that’s crucial for them to be able to implement, they have the ability to get a quick update so that they can get the training that they need right away.

    The KPIs we’re primarily looking for as the revenue attainment of each rep correlated with their bookings within Salesforce.com. These allow us to be able to get visibility into how the reps are performing and how it correlates to training. It also gives us the ability to leverage the Ideal Rep Profile so that we can model our training efforts in the future to do a better job at getting them the information they need based on where they’re at.

    Mindtickle impacts our business in a lot of ways. Probably the biggest thing that it does for us is it democratizes the ability to be able to deploy content. So it gives us the ability to be able to take our very distributed enablement organization and be able to allow them to publish and maintain their own learning maps as well as their own journeys within the platform.

    That ability to be able to constantly update and ensure that the latest and greatest training is available is something that’s very easy to do with a platform like Mindtickle. And it’s really changed the way that we look at how we can use enablement and how we can activate the skills that we’re looking to be able to implement within our sellers.

    Back in the day, where all we had was basically watch a VOD, take a test and everything was good. We’ve evolved way past that our goal is to be able to make sure that you get the training, you activate those skills, you get a chance to work on them, and are able to workshop them and practice them, as well as to be able to detect and analyze how you’re implementing those with your customers.

    It’s that visibility into how the rep is performing based on the enablement that’s a crucial thing that’s changed for our organization. Mindtickle has a ton of value that we’re just starting to really uncover. And the thing that I would say is the biggest impact it’s had so far, is the ability to show our leadership what a true world-class enablement platform is. Erotische Österreich Massage.

    Our sales leaders are also seeing the amount of engagement and feedback that we’re getting in the platform. If you’ve ever sent out a survey, you know how likely it is for your sellers to actually open it. They’re too busy selling.

    What we’ve been able to do with Mindtickle is to integrate feedback loops throughout our training program so that it’s not a big burdensome thing that requires you to be able to do it after the fact that you can do it in line with the training. Now this is something that’s pretty straightforward.

    But it’s not a capability that we had in the past. So our ability to be able to leverage this has given us over a 94% engagement rate when it comes to getting feedback, which is just astronomical when you think about how many surveys we send, and how little return we’ve gotten in the past. So it’s a very exciting thing.

    We’re seeing a lot of capabilities that Mindtickle is delivering and we’re really excited about this year. Being able to truly start to leverage these capabilities in a very, very meaningful way.


    Ready to see how Mindtickle can help take your sales training program to the next level like Cisco did?


    Connect with our Team

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    Video: Showing the Impact of Sales Enablement on Growth https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-showing-the-impact-of-sales-enablement-on-growth/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-showing-the-impact-of-sales-enablement-on-growth/#comments Mon, 05 Jun 2023 16:52:04 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=17609   Episode summary ChowNow was looking to elevate and grow its sales training program using Mindtickle. Cole Lindbergh, Sales Enablement Manager, Revenue Operations at ChowNow, talks about his experience with Mindtickle. While they were already using Mindtickle’s revenue productivity platform for its sales training, they’re now starting to use the Readiness Index to build an …

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    Episode summary

    ChowNow was looking to elevate and grow its sales training program using Mindtickle. Cole Lindbergh, Sales Enablement Manager, Revenue Operations at ChowNow, talks about his experience with Mindtickle. While they were already using Mindtickle’s revenue productivity platform for its sales training, they’re now starting to use the Readiness Index to build an overall curriculum that goes beyond asking sellers to watch videos and take a quiz. They’re also using Mindtickle to get more insights into what makes sellers successful by building out ideal rep profiles (IRPs), which helps them identify the winning behaviors of top reps and gaps in sellers who might be struggling.

    Cole talks through how he’s used learnings from the IRP and Readiness Index to inform his sales training strategy and how he’s tying sales training programs to revenue impact at ChowNow. Specifically, he outlines how they’ve been able to shrink onboarding time by two business days and get reps to their first deal faster using Mindtickle.

    Key highlights

    • Using Mindtickle as its LMS but looking to expand its sales training curriculum beyond quizzing and videos
    • Looking at the Readiness Index and ideal rep profiles to understand what makes sellers tick and what separates high performers from the rest
    • Working with managers on sales coaching opportunities
    • Focusing on showing how sales training has an impact on business growth
    • Shrunk onboarding time from 8 days to six

    Video transcription

    Right now we’re using Mindtickle a lot of different ways. We’re leveraging in a lot of different ways. We’re obviously using it as our Learning Management System. We are doing training through it, we are doing assessments through it. We use missions, which is a lot of fun. But we’re looking to kind of grow on that too.

    We’ve just started going down the Readiness Index path. We’re looking at coaching sessions, we’re looking at Quests, we’re looking at all these different things to try and really make our training more than just, “Hey, I’m gonna sit down, watch a video, and take a quiz.”

    The whole idea here is, is that we want to try to build an overall curriculum. And when you build an overall curriculum, that doesn’t just mean you watch your video and take a quiz, right? You want to have feedback, you want to see how you’re performing, it’s others, you want to learn how I can do better.

    I’m excited about the things that Mindtickle is doing because it’s ultimately going to set us up to be able to have so much more insight into really what makes our sellers tick, what makes them great sellers, or how can they improve. For me, how can I make my training better, right? 

    Sales enablement plays a huge role in that a lot of our training is built around trying to emulate those that are top performers. Looking at ideal rep profiles, looking at the type of things that. How can I replicate what a rep is doing very well, and bring it over to someone else?

    And having an ideal rep profile, like, “Hey, this is the person that’s excelling. They’re taking the trainings, they’re doing great, and coaching sessions, they’re hitting their day, their deals, that’s awesome.” Looking at the ideal rep profile, now I can start to identify, you know, hey, this person is doing really well on these types of trainings. This person is not, is there a correlation there.

    If I can go to a sales manager and say, “Hey, your rep is exceeding in all these different areas, and this rep is not, what can we do to change that? If we’re able to focus on those little things? Can we make it better? Can we get them up to quota? Can we get them to close more deals?”

    I’m a true believer in explaining the positives. Let’s look at the positives and see if they’re doing well. But then let’s work on those negatives and try to bring them up to speed to create a more well-rounded rep, in the long run, things because well-rounded rep, or sales or money. That’s it’s, it’s the never-ending sight.

    Now we’re looking at more of these competencies. Ideas like these KPIs around training and these KPIs around competency and Readiness Index, I’m hoping are going to be that thing that ultimately brings that to us. I mean, we’re all trying to drive revenue, like we’re all trying to drive more sales.

    At the end of the day, if I can show some level of how our training is affecting the overall growth of the company, and driving more sales, that ultimately is going to put me in a better position. There is this idea of if I can clone the great rap. And that’s like winning, and I can replicate that across others. That’s going to drive more sales.

    By doing a formalized onboarding, we were able to increase the time that a rep got to their first deal significantly, you know, normally it was like, 6-8 weeks, somewhere in that range. And we were able to get to 3-4 weeks. And that’s including training time. That’s strictly just because we were setting the reps up for success from the get-go.

    There is an entire world of additional learnings and additional resources that are available to you to continue to grow upon that. So we’ve actually kind of shrunk some of our onboarding time, in some instances, just because of simple fact. We have the ability now to like, refer you back to a specific training or for you. We’re doing an eight-day onboarding. And now we’re down to eight business days and now we’re down to six. So we cut two days. It’s an extra two days, not only on the field, but like extra two days to meet more people.

    The ChowNow and Mindtickle Story

    Want to learn more about how ChowNow is building out its sales training program using Mindtickle?

    Read the Case Study

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    Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/professional-services-scope-and-services-description-from-20-mar-2023-till-26-feb-2024/ Mon, 15 May 2023 05:01:38 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=17401 Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023 Table of Contents Professional Services Scope – TEACH package Professional Services Scope – ENABLE package Professional Services Scope – PREDICT package Professional Services Scope – SELL package Professional Services Scope – TRANSFORM package Sales Forecasting (RO&I) Implementation CallAI Implementation Asset Hub Implementation Digital Sales …

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    Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023

    Professional Services Scope – TEACH package

    Included with the TEACH package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Account settings
      • Roles and Permissions
      • User, profile management
      • Groups and group automation
      • Tagging framework and governance
      • Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
      • Customers’ competency model or Mindtickle standard competency model
      • Application of tags
      • Business metrics correlation with Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Advise on learning program implementation and leading practices, including:
      • Identify and define enablement program success metrics
      • Structure enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro learning
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Program and platform level reporting and analytics
      • Out of platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
    • Advise on standard integrations:
      • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
      • User sync integration limited to User Sync with 1 (one) of the applications listed in Table 2 below
      • Salesforce tab (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
      • Notifications on Slack and MS teams
      • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning and SkillSoft
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Professional Services Scope – ENABLE package

    Included with the ENABLE package, Mindtickle shall provide the followings services in addition to the TEACH package:
    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Learning site branding and configuration
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
      • Support for configuring 1 user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Digital Sales Room deployment
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
      • Salesforce Integrations for Asset Hub and Coaching (if required)
    • Advise on content management and leading practices, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition

    Professional Services Scope – PREDICT package

    Included with the PREDICT package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Call scoring and analytics
      • Coaching framework
      • Call recording and analytics
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Sales forecast settings
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
    • Advise on standard integrations
      • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
      • User sync integration limited to User Sync with 1 (one) of the applications listed in Table 2 below
      • Calendar synch
      • 1 (one) of the Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
      • 1 (one) of the Dialer tools listed in Table 4 below
      • Call AI and BoostUP.ai
      • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
      • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Professional Services Scope – SELL package

    Included with the SELL package, Mindtickle shall provide the followings services in addition to the PREDICT package:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Learning site branding and configuration
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
      • Digital Sales Room deployment
      • Support for configuring a user sync via 1 (one) of the  standard applications as listed in Table 2 below OR via 1 (one) integration via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Salesforce Integration for Asset Hub
    • Advise on content management and leading practices, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition

    Professional Services Scope – TRANSFORM package

    TRANSFORM package include all the scope and limitations of the SELL and ENABLE packages.

    Sales Forecasting (RO&I) Implementation

    Following Professional Services will be provided:

    • Business Type Setup
      • Maximum two (2) Business Types (sales, renewals, etc)
    • User Access
      • Standard SFDC Manager hierarchy
      • User access controlled by opportunity-level field assignments
      • Note BoostUp does not support SFDC role-based hierarchy
    • Rollups
      • Standard Filters only
      • Maximum three (3) Custom Forecast Types (commit, best case, upside, etc.)
      • Hierarchy
      • AE/Manager Forecast Submission workflow with deal inclusion criteria
      • Standard Forecast rollups
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom columns
      • Deal inclusion criteria
      • Targets
    • Accounts
      • Maximum six (6) Custom Filters
      • Maximum fifteen (10) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunities
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom Filters
      • One (1) Sales Process
      • Enable in-line edit
      • Maximum ten (10) custom SFDC fields
      • Opportunity splits not supported as part of the Professional offering
    • Account / Deal Insights
      • Topics
      • Competitors
    • Forecast Dashboard
      • Standard filters only
    • Forecast Trends, Pipeline Trends Dashboards, Pipeline Risk Analytics
      • Maximum three (3) additional custom filters
    • Scoring & Predictions
      • Opportunity Engagement Risk score
      • Account Engagement Risk score
      • BoostUp Projections (enabled for Ops initially until the algorithm has collected the necessary data – generally 2 quarters of history)
    • General
      • oAuth SSO
      • SFDC Automatic User Provisioning
      • SFDC Manager Hierarchy Sync
      • SFDC Validation Rules / Integration User setup (Admin or User based)

    CallAI Implementation

    As part of the CallAI Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Call scoring and analytics
      • Call recording and analytics
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
      • Launch communication and change management
    • Advise on standard integrations
      • 1 (one) Calendar sync (Outlook, Google Calendar)
      • 1 (one) of the Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
      • 1 (one) of the Dialer tool listed in Table 4 below
      • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
      • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Out of Scope:

    • Migration of Call Recordings from other software/platforms.

    Asset Hub Implementation

    As part of the Asset Hub Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory
    • Standard one directional Asset Hub to Salesforce opportunity integration

    Out of Scope:

    • Migration of Content and assets from other software/platforms.

    Digital Sales Room Implementation

    As part of the Digital Sales Room Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Digital Sales Rooms Management
      • 1 (one) of the standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
      • Roles and User Management applicable to Digital Sales Rooms
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Readiness Index Implementation

    As part of the Readiness Index Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

      • Readiness Index walkthrough and consult on and how to set up one Ideal Rep Profile for one role
      • Consult on setting up competencies and assigning weights
      • Advise on program selection and application of tags for Readiness Index
      • Consult on Business metrics correlation set up with Readiness Index
        • choosing the appropriate and high priority business metrics
        • SFDC integration or manual correlation

    Follow-up meetings: Setup, Q&A, troubleshooting, launch

    • Tracking and reviewing the progress, sharing updates
    • Post launch Analytics review and Advisory

     

    Professional Services (PS) Advisory

    Included with the Professional Services Advisory Package, MindTickle shall provide following services based on the number of hours purchased:

    • Consult on Mindtickle platform configuration and governance
    • Consult on best practices for User Management
    • Use-case deep dive
    • Advise on best practices for structuring content in Mindtickle
    • Provide framework and guidance on Program set up and launch
    • Deep dive on leveraging Mindtickle Reporting & Analytics Data for Program and Platform level insights
    • Consult on Standard Mindtickle supported integrations with 3rd party platforms
    • Design onboarding instruction and enablement
    • Design and launch Revenue Productivity Center of Excellence
    • Design and oversee reporting for Revenue Productivity metrics
    • Design program based enablement updates
    • Design coaching and ongoing training curriculum
    • Design change management framework and strategy
    • Other consultation may be provided based on the Customer’s requirements, within the hours specified in the order form. 
    Professional Services Advisory Engagement Terms:

    Mindtickle will provide a resource (“Consultant”) for providing PS Advisory Services subject to the following terms and conditions:

    • US based Consultants will work 9 am to 5 pm (Monday to Friday) during their home office time zone. India based Consultants will generally work 12pm to 9pm during their home time zone. Meetings outside of these hours can be arranged as mutually agreed between Customer and Consultant.
    • Consultant will be entitled to reasonable allowances for Paid Time Off, Administration, Sick Leave, and Training.
    • Consultant will work from home or the Mindtickle office. Any travel to the Customer location will be billed as per Customer travel policies.
    • PS Advisory Services purchased cannot be carried forward after the Term.
    Out-of-Scope Services (for PS Advisory)

    The following services are not in the scope of the contract and may require additional fees to be delivered. In the event that an out-of-scope service is deemed necessary, both MindTickle and the Customer shall collaborate to ascertain and document the service’s scope, level of effort, and tasks through a change order. Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Any custom integrations
    • Any data clean-up, filtering, or manipulation
    • Any MindTickle platform administrative tasks
    • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
    • SFDC – Module Sync and Opportunity Integrations
    • Custom reports
      • One-time or cadence-based email reports
      • Creation of reports using the reporting API data set
      • Readiness Index dashboards
      • Development of in-platform custom reporting
    • Integration with business intelligence or data visualization tools
      Content creation
    • Data migration

    Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

    • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
      • OKTA
      • Salesforce
      • Microsoft Azure
      • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • One Login
      • IBM Cloud
      • Oracle HCM
      • Ping Identity
      • Veeva
      • Centrify
      • Impartner
      • SecureAuth
      • SailPoint
    • OpenID
    • Google SSO
    • JWT

    Table 2: Standard Integrations – User Sync

    • Workday
    • Bamboo HR
    • Okta
    • Azure
    • MS Dynamics
    • Salesforce
    • Veeva

    Table 3: Standard Integrations – Conferencing Tools

    • Webex
    • Zoom
    • MS Teams

    Table 4: Standard Integrations – Dialer Tools

    • Cloudtalk
    • Salesloft
    • RingCentral
    • Dialpad
    • Aircall
    • Twilio

    If during the integration process, Mindtickle determines that the Customer has SSO, HRMS, and other business applications which prevent a standard integration with the Mindtickle Platform, then Mindtickle will work with the Customer to estimate the additional integration effort involved and submit a change order to Customer for approval before continuing with the integration work.

    Out-of-Scope Services for Teach, Enable, Predict, Sell and Transform Service Packages

    Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Data export, clean up, import, filtering, transformation that may be part of any kind of migration effort including and not limited to:
      • Call recordings from any other software / platform.
      • Content, content structure, content metadata from any other software / platform.
    • White labeled version of Mindtickle’s mobile app.
    • Content, content structure, content metadata from any other software / platform.
    • Integrations
      • Multiple integrations per Table
      • not in Table 1 or Table 2
      • with in-house, niche, non-standard tech stack
    • Custom solution development for a specific business requirement
    • Any Mindtickle Platform administrative tasks
    • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
    • Custom reports
      • One-time or cadence-based email reports, excel reports
      • Creation of reports using the API data set
      • Development of in-Platform custom reporting
      • Any other out-of-platform dashboards
    • Content creation

    When Customers require additional services or scope, Mindtickle will work jointly with Customer on a Statement of Work agreement to analyze and document the scope, level of effort, tasks, and additional fees.

    Technical Account Manager Services Scope and Description

    Following Professional Services will be provided:

    • Business Type Setup
      • Maximum two (2) Business Types (sales, renewals, etc)
    • User Access
      • Standard SFDC Manager hierarchy
      • User access controlled by opportunity-level field assignments
      • Note BoostUp does not support SFDC role-based hierarchy
    • Rollups
      • Standard Filters only
      • Maximum three (3) Custom Forecast Types (commit, best case, upside, etc.)
      • Hierarchy
      • AE/Manager Forecast Submission workflow with deal inclusion criteria
      • Standard Forecast rollups
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom columns
      • Deal inclusion criteria
      • Targets
    • Accounts
      • Maximum six (6) Custom Filters
      • Maximum fifteen (10) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunities
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom Filters
      • One (1) Sales Process
      • Enable in-line edit
      • Maximum ten (10) custom SFDC fields
      • Opportunity splits not supported as part of the Professional offering
    • Account / Deal Insights
      • Topics
      • Competitors
    • Forecast Dashboard
      • Standard filters only
    • Forecast Trends, Pipeline Trends Dashboards, Pipeline Risk Analytics
      • Maximum three (3) additional custom filters
    • Scoring & Predictions
      • Opportunity Engagement Risk score
      • Account Engagement Risk score
      • BoostUp Projections (enabled for Ops initially until the algorithm has collected the necessary data – generally 2 quarters of history)
    • General
      • oAuth SSO
      • SFDC Automatic User Provisioning
      • SFDC Manager Hierarchy Sync
      • SFDC Validation Rules / Integration User setup (Admin or User based)

    Mindtickle Roles and Responsibilities of the Implementation Packages

    Mindtickle will staff a Professional Services Consultant, Technical Solutions Architect, Technical Solutions Engineer and Managed services admin as needed to provide the agreed-upon services.

    Mindtickle Staff RoleResponsibilities
    Professional Services Consultant
    • Project management
    • Advise implementation and configuration
    • Provide leading practices
    • Oversees other Mindtickle roles
    Technical Solutions Architect
    • Provide technical guidance on standard, in-scope integrations
    Technical Solutions Engineer
    • Performs technical integration tasks required to enable Customer to develop and test the integrations in scope
    Managed services admin
    • Perform platform administration tasks as requested by the Professional Services Consultant

    Customer Roles and Responsibilities

    Customer will staff a team responsible for the duties of the roles below and any additional roles as required.

    Customer Staff RoleDescription

    Enablement Owner

     

    • Defines overall vision, goals, operational standards, and processes for deploying Mindtickle with Customer organization
    Program Manager
    • Develops enablement program plans, drives engagement, and provides reports/data insights
    Content Author
    • Develops program content
    Enablement Admin
    • Responsible for site and User Admin; supports content authors with Platform usage
    Project Manager
    • Manages project plans, deadlines, and scope for Mindtickle projects
    IT Admin/Developer
    • Develops and/or configures, and tests integrations

    Customers will provide timely access to all necessary resources, including personnel, content, IT systems, etc. as necessary for Mindtickle to provide the Services.

    Customers agrees to perform the following activities and/or prepare the following pre-requisites for each implementation package:

    PackageCustomer responsibilities or pre-requisites
    Teach
    • Customer must come with a competency model to be implemented on the Mindtickle platform at or before the execution of the contractual agreements.
    • If/When Customer does not have a competency model available in time, Customer agrees to use the default Mindtickle ideal rep profile and prioritize up to 5 competency groupings
    • Customer must come with an enablement program ready to deploy from the following sources
    • If/When Customer does not have a program available in time, Customer agrees to deploy a program from the below sources
      • Any Mindtickle Ready-To-Deploy programs
      • Any template from the Mindtickle template gallery
      • Purchase a program from Mindtickle’s Partners
    Enable
    • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the Teach package and:
    • Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front line managers for the coaching session
    Predict, Sell
    • Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front line managers for the coaching session
    Transform
    • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the Enable and Sell packages.

    Place of Performance

    All Professional Services will be provided at Customer site or in Mindtickle offices remotely, as per the project requirements and as mutually agreed between Mindtickle and the Customer.

    Acceptance of Services

    • Customer shall have the right to review the Professional Services rendered within five (5) calendar days of receipt of subject Professional Services from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle.
    • Before the end of the five (5) calendar-day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject Professional Services is accepted by Customer.
    • If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period, subject Professional Services shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    • If the Customer does not accept subject Professional Services, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period.
    • Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject Professional Services and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    • Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each Professional Service in scope.

    If Customer procured SKO Services through respective Order, the scope and description of SKO Services is described here

    The post Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    ChowNow Revolutionizes New Hire Training with Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/customer-stories/chownow-revolutionizes-new-hire-training-with-mindtickle/ Sat, 06 May 2023 16:13:07 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=customer_stories&p=437 Right now, we have to be very adaptable to things that are changing. The way people learn is very different. There is still this propensity to make a PowerPoint but that just doesn't work for training anymore.

    The post ChowNow Revolutionizes New Hire Training with Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    About ChowNow

    • ChowNow is an online food ordering platform that connects customers with local independent restaurants in the US. The marketplace helps with fair ordering for restaurants and diners and provides restaurant partners with key customer insights and marketing support.

    The challenge

    • When the pandemic hit, local independent restaurants were in need of a fast and easy solution for customer online ordering.
    • ChowNow began receiving a multitude of inbound inquiries about its platform and its go-to-market organization needed to catch up.
    • As the sales team continued to grow, there was a recognition of the need for impactful training with remote reps all over the country.
    • Cole Lindbergh, Sales Enablement Manager, Revenue Operations at ChowNow, recognized the need for an impactful training program to get new remote reps on board and ramped up quickly while trying to maintain the energy of the in-office sales floor.

    The solution

    • In an effort to reduce the time it takes for a new hire to close their first deal, Lindbergh and his team implemented Mindtickle to develop a robust — and fun — new hire training program that didn’t only impart company, product, and competitive knowledge, but also pushed the newest reps on the team to connect and collaborate with their peers.
    • Feedback and lots of internal meetings helped to maximize training impact and retention.
    • Working with sales managers, Lindbergh pulled documentation and feedback across teams to create a cohesive narrative that ultimately shaped learning paths.

    The impact

    • Established formalized new hire training
    • 75% of new reps closed their first deal 20 days faster
    • Increased engagement across the remote team
    • Drove productive and impactful manager-rep conversations

    The post ChowNow Revolutionizes New Hire Training with Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Call AI https://www.mindtickle.com/callai/ Thu, 04 May 2023 07:52:50 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16846 Call AI Integrations Uncover powerful coaching opportunities and deal insights to help reps win more Book a Demo Weave Call AI into sales reps’ daily routines Make your reps wildly productive by recording and analyzing every call, email, and meeting. Proactively identify coaching opportunities and next steps. Help reps understand deal health scores and uncover …

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    Call AI Integrations

    Uncover powerful coaching opportunities and deal insights to help reps win more

    Weave Call AI into sales reps’ daily routines

    Make your reps wildly productive by recording and analyzing every call, email, and meeting. Proactively identify coaching opportunities and next steps. Help reps understand deal health scores and uncover risks so they can win more deals while adding a personal touch to their sales process.

    Call AI and revenue intelligence: Level up RevOps and sales

    Get full visibility into every call, email and meeting. Score death health, uncover risks, and forecast more accurately.

    Unlock voice of customer insights

    Share meaningful feedback with teams like product, marketing, and customer success.

    Forecast more accurately

    Save rep ops teams 30 hours a week while forecasting with 95%+ accuracy.

    Uncover deal insights & risks

    Score deal health and proactively improve conversion rates.

    Improve rep efficiency

    Save reps time spent note-taking and updating Salesforce while increasing deal collaboration.

    Call insights to inform your team’s next steps

    Ensure teams are taking effective next steps by providing them with call recordings and insights in each account or opportunity by integrating our conversation intelligence software with your CRM or sales engagement platform.

    Never miss a beat or an opportunity

    Catch details that might have been missed in the heat of conversation with our web conferencing integrations

    Easily review outbound calls with dialer integrations

    Review calls quickly to gain insight into market trends, maintain compliance, and coach on real customer or prospect interactions by integrating with your dialer platform.

     

    SALES COACHING CUSTOMER STORIES

    Mindtickle provided analytics and helped us drive results that proved to our leadership what global enablement is trying to accomplish.
    Amy Lord
    Senior Analyst, Global Enablement
    “ copy 6
    FEATURED RESOURCE

    Sales Coaching Guide

    How to use conversation intelligence to navigate the sales cycle

    Explore all that you can do with the
    Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform

    Set performance goals, educate your team, create a coaching culture, track field
    performance, and offer personalized solutions that improve long-term results.
    icon-sales-onboarding

    Sales Onboarding

    Ramp new sales team members quickly through formal and informal learning techniques.

    Continuous Learning

    Create a continuous state of excellence through ongoing programs, missions, and content.

    Manager-Led Coaching

    Create a coaching culture through personalized coaching on deals and skills.

    Account Strategy & Review

    Leverage field evidence to inform your account conversion and growth plans.

    Sales Kickoffs

    Use kickoffs and live instructor-led sessions to accentuate knowledge and skill development to improve sales performance.

    Partner Enablement

    Get your partners scaled quickly and keep them updated with your latest and greatest.

    Sales Certification

    Ensure reps are ready to carry out their skills on the field with pre-testing.

    Voice of the Customer

    Use call recording to identify and share market trends, customer needs, and ideas.

    Ready up with reports, guides, and more

    Sign up for webinars and events, or check out our Resource Center.

    Seamless experience for efficient, productive teams

    Integrate and automate to support your sales teams in getting to the right next steps with less effort

    The post Call AI appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Mindtickle vs Lessonly https://www.mindtickle.com/mindtickle-vs-lessonly/ Tue, 02 May 2023 08:41:28 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16717 Top Companies Choose Mindtickle Over Lessonly by Seismic to Fully Enable Dynamic Sales Teams While Lessonly by Seismic can help you “do better work” for the simplest onboarding tasks, its narrow sales enablement functionality can limit your ability to improve sales performance. Adopt Mindtickle to deliver individualized enablement programs at scale based on real-world sales …

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    Top Companies Choose Mindtickle Over Lessonly by Seismic to Fully Enable Dynamic Sales Teams

    While Lessonly by Seismic can help you “do better work” for the simplest onboarding tasks, its narrow sales enablement functionality can limit your ability to improve sales performance. Adopt Mindtickle to deliver individualized enablement programs at scale based on real-world sales interactions–optimizing the enablement journey for every rep.

    Be Ready!

    Find out how Mindtickle can empower you to optimize your sales enablement program – and drive revenue growth.

    Here’s what you’re missing

    vs.

    Feature Mindtickle Lessonly
    Ideal rep profiles: the skills and behaviors that drive success
    Virtue role-plays with AI-guided feedback
    Real-world, best-practice conversation examples with common selling situations
    Transcription and analysis of real-world sales interactions
    Individualized, guided coaching tools for frontline managers
    Pre-built Seismic integration

    Considering Lessonly by Seismic alternatives?
    Look no further.

    Here are four reasons to consider Mindtickle

    Increase
    Enablement Impact

    Measure Real-World Impact

    Innovate
    With Ease

    Deliver just-in-time content

    Reason #1

    Lessonly by Seismic tackles the tip of the sales readiness iceberg with one-size-fits all training and enablement. Instead, use Mindtickle to build individualized programs at scale that focus on the skills each salesperson needs to succeed, seamlessly incorporate conversation snippets from real-world buyer interactions into training content, and leverage AI-powered virtual role-plays to give sellers a safe space to practice on their own.

    Reason #2

    Grading practice assignments is important, but Lessonly by Seismic doesn’t tell you if reps are taking what they’ve learned into their sales calls. Mindtickle goes one step further, empowering you to assign practice sessions and analyze real-world sales interactions to see how reps perform when money is on the line.

    Reason #3

    While ease-of-use is critical, it doesn’t need to come at the expense of enterprise-grade capabilities. Where Lessonly by Seismic can leave you wanting more, Mindtickle delivers both an intuitive, seamless experience without sacrificing conversation intelligence, AI and individualization.

     

    Reason #4

    Giving sellers access to content is good, but even better is giving them access to the right content, just in time. Lessonly’s acquisition by Seismic may eventually offer synergies between their solutions, but Mindtickle does it today. Access ad hoc content for just-in-time learning, sharing with buyers, and more–inside of Mindtickle’s unified platform

     

    Top rated sales software on G2

    But don’t take our word for it. Over 1,000+ users have rated Mindtickle 5 stars.

    Sales enablement programs that translate to field success

    With Mindtickle we’ve adopted an integrated and engaging approach that takes into account the specific needs of each seller to help them build the knowledge, skills and behaviors on an ongoing basis for success in the field.

    Bill Mills
    Manager Sales Enablement, Thomson Reuters

    Close more business now

    219%

    Mulesoft increased ACV by 219% (from 77K – 169K)

    2x

    MongoDB doubled the number of new reps hitting quota

    45%

    MongoDB reduced new rep ramp time from 11 months to 6

    50%

    ORCA Life reduced time to first deal by 50%

    Built for your entire team

    Develop top sales performers with Mindtickle.

    Set Your Reps for Success

    Find out how Mindtickle can empower you to deliver amazing onboarding experiences that set your reps up for success.

    The post Mindtickle vs Lessonly appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/professional-services-scope-and-services-description-before-20-mar-2023/ Sat, 29 Apr 2023 14:42:27 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16614 Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 Table of Contents Professional Services Scope – TEACH package Professional Services Scope – ENABLE package Professional Services Scope – PREDICT package Professional Services Scope – SELL package Professional Services Scope – TRANSFORM package Sales Forecasting (RO&I) Implementation CallAI Implementation Asset Hub Implementation Digital Sales …

    The post Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Professional Services Scope and
    Services Description available before
    20 March 2023

    Professional Services Scope – TEACH package

    Included with the TEACH package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Account settings
      • Roles and Permissions
      • User, profile management
      • Groups and group automation
      • Tagging framework and governance
      • Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
      • Customers’ competency model or Mindtickle standard competency model
      • Application of tags
      • Business metrics correlation with Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Advise on learning program implementation and leading practices, including:
      • Identify and define enablement program success metrics
      • Structure enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro learning
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Program and platform level reporting and analytics
      • Out of platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
    • Advise on standard integrations:
      • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to applications in Table 1 below
      • User sync integration limited to User Sync with applications listed in Table 2 below
      • Salesforce tab (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
      • Notifications on Slack and MS teams
      • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning and SkillSoft
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Professional Services Scope – ENABLE package

    Included with the ENABLE package, Mindtickle shall provide the followings services in addition to the TEACH package:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Learning site branding and configuration
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
      • Support for configuring 1 user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Digital Sales Room deployment
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
      • Salesforce Integrations for Asset Hub and Coaching (if required)
    • Advise on content management and leading practices, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition

    Professional Services Scope – PREDICT package

    Included with the PREDICT package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Call scoring and analytics
      • Coaching framework
      • Call recording and analytics
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Sales forecast settings
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
    • Advise on standard integrations
      • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to applications in Table 1 below
      • User sync integration limited to User Sync with applications listed in Table 2 below
      • Calendar synch
      • Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
      • Dialer tool
      • Call AI and BoostUP.ai
      • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
      • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Professional Services Scope – SELL package

    Included with the SELL package, Mindtickle shall provide the followings services in addition to the PREDICT package:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Learning site branding and configuration
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
      • Digital Sales Room deployment
      • Support for configuring a user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Salesforce Integration for Asset Hub
    • Advise on content management and leading practices, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition

    Professional Services Scope – TRANSFORM package

    TRANSFORM package include all the scope and limitations of the SELL and ENABLE packages.

    Sales Forecasting (RO&I) Implementation

    Following Professional Services will be provided:

    • Business Type Setup
      • Maximum two (2) Business Types (sales, renewals, etc)
    • User Access
      • Standard SFDC Manager hierarchy
      • User access controlled by opportunity-level field assignments
      • Note BoostUp does not support SFDC role-based hierarchy
    • Rollups
      • Standard Filters only
      • Maximum three (3) Custom Forecast Types (commit, best case, upside, etc.)
      • Hierarchy
      • AE/Manager Forecast Submission workflow with deal inclusion criteria
      • Standard Forecast rollups
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom columns
      • Deal inclusion criteria
      • Targets
    • Accounts
      • Maximum six (6) Custom Filters
      • Maximum fifteen (10) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunities
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom Filters
      • One (1) Sales Process
      • Enable in-line edit
      • Maximum ten (10) custom SFDC fields
      • Opportunity splits not supported as part of the Professional offering
    • Account / Deal Insights
      • Topics
      • Competitors
    • Forecast Dashboard
      • Standard filters only
    • Forecast Trends, Pipeline Trends Dashboards, Pipeline Risk Analytics
      • Maximum three (3) additional custom filters
    • Scoring & Predictions
      • Opportunity Engagement Risk score
      • Account Engagement Risk score
      • BoostUp Projections (enabled for Ops initially until the algorithm has collected the necessary data – generally 2 quarters of history)
    • General
      • oAuth SSO
      • SFDC Automatic User Provisioning
      • SFDC Manager Hierarchy Sync
      • SFDC Validation Rules / Integration User setup (Admin or User based)

    CallAI Implementation

    As part of the CallAI Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Call scoring and analytics
      • Call recording and analytics
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
      • Launch communication and change management
    • Advise on standard integrations
      • Calendar sync (Outlook, Google Calendar)
      • Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
      • Dialer tool listed in Table 4 below
      • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
      • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Out of Scope:

    • Migration of Call Recordings from other software/platforms.

    Asset Hub Implementation

    As part of the Asset Hub Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory
    • Standard one directional Asset Hub to Salesforce opportunity integration

    Out of Scope:

    • Migration of Content and assets from other software/platforms.

    Digital Sales Room Implementation

    As part of the Digital Sales Room Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Digital Sales Rooms Management
      • Standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
      • Roles and User Management applicable to Digital Sales Rooms
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Readiness Index Implementation

    As part of the Readiness Index Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

      • Readiness Index walkthrough and consult on and how to set up one Ideal Rep Profile for one role
      • Consult on setting up competencies and assigning weights
      • Advise on program selection and application of tags for Readiness Index
      • Consult on Business metrics correlation set up with Readiness Index
        • choosing the appropriate and high priority business metrics
        • SFDC integration or manual correlation

    Follow-up meetings: Setup, Q&A, troubleshooting, launch

    • Tracking and reviewing the progress, sharing updates
    • Post launch Analytics review and Advisory

    Professional Services (PS) Advisory

    Included with the Professional Services Advisory Package, MindTickle shall provide the consulting services for the following based on the number of hours purchased:

    • Readiness Index walkthrough and consult on and how to set up one Ideal Rep Profile for one role
    • Account Setup
    • Project planning
    • Change Management
    • Standard Mindtickle supported integrations with 3rd party platforms
    • User Management
    • Use-case deep dive
    • Content structure, planning and development
    • Messaging and Communication
    • Program launch
    • Reporting & Analytics Data and insights
    • Other consultation may be provided based on the Customer’s requirements, within the hours specified in the order form
    Out-of-Scope Services (for PS Advisory)

    The following services are not in the scope of the contract and may require additional fees to be delivered. In the event that an out-of-scope service is deemed necessary, both MindTickle and the Customer shall collaborate to ascertain and document the service’s scope, level of effort, and tasks through a change order. Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Any custom integrations
    • Any data clean-up, filtering, or manipulation
    • Any MindTickle platform administrative tasks
    • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
    • SFDC – Module Sync and Opportunity Integrations
    • Custom reports
      • One-time or cadence-based email reports
      • Creation of reports using the reporting API data set
      • Readiness Index dashboards
      • Development of in-platform custom reporting
    • Integration with business intelligence or data visualization tools
      Content creation
    • Data migration

    Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

    • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
      • OKTA
      • Salesforce
      • Microsoft Azure
      • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • One Login
      • IBM Cloud
      • Oracle HCM
      • Ping Identity
      • Veeva
      • Centrify
      • Impartner
      • SecureAuth
      • SailPoint
    • OpenID
    • Google SSO
    • JWT

    Table 2: Standard Integrations – User Sync

    • Workday
    • Bamboo HR
    • Okta
    • Azure
    • MS Dynamics
    • Salesforce
    • Veeva

    Table 3: Standard Integrations – Conferencing Tools

    • Webex
    • Zoom
    • MS Teams

    Table 4: Standard Integrations – Dialer Tools

    • Cloudtalk
    • Salesloft
    • RingCentral
    • Dialpad
    • Aircall
    • Twilio
    If during the integration process, Mindtickle determines that the Customer has SSO, HRMS, and other business applications which prevent a standard integration with the Mindtickle Platform, then Mindtickle will work with the Customer to estimate the additional integration effort involved and submit a change order to Customer for approval before continuing with the integration work.

    Out-of-Scope Services for Teach, Enable, Predict, Sell and Transform Service Packages

    • Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

      • Data export, clean up, import, filtering, transformation that may be part of any kind of migration effort including and not limited to:
        • Call recordings from any other software / platform.
        • Content, content structure, content metadata from any other software / platform.
      • White labeled version of Mindtickle’s mobile app.
      • Content, content structure, content metadata from any other software / platform.
      • Integrations
        • not in Table 1 or Table 2
        • with in-house, niche, non-standard tech stack
      • Custom solution development for a specific business requirement
      • Any Mindtickle Platform administrative tasks
      • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
      • Custom reports
        • One-time or cadence-based email reports, excel reports
        • Creation of reports using the API data set
        • Development of in-Platform custom reporting
        • Any other out-of-platform dashboards
      • Content creation

      When Customers require additional services or scope, Mindtickle will work jointly with Customer on a Statement of Work agreement to analyze and document the scope, level of effort, tasks, and additional fees.

    Technical Account Manager Services Scope and Description

    Mindtickle Technical Account Manager Service provides a named technical support specialist who applies knowledge of the customer’s use cases and business objectives to optimize and maintain the day to day operations of the platform.

    The Technical Account Manager’s responsibilities include:

    • Serve as the single point of contact for all technical issues raised with the Mindtickle Support desk.
    • Prioritize and work Customer’s issues with the support engineers.
    • Provide root cause analysis for top severity issues and outages.
    • Monitor the performance of the Mindtickle platform and take appropriate actions to load balance, tune and optimize it.
    • Monitor the platform for status on scheduled jobs, logs and alerts.
    • Provide monthly report on the status and trends of the MindTickle support tickets.
    • Assist with testing and support during program launches to minimize issues and maintain Service Level Agreement (SLA)

    Scope Limits and Assumptions:

      • The named Technical Account Manager personnel will work per the applicable hours per week per the FTE agreed. The maximum hours per week shall be based on the number of FTE count specified in the Order. The term FTE means a dedicated ‘Full Time Employee’ providing not more than 40 hours of technical account management services per week. Accordingly, the maximum number of hours for a 1/2 FTE, 1 FTE and 2 FTEs specified in the Order Form shall be 20 hours a week, 40 hours a week and 80 hours a week, respectively.
      • The Technical Account Manager is based out of India. Mindtickle shall endeavour to provide a minimum time zone overlap time of 2 business hours, based on the location of the Customer’s main point of contact.
      • In the event the workload exceeds the agreed maximum hours per month, then Customer and Mindtickle agree to:
        1. Rebalance the workload
        2. Increase the time frame for completion
        3. Increase the FTE count with a change order process.
      • Unless expressly provided otherwise herein or agreed otherwise by the parties over email, business hours/ business days shall exclude Saturdays and Sundays and the days on which Customer has a declared holiday.

    Premium Support Services

    Included with the Premium support package, Mindtickle shall provide the following premium services:

    • Access to all documentation on the Mindtickle Helpsite (help.www.mindtickle.com).
    • Access to Success Accelerators: Pre-scoped advisory and enablement engagements focused on achieving business outcomes.
    • Professional services advisory – monthly sessions where a Mindtickle Professional Services Consultant will be available to consult on Mindtickle product features, capabilities and share best practices on using Mindtickle during the scheduled time.
    • Technical and integration consultation – monthly sessions where an Mindtickle Technical Architect will be available to to consult on integration, technical architecture and custom solutioning approaches during scheduled times
    • Content consultation – bi weekly office hour type sessions where a Learning Consultant or Design Consultant from Mindtickle’s Content as a Service team will be online and ready to consult on program design, content design and structuring during a scheduled time
    • Annual Health Check to help the customer fine tune their Mindtickle implementation by providing the customer with guidance on areas and processes that are working well or that can be optimized.
    • Annual infrastructure performance and load tuning of the customer’s instance(s)

    Mindtickle Roles and Responsibilities of the Implementation Packages

    Mindtickle will staff a Professional Services Consultant, Technical Solutions Architect, Technical Solutions Engineer and Managed services admin as needed to provide the agreed-upon services.

    Mindtickle Staff Role Responsibilities
    Professional Services Consultant
    • Project management
    • Advise implementation and configuration
    • Provide leading practices
    • Oversees other Mindtickle roles
    Technical Solutions Architect
    • Provide technical guidance on standard, in-scope integrations
    Technical Solutions Engineer
    • Performs technical integration tasks required to enable Customer to develop and test the integrations in scope
    Managed services admin
    • Perform platform administration tasks as requested by the Professional Services Consultant

    Customer Roles and Responsibilities

    Customer will staff a team responsible for the duties of the roles below and any additional roles as required.

    Customer Staff Role Description
    Enablement Owner

     

    • Defines overall vision, goals, operational standards, and processes for deploying Mindtickle with Customer organization
    Program Manager
    • Develops enablement program plans, drives engagement, and provides reports/data insights
    Content Author
    • Develops program content
    Enablement Admin
    • Responsible for site and User Admin; supports content authors with Platform usage
    Project Manager
    • Manages project plans, deadlines, and scope for Mindtickle projects
    IT Admin/Developer
    • Develops and/or configures, and tests integrations

    Customers will provide timely access to all necessary resources, including personnel, content, IT systems, etc. as necessary for Mindtickle to provide the Services.

    Customers agrees to perform the following activities and/or prepare the following pre-requisites for each implementation package:

    Package Customer responsibilities or pre-requisites
    Teach
    • Customer must come with a competency model to be implemented on the Mindtickle platform at or before the execution of the contractual agreements.
    • If/When Customer does not have a competency model available in time, Customer agrees to use the default Mindtickle ideal rep profile and prioritize up to 5 competency groupings
    • Customer must come with an enablement program ready to deploy from the following sourcess
    • If/When Customer does not have a program available in time, Customer agrees to deploy a program from the below sources
      • Any Mindtickle Ready-To-Deploy programs
      • Any template from the Mindtickle template gallery
      • Purchase a program from Mindtickle’s Partners
    Enable
    • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the Teach package and:
    • Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front line managers for the coaching session
    Predict, Sell
    • Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front line managers for the coaching session
    Transform
    • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the Enable and Sell packages.

    Place of Performance

    All Professional Services will be provided at Customer site or in Mindtickle offices remotely, as per the project requirements and as mutually agreed between Mindtickle and the Customer.

    Acceptance of Services

    • Customer shall have the right to review the Professional Services rendered within five (5) calendar days of receipt of subject Professional Services from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle.
    • Before the end of the five (5) calendar-day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject Professional Services is accepted by Customer.
    • If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period, subject Professional Services shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    • If the Customer does not accept subject Professional Services, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period.
    • Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject Professional Services and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    • Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each Professional Service in scope.

    The post Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/description-of-subscription-services-package-from-20-mar-2023/ Sat, 29 Apr 2023 14:20:43 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16611 Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023 Description of Subscription Services Packages Teach Comprehensive training, micro-learning, reinforcement and scenario-based practice. Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports. Give users the confidence to handle …

    The post Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Subscription Services Packages
    available from 20 March 2023

    Description of Subscription Services Packages

    Teach

    Comprehensive training, micro-learning, reinforcement and scenario-based practice.

    Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports. Give users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays, simulated customer scenarios, and AI-powered feedback.

    Modules included in the Teach package:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
    • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
    • Competency Benchmarks (IRP)

    The Teach package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of two Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Teach package.

    RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

    If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of Teach, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

    Enable

    Comprehensive sales enablement including training, content, and coaching.

    Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams.

    Modules included in the Enable package:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
    • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
    • Competency Benchmarks (IRP)
    • Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)
    • Digital Sales Rooms
    • Sales Coaching

    The Enable package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of three Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Enable package.

    RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

    If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of Teach, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

     

    Predict

    Revenue intelligence tools including conversation intelligence, sales coaching, and sales forecasting.

    Record, transcribe, and analyze all conversations with AI-powered insights to improve productivity. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching. Manage deal risks and execute on hyper-accurate forecasting.

    Modules included in the Predict package:

    • Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)
    • Sales Coaching
    • Sales Forecasting (RO&I)

    Sell

    Revenue operations and intelligence tools including conversation intelligence, sales coaching, sales forecasting, sales content management, and digital sales rooms.

    Analyze reps’ activities in the field with call recording, transcription, and insights. Arm reps with just-in-time content that accelerates deals and engage prospects with customized buying experiences. Continually improve the skills and behaviors of teams with sales coaching. Manage deal risks and execute on hyper-accurate forecasting.

    Modules included in the Sell package:

    • Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)
    • Sales Coaching
    • Sales Forecasting (RO&I)
    • Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)
    • Digital Sales Rooms

    Transform

    The complete revenue productivity platform to optimize go-to-market teams and execute on hyper-active forecasts to win more.

    Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams. Analyze reps’ activities in the field with call recording, transcription, and insights. Manage deal risks and execute on hyper-accurate forecasting.

    Modules included in the Transform package:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
    • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
    • Competency Benchmarks (IRP)
    • Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)
    • Digital Sales Rooms
    • Sales Coaching
    • Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)
    • Sales Forecasting (RO&I)

    The Transform package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of five Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Transform package.

    RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

    If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of Teach, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

     

    Sales Training

    Engage and upskill teams with individualized, adaptive, and gamified learning programs at-scale. Create and deliver thematically grouped, visually rich learning paths leveraging depth and breadth of learning modules to keep sellers engaged. Module types include but are not limited to:

    • Assessments
    • Certifications
    • Courses
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-led Training (ILT)
    • Quick Updates

    Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)

    Mindtickle’s Call AI solution helps world-class companies be ready to grow revenue by recording, transcribing, and analyzing sales calls for customer insights and coaching. With conversational insights tightly integrated into sales training and content programs, Call AI helps revenue teams achieve a continuous state of excellence and be ready for every selling situation. Call recordings will be subject to applicable laws as set forth at our Privacy Policy.

    Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)

    Mindtickle aligns sales content around the needs of sellers in the field. Sales organizations get more use and value from their content, without sacrificing security and governance. Automation and streamlined content management reduces admin burden. With Mindtickle’s Asset Hub, sellers spend less time searching for content and more time using it to close deals.

    Coaching

    Mindtickle sales coaching optimizes the performance of sales teams by identifying lagging skills and providing a suite of tools to deliver data-driven, individualized sales coaching. Measure in-field performance and reinforce coaching efforts with customized training and enablement content that drives higher quota attainment and long-term skill development.

    Reinforcement & Role-Plays

    Upskill sellers with hands-on practice with Virtual Role-Plays (Mindtickle Missions). Assign AI-powered practice exercises to prove the application and articulation of key concepts. Create virtual scenarios, including pitches, presentations, demos, emails, and more for role-play practice and testing. Role-play media types include video, audio, screen capture, voice over PPT, tasks and written evaluations.

    Reinforce concepts to boost retention with Spaced Reinforcements (Mindtickle Quests). Assign and automatically deliver short, personalized, scenario-based questions at ideal intervals (spaced reinforcements) to promote greater retention.

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence (“RO&I”)

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence provides forecasting and pipeline analysis. Forecast AI learns from your historical data, applies real-time deal by deal risk scoring of your current pipeline and predicts in-quarter pipeline creation pacing to give you an accurate forecast you can rely on.

    Digital Sales Rooms

    Custom sales rooms for every opportunity. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, and real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

    Customer Success Services

    Mindtickle will provide the following Customer Success Services

    1. A named Customer Success Manager (CSM)
    2. Welcome and onboarding material for a successful launch
    3. Access to newly released product features
    4. Access to an analytics dashboard
    5. On-going communication of best practices

    (Cost of Customer Success Services is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

    Salesforce Integration

    Mindtickle’s Salesforce integration enables Salesforce users to engage with their Mindtickle training experience directly within the Salesforce platform, and access contextually aware training within each of their Salesforce opportunities.

    White Labelled Mobile Application

    White Labelled Mobile Application is Mindtickle’s Platform related assistance through which Mindtickle assists the Customer to personalize the look and feel of Mindtickle’s mobile application of the Platform to align it with Customer’s brand identity. Mindtickle supports White Labelling of its mobile app which is limited to app branding. Mindtickle does not support app customization, as further described in the White Label Application Description and Scope.

    Packages powered by Baker Communications, Inc. (“BCI”)

    1) Mindtickle Sales Excellence Series by BCI. This package includes individualized competency-based sales training curriculum from BCI. This module is available only with Premier and Professional Packages.

    2) Seller Excellence Foundations Package by BCI. This package includes Ready to deploy foundational seller training program comprised of skill development content, exercises, tools and certification.

    Additional terms applicable for Packages powered by BCI:
    Customer agrees and acknowledges that it shall not create derivative works based on the material provided by BCI (“Baker Materials”). Customer further agrees that it shall not make the Baker Materials accessible to third parties other than authorized Users, without the prior written permission from BCI.

    Support Services

    Mindtickle provides Standard and Premium Support as described in the Support Services and as per scope mentioned below.

    Standard Support

    1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 business days
    2. Support Channels: Online case submission
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

    (Cost of Standard Support is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

    Premium Support

    1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 business days
    2. End-user Support Channels:
      1. Online case submission
      2. Scheduled phone support
      3. 24/5 Live chat (for administrative users only)
      4. 24/7 Critical support
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)
     

    The post Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/description-of-subscription-services-package-before-20-mar-2023/ Sat, 29 Apr 2023 13:57:22 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16608 Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023 Description of Subscription Services Packages Essentials Comprehensive training, micro-learning and certification Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports. Essential Package includes the following modules: Course Quick …

    The post Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Subscription Services Packages
    available before 20 March 2023

    Description of Subscription Services Packages

    Essentials

    Comprehensive training, micro-learning and certification

    Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports.

    Essential Package includes the following modules:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment

    Professional

    Essentials plus skills development with scenario-based practice and coaching

    Give Users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays and simulated Customer scenarios. Managers can deliver structured feedback to improve skills and drive consistent messaging.

    Professional Package includes the following Modules:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Mission

    Premier

    Professional plus unlimited field coaching, auto-remediation and analytics

    Create a structured coaching program where managers can conduct effective and continuous 1:1 coaching. Use data to track growth across competencies and develop competency maps to identify areas for remediation.

    Premier Package includes the following Modules:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Mission
    • Coaching Session & Competency Assessment

    Enablement Core

    Enablement Core Package includes the following:

    • Professional Package
    • Asset Hub
    • Premier Support
    • Content as a Service (CaaS) Services – 40 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100)
    • Professional Services – 90 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100) or Professional Services – 30 hours (Provided number of Users are 30 and up to 100)

    Enablement & Coaching

    Enablement & Coaching Package includes the following:

    • Premier Package
    • Asset Hub
    • Premier Support
    • Content as a Service (CaaS) Services – 40 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100)
    • Professional Services – 90 hours Provided number of Users are more than 100) or Professional Services – 30 hours (Provided number of Users are 30 and up to 100)

    Enablement, Coaching & Conversation Intelligence

    Enablement, Coaching & Conversation Intelligence Package includes the following:

    • Premier Package
    • Asset Hub
    • Call AI
    • Premier Support
    • Content as a Service (CaaS) Services – 40 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100)
    • Professional Services – 90 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100) or
      Professional Services – 30 hours (Provided number of Users are 30 and up to 100)

    RevOps Core

    RevOps Core includes the following:

    • Asset Hub
    • Digital Sales Rooms
    • Coaching
    • Call AI
    • BoostUp RO&I
    • Standard Support
    • Professional Services (30 hours)
     

    Customer Success Services

    Mindtickle will provide the following Customer Success Services.

    1. A named Customer Success Manager (CSM)
    2. Welcome and onboarding material for a successful launch
    3. Access to newly released product features
    4. Access to an analytics dashboard
    5. On-going communication of best practices

    (Cost of Customer Success Services is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

    Spaced Reinforcement

    Mindtickle’s spaced reinforcement combines the approaches that drive engagement and long-term knowledge retention by automatically delivering short, personalized and gamified challenges (consisting of scenario-based questions) at intelligently spaced intervals.

    Salesforce Integration

    Mindtickle’s Salesforce integration enables Salesforce users to engage with their Mindtickle training experience directly within the Salesforce platform, and access contextually aware training within each of their Salesforce opportunities.

    Virtual Role-Plays

    Virtual Role-plays help sales organizations drive consistency through a combination of role-play exercises for pitches, demos, emails, and other customer interactions, and automatic assignment of microlearning to address areas in need of remediation.

    Field Coaching

    Field Coaching enables organizations to create coaching templates for different sales scenarios, giving managers a prescriptive approach to define, measure and track the skills and capabilities salespeople need to be successful. Remediation training can then be assigned on the basis of observed behaviors.

    Call AI

    Call AI is an automated conversational-intelligence solution for evaluating Customer’s sales calls. It is designed to make Customer’s sellers more effective at their moments of truth with a focus on helping improve key revenue metrics, such as quota attainment, ramp time, and rep productivity by driving critical sales processes and best practices. Call recordings will be subject to applicable laws as set forth at our Privacy Policy.

    White Labelled Mobile Application

    White Labelled Mobile Application is Mindtickle’s Platform related assistance through which Mindtickle assists the Customer to personalize the look and feel of Mindtickle’s mobile application of the Platform to align it with Customer’s brand identity. Mindtickle supports White Labelling of its mobile app which is limited to app branding. Mindtickle does not support app customization, as further described in the White Label Application Description and Scope.

    Asset Hub

    Asset Hub is MindTickle’s repository for sales docs, training videos, real-world conversation snippets, and more. It also provides the tools needed to organize, govern, and leverage that content.

    Packages powered by Baker Communications, Inc. (“BCI”)

    Mindtickle Sales Excellence Series by BCI. This package includes Individualized competency-based sales training curriculum from BCI This module is available only with Premier and Professional Packages.

    Seller Excellence Foundations Package by BCI. This package includes Ready to deploy foundational seller training program comprised of skill development content, exercises, tools and certification.

    Additional terms applicable for BCI Packages
    Customer agrees and acknowledges that it shall not create derivative works based on the material provided by BCI (“Baker Materials”). Customer further agrees that it shall not make the Baker Materials accessible to third parties other than authorized Users, without the prior written permission from BCI.

    BoostUp Revenue Intelligence

    Deal risk management. Uncover deal risks like lack of buyer engagement, poor buyer sentiment, single threading, and competitive mentions. Score deals based on risk and health and surface at-risk deals to managers.

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence provides forecasting and pipeline analysis. Forecast AI learns from your historical data, applies real-time deal by deal risk scoring of your current pipeline and predicts in-quarter pipeline creation pacing to give you an accurate forecast you can rely on.

    Digital Sales Rooms

    Custom sales rooms for every opportunity. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, and real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

    Support Services

    Mindtickle provides Standard and Premium Support as described in the Support Services and as per scope mentioned below.

    Standard Support

    1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 business days
    2. Support Channels: Online case submission
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

    (Cost of Standard Support is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

    Premium Support

    1. Initial Response Time: 2 business hours
    2. End-user Support Channels:
      1. Online case submission
      2. Scheduled phone support
      3. 24/5 Live chat (for administrative users only)
      4. 24/7 Critical support
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

    The post Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Mindtickle vs Brainshark https://www.mindtickle.com/mindtickle-vs-brainshark/ Sat, 29 Apr 2023 13:07:25 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16597 Top Companies Choose Mindtickle Over Brainshark to Fully Enable Dynamic Sales Teams Brainshark was an important early entrant into the sales enablement space, but today’s sales teams need more than content creation and on-demand training to stay ahead of the competition. Mindtickle’s next-generation sales readiness delivers a more modern experience for today’s enterprise needs with …

    The post Mindtickle vs Brainshark appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Top Companies Choose Mindtickle Over Brainshark to Fully Enable Dynamic Sales Teams

    Brainshark was an important early entrant into the sales enablement space, but today’s sales teams need more than content creation and on-demand training to stay ahead of the competition. Mindtickle’s next-generation sales readiness delivers a more modern experience for today’s enterprise needs with individualized enablement at scale, AI-driven reinforcement capabilities, integrated conversation intelligence, and analytics that tie skills to business outcomes.

    Be Ready!

    Find out how Mindtickle can empower you to optimize your sales enablement program – and drive revenue growth.

    Here’s what you’re missing

    vs

    Feature Mindtickle Brainshark
    Ideal rep profiles: the skills and behaviors that drive success
    Virtual role-plays with AI-guided feedback
    Real-world, best-practice conversation examples aligned with common selling situations
    Transcription and analysis of real-world sales interactions
    Individualized, guided coaching tools for frontline managers

    Considering Brainshark alternatives? Look no
    further.

    Here are three reasons to consider Mindtickle

    Increase enablement impact

    Reason #1

    Brainshark can leave salespeople wanting more or forgetting what they’ve learned, reducing the impact and ROI of your efforts. Instead, use Mindtickle to build individualized programs at scale that focus on the skills each salesperson needs to succeed, and then reinforce learning using scientifically proven methods that cement key concepts into long-term memory.

    Measure real-world impact

    Reason #2

    Grading practice assignments is important, but Brainshark doesn’t tell you if reps are taking what they’ve learned into their sales calls. Mindtickle goes one step further, empowering you to assign practice sessions and analyze real-world sales interactions to see how reps perform when money is on the line.

    Tie skills to outcomes

    Reason #3

    Brainshark customers can see how test scores and adoption metrics tie to business outcomes, but that isn’t enough to identify your company’s revenue drivers. Use Mindtickle to identify the Ideal Rep Profiles™ that produce the best revenue outcomes, and then provide individualized training for each rep to hone the skills that count.

    Top rated sales software on G2

    But don’t take our word for it. Over 1,000+ users have rated Mindtickle 5 stars.

    Scale enablement programs to drive success

    Our vision was to have all learning happen in one portal. With Mindtickle, sales reps can easily go in, find what they need to learn, and go out and do their work. And we have visibility into how they’re engaging with the platform. It’s a one-stop shop for everyone

    Dr. Somnath Datta
    Head of Commerical Excellence

    Close more business now

    219%

    Mulesoft increased ACV by 219% (from 77K – 169K)

    2x

    MongoDB doubled the number of new reps hitting quota

    45%

    MongoDB reduced new rep ramp time from 11 months to 6

    50%

    ORCA Life reduced time to first deal by 50%

    Built for your entire team

    Develop top sales performers with Mindtickle.

    Be Ready

    Find out how Mindtickle can empower you to optimize your sales enablement program – and drive revenue growth.

    The post Mindtickle vs Brainshark appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Cookie Policy https://www.mindtickle.com/cookie-policy/ Sat, 29 Apr 2023 11:37:42 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16582 Cookie Policy Website Cookie Policy Mindtickle Platform Cookie Policy Enable Us (by Mindtickle) Cookie Policy Last Updated: January 24, 2024 This Cookie Policy describes how Mindtickle, Inc. and its affiliates use cookies and other similar technology on its marketing website at the following link – https://mindtickle.com/. This policy explains what cookies are, how we use …

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    Cookie Policy

    Last Updated: September 10, 2025

    This Cookie Policy describes how Mindtickle, Inc. and its affiliates use cookies and other similar technology on the Mindtickle platform provided to customers as part of Subscription Services.

    This policy explains what cookies are, how we use them, the types of cookies we use, i.e., the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used, and how to manage the cookie settings.

    What is a Cookie?

    Cookies are text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help the website function correctly, make it more secure, provide a better user experience, understand how the website performs, and analyze what works and where it needs improvement.

    How do we use cookies?

    As with most online services, the Mindtickle platform uses first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are necessary to provide correct functionality and typically do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

    The third-party cookies are mainly for providing service functionality and logging the interactions as required for maintaining secure audit trail and debugging information to help keep the services secure.

    List of cookies we use on the Mindtickle Platform

    CategoryCookie NameDurationCookie Description
    NecessarylsCname-prod1 hourThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for redirecting the user to the data center location associated with the customer instance of the Mindtickle platform.
    Necessarymts2 hoursThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for authentication and session management.
    NecessaryPlay_sessionSessionThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for session management.
    Necessaryconnect.sidSessionThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for storing session ID utilized by Call AI for communication with the API gateway.
    Necessary_csrf-prod30 daysThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for storing a unique token to prevent Cross-Site Request Forgery (CSRF) attacks.
    NecessaryMtr30 days
    This cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for storing data centre location associated with customer instance of Mindtickle platform to help route requests to appropriate region.
    Necessary_localeSessionThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for storing the language selection of users in order to serve Mindtickle platform pages as per the language preference.
    NecessaryuserLocale1 dayThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for storing the language selection of users in order to serve Mindtickle platform pages as per the language preference.
    NecessaryEXP-feature1 dayThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for loading the code of newly launched features on the Mindtickle platform.
    Necessarylearner_maintenance_*30 daysThis cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for displaying banner on the Mindtickle platform to communicate incident and maintenance related messages.
    NecessaryJSESSIONIDSession

    This cookie is created by Mindtickle. It is used for maintaining sessions used by interactive reports and dashboards in the Mindtickle platform.

    NecessaryAWSELBSession

    This cookie is created by AWS. It is used for routing user requests to the same backend server for the duration of their session.

    Necessary_cf_bm30 minsThis cookie is created by Cloudflare for Bot Management and Protection. It is used by Freshworks within the Mindtickle support chat widget to identify and mitigate automated traffic from bots.
    Necessary_fw_crm_v365 daysThis cookie is created by Freshworks. It is used for maintaining user session on Mindtickle support and chat widget.
    Necessary_x_wSessionThis cookie is created by Freshworks. It is used for load balancing and directing user requests to the appropriate server within Mindtickle support and chat widget.
    Necessary_helpkit_sessionSessionThis cookie is created by Freshworks. It is used for managing user sessions on Mindtickle support and chat widget.
    Necessary_dd_s15 minsThis cookie is created by Datadog. It is used for logging actions and events that help identify debugging information needed to resolve reported issues.
    Necessarydd_cookie_test_*1 minuteThis cookie is created by Datadog. It is used for testing whether the user’s browser supports cookie creation.
    Necessary_mt_sp_id.e330400 daysThis cookie is created by Mixpanel. It is used for logging actions and events that help identify debugging information needed to resolve reported issues.
    Necessary_mt_sp_ses.e33030 minsThis cookie is created by Mixpanel. It is used for logging actions and events that help identify debugging information needed to resolve reported issues.
    Necessarymp_*_mixpanel365 daysThis cookie is created by Mixpanel. It is used for logging actions and events that help identify debugging information needed to resolve reported issues.
    NecessaryCoachingSnowplowCollectorCookieName365 daysThis cookie is created by Snowplow. It is used for logging actions and events that help identify debugging information needed to resolve reported issues.
    NecessaryContentSnowplowCollectorCookieName365 daysThis cookie is created by Snowplow. It is used for logging actions and events that help identify debugging information needed to resolve reported issues.
    NecessarySnowplowCollectorCookieName366 daysThis cookie is created by Snowplow. It is used for logging actions and events that help identify debugging information needed to resolve reported issues.
    Necessarywfx_unq100 daysThis cookie is created by Whatfix. It is used for user authentication to provide in-app guidance on the Mindtickle platform.
    Necessary*_isSurveyAlreadyShown1 yearThis cookie is created by Whatfix. It is used for determining whether certain workflows related to in-app guidance have been completed by the user on the Mindtickle platform.

     

    Last Updated: January 25, 2024

    This Cookie Policy describes how Enable Us (by Mindtickle) and its affiliates use cookies and other similar technology on its marketing website located at the following link – https://www.enableus.com/.

    This policy explains what cookies are, how we use them, the types of cookies we use, i.e., the information we collect using cookies and how that information is used, and how to manage the cookie settings.

    What is a Cookie?

    Cookies are text files that are used to store small pieces of information. They are stored on your device when the website is loaded on your browser. These cookies help the website function correctly, make it more secure, provide a better user experience, understand how the website performs, and analyze what works and where it needs improvement.

    How do we use cookies?

    As with most online services, our website use first-party and third-party cookies for several purposes. First-party cookies are necessary to provide correct functionality and typically do not collect any of your personally identifiable data.

    The third-party cookies are mainly for understanding performance and interactions, keeping the services secure, providing marketing website advertisements that are relevant to you, and, all in all, providing you with a better and improved user experience and helping speed up your future interactions with our website and the Mindtickle platform.

    Type of cookies we use

    1. Necessary – Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.
    2. Functional – Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the website’s content on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.
    3. Analytics – Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.
    4. Advertisement – Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

    List of cookies we use on the Mindtickle Platform

    CategoryDomainCookie NameDurationCookie Description
    Necessary.linkedin.comli_gc6 monthsThis cookie is set by LinkedIn to store cookie consent preferences.
    Functional.hubspot.com__cf_bm1 hourThis cookie is set by Cloudflare to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
    Functional.linkedin.comlidc1 dayThis cookie is used by LinkedIn to set the lidc cookie to facilitate data center selection.
    Functional.g2crowd.com__cf_bm1 hourThis cookie is set by Cloudflare to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
    Functionalwww.g2.comAWSALBCORS7 daysThis cookie is set by Amazon Web Services for load balancing.
    Functionalwww.g2.com__cf_bm1 hourThis cookie is set by Cloudflare to support Cloudflare Bot Management.
    Functional.grow.clearbitjs.com_cfuvidsessionThis cookie is set by Cloudfare to distinguish individual users to apply Cloudflare WAF Rate Limiting Rule.
    Functional.g2.comAWSALB7 daysThis is an an application load balancer cookie set by Amazon Web Services to map the session to the target.
    Functional.hubspot.com_cfuvidsessionThis cookie is set by Cloudfare to distinguish individual users to apply Cloudflare WAF Rate Limiting Rule.
    Analyticstracking.g2crowd.com_session_id14 daysThis cookie is set by G2 for storing a unique session ID that tracks visitors’ navigation for website improvement purposes.
    Analytics.enableus.com_gcl_au3 monthsThis cookie is set by Google Tag Manager to experiment with the advertisement efficiency of websites using their services.
    Analytics.enableus.com__q_state_NDfhNaW4kM53Cmmy1 year 1 month 4 daysThis cookie set by Qualified contains attributes identifying the website visitor and their interaction with the Qualified Chat Messenger.
    Analytics.enableus.com_ga_*1 year 1 month 4 daysThis cookie is set by Google Analytics to store and count page views.
    Analytics.enableus.com_ga1 year 1 month 4 daysThis cookie is set by Google Analytics to calculate visitor, session and campaign data and track site usage for the site’s analytics report. The cookie stores information anonymously and assigns a randomly generated number to recognise unique visitors.
    Analytics.enableus.com_gid1 dayThis cookie is set by Google Analytics to store information on how visitors use a website while also creating an analytics report of the website’s performance. Some of the collected data includes the number of visitors, their source, and the pages they visit anonymously.
    Analytics.enableus.com_gat_UA-*1 minuteThis cookie is set by Google Analytics for user behaviour tracking.
    Analytics.enableus.comfs_lua1 hourThis cookie is set by FullStory and captures the timestamp of the last user action. It is used to assist with the FullStory session lifecycle, ensuring user activity extends the session.
    Analytics.enableus.comfs_uid1 yearThis cookie is set by Fullstory used to track the user across sessions and pages.
    Analytics.enableus.com_hjIncludedInSessionSample_33727021 hourThis cookie is set by Hotjar to determine if a user is included in the data sampling defined site’s daily session limit.
    Analytics.enableus.com_hjSessionUser_*1 yearThis cookie is set by Hotjar to ensure that data from subsequent visits to the same site are attributed to the same user ID.
    Analytics.enableus.com_hjSession_*1 hourThis cookie is set by Hotjar to ensure that subsequent requests in the session window are attributed to the same session.
    Analytics.linkedin.comAnalyticsSyncHistory1 monthThis cookie is set by Linkedin to store information about the time a sync took place with the lms_analytics cookie.
    Analyticsenableus.com_fs_uidneverThis cookie is set by Fullstory to create a unique anonymized user ID and used by Fullstory to record user session events for issue tracking, debugging, and analytics.
    Analytics.g2.com_g2_session_idsessionThis cookie is used by G2 to set a unique ID for the session. This allows the website to obtain data on visitor behaviour for statistical purposes.
    Analyticswww.g2.comevents_distinct_idsessionThis cookie is set by G2, which sets a unique ID for the session. This allows the website to obtain data on visitor behaviour for statistical purposes.
    Advertisement.doubleclick.nettest_cookie15 minuteThis cookie is set by doubleclick.net to determine if the user’s browser supports cookies.
    Advertisement.linkedin.comli_sugr3 monthsThis cookie is set by LinkedIn to collect user behaviour data to optimise the website and make advertisements on the website more relevant.
    Advertisement.linkedin.combcookie1 yearThis cookie is set by LinkedIn from LinkedIn share buttons and ad tags to recognize browser IDs.
    Advertisement.linkedin.comUserMatchHistory1 monthThis cookie is set by LinkedIn for LinkedIn Ads ID syncing.
    Advertisement.www.linkedin.combscookie1 yearThis cookie is set by LinkedIn to store performed actions on the website.

    The post Cookie Policy appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Support Services https://www.mindtickle.com/support-services/ Sat, 29 Apr 2023 10:31:39 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16575 Mindtickle Support Services Mindtickle has a dedicated team of professionals along with AI-powered chatbot that provides support to our Users when faced with product-related challenges, usability issues, and technical bugs on the Mindtickle Platform (“Platform”). Accessing Technical Support All Users can directly access Mindtickle’s online knowledge base at help.mindtickle.com, including standard training materials and FAQs. …

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    Mindtickle Support Services

    Mindtickle has a dedicated team of professionals along with AI-powered chatbot that provides support to our Users when faced with product-related challenges, usability issues, and technical bugs on the Mindtickle Platform (“Platform”).

    Accessing Technical Support

    All Users can directly access Mindtickle’s online knowledge base at help.mindtickle.com, including standard training materials and FAQs.

    In addition, Mindtickle Users can use AI-powered chatbot (“Chatbot”) and if not satisfied with Chatbot’s answers, can use Mindtickle’s technical support team by the following means:

    • Any Mindtickle User can chat with Chatbot on the web to get quick answers through the admin or learning instances on the Platform.
    • If User is not satisfied with the Chatbot’s answer/s, the administrative Users can connect with a Mindtickle technical support team for chat, whereas Users on learning instances can create a ticket as mentioned below.

      • In-platform chat for administrative Users on the web: For immediate support around product related issues in the administrator interface on admin.mindtickle.com, administrative Users (i.e., site owners, enablement admins, group managers, content experts, IT admins) can type into the chat box at the bottom right of their desktop screen.
      • In-platform support ticket submission for end-users on the on learning instances: To report a bug or unexpected behaviour of the Platform, end-users (i.e. learners, managers) can raise a support ticket by clicking the ‘Get Support’ icon at the top right of the Mindtickle desktop screen. When this option is used, the system automatically captures a screenshot along with relevant technical information (browser type, OS etc.) and Users can also include additional comments and description of the issue faced.
    • In-app support (for mobile app Users): On Mindtickle’s native iOS and Android mobile apps, Users can click the Help and Support option in the menu to access the online knowledge base. For any additional query, Users can also click the ‘Send Feedback’ option to raise a support ticket
    • Email: For specific queries or bugs that need additional description including multiple screenshots etc., Users can directly get in touch with the Technical Support team, by sending an email to support@mindtickle.com

    Once contacted, a technical specialist from Mindtickle will get in touch directly with the User on their registered email address or through available contact options, within the applicable initial response time described below.

    Depending on the customer’s support subscription, a User may be able to access all or some of the technical support options mentioned above. A User should contact the designated employee with Site Owner role on Mindtickle or the customer’s owner of the Mindtickle relationship in their organization to confirm the nature of support subscription available to them.

    Mindtickle Support Severity Levels

    All support tickets and emails sent to Mindtickle’s technical support team are categorized into priority levels, according to the guidelines listed below. Please note that the descriptions below are guidelines and may not cover every possible condition or technical situation. Mindtickle’s technical support team reserves the right to assign or reassign the severity level for the support tickets and emails based on its reasonable judgment and guidelines below. In case the customer would like to upgrade the severity level of a particular ticket, this can be done through a discussion with the stakeholders of the customer and Mindtickle teams and their mutual agreement regarding the appropriate severity level.

    Customers are responsible for providing Mindtickle technical support team with all requested business information, logs, files, as well as permitting an appropriate level of remote access to their systems instance, if needed, to resolve any reported issue. Failure to provide such information and/or access may result in extended resolution times or in Mindtickle’s inability to resolve the issue.

    Severity LevelDefinition
    P1Critical production issue preventing all or most Users from using Platform or a business-critical functionality, with no workaround available
    P2Major functionality is adversely impacted or significant performance degradation is experienced by a large number of Users, and no reasonable workaround is available
    P3System performance issue, task requests or bug affecting some Users, with short-term workaround available
    P4Issues and requests without significant, immediate-term impact on system performance and / or acceptable workaround available

    Service Level Agreement (SLA) for Mindtickle Support

    All support tickets and emails sent to the Mindtickle technical support team are prioritized as per the Initial Response Time for the assigned Severity Level.

    Note: Hours are computed from the time of submission of a support ticket

    Features and ServicesBasic SupportPremium Support
    Initial Response TimesP1 Cases: 2 hours
    P2 Cases: 6 Hours
    P3 Cases: 24 Hours
    P4 Cases: 2 Business days
    P1 Cases: 1 hour
    P2 Cases: 4 Hours
    P3 Cases: 8 Hours
    P4 Cases: 24 Hours
    Service Times24/524/7 response for P1 and P2
    Multi-Channel Technical SupportIn-app and E-mail only.In-app, E-mail, Live Chat for Admin Users, E-meeting.
    Technical Account ManagementNoAvailable as an add-on or included if you spend over 100K ARR

    Definitions

    • Definitions

      • Initial Response Time: The timeframe within which the Mindtickle technical support team will respond to a support ticket or email sent by a User (“Response Acknowledgement”). The Response Acknowledgement will typically provide an initial suggestion towards fixing the reported issue or request additional information to help diagnose the reported issue better.
      • Technical Account Manager: Mindtickle Technical Account Manager is an add-on premium support service or included if you spend an annual 100K, with a named technical support specialist who acts as a point of contact for Support ticket escalations, applies knowledge of the customer’s use cases and business objectives to work with internal Mindtickle teams to keep the Platform functioning appropriately.
      • Ticket submission: Ticket submission is the event when an issue is reported by a User to Mindtickle’s technical support team by means of one of the available options described above.

    Business Hours

    Mindtickle’s standard business hours for Support Services during Daylight Standard are Sunday, 5:00 PM to Friday 5:00 PM (PST)

    Mindtickle’s standard business hours for Support Services during Daylight Savings are Sunday, 6:00 PM to Friday 6:00 PM (PDT).

    Support

    Looking for product support?

    CONTACT SUPPORT

    The post Support Services appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    What is Sales Readiness https://www.mindtickle.com/what-is-sales-readiness/ Sat, 29 Apr 2023 07:34:56 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16521 Be Ready to Grow Revenue Revenue leaders trust Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness Platform to identify and drive winning rep behaviors. Schedule a Demo https://www.mindtickle.comwp-content/uploads/2023/06/Mindtickle_5_Fundinglp-V4-2.mp4 What is sales readiness? Sales readiness is a continuous state of excellence to grow revenue by using a suite of tools and processes to increase knowledge, enhance performance, and adapt to change. …

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    Be Ready to Grow Revenue

    Revenue leaders trust Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness Platform to identify and drive winning rep behaviors.

    What is sales readiness?

    Sales readiness is a continuous state of excellence to grow revenue by using a
    suite of tools and processes to increase knowledge, enhance performance,
    and adapt to change.

    Sales readiness framework

    The sales readiness framework outlines what revenue, sales, and enablement leaders must do to achieve a continuous state of excellence. The framework helps you identify the traits you want in your reps, enable and coach based on these traits, and then measure in-field performance to address gaps at the individual level.

    01 Define Excellence

    With the insights derived from field interactions and rep competencies, sales leadership can now follow up with sales coaching to close the loop. This makes sales coaching bespoke. It helps each and every rep bridge critical skill gaps and become a top performer.

    02 Build Knowledge

    Traditional one-and-done sales enablement programs are often forgotten long before they’re used in the field. Instead, use a combination of micro-learning, spaced reinforcement activities, and gamified engagement techniques to make knowledge sticks–not just for onboarding, but for all of your reps’ ongoing enablement needs.

    03 Align Content

    Great content can be a powerful weapon for salespeople, but 90% of marketing content goes unused. Instead, prepare salespeople with the right just-in-time training, sales assets, and marketing collateral that’s perfectly aligned for every selling situation.

    04 Analyze Performance

    Nothing speaks louder than the real-world interactions revenue teams have with prospects and customers. With AI-powered conversational intelligence, sales leaders know what’s happening in the field. They can then tie that back to competencies that were or weren’t achieved in enablement programs.

    05 Optimize Behavior

    With the insights derived from field interactions and rep competencies, sales leadership can now follow up with sales coaching to close the loop. This makes sales coaching bespoke. It helps each and every rep bridge critical skill gaps and become a top performer.

    02 Build Knowledge

    Traditional one-and-done sales enablement programs are often forgotten long before they’re used in the field. Instead, use a combination of micro-learning, spaced reinforcement activities, and gamified engagement techniques to make knowledge sticks–not just for onboarding, but for all of your reps’ ongoing enablement needs.

    04 Analyze Performance

    Nothing speaks louder than the real-world interactions revenue teams have with prospects and customers. With AI-powered conversational intelligence, sales leaders know what’s happening in the field. They can then tie that back to competencies that were or weren’t achieved in enablement programs.

    Solutions for revenue teams

    Why invest in sales readiness?

    Traditional sales enablement programs adopt a one-size-fits-all approach
    to preparing salespeople to be effective in the field.
    In contrast, the sales readiness approach identifies and remediates skill gaps at the individual level. It
    helps revenue leaders, enablement, and frontline managers impact performance at the
    rep and the team level.

    64%

    Revenue improvement per rep

    50%

    Faster ramp time

    50%

    Increase in customer satisfaction

    The post What is Sales Readiness appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Content Quickstart Package https://www.mindtickle.com/content-quickstart-package/ Fri, 28 Apr 2023 10:41:31 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16368 Give Your Reps the Right Training to Win We know finding the right training to help your reps win is hard. For a limited time, Mindtickle is offering a Content Quickstart Package* consisting of 3 FREE training modules designed for Sales teams with high growth quotas to help them: Prospect and qualify leads easier Improve …

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    Give Your Reps the Right Training to
    Win

    We know finding the right training to help your reps win is hard. For a limited time,
    Mindtickle is offering a Content Quickstart Package* consisting of 3 FREE training modules
    designed for Sales teams with high growth quotas to help them:
    • Prospect and qualify leads easier
    • Improve efficiency in the most critical stages of the sales cycle
    • Close deals faster

    These three award-winning content packages from Sandler Training, combined with
    Mindtickle’s learning path progression, will provide your Sales team with the training and
    tools needed to improve their skills.

    1. Introduction to the Sandler Selling System

    This content sets the stage for changing a rep’s mindset and approach to sales.

    • Personalized, ongoing reinforcement
    • Reframe seller mentality from selling to buying
    • Includes overview of the SandlerSelling System

    2. Up-Front Contracts

    Allows reps to learn the framework and techniques while using the Mindtickle platform to get Manager feedback on real calls.

    • Sets expectations at the beginning of each interaction ensuring both rep and prospect have shared meeting goals
    • Accelerates the rep’s sales cycle
    • Increases efficiency across the team

    3. Prospecting

    This content helps reps overcome ‘call reluctance’ to change negative thinking and build a higher value proposition so reps can:

    • Create their prospecting behavior plan in Mindtickle
    • Practice their talk track to gain confidence and reinforce a positive mindset

    Request a Demo

    *Content Quickstart Package is provided by Sandler Training—Mindtickle’s training and development partner

    Request a demo to learn more about this FREE trial offer!

    The post Content Quickstart Package appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Video: 4 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Revenue Intelligence Solution https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-4-mistakes-to-avoid-when-choosing-a-revenue-intelligence-solution/ https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-4-mistakes-to-avoid-when-choosing-a-revenue-intelligence-solution/#comments Fri, 28 Apr 2023 04:52:06 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=16763 Episode summary In this video, Mindtickle’s Director of Product Marketing, Lindsey Plocek, talks through the mistakes revenue operations leaders should avoid when choosing a revenue intelligence solution. She breaks down the difference between conversation intelligence and revenue intelligence and then dives into four common mistakes people might make when choosing a technology partner. Key highlights  …

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    Episode summary

    In this video, Mindtickle’s Director of Product Marketing, Lindsey Plocek, talks through the mistakes revenue operations leaders should avoid when choosing a revenue intelligence solution. She breaks down the difference between conversation intelligence and revenue intelligence and then dives into four common mistakes people might make when choosing a technology partner.

    Key highlights 

    Lindsey talks through the mistakes to avoid when choosing a revenue intelligence partner. Here they are:

    • Don’t focus on features focus on pain points you are solving and simplifying workflows
    • Don’t just stop it insights –  make insights actionable
    • Don’t just stop at the deal level
    • Don’t undervalue the quality of professional services

    Video transcription

    Hi everyone, I’m Lindsay and I lead product marketing for AI solutions at Mindtickle. Last time I came at you with some powerful tips lead discovery calls. And today I’m going to talk about four mistakes you should avoid making when choosing a partner for conversation intelligence or revenue intelligence.

    Before I get into the four mistakes, I’m going to set the stage. So when I say conversation intelligence, I’m referring to technologies that record transcribe analyze sales conversations, sales meetings, as well as emails.

    When I say revenue intelligence, I’m referring to using AI machine learning capabilities to analyze all of the activity taking place and actually predict what is going to close or not and deliver, you know, a deal score or an account health score. There’s some differences between these technologies.

    But a simple way to think of it is analyzing interactions, and predicting what will actually close and how healthy your deals and accounts are. So when you are evaluating conversation and revenue intelligence partners avoid these four mistakes.

    And the first is, don’t focus on features. Focus on pain points you are solving and simplifying workflows. The biggest mistake that I think people run into is they’re buying all these different sales technologies in silos. And as a former seller, that just takes time away from us being able to close deals. Your team has tool fatigue, they don’t want for 712 different places, they have to log in to get all the insights, training, and content they need to provide a better customer experience.

    So when we think about sales reps, specifically, let’s think about some of the different things they need to be able to do with conversation and revenue intelligence insights:

    • Onboard and ramp faster
    • Better prepare for upcoming meetings without thinking
    • Get relevant coaching from their managers from their peers
    • Be able to self-coach
    • Share call snippets, transcripts, and mentions of competitors
    • Feedback on the product roadmap to share with other internal teams,
    • Know what content to send to a prospect or customer after an interaction
    • Easily and automatically update your CRM

    So those are some of the top use cases. And of course, one is certainly using those deal and account health scores, to anticipate, which accounts you can grow to really understand those deal risks that might be deal blockers. But really put those people and those pain points first above those features.

    Mistake number two, don’t just stop it insights: make insights actionable. Conversation and revenue intelligence are engines and their engines that need to ultimately power behavior change.

    If you really want to maximize revenue growth and help your team win more. Insights only go so far right? We need to intelligently, as I mentioned, recommend content and training that’s going to help the rep work that deal or work that account better.

    We need to give front-line managers tools to coach and sales enablement, teams, tools to bring in those best-in-class call examples, you know, to really train people. And a lot of times these these platforms are a really good way to measure the ROI of your enablement and your marketing efforts. So don’t just stop it insights make them actionable.

    Tip number three, don’t just stop at the deal level. Think about the account-level view. A lot of products in this space just about deal coaching. They don’t factor in very complex enterprise, customized Salesforce instances or CRMs. They don’t let you manage multiple opportunities and ladder them up to a single account view.

    But we are in the world of ABM marketing and ABM sales and you really need to give your team all the training content and insights they need to not just close deals but working grow accounts and that includes your CSM and your account growth roles, all of the GTM roles on your team. Right.

    Tip number four: don’t undervalue the quality of professional services. Bookmaker rating en.bet-rate.top best bookmakers And so that always starts with looking at the background of the people who are going to support your digital transformation.

    And as I mentioned, conversation and revenue intelligence are not going to be working in a silo. So look for people with those backgrounds, but also backgrounds and things like sales, content management, training, enablement – all of the different things that are going to be integrated together to use this insight.

    Look at if the company you’re partnering with provides really in-depth customer enablement, user conferences training, and things to get you started with these technologies. Look for things like content-as-a-service. If you are going to go beyond just using the insights to actually chain people look for partners like that.

    And most importantly, look at someone who has a really good track record of working with enterprise-size brands to keep compliant managing user permissions and access to things like call recordings and emails. It’s very, very critical that you use the right partner to maintain compliance and in addition, really start to reduce the number of tools your team that that’s a biggie now for chief compliance officers.

    So those are my four tips just to repeat them. You know, don’t focus on features focus on people and pain points and the workflows that you’re putting in place really streamlining and simplifying things for them. Don’t just stop at insights, make them actionable. Don’t just stop at the deal level, consider that account level view, and finally do not undervalue the quality of professional services, particularly when it comes to compliance. So I’d love to hear your tips as well please drop them in the comments or feel free to reach out to me and thanks for listening.


    Want to learn more about revenue intelligence? Check out more posts from Lindsey outlining what to look for and how to select a revenue intelligence solution.

    The post Video: 4 Mistakes to Avoid When Choosing a Revenue Intelligence Solution appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/video-4-mistakes-to-avoid-when-choosing-a-revenue-intelligence-solution/feed/ 4
    Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/professional-services-scope-and-services-description-available-before-20-march-2023/ Tue, 18 Apr 2023 11:26:37 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16104 Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 Table of Contents Elevate Package Boost Package Activate Package CallAI Package Asset Hub Package Readiness Index Package Three Custom Certificates Bundle package Custom Solutions Package Services Flex Package Out of Scope Services for Elevate, Boost, and Activate Package Mindtickle Roles and Responsibilities Customer Roles …

    The post Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023

    Professional Services shall be based on Subscription Package Scope

    Professional Services shall be based on Subscription Package Scope

    Professional Services Scope – Elevate package (90 hours over 6-month term)

    Included with the Elevate package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Project management related to Mindtickle Platform implementation
      • Guidance and recommendations on enablement/readiness strategy
      • Strategic approach to return on enablement
      • Facilitation of governance strategy and proven framework for defining roles and responsibilities for an enablement center of excellence
      • Advise on Platform implementation and share best practices
    • Account settings
      • Learning site customization
    • Site governance
      • Mindtickle roles and permissions
    • User management and automation
      • Profile management
      • Groups and group automation
    • Tagging framework
      • Define competencies for Ideal Rep Profile™
      • Collaborate on how to weight competencies
    • Advise on program implementation and share best practices
      • Assist with identifying & defining program success metrics
      • Support with program framework & advise on content best practices
      • Share best practices on launch communication and strategy
      • Support with troubleshooting, Q&As and guidance on user acceptance testing (UAT)
      • Review program and Platform level analytics
      • Platform adoption metrics
      • Program success metrics
      • Content adoption metrics
    • Consult on Out of Platform reporting
    • Consulting on Mindtickle’s reporting API data set
    • Consulting on integration with supported business intelligence or data visualization tools
    • Ongoing consulting and program advisory
    • Consult on Single Sign On (SSO) configuration limited to applications in Table 1
    • User sync integration limited to User sync with applications listed in Table 2
    • Salesforce tab integration (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
    • Notifications on Slack and MS teams
    • Zoom integration for ILT (Instructor Led Training) attendance on Mindtickle Platform
    • Private labeling
    • Learning site URL
    • Sender Email ID
    • Calendar integrations with Google
    • Integration with content provider systems, such as LinkedIn Learning and SkillSoft
    • Salesforce Module Data sync and opportunity integrations
    • If Call AI is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Project management deployment of Call AI
      • Strategize and plan along with the Customer to guide on best ways to achieve the outcome they are looking to achieve using Call AI
      • Advise on integration of Call AI, calendar setup, Call score set-up, Q & A, troubleshooting, launch
      • Product walkthrough – Admin, Manager and End-User experience
      • Advise Customers on how to gain insights from Call AI and make informed decisions
    • If Asset Hub is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Project management deployment of Asset Hub
      • Consult on Hubs and Asset Attributes Framework(s)
      • Strategize and plan along with the Customer to guide on best ways to deploy assets to ensure good adoption
      • Advise on Hub Governance and End-User groups set up
      • Admin and End-User experience walkthrough
      • Share best practices on ways to define asset properties
      • Launch support, Product Q&A, and troubleshooting
      • Post launch analytics review and advisory
    • If readiness index is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Consult on how to set up Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
      • Consult on setting up competencies and assigning weights
      • Advise on program selection, and application of tags for readiness index
      • Consult on business metrics correlation set up with readiness index
        • Choosing the right business metrics
        • Salesforce integration or manual correlation
      • Follow-up meetings: Setup, Q&A, troubleshooting, launch
      • Tracking and reviewing the progress, sharing updates
      • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Customer Education

    Two seat of Mindtickle Admin Essentials public workshop – to be availed within 6 months from the start of the implementation services

    Term

    The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized upon completion of 90 hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier.

    Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

    • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
      • OKTA
      • Salesforce
      • Microsoft Azure
      • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • One Login
      • IBM Cloud
      • Oracle HCM
      • Ping Identity
      • Veeva
      • Centrify
      • Impartner
      • SecureAuth
      • SailPoint
    • OpenID
    • Google SSO
    • JWT

    Table 2: Standard Integrations – User Sync

    • Workday
    • Bamboo HR
    • Okta
    • Azure
    • MS Dynamics
    • Salesforce
    • Veeva
    • SFTP with non-standard HR applications, limited to hours pending in the Elevate package, and as agreed upon between Mindtickle and the Customer

    If during the integration process, Mindtickle determines that the Customer has SSO, HRMS, and other business applications which prevent a standard integration with the Mindtickle Platform, then Mindtickle will work with the Customer to estimate the additional integration effort involved and submit a change order to Customer for approval before continuing with the integration work.

    Professional Services Scope – Boost package (55 hours over 6-month term)

    Included with the Boost package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:
    • Project management related to Mindtickle Platform implementation
    • Advise on Platform implementation and share best practices
      • Account settings
        • Learning site customization
      • Site Governance
        • Mindtickle roles and permissions
      • User management and automation
        • Profile management
        • Groups and group automation
      • Tagging framework
        • Define competencies for Ideal Rep Profile™
        • Collaborate on how to weight competencies
      • Advice on program implementation and share best practices
        • Assist with identifying & defining program success metrics
        • Support with program framework & advise on content best practices
        • Share best practices on launch communication and strategy
        • Support with troubleshooting, Q&As and guidance on user acceptance testing (UAT)
        • Review program and Platform level analytics
          • Platform adoption metrics
          • Program success metrics
          • Content adoption metrics
    • Consult on Out of Platform reporting
      • Consulting on Mindtickle’s reporting API data set
      • Consulting on integration with supported business intelligence or data visualization tools
    • Ongoing consulting and program advisory
    • Consult on Single Sign On (SSO) configuration limited to applications in Table 1 below.
    • User sync integration limited to User Sync with applications listed in Table 2 below.
    • Salesforce tab integration (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
    • Notifications on Slack and MS teams
    • Zoom integration for ILT (Instructor Led Training) attendance on Mindtickle Platform
    • Private Labeling
      • Learning site URL
      • Sender Email ID
    • Calendar integrations with Google
    • Integration with content provider systems, such as LinkedIn Learning and SkillSoft
    • If Call AI is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Project management related to deployment of Call AI
      • Strategize and plan along with the Customer to guide on best ways to achieve the outcome they are looking to achieve using Call AI
      • Advise on integration of Call AI, calendar setup, Call score set-up, Q & A, troubleshooting, launch
      • Product Walkthrough – Admin, Manager and End-User experience
      • Advise Customers on how to gain insights from Call AI and make informed decisions
      • Note: Measurable results of Call AI analytics are generally observed 3 months post-launch
    • If Asset Hub is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Project management related to deployment of Asset Hub
      • Consult on Hubs and Asset Attributes Framework(s)
      • Strategize and plan along with the Customer to guide on best ways to deploy assets to ensure good adoption
      • Advise on Hub Governance and End-User groups set up
      • Admin and End-User experience walkthrough
      • Share best practices on ways to define asset properties
      • Launch support, Product Q&A, and troubleshooting
      • Post launch analytics review and advisory
    • If readiness index is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Consult on how to set up Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
      • Consult on setting up competencies and assigning weights
      • Advise on program selection, and application of tags for readiness index
      • Consult on Business metrics correlation set up with readiness index
        • choosing the right business metrics
        • Salesforce integration or manual correlation
      • Follow-up meetings: Setup, Q&A, troubleshooting, launch
      • Tracking and reviewing the progress, sharing updates
      • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    As part of the Boost package, our managed services team can assist with some of the following activities depending upon the level of effort and available hours.

    • Module creation, copy and publish
      • Create all types of modules from existing content (Quick Updates, Assessment, Quests)
      • Copy and publish modules from one series to another
      • Copy and publish modules from one learning site to another for Customers with multiple learning sites
    • User profile management and automation
      • Groups creation and group automation
      • User assignment automation to series/modules based on profiles.
    • Content migration
      • Support Asset Hub and content center. Assist Customers to move or copy files from content center to Asset Hub. Assist with folder structure creation and moving content to the right location
    • Program launch
      • Assist during program launch and onboarding
    • User management
      • Add/update/deactivate Users on the Platform
      • Create User groups
      • Create automated rules for User profile management and user assignment
      • Enable/grant roles and permissions for different
      • Customer group Admins

    Customer Education

    One seat of Mindtickle Admin Essentials public workshop – to be availed within 6 months from the start of the implementation services

    Term

    The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized upon completion of 55 hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier

    Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

    • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
      • OKTA
      • Salesforce
      • Microsoft Azure
      • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • One Login
      • IBM Cloud
      • Oracle HCM
      • Ping Identity
      • Veeva
      • Centrify
      • Impartner
      • SecureAuth
      • SailPoint
    • OpenID
    • GoogleSSO
    • JWT

    Table 2: Standard Integrations – User Sync

    • Workday
    • Bamboo HR
    • Okta
    • Azure
    • MS Dynamics
    • Salesforce
    • Veeva
    • SFTP with non-standard HR applications, limited to hours pending in the Boost package, and as agreed upon between mindtickle and the Customer
    If during the integration process, Mindtickle determines that the Customer has SSO, HRMS, and other business applications which prevent a standard integration with the Mindtickle Platform, then Mindtickle will work with the Customer to estimate the additional integration effort involved and submit a change order to Customer for approval before continuing with the integration work.

    Professional Services Scope – Activate package (20 hours over 3-month term)

    Included with the Activate package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:
    • Consult and share leading practices on Platform implementation
      • Account settings
        • Branding
        • Roles and permissions
    • User management
      • Profile management & groups
      • Groups automation
    • Tagging framework
    • Advise on Platform configuration:
      • Consult on Single Sign On (SSO) configuration limited to applications in Table 1
      • User Sync with a limited scope of systems listed as follows:
        • Workday
        • Bamboo HR
        • Okta
        • Salesforce
        • Veeva
    • Salesforce tab integration
    • Consult on program implementation and share leading practices for 1 program
    • If Call AI is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Advise on Integration of Call AI, calendar setup, call score set-up, Q & A, troubleshooting, launch
      • Advise on best practices for tracking, reviewing the progress, analytics, and reporting
    • If Asset Hub is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Consult on Asset Hub and asset attributes framework(s)
      • Advise on Asset Hub governance and End-User groups set up
      • Product Q&A and launch support
    • If readiness index is part of Customer implementation package, Professional Services support includes:
      • Consult on how to set up Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
      • Consult on setting up competencies and assigning weights
      • Advise on program selection, and application of tags for readiness index
      • Product Q&A and launch support

    Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

    • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
      • OKTA
      • Salesforce
      • Microsoft Azure
      • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • One Login
      • IBM Cloud
      • Oracle HCM
      • Ping Identity
      • Veeva
      • Centrify
      • Impartner
      • SecureAuth
      • SailPoint
    • OpenID
    • Google SSO
    • JWT

    Customer Education

    One complimentary seat of Mindtickle Admin Essentials public workshop – to be availed within 6 months from the start of the implementation services

    Term

    The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized upon completion of hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier

    Additional Professional Services stand-alone packages that can be availed are listed below:

    Call AI – Professional Services support includes (10 hours over 3 months term):

    • Define goals, timelines
    • Advise on integration of Call AI, calendar setup, call score set-up, Q & A, troubleshooting, launch
    • Advise on best practices for tracking, reviewing the progress, analytics and reporting
    • Product walkthrough – Rep and Manager
    • Gain advice from conversation intelligence experts on how to gain insights from Call AI
    • Note: Measurable results of Call AI analytics are generally observed 3 months post launch

    Term

    The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized upon completion of 10 hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier

    Asset Hub – Professional Services support includes (10 hours over 3 months term):

    • Project management related to deployment of Asset Hub
    • Consult on Hubs and Asset Attributes Framework(s)
    • Strategize and plan along with the Customer to guide on best ways to deploy assets to ensure good adoption
    • Advise on Hub Governance and End-User groups set up
    • Admin and End-User experience walkthrough
    • Share best practices on ways to define asset properties
    • Launch support, Product Q&A, and troubleshooting
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Term

    The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized upon completion of 10 hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier

    Readiness index – Professional Services support includes (15 hours over 3-month term):

    • Consult on how to set up Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Consult on setting up competencies and assigning weights
    • Advise on program selection, and application of tags for readiness index
    • Consult on Business metrics correlation set up with readiness index
    • Choosing the right business metrics
    • Salesforce integration or manual correlation
    • Follow-up meetings: Setup, Q&A, troubleshooting, launch
    • Tracking and reviewing the progress, sharing updates
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Term

    • The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized up on completion of 15 hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier

    Three Custom Certificates Bundle – Professional Services support includes (15 hours over 6-month term):

    • Up to 3 different custom certificates on the same instance
    • Including 15 hours of development and deployment
    • The design will be provided by the Customer and conform to the templates shared by Mindtickle
    • Objectives of such certificates are to:
      • Increase the adoption and gamification in Customer training and certification programs
      • Brand awareness and consistency

    Term

    • The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized upon completion of 15 hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier

    Custom solutions – Professional Services support includes (30 hours over 6-month term):

    • Customers can avail a bundle of 30 hours for any non-standard integrations or SFTP/API based user-sync.
    • Depending on the nature of the requirement, some of goals of this package and the subsequent custom solutioning work could include the following, but not limited to:
      • Salesforce deep integration
        • CRM integrations for reducing admin overhead and increasing Mindtickle Platform adoption
        • Deep integration with Salesforce for relevant and contextual
        • Mindtickle content in the flow of work for Sales rep and attributing business metrics with Sales performance.
        • 28 hours of services involvement to include Saleforce SSO, tab, user sync, module data sync and opportunity sync integrations
        • Up to 2 hours of SSO and tab integration consultation, if required
        • Mindtickle ready data without any manipulations
      • SFTP/API based user sync
        • Customers with non-standard HR/user data systems need to automate user provisioning and de-provisioning
        • Reduce admin overhead and license management
        • Automate content assignment in the Mindtickle Platform based on user attributes
        • Up to 2 hours of user profile consultation from the team, if required
        • No to moderate data manipulations

    Term

    The deployment package will be deemed fully utilized upon completion of 30 hours within the defined term, or if the term expires, whichever is earlier

    Professional Services Scope – Services Flex

    Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services as part of the services flex package:
    • Depending on the numbers of hours purchased, a Professional Services team member can advise on any of the following:
      • Account setup
      • Project planning
      • Change management
      • Integrations
      • User management
      • Use-case deep dive
      • Content structure, planning and development
      • Messaging and communication
      • Program launch
      • Reporting and analytics data and insights
      • Custom reporting
      • Salesforce deep integration
      • Any other custom solutions
    • Premium comprehensive services that deliver rapid adoption and ongoing value realization
    • All products consultation in scope
    • Service lines in scope: strategic services, Professional Services, custom development, solution architecture, managed services
    • All solution discovery (implementation, integration, migration, customization) included
    • Actual effort required per implementation, integration, migration, customization project will vary.
    • Each project effort will be estimated and then consumed from the total hours included.
    • Content as a Service and Essential Admin workshop seats are not in scope

    Out-of-Scope Services for Elevate, Boost, and Activate package

    There may be additional services that you need which are not included in the packages offered. We will work jointly with you on a service requirement agreement to help you determine and document the scope, level of effort, tasks, and any additional fees. If an out-of-scope service is required, Mindtickle and Customer agree to jointly determine and document the requirements scope, level of effort, and tasks in a change order. Some common out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Customers with in-house, niche, non-standard tech stack need to integrate and get full value out of Mindtickle
    • Admins/leadership need data driven insights of their sales org
    • Admins need to automate certain manual/time-taking tasks and workflows
    • Any custom integration or custom solution development for a specific business requirement
    • Any data clean-up, filtering, or manipulation
    • Any Mindtickle Platform administrative tasks
    • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
    • Content management system integrations
    • Learning management system integrations (beyond the ones listed above)
    • Custom reports
      • One-time or cadence-based email reports, excel reports
      • Creation of reports using the API data set
      • Readiness index dashboards
      • Development of in-Platform custom reporting
      • Any other out-of-platform dashboards
    • Integration with business intelligence or data visualization tools
    • Content creation

    Mindtickle Roles and Responsibilities

    Mindtickle will staff a Professional Services Consultant, Technical Solutions Architect, Technical Solutions Engineer and Managed services admin to provide the agreed-upon services.

    Mindtickle Staff Role Description
    Professional Services Consultant
    • Guides on-site setup, User management planning, project planning guidance
    • Oversees integrations planning and coordinates with other
    • MindTickle team members for the integrations in scope
    • Provides advisory consulting on program implementation, launch, reporting, and leading practices, change management, use case deep-dive, gamification, engagement, reporting and analytics strategy, and others
    • Provides access to MindTickle’s online Platform onboarding
    Technical Solutions Architect
    • Collaborate with Customer to define requirements
    • Estimate the time and cost
    • Provides technical guidance on integrations in scope
    • Requirement gathering and update requirements as needed
    Technical Solutions Engineer
    • Performs technical integration tasks required to enable Customer to develop and test the integrations in scope
    • Develop and test all custom build
    Managed services admin
    • Perform administrative tasks on the Platform as requested by the Customer
    • Assist with user management, automation rules, content migration activities
    • Assist with developing in-platform analytics reporting

    Customer Roles and Responsibilities

    Customer will staff a team responsible for the duties of the roles below and any additional roles as required. In addition, they will provide timely access to all necessary resources, including personnel, content, IT systems, etc. as necessary for Mindtickle to provide the Services.  
    Customer Staff Role Description
    Enablement Owner

     

    • Defines overall vision, goals, operational standards, and processes for deploying Mindtickle with Customer organization
    Program Manager
    • Develops enablement program plans, drives engagement, and provides reports/data insights
    Content Author
    • Develops program content
    Enablement Admin
    • Responsible for site and User Admin; supports content authors with Platform usage
    Project Manager
    • Manages project plans, deadlines, and scope for Mindtickle projects
    IT Admin/Developer
    • Develops and/or configures, and tests integrations

    Place of Performance

    All Professional Services will be provided at Customer site or in Mindtickle offices remotely, as per the project requirements and as mutually agreed between Mindtickle and the Customer.

    Acceptance of Services

    • Customer shall have the right to review the Professional Services rendered within five (5) calendar days of receipt of subject Professional Services from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle.
    • Before the end of the five (5) calendar-day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject Professional Services is accepted by Customer.
    • If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period, subject Professional Services shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    • If the Customer does not accept subject Professional Services, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period.
    • Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject Professional Services and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    • Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each Professional Service in scope.
    • If after a total of two attempts the Professional Service fails to materially comply with the specifications, then Customer may reject the subject portion of the Professional Services.
    • Customer shall receive a credit or refund, as mutually agreed upon by both Parties, of sums owed or paid, as applicable, for the development of the rejected portion of the Professional Services.

    The post Professional Services Scope and Services Description available before 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/professional-services-scope-and-services-description-available-from-20-march-2023/ Tue, 18 Apr 2023 07:49:40 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16078 Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023 Table of Contents Professional Services Scope – TEACH package Professional Services Scope – ENABLE package Professional Services Scope – PREDICT package Professional Services Scope – SELL package Professional Services Scope – TRANSFORM package Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO Table 2: Standard Integrations – …

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    Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023

    Professional Services Scope – TEACH package

    Included with the TEACH package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:
    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Account settings
      • Roles and Permissions
      • User, profile management
      • Groups and group automation
      • Tagging framework and governance
      • Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
      • Customers’ competency model or Mindtickle standard competency model
      • Application of tags
      • Business metrics correlation with Ideal Rep Profile™(s)
    • Advise on learning program implementation and leading practices, including:
      • Identify and define enablement program success metrics
      • Structure enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro learning
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Program and platform level reporting and analytics
      • Out of platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
    • Advise on standard integrations:
      • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to applications in Table 1 below
      • User sync integration limited to User Sync with applications listed in Table 2 below
      • Salesforce tab (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
      • Notifications on Slack and MS teams
      • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning and SkillSoft
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Professional Services Scope – ENABLE package

    Included with the ENABLE package, Mindtickle shall provide the followings services in addition to the TEACH package:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Learning site branding and configuration
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
      • Support for configuring 1 user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Digital Sales Room deployment
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
      • Salesforce Integrations for Asset Hub and Coaching (if required)
    • Advise on content management and leading practices, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition

    Professional Services Scope – PREDICT package

    Included with the PREDICT package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Call scoring and analytics
      • Coaching framework
      • Call recording and analytics
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Sales forecast settings
      • Coaching program set up, management and reporting
    • Advise on standard integrations
      • Single Sign On (SSO) limited to applications in Table 1 below
      • User sync integration limited to User Sync with applications listed in Table 2 below
      • Calendar synch
      • Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
      • Dialer tool
      • Call AI and BoostUP.ai
      • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
      • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
    • Post launch analytics review and advisory

    Professional Services Scope – SELL package

    Included with the SELL package, Mindtickle shall provide the followings services in addition to the PREDICT package:

    • Consult on leading practices on platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Learning site branding and configuration
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL
      • Digital Sales Room deployment
      • Support for configuring a user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Salesforce Integration for Asset Hub
    • Advise on content management and leading practices, including:
      • Content organization
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Content tagging
      • Content governance
      • Content metadata definition

    Professional Services Scope – TRANSFORM package

    TRANSFORM package include all the scope and limitations of the SELL and ENABLE packages.

    Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

    • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
      • OKTA
      • Salesforce
      • Microsoft Azure
      • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • One Login
      • IBM Cloud
      • Oracle HCM
      • Ping Identity
      • Veeva
      • Centrify
      • Impartner
      • SecureAuth
      • SailPoint
    • OpenID
    • Google SSO
    • JWT

    Table 2: Standard Integrations – User Sync

    • Workday
    • Bamboo HR
    • Okta
    • Azure
    • MS Dynamics
    • Salesforce
    • Veeva

    Table 3: Standard Integrations – Conferencing Tools

    • Cloudtalk
    • Salesloft
    • Webex
    • RingCentral
    • Freshsales
    • HubSpot
    • Dialpad
    • Zoom Integration
    • Aircall
    • MS Teams

    If during the integration process, Mindtickle determines that the Customer has SSO, HRMS, and other business applications which prevent a standard integration with the Mindtickle Platform, then Mindtickle will work with the Customer to estimate the additional integration effort involved and submit a change order to Customer for approval before continuing with the integration work.

    Out-of-Scope Services for Teach, Enable, Predict, Sell and Transform Service Packages

    Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Data export, clean up, import, filtering, transformation that may be part of any kind of migration effort including and not limited to:
      • Call recordings from any other software / platform.
      • Content, content structure, content metadata from any other software / platform.
    • White labeled version of Mindtickle’s mobile app.
    • Content, content structure, content metadata from any other software / platform.
    • Integrations
      • not in Table 1 or Table 2
      • with in-house, niche, non-standard tech stack
    • Custom solution development for a specific business requirement
    • Any Mindtickle Platform administrative tasks
    • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
    • Custom reports
      • One-time or cadence-based email reports, excel reports
      • Creation of reports using the API data set
      • Development of in-Platform custom reporting
      • Any other out-of-platform dashboards
    • Content creation
    When Customers require additional services or scope, Mindtickle will work jointly with Customer on a Statement of Work agreement to analyze and document the scope, level of effort, tasks, and additional fees.

    Technical Account Manager Services Scope and Description

    Mindtickle Technical Account Manager Service provides a named technical support specialist who applies knowledge of the customer’s use cases and business objectives to optimize and maintain the day to day operations of the platform.

    The Technical Account Manager’s responsibilities include:

    • Serve as the single point of contact for all technical issues raised with the Mindtickle Support desk.
    • Prioritize and work Customer’s issues with the support engineers.
    • Provide root cause analysis for top severity issues and outages.
    • Monitor the performance of the Mindtickle platform and take appropriate actions to load balance, tune and optimize it.
    • Monitor the platform for status on scheduled jobs, logs and alerts.
    • Provide monthly report on the status and trends of the MindTickle support tickets.
    • Assist with testing and support during program launches to minimize issues and maintain Service Level Agreement (SLA)

    Scope Limits and Assumptions:

    • The named Technical Account Manager personnel will work per the applicable hours per week per the FTE agreed. The maximum hours per week shall be based on the number of FTE count specified in the Order. The term FTE means a dedicated ‘Full Time Employee’ providing not more than 40 hours of technical account management services per week. Accordingly, the maximum number of hours for a 1/2 FTE, 1 FTE and 2 FTEs specified in the Order Form shall be 20 hours a week, 40 hours a week and 80 hours a week, respectively.
    • The Technical Account Manager is based out of India. Mindtickle shall endeavour to provide a minimum time zone overlap time of 2 business hours, based on the location of the Customer’s main point of contact.
    • In the event the workload exceeds the agreed maximum hours per month, then Customer and Mindtickle agree to:
      1. Rebalance the workload
      2. Increase the time frame for completion
      3. Increase the FTE count with a change order process.
    • Unless expressly provided otherwise herein or agreed otherwise by the parties over email, business hours/ business days shall exclude Saturdays and Sundays and the days on which Customer has a declared holiday.

    Premium Support Services

    Included with the Premium support package, Mindtickle shall provide the following premium services:
    • Access to all documentation on the Mindtickle Helpsite (help.www.mindtickle.com).
    • Access to Success Accelerators: Pre-scoped advisory and enablement engagements focused on achieving business outcomes.
    • Professional services advisory – monthly sessions where a Mindtickle Professional Services Consultant will be available to consult on Mindtickle product features, capabilities and share best practices on using Mindtickle during the scheduled time.
    • Technical and integration consultation – monthly sessions where an Mindtickle Technical Architect will be available to to consult on integration, technical architecture and custom solutioning approaches during scheduled times
    • Content consultation – bi weekly office hour type sessions where a Learning Consultant or Design Consultant from Mindtickle’s Content as a Service team will be online and ready to consult on program design, content design and structuring during a scheduled time
    • Annual Health Check to help the customer fine tune their Mindtickle implementation by providing the customer with guidance on areas and processes that are working well or that can be optimized.
    • Annual infrastructure performance and load tuning of the customer’s instance(s)

    Mindtickle Roles and Responsibilities of the Implementation Packages

    Mindtickle will staff a Professional Services Consultant, Technical Solutions Architect, Technical Solutions Engineer and Managed services admin as needed to provide the agreed-upon services.

     

    Mindtickle Staff RoleResponsibilities
    Professional Services Consultant
    • Project management
    • Advise implementation and configuration
    • Provide leading practices
    • Oversees other Mindtickle roles
    Technical Solutions Architect
    • Provide technical guidance on standard, in-scope integrations
    Technical Solutions Engineer
    • Performs technical integration tasks required to enable Customer to develop and test the integrations in scope
    Managed services admin
    • Perform platform administration tasks as requested by the Professional Services Consultant

    Customer Roles and Responsibilities

    Customer will staff a team responsible for the duties of the roles below and any additional roles as required.

    Customer Staff RoleDescription

    Enablement Owner

     

    • Defines overall vision, goals, operational standards, and processes for deploying Mindtickle with Customer organization
    Program Manager
    • Develops enablement program plans, drives engagement, and provides reports/data insights
    Content Author
    • Develops program content
    Enablement Admin
    • Responsible for site and User Admin; supports content authors with Platform usage
    Project Manager
    • Manages project plans, deadlines, and scope for Mindtickle projects
    IT Admin/Developer
    • Develops and/or configures, and tests integrations
    Customers will provide timely access to all necessary resources, including personnel, content, IT systems, etc. as necessary for Mindtickle to provide the Services. Customers agrees to perform the following activities and/or prepare the following pre-requisites for each implementation package:

    Package Customer responsibilities or pre-requisites
    Teach
    • Customer must come with a competency model to be implemented on the Mindtickle platform at or before the execution of the contractual agreements.
    • If/When Customer does not have a competency model available in time, Customer agrees to use the default Mindtickle ideal rep profile and prioritize up to 5 competency groupings
    • Customer must come with an enablement program ready to deploy from the following sourcess
    • If/When Customer does not have a program available in time, Customer agrees to deploy a program from the below sources
      • Any Mindtickle Ready-To-Deploy programs
      • Any template from the Mindtickle template gallery
      • Purchase a program from Mindtickle’s Partners
    Enable
    • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the Teach package and:
    • Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front line managers for the coaching session
    Predict, Sell
    • Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front line managers for the coaching session
    Transform
    • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the Enable and Sell packages.

    Place of Performance

    All Professional Services will be provided at Customer site or in Mindtickle offices remotely, as per the project requirements and as mutually agreed between Mindtickle and the Customer.

    Acceptance of Services

    • Customer shall have the right to review the Professional Services rendered within five (5) calendar days of receipt of subject Professional Services from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle.
    • Before the end of the five (5) calendar-day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject Professional Services is accepted by Customer.
    • If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period, subject Professional Services shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    • If the Customer does not accept subject Professional Services, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period.
    • Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject Professional Services and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    • Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each Professional Service in scope.

    The post Professional Services Scope and Services Description available from 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/subscription-services-packages-available-before-20-march-2023/ Tue, 18 Apr 2023 06:54:49 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16074 Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023 Description of Subscription Services Packages Essential Comprehensive training, micro-learning and certification Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports. Essential Package includes the following modules: Modules included …

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    Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023

    Description of Subscription Services Packages

    Essential

    Comprehensive training, micro-learning and certification

    Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports.

    Essential Package includes the following modules:

    Modules included in the Teach package:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment

    Professional

    Essentials plus skills development with scenario-based practice and coaching

    Give Users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays and simulated Customer scenarios. Managers can deliver structured feedback to improve skills and drive consistent messaging.

    Professional Package includes the following Modules:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Mission

    Premier

    Professional plus unlimited field coaching, auto-remediation and analytics

    Create a structured coaching program where managers can conduct effective and continuous 1:1 coaching. Use data to track growth across competencies and develop competency maps to identify areas for remediation.

    Premier Package includes the following Modules:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Mission
    • Coaching Session & Competency Assessment

    Enablement Core

    Enablement Core Package includes the following:

    • Professional Package
    • Asset Hub
    • Premier Support
    • Content as a Service (CaaS) Services – 40 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100)
    • Professional Services – 90 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100) or Professional Services – 30 hours (Provided number of Users are 30 and up to 100)

    Enablement & Coaching

    Enablement & Coaching Package includes the following:

    • Premier Package
    • Asset Hub
    • Premier Support
    • Content as a Service (CaaS) Services – 40 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100)
    • Professional Services – 90 hours Provided number of Users are more than 100) or Professional Services – 30 hours (Provided number of Users are 30 and up to 100)

    Enablement, Coaching & Conversation Intelligence

    Enablement, Coaching & Conversation Intelligence Package includes the following:

    • Premier Package
    • Asset Hub
    • Call AI
    • Premier Support
    • Content as a Service (CaaS) Services – 40 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100)
    • Professional Services – 90 hours (Provided number of Users are more than 100) or
      Professional Services – 30 hours (Provided number of Users are 30 and up to 100)

    RevOps Core

    RevOps Core includes the following:

    • Asset Hub
    • Digital Sales Rooms
    • Coaching
    • Call AI
    • BoostUp RO&I
    • Standard Support
    • Professional Services (30 hours)

    Customer Success Services

    Mindtickle will provide the following Customer Success Services.

    1. A named Customer Success Manager (CSM)
    2. Welcome and onboarding material for a successful launch
    3. Access to newly released product features
    4. Access to an analytics dashboard
    5. On-going communication of best practices

    Spaced Reinforcement

    Mindtickle’s spaced reinforcement combines the approaches that drive engagement and long-term knowledge retention by automatically delivering short, personalized and gamified challenges (consisting of scenario-based questions) at intelligently spaced intervals.

    Salesforce Integration

    Mindtickle’s Salesforce integration enables Salesforce users to engage with their Mindtickle training experience directly within the Salesforce platform, and access contextually aware training within each of their Salesforce opportunities.

    Virtual Role-Plays

    Virtual Role-plays help sales organizations drive consistency through a combination of role-play exercises for pitches, demos, emails, and other customer interactions, and automatic assignment of microlearning to address areas in need of remediation.

    Field Coaching

    Field Coaching enables organizations to create coaching templates for different sales scenarios, giving managers a prescriptive approach to define, measure and track the skills and capabilities salespeople need to be successful. Remediation training can then be assigned on the basis of observed behaviors.

    Call AI

    Call AI is an automated conversational-intelligence solution for evaluating Customer’s sales calls. It is designed to make Customer’s sellers more effective at their moments of truth with a focus on helping improve key revenue metrics, such as quota attainment, ramp time, and rep productivity by driving critical sales processes and best practices. Call recordings will be subject to applicable laws as set forth at our Privacy Policy.

    White Labelled Mobile Application

    White Labelled Mobile Application is Mindtickle’s Platform related assistance through which Mindtickle assists the Customer to personalize the look and feel of Mindtickle’s mobile application of the Platform to align it with Customer’s brand identity. Mindtickle supports White Labelling of its mobile app which is limited to app branding. Mindtickle does not support app customization, as further described in the White Label Application Description and Scope.

    Asset Hub

    Asset Hub is MindTickle’s repository for sales docs, training videos, real-world conversation snippets, and more. It also provides the tools needed to organize, govern, and leverage that content.

    Packages powered by Baker Communications, Inc. (“BCI”)

    Mindtickle Sales Excellence Series by BCI. This package includes Individualized competency-based sales training curriculum from BCI This module is available only with Premier and Professional Packages.

    Seller Excellence Foundations Package by BCI. This package includes Ready to deploy foundational seller training program comprised of skill development content, exercises, tools and certification.

    Additional terms applicable for BCI Packages
    Customer agrees and acknowledges that it shall not create derivative works based on the material provided by BCI (“Baker Materials”). Customer further agrees that it shall not make the Baker Materials accessible to third parties other than authorized Users, without the prior written permission from BCI.

    BoostUp Revenue Intelligence

    Deal risk management. Uncover deal risks like lack of buyer engagement, poor buyer sentiment, single threading, and competitive mentions. Score deals based on risk and health and surface at-risk deals to managers.

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence provides forecasting and pipeline analysis. Forecast AI learns from your historical data, applies real-time deal by deal risk scoring of your current pipeline and predicts in-quarter pipeline creation pacing to give you an accurate forecast you can rely on.

    Digital Sales Rooms

    Custom sales rooms for every opportunity. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, and real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

    Support Services

    Mindtickle provides Standard and Premium Support as described in the Support Services and as per scope mentioned below.

    Standard Support

    1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 business days
    2. Support Channels: Online case submission
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

    Premium Support

    1. Initial Response Time: 2 business hours
    2. End-user Support Channels:
      1. Online case submission
      2. Scheduled phone support
      3. 24/5 Live chat (for administrative users only)
      4. 24/7 Critical support
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

    The post Subscription Services Packages available before 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023 https://www.mindtickle.com/subscription-services-packages-available-from-20-march-2023-till-26-feb-2024/ Tue, 18 Apr 2023 05:08:55 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=16060 Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023 Description of Subscription Services Packages Teach Comprehensive training, micro-learning, reinforcement and scenario-based practice. Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports. Give users the confidence to handle …

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    Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023

    Description of Subscription Services Packages

    Teach

    Comprehensive training, micro-learning, reinforcement and scenario-based practice.

    Engage teams with gamified learning programs and an easy-to-use interface. Create custom assessments and certifications, and measure and improve on each team’s capabilities through data analytics and reports. Give users the confidence to handle any situation with virtual role-plays, simulated customer scenarios, and AI-powered feedback.

    Modules included in the Teach package:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
    • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
    • Competency Benchmarks (IRP)

    The Teach package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of two Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Teach package.

    RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

    If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of Teach, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

    Enable

    Comprehensive sales enablement including training, content, and coaching.

    Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams.

    Modules included in the Enable package:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
    • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
    • Competency Benchmarks (IRP)
    • Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)
    • Digital Sales Rooms
    • Sales Coaching

    The Enable package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of three Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Enable package.

    RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

    If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of Teach, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

    Predict

    Revenue intelligence tools including conversation intelligence, sales coaching, and sales forecasting.

    Record, transcribe, and analyze all conversations with AI-powered insights to improve productivity. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching. Manage deal risks and execute on hyper-accurate forecasting.

    Modules included in the Predict package:

    • Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)
    • Sales Coaching
    • Sales Forecasting (RO&I)

    Sell

    Revenue operations and intelligence tools including conversation intelligence, sales coaching, sales forecasting, sales content management, and digital sales rooms.

    Analyze reps’ activities in the field with call recording, transcription, and insights. Arm reps with just-in-time content that accelerates deals and engage prospects with customized buying experiences. Continually improve the skills and behaviors of teams with sales coaching. Manage deal risks and execute on hyper-accurate forecasting.

    Modules included in the Sell package:

    • Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)
    • Sales Coaching
    • Sales Forecasting (RO&I)
    • Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)
    • Digital Sales Rooms

    Transform

    The complete revenue productivity platform to optimize go-to-market teams and execute on hyper-active forecasts to win more.

    Engage and train teams with adaptive programs, gamified learning, and certifications. In addition, centralize, share, and track all content used by go-to-market teams. Create tailored buying experiences and track buyer engagement throughout the deal cycle with digital sales rooms. Deliver data-driven skill and deal coaching to continually improve the productivity of your teams. Analyze reps’ activities in the field with call recording, transcription, and insights. Manage deal risks and execute on hyper-accurate forecasting.

    Modules included in the Transform package:

    • Course
    • Quick Update
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-Led Training
    • Assessment
    • Spaced Reinforcement (Quests)
    • Virtual Role-Plays (Missions)
    • Competency Benchmarks (IRP)
    • Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)
    • Digital Sales Rooms
    • Sales Coaching
    • Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)
    • Sales Forecasting (RO&I)

    The Transform package includes access to all the Program Templates and a choice of five Mindtickle Ready-to-Deploy (RTD) programs created by CaaS (Content-as-a-Service) during the subscription term. The intellectual property rights of the RTD Program are exclusively owned by Mindtickle as it contains in pre-built content and files created by Mindtickle to be deployed solely through the Mindtickle Platform. RTD programs are pre-built, yet customizable programs that enable you to launch impactful and engaging programs to your teams quickly. Choose from an ever-growing library of best-in-class enablement programs. The module types available within each of these programs would be restricted as per the modules included in the Transform package.

    RTD programs and Program templates include a maximum of 40 hours from Mindtickle CaaS team during the Order term to provide support with the deployment of the programs.

    If a Customer purchases licenses in a combination of Teach, Enable and/or Transform, the total number of CaaS hours for deployment support would be capped to 40 hours during the Order term and the choice of number of RTD programs would be capped to the highest number of programs defined in either of the packages.

    Sales Training

    Engage and upskill teams with individualized, adaptive, and gamified learning programs at-scale. Create and deliver thematically grouped, visually rich learning paths leveraging depth and breadth of learning modules to keep sellers engaged. Module types include but are not limited to:

    • Assessments
    • Certifications
    • Courses
    • Checklist
    • Instructor-led Training (ILT)
    • Quick Updates

    Conversation Intelligence (Call AI)

    Mindtickle’s Call AI solution helps world-class companies be ready to grow revenue by recording, transcribing, and analyzing sales calls for customer insights and coaching. With conversational insights tightly integrated into sales training and content programs, Call AI helps revenue teams achieve a continuous state of excellence and be ready for every selling situation. Call recordings will be subject to applicable laws as set forth at our Privacy Policy.

    Coaching

    Mindtickle sales coaching optimizes the performance of sales teams by identifying lagging skills and providing a suite of tools to deliver data-driven, individualized sales coaching. Measure in-field performance and reinforce coaching efforts with customized training and enablement content that drives higher quota attainment and long-term skill development.

    Sales Content Management (Asset Hub)

    Mindtickle aligns sales content around the needs of sellers in the field. Sales organizations get more use and value from their content, without sacrificing security and governance. Automation and streamlined content management reduces admin burden. With Mindtickle’s Asset Hub, sellers spend less time searching for content and more time using it to close deals.

    Reinforcement & Role-Plays

    Upskill sellers with hands-on practice with Virtual Role-Plays (Mindtickle Missions). Assign AI-powered practice exercises to prove the application and articulation of key concepts. Create virtual scenarios, including pitches, presentations, demos, emails, and more for role-play practice and testing. Role-play media types include video, audio, screen capture, voice over PPT, tasks and written evaluations. Reinforce concepts to boost retention with Spaced Reinforcements (Mindtickle Quests). Assign and automatically deliver short, personalized, scenario-based questions at ideal intervals (spaced reinforcements) to promote greater retention.

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence (“RO&I”)

    BoostUp Revenue Operations & Intelligence provides forecasting and pipeline analysis. Forecast AI learns from your historical data, applies real-time deal by deal risk scoring of your current pipeline and predicts in-quarter pipeline creation pacing to give you an accurate forecast you can rely on.

    Digital Sales Rooms

    Custom sales rooms for every opportunity. Collaborate across your sales team and with the entire buyer group with personalized buying rooms, content sharing, and real-time alerts and insights into buyer engagement.

    Customer Success Services

    Mindtickle will provide the following Customer Success Services

    1. A named Customer Success Manager (CSM)
    2. Welcome and onboarding material for a successful launch
    3. Access to newly released product features
    4. Access to an analytics dashboard
    5. On-going communication of best practices

    Salesforce Integration

    Mindtickle’s Salesforce integration enables Salesforce users to engage with their Mindtickle training experience directly within the Salesforce platform, and access contextually aware training within each of their Salesforce opportunities.

    White Labelled Mobile Application

    White Labelled Mobile Application is Mindtickle’s Platform related assistance through which Mindtickle assists the Customer to personalize the look and feel of Mindtickle’s mobile application of the Platform to align it with Customer’s brand identity. Mindtickle supports White Labelling of its mobile app which is limited to app branding. Mindtickle does not support app customization, as further described in the White Label Application Description and Scope.

    Packages powered by Baker Communications, Inc. (“BCI”)

    1) Mindtickle Sales Excellence Series by BCI. This package includes individualized competency-based sales training curriculum from BCI. This module is available only with Premier and Professional Packages.

    2) Seller Excellence Foundations Package by BCI. This package includes Ready to deploy foundational seller training program comprised of skill development content, exercises, tools and certification.

    Additional terms applicable for Packages powered by BCI:
    Customer agrees and acknowledges that it shall not create derivative works based on the material provided by BCI (“Baker Materials”). Customer further agrees that it shall not make the Baker Materials accessible to third parties other than authorized Users, without the prior written permission from BCI.

    Support Services

    Mindtickle provides Standard and Premium Support as described in the Support Services and as per scope mentioned below.

    Standard Support

    1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 business days
    2. Support Channels: Online case submission
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)
    (Cost of Standard Support is included in the Platform Subscription Fees)

    Premium Support

    1. Initial Response Time: Within 2 hours
    2. End-user Support Channels:
      1. Online case submission
      2. First response within 2 business hours
      3. Target Resolution: 24 Business hours for P1 ticket
      4. 24×7 Support for P1 issues
      5. 24×5 Support for All issues
      6. 24×5 Live Chat Support for Admins
      7. Scheduled screen share call support
    3. Training and Education (in English):
      1. Online/self-paced training
      2. Video tutorials
      3. Comprehensive documentation
      4. Hands-on workshops and customized training (available at additional cost)

    The post Subscription Services Packages available from 20 March 2023 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    What is Revenue Productivity? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-revenue-productivity/ Mon, 03 Apr 2023 14:22:54 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?p=16146 Revenue productivity is a new and emerging discipline, but it can be overwhelming to understand how it fits into your organization. This post will help you make sense of it, and provide some practical areas to get started. First, let’s start with a definition of revenue productivity: Revenue productivity is a set of processes, strategies, …

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    Revenue productivity is a new and emerging discipline, but it can be overwhelming to understand how it fits into your organization. This post will help you make sense of it, and provide some practical areas to get started.

    First, let’s start with a definition of revenue productivity:

    Revenue productivity is a set of processes, strategies, and technologies used to enhance sales performance by utilizing seller data, revenue analytics, sales enablement, and front-line sales coaching.

    When executed properly, revenue productivity can help organizations improve the participation rate of each seller and put more of them on a path to attain 100% of their quota. From a management and operations standpoint, it can improve the accuracy of their forecast by pulling in a more complete set of data points, combining deal information with seller behavioral data. In doing so, they can not only predict outcomes more reliably; they can remediate each of them at a team and individual rep layer faster.

    Today, the emergence of revenue productivity platforms can help you bring this concept to life. Revenue productivity platforms help businesses consolidate a variety of tools surrounding their CRM system in one central place, including sales forecastingsales training & enablement, sales content management, sales conversation intelligence, sales coaching, and digital sales rooms.

    Here is a five-step process for thinking about what revenue productivity projects contain.

    1. Seller data unification
    2. Revenue analysis inclusive of deal + seller data
    3. Training and enablement content that’s triggered, personalized, and diversified
    4. Sales content management and buyer engagement
    5. Optimize for future performance

    Seller data unification

    To enhance the productivity of sellers, it’s vital to understand all the different systems in which a seller generates data. This, by the way, is not just your CRM system. While your CRM is great for tracking opportunities, closed-won data, and managing customer & prospect data, it doesn’t account for a variety of interactions your seller has with a customer. You need to collect that under a singular ID.

    Here are some examples:

    • Sales engagement data for email outreach, such as email opens, click rates, and replies
    • Sales conversation intelligence for meeting data, culling things like topics and messages covered, time spent talking versus listening
    • Sales training data, such as scores out of 100 on key certifications and courses

    A revenue productivity platform should federate that data about each seller in a Unified Seller ID. From there, it can be paired with their deal and opportunity data within your CRM. This will have two benefits – mainly, better analysis for forecasting and the ability to customize training and enablement content for each rep. Read on for more information on those pieces.

    Revenue analysis inclusive of deal + seller data

    Once you have your data unified, a revenue productivity platform should provide you the ability to analyze that data for a more comprehensive forecast and view of org readiness. This will be a project led in large part by your revenue operations or sales operations team.

    The first area is sales forecasts. Most sales forecasts today – even the ones enhanced by AI tools sitting on top of CRM – still mainly rely on deal data to provide leadership with a line of sight on performance. By injecting seller data into that forecast, you can get a more accurate picture of what business will close, and what’s at risk.

    For example, if you see a deal entering negotiation phases in your forecast, if your revenue productivity platform knows the rep working that deal indexes low on negotiation because of historical sales conversation data and low training scores in negotiation, you know that deal is at greater risk of closing.

    The second area is around flagging productivity issues immediately. Your revenue productivity analysis should leverage the data you have about each individual to provide managers with insight into what areas need to be remediated from a training or coaching perspective. For example, if a sales region relies heavily on reps to source their own pipeline without help from marketing, then the system should automatically alert management if reps are indexing low on qualification and discovery skills, and recommend specific training and content to address those issues.

    To make this in-field analysis compelling and accurate, every revenue productivity platform should utilize a sales conversation intelligence platform to track interactions in each call with a buyer, analyzing themes, messages, and buyer reactions.

    Training and enablement content that’s triggered, personalized, and diversified

    Most companies today still leverage a traditional, calendar-based enablement schedule to ready their reps for in-field interactions. Everyone gets the same content and training regardless of the skill sets and knowledge they exude in-market. The challenge with this approach is that it’ll mean the majority of programs and content delivered to them will not be relevant. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that CSO insights found less than a third of these programs meet rep expectations.

    When sales enablement, training, and readiness programs are migrated into a larger revenue productivity project, companies can flip this calendar-based, generic content model on its head. Revenue productivity platforms will empower revenue leadership, revenue operations, and front-line sales managers to trigger personalized programs for each rep based on the skill strengths and gaps they show in real-world selling scenarios.

    In addition, a revenue productivity platform will leverage a variety of engagement mechanics to keep these programs fresh and reinforce knowledge after it’s passed on. These engagement mechanics include things like quizzes, missions, and learning series and modules.

    Sales content management and buyer engagement

    Once team readiness has been addressed and people are engaging with customers in the field, revenue productivity platforms should make it easy for sellers to engage with their buyers in a personalized, compelling way.

    For starters, that means having one place for sellers to easily search and access all the externally-facing content they need to serve customers, including presentations, product overviews, industry literature, thought leadership, data sheets, and other PDFs. This should be found in a sales content management module.

    In addition, revenue productivity should include an avenue for buyer enablement and engagement. Digital sales rooms should provide an easy way for reps with no technical or coding experience to build customized pages for their buyer to access all the relevant content shared throughout the deal, and access call recordings between the two parties.

    Optimize for future performance

    After driving early success, it can be tempting to try to anecdotally repeat the process over and over. But companies that embrace revenue productivity know better. They will analyze the tools deployed throughout the sales process to better understand how they modify their sales process and the content utilized throughout the buyer journey.

    The analytics from content shared and accessed via a digital sales room is a critical avenue, as well as verbal feedback from conversations tracked in sales conversation intelligence. The supporting cast of leaders in the revenue organization — such as sales enablement or readiness teams, marketing, and sales ops — should apply these learnings to improve the efficacy of their programs, processes, and content.

    Getting a revenue productivity project off the ground can be daunting, but Mindtickle can help you. Click here to learn more about how you can get started on a revenue productivity transformation.

    The post What is Revenue Productivity? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Sub-processor Repository https://www.mindtickle.com/sub-processor-repository/ Fri, 24 Feb 2023 07:49:34 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=15779 Sub-processor Repository What is a sub-processor? A sub-processor is a third-party data processor engaged by Mindtickle to carry out personal data processing activities as required to provide services to customers per the terms of service, agreement, and the DPA. List of sub-processors The table below indicates the current list of sub-processors authorized to process customer personal data …

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    Sub-processor Repository

    What is a sub-processor?

    A sub-processor is a third-party data processor engaged by Mindtickle to carry out personal data processing activities as required to provide services to customers per the terms of service, agreement, and the DPA.

    List of sub-processors

    The table below indicates the current list of sub-processors authorized to process customer personal data on the Mindtickle platform and related services.

    Legal entity name Service applicability Nature and purpose of processing Data location Personal data processed Registered address Status
    MindTickle Interactive Media Private Limited1 All services Product development and customer support India Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Photograph, Audio Recording, Video Recording
    4th Floor, Solitaire World, Baner, Pune, Maharashtra 411045, India Active
    Amazon Web Services, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Cloud infrastructure, storage, and services United States of America, Ireland, Singapore, and Japan based on the customer’s choice Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Photograph, Audio Recording, Video Recording
    410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109-5210, United States of America Active
    Google LLC and affiliates All services Cloud infrastructure and Workspace services United States of America or Ireland based on the customer’s choice Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Audio Recording
    1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, United States of America Active
    Microsoft Corporation All services Microsoft 365, Microsoft Power Platform and Azure Cognitive Services United States of America for US data residency customers.

    Sweden, Netherlands and Japan for rest of the customers.
    Optional - Personal information part of call transcript, learning content, sales assets and analytics 1 Microsoft Way, Redmond, Washington, 98052, United States of America Active
    Box, Inc. Platform Media processing and transformation Unites States of America Name, Email ID 900 Jefferson Avenue, Redwood City, CA 94063, United States of America Active
    Filestack, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub Media processing and transformation Unites States of America Name, Email ID IDERA Headquarters 10801 N Mopac Expressway Building 1, Suite 100 Austin, TX, 78759, United States of America Active
    Snowflake, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Data analytics and insights United States of America or Singapore based on the customer’s choice Name, Email ID Suite 3A, 106 East Babcock Street, Bozeman, Montana 59715, United States of America Active
    Nylas, Inc. Asset Hub Email accounts integration and message delivery United States of America or Ireland based on the customer’s choice Email ID 944 Market St, San Francisco, CA 94102, United States of America Active
    Workato, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Integration platform between customers’ third-party applications and Mindtickle United States of America Email ID 215 Castro Street, Suite 300, Mountain View, California 94041, United States of America Active
    Sumo Logic, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Log monitoring and analytics United States of America Name, Email ID 305 Main Street Redwood City, CA 94063, United States of America Active
    Mixpanel, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Platform event monitoring and analytics United States of America Name, Email ID One Front Street, 28th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111, United States of America Active
    Zipy, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR User session analytics and debugging United States of America Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Photograph
    1010, Silliman Street, San Francisco, CA 94134, United States of America Active
    Atlassian Pty Ltd. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Production issues/incidents tracking and communication United States of America Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Support Call Audio Recording, Support Call Video Recording
    Level 6, 341 George St, Sydney NSW 2000, Australia Active
    Freshworks, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Managing tickets for customer support United States of America Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Support Call Audio Recording, Support Call Video Recording
    2950 S. Delaware Street, Suite 201, San Mateo, CA 94403, United States of America Active
    Marketo, Inc. All services Communication management with customers’ users and administrators United States of America Name, Email ID 901 Mariners Island Blvd Suite 200, San Mateo, CA, 94404, United States of America Active
    Qualtrics, LLC All services Product feedback and surveys United States of America Name, Email ID 333 W. River Park Dr. Provo, UT 84604, United States of America Active
    Salesforce.com, Inc. All services Customer account and relationship management United States of America Name, Email ID 415 Mission Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States of America Active
    Articulate Global, LLC CaaS Content creation and collaboration United States of America Name, Email ID 244 5th Avenue, Suite 2960, New York, NY 10001, United States of America Active
    Filestage GmbH CaaS Content creation and collaboration Germany Name, Email ID Filestage GmbH, Lautenschlagerstraße 16, 70173, Stuttgart, Germany Active
    Vocalo Inc. (dba Terret.ai, fka BoostUp.ai) RevOps Provides sales forecasting and pipeline analysis United States of America or Ireland based on the customer’s choice Mandatory – Name, Email ID, Address, Phone Number, Calendar Information
    Optional – Audio Call Recording, Audio Call Transcript
    2040 Martin Ave, Santa Clara, California 95050, United States of America Active
    OpenAI L.L.C. and affiliates Platform, Call AI Machine learning models for insights and workflows

    • Public ChatGPT not used or contributed to.
    • Customer data not used for training OpenAI models.
    • Customers control the AI-features to use.
    United States of America Optional – Name, personal information part of call transcript, learning content, and sales assets 3180 18th Street, San Francisco, California 94110, United States of America Active
    Whatfix, Inc. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Platform navigation training and walkthrough United States of America Name, Email ID 2107 N. 1st Street, Suite 450, San Jose, California 95131, United States of America Active
    APIHub, Inc. dba Clearbit DSR Data enrichment service United States of America Email ID, IP Address 548 Market Street Suite, #95879, San Francisco, California 94104, United States of America Active
    Berry, Inc. All services Customer success and support services United States of America Name, Email ID 10505 NE 144th St, Kirkland, Washington 98034, United States of America Active
    Superpowered Labs Inc. Platform Audio/visual conversational AI service United States of America Mandatory - Audio recording, Video recording
    Optional - Personal information part of the audio transcript
    95 3rd Street, 2nd Floor, San Francisco, California 94103, United States of America Active
    Hyperdoc Inc. Call AI Video/audio recordings, transcription, and metadata provider for Call AI meetings United States of America for US customers

    Germany for EU customers

    Germany and Japan for rest of the customers
    Mandatory - Name, Email ID, audio recording, video recording
    Optional - Calendar Information, personal information part of the audio transcript
    2261 Market Street #4339 San Francisco, CA 94114, United States of America Active
    Sisense Ltd. Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, RevOps, DSR Data Analytics and Visualization United States of America for US Customers.

    Singapore for the rest of the customers.
    Name, Email ID 1359 Broadway, 4th Floor, NY, 10018, United States Active
    Colossyan, Inc. Platform, CaaS Text-to-video generation service Germany Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Personal information part of the script shared by the customer
    1209 Orange Street, City of Wilmington, County of New Castle, Delaware 19801, USA Active
    H3 Labs Inc. (dba Maxim AI) Platform, Asset Hub, Call AI, DSR AI evaluation and benchmarking United States of America Optional – Personal information part of the AI-powered requests 251 Little Falls Drive, Wilmington, New Castle County, Delaware 19808, USA Active

    1 For Customers, where MindTickle Interactive Media Private Limited is a party to the Agreement, this entity is a processor, not a sub-processor.

    For the DSR exclusive customers, who have been using standalone DSR services since before Mindtickle acquired Enable Us, please find below the table indicating the current list of sub-processors authorized to process customer personal data.

    Legal entity name Nature and purpose of processing Data location Personal data processed Registered address Status
    MindTickle Interactive Media Private Limited Product development and customer support India Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Personal Information as part of DSR
    4th Floor, Solitaire World, Baner, Pune, Maharashtra 411045, India Active
    Amazon Web Services, Inc. Cloud infrastructure, storage, and services United States of America Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Personal Information as part of DSR
    410 Terry Avenue North, Seattle, WA 98109-5210, United States of America Active
    Google LLC and affiliates Cloud infrastructure and Workspace services United States of America Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Personal Information as part of DSR
    1600 Amphitheatre Parkway Mountain View, CA 94043, United States of America Active
    APIHub, Inc. dba Clearbit Data enrichment service United States of America

    Email ID, IP Address

    548 Market Street Suite, #95879, San Francisco, California 94104, United States of America Active
    Mixpanel, Inc. Platform event monitoring and analytics United States of America

    Name, Email ID

    One Front Street, 28th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94111, United States of America Active
    Marketo, Inc. Communication management with customers, users, and administrators United States of America

    Name, Email ID

    901 Mariners Island Blvd Suite 200, San Mateo, CA, 94404, United States of America Active
    Salesforce.com, Inc. Customer account and relationship management United States of America

    Name, Email ID

    415 Mission Street, 3rd Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, United States of America Active
    Zipy, Inc User session analytics and debugging United States of America Mandatory –Name, Email ID
    Optional – Photograph
    1010, Silliman Street, San Francisco, CA 94134, United States of America Active
    Intercom, Inc. Customer support and product tools United States Mandatory – Name, Email ID
    Optional – Support Call Audio Recording, Support Call Video Recording
    55 2nd Street, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105 Active
    SendGrid, Inc. Email communications United States Name, Email ID 1801 California Street, Denver, United States of America Active
    Qualtrics, LLC Product feedback and surveys United States Name, Email ID 333 W. River Park Dr. Provo, UT 84604, United States of America Active
    ConvertAPI UAB File Conversion API Lithuania Name, Email ID Lauksargio g. 111, Vilnius LT- 10105, Lithuania, company code 304461332 Active

    Note: The duration of processing by these sub-processors will be as per the terms of the Agreement signed with the Customers. Subject to specific approval of corresponding customers, we may use additional sub-processors for processing personal data controlled by the said customer.

    Additional information about definitions used in the service applicability

    • “Platform” includes Course, Quick Update, Checklist, Instructor-Led Training, Assessment, Missions (Virtual Role-Play), Coaching Session & Competency Assessment (Field Coaching), Spaced Reinforcement
    • Conversational Intelligence (Call AI)
    • Revenue Operations & Intelligence (RevOps)
    • Digital Sales Rooms (DSR)
    • Content as a Service (CaaS)

    Contractual controls

    Mindtickle signs data processing agreements and standard contractual clauses with all of its sub-processors and imposes data protection obligations for protecting customer personal data with similar security standards as committed by Mindtickle to the customers. These data processing agreements are aligned with the global data protection laws such as GDPR, CCPA, CPRA, UK DPA, etc.We include the following controls in the agreements to ensure the protection of customer personal data –

    • Right to audit – to allow an audit of the procedures relevant to customer personal data protection.
    • Data deletion – to delete personal data to fulfill data subject or customer requests or upon contract termination
    • Confidentiality agreements – to ensure employees and contractors with access to customer personal data have understood the confidential nature of the information and have signed confidentiality agreements
    • Training – to educate the employees on security and privacy practices to be followed while handling customer personal data
    • Incidents and breaches – to identify the root cause and impact, remediate the incident, and inform Mindtickle of impacted customer personal data relevant to the incident or breach
    • Security measures – to mandate technical and organizational security measures through vendor security policy or similar controls required by data protection laws and customer agreements
    • Fourth party risk – to impose the same standards of processing and security controls under applicable data protection laws to sub-processors of Mindtickle sub-processors

    Onboarding and annual due diligence

    In accordance with our supplier security policy, Mindtickle performs mandatory due diligence of all sub-processors through information security, privacy, and legal reviews. Sub-processor due diligence is performed during onboarding and once annually and includes a review of the following –

    • SOC 2 Type 2, ISO 27001, NIST, or similar industry-standard security reports
    • Compliance with applicable data protection laws and regulations
    • Vulnerability assessment and penetration testing reports
    • Information security and privacy policy documents
    • Privacy notice
    • Service level agreements, including uptime commitments, RTO, and RPO
    • Business continuity plans and disaster recovery reports
    • Supplier due diligence questionnaire

    Only the carefully selected suppliers that are approved by security, privacy, and legal teams in the due diligence process are authorized as sub-processors and granted access to customer personal data.

    Data sharing and responsibility

    Mindtickle engages sub-processors to process personal data only in accordance with the customer agreement and documented instructions through the following –

    • Onward data transfer – includes using relevant transfer mechanisms for the transfer of personal data in accordance with the applicable data protection laws.
    • Data minimization – sharing only the minimum required personal data that is absolutely necessary to provide services to our customers.
    • RoPA – to maintain a detailed record of processing activities, including types, attributes, purposes, and safeguards of personal data shared with our sub-processors, which is reviewed quarterly.
    • Risk ownership – Mindtickle takes full responsibility for the security and privacy of the customer data transferred to its sub-processors and will remain liable for any breach of customer personal data caused by any of its sub-processors.

    Changes to sub-processors

    Mindtickle provides at least 30 days prior notice to our subscribed customers before authorizing any new sub-processors to process customer personal data and provides customers with a window to object to such appointments.

    Customers can use below subscription form to receive sub-processor change communication.

    Subscribe to receive sub-processor change communication

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    Security Policy https://www.mindtickle.com/security-policy/ Tue, 21 Feb 2023 07:10:43 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=15673 Security Policy At Mindtickle, we take data security and privacy seriously. We constantly try to make sure that we meet our contractual and regulatory compliance obligations toward data protection. Mindtickle is committed to ensuring the protection of our customers’ data and has implemented detailed controls through a security policy. Our security policy comprehensively covers all …

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    Security Policy

    At Mindtickle, we take data security and privacy seriously. We constantly try to make sure that we meet our contractual and regulatory compliance obligations toward data protection.

    Mindtickle is committed to ensuring the protection of our customers’ data and has implemented detailed controls through a security policy.

    Our security policy comprehensively covers all the areas of the security program and processes implemented at organizational, technical, and cloud infrastructure levels for data protection.

    3.png

    Information Governance

    Information Security Function

    The information security function is responsible for maintaining practices, changes, and commitments concerning confidentiality, integrity, availability, and privacy.

    Data Protection Officer

    The data protection officer oversees data protection strategy and ensures compliance with data protection standards.

    Policy Communication

    Information security and privacy policies are available on the company portal for employee reference and are reviewed annually.

    Roles and Responsibilities

    The roles and responsibilities of the members of the information security organization are defined.

    Security and Privacy Policies

    Information security and privacy policies are approved by management and cover processes and control activities required to address data protection risks.

    Training and Awareness

    Employees and contractors are required to undergo information security and privacy training upon hire and a refresher on an annual basis.

    Risk Management

    Risk Identification

    Applicable security and privacy requirements are identified through relevant legal, regulatory, and supervisory authorities, specialist security forums, and professional associations.

    Risk Mitigation and Communication

    Risks are reviewed, classified, and tracked to closure by implementing controls consistent with the determined risk mitigation strategy and communicated to relevant stakeholders.

    Data Processing Agreements

    Data processing agreements are signed with the third parties with whom personal information is shared and include clauses for compliance with data protection laws, confidentiality and right-to-audit clauses, data retention, and access requirements.

    Internal and External Reviews

    Risks relevant to fraud, internal control, applicable laws, and customer commitment are identified through annual independent internal reviews and external risk assessments.

    Third Party Risk Management

    Third-party risk and contract reviews are performed during onboarding and renewal to ensure compliance with applicable data protection requirements.

    Organizational Security

    Background Check

    During induction, candidate background check is performed that includes verification of educational qualifications, prior employment records, address, and identity.

    Visitor Management

    Office visitors record an entry in the visitor management system and are escorted by authorized employees.

    Access Controlled Entry

    Access card-based physical access control system is installed at entry points to office premises.

    Temperature, Humidity and Water

    Cloud infrastructure facilities have temperature and humidity control and monitoring systems along with water detection and removal systems.

    Employment Agreement

    Upon joining, employees and contractors sign an employment agreement containing obligations related to confidentiality and non-disclosure of proprietary information.

    CCTV Monitoring

    A Closed Circuit Television Camera (CCTV) records physical entry points to office premises.

    Fire Detection and Control

    Cloud infrastructure facilities have smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, and suppression systems.

    Power Backup

    Cloud infrastructure facilities are power redundant and have a backup power supply.

    Access Management

    Access Permissions

    Application owners grant or revoke access rights to individuals after evaluating job roles, responsibilities, level of access, business requirement, and access duration.

    SSO and Multi-factor 

    Single sign-on and multi-factor authentication are mandated wherever possible.

    Password Rotation

    Users are forced to change their password at first login and are required to change the password every 90 days, wherever possible.

    Access Review

    Application owners perform quarterly access reviews and take necessary corrective actions.

    Least Privileged Access

    Limited individuals and teams are granted minimum required access to sensitive resources, customers, and personal information in the production environment through group-based identity and access management permissions.

    Password Policy

    Password policy is set wherever possible to mandate alphanumeric passwords with at least eight characters with one special, one lower case, and one upper case character.

    Access Change

    Accesses are reviewed upon role change and updated as per new job responsibilities.

    Access Removal

    All accesses are revoked on the last working day of employees and contractors.

    Endpoint Security

    Malware Protection

    Endpoint protection software is installed on laptops and desktops for safeguarding against viruses, malware, ransomware, web threats, blocked websites, malicious traffic, and potentially unwanted applications.

    Asset management

    An asset inventory is updated after an asset is allocated, replaced, returned or decomissioned and reviewed quarterly.

    Software Installations

    Installation of unauthorized and malicious software is restricted on laptops and desktops.

    Session Timeout

    Laptops are configured with an operating systems session timeout of 15 minutes.

    Malicious Activity Review

    Malicious activities and critical events identified in the endpoint protection are notified through configured alerts, and corrective actions are taken as part of monthly reviews.

    Data Wipe

    Data wipe is performed for allocated assets on the last working day of employees and contractors.

    Mobile Device Management

    Laptops are managed through the mobile device management solution for performing data wipes and pushing operating system policies.

    Product Development

    Product Lifecycle

    Product releases follow an agile software development lifecycle and go through design, development, and QA testing approvals before deploying to production.

     

    Privacy By Design

    Privacy by design is integrated into the product development lifecycle and release checklist.

     

    Change Management

    Product changes are pushed to the staging environment for obtaining relevant sign-offs and undergo quality assurance testing before deploying to the production environment.

    Use of Customer Data

    Customer data is not used for testing in the development and staging environments.

    Security By Design

    Security by design is integrated into the product development lifecycle and release checklist.

     

    Segregation of Duties

    Separate teams manage development, testing, and deployment activities to maintain the segregation of duties.

    Environment Separation

    Development, staging, and production environments are maintained separately using a logically isolated virtual private cloud.

    AI Compliance

    Customer Data Protection

    Customer data is never be used to train or improve AI models and will not contribute to their knowledge base.

    AI Content Moderation

    Automated abuse detection and content filtering mechanisms ensure that AI models independently identify and block inappropriate or harmful content without human review or access to user inputs or model outputs.

    User Feedback

    End users are provided a mechanism to give feedback on the AI-generated content.

    AI Secure by Design

    AI system security checks and responsible AI principles are integrated into the product development lifecycle.

    Temporary Data Storage with AI Model

    Data shared by Mindtickle with AI models is stored temporarily only for the duration of processing the request and deleted once the request is completed. Data is not permanently stored with the LLM models.

    Secure & Private AI Interactions

    All the interactions with AI models are private, encrypted, and logically segregated between requests, ensuring strict customer data separation.

    Responsible AI Principles

    Responsible AI principles document guidelines related to bias, discrimination, toxicity, harmful content, hallucinations, transparency, and accountability.

    AI Terms

    AI terms signed with customers cover data ownership, usage, retention, accuracy, and responsibility while leveraging AI system.

    Cryptographic Controls

    Encryption at Rest

    Customer data stored in cloud infrastructure is encrypted at rest with AES-256 using AWS Server-Side Encryption (SSE).

    Encrypted Access

    Access to cloud infrastructure is secured using TLS encryption and multi-factor authentication over a virtual private network.

    Laptop Encryption

    Laptops are encrypted using BitLocker on Windows devices and FileVault on macOS devices.

    Encryption in Transit

    Data communication with servers is encrypted through HTTPS over TLS 1.2 or SFTP over SSH2 with 2048-bit RSA encryption.

    Encryption Keys

    Encryption keys used for certificate generation are rotated annually, and previous key pairs are deleted when no longer needed.

    Email Encryption

    Emails are signed using DKIM and authenticated using SPF and DMARC to prevent email address spoofing.

    Cloud Security

    Web Application Firewall

    A web application firewall is configured in the production environment to prevent attacks and breaches through data ex-filtration.

     

    Virtual Private Cloud

    Virtual private cloud and load balancers enforce the boundaries of computing clusters in the production environment.

     
     

    Email Security

    Emails are configured with protection against zero-day threats, ransomware, malware, phishing, and spam.

     
     

    Defence in Depth

    Firewalls are configured at a load balancer level to restrict access and communication with external systems.

    Hardening and Baselining

    Baseline configuration for cloud infrastructure is maintained through the CIS benchmark.

     
     

    Product Security

    Vulnerability Monitoring

    A vulnerability management service is deployed to continuously find vulnerabilities in operating systems and programming language packages.

    Third Party Vulnerabilities

    Software composition analysis tool is run during code deployment to find vulnerabilities in the third-party and open-source software packages.

    Logging and Monitoring

    Application and infrastructure events are logged, and services are monitored for error rate, availability, performance, response time, anomalies, and usage.

    Secure Code Review

    Static application security testing is performed during code deployment to find out vulnerabilities in the programming code.

    Penetration Testing

    External penetration testing is performed annually for the platform, which includes web and mobile apps, network endpoints, and APIs.

    Audit Trails

    Audit trail records timestamp, IP address, application name, specific action taken, and request metadata.

    Business Continuity

    Data Backup

    Application data stored in the cloud infrastructure is backed up hourly or replicated in real-time across availability zones.

    Recovery Objectives

    Business continuity plans are maintained to achieve a Recovery Time Objective (RTO) of 12 hours and a Recovery Point Objective (RPO) of 1 hour.

    Availability Zone Replication

    Application processing infrastructure is replicated across availability zones.

    Disaster Recovery Testing

    Disaster recovery testing is performed annually to review business continuity and emergency response plan.

    Incident Management

    Third Party Breaches

    Data processing agreements with third parties have clauses to report suspected or actual breaches.

    Incident Resolution

    Reported security incidents and privacy breaches are analyzed to identify the impact, and corrective and preventive steps are taken to fix the root cause.

    Incident Communication

    Security incidents and privacy breaches are communicated to relevant stakeholders, data subjects, customers, and business partners.

    Incident Reporting

    Incidents affecting security and privacy are reported to the information security team.

    Incident Postmortem

    An incident review meeting is conducted to discuss the root cause and formalize corrective, preventive, and detective actions.

    Data Breach Insurance

    Liability insurance is maintained for security breaches and data protection loss.

    Customer Data Privacy

    Legal Basis of Processing

    Personal information provided by customers is processed by using a performance of a contract as a legal basis.

    Type of PII Collection

    Customers are informed of the type of personal information collected and the methods of collection through the privacy policy and data processing agreements.

    Data Retention

    Customer data is retained throughout the contract and kept inactive for 180 days after the contract termination date or as per the agreed time duration.

    Data Processing Agreement

    A data processing agreement covering the purpose is offered to customers before collecting personal information.

     

    Control over PII Collection

    Customers are provided with an option to select personal information fields to be collected from their users.

    Data Deletion

    Customer data is wiped using irreversible data deletion techniques provided by the data storage services.

    Data Subject Privacy

    Privacy Policy

    The privacy policy provides information about contacting the privacy team or third-party dispute resolution provider with inquiries, complaints, and disputes.

    Storage Limitation

    Personal information is retained only for the duration necessary to fulfill the purposes covered in the legal basis of processing.

    Purpose Limitation

    Personal information is accessed by limited individuals or provided to third parties for the specific purposes mentioned in the consent, privacy policy, and data processing agreements.

    Data Minimization

    Minimum personal information is collected as required for the purposes listed in the privacy policy.

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    Ready Set Sell https://www.mindtickle.com/ready-set-sell-a-sales-enablement-podcast/ Wed, 08 Feb 2023 11:19:33 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=15322 Ready, Set, Sell A podcast by Mindtickle Are you ready? Ready, Set, Sell focuses on sales performance, productivity, and continuous training to create entire teams of high performers. Each episode provides listeners with smart insights, tangible advice, and actionable tips they can apply to the work they do in their own roles.The podcast explores themes …

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    ]]>

    Ready, Set, Sell

    A podcast by Mindtickle

    Are you ready?

    Ready, Set, Sell focuses on sales performance, productivity, and continuous training to create entire teams of high performers. Each episode provides listeners with smart insights, tangible advice, and actionable tips they can apply to the work they do in their own roles.The podcast explores themes such as becoming a better sales coach, the dos and don’ts of coaching, and constantly improving to uplevel performance. We’ll also discuss technology and AI in sales, and how sales professionals can adopt and integrate these new tools into their work seamlessly.

    Subscribe to Ready, Set, Sell

    Episode 1: From Solution-Centric to Outcome-Centric Selling with Bob Apollo

    Meet the hosts

    Tony Germinario
    Sales Leader and Coach
    Mindtickle

    Hannah Ajikawo
    Practice Lead
    Skaled Consulting

    The latest episodes

    The post Ready Set Sell appeared first on Mindtickle.

    ]]>
    Professional Services Scope and Services Description https://www.mindtickle.com/professional-services-scope-and-services-description/ Tue, 17 Jan 2023 08:00:05 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=1028 Professional Services Scope and Services Description Table of Contents Professional Services Scope – Readiness Package Professional Services Scope – Enable package Professional Services Scope – Transform Package Professional Services Scope – LMS Package Out-of-Scope Services for LMS, Readiness, Enable, and Transform Service Packages Sales Forecasting (RO&I) Implementation CallAI Implementation Asset Hub Implementation Digital Sales Room …

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    Professional Services Scope and Services Description

    Professional Services Scope – Readiness  Package 

    Included with the Readiness package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for one(1) Mindtickle Learning Site (“Mindtickle instance”)-

    • Consult & Assist on leading practices relating to platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Account settings
      • Roles and Permissions
      • User, Profile Management
      • Groups and group automation
      • Configure learning site sign-in page settings 
      • One-time configuration of up to a maximum of 15 Profile Fields 
      • One-time configuration of up to five (5) user groups aligned to customers’ use case
      • Provide a walk-through and assist with a one-time configuration of up to five (5) Automation rules as part of the initial setup in alignment with the customer’s user case.
      • Activation and walkthrough of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities available across all subscribed products.
      • Design and Development of one(1) Default (Launch ready) Homepage:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the “launch ready” default homepage based on the customer’s use case.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen Default (Launch ready) Homepage template as per customer branding.
          • Utilization of default platform widgets.
          • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails.
          • Not Included:
            • Custom HTML code
            • Theme-based design
      • Design and development of two(2) Role-based Homepage: 
        • Showcase predefined templates for Role-based default homepage.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Utilization of default platform widgets.
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
    • Consult & Assist on learning program implementation and leading practices, including:
      • Assist with Identifying and defining enablement program success metrics
      • Best practices for structuring enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro-learning
      • Support with program launch communication and change management
        • Customize 1 email template verbiage and change default variables (if needed)- series invitation template 
      • Program and Use Case (defined by the customer) specific reporting and analytics walk-through
      • Assist with one-time Readiness Index configuration and provide feature walkthrough
      • Consult on setting up Ideal Rep Profile 
      • Consult & provide a walk-through on the application of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities to augment admin and user experience as part of the training framework.
      • Consult on out-of-platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
      • Design and Development of one(1) Series Overview Page:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Series Overview page
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in chosen templates as per customer branding
        • Utilization of default platform widgets
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
          • Development for series overview video
      • Design and Development of two (2) Course maps:
        • Redesign any two course maps from the existing Mindtickle library using customer branding 
        • Upload the designed course maps to the relevant courses
        • Not Included:
          • Theme based design
    • Advise & Assist on standard integrations:
      • Single Sign On (SSO) is limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
      • Support for configuring (1)one user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
      • Configuration of Content Sync with Mindtickle’s Content Center via standard applications in Table 5
      • Notifications on Slack or MS teams
      • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
      • Calendar integration (Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar) capabilities for the Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module
      • Video conferencing platform (Zoom, Webex, MS Teams) integration with Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module   
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL (customer provides URL domain)
      • Private labeling Sender’s email address (customer includes email address and email inbox capable of receiving incoming emails)
      • Learner Performance Synchronization with Salesforce Lightning
      • Salesforce Integrations for Coaching (if required)
    • Other Value Adds 
      • Provide consultation to admins on best practices of enabling optimized navigational workflows for enhanced seller experience.
      • Strategic guidance on Content and User Governance best practices

    Professional Services Scope – Enable package

    Included with the Enable package, Mindtickle shall provide the following services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance:

    • Consult & Assist on leading practices relating to platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Account settings
      • Roles and Permissions
      • User, Profile Management
      • Groups and group automation
      • Configure learning site sign-in page settings 
      • One-time configuration of up to a maximum of 15 Profile Fields 
      • One-time configuration of up to five (5) user groups aligned to customers’ use case
      • Provide a walk-through and assist with a one-time configuration of up to five (5) Automation rules as part of the initial setup in alignment with the customer’s user case.
      • Activation and walkthrough of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities available across all subscribed products.
      • Design and Development of one(1) Default (Launch ready) Homepage:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the “launch ready” default homepage based on the customer’s use case.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen Default (Launch ready) Homepage template as per customer branding.
          • Utilization of default platform widgets.
          • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails.
          • Not Included:
            • Custom HTML code
            • Theme-based design
      • Design and development of two(2) Role-based Homepage: 
        • Showcase predefined templates for Role-based default homepage.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Utilization of default platform widgets.
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
    • Consult & Assist on learning program implementation and leading practices, including:
      • Assist with Identifying and defining enablement program success metrics
      • Best practices for structuring enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro-learning
      • Support with program launch communication and change management
        • Customize 1 email template verbiage and change default variables (if needed)- series invitation template 
      • Program and Use Case (defined by the customer) specific reporting and analytics walk-through
      • Assist with one-time Readiness Index configuration and provide feature walkthrough
      • Consult on setting up Ideal Rep Profile 
      • Consult & provide a walk-through on the application of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities to augment admin and user experience as part of the training framework.
      • Consult on out-of-platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
      • Design and Development of one(1) Series Overview Page:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Series Overview page
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in chosen templates as per customer branding
        • Utilization of default platform widgets
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
          • Development for series overview video
      • Design and Development of two (2) Course maps:
        • Redesign any two course maps from the existing Mindtickle library using customer branding 
        • Upload the designed course maps to the relevant courses
        • Not Included:
          • Theme based design
    • Advise & Assist on standard integrations:
      • Single Sign On (SSO) is limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
      • Support for configuring (1)one user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
      • Configuration of Content Sync with Mindtickle’s Content Center via standard applications in Table 5
      • Notifications on Slack or MS teams
      • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
      • Calendar integration (Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar) capabilities for the Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module
      • Video conferencing platform (Zoom, Webex, MS Teams) integration with Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module   
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL (customer provides URL domain)
      • Private labeling Sender’s email address (customer includes email address and email inbox capable of receiving incoming emails)
      • Learner Performance Synchronization with Salesforce Lightning
      • Salesforce Integrations for Coaching (if required)
    • Advise & Assist on content management and leading practices for Asset Hub deployment, including:
      • Content organization & governance 
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Consult & provide a walk-through on the application of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities to optimize productivity
      • Analytics review and advisory
      • Advise on standard integrations for Asset Hub:
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration with Mindtickle Asset Hub
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration for Activity Writeback (Admin view only)
        • Salesforce Integration for Revenue Impact of Asset (Admin view only)
      • Design and Development of one(1) Hub Overview Page: 
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Hub Overview page
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Utilization of Default Platform Widgets.
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML.
          • Theme-based design.
          • Development for Hub Overview Video.
          • Asset upload, attribute linking & Hub creation.
      • Design and Development of one(1) Sales Play:
        • Showcase predefined templates for Sales play.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Document linking & upload of banners and thumbnails.
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML.
          • Theme-based design.
    • Assist with Digital Sales Room set up & deployment, including:
      • Consult on Digital Sales Rooms Management
      • Assist with configuring Standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and
      • Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
      • Consult on Roles and User Management setup applicable to Digital Sales Rooms.
      • Analytics review and advisory
      • Design and Development of one(1) DSR Template:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Digital Sales Room layout.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Asset linking & upload of developed banners and thumbnails.
        • Not Included:
          • Theme-based design.
    • Other Value Adds 
      • Provide consultation to admins on best practices of enabling optimized navigational workflows for enhanced seller experience.
      • Strategic guidance on Content and User Governance best practices

    Professional Services Scope – Transform package

    Included with the Transform package, Mindtickle will provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle Instance: 

    • Consult & Assist on leading practices relating to platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Account settings
      • Roles and Permissions
      • User, Profile Management
      • Groups and group automation
      • Configure learning site sign-in page settings 
      • One-time configuration of up to a maximum of 15 Profile Fields 
      • One-time configuration of up to five (5) user groups aligned to customers’ use case
      • Provide a walk-through and assist with a one-time configuration of up to five (5) Automation rules as part of the initial setup in alignment with the customer’s user case.
      • Activation and walkthrough of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities available across all subscribed products.
      • Design and Development of one(1) Default (Launch ready) Homepage:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the “launch ready” default homepage based on the customer’s use case.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen Default (Launch ready) Homepage template as per customer branding.
          • Utilization of default platform widgets.
          • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails.
          • Not Included:
            • Custom HTML code
            • Theme-based design
      • Design and development of two(2) Role-based Homepage: 
        • Showcase predefined templates for Role-based default homepage.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Utilization of default platform widgets.
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
    • Consult & Assist on learning program implementation and leading practices, including:
      • Assist with Identifying and defining enablement program success metrics
      • Best practices for structuring enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro-learning
      • Support with program launch communication and change management
        • Customize 1 email template verbiage and change default variables (if needed)- series invitation template 
      • Program and Use Case (defined by the customer) specific reporting and analytics walk-through
      • Assist with one-time Readiness Index configuration and provide feature walkthrough
      • Consult on setting up Ideal Rep Profile 
      • Consult & provide a walk-through on the application of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities to augment admin and user experience as part of the training framework.
      • Consult on out-of-platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
      • Design and Development of one(1) Series Overview Page:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Series Overview page
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in chosen templates as per customer branding
        • Utilization of default platform widgets
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
          • Development for series overview video
      • Design and Development of two (2) Course maps:
        • Redesign any two course maps from the existing Mindtickle library using customer branding 
        • Upload the designed course maps to the relevant courses
        • Not Included:
          • Theme based design
    • Advise & Assist on standard integrations:
      • Single Sign On (SSO) is limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
      • Support for configuring (1)one user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
      • Configuration of Content Sync with Mindtickle’s Content Center via standard applications in Table 5
      • Notifications on Slack or MS teams
      • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
      • Calendar integration (Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar) capabilities for the Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module
      • Video conferencing platform (Zoom, Webex, MS Teams) integration with Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module   
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL (customer provides URL domain)
      • Private labeling Sender’s email address (customer includes email address and email inbox capable of receiving incoming emails)
      • Learner Performance Synchronization with Salesforce Lightning
      • Salesforce Integrations for Coaching (if required)
    • Advise & Assist on content management and leading practices for Asset Hub deployment, including:
      • Content organization & governance 
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Consult & provide a walk-through on the application of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities to optimize productivity
      • Analytics review and advisory
      • Advise on standard integrations for Asset Hub:
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration with Mindtickle Asset Hub
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration for Activity Writeback (Admin view only)
        • Salesforce Integration for Revenue Impact of Asset (Admin view only)
      • Design and Development of one(1) Hub Overview Page: 
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Hub Overview page
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Utilization of Default Platform Widgets.
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML.
          • Theme-based design.
          • Development for Hub Overview Video.
          • Asset upload, attribute linking & Hub creation.
      • Design and Development of one(1) Sales Play:
        • Showcase predefined templates for Sales play.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Document linking & upload of banners and thumbnails.
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML.
          • Theme-based design.
    • Assist with Digital Sales Room set up & deployment, including:
      • Consult on Digital Sales Rooms Management
      • Assist with configuring Standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and
      • Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
      • Consult on Roles and User Management setup applicable to Digital Sales Rooms.
      • Analytics review and advisory
      • Design and Development of one(1) DSR Template:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Digital Sales Room layout.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Asset linking & upload of developed banners and thumbnails.
        • Not Included:
          • Theme-based design.
    • Advise & Assist on leading practices on platform setup and configuration for CallAI, including:
      • Configuration of Themes, Keywords, Voice of Market, and CallAI Score
      • Setup Call AI with one (1) Coaching Form using a pre-built Mindtickle template tied to the customer’s use case. 
      • Setup 1 (one) Manager Alert 
      • Setup up to a maximum of three (3) CallAI Libraries 
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Advise on standard integrations
        • One (1) Calendar sync (Outlook, Google Calendar)
        • One (1) of the Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
        • One (1) of the Dialer tool listed in Table 4 below
        • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
        • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
        • Post-launch analytics review and advisory
    • Other Value Adds 
      • Provide consultation to admins on best practices of enabling optimized navigational workflows for enhanced seller experience.
      • Strategic guidance on Content and User Governance best practices

    Professional Services Scope – LMS package 

    Included with the LMS package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance:

    • Consult & Assist on leading practices relating to platform setup and configuration, including:
      • Account settings
      • Roles and Permissions
      • User, Profile Management
      • Groups and group automation
      • Configure learning site sign-in page settings 
      • One-time configuration of up to a maximum of 15 Profile Fields 
      • One-time configuration of up to five (5) user groups aligned to customers’ use case
      • Provide a walk-through and assist with a one-time configuration of up to five (5) Automation rules as part of the initial setup in alignment with the customer’s user case.
      • Activation and walkthrough of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities available across all subscribed products.
      • Design and Development of one(1) Default (Launch ready) Homepage:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the “launch ready” default homepage based on the customer’s use case.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen Default (Launch ready) Homepage template as per customer branding.
          • Utilization of default platform widgets.
          • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails.
          • Not Included:
            • Custom HTML code
            • Theme-based design
      • Design and development of two(2) Role-based Homepage: 
        • Showcase predefined templates for Role-based default homepage.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Utilization of default platform widgets.
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
    • Consult & Assist on learning program implementation and leading practices, including:
      • Assist with Identifying and defining enablement program success metrics
      • Best practices for structuring enablement programs to enable multimodality and micro-learning
      • Support with program launch communication and change management
        • Customize 1 email template verbiage and change default variables (if needed)- series invitation template 
      • Program and Use Case (defined by the customer) specific reporting and analytics walk-through
      • Assist with one-time Readiness Index configuration and provide feature walkthrough
      • Consult on setting up Ideal Rep Profile 
      • Consult & provide a walk-through on the application of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities to augment admin and user experience as part of the training framework.
      • Consult on out-of-platform reporting using Mindtickle standard APIs
      • Design and Development of one(1) Series Overview Page:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Series Overview page
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in chosen templates as per customer branding
        • Utilization of default platform widgets
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML
          • Theme-based design
          • Development for series overview video
      • Design and Development of two (2) Course maps:
        • Redesign any two course maps from the existing Mindtickle library using customer branding 
        • Upload the designed course maps to the relevant courses
        • Not Included:
          • Theme based design
    • Advise & Assist on standard integrations:
      • Single Sign On (SSO) is limited to 1 (one) of the applications in Table 1 below
      • Support for configuring (1)one user sync via standard application as listed in Table 2 below OR 1 (one) application via SFTP with non-standard HR applications
      • Access Mindtickle’s learning site within the Salesforce platform (includes Salesforce SSO integration)
      • Configuration of Content Sync with Mindtickle’s Content Center via standard applications in Table 5
      • Notifications on Slack or MS teams
      • Syndicate content provider systems: LinkedIn Learning or SkillSoft
      • Calendar integration (Google Calendar, Outlook Calendar) capabilities for the Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module
      • Video conferencing platform (Zoom, Webex, MS Teams) integration with Instructor Lead Training (ILT) module   
      • Private labeling of Learning Site URL (customer provides URL domain)
      • Private labeling Sender’s email address (customer includes email address and email inbox capable of receiving incoming emails)

    Out-of-Scope Services for LMS, Readiness, Enable, and Transform Service Packages

    The following services are out-of-scope of standard implementation packages unless additional services are purchased to accomplish the services outlined below, but not limited to:

    • Data export, clean up, import, filtering, and transformation that may be part of any kind of migration effort, including and not limited to:
      • Call recordings from any other software/platform.
    • Integrations:
      • Multiple integrations per Table
      • Not listed in Table 1 or Table 2 or Table 3 or Table 4
      • With in-house, niche, non-standard applications tech stack
      • Custom solution development for a specific business requirement
      • Updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
    • Custom reports
      • One-time or cadence-based email reports excel reports
      • Creation of reports using the API data set
      • Development of in-platform custom reporting
      • Creation of any other out-of-platform dashboards
    • Creation of Content and Programs for use on Mindtickle platform

    When Customers require additional services or scope, Mindtickle will work jointly with Customers on a Statement of Work agreement to analyze and document the scope, level of effort, tasks, and additional fees.

    Sales Forecasting (RO&I) Implementation

    Following Professional Services will be provided:

    • Business Type Setup
    • Maximum two (2) Business Types (sales, renewals, etc)
    • User Access
    • Standard SFDC Manager hierarchy
    • User access controlled by opportunity-level field assignments
    • Note BoostUp does not support SFDC role-based hierarchy
    • Rollups
    • Standard Filters only
    • Maximum three (3) Custom Forecast Types (commit, best case, upside, etc.)
    • Hierarchy
    • AE/Manager Forecast Submission workflow with deal inclusion criteria
    • Standard Forecast rollups
    • Maximum ten (10) Custom columns
    • Deal inclusion criteria
    • Targets
    • Accounts
    • Maximum six (6) Custom Filters
    • Maximum fifteen (15) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunities
    • Maximum ten (10) Custom Filters
    • One (1) Sales Process
    • Enable in-line edit
    • Maximum ten (10) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunity splits not supported as part of the Professional offering
    • Account / Deal Insights
    • Topics
    • Competitors
    • Forecast Dashboard
    • Standard filters only
    • Forecast Trends, Pipeline Trends Dashboards, Pipeline Risk Analytics
    • Maximum three (3) additional custom filters
    • Scoring & Predictions
    • Opportunity Engagement Risk score
    • Account Engagement Risk score
    • BoostUp Projections (enabled for Ops initially until the algorithm has collected the necessary data – generally 2 quarters of history)
    • General
      • oAuth SSO
      • SFDC Automatic User Provisioning
      • SFDC Manager Hierarchy Sync
      • SFDC Validation Rules / Integration User setup (Admin or User based)

    Out of Scope: 

    • Custom report design or build

    CallAI Implementation

    As part of the CallAI Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance: 

    • Advise & Assist on leading practices on platform setup and configuration for CallAI, including
      • Configuration of Themes, Keywords, Voice of Market, and CallAI Score
      • Setup Call AI with one (1) Coaching Form using a pre-built Mindtickle template tied to the customer’s use case. 
      • Setup 1 (one) Manager Alert 
      • Setup up to a maximum of three (3) CallAI Libraries 
      • Launch communication and change management
      • Advise on standard integrations
        • One (1) Calendar sync (Outlook, Google Calendar)
        • One (1) of the Conferencing tools listed in Table 3 below
        • One (1) of the Dialer tool listed in Table 4 below
        • Two-way Salesforce.com integration with CallAI
        • Salesforce integration for Coaching (if required)
    • Post-launch analytics review and advisory

    Out of Scope: 

    • Migration of Call Recordings from other software/platforms. 
    • Custom report design or build

    Asset Hub Implementation

    As part of the Asset Hub Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance: 

    • Advise & Assist on content management and leading practices for Asset Hub deployment, including:
      • Content organization & governance 
      • Content discoverability and search
      • Consult & provide a walk-through on the application of Mindtickle Copilot (AI) capabilities to optimize productivity
      • Analytics review and advisory
      • Advise on standard integrations for Asset Hub:
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration with Mindtickle Asset Hub
        • Salesforce Opportunity Integration for Activity Writeback (Admin view only)
        • Salesforce Integration for Revenue Impact of Asset (Admin view only)
      • Design and Development of one(1) Hub Overview Page: 
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Hub Overview page
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Utilization of Default Platform Widgets.
        • Upload of designed banners and thumbnails
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML.
          • Theme-based design.
          • Development for Hub Overview Video.
          • Asset upload, attribute linking & Hub creation.
      • Design and Development of one(1) Sales Play:
        • Showcase predefined templates for Sales play.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Document linking & upload of banners and thumbnails.
        • Not Included:
          • Custom HTML.
          • Theme-based design.

    Out of Scope: 

    • Content Migration Support, unless mentioned otherwise in the order
    • Custom report design or build

    Digital Sales Room Implementation

    As part of the Digital Sales Room Implementation package, Mindtickle shall provide the following Professional Services for 1(one) Mindtickle instance: 

    • Assist with Digital Sales Room set up & deployment, including:
      • Consult on Digital Sales Rooms Management
      • Assist with configuring Standard integrations with supported CRMs (Salesforce.com, HubSpot, Pipedrive) and
      • Cloud Storage Drives (Google Drive, Sharepoint, OneDrive)
      • Consult on Roles and User Management setup applicable to Digital Sales Rooms.
      • Analytics review and advisory
      • Design and Development of one(1) DSR Template:
        • Showcase predefined templates for the Digital Sales Room layout.
        • Customize banners and thumbnails in the chosen template as per customer branding.
        • Asset linking & upload of developed banners and thumbnails.
        • Not Included:
          • Theme-based design.

    Professional Services Scope: Custom Technical Solutions Package

    Under the Custom Technical Solutions Package, the Tech Solutions team provides the following services, ensuring alignment with the agreed engagement terms and restricted by technical feasibility:

    1. Standard Integrations: as mentioned in Table 1 to Table 4
    2. Custom Integrations: Development and deployment of integrations with the customer’s tech stack to meet unique requirements.
    3. Data Management Solutions: Including data clean-up, filtering, manipulation, and migration.
    4. Advanced Reporting: Creation of custom reports, one-time or cadence-based email reports, and dashboards using the reporting API data set.
    5. BI and Visualization Tools Integration: Integration with business intelligence or data visualization tools.
    6. Content Synchronization: Streamlining and automating content updates across platforms.
    7. Updates to Existing Solutions: Modifications to completed and accepted custom solutions, including integrations and reports, based on evolving business needs.
    8. Feasiblity checks: The above listed services are subject to feasibility checks and designed to ensure robust, scalable, and customer-centric outcomes. All the effort required to do such feasibilty checks is a part of the service. 

    Key Clarifications

    1. Feasibility Checks:
      The Mindtickle Technical Solutions team will evaluate the feasibility of custom requests and implementations to ensure compatibility with the Mindtickle product’s technical architecture.
    2. Adaptation of Solutions:
      If a customer requirement does not align with the product’s architecture, the Technical Solutions team will propose alternative approaches to address the requirement and communicate them with the customer for alignment.
    3. Rescoping for Best Fit:
      If alternative solutions do not meet the customer’s needs, the scope of the requirement  will be revisited in collaboration with the customer to define a workable approach that balances feasibility with business requirements. If the customer requirements cannot be changed to align with the Mindtickle platform architecture or feasiblity, such requirements would then be considered out of scope for the engagement. In such cases, the customer will provide the next set of requirement(s) for the resources to work upon. 

    Out-of-Scope Services (for Custom Technical Solutions)

    The following services are not in the scope. In the event that an out-of-scope service is deemed necessary, both MindTickle and the Customer shall collaborate to ascertain and document the service’s scope, level of effort, and tasks through a change order. Out-of-scope services include the following:

    • Any MindTickle platform administrative tasks
    • Development of in-platform custom reporting
    • Content creation
    • Consult on Mindtickle platform configuration and governance
    • Consult on best practices for User Management
    • Use-case deep dive
    • Advise on best practices for structuring content in Mindtickle
    • Provide framework and guidance on Program setup and launch
    • Deep dive on leveraging Mindtickle Reporting & Analytics Data for Program and Platform level insights

    Assumptions for FTE equivalent resource engagement: 

    At Customer’s request, Mindtickle may provide designated resources (“Consultant/s”) for Technical Solutions and such arrangement would be specified in the Order. The assumption for Consultant engagement are as follows:

    • The term FTE means a ‘Full Time Equivalent’ providing not more than 8 hours per working day or 40 hours of Consultant(s) providing Technical Solutions service per week subject to clause 4 below (pertaining to leaves). FTE engagement can be delivered by a resource or combination of resources on a non-exclusive basis unless otherwise expressly mentioned in the Order. Accordingly, the maximum available number of hours for a 1/2 FTE, 1/3 FTE and 1/4 FTE specified in the Order shall be prorated to 20 hours a week, 14 hours a week and 10 hours a week, respectively subject to reasonable allowances for time off. Any balance of unused time shall not be carried forward to the next day or week.
    • The Consultant shall provide an estimate of the time required for completing the work post-content analysis phase. The development plan shall continue as per the provided estimates unless there is a change in the scope of work or re-prioritization of work by the Customer.
    • Consultant will work 10 am to 6 pm (Monday to Friday) during their home office time zone. Meetings outside of these hours can be arranged as mutually agreed between Customer and Consultant.
    • Consultant will be entitled to reasonable allowances for Paid Time Off, Administration, Sick Leave, and Training.
    • Consultant will work from home or the Mindtickle office. Any travel to the Customer location will be billed as per Customer travel policies.
    • Customer will provide the required subject matter expert support and the resources required for any custom development project.
    • FTE engagements purchased cannot be carried forward after the Term.
    • On sharing a requirement, the Customer will provide Mindtickle, with a lead time of 5 working days to start working on the requirement.
    • The timeline for every project/task will be defined and communicated to the Customer by Mindtickle after the requirements are frozen.
    • For projects/tasks with fixed, predefined timelines by the Customer, the Customer will notify Mindtickle at the earliest date possible. Mindtickle will then analyse the requirement, complete the Solution Document, and share the projected timeline to complete the project/task. If the projected timeline shared by Mindtickle does not meet the target timeline required by the Customer, Mindtickle and Customer will discuss and agree upon one or combination of more than one of the below options:
      • Explore the possibility of adding an additional resource on the project to pull the expected timeline for completion. This can be explored only if –
        • There is an available lead time of a minimum fifteen (15) business days before a resource needs to be added; and
        • The duration for which the additional resource is required is fixed and agreed upon.
      • Decide on the minimum viable output to be delivered within the target timeline
      • Explore the possibility of changing the output format in order to reduce the time investment required in development
    • All timelines communicated by Mindtickle will be based on budgeted Customer review timelines and project steps as set out in the project schedule.

    Table 1: Standard Integrations – SSO

    • Any SAML 2.0 Supported IdP (some examples below):
      • OKTA
      • Salesforce
      • Microsoft Azure
      • Microsoft Dynamics CRM
      • One Login
      • IBM Cloud
      • Oracle HCM
      • Ping Identity
      • Veeva
      • Centrify
      • Impartner
      • SecureAuth
      • SailPoint
      • OpenID
      • Google SSO
      • JWT

    Table 2: Standard Integrations – User Sync

    • Workday
    • Bamboo HR
    • Okta
    • Azure
    • MS Dynamics
    • Salesforce
    • Veeva

    Table 3: Standard Integrations – Conferencing Tools

    • Webex
    • Zoom 
    • MS Teams
    • Google Meets
    • GoTo

    Table 4: Standard Integrations – Dialer Tools

    • Cloudtalk
    • Salesloft
    • RingCentral
    • Dialpad
    • Aircall
    • Genesis
    • Outreach
    • Salesforce Dialer
    • Five9

    Table 5: Standard Integrations –
    Content Repository

    • Google Drive
    • Sharepoint 
    • Adobe Experience Manager (AEM)
    • Egynte

    If during the integration process, Mindtickle determines that the Customer has SSO, HRMS, and other business applications which prevent a standard integration with the Mindtickle Platform, then Mindtickle will work with the Customer to estimate the additional integration effort involved and submit a change order to Customer for approval before continuing with the integration work.

    Professional Services (PS) Advisory

    Included with the Professional Services Advisory Package, MindTickle shall provide the following services based on the number of hours purchased: 

    • Consult on Mindtickle platform configuration and governance
    • Consult on best practices for User Management
    • Consult on best practices to leverage Mindtickle’s Copilot (AI) capabilities
    • Use-case deep dive
    • Advise on best practices for structuring content in Mindtickle
    • Provide framework and guidance on Program set up and launch
    • Deep dive on leveraging Mindtickle Reporting & Analytics Data for Program and Platform level insights
    • Consult on Standard Mindtickle-supported integrations with 3rd party platforms
    • Design onboarding instruction and enablement
    • Design and launch the Revenue Productivity Center of Excellence
    • Design and oversee reporting for Revenue Productivity metrics
    • Design program-based enablement updates
    • Design coaching and ongoing training curriculum
    • Design change management framework and strategy
    • Other consultation may be provided based on the Customer’s requirements within the hours specified in the order form. 

    Professional Services Advisory Engagement Terms

    Mindtickle will provide a resource (“Consultant”) for providing PS Advisory Services subject to the following terms and conditions:

    • US-based Consultants will work from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. during their home office time zone. India-based Consultants will generally work from 12 p.m. to 9 p.m. during their home time zone. Meetings outside of these hours can be arranged as mutually agreed upon between Customer and Consultant.
    • Consultant will be entitled to reasonable allowances for Paid Time Off, Administration, Sick Leave, and Training.
    • The consultant will work from home or the Mindtickle office. Travel to the Customer’s location will be billed according to the Customer’s travel policies.
    • PS Advisory Services purchased cannot be carried forward after the Term.

    Out-of-Scope Services (for PS Advisory)

    The following services are not in the scope of the contract and may require additional fees to be delivered. In the event that an out-of-scope service is deemed necessary, both MindTickle and the Customer shall collaborate to ascertain and document the service’s scope, level of effort, and tasks through a change order. Out-of-scope services include, but are not limited to, the following:

    • Any custom integrations
    • Any data clean-up, filtering, or manipulation
    • Any MindTickle platform administrative tasks
    • Any updates or changes to completed and accepted integrations, including Customer changes to profile fields in the integrated, third-party system for User SSO or User sync
    • SFDC – Module Sync and Opportunity Integrations
    • Custom reports
      • One-time or cadence-based email reports
      • Creation of reports using the reporting API data set
      • Readiness Index dashboards
      • Development of in-platform custom reporting
    • Integration with business intelligence or data visualization tools Content creation
    • Data migration.

    Technical Account Manager Services Scope and Description

    Following Professional Services will be provided:

    • Business Type Setup
      • * Maximum two (2) Business Types (sales, renewals, etc)
    • User Access
      • Standard SFDC Manager hierarchy
      • User access controlled by opportunity-level field assignments
      • Note BoostUp does not support SFDC role-based hierarchy
    • Rollups
      • Standard Filters only
      • Maximum three (3) Custom Forecast Types (commit, best case, upside, etc.)
      • Hierarchy
      • AE/Manager Forecast Submission workflow with deal inclusion criteria
      • Standard Forecast rollups
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom columns
      • Deal inclusion criteria
      • Targets
    • Accounts
      • Maximum six (6) Custom Filters
      • Maximum fifteen (10) custom SFDC fields
    • Opportunities
      • Maximum ten (10) Custom Filters
      • One (1) Sales Process
      • Enable in-line edit
      • Maximum ten (10) custom SFDC fields
      • Opportunity splits not supported as part of the Professional offering
    • Account / Deal Insights
      • Topics
      • Competitors
    • Forecast Dashboard
      • Standard filters only
    • Forecast Trends, Pipeline Trends Dashboards, Pipeline Risk Analytics
      • Maximum three (3) additional custom filters
    • Scoring & Predictions
      • Opportunity Engagement Risk score
      • Account Engagement Risk score
      • BoostUp Projections (enabled for Ops initially until the algorithm has collected the necessary data – generally 2 quarters of history)
    • General
      • oAuth SSO
      • SFDC Automatic User Provisioning
      • SFDC Manager Hierarchy Sync
      • SFDC Validation Rules / Integration User setup (Admin or User based)

    Mindtickle Roles and Responsibilities of the Implementation Packages

    Mindtickle will staff a Professional Services Consultant, CaaS Consultant & Solutions Architect to provide the agreed-upon services.

    Mindtickle Staff Role

    Responsibilities

    Professional Services Consultant

    • Project management

    •Advise implementation and configuration

    •Provide leading practices

    •Oversees other Mindtickle roles

    Solutions

    Architect

    • Provide technical guidance on standard, in-scope integrations

    •Performs technical integration tasks required to enable Customer to configure and test the integrations in scope

    Content as a Service (CaaS) Consultant

    • Oversees the design, development, and delivery of in-scope content deliverables

    Customer Roles and Responsibilities

    Customers will staff a team responsible for the duties of the roles below and any additional roles as required.

    Customer Staff Role

    Description

    Enablement Owner

    • Defines overall vision, goals, operational standards, and processes for deploying Mindtickle with Customer organization.

    Program Manager

    • Develops enablement program plans, drives engagement, and provides reports/data insights

    Content Author

    • Develops program content

    Enablement Admin

    • Responsible for site and User Admin; supports content authors with Platform usage

    IT Admin/Developer

    • Develops and/or configures, and tests integrations

    Customers will provide timely access to all necessary resources, including personnel, content, IT systems, etc. as necessary for Mindtickle to provide the Services.

    Customers acknowledge that implementing Mindtickle is a coordinated effort between the Customer and Mindtickle Professional Services teams. The customer agrees to take ownership of activities identified as the customer’s responsibility during the implementation of Mindtickle. 

    Customers agree to perform the following activities and/or prepare the following pre-requisites for each implementation package:  

    Package

    Customer responsibilities or pre-requisites

    LMS

    • Customer must come with a competency model to be implemented on the Mindtickle platform at or before executing the contractual agreements. 

    •If/When Customer does not have a competency model available in time, Customer agrees to use the default Mindtickle ideal rep profile and prioritize up to 5 competency groupings

    •Customer must come with an enablement program ready to deploy from the following sources

    •If/When Customer does not have a program available in time, Customer agrees to deploy a program from the below sources 

    ◦Any template from the Mindtickle template gallery

    ◦Purchase a program from Mindtickle’s Partners

    Readiness

    • All responsibilities and pre-requisites in the LMS package and;

    •Identify by no later than week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front-line managers for the coaching session

    •If/When the Customer does not have a program available in time, The Customer agrees to deploy a program from the below sources 

    ◦Mindtickle Ready-To-Deploy programs

    ◦Any template from the Mindtickle template gallery

    ◦Purchase a program from Mindtickle’s Partners

    Enable

    • All responsibilities and prerequisites in the LMS and Readiness package.

    Transform

    • All responsibilities and prerequisites in the Enable package, and

    •Identify by week 2 of the implementation a cohort of 2-3 front-line managers for CallAI

     

    Prior to implementation kick-off, Customer admin(s) involved in the project shall attend  either self-paced training on Mindtickle University or live workshops hosted by Mindtickle for subscribed products as per the Recommended training chart shown below

    Services-Description

    Place of Performance

    All Professional Services will be provided at the Customer site or in Mindtickle offices remotely, as per the project requirements and as mutually agreed between Mindtickle and the Customer.

    Acceptance of Services

    • Customer shall have the right to review the Professional Services rendered within five (5) calendar days of receipt of subject Professional Services from Mindtickle to check it complies with the specifications mutually agreed to by Customer and Mindtickle.
    • Before the end of the five (5) calendar-day review period, Customer shall respond to Mindtickle in writing whether the subject Professional Services is accepted by Customer.
    • If Customer does not respond to Mindtickle in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period, subject Professional Services shall be deemed accepted by Customer.
    • If the Customer does not accept subject Professional Services, then Customer shall provide detailed feedback specifying the required changes and reasoning in writing within the five (5) calendar day review period.
    • Upon receipt of the detailed feedback, Mindtickle shall make reasonable effort to revise subject Professional Services and resubmit for review and acceptance.
    • Customer agrees to a total of two review cycles for each Professional Service in scope.

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    Terms of Service Prior to 0420 https://www.mindtickle.com/terms-of-service-prior-to-0420/ Mon, 16 Jan 2023 09:12:31 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=975 Terms of Service Effective prior to April 2020. Click here for the most recent version of our Terms of Service MASTER SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES AGREEMENT THIS MASTER SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES AGREEMENT GOVERNS YOUR (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘CUSTOMER/S’) ACCESS TO AND USE OF  THE SERVICES THAT CUSTOMER IS USING IN CONNECTION HEREWITH AND THAT ARE BROUGHT TO …

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    Terms of Service

    Effective prior to April 2020. Click here for the most recent version of our Terms of Service

    MASTER SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES AGREEMENT

    THIS MASTER SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES AGREEMENT GOVERNS YOUR (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘CUSTOMER/S’) ACCESS TO AND USE OF  THE SERVICES THAT CUSTOMER IS USING IN CONNECTION HEREWITH AND THAT ARE BROUGHT TO CUSTOMER BY MINDTICKLE, INC OR MINDTICKLE INTERACTIVE MEDIA PRIVATE LIMITED WHICH OWNS AND OPERATES THE SERVICE (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘MINDTICKLE’).

    BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, EITHER BY CLICKING A BOX INDICATING ACCEPTANCE OR BY EXECUTING AN ORDER FORM THAT REFERENCES THIS AGREEMENT, OR BY ACCESSING OR USING ANY PART OF THE SERVICE, CUSTOMER AGREES TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF CUSTOMER IS ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF A COMPANY OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, CUSTOMER REPRESENTS TO HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BIND SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES TO ALL OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, IN WHICH CASE THE TERM “CUSTOMER” SHALL REFER TO SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES. IF CUSTOMER DOES NOT HAVE SUCH AUTHORITY, OR IF CUSTOMER DOES NOT UNCONDITIONALLY AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, CUSTOMER MUST NOT ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT AND CUSTOMER WILL NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT TO USE THE SERVICES.

    CUSTOMER MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES IF CUSTOMER IS MINDTICKLE’S DIRECT COMPETITOR, EXCEPT WITH MINDTICKLE’S PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT. IN ADDITION, CUSTOMER MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES FOR PURPOSES OF MONITORING THEIR AVAILABILITY, PERFORMANCE OR FUNCTIONALITY, OR FOR ANY OTHER BENCHMARKING OR COMPETITIVE PURPOSES.

    THIS AGREEMENT IS EFFECTIVE BETWEEN CUSTOMER AND MINDTICKLE AS OF THE DATE OF CUSTOMER ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT. MINDTICKLE’S ACCEPTANCE IS EXPRESSLY CONDITIONED UPON CUSTOMER’S ASSENT TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER TERMS.

    1. Agreement Scope; Services.

    1.1 Scope.  This Master Subscription and Services Agreement applies to Customer’s use of (i) MindTickle’s online learning and enablement system software offered as a service (the “Subscription Services”) as described in one or more MindTickle subscription-based ordering documents signed by the Parties (each, an “Order”); and (ii) professional and/or consulting services (“Professional Services”) as described in one or more statements of work signed by the Parties, including any attachments thereto (“SOW”).  The Order will include the fees for the Services (“Fees”), the effective date of the Order and length of term (“Subscription Term”), and number of Users (as defined herein).  Subscription Services and Professional Services are collectively referred to as the “Services” and Orders and SOWs are collectively referred to as “Provisioning Documents.” This Master Services Subscription Agreement and all Provisioning Documents, including any addenda and exhibits, constitute the “Agreement.”  All capitalized terms not defined herein will have the meanings attributed to them in the Provisioning Documents.

    1.2 Procurement and Provisioning by Affiliates.  Customer may procure the Services under this Agreement for its own self and on behalf of one or more Customer Affiliates (defined below).  Customer is responsible for the acts and omissions of Customer Affiliates under any Provisioning Document pursuant to which the Customer Affiliate receives the benefit of the Services but is not a signatory.  Customer Affiliates who sign a Provisioning Document will be deemed to be the Customer hereunder and solely responsible for its performance or non-performance thereunder.  “Affiliate” means any legal entity directly or indirectly controlling, controlled by or under common control with a Party, where control means the ownership of a majority share of the stock, equity or voting interests of such entity.

    1.3 Subscription Services Users.  During the Subscription Term set forth in each Order, MindTickle will make the Subscription Services available to Customer and its authorized end users (“End Users”) and administrative account users (“Admin(s)”) (collectively, “Users”) which may be Customer’s Affiliates, employees, agents or contractors.  The number of Users shall be set forth in the Order.  Customer shall assign each User a Log-In (as set forth in Section 2.5).  Customer acknowledges that the licenses to access the Subscription Services hereunder are provided on an assigned User basis.  Where a User no longer requires access to the Subscription Services (e.g., User no longer is employed or engaged by Customer), Customer may deactivate the Log-In for such User and re-provision it to a new User provided that all data associated with the previous User may be removed or deleted from the Subscription Services by MindTickle.   Users may access and use the Subscription Services solely for Customer’s internal business purposes in accordance with the terms of this Agreement.  Customer is responsible for use of the Subscription Services by Users and any party who accesses the Subscription Services with a User’s account credentials.

    1.4 Upgrades; Modifications; Improvements and Enhancements. MindTickle shall have sole discretion as to whether to make updates, improvements, modifications or enhancements or add new features (“Updates”) to the Subscription Services, and reserves the right to do so at any time, provided that such Updates do not materially and adversely impact the Services nor result in any increase of the price of the Services during the Subscription Term.  Any such Updates are deemed part of the Subscription Services and shall be subject to this Agreement.

    1.5 Service Level Agreement.  The Application Availability service level agreement is set forth in https://www.mindtickle.com/service-level-agreement/  (“SLA”).  The Subscription Services may be temporarily unavailable for scheduled maintenance, unscheduled emergency maintenance or other causes beyond MindTickle’s reasonable control.  MindTickle will use reasonable efforts to provide advance notice of any scheduled unavailability of the Subscription Services.  If MindTickle does not meet the Service Commitment set forth in SLA, MindTickle shall provide the Service Credits as set forth in therein.

    2. Subscription Services Terms of Use.

    2.1 Restrictions.  Customer will not, and will ensure that its Users do not, directly or indirectly (i) make the Subscription Services available to anyone other than Users or use the Subscription Services for the benefit of any unrelated third party; (ii) sell, resell, assign, pledge, transfer, license, sublicense, distribute, rent or lease the Subscription Services; (iii) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code, object code or underlying structure, ideas or algorithms of the Subscription Services or any software, documentation or data related to or provided with the Subscription Services; (iv) modify, translate or create derivative works based on the Subscription Services or remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Subscription Services; (v) use or access the Subscription Services to build or support, and/or assist a third party in building or supporting products or services competitive to the Subscription Services; (vi) include the Subscription Services in a service bureau or outsourcing offering; (vii) knowingly or willfully use the Services in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, impair or otherwise interfere with MindTickle’s provision of the Subscription Services; (viii) disclose the Subscription Services to any competitor of MindTickle or other third parties.  Customer also agrees that it will, and will ensure that its Users, use the Subscription Services only in compliance with the MindTickle Acceptable Use Policies as set forth at https://www.mindtickle.com/acceptable-use-policy/.

    2.2 Virus and Malicious Code. Neither Customer nor any User, will insert nor permit the insertion or introduction of any Malicious Code (defined below) into the MindTickle software or systems (collectively “System”) that are used to deliver the Subscription Services. “Malicious Code” means (i) any code, program, or sub-program the knowing or intended purpose or effect of which is to damage or maliciously interfere with the operation of System such as the System or to halt, disable, or interfere with the operation of the Subscription Services or the System, or (ii) any device, method, or token that permits any person to circumvent without authorization the normal security of the Subscription Services or the System.

    2.3 Minimum Standards. Customer and its Users will provide and maintain all hardware, software and network connectivity (“Environment”) needed to access the Internet and the Subscription Services that meet the standards provided on the MindTickle’s website at https://www.mindtickle.com/browsers-and-device-support/ which may be revised by MindTickle from time to time and communicated to Customer and/or updated on the MindTickle’s website

    2.4 Links to/from Third Party Sites. The Subscription Service may allow Customer or its Users to (i) leave the Subscription Services and/or access third party websites and content, (ii) access the Subscription Services through third party websites, or (iii) embed links to third party content as or into Customer Data (any of the foregoing, “Links” or Linked Sites”). Any such Links or Linked Sites are not under the control of MindTickle, are used at Customer’s sole risk, and MindTickle is not responsible for the contents of any Linked Site, any Link contained in a Linked Site, any changes or updates to Linked Sites, or the performance or security of Linked Sites.  Any content accessed by Customer through Links or Linked Sites shall be subject to such agreement as is entered between Customer and the relevant third party content provider.

    2.5 Log-Ins; Security. Customer is responsible for administering usernames and passwords for all Users (the “Log-In Information”) and for any User’s access granted to the Subscription Services. Log-In Information (which includes log-ins by means of single sign on) may be used only by the assigned User and may not be shared. Customer is responsible for maintaining the security of the Equipment and Customer’s Log-Ins.  To the extent within Customer’s control, Customer will take reasonable measures to prevent unauthorized third parties from accessing the Subscription Services.  Customer shall be liable for all acts and omissions of its Users, and for any resulting loss that Customer or a User may incur due to the unauthorized use of a Users’ Log-Ins or accounts.

    2.6 Suspension.

    2.6.1 Customer Violation.  MindTickle may immediately suspend Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if (i) Customer fails to make payment for undisputed Fees due within 10 business days after MindTickle has provided Customer with written notice of such failure; or (ii) Customer violates this Section 2, or Section 9 (Confidential Information).  MindTickle will provide Customer the basis for suspension (“Violation”) together with reasonable assistance, where possible, to prevent or resolve the basis for such Violation.  Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the Violation.

    2.6.2 Emergencies.  MindTickle may immediately suspend the Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if: (i) MindTickle becomes aware of what it, in its sole discretion, deems a credible claim that the Subscription Services infringe upon the intellectual property rights of a third party; (ii) if required to do so by law or (iii) if there is an event for which MindTickle reasonably believes suspension of Subscription Services is necessary to protect the MindTickle network or MindTickle’s other customers (e.g., DDoS, a security incident, etc.).   In each case, MindTickle will give you advance notice of pending suspension or termination of at least twelve (12) hours, unless MindTickle determines, in its reasonable discretion, that no notice or shorter notice is necessary to protect MindTickle, its customers, or others.  Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the basis for such suspension. Any suspension by MindTickle of the Subscription Services under this Section 2.6 will not relieve Customer of its payment obligations hereunder.

    3. Ownership; Use of Customer Data and Statistical Information.

    3.1 Subscription Services.  Customer acknowledges that the Subscription Services are offered online on a subscription basis.  As between the Parties, MindTickle owns and reserves all rights, title and interest in and to the Subscription Services, including any software or documents related to or provided with the Subscription Services and all intellectual property rights and derivatives, modifications, refinements or improvements thereto (“MindTickle IP”).  From time to time, Customer or its Users may submit to MindTickle comments, questions, enhancement requests, suggestions, ideas, process descriptions or other information related to the Subscription Services (“Feedback”).  Customer agrees that MindTickle has all rights to use and incorporate Feedback into the Subscription Services without restriction or payment to Customer.  No rights are granted to Customer other than as expressly set forth herein.

    3.2 Professional Services Results.  MindTickle retains all ownership rights to all materials including background and training materials, data, processes, tools, methodologies, results, reports, presentations or any other information or material generated or developed by MindTickle through the use of or derived from MindTickle’s Confidential Information or the MindTickle IP.  Customer retains all ownership rights any materials generated or developed by MindTickle and exclusively derived from the Customer Data (e.g., edited, modified, reformatted versions of Customer Data, all of which shall be deemed part of “Customer Data” as defined below).

    3.3 Customer Data.  Customer owns or has secured the right to use any data, content, information or material originated by Customer or that Customer loads into, uses, displays, collects, creates, or distributes through its use of the Subscription Services (“Customer Data”).  Customer will be solely responsible for (i) the accuracy, quality, content, legality and use of Customer Data, including the means by which Customer Data is acquired and transferred by Customer or its Users outside of the Subscription Services, (ii) obtaining any licenses, permissions or authorizations required  for any use of the Customer Data, and (iii) complying with all applicable  terms and conditions of any third party website related to Customer Data obtained from such third party website or its use in connection with the Subscription Services.  Customer hereby grants MindTickle the right to use the Customer Data solely as necessary to provide or to assist Customer in the use of the Services hereunder.

    3.4 Statistical Information.  MindTickle may monitor Customer’s and its User’s use and the operation of the Subscription Services and compile such data in an aggregate and anonymous manner to derive statistical and performance information related to the provision and operation of the Subscription Services (“Statistical Information”).  MindTickle may make such Statistical Information publicly available, provided that such information does not include any data that would enable the identification of Customer or disclose Customer Confidential Information.  MindTickle retains all rights, title and interest in and to such Statistical Information.

    4. Payments.

    4.1 Fees.  Customer will pay all fees set forth in the Provisioning Documents and any fees invoiced pursuant to this Agreement.  All fees are non-cancelable and non-refundable, except as expressly specified in this Agreement.  Professional Services will be provided on a time and materials (“T&M”) basis unless otherwise set forth in the SOW.  If an estimated total amount is stated in the SOW, that amount is a good faith estimate and not a guarantee the Professional Services will be completed for that amount.

    4.2 Overages.  Customer will, at all times, ensure that its use of the Subscription Services does not exceed the usage terms specified in the Order (“Usage Rights”).  If MindTickle determines that Customer is exceeding the Usage Rights (an “Overage”), MindTickle will notify Customer, and MindTickle has the right to charge Customer, and Customer agrees to pay, for the Overage from the date the Overage commenced through the end of the then current Subscription Term at (i) MindTickle’s then current rates, or (ii) if addressed in the Order, at such rates as set forth in such Order, which will be co-termed with the Subscription Term in the original Order.

    4.3 Taxes and Currency.  All fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of, taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, federal or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services.  Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on MindTickle’s net income or property.  Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all fees due hereunder will be paid in U.S. Dollars.

    4.4 Invoices.  All amounts are due and payable as specified in the Provisioning Documents.  If no payment terms are specified in the applicable Provisioning Documents, payment terms are net 30 days from receipt of invoice.  Unpaid invoices not the subject of a written good faith dispute are subject to a finance charge of 1.5% per month on any outstanding balance, or the maximum permitted by law, whichever is lower, plus all reasonable expenses of collection.

    4.5 SOW Expenses.  Customer will be responsible for all reasonable travel expenses, hotel accommodations and any other reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred by MindTickle in connection with the Professional Services, as set forth in the SOW or subject to Customer’s prior written approval (email shall suffice).

    5. Term and Termination.

    5.1 Term.  Subject to earlier termination as provided below, this Agreement shall remain in effect until all Orders have terminated or expired, or if this Agreement is otherwise terminated in accordance with the terms hereunder. Unless stated otherwise in the Order, the Subscription Term may be renewed, subject to the mutual agreement of the Parties, for subsequent twelve (12) month periods.  Notwithstanding the foregoing, if immediately following the expiration of the Subscription Term in any Order, the Parties are negotiating a renewal of such Order, the Agreement Term will remain in effect for a reasonable period of time to allow the Parties to effect such renewal.  Nothing contained herein will extend the Subscription Term set forth in any Order.

    5.2 Termination for Cause.  In the event of a material breach by either Party, the non-breaching Party will have the right to terminate the applicable Provisioning Document for cause if such breach has not been cured within 30 days after written notice from the non-breaching Party specifying the breach.

    5.3 Effect of Termination.  If MindTickle terminates this Agreement and/or a Provisioning Document for Customer’s uncured material breach (i) all fees set forth in the terminated Provisioning Document will be immediately due and payable; (ii) all rights granted thereunder will immediately terminate; and (iii) all unpaid Overages shall be also immediately due and payable.  If Customer terminates a Provisioning Document for MindTickle’s uncured material breach, Customer will be entitled to a pro-rata refund for applicable prepaid fees under such terminated Provisioning Document for the MindTickle Services not performed calculated from the date of termination.  Upon completion of the Agreement Term, all rights to access and use the Subscription Services will terminate.  Notwithstanding the foregoing, at Customer’s request if received within 30 days of termination of the Order (“Grace Period”), MindTickle shall make available to Customer any of the Customer Data in then MindTickle’s possession in such format as mutually agreed by the Parties.  After such Grace period, Customer acknowledges and agrees that MindTickle has no obligation to retain Customer Data and that MindTickle will irretrievably delete and destroy Customer Data.  If requested by the Customer in writing, MindTickle will certify to such destruction in writing.

    5.4 Survival.  The following sections of this Agreement will survive the termination of the Agreement:  Section 2.1 (Restrictions), Section 3 (Ownership, Use of Customer Data, Statistical Information), Section 4 (Payments), Section 5 (Term and Termination), Section 6.5 (Warranties Disclaimer), Section 7 (Indemnification), Section 8 (Limitation of Liability), Section 9 (Confidential Information) and Section 11 (General Terms).

    6. Warranties; Warranty Remedies; Warranties Disclaimer.

    6.1 General Warranty.  Each Party represents and warrants to the other Party that it has the power and authority to enter into the Agreement.

    6.2 Subscription Services Warranty.  MindTickle warrants the Subscription Services, under normal use, will (i) perform materially in accordance with the Documentation provided by MindTickle; (ii) be provided in a manner consistent with generally accepted industry standards.  “Documentation” means any help pages or other end user documentation provided by MindTickle to describe the functionality of the Subscription Services or how to use the Subscription Services.

    6.3 Professional Services Warranty.  MindTickle warrants the Professional Services will be performed in a professional and workmanlike manner, in accordance with generally accepted industry standards and the specifications set forth in the SOW.

    6.4 Warranty Remedies.

    6.4.1      Customer will notify MindTickle of any material breach of the warranties (“Warranty Deficiency”) under Sections 6.2 and 6.3 within 30 days of the performance of the relevant MindTickle Services and Customer’s remedy will be the re-performance of the Warranty Deficiency. If MindTickle cannot re-perform such Warranty Deficiency and provide the MindTickle Services as warranted, Customer will be entitled to terminate the deficient MindTickle Services, as applicable, and recover a pro-rata portion of the fees paid to MindTickle for such deficient MindTickle Services.

    6.4.2      The foregoing shall be Customer’s exclusive remedies and MindTickle’s entire liability with respect to the warranty commitments set forth in Sections 6.2 and 6.3.

    6.5 WARRANTIES DISCLAIMER.  EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTIES ABOVE, AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MINDTICKLE AND ITS THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS DISCLAIM ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.  MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT THE RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, SUITABILITY, OR ACCURACY OF THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES OR THE RESULTS CUSTOMER MAY OBTAIN BY USING THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES.  MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION OF THE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES OR THAT MINDTICKLE WILL CORRECT ALL DEFECTS OR PREVENT THIRD PARTY DISRUPTIONS OR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD PARTY ACCESS.  MINDTICKLE DISCLAIMS ALL FAILURES, DELAYS, AND OTHER PROBLEMS INHERENT IN THE USE OF THE INTERNET, TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITIES OR EQUIPMENT, OR NETWORKS THAT ARE NOT CONTROLLED BY MINDTICKLE.  IN THE EVENT ANY DISCLAIMER IN THIS SECTION CONFLICTS WITH THE SLA, THE TERMS OF THE SLA SHALL GOVERN WITH RESPECT TO THAT SPECIFIC DISCLAIMER.

    7. Indemnification.

    7.1 MindTickle.  MindTickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the MindTickle Services as provided by MindTickle directly infringe the U.S. patent, copyright, or trademark rights of the claimant and will pay Customer for finally-awarded damages and costs and MindTickle-approved settlements of the claim.  MindTickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the MindTickle Services with non-MindTickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the MindTickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement.  MindTickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the MindTickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    7.2 Customer.  Customer will defend MindTickle against any claim brought against MindTickle by a third party alleging (i) Customer Data infringes the intellectual property, privacy or other rights of the claimant; or (ii) Customer’s use of the MindTickle Services, other than as authorized in this Agreement, violates applicable law or regulations, or infringes the claimant’s intellectual property rights, and will pay MindTickle for finally-awarded damages and costs and Customer-approved settlements of the claim.

    7.3 Procedure.  As a condition to the indemnifying Party’s obligations under this Section 7, the Party seeking indemnification must (i) promptly give written notice of the claim to the indemnifying Party; (ii) give the indemnifying Party sole control of the defense and settlement of the claim (provided that the indemnifying Party may not settle any claim unless it unconditionally releases the indemnified Party of all liability); and (iii) provide the indemnifying Party, at the indemnifying Party’s cost, all reasonable assistance.  THIS SECTION STATES THE INDEMNIFIED PARTY’S SOLE REMEDY, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER REMEDIES (IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE), AND THE INDEMNIFYING PARTY’S TOTAL LIABILITY REGARDING THE CLAIMS AND LIABILITIES ADDRESSED BY THIS SECTION 7.

    8. Limitation of Liability. NO PARTY WILL BE LIABLE UNDER ANY CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER THEORY (i) FOR ERROR OR INTERRUPTION OF USE, INACCURACY OR COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS, SERVICE OR TECHNOLOGY, OR LOSS OF BUSINESS OR DATA; (ii) FOR ANY INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, LOST PROFITS, LOST REVENUE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES; (iii) FOR ANY MATTER BEYOND ITS REASONABLE CONTROL, EVEN IF SUCH PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE; OR (iv) EXCEPT FOR CUSTOMER PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS, FOR ANY AMOUNTS THAT, TOGETHER WITH AMOUNTS ASSOCIATED WITH ALL OTHER CLAIMS, EXCEED THE CUMULATIVE FEES INVOICED TO CUSTOMER UNDER THE AGREEMENT IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE DATE THE CLAIM AROSE.  THE FOREGOING LIMITATION WILL NOT APPLY TO A PARTY’S OBLIGATION OF INDEMNIFICATION AS SET FORTH IN SECTION 7 OR TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY LAW.

    9. Confidential Information. Each Party (the “Recipient”) understands that the other Party (the “Discloser”) may during the Agreement Term and in connection with the Services disclose non-public information relating to the Discloser’s business that is designated as confidential or reasonably should be understood to be confidential and/or proprietary given the nature of the information and circumstances of disclosure (“Confidential Information”).  The Recipient agrees (i) to take reasonable precautions to protect such Confidential Information; and (ii) not to use or divulge to any third person any such Confidential Information except as set forth herein and only to those of its employees and contractors who need access for purposes consistent with this Agreement and who are bound to confidentiality terms with Recipient containing protections no less stringent than those herein.  The Discloser agrees that the foregoing will not apply with respect to Confidential Information that the Recipient can document (a) is or becomes generally available to the public; (b) was in its possession or known by it prior to receipt from the Discloser; (c) was rightfully disclosed to it by a third party; or (d) was independently developed without use of any Confidential Information of the Discloser.  If the Recipient is required by law or court order to disclose Confidential Information, it will give prior written notice to the Discloser (to the extent legally permitted) and reasonable assistance at the Discloser’s cost to contest the disclosure.  Recipient acknowledges that the breach or threatened breach of this Agreement may result in irreparable injury to Discloser and that, in addition to its other remedies, the Discloser shall be entitled to seek such temporary and permanent injunctive relief it deems necessary to restrain any threatened or continued breach of this Agreement.

    10. Insurance and Security.

    10.1 Insurance.  MindTickle will, at its expense, procure and maintain throughout the Agreement Term insurance policies and coverages required by law applicable to its business operations and sufficient to support and cover its obligations hereunder.  All such policies identified under this Section shall be issued by reputable and financially sound insurance companies authorized to do business in the geographic area where the MindTickle Services are to be performed.  Upon Customer’s written request, MindTickle shall furnish to Customer a certificate of insurance evidencing that such policies are in full force and effect.

    10.2 Data Privacy and Security.  MindTickle shall maintain a privacy policy that complies with all applicable laws and which is available as set forth at https://www.mindtickle.com/privacy-policy/  (“Privacy Policy”), as may be updated from time to time. Furthermore, MindTickle will maintain appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards designed to protect the security and integrity of the Subscription Services and Customer Data in accordance its security obligations available as set forth in at http://www.mindtickle.com/data-security-and-platform-security-specifications/  (“Security Requirements”), as may be updated from time to time.  Those safeguards may include, but will not be limited to, measures for endeavoring to prevent access, use, modification or disclosure of Customer Data by MindTickle personnel except: (a) as necessary to provide the Services including but not limited to preventing or addressing Service or technical problems; (b) as compelled by law in accordance with Section 2.6; or (c) as may expressly permitted in a writing from an authorized Customer representative.

    11. General Terms.

    11.1 Notice.  MindTickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal.  Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in MindTickle’s account information.  All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail or express delivery, if to MindTickle, attention CEO, at 115 Sansome Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94104, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.2 Force Majeure.  Neither Party will be responsible for failure or delay of performance if caused by an act of nature, war, hostility or sabotage; an electrical, internet, or telecommunication outage that is not caused by the obligated Party; government restrictions (including the denial or cancellation of any export or other license); or other event outside the reasonable control of the obligated Party.  Each Party will use reasonable efforts to mitigate the effect of a force majeure event.  If such event continues for more than 20 days, either Party may cancel unperformed Services upon written notice.  A force majeure event shall not excuse Customer’s obligations to make timely payment.

    11.3 Governing Law.  Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by California law, excluding its conflicts of law provisions, and controlling U.S. federal law; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of and venue in the state and federal courts California.  Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.4 Entire Agreement.  This Agreement represents the Parties’ entire understanding relating to the Services and supersedes any prior or contemporaneous agreements or understandings regarding the Services.  In the event of a conflict between this Agreement and a contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document, the terms of the contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document will control.  No terms, provisions or conditions of any purchase order, acknowledgement or other business form Customer may use in connection with the acquisition of Services will affect the rights, duties or obligations of the Parties hereunder, or otherwise modify this Agreement, regardless of any failure of MindTickle to object to such terms, provisions or conditions.

    11.5 Amendment / No Waiver.  This Agreement may be amended only by written agreement signed by the Parties.  If any provision of this Agreement is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, then such provision(s) will be construed to reflect the intent of the invalid or unenforceable provision(s), with all other provisions remaining in full force and effect.  The failure of either Party to enforce any right or provision in the Agreement will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision unless acknowledged and agreed to by such Party in writing.

    11.6 Assignment; Subcontracting.  No joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between MindTickle and Customer as a result of the Agreement or use of the Services.  This Agreement and any rights or obligations hereunder may not be assigned, sublicensed or otherwise transferred by the Parties without the prior written approval of the non-assigning Party, except that either Party may assign or transfer this Agreement in connection with a merger or acquisition of all or substantially all of the assets of the assigning company (other than to a direct competitor of the non-assigning Party and provided that the assignee agrees in writing to be bound by all terms and conditions of this Agreement) by providing the non-assigning Party with prompt written notice of assignment.  Any purported assignment in violation of this section will be void.  MindTickle may use subcontractors to perform Professional Services; MindTickle will remain responsible for the performance of such Professional Services by any such subcontractor and otherwise for any subcontractor’s compliance with the terms of this Agreement.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws.  Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

    11.8 U.S. Government Matters.  Notwithstanding anything else, Customer may not provide to any person or export or re-export or allow the export or re-export of the Services or any software or anything related thereto or any direct product thereof (collectively “Controlled Subject Matter”), in violation of any restrictions, laws or regulations of the United States Department of Commerce, the United States Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control, or any other United States or foreign agency or authority. Without limiting the foregoing Customer acknowledges and agrees that the Controlled Subject Matter will not be used or transferred or otherwise exported or re-exported to countries as to which the United States maintains an embargo (collectively, “Embargoed Countries”), or to or by a national or resident thereof, or any person or entity on the U.S. Department of Treasury’s List of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Table of Denial Orders (collectively, “Designated Nationals”).  The lists of Embargoed Countries and Designated Nationals are subject to change without notice.  Use of the Service is representation and warranty that the user is not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of an Embargoed Country or Designated National.  The Controlled Subject Matter may use or include encryption technology that is subject to licensing requirements under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations.  As defined in FAR section 2.101, any software and documentation provided by MindTickle are “commercial items” and according to DFAR section 252.227‑7014(a)(1) and (5) are deemed to be “commercial computer software” and “commercial computer software documentation.”  Consistent with DFAR section 227.7202 and FAR section 12.212, any use modification, reproduction, release, performance, display, or disclosure of such commercial software or commercial software documentation by the U.S. Government will be governed solely by the terms of this Agreement and will be prohibited except to the extent expressly permitted by the terms of this Agreement.

    11.9 Publicity. Customer hereby grants to MindTickle the express right to use Customer’s company logo and/ or name in marketing, sales, financial, public relations material, display materials and other communications solely to identify Customer as a MindTickle customer. MindTickle hereby grants to Customer the express right to use MindTickle name and/or name solely to identify MindTickle as a provider of Services to Customer. Other than as expressly stated herein, neither party shall use the other party’s name and/or logos without the prior written permission of the other party.

    The following sections replace those set forth in the Agreement above with respect to Customers who are executing the Provisioning Documents with MindTickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. for the purchase of Services in India:

    4.3 Taxes and Currency.  All fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of, taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, federal or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services.  Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on MindTickle’s net income or property.  Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all fees due hereunder will be paid in U.S. Dollars.

    7.1 MindTickle.  MindTickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the MindTickle Services as provided by MindTickle directly infringe a patent, copyright, or trademark rights of the claimant registered in India and will pay Customer for finally-awarded damages and costs and MindTickle-approved settlements of the claim.  MindTickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the MindTickle Services with non-MindTickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the MindTickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement.  MindTickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the MindTickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    11.1 Notice.  MindTickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal.  Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in MindTickle’s account information.  All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail or express delivery, if to MindTickle, attention CEO, at Solitaire World, Bangalore Pune Highway, Baner, Pune 411045 India, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.3 Governing Law.  Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by laws in India, excluding its conflicts of law provisions, and controlling U.S. federal law; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the  courts in Pune.  Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws.  Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable central, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

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    Terms of Service 0420 https://www.mindtickle.com/terms-of-service-0420/ Mon, 16 Jan 2023 07:17:21 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=967 Terms of Service Effective from April 2020 to December 2020. Click here for the most recent version of our Terms of Service Master Subscription and Services Agreement (MSSA) THIS AGREEMENT GOVERNS YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF OUR SERVICES. THIS AGREEMENT APPLIES TO THE SERVICES YOU ARE USING IN CONNECTION HEREWITH AND THAT ARE BROUGHT TO YOU …

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    Terms of Service

    Effective from April 2020 to December 2020. Click here for the most recent version of our Terms of Service

    Master Subscription and Services Agreement (MSSA)

    THIS AGREEMENT GOVERNS YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF OUR SERVICES. THIS AGREEMENT APPLIES TO THE SERVICES YOU ARE USING IN CONNECTION HEREWITH AND THAT ARE BROUGHT TO YOU BY MINDTICKLE, INC OR MINDTICKLE INTERACTIVE MEDIA PRIVATE LIMITED WHICH OWNS AND OPERATES THE SERVICE.

    BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, EITHER BY CLICKING A BOX INDICATING YOUR ACCEPTANCE OR BY EXECUTING AN ORDER THAT REFERENCES THIS AGREEMENT, OR BY ACCESSING OR USING ANY PART OF THE SERVICE, YOU AGREE TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF YOU ARE ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF A COMPANY OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, YOU REPRESENT THAT YOU HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BIND SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES TO ALL OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, IN WHICH CASE THE TERMS “YOU” OR “YOUR” SHALL REFER TO SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES. IF YOU DO NOT HAVE SUCH AUTHORITY, OR IF YOU DO NOT UNCONDITIONALLY AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, YOU MUST NOT ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT AND YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT TO USE THE SERVICES.

    YOU MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES IF YOU ARE OUR DIRECT COMPETITOR, EXCEPT WITH OUR PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT. IN ADDITION, YOU MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES FOR PURPOSES OF MONITORING THEIR AVAILABILITY, PERFORMANCE OR FUNCTIONALITY, OR FOR ANY OTHER BENCHMARKING OR COMPETITIVE PURPOSES.

    THIS AGREEMENT IS EFFECTIVE BETWEEN YOU AND US AS OF THE DATE OF YOUR ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT. OUR ACCEPTANCE IS EXPRESSLY CONDITIONED UPON YOUR ASSENT TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER TERMS.

    1. Agreement Scope; Services.

    1.1 Scope. This Master Subscription and Services Agreement applies to Customer’s use of:

    1. Mindtickle’s online learning and enablement system software offered as a service hosted on the Mindtickle platform (“Mindtickle Platform” or “Platform”)
    2. support or managed services related to the Platform (collectively, the “Subscription Services”)
    3. professional and/or consulting services (“Professional Services”)
    4. content as a services (“CaaS”) and
    5. Customer education services

    as described in one or more Orders or Statements of Work signed by the Parties, including any attachments thereto (each, an “Order” or “SOW” as the case may be).

    Subscription Services, Professional Services, CaaS and Customer education services are collectively referred to as the “Services” and Orders and SOWs are collectively referred to as “Provisioning Documents.”

    This Master Services Subscription Agreement and all Provisioning Documents, including any addenda and exhibits, constitute the “Agreement.” All capitalized terms not defined herein will have the meanings attributed to them in the Provisioning Documents.

    1.2 Procurement and Provisioning by Affiliates. Customer may procure the Services under this Agreement for its own self and on behalf of one or more Customer Affiliates (defined below). Customer is responsible for the acts and omissions of Customer Affiliates under any Provisioning Document pursuant to which the Customer Affiliate receives the benefit of the Services but is not a signatory. Customer Affiliates who sign a Provisioning Document will be deemed to be the Customer hereunder and solely responsible for its performance or non-performance thereunder. “Affiliate” means any legal entity directly or indirectly controlling, controlled by or under common control with a Party, where control means the ownership of a majority share of the stock, equity or voting interests of such entity.

    1.3 Subscription Services Users. During the Subscription Term set forth in each Order, Mindtickle will make the Subscription Services available to Customer and its authorized end users (“End Users”) and administrative account users (“Admin(s)”) (collectively, “Users”) which may be Customer’s Affiliates, employees, agents or contractors. The number of Users shall be set forth in the Order. Customer shall assign each User a Log-In (as set forth in Section 2.5). Customer acknowledges that the licenses to access the Subscription Services hereunder are provided on an assigned User basis. Where a User no longer requires access to the Subscription Services (e.g., User no longer is employed or engaged by Customer), Customer may deactivate the Log-In for such User and re-provision it to a new User provided that all data associated with the previous User may be removed or deleted from the Subscription Services by Mindtickle. Users may access and use the Subscription Services solely for Customer’s internal business purposes in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. Customer is responsible for use of the Subscription Services by Users and any party who accesses the Subscription Services with a User’s account credentials.

    1.4 Upgrades; Modifications; Improvements and Enhancements. Mindtickle shall have sole discretion as to whether to make updates, improvements, modifications or enhancements or add new features (“Updates”) to the Subscription Services, and reserves the right to do so at any time, provided that such Updates do not materially and adversely impact the Services nor result in any increase of the price of the Services during the Subscription Term. Any such Updates are deemed part of the Subscription Services and shall be subject to this Agreement.

    1.5 Service Level Agreement. The Application Availability service level agreement is set forth in https://www.mindtickle.com/service-level-agreement/ (“SLA”). The Subscription Services may be temporarily unavailable for scheduled maintenance, unscheduled emergency maintenance or other causes beyond Mindtickle’s reasonable control. Mindtickle will use reasonable efforts to provide advance notice of any scheduled unavailability of the Subscription Services. If Mindtickle does not meet the Service Commitment set forth in the SLA Mindtickle shall provide the Service Credits as set forth in the SLA.

    2. Subscription Services Terms of Use.

    2.1 Restrictions. Customer will not, and will ensure that its Users do not, directly or indirectly (i) make the Subscription Services available to anyone other than Users or use the Subscription Services for the benefit of any unrelated third party; (ii) sell, resell, assign, pledge, transfer, license, sublicense, distribute, rent or lease the Subscription Services; (iii) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code, object code or underlying structure, ideas or algorithms of the Subscription Services or any software, documentation or data related to or provided with the Subscription Services; (iv) modify, translate or create derivative works based on the Subscription Services or remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Subscription Services; (v) use or access the Subscription Services to build or support, and/or assist a third party in building or supporting products or services competitive to the Subscription Services; (vi) include the Subscription Services in a service bureau or outsourcing offering; (vii) knowingly or willfully use the Services in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, impair or otherwise interfere with Mindtickle’s provision of the Subscription Services; (viii) disclose the Subscription Services to any competitor of Mindtickle or other third parties. Customer also agrees that it will, and will ensure that its Users, use the Subscription Services only in compliance with the Mindtickle Acceptable Use Policies set forth at https://www.mindtickle.com/acceptable-use-policy/

    2.2 Virus and Malicious Code. Neither Customer nor any User, will insert nor permit the insertion or introduction of any Malicious Code (defined below) into the Mindtickle Platform. “Malicious Code” means (i) any code, program, or sub-program the knowing or intended purpose or effect of which is to damage or maliciously interfere with the operation of the Platform or any other software or systems, or to halt, disable, or interfere with the operation of the Subscription Services, or (ii) any device, method, or token that permits any person to circumvent without authorization the normal security of the Subscription Services or the Platform.

    2.3 Minimum Standards. Customer and its Users will provide and maintain all hardware, software and network connectivity (“Environment”) needed to access the Internet and the Subscription Services that meet the standards provided on the Mindtickle’s website at Browsers and Device Support which may be revised by Mindtickle from time to time and communicated to Customer and/or updated on the Mindtickle’s website

    2.4 Links to/from Third Party Sites. The Subscription Service may allow Customer or its Users to (i) leave the Subscription Services and/or access third party websites and content, (ii) access the Subscription Services through third party websites, or (iii) embed links to third party content as or into Customer Data (any of the foregoing, “Links” or Linked Sites”). Any such Links or Linked Sites are not under the control of Mindtickle, are used at Customer’s sole risk, and Mindtickle is not responsible for the contents of any Linked Site, any Link contained in a Linked Site, any changes or updates to Linked Sites, or the performance or security of Linked Sites. Any content accessed by Customer through Links or Linked Sites shall be subject to such agreement as is entered between Customer and the relevant third party content provider.

    2.5 Log-Ins; Security. Customer is responsible for administering usernames and passwords for all Users (the “Log-In Information”) and for any User’s access granted to the Subscription Services. Log-In Information (which includes log-ins by means of single sign on) may be used only by the assigned User and may not be shared. Customer is responsible for maintaining the security of the Equipment and Customer’s Log-Ins. To the extent within Customer’s control, Customer will take reasonable measures to prevent unauthorized third parties from accessing the Subscription Services. Customer shall be liable for all acts and omissions of its Users, and for any resulting loss that Customer or a User may incur due to the unauthorized use of a Users’ Log-Ins or accounts.

    2.6 Suspension.

    2.6.1 Customer Violation. Mindtickle may immediately suspend Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if (i) Customer fails to make payment for undisputed Fees due within 10 business days after Mindtickle has provided Customer with written notice of such failure; or (ii) Customer violates this Section 2, or Section 9 (Confidential Information). Mindtickle will provide Customer the basis for suspension (“Violation”) together with reasonable assistance, where possible, to prevent or resolve the basis for such Violation. Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the Violation.

    2.6.2 Emergencies. Mindtickle may immediately suspend the Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if: (i) Mindtickle becomes aware of what it, in its sole discretion, deems a credible claim that the Subscription Services infringe upon the intellectual property rights of a third party; (ii) if required to do so by law or (iii) if there is an event for which Mindtickle reasonably believes suspension of Subscription Services is necessary to protect the Mindtickle network or Mindtickle’s other customers (e.g., DDoS, a security incident, etc.). In each case, Mindtickle will give you advance notice of pending suspension or termination of at least twelve (12) hours, unless Mindtickle determines, in its reasonable discretion, that no notice or shorter notice is necessary to protect Mindtickle, its customers, or others. Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the basis for such suspension. Any suspension by Mindtickle of the Subscription Services under this Section 2.6 will not relieve Customer of its payment obligations hereunder.

    3. Ownership; Use of Customer Data and Statistical Information.

    3.1 Subscription Services. Customer acknowledges that the Subscription Services are offered online on a subscription basis. As between the Parties, Mindtickle owns and reserves all rights, title and interest in and to the Subscription Services, including any software or documents related to or provided with the Subscription Services and all intellectual property rights and derivatives, modifications, refinements or improvements thereto (“Mindtickle IP”). From time to time, Customer or its Users may submit to Mindtickle comments, questions, enhancement requests, suggestions, ideas, process descriptions or other information related to the Subscription Services (“Feedback”). Customer agrees that Mindtickle has all rights to use and incorporate Feedback into the Subscription Services without restriction or payment to Customer. No rights are granted to Customer other than as expressly set forth herein.

    3.2 Professional Services Results. Mindtickle retains all ownership rights to all materials including background and training materials, data, processes, tools, methodologies, results, reports, presentations or any other information or material generated or developed by Mindtickle through the use of or derived from Mindtickle’s Confidential Information or the Mindtickle IP. Customer retains all ownership rights of any materials generated or developed by Mindtickle and exclusively derived from the Customer Data (e.g., edited, modified, reformatted versions of Customer Data, all of which shall be deemed part of “Customer Data” as defined below).

    3.3 Customer Data. Customer owns or has secured the right to use any data, content, information or material submitted by Customer or its Users through the Platform (“Customer Data”). Customer will be solely responsible for (i) the accuracy, quality, content, legality and use of Customer Data, including the means by which Customer Data is acquired and transferred by Customer or its Users outside of the Subscription Services, (ii) obtaining any licenses, permissions or authorizations required for any use of the Customer Data, and (iii) complying with all applicable terms and conditions of any third party website related to Customer Data obtained from such third party website or its use in connection with the Subscription Services. Customer hereby grants Mindtickle the right to use the Customer Data solely as necessary to provide or to assist Customer in the use of the Services hereunder.

    3.4 Statistical Information. Mindtickle may monitor Customer’s and its User’s use and the operation of the Subscription Services and compile such data in an aggregate and anonymous manner to derive statistical and performance information related to the provision and operation of the Subscription Services (“Statistical Information”). Mindtickle may make such Statistical Information publicly available, provided that such information does not include any data that would enable the identification of Customer or disclose Customer Confidential Information. Mindtickle retains all rights, title and interest in and to such Statistical Information.

    4. Payments.

    4.1 Fees. Customer will pay all fees set forth in the Provisioning Documents and any fees invoiced pursuant to this Agreement. All fees are non-cancelable and non-refundable, except as expressly specified in this Agreement. Professional Services will be provided on a time and materials (“T&M”) basis unless otherwise set forth in the Order. If an estimated total amount is stated in the Order, that amount is a good faith estimate and not a guarantee the Professional Services will be completed for that amount.

    4.2 Overages. Customer will, at all times, ensure that its use of the Subscription Services does not exceed the usage terms specified in the Order (“Usage Rights”). If Mindtickle determines that Customer is exceeding the Usage Rights (an “Overage”), Mindtickle will notify Customer, and Mindtickle has the right to charge Customer, and Customer agrees to pay, for the Overage from the date the Overage commenced through the end of the then current Subscription Term at (i) Mindtickle’s then current rates, or (ii) if addressed in the Order, at such rates as set forth in such Order, which will be co-termed with the Subscription Term in the original Order.

    4.3 Taxes and Currency. All fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, federal or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services. Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on Mindtickle’s net income or property. Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all fees due hereunder will be paid in U.S. Dollars.

    4.4 Invoices. All amounts are due and payable as specified in the Provisioning Documents. If no payment terms are specified in the applicable Provisioning Documents, payment terms are net 30 days from receipt of invoice. Unpaid invoices not the subject of a written good faith dispute are subject to a finance charge of 1.5% per month on any outstanding balance, or the maximum permitted by law, whichever is lower, plus all reasonable expenses of collection.

    4.5 Expenses. Customer will be responsible for all travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and any other out-of-pocket expenses incurred by Mindtickle according to Mindtickle’s Expense Policy in connection with the Professional Services, as set forth in the Order or subject to Customer’s prior written approval (email shall suffice).

    5. Term and Termination

    5.1 Term. Subject to earlier termination as provided below, this Agreement shall remain in effect until all Orders have terminated or expired, or if this Agreement is otherwise terminated in accordance with the terms hereunder. Following the end of the initial Term mentioned in the Order, the Term will automatically renew for another one year term (and for each subsequent year, thereafter) with an annual increase of 5% per year, unless either party gives written notice, at least 30 days prior to the end of the initial or at any subsequent renewal term of its intention to terminate the Order.

    5.2 Termination for Cause. In the event of a material breach by either Party, the non-breaching Party will have the right to terminate the applicable Provisioning Document for cause if such breach has not been cured within 30 days after written notice from the non-breaching Party specifying the breach.

    5.3 Effect of Termination. If Mindtickle terminates this Agreement and/or a Provisioning Document for Customer’s uncured material breach (i) all fees set forth in the terminated Provisioning Document will be immediately due and payable; (ii) all rights granted thereunder will immediately terminate; and (iii) all unpaid Overages shall be also immediately due and payable. If Customer terminates a Provisioning Document for Mindtickle’s uncured material breach, Customer will be entitled to a pro-rata refund for applicable prepaid fees under such terminated Provisioning Document for the Mindtickle Services not performed calculated from the date of termination. Upon completion of the Agreement Term, all rights to access and use the Subscription Services will terminate. Notwithstanding the foregoing, at Customer’s request if received within 30 days of termination of the Order (“Grace Period”), Mindtickle shall make available to Customer any of the Customer Data in then Mindtickle’s possession in such format as mutually agreed by the Parties. After such Grace period, Customer acknowledges and agrees that Mindtickle has no obligation to retain Customer Data and that Mindtickle will irretrievably delete and destroy Customer Data. If requested by the Customer in writing, Mindtickle will certify to such destruction in writing.

    5.4 Survival. The following sections of this Agreement will survive the termination of the Agreement: Section 2.1 (Restrictions), Section 3 (Ownership, Use of Customer Data, Statistical Information), Section 4 (Payments), Section 5 (Term and Termination), Section 6.5 (Warranties Disclaimer), Section 7 (Indemnification), Section 8 (Limitation of Liability), Section 9 (Confidential Information) and Section 11 (General Terms).

    6. Warranties; Warranty Remedies; Warranties Disclaimer

    6.1 General Warranty. Each Party represents and warrants to the other Party that it has the power and authority to enter into the Agreement.

    6.2 Subscription Services Warranty. Mindtickle warrants (i) the Platform, under normal use, will perform materially in accordance with the Documentation provided by Mindtickle; and (ii) the Subscription Services will be provided in a manner consistent with generally accepted industry standards. “Documentation” means any help pages or other end user documentation provided by Mindtickle to describe the functionality of the Subscription Services or how to use the Subscription Services.

    6.3 Professional Services Warranty. Mindtickle warrants the Professional Services will be performed in a professional and workmanlike manner, in accordance with generally accepted industry standards and the specifications set forth in the Order.

    6.4 Warranty Remedies.

    6.4.1 Customer will notify Mindtickle of any material breach of the warranties (“Warranty Deficiency”) under Sections 6.2 and 6.3 within 30 days of the performance of the relevant Mindtickle Services and Customer’s remedy will be the re-performance of the Warranty Deficiency. If Mindtickle cannot re-perform such Warranty Deficiency and provide the Mindtickle Services as warranted, Customer will be entitled to terminate the deficient Mindtickle Services, as applicable, and recover a pro-rata portion of the fees paid to Mindtickle for such deficient Mindtickle Services.

    6.4.2 The foregoing shall be Customer’s exclusive remedies and Mindtickle’s entire liability with respect to the warranty commitments set forth in Sections 6.2 and 6.3.

    6.5 WARRANTIES DISCLAIMER. EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTIES ABOVE, AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MINDTICKLE AND ITS THIRD PARTY PROVIDERS DISCLAIM ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT THE RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, SUITABILITY, OR ACCURACY OF THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES OR THE RESULTS CUSTOMER MAY OBTAIN BY USING THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES. MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION OF THE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES OR THAT MINDTICKLE WILL CORRECT ALL DEFECTS OR PREVENT THIRD PARTY DISRUPTIONS OR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD-PARTY ACCESS. MINDTICKLE DISCLAIMS ALL FAILURES, DELAYS, AND OTHER PROBLEMS INHERENT IN THE USE OF THE INTERNET, TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITIES OR EQUIPMENT, OR NETWORKS THAT ARE NOT CONTROLLED BY MINDTICKLE. IN THE EVENT ANY DISCLAIMER IN THIS SECTION CONFLICTS WITH THE SLA, THE TERMS OF THE SLA SHALL GOVERN WITH RESPECT TO THAT SPECIFIC DISCLAIMER.

    7. Indemnification

    7.1 Mindtickle. Mindtickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the Mindtickle Services as provided by Mindtickle directly infringe the U.S. patent, copyright, or trademark rights of the claimant and will pay Customer for finally-awarded damages and costs and Mindtickle-approved settlements of the claim. Mindtickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the Mindtickle Services with non-Mindtickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the Mindtickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement. Mindtickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the Mindtickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    7.2 Customer. Customer will defend Mindtickle against any claim brought against Mindtickle by a third party alleging (i) Customer Data infringes the intellectual property, privacy or other rights of the claimant; or (ii) Customer’s use of the Mindtickle Services, other than as authorized in this Agreement, violates applicable law or regulations, or infringes the claimant’s intellectual property rights, and will pay Mindtickle for finally-awarded damages and costs and Customer-approved settlements of the claim.

    7.3 Procedure. As a condition to the indemnifying Party’s obligations under this Section 7, the Party seeking indemnification must (i) promptly give written notice of the claim to the indemnifying Party; (ii) give the indemnifying Party sole control of the defense and settlement of the claim (provided that the indemnifying Party may not settle any claim unless it unconditionally releases the indemnified Party of all liability); and (iii) provide the indemnifying Party, at the indemnifying Party’s cost, all reasonable assistance. THIS SECTION STATES THE INDEMNIFIED PARTY’S SOLE REMEDY, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER REMEDIES (IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE), AND THE INDEMNIFYING PARTY’S TOTAL LIABILITY REGARDING THE CLAIMS AND LIABILITIES ADDRESSED BY THIS SECTION 7.

    8. Limitation of Liability.

    NO PARTY WILL BE LIABLE UNDER ANY CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER THEORY (i) FOR ERROR OR INTERRUPTION OF USE, INACCURACY OR COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS, SERVICE OR TECHNOLOGY, OR LOSS OF BUSINESS OR DATA; (ii) FOR ANY INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, LOST PROFITS, LOST REVENUE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES; (iii) FOR ANY MATTER BEYOND ITS REASONABLE CONTROL, EVEN IF SUCH PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE; OR (iv) EXCEPT FOR CUSTOMER PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS, FOR ANY AMOUNTS THAT, TOGETHER WITH AMOUNTS ASSOCIATED WITH ALL OTHER CLAIMS, EXCEED THE CUMULATIVE FEES INVOICED TO CUSTOMER UNDER THE AGREEMENT IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE DATE THE CLAIM AROSE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATION WILL NOT APPLY TO A PARTY’S OBLIGATION OF INDEMNIFICATION AS SET FORTH IN SECTION 7 OR TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY LAW.

    9. Confidential Information.

    Each Party (the “Recipient”) understands that the other Party (the “Discloser”) may during the Agreement Term and in connection with the Services disclose non-public information relating to the Discloser’s business that is designated as confidential or reasonably should be understood to be confidential and/or proprietary given the nature of the information and circumstances of disclosure (“Confidential Information”). The Recipient agrees (i) to take reasonable precautions to protect such Confidential Information; and (ii) not to use or divulge to any third person any such Confidential Information except as set forth herein and only to those of its employees and contractors who need access for purposes consistent with this Agreement and who are bound to confidentiality terms with Recipient containing protections no less stringent than those herein. The Discloser agrees that the foregoing will not apply with respect to Confidential Information that the Recipient can document (a) is or becomes generally available to the public; (b) was in its possession or known by it prior to receipt from the Discloser; (c) was rightfully disclosed to it by a third party; or (d) was independently developed without use of any Confidential Information of the Discloser. If the Recipient is required by law or court order to disclose Confidential Information, it will give prior written notice to the Discloser (to the extent legally permitted) and reasonable assistance at the Discloser’s cost to contest the disclosure. Recipient acknowledges that the breach or threatened breach of this Agreement may result in irreparable injury to Discloser and that, in addition to its other remedies, the Discloser shall be entitled to seek such temporary and permanent injunctive relief it deems necessary to restrain any threatened or continued breach of this Agreement.

    10. Insurance and Security.

    10.1 Insurance. Mindtickle will, at its expense, procure and maintain throughout the Agreement Term insurance policies and coverages required by law applicable to its business operations and sufficient to support and cover its obligations hereunder as set forth in Insurance. All such policies identified under this Section shall be issued by reputable and financially sound insurance companies authorized to do business in the geographic area where the Mindtickle Services are to be performed. Upon Customer’s written request, Mindtickle shall furnish to Customer a certificate of insurance evidencing that such policies are in full force and effect.

    10.2 Data Privacy and Security. Mindtickle shall maintain a privacy policy that complies with all applicable laws and which is available as set forth at the Privacy Policy (“Privacy Policy”), as may be updated from time to time. Furthermore, Mindtickle will maintain appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards designed to protect the security and integrity of the Subscription Services and Customer Data in accordance its security obligations available as set forth in at Security Requirements (“Security Requirements”), as may be updated from time to time. Those safeguards may include, but will not be limited to, measures for endeavoring to prevent access, use, modification or disclosure of Customer Data by Mindtickle personnel except: (a) as necessary to provide the Services including but not limited to preventing or addressing Service or technical problems; (b) as compelled by law in accordance with Section 2.6; or (c) as may expressly permitted in a writing from an authorized Customer representative.

    11. General Terms.

    11.1 Notice. Mindtickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all Customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal. Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in Mindtickle’s account information. All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail or express delivery, if to Mindtickle, attention CEO, at 115 Sansome Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94104, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.2 Force Majeure. Neither Party will be responsible for failure or delay of performance if caused by an act of nature, war, hostility or sabotage; an electrical, internet, or telecommunication outage that is not caused by the obligated Party; government restrictions (including the denial or cancellation of any export or other license); or other event outside the reasonable control of the obligated Party. Each Party will use reasonable efforts to mitigate the effect of a force majeure event. If such event continues for more than 20 days, either Party may cancel unperformed Services upon written notice. A force majeure event shall not excuse Customer’s obligations to make timely payment.

    11.3 Governing Law. Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by California law, excluding its conflicts of law provisions, and controlling U.S. federal law; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of and venue in the state and federal courts California. Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.4 Entire Agreement. This Agreement represents the Parties’ entire understanding relating to the Services and supersedes any prior or contemporaneous agreements or understandings regarding the Services. In the event of a conflict between this Agreement and a contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document, the terms of the contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document will control. No terms, provisions or conditions of any purchase order, acknowledgement or other business form Customer may use in connection with the acquisition of Services will affect the rights, duties or obligations of the Parties hereunder, or otherwise modify this Agreement, regardless of any failure of Mindtickle to object to such terms, provisions or conditions.

    11.5 Amendment / No Waiver. This Agreement may be amended only by written agreement signed by the Parties. If any provision of this Agreement is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, then such provision(s) will be construed to reflect the intent of the invalid or unenforceable provision(s), with all other provisions remaining in full force and effect. The failure of either Party to enforce any right or provision in the Agreement will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision unless acknowledged and agreed to by such Party in writing.

    11.6 Assignment; Subcontracting. No joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between Mindtickle and Customer as a result of the Agreement or use of the Services. This Agreement and any rights or obligations hereunder may not be assigned, sublicensed or otherwise transferred by the Parties without the prior written approval of the non-assigning Party, except that either Party may assign or transfer this Agreement in connection with a merger or acquisition of all or substantially all of the assets of the assigning company (other than to a direct competitor of the non-assigning Party and provided that the assignee agrees in writing to be bound by all terms and conditions of this Agreement) by providing the non-assigning Party with prompt written notice of assignment. Any purported assignment in violation of this section will be void. Mindtickle may use subcontractors to perform Professional Services; Mindtickle will remain responsible for the performance of such Professional Services by any such subcontractor and otherwise for any subcontractor’s compliance with the terms of this Agreement.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws. Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

    11.8 U.S. Government Matters. Notwithstanding anything else, Customer may not provide to any person or export or re-export or allow the export or re-export of the Services or any software or anything related thereto or any direct product thereof (collectively “Controlled Subject Matter”), in violation of any restrictions, laws or regulations of the United States Department of Commerce, the United States Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control, or any other United States or foreign agency or authority. Without limiting the foregoing Customer acknowledges and agrees that the Controlled Subject Matter will not be used or transferred or otherwise exported or re-exported to countries as to which the United States maintains an embargo (collectively, “Embargoed Countries”), or to or by a national or resident thereof, or any person or entity on the U.S. Department of Treasury’s List of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Table of Denial Orders (collectively, “Designated Nationals”). The lists of Embargoed Countries and Designated Nationals are subject to change without notice. Use of the Service is representation and warranty that the User is not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of an Embargoed Country or Designated National. The Controlled Subject Matter may use or include encryption technology that is subject to licensing requirements under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. As defined in FAR section 2.101, any software and documentation provided by Mindtickle are “commercial items” and according to DFAR section 252.227-7014(a)(1) and (5) are deemed to be “commercial computer software” and “commercial computer software documentation.” Consistent with DFAR section 227.7202 and FAR section 12.212, any use modification, reproduction, release, performance, display, or disclosure of such commercial software or commercial software documentation by the U.S. Government will be governed solely by the terms of this Agreement and will be prohibited except to the extent expressly permitted by the terms of this Agreement.

    11.9 Publicity. Customer hereby grants to Mindtickle the express right to use Customer’s company logo and/ or name in marketing, sales, financial, public relations material, display materials and other communications solely to identify Customer as a Mindtickle Customer. Mindtickle hereby grants to Customer the express right to use Mindtickle name and/or logo solely to identify Mindtickle as a provider of Services to Customer. Other than as expressly stated herein, neither party shall use the other party’s name and/or logos without the prior written permission of the other party.

    The following sections replace those set forth in the Agreement above with respect to Customers who are executing the Order with Mindtickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. for the purchase of Services in India.:

    4.3 Taxes and Currency. All fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of, taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, federal or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services. Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on Mindtickle’s net income or property. Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all fees due hereunder will be paid in U.S. Dollars.

    7.1 Mindtickle. Mindtickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the Mindtickle Services as provided by Mindtickle directly infringe a patent, copyright, or trademark rights of the claimant registered in India and will pay Customer for finally-awarded damages and costs and Mindtickle-approved settlements of the claim. Mindtickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the Mindtickle Services with non-Mindtickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the Mindtickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement. Mindtickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the Mindtickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    11.1 Notice. Mindtickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all Customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal. Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in Mindtickle’s account information. All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail or express delivery, if to Mindtickle, attention CEO, at Solitaire World, Bangalore Pune Highway, Baner, Pune 411045 India, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.3 Governing Law. Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by laws in India, excluding its conflicts of law provisions, and controlling U.S. federal law; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in Pune. Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws. Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable central, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

    Additional terms applicable to an Order when Services specified below are procured through the respective Order

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    Terms of Service 0121 https://www.mindtickle.com/terms-of-service-0121/ Mon, 16 Jan 2023 05:04:12 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=961 Terms of Service Effective from January 2021 to August 2022. Click here for the most recent version of our Terms of Service Master Subscription and Services Agreement THIS MASTER SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES AGREEMENT GOVERNS YOUR (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘CUSTOMER/S’) ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SERVICES THAT CUSTOMER IS USING IN CONNECTION HEREWITH AND THAT ARE …

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    Terms of Service

    Effective from January 2021 to August 2022. Click here for the most recent version of our Terms of Service

    Master Subscription and Services Agreement

    THIS MASTER SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES AGREEMENT GOVERNS YOUR (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘CUSTOMER/S’) ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SERVICES THAT CUSTOMER IS USING IN CONNECTION HEREWITH AND THAT ARE BROUGHT TO CUSTOMER BY MINDTICKLE, INC OR MINDTICKLE INTERACTIVE MEDIA PRIVATE LIMITED WHICH OWNS AND OPERATES THE SERVICE (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘MINDTICKLE’).

    BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, EITHER BY CLICKING A BOX INDICATING ACCEPTANCE OR BY EXECUTING AN ORDER FORM THAT REFERENCES THIS AGREEMENT, OR BY ACCESSING OR USING ANY PART OF THE SERVICE, CUSTOMER AGREES TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF CUSTOMER IS ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF A COMPANY OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, CUSTOMER REPRESENTS TO HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BIND SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES TO ALL OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, IN WHICH CASE THE TERM “CUSTOMER” SHALL REFER TO SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES. IF CUSTOMER DOES NOT HAVE SUCH AUTHORITY, OR IF CUSTOMER DOES NOT UNCONDITIONALLY AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, CUSTOMER MUST NOT ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT AND CUSTOMER WILL NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT TO USE THE SERVICES.

    CUSTOMER MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES IF CUSTOMER IS MINDTICKLE’S DIRECT COMPETITOR, EXCEPT WITH MINDTICKLE’S PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT. IN ADDITION, CUSTOMER MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES FOR PURPOSES OF MONITORING THEIR AVAILABILITY, PERFORMANCE OR FUNCTIONALITY, OR FOR ANY OTHER BENCHMARKING OR COMPETITIVE PURPOSES.

    THIS AGREEMENT IS EFFECTIVE BETWEEN CUSTOMER AND MINDTICKLE AS OF THE DATE OF CUSTOMER ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT. MINDTICKLE’S ACCEPTANCE IS EXPRESSLY CONDITIONED UPON CUSTOMER’S ASSENT TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER TERMS.

    1. Agreement Scope; Services.

    1.1 Scope This Master Subscription and Services Agreement applies to Customer’s use of:
    (i) Mindtickle’s online learning and enablement system software offered as a service hosted on the Mindtickle platform (“Mindtickle Platform” or “Platform”)
    (ii) support or managed services related to the Platform (collectively, the “Subscription Services”)
    (iii) professional and/or consulting services (“Professional Services”)
    (iv) content as a service (“CaaS”) and
    (v) Customer education services

    as described in one or more Orders or Statements of Work signed by the Parties, including any attachments thereto (each, an “Order” or “SOW” as the case may be).

    Subscription Services, Professional Services, CaaS and Customer education services are collectively referred to as the “Services” and Orders and SOWs are collectively referred to as “Provisioning Documents.”

    This Master Subscription and Services Agreement and all Provisioning Documents, including any addenda and exhibits, constitute the “Agreement.” All capitalized terms not defined herein will have the meanings attributed to them in the Provisioning Documents.

    1.2 Procurement and Provisioning by Affiliates. Customer may procure the Services under this Agreement for its own self and on behalf of one or more Customer Affiliates (defined below). Customer is responsible for the acts and omissions of Customer Affiliates under any Provisioning Document pursuant to which the Customer Affiliate receives the benefit of the Services but is not a signatory. Customer Affiliates who sign a Provisioning Document will be deemed to be the Customer hereunder and solely responsible for its performance or non-performance thereunder. “Affiliate” means any legal entity directly or indirectly controlling, controlled by or under common control with a Party, where control means the ownership of a majority share of the stock, equity or voting interests of such entity.

    1.3 Subscription Services Users. “User” shall mean an individual who has signed-up or has been added to the Platform (by the Customer or by Mindtickle at Customer request), whether or not the individual is using the Subscription Services at any given time. During the Subscription Term set forth in each Order, Mindtickle will make the Subscription Services available to Customer and its authorized end users (“End Users”) and administrative account users (“Admin(s)”) who may be Users of Customer’s Affiliates, employees, agents or contractors. The number of Users shall be set forth in the Order. Customer shall assign each User a Log-In (as set forth in Section 2.5). Where a User no longer requires access to the Subscription Services (e.g., User no longer is employed or engaged by Customer), Customer may deactivate the Log-In for such User and re-provision it to a new User provided that all data associated with the previous User may be removed or deleted from the Subscription Services by Mindtickle. Users may access and use the Subscription Services solely for Customer’s internal business purposes in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. Customer is responsible for use of the Subscription Services by Users and any party who accesses the Subscription Services with a User’s account credentials.

    1.4 Upgrades; Modifications; Improvements and Enhancements. Mindtickle shall have sole discretion as to whether to make updates, improvements, modifications or enhancements or add new features (“Updates”) to the Subscription Services and reserves the right to do so at any time, provided that such Updates do not materially and adversely impact the Services nor result in any increase of the price of the Services during the Subscription Term. Any such Updates are deemed part of the Subscription Services and shall be subject to this Agreement.

    1.5 Service Level Agreement. The Application Availability service level agreement is in https://www.mindtickle.com/service-level-agreement (“SLA”). The Subscription Services may be temporarily unavailable for scheduled maintenance, unscheduled emergency maintenance or other causes beyond Mindtickle’s reasonable control. Mindtickle will use reasonable efforts to provide advance notice of any scheduled unavailability of the Subscription Services. If Mindtickle does not meet the Service Commitment set forth in the SLA Mindtickle shall provide the Service Credits as set forth in the SLA.

    1.6 Beta Releases. From time-to-time Mindtickle may at its sole discretion make available services to Customer to try which will be clearly designated as beta, pilot, limited release, non-production or by similar description in the Provisioning Document (“Beta Release”). Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Agreement, Customer acknowledges and agrees that Beta Release is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis without any liability and indemnity obligations, warranty, support, maintenance, or service level obligations of any kind. Mindtickle makes no promises that future versions of Beta Release will be released or if such Beta Release will be made generally available, it will be substantially similar to the current Beta Release. Mindtickle may terminate Customer’s right to use Beta Release at any time for any reason or no reason in Mindtickle’s sole discretion. If Mindtickle makes available Beta Release publicly, Customer may, execute a separate Order to procure publicly available version of the Beta Release at then-current applicable fees.

    2. Subscription Services Terms of Use.

    2.1 Restrictions. Customer will not, and will ensure that its Users do not, directly or indirectly (i) make the Subscription Services available to anyone other than Users or use the Subscription Services for the benefit of any unrelated third party; (ii) sell, resell, assign, pledge, transfer, license, sublicense, distribute, rent or lease the Subscription Services; (iii) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code, object code or underlying structure, ideas or algorithms of the Subscription Services or any software, documentation or data related to or provided with the Subscription Services; (iv) modify, translate or create derivative works based on the Subscription Services or remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Subscription Services; (v) use or access the Subscription Services to build or support, and/or assist a third party in building or supporting products or services competitive to the Subscription Services; (vi) include the Subscription Services in a service bureau or outsourcing offering; (vii) knowingly or willfully use the Services in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, impair or otherwise interfere with Mindtickle’s provision of the Subscription Services; (viii) disclose the Subscription Services to any competitor of Mindtickle or other third parties. Customer also agrees that it will, and will ensure that its Users, use the Subscription Services only in compliance with the Mindtickle Acceptable Use Policies set forth at https://www.mindtickle.com/acceptable-use-policy/

    2.2 Virus and Malicious Code. Neither Customer nor any User, will insert nor permit the insertion or introduction of any Malicious Code (defined below) into the Mindtickle Platform. “Malicious Code” means (i) any code, program, or sub-program the knowing or intended purpose or effect of which is to damage or maliciously interfere with the operation of the Platform or any other software or systems, or to halt, disable, or interfere with the operation of the Subscription Services, or (ii) any device, method, or token that permits any person to circumvent without authorization the normal security of the Subscription Services or the Platform.

    2.3 Minimum Standards. Customer and its Users will provide and maintain all hardware, software and network connectivity (“Environment”) needed to access the Internet and the Subscription Services that meet the standards provided on the Mindtickle’s website at https://www.mindtickle.com/browsers-and-device-support/ which may be revised by Mindtickle from time to time and communicated to Customer and/or updated on the Mindtickle’s website.

    2.4 Links to/from Third Party Sites. The Subscription Service may allow Customer or its Users to (i) leave the Subscription Services and/or access third party websites and content, (ii) access the Subscription Services through third party websites, or (iii) embed links to third party content as or into Customer Data (any of the foregoing, “Links” or Linked Sites”). Any such Links or Linked Sites are not under the control of Mindtickle, are used at Customer’s sole risk, and Mindtickle is not responsible for the contents of any Linked Site, any Link contained in a Linked Site, any changes or updates to Linked Sites, or the performance or security of Linked Sites. Any content accessed by Customer through Links or Linked Sites shall be subject to such agreement as is entered between Customer and the relevant third party content provider.

    2.5 Log-Ins; Security. Customer is responsible for administering usernames and passwords for all Users (the “Log-In Information”) and for any User’s access granted to the Subscription Services. Log-In Information (which includes logins by means of single sign on) may be used only by the assigned User and may not be shared. Customer is responsible for maintaining the security of the equipment and Customer’s Log-Ins. To the extent within Customer’s control, Customer will take reasonable measures to prevent unauthorized third parties from accessing the Subscription Services. Customer shall be liable for all acts and omissions of its Users, and for any resulting loss that Customer or a User may incur due to the unauthorized use of a Users’ Log-Ins or accounts.

    2.6 Suspension.

    2.6.1 Customer Violation. Mindtickle may immediately suspend Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if (i) Customer fails to make payment for undisputed Fees due within 10 business days after Mindtickle has provided Customer with written notice of such failure; or (ii) Customer violates this Section 2, or Section 9 (Confidential Information). Mindtickle will provide Customer the basis for suspension (“Violation”) together with reasonable assistance, where possible, to prevent or resolve the basis for such Violation. Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the Violation.

    2.6.2 Emergencies. Mindtickle may immediately suspend the Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if: (i) Mindtickle becomes aware of what it, in its sole discretion, deems a credible claim that the Subscription Services infringe upon the intellectual property rights of a third party; (ii) if required to do so by law or (iii) if there is an event for which Mindtickle reasonably believes suspension of Subscription Services is necessary to protect the Mindtickle network or Mindtickle’s other customers (e.g., DDoS, a security incident, etc.). In each case, Mindtickle will give you advance notice of pending suspension or termination of at least twelve (12) hours, unless Mindtickle determines, in its reasonable discretion, that no notice or shorter notice is necessary to protect Mindtickle, its customers, or others. Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the basis for such suspension. Any suspension by Mindtickle of the Subscription Services under this Section 2.6.2 will not relieve Customer of its payment obligations hereunder.

    3. Ownership; Use of Customer Data and Statistical Information.

    3.1 Subscription Services. Customer acknowledges that the Subscription Services are offered online on a subscription basis. As between the Parties, Mindtickle owns and reserves all rights, title and interest in and to the Subscription Services, including any software or documents related to or provided with the Subscription Services and all intellectual property rights and derivatives, modifications, refinements or improvements thereto (“Mindtickle IP”). From time to time, Customer or its Users may submit to Mindtickle comments, questions, enhancement requests, suggestions, ideas, process descriptions or other information related to the Subscription Services (“Feedback”). Customer agrees that Mindtickle has all rights to use and incorporate Feedback into the Subscription Services without restriction or payment to Customer. No rights are granted to Customer other than as expressly set forth herein.

    3.2 Professional Services Results. Mindtickle retains all ownership rights to all materials including background and training materials, data, processes, tools, methodologies, results, reports, presentations or any other information or material generated or developed by Mindtickle through the use of or derived from Mindtickle’s Confidential Information or the Mindtickle IP. Customer retains all ownership rights of any materials generated or developed by Mindtickle and exclusively derived from the Customer Data (e.g., edited, modified, reformatted versions of Customer Data, all of which shall be deemed part of “Customer Data” as defined below).

    3.3 Customer Data. Customer owns or has secured the right to use any data, content, information or material submitted by Customer or its Users through the Platform (“Customer Data”). Customer will be solely responsible for (i) the accuracy, quality, content, legality and use of Customer Data, including the means by which Customer Data is acquired and transferred by Customer or its Users outside of the Subscription Services, (ii) obtaining any licenses, permissions or authorizations required for any use of the Customer Data, and (iii) complying with all applicable terms and conditions of any third party website related to Customer Data obtained from such third party website or its use in connection with the Subscription Services. Customer hereby grants Mindtickle the right to use the Customer Data solely as necessary to provide or to assist Customer in the use of the Services hereunder.

    3.4 Statistical Information. Mindtickle may monitor Customer’s and its User’s use and the operation of the Subscription Services and compile such data in an aggregate and anonymous manner to derive statistical and performance information related to the provision and operation of the Subscription Services (“Statistical Information”). Mindtickle may make such Statistical Information publicly available, provided that such information does not include any data that would enable the identification of Customer or disclose Customer Confidential Information. Mindtickle retains all rights, title and interest in and to such Statistical Information.

    4. Payments.

    4.1 Fees. Customer will pay all fees set forth in the Provisioning Documents and any fees invoiced pursuant to this Agreement (“Fees”). All Fees are non-cancelable and non-refundable, except as expressly specified in this Agreement. Professional Services will be provided on a time and materials (“T&M”) basis unless otherwise set forth in the Order. If an estimated total amount is stated in the Order, that amount is a good faith estimate and not a guarantee the Professional Services will be completed for that amount.

    4.2 Overages. Customer will always ensure that its use of the Subscription Services does not exceed the usage terms (number of Users, product and/or number and type of specific modules in the Subscription Services Package to which User has access) specified in the Order (“Usage Limit”). If a Customer is exceeding the Usage Limit, the number of Users in excess of the Usage Limit shall be an “Overage”. In the event of an Overage, Mindtickle reserves the right to raise an invoice for the Overage from the date the Overage first commenced through the end of the then current Subscription Term at the relevant User rates specified in the ongoing Order, which the Customer shall pay in accordance with the payment terms of the Agreement.

    4.3 Taxes and Currency. All Fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, federal or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services. Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on Mindtickle’s net income or property. Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all Fees due hereunder will be paid in U.S. Dollars.

    4.4 Invoices. All amounts are due and payable as specified in the Provisioning Documents. If no payment terms are specified in the applicable Provisioning Documents, payment terms are net 30 days from receipt of invoice. Unpaid invoices not the subject of a written good faith dispute are subject to a finance charge of 1.5% per month on any outstanding balance, or the maximum permitted by law, whichever is lower, plus all reasonable expenses of collection.

    4.5 Expenses. Customer will be responsible for all travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and any other out-of-pocket expenses incurred by Mindtickle in connection with the Professional Services, as set forth in the Order or subject to Customer’s prior written approval (email shall suffice).

    5. Term and Termination

    5.1 Term. Subject to earlier termination as provided below, this Agreement shall remain in effect until all Orders have terminated or expired, or if this Agreement is otherwise terminated in accordance with the terms hereunder. Following the end of the initial Term mentioned in the Order, the Term will automatically renew for another one year term (and for each subsequent year, thereafter) with an annual increase of no more than 5% per year unless (i) renewal Order has already been mutually agreed in writing on or before the expiry of the then current term, or (ii) either party gives written notice at least 30 days prior to the end of the initial or any subsequent renewal term of its intention to terminate the Order.

    5.2 Termination for Cause. In the event of a material breach by either Party, the non-breaching Party will have the right to terminate the applicable Provisioning Document for cause if such breach has not been cured within 30 days after written notice from the non-breaching Party specifying the breach.

    5.3 Effect of Termination. If Mindtickle terminates this Agreement and/or a Provisioning Document for Customer’s uncured material breach (i) all Fees set forth in the terminated Provisioning Document will be immediately due and payable; (ii) all rights granted thereunder will immediately terminate; and (iii) all unpaid Overages shall be also immediately due and payable. If Customer terminates a Provisioning Document for Mindtickle’s uncured material breach, Customer will be entitled to a pro-rata refund for applicable prepaid Fees under such terminated Provisioning Document for the Mindtickle Services not performed calculated from the date of termination. Upon completion of the Agreement Term, all rights to access and use the Subscription Services will terminate. Notwithstanding the foregoing, at Customer’s request if received within 30 days of termination of the Order (“Grace Period”), Mindtickle shall make available to Customer any of the Customer Data in then Mindtickle’s possession in such format as mutually agreed by the Parties. After such Grace period, Customer acknowledges and agrees that Mindtickle has no obligation to retain Customer Data and that Mindtickle will irretrievably delete and destroy Customer Data. If requested by the Customer in writing, Mindtickle will certify to such destruction in writing.

    5.4 Survival. The following sections of this Agreement will survive the termination of the Agreement: Section 2.1 (Restrictions), Section 3 (Ownership, Use of Customer Data, Statistical Information), Section 4 (Payments), Section 5 (Term and Termination), Section 6.5 (Warranties Disclaimer), Section 7 (Indemnification), Section 8 (Limitation of Liability), Section 9 (Confidential Information) and Section 11 (General Terms).

    6. Warranties; Warranty Remedies; Warranties Disclaimer

    6.1 General Warranty. Each Party represents and warrants to the other Party that it has the power and authority to enter into the Agreement.

    6.2 Subscription Services Warranty. Mindtickle warrants (i) the Platform, under normal use, will perform materially in accordance with the Documentation provided by Mindtickle; and (ii) the Subscription Services will be provided in a manner consistent with generally accepted industry standards. “Documentation” means any help pages or other end user documentation provided by Mindtickle to describe the functionality of the Subscription Services or how to use the Subscription Services.

    6.3 Professional Services Warranty. Mindtickle warrants the Professional Services will be performed in a professional and workmanlike manner, in accordance with generally accepted industry standards and the specifications set forth in the Order.

    6.4 Warranty Remedies.

    6.4.1 Customer will notify Mindtickle of any material breach of the warranties (“Warranty Deficiency”) under Sections 6.2 and 6.3 within 30 days of the performance of the relevant Mindtickle Services and Customer’s remedy will be the re-performance of the Warranty Deficiency. If Mindtickle cannot re-perform such Warranty Deficiency and provide the Mindtickle Services as warranted, Customer will be entitled to terminate the deficient Mindtickle Services, as applicable, and recover a pro-rata portion of the Fees paid to Mindtickle for such deficient Mindtickle Services.

    6.4.2 The foregoing shall be Customer’s exclusive remedies and Mindtickle’s entire liability with respect to the warranty commitments set forth in Sections 6.2 and 6.3.

    6.5 WARRANTIES DISCLAIMER. EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTIES ABOVE, AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MINDTICKLE AND ITS THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS DISCLAIM ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT THE RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, SUITABILITY, OR ACCURACY OF THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES OR THE RESULTS CUSTOMER MAY OBTAIN BY USING THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES. MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION OF THE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES OR THAT MINDTICKLE WILL CORRECT ALL DEFECTS OR PREVENT THIRD PARTY DISRUPTIONS OR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD-PARTY ACCESS. MINDTICKLE DISCLAIMS ALL FAILURES, DELAYS, AND OTHER PROBLEMS INHERENT IN THE USE OF THE INTERNET, TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITIES OR EQUIPMENT, OR NETWORKS THAT ARE NOT CONTROLLED BY MINDTICKLE. IN THE EVENT ANY DISCLAIMER IN THIS SECTION CONFLICTS WITH THE SLA, THE TERMS OF THE SLA SHALL GOVERN WITH RESPECT TO THAT SPECIFIC DISCLAIMER.

    7. Indemnification

    7.1 Mindtickle. Mindtickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the Mindtickle Services as provided by Mindtickle directly infringe the U.S. patent, copyright, or trademark rights of the claimant and will pay Customer for finally awarded damages and costs and Mindtickle-approved settlements of the claim. Mindtickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third-party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the Mindtickle Services with non-Mindtickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the Mindtickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement. Mindtickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the Mindtickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid Fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    7.2 Customer. Customer will defend Mindtickle against any claim brought against Mindtickle by a third party alleging (i) Customer Data infringes the intellectual property, privacy or other rights of the claimant; or (ii) Customer’s use of the Mindtickle Services, other than as authorized in this Agreement, violates applicable law or regulations, or infringes the claimant’s intellectual property rights, and will pay Mindtickle for finally-awarded damages and costs and Customer-approved settlements of the claim.

    7.3 Procedure. As a condition to the indemnifying Party’s obligations under this Section 7, the Party seeking indemnification must (i) promptly give written notice of the claim to the indemnifying Party; (ii) give the indemnifying Party sole control of the defense and settlement of the claim (provided that the indemnifying Party may not settle any claim unless it unconditionally releases the indemnified Party of all liability); and (iii) provide the indemnifying Party, at the indemnifying Party’s cost, all reasonable assistance. THIS SECTION STATES THE INDEMNIFIED PARTY’S SOLE REMEDY, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER REMEDIES (IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE), AND THE INDEMNIFYING PARTY’S TOTAL LIABILITY REGARDING THE CLAIMS AND LIABILITIES ADDRESSED BY THIS SECTION 7.

    8. Limitation of Liability. NO PARTY WILL BE LIABLE UNDER ANY CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER THEORY (i) FOR ERROR OR INTERRUPTION OF USE, INACCURACY OR COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS, SERVICE OR TECHNOLOGY, OR LOSS OF BUSINESS OR DATA; (ii) FOR ANY INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, LOST PROFITS, LOST REVENUE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES; (iii) FOR ANY MATTER BEYOND ITS REASONABLE CONTROL, EVEN IF SUCH PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE; OR (iv) EXCEPT FOR CUSTOMER PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS, FOR ANY AMOUNTS THAT, TOGETHER WITH AMOUNTS ASSOCIATED WITH ALL OTHER CLAIMS, EXCEED THE CUMULATIVE FEES INVOICED TO CUSTOMER UNDER THE AGREEMENT IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE DATE THE CLAIM AROSE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATION WILL NOT APPLY TO A PARTY’S OBLIGATION OF INDEMNIFICATION AS SET FORTH IN SECTION 7 OR TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY LAW.

    9. Confidential Information. Each Party (the “Recipient”) understands that the other Party (the “Discloser”) may during the Agreement Term and in connection with the Services disclose non-public information relating to the Discloser’s business that is designated as confidential or reasonably should be understood to be confidential and/or proprietary given the nature of the information and circumstances of disclosure (“Confidential Information”). The Recipient agrees (i) to take reasonable precautions to protect such Confidential Information; and (ii) not to use or divulge to any third person any such Confidential Information except as set forth herein and only to those of its employees and contractors who need access for purposes consistent with this Agreement and who are bound to confidentiality terms with Recipient containing protections no less stringent than those herein. The Discloser agrees that the foregoing will not apply with respect to Confidential Information that the Recipient can document (a) is or becomes generally available to the public; (b) was in its possession or known by it prior to receipt from the Discloser; (c) was rightfully disclosed to it by a third party; or (d) was independently developed without use of any Confidential Information of the Discloser. If the Recipient is required by law or court order to disclose Confidential Information, it will give prior written notice to the Discloser (to the extent legally permitted) and reasonable assistance at the Discloser’s cost to contest the disclosure. Recipient acknowledges that the breach or threatened breach of this Agreement may result in irreparable injury to Discloser and that, in addition to its other remedies, the Discloser shall be entitled to seek such temporary and permanent injunctive relief it deems necessary to restrain any threatened or continued breach of this Agreement.

    10. Insurance and Security.

    10.1 Insurance. Mindtickle will, at its expense, procure and maintain throughout the Agreement Term insurance policies and coverages required by law applicable to its business operations and sufficient to support and cover its obligations hereunder as set forth in https://www.mindtickle.com/insurance/. All such policies identified under this Section shall be issued by reputable and financially sound insurance companies authorized to do business in the geographic area where the Mindtickle Services are to be performed. Upon Customer’s written request, Mindtickle shall furnish to Customer a certificate of insurance evidencing that such policies are in full force and effect.

    10.2 Data Privacy and Security. Mindtickle shall maintain a privacy policy that complies with all applicable laws and which is available as set forth at https://www.mindtickle.com/privacy-policy/ (“Privacy Policy”), as may be updated from time to time. Furthermore, Mindtickle will maintain appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards designed to protect the security and integrity of the Subscription Services and Customer Data in accordance its security obligations available as set forth in at https://www.mindtickle.com/technical-and-organizational-security-measures/ (“Security Requirements”), as may be updated from time to time. Those safeguards may include, but will not be limited to, measures for endeavoring to prevent access, use, modification or disclosure of Customer Data by Mindtickle personnel except: (a) as necessary to provide the Services including but not limited to preventing or addressing Service or technical problems; (b) as compelled by law in accordance with Section 2.6; or (c) as may expressly permitted in a writing from an authorized Customer representative.

    11. General Terms.

    11.1 Notice. Mindtickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all Customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal. Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in Mindtickle’s account information. All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail, electronic mail or express delivery, if to Mindtickle, attention CEO, and legal@www.mindtickle.com, at 115 Sansome Street, Suite 700, San Francisco, CA 94104, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.2 Force Majeure. Neither Party will be responsible for failure or delay of performance if caused by an act of nature, war, hostility or sabotage; an electrical, internet, or telecommunication outage that is not caused by the obligated Party; government restrictions (including the denial or cancellation of any export or other license); or other event outside the reasonable control of the obligated Party. Each Party will use reasonable efforts to mitigate the effect of a force majeure event. If such event continues for more than 20 days, either Party may cancel unperformed Services upon written notice. A force majeure event shall not excuse Customer’s obligations to make timely payment.

    11.3 Governing Law. Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by California law, excluding its conflicts of law provisions, and controlling U.S. federal law; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of and venue in the state and federal courts California. Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.4 Entire Agreement. This Agreement represents the Parties’ entire understanding relating to the Services and supersedes any prior or contemporaneous agreements or understandings regarding the Services. In the event of a conflict between this Agreement and a contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document, the terms of the contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document will control. No terms, provisions or conditions of any purchase order, acknowledgement or other business form Customer may use in connection with the acquisition of Services will affect the rights, duties or obligations of the Parties hereunder, or otherwise modify this Agreement, regardless of any failure of Mindtickle to object to such terms, provisions or conditions.

    11.5 Amendment / No Waiver. This Agreement may be amended only by written agreement signed by the Parties. If any provision of this Agreement is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, then such provision(s) will be construed to reflect the intent of the invalid or unenforceable provision(s), with all other provisions remaining in full force and effect. The failure of either Party to enforce any right or provision in the Agreement will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision unless acknowledged and agreed to by such Party in writing.

    11.6 Assignment; Subcontracting. No joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between Mindtickle and Customer as a result of the Agreement or use of the Services. This Agreement and any rights or obligations hereunder may not be assigned, sublicensed or otherwise transferred by the Parties without the prior written approval of the non-assigning Party, except that either Party may assign or transfer this Agreement in connection with a merger or acquisition of all or substantially all of the assets of the assigning company (other than to a direct competitor of the non-assigning Party and provided that the assignee agrees in writing to be bound by all terms and conditions of this Agreement) by providing the non-assigning Party with prompt written notice of assignment. Any purported assignment in violation of this section will be void. Mindtickle may use subcontractors to perform Professional Services; Mindtickle will remain responsible for the performance of such Professional Services by any such subcontractor and otherwise for any subcontractor’s compliance with the terms of this Agreement.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws. Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

    11.8 U.S. Government Matters. Notwithstanding anything else, Customer may not provide to any person or export or re-export or allow the export or re-export of the Services or any software or anything related thereto or any direct product thereof (collectively “Controlled Subject Matter”), in violation of any restrictions, laws or regulations of the United States Department of Commerce, the United States Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control, or any other United States or foreign agency or authority. Without limiting the foregoing Customer acknowledges and agrees that the Controlled Subject Matter will not be used or transferred or otherwise exported or re-exported to countries as to which the United States maintains an embargo (collectively, “Embargoed Countries”), or to or by a national or resident thereof, or any person or entity on the U.S. Department of Treasury’s List of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Table of Denial Orders (collectively, “Designated Nationals”). The lists of Embargoed Countries and Designated Nationals are subject to change without notice. Use of the Service is representation and warranty that the User is not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of an Embargoed Country or Designated National. The Controlled Subject Matter may use or include encryption technology that is subject to licensing requirements under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. As defined in FAR section 2.101, any software and documentation provided by Mindtickle are “commercial items” and according to DFAR section 252.227-7014(a)(1) and (5) are deemed to be “commercial computer software” and “commercial computer software documentation.” Consistent with DFAR section 227.7202 and FAR section 12.212, any use modification, reproduction, release, performance, display, or disclosure of such commercial software or commercial software documentation by the U.S. Government will be governed solely by the terms of this Agreement and will be prohibited except to the extent expressly permitted by the terms of this Agreement.

    11.9 Anti-Corruption. Neither party has received or been offered any illegal or improper bribe, kickback, payment, gift, or thing of value from an employee or agent of the other party in connection with this Agreement. Reasonable gifts and entertainment provided in the ordinary course of business do not violate the above restriction.

    11.10 Publicity. Customer hereby grants to Mindtickle the express right to use Customer’s company logo and/ or name in marketing, sales, financial, public relations material, display materials and other communications solely to identify Customer as a Mindtickle Customer. Mindtickle hereby grants to Customer the express right to use Mindtickle name and/or logo solely to identify Mindtickle as a provider of Services to Customer. Other than as expressly stated herein, neither party shall use the other party’s name and/or logos without the prior written permission of the other party.

    The following sections replace those set forth in the Agreement above with respect to Customers who are executing the Order with Mindtickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. for the purchase of Services in India.:

    4.3 Taxes and Currency. All fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of, taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, central or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services. Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on Mindtickle’s net income or property. Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all fees due hereunder will be paid in INR.

    7.1 Mindtickle. Mindtickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the Mindtickle Services as provided by Mindtickle directly infringe a patent, copyright, or trademark right of the claimant registered in India and will pay Customer for finally-awarded damages and costs and Mindtickle-approved settlements of the claim. Mindtickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third-party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the Mindtickle Services with non-Mindtickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the Mindtickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement. Mindtickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the Mindtickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    11.1 Notice. Mindtickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all Customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal. Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in Mindtickle’s account information. All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail or express delivery, if to Mindtickle, attention CEO, at Solitaire World, Bangalore Pune Highway, Baner, Pune 411045 India, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.3 Governing Law. Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by laws in India, excluding its conflicts of law provisions; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in Pune. Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws. Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable central, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

    Additional terms applicable to an Order when Services specified below are procured through the respective Order


    Name/ Description of Services Procured through on Order


    Subscription Services/ Platform Subscription


    Professional Services


    Content as a Service


    Managed Services


    Customer Education

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    Terms of Service https://www.mindtickle.com/terms-of-service/ Thu, 12 Jan 2023 07:56:38 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=797 Terms of Service 1.Agreement Scope; Services. 2.Subscription Services Terms of Use. 3.Ownership; Use of Customer Data and Statistical Information. 4.Payments. 5.Term and Termination 6.Warranties; Warranty Remedies; Warranties Disclaimer 7.Indemnification 8.Limitation of Liability. 9.Confidential Information. 10.Insurance and Security. 11.General Terms. For older versions of the Terms of Service please refer to: Terms of Service effective January …

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    Terms of Service

    For older versions of the Terms of Service please refer to:

    Master Subscription and Services Agreement

    THIS MASTER SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES AGREEMENT GOVERNS YOUR (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘CUSTOMER/S’) ACCESS TO AND USE OF THE SERVICES THAT CUSTOMER IS USING IN CONNECTION HEREWITH AND THAT ARE BROUGHT TO CUSTOMER BY MINDTICKLE, INC OR MINDTICKLE INTERACTIVE MEDIA PRIVATE LIMITED WHICH OWNS AND OPERATES THE SERVICE (HEREAFTER REFERRED TO AS ‘MINDTICKLE’).

    BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT, EITHER BY CLICKING A BOX INDICATING ACCEPTANCE OR BY EXECUTING AN ORDER FORM THAT REFERENCES THIS AGREEMENT, OR BY ACCESSING OR USING ANY PART OF THE SERVICE, CUSTOMER AGREES TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT. IF CUSTOMER IS ENTERING INTO THIS AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF A COMPANY OR OTHER LEGAL ENTITY, CUSTOMER REPRESENTS TO HAVE THE AUTHORITY TO BIND SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES TO ALL OF THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, IN WHICH CASE THE TERM “CUSTOMER” SHALL REFER TO SUCH ENTITY AND ITS AFFILIATES. IF CUSTOMER DOES NOT HAVE SUCH AUTHORITY, OR IF CUSTOMER DOES NOT UNCONDITIONALLY AGREE WITH THESE TERMS AND CONDITIONS, CUSTOMER MUST NOT ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT AND CUSTOMER WILL NOT HAVE ANY RIGHT TO USE THE SERVICES.

    CUSTOMER MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES IF CUSTOMER IS MINDTICKLE’S DIRECT COMPETITOR, EXCEPT WITH MINDTICKLE’S PRIOR WRITTEN CONSENT. IN ADDITION, CUSTOMER MAY NOT ACCESS THE SERVICES FOR PURPOSES OF MONITORING THEIR AVAILABILITY, PERFORMANCE OR FUNCTIONALITY, OR FOR ANY OTHER BENCHMARKING OR COMPETITIVE PURPOSES.

    THIS AGREEMENT IS EFFECTIVE BETWEEN CUSTOMER AND MINDTICKLE AS OF THE DATE OF CUSTOMER ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT. MINDTICKLE’S ACCEPTANCE IS EXPRESSLY CONDITIONED UPON CUSTOMER’S ASSENT TO ALL THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER TERMS.

    1. Agreement Scope; Services.

    1.1 Scope This Master Subscription and Services Agreement applies to Customer’s use of:
    (i) Mindtickle’s online learning and enablement system software offered as a service hosted on the Mindtickle platform (“Mindtickle Platform” or “Platform”)
    (ii) support or managed services related to the Platform (collectively, the “Subscription Services”)
    (iii) professional and/or consulting services (“Professional Services”)
    (iv) content as a service (“CaaS”) and
    (v) Customer education services

    as described in one or more Orders or Statements of Work signed by the Parties, including any attachments thereto (each, an “Order” or “SOW” as the case may be).

    Subscription Services, Professional Services, CaaS and Customer education services are collectively referred to as the “Services” and Orders and SOWs are collectively referred to as “Provisioning Documents.”

    This Master Subscription and Services Agreement and all Provisioning Documents, including any addenda and exhibits, constitute the “Agreement.” All capitalized terms not defined herein will have the meanings attributed to them in the Provisioning Documents.

    1.2 Procurement and Provisioning by Affiliates. Customer may procure the Services under this Agreement for its own self and on behalf of one or more Customer Affiliates (defined below). Customer is responsible for the acts and omissions of Customer Affiliates under any Provisioning Document pursuant to which the Customer Affiliate receives the benefit of the Services but is not a signatory. Customer Affiliates who sign a Provisioning Document will be deemed to be the Customer hereunder and solely responsible for its performance or non-performance thereunder. “Affiliate” means any legal entity directly or indirectly controlling, controlled by or under common control with a Party, where control means the ownership of a majority share of the stock, equity or voting interests of such entity.

    1.3 Subscription Services Users. “User” shall mean an individual who has signed-up or has been added to the Platform (by the Customer or by Mindtickle at Customer request), whether or not the individual is using the Subscription Services at any given time. During the Subscription Term set forth in each Order, Mindtickle will make the Subscription Services available to Customer and its authorized end users (“End Users”) and administrative account users (“Admin(s)”) who may be Users of Customer’s Affiliates, employees, agents or contractors. The number of Users shall be set forth in the Order. Customer shall assign each User a Log-In (as set forth in Section 2.5). Where a User no longer requires access to the Subscription Services (e.g., User no longer is employed or engaged by Customer), Customer may deactivate the Log-In for such User and re-provision it to a new User provided that all data associated with the previous User may be removed or deleted from the Subscription Services by Mindtickle. Users may access and use the Subscription Services solely for Customer’s internal business purposes in accordance with the terms of this Agreement. Customer is responsible for use of the Subscription Services by Users and any party who accesses the Subscription Services with a User’s account credentials.

    1.4 Upgrades; Modifications; Improvements and Enhancements. Mindtickle shall have sole discretion as to whether to make updates, improvements, modifications or enhancements or add new features (“Updates”) to the Subscription Services and reserves the right to do so at any time, provided that such Updates do not materially and adversely impact the Services nor result in any increase of the price of the Services during the Subscription Term. Any such Updates are deemed part of the Subscription Services and shall be subject to this Agreement.

    1.5 Service Level Agreement. The Application Availability service level agreement is in https://mindtickle.com/service-level-agreement (“SLA”). The Subscription Services may be temporarily unavailable for scheduled maintenance, unscheduled emergency maintenance or other causes beyond Mindtickle’s reasonable control. Mindtickle will use reasonable efforts to provide advance notice of any scheduled unavailability of the Subscription Services. If Mindtickle does not meet the Service Commitment set forth in the SLA Mindtickle shall provide the Service Credits as set forth in the SLA.

    1.6 Beta Releases and Free Trial. From time-to-time Mindtickle may at its sole discretion make available services to Customer to try which will be clearly designated as beta, pilot, limited release, non-production or by similar description in the Provisioning Document (“Beta Release”). Mindtickle makes no promises that future versions of Beta Release will be released or if such Beta Release will be made generally available, it will be substantially similar to the current Beta Release. Mindtickle may terminate Customer’s right to use Beta Release at any time for any reason or no reason in Mindtickle’s sole discretion. If Mindtickle makes available Beta Release publicly, Customer may, execute a separate Order to procure publicly available version of the Beta Release at then-current applicable fees. If Customer opts for free trial, Mindtickle will grant Customer the temporary access to the applicable Services solely for Customer’s internal purposes and solely for use in evaluating the capabilities of the Services and for the term mentioned in Order (“Free Trial”).  If Customer intends to continue using Free Trial after the end of term set forth in Order, Customer shall execute a new Order at mutually agreed terms. Notwithstanding anything to the contrary in the Agreement, Customer acknowledges and agrees that Beta Release and Free Trial are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis without any liability and indemnity obligations, warranty, support, maintenance, or service level obligations of any kind. 

    2. Subscription Services Terms of Use.

    2.1 Restrictions. Customer will not, and will ensure that its Users do not, directly or indirectly (i) make the Subscription Services available to anyone other than Users or use the Subscription Services for the benefit of any unrelated third party; (ii) sell, resell, assign, pledge, transfer, license, sublicense, distribute, rent or lease the Subscription Services; (iii) reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to discover the source code, object code or underlying structure, ideas or algorithms of the Subscription Services or any software, documentation or data related to or provided with the Subscription Services; (iv) modify, translate or create derivative works based on the Subscription Services or remove any proprietary notices or labels from the Subscription Services; (v) use or access the Subscription Services to build or support, and/or assist a third party in building or supporting products or services competitive to the Subscription Services; (vi) include the Subscription Services in a service bureau or outsourcing offering; (vii) knowingly or willfully use the Services in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden, impair or otherwise interfere with Mindtickle’s provision of the Subscription Services; (viii) disclose the Subscription Services to any competitor of Mindtickle or other third parties. Customer also agrees that it will, and will ensure that its Users, use the Subscription Services only in compliance with the Mindtickle Acceptable Use Policies set forth at https://mindtickle.com/acceptable-use-policy/

    2.2 Virus and Malicious Code. Neither Customer nor any User, will insert nor permit the insertion or introduction of any Malicious Code (defined below) into the Mindtickle Platform. “Malicious Code” means (i) any code, program, or sub-program the knowing or intended purpose or effect of which is to damage or maliciously interfere with the operation of the Platform or any other software or systems, or to halt, disable, or interfere with the operation of the Subscription Services, or (ii) any device, method, or token that permits any person to circumvent without authorization the normal security of the Subscription Services or the Platform.

    2.3 Minimum Standards. Customer and its Users will provide and maintain all hardware, software and network connectivity (“Environment”) needed to access the Internet and the Subscription Services that meet the standards provided on the Mindtickle’s website at https://mindtickle.com/browsers-and-device-support/ which may be revised by Mindtickle from time to time and communicated to Customer and/or updated on the Mindtickle’s website.

    2.4 Links to/from Third Party Sites. The Subscription Service may allow Customer or its Users to (i) leave the Subscription Services and/or access third party websites and content, (ii) access the Subscription Services through third party websites, or (iii) embed links to third party content as or into Customer Data (any of the foregoing, “Links” or Linked Sites”). Any such Links or Linked Sites are not under the control of Mindtickle, are used at Customer’s sole risk, and Mindtickle is not responsible for the contents of any Linked Site, any Link contained in a Linked Site, any changes or updates to Linked Sites, or the performance or security of Linked Sites. Any content accessed by Customer through Links or Linked Sites shall be subject to such agreement as is entered between Customer and the relevant third party content provider.

    2.5 Log-Ins; Security. Customer is responsible for administering usernames and passwords for all Users (the “Log-In Information”) and for any User’s access granted to the Subscription Services. Log-In Information (which includes logins by means of single sign on) may be used only by the assigned User and may not be shared. Customer is responsible for maintaining the security of the equipment and Customer’s Log-Ins. To the extent within Customer’s control, Customer will take reasonable measures to prevent unauthorized third parties from accessing the Subscription Services. Customer shall be liable for all acts and omissions of its Users, and for any resulting loss that Customer or a User may incur due to the unauthorized use of a Users’ Log-Ins or accounts.

    2.6 Suspension.

    2.6.1 Customer Violation. Mindtickle may immediately suspend Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if (i) Customer fails to make payment for undisputed Fees due within 10 business days after Mindtickle has provided Customer with written notice of such failure; or (ii) Customer violates this Section 2, or Section 9 (Confidential Information). Mindtickle will provide Customer the basis for suspension (“Violation”) together with reasonable assistance, where possible, to prevent or resolve the basis for such Violation. Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the Violation.

    2.6.2 Emergencies. Mindtickle may immediately suspend the Customer’s access to the Subscription Services if: (i) Mindtickle becomes aware of what it, in its sole discretion, deems a credible claim that the Subscription Services infringe upon the intellectual property rights of a third party; (ii) if required to do so by law or (iii) if there is an event for which Mindtickle reasonably believes suspension of Subscription Services is necessary to protect the Mindtickle network or Mindtickle’s other customers (e.g., DDoS, a security incident, etc.). In each case, Mindtickle will give you advance notice of pending suspension or termination of at least twelve (12) hours, unless Mindtickle determines, in its reasonable discretion, that no notice or shorter notice is necessary to protect Mindtickle, its customers, or others. Any such suspension will be to the minimum extent, and of the minimum duration, reasonably required to prevent or resolve the basis for such suspension. Any suspension by Mindtickle of the Subscription Services under this Section 2.6.2 will not relieve Customer of its payment obligations hereunder.

    3. Ownership; Use of Customer Data and Statistical Information.

    3.1 Subscription Services. Customer acknowledges that the Subscription Services are offered online on a subscription basis. As between the Parties, Mindtickle owns and reserves all rights, title and interest in and to the Subscription Services, including any software or documents related to or provided with the Subscription Services and all intellectual property rights and derivatives, modifications, refinements or improvements thereto (“Mindtickle IP”). From time to time, Customer or its Users may submit to Mindtickle comments, questions, enhancement requests, suggestions, ideas, process descriptions or other information related to the Subscription Services (“Feedback”). Customer agrees that Mindtickle has all rights to use and incorporate Feedback into the Subscription Services without restriction or payment to Customer. No rights are granted to Customer other than as expressly set forth herein.

    3.2 Professional Services Results. Mindtickle retains all ownership rights to all materials including background and training materials, data, processes, tools, methodologies, results, reports, presentations or any other information or material generated or developed by Mindtickle through the use of or derived from Mindtickle’s Confidential Information or the Mindtickle IP. Customer retains all ownership rights of any materials generated or developed by Mindtickle and exclusively derived from the Customer Data (e.g., edited, modified, reformatted versions of Customer Data, all of which shall be deemed part of “Customer Data” as defined below).

    3.3 Customer Data. Customer owns or has secured the right to use any data, content, information or material submitted by Customer or its Users through the Platform (“Customer Data”). Customer will be solely responsible for (i) the accuracy, quality, content, legality and use of Customer Data, including the means by which Customer Data is acquired and transferred by Customer or its Users outside of the Subscription Services, (ii) obtaining any licenses, permissions or authorizations required for any use of the Customer Data, and (iii) complying with all applicable terms and conditions of any third party website related to Customer Data obtained from such third party website or its use in connection with the Subscription Services. Customer hereby grants Mindtickle the right to use the Customer Data solely as necessary to provide or to assist Customer in the use of the Services hereunder.

    3.4 Statistical Information. Mindtickle may monitor Customer’s and its User’s use and the operation of the Subscription Services and compile such data in an aggregate and anonymous manner to derive statistical and performance information related to the provision and operation of the Subscription Services (“Statistical Information”). Mindtickle may make such Statistical Information publicly available, provided that such information does not include any data that would enable the identification of Customer or disclose Customer Confidential Information. Mindtickle retains all rights, title and interest in and to such Statistical Information.

    4. Payments.

    4.1 Fees. Customer will pay all fees set forth in the Provisioning Documents and any fees invoiced pursuant to this Agreement (“Fees”). All Fees are non-cancelable and non-refundable, except as expressly specified in this Agreement. Professional Services will be provided on a time and materials (“T&M”) basis unless otherwise set forth in the Order. If an estimated total amount is stated in the Order, that amount is a good faith estimate and not a guarantee the Professional Services will be completed for that amount.

    4.2 Overages. Customer will always ensure that its use of the Subscription Services does not exceed the usage terms (number of Users, product and/or number and type of specific modules in the Subscription Services Package to which User has access) specified in the Order (“Usage Limit”). If a Customer is exceeding the Usage Limit, the number of Users in excess of the Usage Limit shall be an “Overage”. In the event of an Overage, Mindtickle reserves the right to raise an invoice for the Overage from the date the Overage first commenced through the end of the then current Subscription Term at the relevant User rates specified in the ongoing Order, which the Customer shall pay in accordance with the payment terms of the Agreement.

    4.3 Taxes and Currency. All Fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, federal or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services. Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on Mindtickle’s net income or property. Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all Fees due hereunder will be paid in U.S. Dollars.

    4.4 Invoices. All amounts are due and payable as specified in the Provisioning Documents. If no payment terms are specified in the applicable Provisioning Documents, payment terms are net 30 days from receipt of invoice. Unpaid invoices not the subject of a written good faith dispute are subject to a finance charge of 1.5% per month on any outstanding balance, or the maximum permitted by law, whichever is lower, plus all reasonable expenses of collection.

    4.5 Expenses. Customer will be responsible for all travel expenses, hotel accommodations, and any other out-of-pocket expenses incurred by Mindtickle in connection with the Professional Services, as set forth in the Order or subject to Customer’s prior written approval (email shall suffice).

    5. Term and Termination

    5.1 Term. Subject to earlier termination as provided below, this Agreement shall remain in effect until all Orders have terminated or expired, or if this Agreement is otherwise terminated in accordance with the terms hereunder. Following the end of the initial Term mentioned in the Order, the Term will automatically renew for another one year term (and for each subsequent year, thereafter) with an annual increase of no more than 5% per year unless (i) renewal Order has already been mutually agreed in writing on or before the expiry of the then current term, or (ii) either party gives written notice at least 30 days prior to the end of the initial or any subsequent renewal term of its intention to terminate the Order. Provided that, Subscriptions originally sold as promotional package will be renewed at Mindtickle’s applicable list price in effect at the time of the renewal.

    5.2 Termination for Cause. In the event of a material breach by either Party, the non-breaching Party will have the right to terminate the applicable Provisioning Document for cause if such breach has not been cured within 30 days after written notice from the non-breaching Party specifying the breach.

    5.3 Effect of Termination. If Mindtickle terminates this Agreement and/or a Provisioning Document for Customer’s uncured material breach (i) all Fees set forth in the terminated Provisioning Document will be immediately due and payable; (ii) all rights granted thereunder will immediately terminate; and (iii) all unpaid Overages shall be also immediately due and payable. If Customer terminates a Provisioning Document for Mindtickle’s uncured material breach, Customer will be entitled to a pro-rata refund for applicable prepaid Fees under such terminated Provisioning Document for the Mindtickle Services not performed calculated from the date of termination. Upon completion of the Agreement Term, all rights to access and use the Subscription Services will terminate. Notwithstanding the foregoing, at Customer’s request if received within 30 days of termination of the Order (“Grace Period”), Mindtickle shall make available to Customer any of the Customer Data in then Mindtickle’s possession in such format as mutually agreed by the Parties. After such Grace period, Customer acknowledges and agrees that Mindtickle has no obligation to retain Customer Data and that Mindtickle will irretrievably delete and destroy Customer Data. If requested by the Customer in writing, Mindtickle will certify to such destruction in writing.

    5.4 Survival. The following sections of this Agreement will survive the termination of the Agreement: Section 2.1 (Restrictions), Section 3 (Ownership, Use of Customer Data, Statistical Information), Section 4 (Payments), Section 5 (Term and Termination), Section 6.5 (Warranties Disclaimer), Section 7 (Indemnification), Section 8 (Limitation of Liability), Section 9 (Confidential Information) and Section 11 (General Terms).

    6. Warranties; Warranty Remedies; Warranties Disclaimer

    6.1 General Warranty. Each Party represents and warrants to the other Party that it has the power and authority to enter into the Agreement.

    6.2 Subscription Services Warranty. Mindtickle warrants (i) the Platform, under normal use, will perform materially in accordance with the Documentation provided by Mindtickle; and (ii) the Subscription Services will be provided in a manner consistent with generally accepted industry standards. “Documentation” means any help pages or other end user documentation provided by Mindtickle to describe the functionality of the Subscription Services or how to use the Subscription Services.

    6.3 Professional Services Warranty. Mindtickle warrants the Professional Services will be performed in a professional and workmanlike manner, in accordance with generally accepted industry standards and the specifications set forth in the Order.

    6.4 Warranty Remedies.

    6.4.1 Customer will notify Mindtickle of any material breach of the warranties (“Warranty Deficiency”) under Sections 6.2 and 6.3 within 30 days of the performance of the relevant Mindtickle Services and Customer’s remedy will be the re-performance of the Warranty Deficiency. If Mindtickle cannot re-perform such Warranty Deficiency and provide the Mindtickle Services as warranted, Customer will be entitled to terminate the deficient Mindtickle Services, as applicable, and recover a pro-rata portion of the Fees paid to Mindtickle for such deficient Mindtickle Services.

    6.4.2 The foregoing shall be Customer’s exclusive remedies and Mindtickle’s entire liability with respect to the warranty commitments set forth in Sections 6.2 and 6.3.

    6.5 WARRANTIES DISCLAIMER. EXCEPT FOR THE EXPRESS WARRANTIES ABOVE, AND TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MINDTICKLE AND ITS THIRD-PARTY PROVIDERS DISCLAIM ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING ANY WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT THE RELIABILITY, TIMELINESS, SUITABILITY, OR ACCURACY OF THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES OR THE RESULTS CUSTOMER MAY OBTAIN BY USING THE MINDTICKLE SERVICES. MINDTICKLE DOES NOT WARRANT UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION OF THE SUBSCRIPTION SERVICES OR THAT MINDTICKLE WILL CORRECT ALL DEFECTS OR PREVENT THIRD PARTY DISRUPTIONS OR UNAUTHORIZED THIRD-PARTY ACCESS. MINDTICKLE DISCLAIMS ALL FAILURES, DELAYS, AND OTHER PROBLEMS INHERENT IN THE USE OF THE INTERNET, TELECOMMUNICATIONS FACILITIES OR EQUIPMENT, OR NETWORKS THAT ARE NOT CONTROLLED BY MINDTICKLE. IN THE EVENT ANY DISCLAIMER IN THIS SECTION CONFLICTS WITH THE SLA, THE TERMS OF THE SLA SHALL GOVERN WITH RESPECT TO THAT SPECIFIC DISCLAIMER.

    7. Indemnification

    7.1 Mindtickle. Mindtickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the Mindtickle Services as provided by Mindtickle directly infringe the U.S. patent, copyright, or trademark rights of the claimant and will pay Customer for finally awarded damages and costs and Mindtickle-approved settlements of the claim. Mindtickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third-party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the Mindtickle Services with non-Mindtickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the Mindtickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement. Mindtickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the Mindtickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid Fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    7.2 Customer. Customer will defend Mindtickle against any claim brought against Mindtickle by a third party alleging (i) Customer Data infringes the intellectual property, privacy or other rights of the claimant; or (ii) Customer’s use of the Mindtickle Services, other than as authorized in this Agreement, violates applicable law or regulations, or infringes the claimant’s intellectual property rights, and will pay Mindtickle for finally-awarded damages and costs and Customer-approved settlements of the claim.

    7.3 Procedure. As a condition to the indemnifying Party’s obligations under this Section 7, the Party seeking indemnification must (i) promptly give written notice of the claim to the indemnifying Party; (ii) give the indemnifying Party sole control of the defense and settlement of the claim (provided that the indemnifying Party may not settle any claim unless it unconditionally releases the indemnified Party of all liability); and (iii) provide the indemnifying Party, at the indemnifying Party’s cost, all reasonable assistance. THIS SECTION STATES THE INDEMNIFIED PARTY’S SOLE REMEDY, TO THE EXCLUSION OF ALL OTHER REMEDIES (IN CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE), AND THE INDEMNIFYING PARTY’S TOTAL LIABILITY REGARDING THE CLAIMS AND LIABILITIES ADDRESSED BY THIS SECTION 7.

    8. Limitation of Liability. NO PARTY WILL BE LIABLE UNDER ANY CONTRACT, TORT, NEGLIGENCE, STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHER THEORY (i) FOR ERROR OR INTERRUPTION OF USE, INACCURACY OR COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS, SERVICE OR TECHNOLOGY, OR LOSS OF BUSINESS OR DATA; (ii) FOR ANY INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, LOST PROFITS, LOST REVENUE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES; (iii) FOR ANY MATTER BEYOND ITS REASONABLE CONTROL, EVEN IF SUCH PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE; OR (iv) EXCEPT FOR CUSTOMER PAYMENT OBLIGATIONS, FOR ANY AMOUNTS THAT, TOGETHER WITH AMOUNTS ASSOCIATED WITH ALL OTHER CLAIMS, EXCEED THE CUMULATIVE FEES INVOICED TO CUSTOMER UNDER THE AGREEMENT IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS PRECEDING THE DATE THE CLAIM AROSE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATION WILL NOT APPLY TO A PARTY’S OBLIGATION OF INDEMNIFICATION AS SET FORTH IN SECTION 7 OR TO THE EXTENT PROHIBITED BY LAW.

    9. Confidential Information. Each Party (the “Recipient”) understands that the other Party (the “Discloser”) may during the Agreement Term and in connection with the Services disclose non-public information relating to the Discloser’s business that is designated as confidential or reasonably should be understood to be confidential and/or proprietary given the nature of the information and circumstances of disclosure (“Confidential Information”). The Recipient agrees (i) to take reasonable precautions to protect such Confidential Information; and (ii) not to use or divulge to any third person any such Confidential Information except as set forth herein and only to those of its employees and contractors who need access for purposes consistent with this Agreement and who are bound to confidentiality terms with Recipient containing protections no less stringent than those herein. The Discloser agrees that the foregoing will not apply with respect to Confidential Information that the Recipient can document (a) is or becomes generally available to the public; (b) was in its possession or known by it prior to receipt from the Discloser; (c) was rightfully disclosed to it by a third party; or (d) was independently developed without use of any Confidential Information of the Discloser. If the Recipient is required by law or court order to disclose Confidential Information, it will give prior written notice to the Discloser (to the extent legally permitted) and reasonable assistance at the Discloser’s cost to contest the disclosure. Recipient acknowledges that the breach or threatened breach of this Agreement may result in irreparable injury to Discloser and that, in addition to its other remedies, the Discloser shall be entitled to seek such temporary and permanent injunctive relief it deems necessary to restrain any threatened or continued breach of this Agreement.

    10. Insurance and Security.

    10.1 Insurance. Mindtickle will, at its expense, procure and maintain throughout the Agreement Term insurance policies and coverages required by law applicable to its business operations and sufficient to support and cover its obligations hereunder as set forth in https://mindtickle.com/insurance/. All such policies identified under this Section shall be issued by reputable and financially sound insurance companies authorized to do business in the geographic area where the Mindtickle Services are to be performed. Upon Customer’s written request, Mindtickle shall furnish to Customer a certificate of insurance evidencing that such policies are in full force and effect.

    10.2 Data Privacy and Security. Mindtickle shall maintain a privacy policy that complies with all applicable laws and which is available as set forth at https://mindtickle.com/platform-privacy-policy/ (“Privacy Policy”), as may be updated from time to time. Furthermore, Mindtickle will maintain appropriate administrative, physical, and technical safeguards designed to protect the security and integrity of the Subscription Services and Customer Data in accordance its security obligations available as set forth in at https://mindtickle.com/technical-and-organizational-security-measures/ (“Security Requirements”), as may be updated from time to time. Those safeguards may include, but will not be limited to, measures for endeavoring to prevent access, use, modification or disclosure of Customer Data by Mindtickle personnel except: (a) as necessary to provide the Services including but not limited to preventing or addressing Service or technical problems; (b) as compelled by law in accordance with Section 2.6; or (c) as may expressly permitted in a writing from an authorized Customer representative.

    11. General Terms.

    11.1 Notice. Mindtickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all Customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal. Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in Mindtickle’s account information. All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail, electronic mail or express delivery, if to Mindtickle, attention CEO, and legal@mindtickle.com, at 535 Mission St, 14th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94105, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.2 Force Majeure. Neither Party will be responsible for failure or delay of performance if caused by an act of nature, war, hostility or sabotage; an electrical, internet, or telecommunication outage that is not caused by the obligated Party; government restrictions (including the denial or cancellation of any export or other license); or other event outside the reasonable control of the obligated Party. Each Party will use reasonable efforts to mitigate the effect of a force majeure event. If such event continues for more than 20 days, either Party may cancel unperformed Services upon written notice. A force majeure event shall not excuse Customer’s obligations to make timely payment.

    11.3 Governing Law. Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by California law, excluding its conflicts of law provisions, and controlling U.S. federal law; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of and venue in the state and federal courts California. Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.4 Entire Agreement. This Agreement represents the Parties’ entire understanding relating to the Services and supersedes any prior or contemporaneous agreements or understandings regarding the Services. In the event of a conflict between this Agreement and a contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document, the terms of the contemporaneous or later-dated Provisioning Document will control. No terms, provisions or conditions of any purchase order, acknowledgement or other business form Customer may use in connection with the acquisition of Services will affect the rights, duties or obligations of the Parties hereunder, or otherwise modify this Agreement, regardless of any failure of Mindtickle to object to such terms, provisions or conditions.

    11.5 Amendment / No Waiver. This Agreement may be amended only by written agreement signed by the Parties. If any provision of this Agreement is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, then such provision(s) will be construed to reflect the intent of the invalid or unenforceable provision(s), with all other provisions remaining in full force and effect. The failure of either Party to enforce any right or provision in the Agreement will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision unless acknowledged and agreed to by such Party in writing.

    11.6 Assignment; Subcontracting. No joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between Mindtickle and Customer as a result of the Agreement or use of the Services. This Agreement and any rights or obligations hereunder may not be assigned, sublicensed or otherwise transferred by the Parties without the prior written approval of the non-assigning Party, except that either Party may assign or transfer this Agreement in connection with a merger or acquisition of all or substantially all of the assets of the assigning company other than to known direct competitor of the non-assigning Party by providing the non-assigning Party with written notice of assignment. Any purported assignment in violation of this section will be void. Mindtickle may use subcontractors to perform Professional Services; Mindtickle will remain responsible for the performance of such Professional Services by any such subcontractor and otherwise for any subcontractor’s compliance with the terms of this Agreement.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws. Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable federal, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

    11.8 U.S. Government Matters. Notwithstanding anything else, Customer may not provide to any person or export or re-export or allow the export or re-export of the Services or any software or anything related thereto or any direct product thereof (collectively “Controlled Subject Matter”), in violation of any restrictions, laws or regulations of the United States Department of Commerce, the United States Department of Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control, or any other United States or foreign agency or authority. Without limiting the foregoing Customer acknowledges and agrees that the Controlled Subject Matter will not be used or transferred or otherwise exported or re-exported to countries as to which the United States maintains an embargo (collectively, “Embargoed Countries”), or to or by a national or resident thereof, or any person or entity on the U.S. Department of Treasury’s List of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Table of Denial Orders (collectively, “Designated Nationals”). The lists of Embargoed Countries and Designated Nationals are subject to change without notice. Use of the Service is representation and warranty that the User is not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of an Embargoed Country or Designated National. The Controlled Subject Matter may use or include encryption technology that is subject to licensing requirements under the U.S. Export Administration Regulations. As defined in FAR section 2.101, any software and documentation provided by Mindtickle are “commercial items” and according to DFAR section 252.227-7014(a)(1) and (5) are deemed to be “commercial computer software” and “commercial computer software documentation.” Consistent with DFAR section 227.7202 and FAR section 12.212, any use modification, reproduction, release, performance, display, or disclosure of such commercial software or commercial software documentation by the U.S. Government will be governed solely by the terms of this Agreement and will be prohibited except to the extent expressly permitted by the terms of this Agreement.

    11.9 Anti-Corruption. Neither party has received or been offered any illegal or improper bribe, kickback, payment, gift, or thing of value from an employee or agent of the other party in connection with this Agreement. Reasonable gifts and entertainment provided in the ordinary course of business do not violate the above restriction.

    11.10 Publicity. Customer hereby grants to Mindtickle the express right to use Customer’s company logo and/ or name in marketing, sales, financial, public relations material, display materials and other communications solely to identify Customer as a Mindtickle Customer. Mindtickle hereby grants to Customer the express right to use Mindtickle name and/or logo solely to identify Mindtickle as a provider of Services to Customer. Other than as expressly stated herein, neither party shall use the other party’s name and/or logos without the prior written permission of the other party.

    The following sections replace those set forth in the Agreement above with respect to Customers who are executing the Order with Mindtickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. for the purchase of Services in India.:

    4.3 Taxes and Currency. All fees are exclusive of, and Customer will be responsible for payment of, taxes, levies, duties or similar local, state, provincial, central or foreign jurisdiction governmental assessments on the Services. Customer is not responsible for any taxes based on Mindtickle’s net income or property. Except as otherwise specified in a Provisioning Document, all fees due hereunder will be paid in INR.

    7.1 Mindtickle. Mindtickle will defend Customer against any claim brought against Customer by a third party alleging the Mindtickle Services as provided by Mindtickle directly infringe a patent, copyright, or trademark right of the claimant registered in India and will pay Customer for finally-awarded damages and costs and Mindtickle-approved settlements of the claim. Mindtickle’s obligations to defend or indemnify will not apply to the extent a claim is based on (i) Customer Data, or Customer’s or a third-party vendor’s technology, software, materials, data or business processes; (ii) a combination of the Mindtickle Services with non-Mindtickle products or services; or (iii) any use of the Mindtickle Services not in compliance with this Agreement. Mindtickle may, in its discretion and at no cost to Customer, (a) modify the Mindtickle Services to avoid infringement; or, if applicable, (b) terminate Customer’s subscriptions for the affected Subscription Services and refund Customer any related prepaid fees for the remainder of the Subscription Term.

    11.1 Notice. Mindtickle may give general notices for Subscription Services applicable to all Customers by means of a notice on the Subscription Services web portal. Specific notices applicable to Users of the Subscription Services, technical support, system security and other account notices will be given by electronic mail to Customer’s e-mail address on record in Mindtickle’s account information. All legal or dispute-related notices will be sent by first class mail or express delivery, if to Mindtickle, attention CEO, at Solitaire World, Office #401, S. No. 36/1/1, Baner, Pune. 411045, India, and if to Customer, at the address set forth in the first paragraph of this Agreement.

    11.3 Governing Law. Unless specifically set forth in the applicable Provisioning Document (i) any action, claim, or dispute between the Parties will be governed by laws in India, excluding its conflicts of law provisions; and (ii) the Parties agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts in Pune. Except for actions for nonpayment or breach of either Party’s proprietary rights, no action, regardless of form, arising out of or relating to the Agreement may be brought by either Party more than 2 years after the cause of action has accrued.

    11.7 Compliance with Laws. Each Party agrees to abide by all applicable central, state, local, and foreign laws and regulations in the performance of this Agreement.

    Additional terms applicable to an Order when Services specified below are procured through the respective Order

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    Privacy Policy https://www.mindtickle.com/privacy-policy/ Thu, 12 Jan 2023 07:56:22 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?page_id=796 Privacy Policy If you are a Mindtickle website user or have shared your personal information with Mindtickle through other channels, please refer to the Mindtickle Privacy Policy. If you are a user of the Mindtickle Platform or Services, please refer to the Platform Privacy Policy. If you are applying for a job at Mindtickle, please …

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    Privacy Policy

    Mindtickle Privacy Policy

    Last Updated: July 25, 2025

    MindTickle, Inc. and MindTickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. (collectively referred to as “Mindtickle” or “we”, “us” or “our”) are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected and want you to understand how we collect, use, and disclose your information. This Privacy Policy outlines the manner in which Mindtickle gathers, utilizes, transfers, safeguards, stores, maintains, or otherwise manages the Personal Information of individuals (“You”) collected through our marketing website located at mindtickle.com, including linked sub-domains (the “Website” or “the “Site”) or shared with us through other sales /marketing channels and business partners. It also describes the rights accessible to you as a data subject (or such other terms provided under applicable data protection laws) and the procedures governing our response to such requests.

    By using our Site or sharing Personal Information with us, you accept and agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. We highly recommend you regularly review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about any updates or modifications we may make.

    You can request a copy of this Privacy Policy by contacting us at privacy@mindtickle.com.

    1. Types of Personal Information

    1.1. Personal Information

    This refers to any information related to an identified or identifiable natural person. This information may include name, business email address, job title, phone number, etc. (collectively “Personal Information”).

    If you submit any Personal Information relating to other people to us, such as their names and email addresses, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

    1.2 Network and Device Information

    As is true of most websites, we automatically gather certain information, such as IP addresses.

    1.3. Navigational Information

    We may also gather navigational information about you, which may include but is not limited to the number of visits, pages visited, average time spent, number of clicks, pages referred from the landing page, etc.

    2. Categories of Personal Information

    The following table details the categories of Personal Information that we collect and have collected over the past 12 months from you, either directly or through other sources. For each category of Personal Information, we have also set out the source for collection and the categories of third parties with whom we share the Personal Information.

    Category of Personal InformationExamples of Personal Information CollectedSourceThird Parties With Whom We Share Data For Business Purposes
    Identifiers
    • Name
    • Email ID
    • Phone number
    • Information that you have provided on the website forms, chatbot, and surveys
    • Your contact information shared by lead generation services and partners
    • Offline forms that you have submitted in events, exhibitions, and conferences
    • Business/contact card that you have shared
    • Information provided by browsers and devices
    • Website interaction information provided by technology partners integrated into the website
    • Submission that you make while testing the AI feature
    • Email request for adding name and social profile / email address in the “Hall of Fame” section on our responsible vulnerability disclosure page

    We may share the following categories of personal information with the below-mentioned categories of third parties:

    • Website hosting provider (Internet, device, or other electronic network activity information)
    • Customer relationship management provider (Identifiers, Professional or employment-related information)
    • Email address verification and validation provider (Identifiers)
    • Cookie consent management provider (Internet, device, or other electronic network activity information)
    • Interactive product walkthrough provider (Identifiers)
    • Meeting scheduler (Identifiers)
    • Cloud phone communication provider (Identifiers)
    • Workshop enrollment form provider (Identifiers and Professional or employment-related information)
    • Marketing event co-sponsors (Identifiers and Professional or employment-related information)
    • Corporate gift delivery  partner (Identifiers and Geolocation information)
    • Audio/visual conversational AI service provider (Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information)
    • User Engagement and Performance Monitoring Service Provider (Identifiers, Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information)
    • Sales and Customer Data Management Service Provider (Identifiers, Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information)
    Professional or employment-related information
    • Job title
    • Company name
    Geolocation information
    • Country
    Financial information
    • Bank Account Number
    Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information
    • Practice sales pitch audio recording
    • Text summary of the audio recording
    Internet, device, or other electronic network activity information
    • IP address
    • Microphone permissions values
    Analytics data
    • User identifier captured in session cookies
    • Website interaction information such as number of visits, pages visited, average time spent, number of clicks, pages referred from the landing page, etc.

     

    3. Sources of Personal Information

    We may collect Personal Information directly when you interact with our Website or through other sales/marketing channels. We may also collect Navigational Information about your visit to understand your preferences and interest in our services. Mindtickle provides notice in clear and conspicuous language at the time of the collection of Personal Information to help you provide informed consent.

    We collect Personal Information about you through the below-mentioned sources:

    3.1 Website Forms, Chatbot, and Surveys

    If you wish to explore our services, express interest in receiving more information, or require support online, you may be asked to furnish Personal Information using online forms and chatbots available on our Website. This includes instances such as requesting a free trial or demo, registering for a webinar, contacting us, subscribing to our email newsletter, and downloading content like thought leadership papers, technical resource papers, case studies, etc.

    We may also collect Personal Information through the surveys sent for the purpose of analyzing the experience of our product and services.

    3.2 Lead Generation Services and Partners

    We may receive your Personal Information from a third party whom we have engaged for data enrichment and lead generation. This includes, but is not limited to, providers of lead data and data enrichment tools that capture and share data regarding visitors to our website or people exploring our services, all within the bounds of legal permissions.

    3.3 Events, Exhibitions, and Conferences

    As a part of our sales initiative, Mindtickle may organize, co-sponsor, or participate in events, conferences, or exhibitions. We may collect Personal Information during such events from our co-sponsors or directly from you when you fill out an offline form or share your business card with us.

    3.4 Technology Partners

    As with most online services, our Website uses cookies to streamline your navigation and enable key site functions. We also employ third-party cookies for website analysis, preferences, and personalized content/advertising, but only with your consent. To know more about the cookies used by these third parties, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

    You have the choice to either enable or disable the use of the optional cookies using the preferences provided in the cookie banner on our Website. If you decide to disable specific cookies, a new cookie will usually be created to remember your preference. This information will be communicated to our Website during your subsequent visits, ensuring that the cookies you opted out of are not employed.

    3.5 Social Media Features

    Our Website includes social media widgets that allow you to share the content on social media sites. e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, X, etc. These features may collect your IP address and which page you are visiting on our Website and may set a cookie to enable the feature to function properly. The functionality provided by these social media widgets is managed by third parties, and your interaction with these features will be governed by the privacy policy of respective social media sites; examples below –

    4. Use of Personal Information

    We may primarily use the collected Personal Information to run marketing and advertising campaigns to sell our services to you.

    We use Personal Information for the following purposes, including:

    • sharing requested technical resource papers, recorded webinars, interactive product walkthroughs, etc.
    • enabling you to participate in webinars, events, seminars, workshops, etc.
    • onboarding you on the Mindtickle platform sandbox instance to explore features and functionality
    • sending relevant marketing communication and product surveys
    • personalizing your experience and improving the overall quality of our website
    • identifying visitor engagement trends for determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns
    • responding to queries and feedback raised through our website contact page or otherwise
    • fulfilling and responding to data subject requests
    • capturing and managing the cookie consent on the website
    • sending alerts regarding the subscribed events, such as sub-processor notification
    • delivering corporate gifts relating to participation and contribution to promotional events
    • enriching and generating business development and sales leads
    • validating and verifying contact email addresses for fraud detection and spam prevention
    • contacting and scheduling meetings for business development conversation
    • paying the bug bounty reward for qualified vulnerabilities submitted to us as part of our Responsible Vulnerability Disclosure Policy
    • adding an entry in the “Hall of Fame” section on our responsible vulnerability disclosure page
    • processing your request when you opt to test the AI-related features available for trial on our Website and determining the business use case for which you are testing the feature
    • as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce our terms and conditions; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

    5. Sharing of Personal Information

    Your Personal Information may be shared with third parties as permitted under data protection laws and this Privacy Policy.

    5.1 Third Parties

    We may enlist the services of third parties to assist us in our business operation and associated Website. These third parties provide services such as website hosting, fraud prevention, web analytics, improving marketing campaigns, enhancing social and advertising networks, scheduling meetings with you, providing interactive product walkthroughs, corporate gift delivery, cookie consent management, customer relationship management, lead data enrichment, etc.

    To provide these activities, these third parties require access to data that may contain your Personal Information. These third parties are provided minimum required access to data on a need-to-know basis only to perform activities required to provide requested services.

    We engage these third parties after performing required due diligence and privacy reviews. Additionally, we sign appropriate confidentiality, non-disclosure, and data protection agreements with these third parties to ensure the security and privacy of your Personal Information.

    5.2 Business Partners

    Mindtickle might collaborate with third parties to promote and distribute its services. We may disclose the Personal Information that you provide when registering for the event to the co-sponsors of events to allow them to contact you regarding products, programs, services, and promotions that they believe may be of interest to you.

    Mindtickle chooses to partner with reputable third parties that respect your information, and your Personal Information will be processed by these business partners as per their respective privacy policies. If you would like to opt-out from sharing your Personal Information with these business partners, please contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com.

    5.3 Business Transfers

    If Mindtickle is a party to a merger or acquisition by another company, or its assets are entirely or partially acquired, Users’ Personal Information may be among the assets transferred. Mindtickle may disclose Personal Information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings). In this event, you will be notified via email or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership, uses of your Personal Information, and choices you may have regarding your Personal Information.

    5.4 Compelled Disclosure

    We may be required to disclose Personal Information in response to a lawful request by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. We reserve the right to use or disclose your Personal Information if required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena, bankruptcy proceedings, or similar legal process or if we reasonably believe that use or disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or comply with a law, court order, or legal process.

    We have not received any request for disclosure of Personal Information from the government or law enforcement agencies in the past 12 months. For more details, please refer to our Transparency Report.

    6. Retention of Personal Information

    We may retain collected Personal Information as long as we consider it potentially useful for fulfilling the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or as needed to comply with our legal obligations to resolve disputes unless we are required to delete this information by law or court order. Further, we periodically review, clean up, and retain only the Personal Information that aligns with the business purpose for which the information was initially collected.

    Please note that we may need to retain certain information provided as part of a data subject request for compliance recordkeeping purposes or to have proof and evidence concerning our relationship should any legal issues arise.

    7. Transfer of Personal Information

    By disclosing your Personal Information to us, you consent to the transfer of your Personal Information to countries outside of your country of residence, which may have different data protection laws than those of your country or the country in which you were located when you initially provided the Personal Information.

    7.1 Data Transfer Mechanism

    Your Personal Information may be stored and processed in any country where our service providers have data storage facilities. When we do, we will ensure that an adequate level of protection is provided for the Personal Information by using one or more of the following approaches:

    • Similar data protection laws – We may transfer Personal Information to countries that have privacy laws that have been recognized by the country from which the Personal Information is transferred as providing similar protections.
    • Contractual safeguards – We may enter into written agreements, such as standard contractual clauses, with recipients that require them to provide the same level of protection for their Personal Information.
    • Approved transfer mechanism – We may rely on other transfer mechanisms approved by authorities in the country from which the Personal Information is transferred.
    7.2 EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework with UK Extension, and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework

    MindTickle, Inc. complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF), the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

    We have certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that we adhere to:

    • the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of Personal Information received from the European Union in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF
    • the United Kingdom (and Gibraltar) under the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF
    • the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of Personal Information received from Switzerland in reliance on the Swiss-U.S. DPF.

    If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and/or the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/.

    MindTickle, Inc. is responsible for the processing of Personal Information it receives, under the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and Swiss-U.S. DPF and subsequently transfers to a third party acting as an agent on its behalf. We comply with the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles for all onward transfers of Personal Information from the EU, UK, and Switzerland, including the onward transfer liability provisions.

    The Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction over MindTickle, Inc.’s compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF. In certain situations, we may be required to disclose Personal Information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

    8. Security of Personal Information

    We use and ensure our service providers implement a variety of technical and organizational security measures to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. While we are taking efforts to protect your Personal Information, it’s important to note that, like any service, this may not ensure absolute immunity from potential issues such as wrongdoings, malfunctions, or misuse.

    If you have a reason to believe that your information with us is no longer secure or the security of your account has been compromised, please notify us at support@mindtickle.com.

    9. Your Rights as a Data Subject

    Your Personal Information comes with certain rights, per applicable data protection laws, including the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA), the Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act (CTDPA), the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (UCPA), the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), the Nevada Privacy of Information Collected on the Internet from Consumers Act (NPICICA), the Oregon Data Privacy Law (OCPA), the Nebraska Data Privacy Act (NEDPA), the New Jersey Data Privacy Law (NJDPL), the New Hampshire Data Privacy Act (NHPA), the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD), the Swiss Data Protection Act (FADP), the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (PIPL), Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA), Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA), the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) or the Canada Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Please find more information about your rights below.

    • Access – You can request details about the Personal Information we hold about you.
    • Rectification – You can request correction or provide supplement data if you think your Personal Information is incorrect or incomplete.
    • Erasure – You can request the erasure of your Personal Information from our systems.
    • Withdrawal of Consent – If we process your Personal Information based on your consent (as indicated at the time of collection), you can request withdrawal of your consent.
    • Data Portability – You can request a copy of your Personal Information in an industry-standard format. Additionally, you can ask us to transmit the data to another organization where technically feasible.
    • Restrict Processing – You can ask us to restrict further processing of your Personal Information.
    • Object to Processing – You can object to the continued use or disclosure of your Personal Information for specific purposes.
    • Right to Opt-Out of Sale – You can request to opt out of the sale of Personal Information we hold about you.

    If you seek more information about these rights or wish to submit a request, kindly contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com or fill out the Individual Rights Request Form.

    10. Exercising Data Subject Rights

    If you are an individual whose Personal Information has been shared and stored in our systems, please feel free to contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com.

    10.1 Request Verification

    We will verify your request using the information associated with your account, including the email address. In some cases, government identification may be required.

    10.2 Timeline

    We strive to complete data subject requests within 30 days. We will notify you if we require an additional time of up to 60 days to complete the request.

    10.3 Exceptions to the Rights of Individuals

    Mindtickle reserves the right to charge a reasonable fee, taking into account the administrative costs of providing the information or communication or taking action requested in cases where it has sufficient reasons to believe that the requests from an individual are unfounded and excessive. Further, there may be situations where we cannot fully comply with your request, such as in cases where it is frivolous, highly impractical, jeopardizes the rights of others, or is not legally required. However, even in such circumstances, we will respond to inform you of our decision.

    10.4 Avoidance of Discriminatory Practices

    Mindtickle acknowledges that it does not involve any practice that can be discriminatory against individuals who have exercised their rights available under data protection laws.

    11. Other Important Terms

    11.1 We Never Sell Personal Information

    Under the California Consumers Privacy Act (CCPA) / California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Sale is defined as “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s Personal Information by the business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”

    We use the information received for the declared business purpose only and are not involved in any process or activity that can be termed as a “Sale” under CCPA/CPRA. We acknowledge that we have not sold Personal Information received through our Website in the preceding 12 months.

    11.2 Sensitive Information

    “Sensitive Personal Information” or “Special Categories of Personal Information” means Personal Information that reveals race, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, or concerns health or a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation, or is used for processing of genetic data, biometric data or precise geolocation data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person.

    We do not require access to your Sensitive Personal Information or Special Categories of Personal Information, and you should not share such information with us.

    11.3 Information About Children

    Our Website is not intended for or targeted at children (as per the age defined under relevant laws. e.g., 18 years, 16 years, 13 years, etc.), and we do not knowingly or intentionally collect information about children. If you believe that we have collected Personal Information about a child, please contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com so that we can delete the Personal Information.

    11.4 Your Consent

    By using our Website, you consent to our collection and use of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy. Additionally, we may store and process your Personal Information in various facilities throughout the globe, including in data centers operated and maintained by our Service Providers. If you are a resident in a jurisdiction where the transfer of your Personal Information to another jurisdiction requires your consent, then it is hereby understood that you provide us your consent to such transfer.

    11.5 Automated Decision-Making

    We do not use Personal Information provided to us to perform automated decision-making.

    11.6 AI/ML Model Training and Data Usage

    We do not use Google user data to develop, improve, or train AI and/or ML models. Further, this data is not transferred to third-party AI tools, and the transfer is not for generalized/ non-personalized AI/ML models. Google Workspace APIs are not used to develop, improve, or train generalized/non-personalized AI and/or ML models.

    We may collect your Personal Information when you leverage our AI feature, available for trial on our Website. This data will be shared with AI models to process your request and provide responses. Please be assured that your data will not be used to train the AI models and will never contribute to their knowledge base. The data shared will be temporarily retained by the AI models and deleted once the request has been completed.

    11.7 Unsubscribing From Our Communications

    You may unsubscribe from our marketing communication by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link located at the bottom of our emails or by sending us an email at marketing@mindtickle.com.

    11.8 Changes to this Privacy Policy

    We annually review this Privacy Policy and may update it from time to time to reflect our ongoing commitments. The “Last Updated” legend at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Your continued use of our Website will be subject to the terms of the then Privacy Policy.

    12. Questions, Concerns, or Complaints

    If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our processing of the Personal Information you provide us, please write to us using the below information:

    MindTickle, Inc.
    Attn: Data Privacy Officer
    535 Mission St, 14th Floor, San Francisco,
    California 94105, United States of America

    or

    MindTickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd.
    Attn: Data Privacy Officer or Grievance Officer
    4th Floor, Solitaire World, Baner,
    Pune, Maharashtra 411045, India

    You can reach out to us at dpo@mindtickle.com

    In case you do not receive a satisfactory response from Mindtickle DPO or have any other query regarding the processing of your Personal Information, you can reach out to our privacy representative at privacyrepresentative@mindtickle.com

    13. Dispute Resolution Authority

    In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, MindTickle, Inc. commits to refer unresolved complaints concerning our handling of personal data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF to TRUSTe, an alternative dispute resolution provider based in the United States.

    If you do not receive a timely acknowledgment of your DPF Principles-related complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your DPF Principles-related complaint to your satisfaction, please visit https://feedback-form.trustarc.com/watchdog/request for more information or to file a complaint. These dispute resolution services are provided at no cost to you.

    For complaints regarding EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S DPF, and Swiss-U.S. DPF compliance not resolved by any of the other DPF mechanisms, you have the possibility, under certain conditions, to invoke binding arbitration. Further information can be found on the official DPF website: https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/article/ANNEX-I-introduction-dpf?tabset-35584=2

    In case you do not receive a satisfactory response from Mindtickle or our dispute resolution provider, you have the right to raise a complaint regarding your data with the following authorities using the contact information provided on their website:

    Platform Privacy Policy

    Last Updated: July 25, 2025

    MindTickle, Inc. and MindTickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. (collectively referred to as “Mindtickle” or “we,” “us” or “our”) are committed to ensuring that your privacy is protected and want you to understand how we process your information. This Privacy Policy outlines how Mindtickle gathers, utilizes, transfers, safeguards, stores, maintains or otherwise manages Personal Information across web applications, mobile applications, and other services offered as a part of our subscription services (the “Services”). It also describes the rights accessible to you as a data subject (or such other terms provided under applicable data protection laws) and the procedures governing our response to such requests. The use of information collected through our service shall be limited to providing the service for which the Customer has engaged Mindtickle.

    In this Privacy Policy, “You” or a “User” or “End-Users” refers to individuals who have been authorized to use the Services subscribed by their respective organizations (“Customer”). Using the Services, you accept and agree to the practices described in this Privacy Policy. We highly recommend you regularly review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about any updates or modifications we may make.

    You can request a copy of this Privacy Policy by contacting us at privacy@mindtickle.com.

    1. Types of Personal Information

    1.1 Personal Information

    This refers to any information about an identifiable natural person. We may receive this information from our Customers or directly from you when such information is provided or generated through the use of the Services. This information may include name, business email address, job title, reporting hierarchy, audio/video recording, etc. (collectively “Personal Information”).

    If you submit any Personal Information relating to other people to us, such as their names and email addresses, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

    1.2 Network and Device Information

    As is true of most web-based services, we automatically gather certain information such as IP address, operating system, browser version, device type, device identifier, etc.

    1.3 Navigational Information

    We gather navigational information about User visits and sessions that include but are not limited to referring pages, clickstream data, date/time stamp, etc.

    2. Categories of Personal Information

    The following table details the categories of Personal Information that we collect and have collected over the past 12 months from our Customers and their End-Users. For each category of Personal Information, we have also set out the source for collection and the categories of third parties with whom we share the Personal Information.

    Category of Personal InformationExamples of Personal Information CollectedSourceThird Parties With Whom We Share Data For Business Purposes
    Identifiers
    • Name
    • Business email ID
    • Any additional identifiers captured by Customers
    • Information provided as input on the learning site, admin site, or mobile application
    • Files uploaded on the learning site, admin site, or mobile application
    • Video/audio recorded on the learning site, admin site or mobile application
    • Information provided through Application Programme Interface (APIs)
    • Participant information received through calendar or web conferencing tool
    • Information retrieved through CRM systems
    • Video/audio recording received through dialers or web conferencing tool
    • User details synchronized through human resource management systems or identity providers
    • Information provided by browsers and devices
    • Navigational / session information provided by Mindtickle sub-processors integrated on the learning site, admin site, and mobile application

    Mindtickle shares information with sub-processors to provide services to its Customers in compliance with this privacy policy and contractual agreements with the Customers.

    The list of subprocessors currently engaged by Mindtickle can be found at https://mindtickle.com/subprocessors

    In accordance with our Vendor Security Policy, Mindtickle performs mandatory due diligence of all sub-processors through information security, privacy, and legal reviews.

    Mindtickle signs a Data Processing Agreement (DPA) and standard contractual clauses with all of its sub-processors and imposes data protection obligations for protecting Customer Personal Information with similar security standards as committed by Mindtickle to the Customers. These data processing agreements are aligned with the global data protection laws such as GDPR, CCPA, CPRA, UK DPA, etc.

    Professional or employment-related information

    This is optional, and typically, Customers capture the following information –

    • Job title
    • Reporting manager
    • Reporting hierarchy
    • Business unit
    Audio, electronic, visual, or similar information
    • Learning or sales content containing personal information
    • Training videos
    • Training audio
    • Training feedback or comments
    • Audio call recording
    • Video conference meeting recording
    • Sales pitch video recording
    • Sales pitch audio recording
    Customer records information

    This is optional, and typically Customers capture the following information from their Customer Relationship Management (CRM) system, calendar integration, or video conferencing tool integration –

    • Customer contact name
    • Customer contact email ID
    • Prospect contact name
    • Prospect contact email ID
    • Meeting participant name
    • Meeting participant email ID
    Internet, device or other electronic network activity information
    • IP address
    • Device ID
    • User agent string that may reveal your device version, operating system and browser version
    Analytics data
    • User identifier captured in session cookies
    • User session containing navigational information

    3. Sources of Personal Information

    Mindtickle does not have a direct contractual relationship with the Users whose Personal Information is collected or received while providing Services to the Customers. Our Services are aimed at businesses and are not offered to individual consumers directly. The purposes and means of processing such Personal Information are determined by our Customers, who are the data controllers or similar terms defined in respective data protection laws. We are responsible for processing the collected information as per the instructions provided to us by our Customers through contractual agreements.

    We collect Personal Information about you through the below-mentioned sources:

    3.1 Use of Services

    To fulfill their business needs, Customers may directly provide or require you to submit some Personal Information to Services, including but not limited to name, business email address, job title, reporting manager, audio/video recording, etc.

    3.2 Integrations

    We may receive your Personal Information through the Services integrations configured by our Customers. These integrations may include Customer systems such as Identity Providers (IdP), Human Resource Management Systems (HRMS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), calendars, video conferencing, dialers, etc.

    3.3 Call Recording

    Customers subscribed to our Call AI Services control call recording options and may record your calls. You can make use of Customer-provided options to enable or disable call recording. Customers are required to seek their legal team’s guidance on their call recording policy and decide/configure options to capture call participant consent.

    3.4 Network and Devices

    We automatically collect information shared by networks, devices, and browsers, such as IP address, operating system, browser version, device model/type, device identifier, etc.

    3.5 Third-Party Cookies

    We may engage third parties (such as Mixpanel, FullStory, Zipy, etc.) to track User activity and gather usage data from mobile devices, cookies, or browser local storage. To know more about the cookies used by these third parties, please refer to our Cookie Policy.

    These third parties are bound by their privacy policy, as listed below, and may provide options to opt out of collecting usage data. e.g. https://www.fullstory.com/optout.

    Alternatively, Customers can request us to opt-out of collecting optional usage data.

    4. Use of Personal Information

    Our Customers typically use Mindtickle Services to build training, enablement, coaching, assets/deals management, and capability-building programs used by their employees, business affiliates & customers.

    We use Personal Information to provide our Services as per instructions mentioned in the Contractual Agreement signed with our Customers. Our Customer Agreements prohibit us from using this Personal Information, except as necessary to provide and improve the Services and for general business purposes, as permitted by this Privacy Policy and as required by law.

    We may use the Personal Information for providing Services, including

    • Performing User registration, activation, and authentication activities
    • Displaying User details in the User profile, reporting hierarchy, User analytics, coaching reviews, content metadata, feedback, and comments
    • Displaying audio/video submissions and call recordings
    • Sharing assets on behalf of User through their email address
    • Processing and responding to API (REST, GraphQL, Open Data Protocol, etc.) and integration data exchange requests
    • Providing User analytics information through integrated data warehouse e.g., Snowflake
    • Providing insights, forecasts, risks and opportunities into Customer sales processes and revenue pipeline
    • Logging and monitoring of User session activity for issue debugging and product improvement
    • Tracking of reported service issues and enhancement requests
    • Sending chat and email communication for support, issue debugging, account and relationship management, etc.
    • Sending email communication related to service notifications/reminders, release notes, announcements, service incidents, scheduled maintenance, legal/privacy communication, subscribed webinars, product surveys, etc.
    • Tracking User engagement and feedback in Customer relationship management system
    • Gathering feedback on product onboarding and orientation process

    Additionally, we may use the Personal Information for

    • Supporting Customers in their business objectives, including providing data and analysis related to their usage of Services
    • Fulfilling any other Customer requests within the scope of Services in the Customer Agreement
    • Sending marketing communications relating to our business or of third parties which we think may be of interest to you (Applicable as per the Customer Agreement representing End-User)
    • Participating in contests and other promotional events (Applicable as per the Customer Agreement representing the End-User)
    • Our business purposes, such as data analysis, audits, fraud monitoring and prevention, developing new products, enhancing, improving, or modifying our Services, identifying usage trends, determining the effectiveness of our promotional campaigns, and operating and expanding our business activities.
    • As we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce our terms and conditions; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

    5. Sharing of Personal Information

    Your Personal Information may be shared with third parties or authorities as permitted or required by the contractual agreement signed with our Customers, data protection laws, and this Privacy Policy.

    5.1 Third Parties

    We may engage third parties for performing activities as required to provide Services to our Customers. These third parties enable us to build capabilities related to technology infrastructure, product features, system integration, technical support, etc. To provide these activities, these third parties require access to data that may contain your Personal Information. These third parties are provided minimum required access to data on a need-to-know basis only to perform activities required to provide Services.

    We engage these third parties after performing required due diligence, security evaluation, privacy review, and as per contractual agreements signed with our Customers. Additionally, we sign appropriate confidentiality, non-disclosure, and data protection agreements with these third parties to ensure the security and privacy of your Personal Information.

    To know more about the third parties engaged by us, please refer to our sub-processor repository.

    5.2 Business Transfers

    If Mindtickle is a party to a merger or acquisition by another company, or its assets are entirely or partially acquired, Users’ Personal Information may be among the assets transferred. Mindtickle may disclose Personal Information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings). In this event, our Customers will be notified via email or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership, uses of your Personal Information, and choices you may have regarding your Personal Information.

    5.3 Compelled Disclosure

    We may be required to disclose Personal Information in response to a lawful request by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. We reserve the right to use or disclose your Personal Information if required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena, bankruptcy proceedings, or similar legal process or if we reasonably believe that use or disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or comply with a law, court order, or legal process.

    We have not received any request for disclosure of Personal Information from the government or law enforcement agencies in the past 12 months. For more details, please refer to our Transparency Report.

    6. Retention of Personal Information

    Your Personal Information will be retained only for the duration required to provide Services to our Customers, to fulfill our obligations towards you as outlined in this Privacy Policy, as required by law, or for dispute resolution.

    Your Personal Information is retained throughout the duration of an active contract with the Customers. Upon the end of or on termination of the contract signed with the Customer, your Personal Information will be retained, returned to the Customer, or deleted as per the terms agreed in the Customer contract.

    Please note that we may need to retain certain information provided as part of a data subject request for compliance recordkeeping purposes or to have proof and evidence concerning our relationship should any legal issues arise following your discontinuance of use.

    7. Transfer of Personal Information

    By using our Services or disclosing Personal Information to us, you consent to the transfer of your Personal Information to countries outside of your country of residence, which may have different data protection laws than those of your country or the country in which you were located when you initially provided the Personal Information.

    7.1 Data Transfer Mechanism

    Unless otherwise agreed to in a separate Customer agreement, your Personal Information may be stored and processed in any country where we have facilities or in which we engage service providers. When we do, we will ensure that an adequate level of protection is provided for the Personal Information by using one or more of the following approaches:

    • Similar data protection laws – We may transfer Personal Information to countries that have privacy laws that have been recognized by the country from which the Personal Information is transferred as providing similar protections.
    • Contractual safeguards – We may enter into written agreements, such as standard contractual clauses, with recipients that require them to provide the same level of protection for their Personal Information.
    • Approved transfer mechanism – We may rely on other transfer mechanisms approved by authorities in the country from which the Personal Information is transferred.
    7.2 EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework with UK Extension, and Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework

    MindTickle, Inc. complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF), the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (Swiss-U.S. DPF) as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

    We have certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that we adhere to:

    • the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of Personal Information received from the European Union in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF
    • the United Kingdom (and Gibraltar) under the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF
    • the Swiss-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of Personal Information received from Switzerland in reliance on the Swiss-U.S. DPF.

    If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and/or the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/.

    MindTickle, Inc. is responsible for the processing of Personal Information it receives, under the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and Swiss-U.S. DPF and subsequently transfers to a third party acting as an agent on its behalf. We comply with the EU-U.S. DPF Principles and the Swiss-U.S. DPF Principles for all onward transfers of Personal Information from the EU, UK, and Switzerland, including the onward transfer liability provisions.

    The Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction over MindTickle, Inc.’s compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF. In certain situations, we may be required to disclose Personal Information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

    8. Security of Personal Information

    We use a variety of technical and organizational security measures to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. While we are taking efforts to protect your Personal Information, it’s important to note that, like any service, this may not ensure absolute immunity from potential issues such as wrongdoings, malfunctions, or misuse.

    If you have a reason to believe that your information with us is no longer secure or the security of your account has been compromised, please notify us at support@mindtickle.com.

    9. Your Rights as a Data Subject

    Your Personal Information comes with certain rights, per applicable data protection laws, including the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA), the Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act (CTDPA), the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (UCPA), the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), the Nevada Privacy of Information Collected on the Internet from Consumers Act (NPICICA), the Oregon Data Privacy Law (OCPA), the Nebraska Data Privacy Act (NEDPA), the New Jersey Data Privacy Law (NJDPL), the New Hampshire Data Privacy Act (NHPA), the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD), the Swiss Data Protection Act (FADP), the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (PIPL), Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA), Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA), the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) or the Canada Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Our Services generally have the option to access or rectify your Personal Information directly or through your organization’s administrator of the Services. Please find below more information about your rights as a data subject.

    • Access – You can request details about the Personal Information we hold about you.
    • Rectification – You can request correction or provide supplement data if you think your Personal Information is incorrect or incomplete.
    • Erasure – You can request the erasure of your Personal Information from our systems.
    • Withdrawal of Consent – If we process your Personal Information based on your consent (as indicated at the time of collection), you can request withdrawal of your consent.
    • Data Portability – You can request a copy of your Personal Information in an industry-standard format. Additionally, you can ask us to transmit the data to another organization where technically feasible.
    • Restrict Processing – You can ask us to restrict further processing of your Personal Information.
    • Object to Processing – You can object to the continued use or disclosure of your Personal Information for specific purposes.
    • Right to Opt-Out of Sale – You can request to opt out of the sale of Personal Information we hold about you.

    If you seek more information about these rights or wish to submit a request, kindly reach out to us at privacy@mindtickle.com or fill out the Individual Rights Request Form.

    10. Exercising Data Subject Rights

    If you are an individual whose Personal Information who has shared Personal Information is stored in our systems, please feel free to reach out to us at privacy@mindtickle.com.

    10.1 Request Verification

    We will verify your request using the information associated with your account, including the email address. In some cases, government identification may be required. We will forward verified requests to your organization and act as per their instructions. Consumers can also designate an authorized agent to help them fulfill data subject requests.

    10.2 Timeline

    We strive to complete data subject requests within 30 days. We will notify you if we require an additional time of up to 60 days to complete the request.

    10.3 Exceptions to the Rights of Individuals

    Mindtickle reserves the right to charge a reasonable fee, taking into account the administrative costs of providing the information or communication or taking action requested in cases where it has sufficient reasons to believe that the requests from an individual are unfounded and excessive. Further, there may be situations where we cannot fully comply with your request, such as in cases where it is frivolous, highly impractical, jeopardizes the rights of others, or is not legally required. However, even in such circumstances, we will respond to inform you of our decision.

    10.4 Avoidance of Discriminatory Practices

    Mindtickle acknowledges that it does not involve any practice that can be discriminatory against individuals who have exercised their rights available under data protection laws.

    11. Other Important Terms

    11.1 We Never Sell Personal Information

    Under the California Consumers Privacy Act (CCPA) / California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Sale is defined as “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s Personal Information by the business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”

    We use the information received from the Users themselves for the declared business purpose only and are not involved in any process or activity that can be termed as a “Sale” under CCPA/CPRA. We acknowledge that we have not sold Personal Information received through our Services in the preceding 12 months.

    11.2 Sensitive Information

    “Sensitive Personal Information” or “Special Categories of Personal Information” means Personal Information that reveals race, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, or concerns health or a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation, or is used for processing of genetic data, biometric data or precise geolocation data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person.

    In order to provide our Website, we do not require access to your Sensitive Personal Information or Special Categories of Personal Information, and you should not share such information with us.

    11.3 Information About Children

    Our Website is not intended for or targeted at children (as per the age defined under relevant laws. e.g., 18 years, 16 years, 13 years, etc.), and we do not knowingly or intentionally collect information about children. If you believe that we have collected Personal Information about a child, please contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com so that we can delete the Personal Information.

    11.4 Your Consent

    By using our Services, you consent to our collection and use of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy. Additionally, we may store and process your Personal Information in various facilities throughout the globe, including in data centers operated and maintained by cloud-based service providers. If you are a resident in a jurisdiction where the transfer of your Personal Information to another jurisdiction requires your consent, then it is hereby understood that you provide us your consent to such transfer.

    11.5 Automated Decision-Making

    We do not encourage the use of information provided or generated by our Services to perform automated decision-making.

    11.6 AI/ML Model Training and Data Usage

    We do not use Google user data to develop, improve, or train AI and/or ML models. Further, this data is not transferred to third-party AI tools, and the transfer is not for generalized/ non-personalized AI/ML models. Google Workspace APIs are not used to develop, improve, or train generalized/non-personalized AI and/or ML models.

    11.7 Unsubscribing From Our Communications

    You may unsubscribe from our marketing communication by clicking on the “unsubscribe” link located at the bottom of our emails or by sending us an email at marketing@mindtickle.com. You cannot opt out of receiving transactional emails and notifications related to the Services subscribed through our Customers. You may reach out to your organization to configure the email and notification preferences in the Services.

    11.8 Changes to this Privacy Policy

    We annually review this Privacy Policy and may update it from time to time to reflect our ongoing commitments. If we make any material change to our existing privacy commitments, we will send a notification as per the communication details provided in the contractual agreement signed with our Customers. The “Last Updated” legend at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Your continued use of our Services will be subject to the terms of the then Privacy Policy.

    12. Questions, Concerns, or Complaints

    If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our processing of the Personal Information you provide us, please write to us using the below information:

    MindTickle, Inc.
    Attn: Data Privacy Officer
    535 Mission St, 14th Floor, San Francisco,
    California 94105, United States of America

    or

    MindTickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd.
    Attn: Data Privacy Officer or Grievance Officer
    4th Floor, Solitaire World, Baner,
    Pune, Maharashtra 411045, India

    You can reach out to us at dpo@mindtickle.com

    In case you do not receive a satisfactory response from Mindtickle DPO or have any other query regarding the processing of your Personal Information, you can reach out to our privacy representative at privacyrepresentative@mindtickle.com

    13. Dispute Resolution Authority

    In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF, MindTickle, Inc. commits to refer unresolved complaints concerning our handling of personal data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and the Swiss-U.S. DPF to TRUSTe, an alternative dispute resolution provider based in the United States.

    If you do not receive a timely acknowledgment of your DPF Principles-related complaint from us, or if we have not addressed your DPF Principles-related complaint to your satisfaction, please visit https://feedback-form.trustarc.com/watchdog/request for more information or to file a complaint. These dispute resolution services are provided at no cost to you.

    For complaints regarding EU-U.S. DPF, the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, and Swiss-U.S. DPF compliance not resolved by any of the other DPF mechanisms, you have the possibility, under certain conditions, to invoke binding arbitration. Further information can be found on the official DPF website: https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/article/ANNEX-I-introduction-dpf?tabset-35584=2

    In case you do not receive a satisfactory response from Mindtickle or our dispute resolution provider, you have the right to raise a complaint regarding your data with the following authorities using the contact information provided on their website:

    Job Applicants Privacy Policy

    Last Updated: March 17, 2025

    MindTickle, Inc. and MindTickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd. (collectively referred to as “Mindtickle,” “us,” “we,” or “our”) respect your privacy and are committed to protecting your Personal Information. This Privacy Policy outlines the manner in which Mindtickle gathers, utilizes, transfers, safeguards, stores, maintains, or otherwise manages the Personal Information of individuals (“You”) collected from your job application, résumé, curriculum vitae or via other sources throughout the recruitment process. It also describes the rights accessible to you as a data subject (or such other terms provided under applicable data protection laws) and the procedures governing our response to such requests.

    By choosing to apply for a job at Mindtickle and appearing for the hiring process, you accept and agree to the practices described in this Privacy Notice. We highly recommend you regularly review this Privacy Policy to stay informed about any updates or modifications we may make.

    You can request a copy of this Privacy Policy by contacting us at privacy@mindtickle.com.

    1. Personal Information

    Personal Information refers to any information related to an identified or identifiable natural person. This information may include name, phone number, email ID, address, etc.

    If you submit any Personal Information relating to other people to us, such as their names and email addresses, you represent that you have the authority to do so and to permit us to use the information in accordance with this Privacy Policy.

    2. Categories of Personal Information

    The following table details the categories of Personal Information that we collect and have collected over the past 12 months from you, either directly or through other sources. For each category of Personal Information, we have also set out the source for collection and the categories of third parties with whom we share the Personal Information.

    Category of Personal InformationExamples of Personal Information CollectedSourceThird Parties With Whom We Share Data For Business Purposes
    Identifiers
    • Name
    • Email ID
    • Phone number
    • Information shared with Mindtickle over an email (e.g., careers@mindtickle.com)
    • Information submitted through third-party job portals such as Lever, LinkedIn, Naukari, etc.
    • Information shared by our sourcing partners and recruiting agencies
    • Information shared by colleges and universities during campus hiring
    • Information of candidates referred by Mindtickle employees
    • Video or audio conversation during the screening and interview process
    • Social media profiles voluntarily shared as part of job application
    • Information generated by competency assessment tool based on responses submitted by candidates

    We may share the following categories of personal information with the below-mentioned categories of third parties:

    • Recruitment process management provider (Identifiers, Audio, electronic, visual, and similar information, Professional, employment-related, or educational information, and Geolocation information)
    • Knowledge competency and assessment tool (Identifiers and Information we collect or generate during the recruitment process)
    • New hire joining kit  delivery partner (Identifiers and Geolocation information)
    • Human resource management system (Identifiers, Professional, employment-related, or educational information, and Audio, electronic, visual, and similar information)
    • Background verification service provider (Identifiers, Professional, employment-related, or educational information, and Geolocation information)
    Professional, employment-related, or educational information
    • Job title
    • Company name
    • Employment history
    • Professional certifications
    • Professional references
    • Educational qualification
    Geolocation information
    • Address
    Audio, electronic, visual, and similar information
    • Profile picture
    • Interview audio and video recordings
    Financial information
    • Current and desired salary
    • Terms relating to compensation and benefits packages
    Information we collect or generate during the recruitment process
    • Interview notes
    • Assessment scores
    • Correspondence data

    3. Sources of Personal Information

    We may collect Personal Information directly from you or through other sources. The information we gather is required to facilitate recruitment and ensure compliance with our legal responsibilities.

    Mindtickle provides notice in clear and conspicuous language at the time of collecting Personal Information to help you provide informed consent.

    We collect Personal Information about you through the below-mentioned sources:

    3.1 Job Applicaton, Résumé or Curriculum Vitae

    We may collect your Personal Information, which is a part of the job application, résumé, and curriculum vitae that we receive directly from you or through other sources such as third-party job portals, our sourcing partners and recruiting agencies, referrals by employees or colleges and universities during campus hiring.

    3.2 Interview Process

    We may collect Personal Information about you during the application review and interview process. This may include information obtained when you appear for interviews over the phone or through video conference tools.

    3.3 Competency Assessment Tool

    As a part of our recruitment process, we may ask you to appear for assessments, for which we may utilize third-party tools. We do not perform automated decision-making based on assessment-generated or any other information.

    3.4 Social Media Profiles

    Mindtickle may also capture additional professional Personal Information from your social media profiles, such as LinkedIn, GitHub, Twitter, etc., that you may voluntarily provide as a part of the job application.

    4. Use of Personal Information

    Mindtickle uses the collected Personal Information for the recruitment process and other purposes listed below:

    • assessing your suitability for the job position
    • creating and maintaining your profile in our internal systems
    • reaching out to discuss the role, respond to inquiries, and communicate with you about your application
    • contacting you with future communications and updates about other suitable opportunities at Mindtickle
    • requesting feedback for enhancing our application and recruitment procedures
    • verifying the information shared as a part of the job application and conducting background/reference checks
    • as we believe to be necessary or appropriate: (a) under applicable law, including laws outside your country of residence; (b) to comply with legal process; (c) to respond to requests from public and government authorities, including public and government authorities outside your country of residence; (d) to enforce our terms and conditions; (e) to protect our operations or those of any of our affiliates; (f) to protect our rights, privacy, safety or property, or that of our affiliates, you or others; and (g) to allow us to pursue available remedies or limit the damages that we may sustain.

    5. Sharing of Personal Information

    Your Personal Information may be shared with third parties as permitted under data protection laws and this Privacy Policy.

    5.1 Recruitment process management provider

    Mindtickle uses and may disclose Personal Information with recruitment process management providers to review your job application and complete the recruitment process.

    5.2 Knowledge competency and assessment tool

    During the recruitment process, we may use a third-party assessment tool. To provide you access to the third-party assessment platform, we may be required to share your Personal Information with the third party.

    5.3 New hire joining kit delivery partner

    Prior to the date of joining, Mindtickle may share your Personal Information with third parties for the delivery of the new hire joining kit.

    5.4 Human Resource Management System

    As per country-specific requirements, we may ask you to share your Personal Information on our human resource management system. We would require this information to create your profile and capture the data necessary for handling post-joining activities.

    5.5 Background Verification Service Provider

    Mindtickle may share your Personal Information with background verification service providers for the purposes of the verification/background checks.

    5.6 Business Transfers

    If Mindtickle is a party to a merger or acquisition by another company, or its assets are entirely or partially acquired, Users’ Personal Information may be among the assets transferred. Mindtickle may disclose Personal Information to a third party in the event of any reorganization, merger, sale, joint venture, assignment, transfer, or other disposition of all or any portion of our business, assets, or stock (including in connection with any bankruptcy or similar proceedings). In this event, you will be notified via email or a prominent notice on our website of any change in ownership, uses of your Personal Information, and choices you may have regarding your Personal Information.

    5.7 Compelled Disclosure

    We may be required to disclose Personal Information in response to a lawful request by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements. We reserve the right to use or disclose your Personal Information if required by law, such as to comply with a subpoena, bankruptcy proceedings, or similar legal process or if we reasonably believe that use or disclosure is necessary to protect our rights, protect your safety or the safety of others, investigate fraud, or comply with a law, court order, or legal process.

    We have not received any request for disclosure of Personal Information from the government or law enforcement agencies in the past 12 months. For more details, please refer to our Transparency Report.

    6. Retention of Personal Information

    We may retain collected Personal Information for a period of fulfilling the purposes outlined in this Privacy Policy or as needed to comply with our legal obligations to resolve disputes unless we are required to delete this information by law or court order.

    For clarity, if your initial job application is unsuccessful, we may keep your Personal Information on record for two years from the last application date. The Personal information will only be retained with your permission. This will enable us to reach out to you regarding other potentially fitting opportunities in the future.

    Please note that we may need to retain certain information provided as part of a data subject request for compliance recordkeeping purposes or to have proof and evidence concerning our relationship should any legal issues arise.

    7. Transfer of Personal Information

    By disclosing your Personal Information to us, you consent to the transfer of your Personal Information to countries outside of your country of residence, which may have different data protection laws than those of your country or the country in which you were located when you initially provided the Personal Information.

    7.1 Data Transfer Mechanism

    Your Personal Information may be stored and processed in any country where our service providers have data storage facilities. When we do, we will ensure that an adequate level of protection is provided for the Personal Information by using one or more of the following approaches:

    • Similar data protection laws – We may transfer Personal Information to countries that have privacy laws that have been recognized by the country from which the Personal Information is transferred as providing similar protections.
    • Contractual safeguards – We may enter into written agreements, such as standard contractual clauses, with recipients that require them to provide the same level of protection for their Personal Information.
    • Approved transfer mechanism – We may rely on other transfer mechanisms approved by authorities in the country from which the Personal Information is transferred.
    7.2 EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework with UK Extension

    MindTickle, Inc. complies with the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework (EU-U.S. DPF) and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF as set forth by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

    We have certified to the U.S. Department of Commerce that we adhere to:

    • the EU-U.S. Data Privacy Framework Principles (EU-U.S. DPF Principles) with regard to the processing of Personal Information received from the European Union in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF
    • the United Kingdom (and Gibraltar) under the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF

    If there is any conflict between the terms in this privacy policy and the EU-U.S. DPF Principles, the Principles shall govern. To learn more about the Data Privacy Framework (DPF) program, and to view our certification, please visit https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/.

    MindTickle, Inc. is responsible for the processing of Personal Information it receives under the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF and subsequently transfers to a third party acting as an agent on its behalf. We comply with the EU-U.S. DPF Principles for all onward transfers of Personal Information from the EU and UK, including the onward transfer liability provisions.

    The Federal Trade Commission has jurisdiction over MindTickle, Inc.’s compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF. In certain situations, we may be required to disclose Personal Information in response to lawful requests by public authorities, including to meet national security or law enforcement requirements.

    8. Security of Personal Information

    We use and ensure our service providers implement a variety of technical and organizational security measures to protect your Personal Information from unauthorized access, use, alteration, disclosure, or destruction. While we are taking efforts to protect your Personal Information, it’s important to note that, like any service, this may not ensure absolute immunity from potential issues such as wrongdoings, malfunctions, or misuse.

    If you have a reason to believe that your information with us is no longer secure or the security of your account has been compromised, please notify us at support@mindtickle.com.

    9. Your Rights as a Data Subject

    Your Personal Information comes with certain rights, per applicable data protection laws, including the EU or UK General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA), the California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), the Colorado Privacy Act (CPA), the Connecticut Personal Data Privacy and Online Monitoring Act (CTDPA), the Utah Consumer Privacy Act (UCPA), the Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA), the Nevada Privacy of Information Collected on the Internet from Consumers Act (NPICICA), the Oregon Data Privacy Law (OCPA), the Nebraska Data Privacy Act (NEDPA), the New Jersey Data Privacy Law (NJDPL), the New Hampshire Data Privacy Act (NHPA), the Brazilian General Data Protection Law (LGPD), the Swiss Data Protection Act (FADP), the Personal Information Protection Law of the People’s Republic of China (PIPL), Texas Data Privacy and Security Act (TDPSA), Montana Consumer Data Privacy Act (MCDPA), the Digital Personal Data Protection Act (DPDPA) or the Canada Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA). Please find more information about your rights below.

    • Access – You can request details about the Personal Information we hold about you.
    • Rectification – You can request correction or provide supplement data if you think your Personal Information is incorrect or incomplete.
    • Erasure – You can request the erasure of your Personal Information from our systems.
    • Withdrawal of Consent – If we process your Personal Information based on your consent (as indicated at the time of collection), you can request withdrawal of your consent.
    • Data Portability – You can request a copy of your Personal Information in an industry-standard format. Additionally, you can ask us to transmit the data to another organization where technically feasible.
    • Restrict Processing – You can ask us to restrict further processing of your Personal Information.
    • Object to Processing – You can object to the continued use or disclosure of your Personal Information for specific purposes.
    • Right to Opt-Out of Sale – You can request to opt out of the sale of Personal Information we hold about you.

    If you seek more information about these rights or wish to submit a request, kindly contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com or fill out the Individual Rights Request Form.

    10. Exercising Data Subject Rights

    If you are an individual whose Personal Information has been shared and stored in our systems, please feel free to contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com.

    10.1 Request Verification

    We will verify your request using the information associated with your account, including the email address. In some cases, government identification may be required.

    10.2 Timeline

    We strive to complete data subject requests within 30 days. We will notify you if we require an additional time of up to 60 days to complete the request.

    10.3 Exceptions to the Rights of Individuals

    Mindtickle reserves the right to charge a reasonable fee, taking into account the administrative costs of providing the information or communication or taking action requested in cases where it has sufficient reasons to believe that the requests from an individual are unfounded and excessive. Further, there may be situations where we cannot fully comply with your request, such as in cases where it is frivolous, highly impractical, jeopardizes the rights of others, or is not legally required. However, even in such circumstances, we will respond to inform you of our decision.

    10.4 Avoidance of Discriminatory Practices

    Mindtickle acknowledges that it does not involve any practice that can be discriminatory against individuals who have exercised their rights available under data protection laws.

    11. Other Important Terms

    11.1 We Never Sell Personal Information

    Under the California Consumers Privacy Act (CCPA) / California Privacy Rights Act (CPRA), Sale is defined as “selling, renting, releasing, disclosing, disseminating, making available, transferring, or otherwise communicating orally, in writing, or by electronic or other means, a consumer’s Personal Information by the business to another business or a third party” in exchange for “monetary” or “other valuable consideration.”

    We use the information received for the declared business purpose only and are not involved in any process or activity that can be termed as a “Sale” under CCPA/CPRA. We acknowledge that we have not sold Personal Information received through our Website in the preceding 12 months.

    11.2 Sensitive Information

    “Sensitive Personal Information” or “Special Categories of Personal Information” means Personal Information that reveals race, ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, or concerns health or a natural person’s sex life or sexual orientation, or is used for processing of genetic data, biometric data or precise geolocation data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person.

    We do not require you to submit any Sensitive Personal Information as part of your job application, and you should not share such information with us.

    11.3 Information About Children

    We strictly prohibit the employment of children (as per the age defined under relevant laws. e.g., 18 years, 16 years, 13 years, etc.), and we do not knowingly or intentionally collect information about children. If you believe that we have collected Personal Information about a child, please contact us at privacy@mindtickle.com so that we can delete the Personal Information.

    11.4 Your Consent

    By applying for a position at Mindtickle and continuing interest in the recruitment process, you consent to our collection and use of your Personal Information as described in this Privacy Policy. Additionally, we may store and process your Personal Information in various facilities throughout the globe, including in data centers operated and maintained by our Service Providers. If you are a resident in a jurisdiction where the transfer of your Personal Information to another jurisdiction requires your consent, then it is hereby understood that you provide us your consent to such transfer.

    11.5 Automated Decision-Making

    We do not use Personal Information provided to us to perform automated decision-making.

    11.6 AI/ML Model Training and Data Usage

    We do not use Google user data to develop, improve, or train AI and/or ML models. Further, this data is not transferred to third-party AI tools, and the transfer is not for generalized/ non-personalized AI/ML models. Google Workspace APIs are not used to develop, improve, or train generalized/non-personalized AI and/or ML models.

    11.7 Changes to this Privacy Policy

    We annually review this Privacy Policy and may update it from time to time to reflect our ongoing commitments. The “Last Updated” legend at the top of this page indicates when this Privacy Policy was last revised. Your continued interest in applying for a job and continuing the screening process will be subject to the terms of the then Privacy Policy.

    12. Questions, Concerns, or Complaints

    If you have any questions about this Privacy Policy or our processing of the Personal Information you provide us, please write to us using the below information:

    MindTickle, Inc.
    Attn: Data Privacy Officer
    535 Mission St, 14th Floor, San Francisco,
    California 94105, United States of America

    or

    MindTickle Interactive Media Pvt. Ltd.
    Attn: Data Privacy Officer or Grievance Officer
    4th Floor, Solitaire World, Baner,
    Pune, Maharashtra 411045, India

    You can reach out to us at dpo@mindtickle.com

    In case you do not receive a satisfactory response from Mindtickle DPO or have any other query regarding the processing of your Personal Information, you can reach out to our privacy representative at privacyrepresentative@mindtickle.com

    13. Dispute Resolution Authority

    For complaints regarding EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF compliance not resolved by any of the other DPF mechanisms, you have the possibility, under certain conditions, to invoke binding arbitration. Further information can be found on the official DPF website: https://www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/article/ANNEX-I-introduction-dpf?tabset-35584=2

    In compliance with the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF, Mindtickle commits to cooperate and comply respectively with the advice of the panel established by the EU data protection authorities (DPAs) and the UK Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) with regard to unresolved complaints concerning our handling of human resources data received in reliance on the EU-U.S. DPF and the UK Extension to the EU-U.S. DPF in the context of the employment relationship.

    In case you do not receive a satisfactory response from Mindtickle, you have the right to raise a complaint regarding your data with the following authorities using the contact information provided on their website:

    Additionally, for data subjects who are based outside of the EU and UK, in case you do not receive a satisfactory response from Mindtickle, you have the right to raise a complaint regarding your data with the following authorities using the contact information provided on their website:

    The post Privacy Policy appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Sales Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/sales-readiness-platform/sales-coaching-software/ Thu, 12 Jan 2023 06:28:02 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=platform&p=764 Sales Coaching Get more from your team by making sales coaching compelling, fast, and effective. Request a Demo Coach your teams to continued sales success With Mindtickle, sales coaching can be individualized to the unique needs of your management, teams, and Sales reps. Create a sales coaching culture Say goodbye to disjointed, one-size-fits-all coaching tactics. …

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    multiple breadcrumb

    Sales Coaching

    Get more from your team by making sales coaching compelling, fast, and effective.

    Coach your teams to continued sales success

    With Mindtickle, sales coaching can be individualized to the unique needs of your management, teams, and Sales reps.

    Create a sales coaching culture

    Say goodbye to disjointed, one-size-fits-all coaching tactics. Drive higher quota attainment through data-driven insights and individualized Sales coaching.

    icon-complete-visibility-100x100

    Complete visibility

    Identify which tactics have the most positive impact on deals.

    icon-built-for-today-100x100

    Flexible and adaptable

    Implement a hybrid approach to sales coaching to improve rep performance through in-person, virtual, peer-to-peer, 1-on-1 and self-coaching.

    icon-individualized-approach-100x100

    Individualized approach

    Tailor your sales coaching practices to improve selling skills and address individual rep strengths and weaknesses.

    icon-tied-to-readiness-100x100

    Improved readiness

    Supplement training and content with manager-led coaching to level up targeted skills for individual reps.

    Splunk Fosters Sales Coaching Culture

    We began all of this with a defined governance model and operational processes, executive buy-in and champions across the company, metrics to map back to, and a plan to ensure
    Krishna Saw
    Director of Digital Transformation & Adoption
    splunk
    “ copy 6

    Optimize behavior to improve sales performance

    Get insights on deal risks and buyer engagement. Identify problems, but also go beyond to fix them.

    Make managers accountable for coaching

    Coach the coaches on the right kinds of behaviors based on data.

    Use real-world evidence to identify coaching needs

    Deliver one-on-one or team coaching from sales meetings.

    SALES COACHING CUSTOMER STORIES

    Mindtickle provided analytics and helped us drive results that proved to our leadership what global enablement is trying to accomplish.
    Amy Lord
    Senior Analyst, Global Enablement
    “ copy 6
    FEATURED RESOURCE

    Every rep can be a top performer.

    In this guide, we’ll explore the key skills reps need at each stage of the sales cycle. 

    Explore all that you can do with the
    Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform

    Set performance goals, educate your team, create a coaching culture, track field
    performance, and offer personalized solutions that improve long-term results.
    icon-sales-onboarding

    Sales Onboarding

    Ramp new sales team members quickly through formal and informal learning techniques.

    Continuous Learning

    Create a continuous state of excellence through ongoing programs, missions, and content.

    Manager-Led Coaching

    Create a coaching culture through personalized coaching on deals and skills.

    Account Strategy & Review

    Leverage field evidence to inform your account conversion and growth plans.

    Sales Kickoffs

    Use kickoffs and live instructor-led sessions to accentuate knowledge and skill development to improve sales performance.

    Partner Enablement

    Get your partners scaled quickly and keep them updated with your latest and greatest.

    Sales Certification

    Ensure reps are ready to carry out their skills on the field with pre-testing.

    Voice of the Customer

    Use call recording to identify and share market trends, customer needs, and ideas.

    CURATED RESOURCES

    Ready up with reports, guides, and more

    Sign up for webinars and events, or check out our Resource Center.

    Up your coaching game with Mindtickle

    Coach your team to success with the Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform.

    FAQs

    What is sales coaching?

    Reps need regular coaching to improve performance. The rep and the coach have a conversation in which the rep is doing the majority of the talking and the coach is observing, and providing comments to improve the performance of the rep.

    What is the difference between sales coaching and sales training?

    The simplest way e is to think of training as the base on which everything else is constructed. Until sales training is complete, your sellers cannot effectively sell. Sales training includes the activities an organization uses to make sure its sellers are familiar with the fundamentals of how to engage with buyers, understand their business challenges, know the market, handle, and ultimately, sell a product.

    Sales coaching is an additional layer on top of sales training. Sales coaching is a combination of skill coaching as well as deal coaching and consists of conversations between the manager and seller. Managers can coach sellers on how to navigate deals and how to close them as well as coach them on longer-term, more strategic skills like knowledge and behaviors.

    What are the business benefits of sales coaching?

    The fours benefits of sales coaching are:

    • Ensuring reps are refining and improving their skills
    • Building confidence
    • Providing consistent practices and expectations across the sales team
    • Increasing revenue

    The post Sales Coaching appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Revenue Intelligence https://www.mindtickle.com/sales-readiness-platform/revenue-intelligence/ Wed, 11 Jan 2023 09:46:21 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=platform&p=695 Revenue Intelligence Improve win rates, reduce deal risks, and increase revenue per rep. Equip your revenue teams with the ideal revenue intelligence platform to boost forecasting, pipeline, and deal confidence. Request a Demo Predict revenue growth with accuracy & agility Predict revenue growth with accuracy & agility Aggregate all of your revenue and buyer interaction …

    The post Revenue Intelligence appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Revenue
    Intelligence

    Improve win rates, reduce deal risks, and increase revenue per rep. Equip your revenue teams with the ideal revenue intelligence platform to boost forecasting, pipeline, and deal confidence.

    Predict revenue growth with accuracy & agility

    Predict revenue growth with accuracy & agility

    Aggregate all of your revenue and buyer interaction data in a single platform, including emails, customer interactions and call transcripts. Enrich your forecast with insights on opportunity health, including whether or not deals will close on time, and proactively mitigate deal risks.

     

    Forecasting & Pipeline Management

    Analyze data points across calls, emails, and meetings to predict deal closures or slippage with confidence. See how engaged buyers are and what topics or content pique their interest.

    Never miss quota again

    Know exactly what number you’ll hit and what it takes to get there. Unlock insights that help reps prioritize opportunities and identify deal risks. Empower reps to prioritize their time and never lose a winnable deal.

    icon-act-fast-dashboards-100x100

    Help managers replicate top performances

    Give frontline managers the tools they need to understand what’s happening on every deal and account so they can coach winning teams. Suggest next steps that can be taken, such as content to send or training to complete. Identify who to coach on what topics.

    Unlock the voice of customer insights

    Get complete visibility into insightful topics that come up on calls, such as product feedback, competitor mentions, and market insights via built-in conversation intelligence.

    Splunk Fosters Sales Coaching Culture

    We began all of this with a defined governance model and operational processes, executive buy-in and champions across the company, metrics to map back to, and a plan to ensure
    Krishna Saw
    Director of Digital Transformation & Adoption
    splunk
    “ copy 6

    Uncover risks and never miss a winnable deal

    Get actionable insights on deal risks and buyer engagement. Identify problems, but also go beyond to fix them.

    Forecast & measure pipeline with confidence

    Quantify pipeline progression and deal closures. Predict & hit revenue goals with high accuracy.

    Get rep performance insights and unlock true potential

    Track and measure rep performance with insights on rep productivity, efficiency, and potential

    SALES ANALYTICS CUSTOMER STORIES

    FEATURED RESOURCE

    A Buyer’s Guide to Revenue Intelligence

    Everything you need to know about implementing revenue intelligence solutions to drive sales productivity, increase wins, and improve forecasting accuracy.

    Explore all that you can do with the
    Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform

    Set performance goals, educate your team, create a coaching culture, track field
    performance, and offer personalized solutions that improve long-term results.
    icon-sales-onboarding

    Sales Onboarding

    Ramp new sales team members quickly through formal and informal learning techniques.

    Continuous Learning

    Create a continuous state of excellence through ongoing programs, missions, and content.

    Manager-Led Coaching

    Create a coaching culture through personalized coaching on deals and skills.

    Account Strategy & Review

    Leverage field evidence to inform your account conversion and growth plans.

    Sales Kickoffs

    Use kickoffs and live instructor-led sessions to accentuate knowledge and skill development.

    Partner Enablement

    Get your partners scaled quickly and keep them updated with your latest and greatest.

    Sales Certification

    Ensure reps are ready to implement skills in the field with pre-testing.

    Voice of the Customer

    Use call recording to identify and share market trends, customer needs, and ideas.

    Ready up with reports, guides, and more

    Sign up for webinars and events, or check out our Resource Center.

    Get revenue and pipeline insights that let you predict revenue growth with accuracy and agility

    The most comprehensive & robust revenue intelligence platform for all your revenue needs

    The post Revenue Intelligence appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Integrace Health Enables Sales Team from the Top-down https://www.mindtickle.com/customer-stories/integrace-health-enables-sales-team-from-the-top-down/ Fri, 06 Jan 2023 06:55:02 +0000 https://www.mindtickle.com/?post_type=customer_stories&p=513 I like MindTickle because it’s easy to use and I feel like I’m using a platform that will really help my learners instead of stressing them out.

    The post Integrace Health Enables Sales Team from the Top-down appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Integrace Health enables their sales team from the top-down with Mindtickle.

    Challenges

    • Sales readiness platform under-utilized
    • Suboptimal acceptance from sales hierarchy
    • Inconsistency in enablement initiatives across the business
    • Integrating new business at different levels of maturity

    Solution

    • Multi-level content to onboard new hires
    • Pitch practice and consumable content to improve product knowledge
    • Manager dashboards to gain insights, drive learning and gather regular feedback on progress
    • Certification program to onboard users on readiness platform and improve platform use

    Impact

    • 78 – 82% approval rating from sales reps
    • Content easier for reps to consume
    • Top-down engagement with the platform
    • Onboarding time reduced from 22 to 5 days
    • Drastically reduced administrative time

    To learn how Integrace Health uses Mindtickle to onboard and up-level their sales organization during COVID-19, download their COVID-19 response case study.

    The post Integrace Health Enables Sales Team from the Top-down appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Nobody Cares About Your Sales Training. Here’s Why https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/nobody-cares-about-your-sales-training-heres-why/ Thu, 03 Nov 2022 10:02:55 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14767 Not all sales training works. In fact, research by Gartner found that sales reps only remember 13% of the information a month after their sales training. Motivation plays a big role in sales reps’ willingness to engage with sales learning. By adding ways to engage sellers with sales training, you increase sales quota attainment and …

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    Not all sales training works. In fact, research by Gartner found that sales reps only remember 13% of the information a month after their sales training.

    Motivation plays a big role in sales reps’ willingness to engage with sales learning. By adding ways to engage sellers with sales training, you increase sales quota attainment and the ROI of your sales training.

    Here are six ways you can change your sales training to motivate your sales team.

    1. Personalize the sales training for your reps
    2. Make sales training relatable and interactive
    3. Support your sales reps with achievable development paths
    4. Encourage failure and practice
    5. Build team identity and support
    6. Use gamification to drive intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

    Personalize the sales training for your reps

    Avoid reteaching sales reps skills they already possess. Instead, improve career skills with personalized sales training and development.

    There is nothing more boring than going over material you already know — it’s repetitive, it’s discouraging, and, ultimately, it’s not rewarding. That’s why personalization is key to fostering motivation — it’s both relevant and rewarding.

    Personalized sales training puts a focus on strengthening weaknesses and filling in any knowledge gaps that are relevant to each sales rep. For example, if a particular sales rep is great at deal strategy but needs improvement on closing sales, tailor a plan to work on customer conversations to see the quickest results.

    And it’s important for personalized training to come hand in hand with a personal development plan for sellers to see what steps are required for success.

    To begin a personalized plan, first, define what success looks like. In other words, what skills and knowledge do each seller need to reach their sales goals? What behavior and sales approaches do sellers need to learn to close more deals?

    Once those elements are defined, you can create a sales readiness index and an ideal rep profile (IRP). This helps build an end goal and vision for sales reps to work toward.

    With a defined sales readiness score and a personalized development plan, sellers can take ownership of each milestone and understand what steps will need to be undertaken in order to match your IRP.

    Make sales training relatable and interactive

    To motivate your sales team to learn, your training needs to be relatable and relevant to your sales reps’ everyday tasks and interactions.

    Use real-life scenarios and role-plays for your sales reps to get a glimpse of what actions and sales practices they need before the real action begins. Interactive sales training demands focus, which improves engagement and attentiveness to the task at hand.

    Use role-plays to put into practice the skills reps have learned in a safe environment. This encourages sellers to continue their sales practice, as it prevents them from feeling demotivated or nervous in real scenarios and coaches them on how to navigate tricky situations.

    Managers can also use role-plays to see their sales team in action. Then, depending on each rep’s performance, they can provide additional resources for improvement. In turn, the relevant feedback and interaction serve as motivation, being a key for improvement and signaling that managers care about the seller’s success in their role.

    Support your sales reps with achievable development paths

    Sales coaches often think having a 1:1 with their sales reps means their team will automatically feel supported. While that’s a good start, more is required for sellers to feel motivated and encouraged in their growth.

    To show support, set goals and KPIs with your sales reps and agree upon the process to achieve them. With effective sales coaching, you can improve quota attainment by 21% and sales win rates by 19%.

    To begin development plans, meet with your sales reps individually to understand their personal goals. It’s much easier to build motivation when both parties are aligned in the direction of development. Once the goals have been defined, use skills tests to assess where your sales rep currently stands. Then, you’re able to track progress using benchmarks to celebrate milestones and address any pitfalls.

    As a manager, it’s your responsibility to show sales reps the relationship between skill development and quota attainment. Ultimately, you want your sales reps to quickly see how new skills personally impact their sales efforts and be drawn to continually improve their success.

    Nurture an environment where feedback is welcomed. Your sales reps are in a unique position to tell you exactly what sales training resources are helpful in their role. Their insights may benefit the company’s sales training quality and relevance. Not only is this information helpful, but it’s also motivating, as sellers see their thoughts on improvement are acknowledged and are making changes.

    Encourage failure and practice

    In training, don’t be afraid to let your sales team fail, fail again, and then learn from those experiences. Practice exercises motivate sales reps to learn from their mistakes in a safe environment.

    Be clear with sales reps that tests and assessments are encouraged to understand what will help them progress in their career and are not an assessment of their ability to do their job. The difference is important because sales reps need to be allowed to acknowledge their own weaknesses and build paths for improvement.

    Sales reps will find the impetus to continue working on skills that have been improved upon — particularly if they track them in their personal development plan and see how much they have progressed.

    To motivate your team through failure, remember to build a sales training initiative that is inspirational with past success stories. And encourage sales reps to rely o share tips and tricks. When reps lean on one another, it removes the risk of sellers feeling isolated and builds resilience and determination to reach personal goals.

    Build team identity and support

    When sellers feel like they are part of a team and supported by a coached manager, the overall team’s performance can be boosted by as much as 31%. When sellers feel part of a team, they push through tasks and feel a responsibility to work together.

    In an environment where team members are able to support, and encourage one another, the sense of community and aligned objectives motivates each sales rep to accomplish their sales training for the better of the team.

    This helps build team identity. This is important, as research shows that employees who identify as part of a team have higher productivity rates than those who don’t (50% vs. 36%).

    Team members can play toward the same goal but also stimulate one another through friendly competition that pushes each seller to outperform colleagues. In sales training, use leaderboards to nurture this.

    A team environment can also keep sales reps feeling welcomed and encouraged when they experience a hard learning curve, as members can offer support and share resources and training feedback. This helps build a level of participation and incentive to continually learn and improve together as a team.

    Use gamification to drive intrinsic and extrinsic motivation

    Learning is more fun with games (adding gamified elements to training boosts motivation to 83%) and information is retained better. Use this to your advantage when preparing sales training.

    You can introduce gamification with leaderboards and scoreboards that measure the skill levels and sales readiness rankings of sales reps against one another. This encourages sales reps to either stay on top or reach the top.

    As well, you should reward the training effort and motivation of high-ranking sales reps. Each time a new level is achieved, it’s good practice to appreciate and validate the efforts of the sellers.

    Lastly, when rewarding sales reps’ participation and involvement with sales training, your acknowledgment and compliments need to be specific and timely for them to resonate correctly. For example, if a sales rep completes a sales training on email strategy, send them a message the same day congratulating them on their new email strategy skill.

    Acknowledgment and rewarding sellers’ efforts incentivizes them to receive ongoing appraisal in their next sales course training.

    Motivated training makes your sales team unstoppable

    Motivated sales reps have the drive and curiosity to adapt new sales insights and content into their sales approach. They become hungry to learn and continue to practice their new skills in real scenarios, which drives increased win rates.

    The combination of engaging sales training and a motivated sales team leads to:

    • Increase in profit: Engaged and motivated employees achieve a 23% increase in business profit. This is because when your sales training is motivating, your team will be driven to grow their skills. This drive leads to an increase in course completions, which leads to sellers being a step closer to a complete sales readiness score and matching the behaviors of the IRP.
    • Adaptability to market changes: Sales reps typically only spend around 17% of their time in sales training. But sales training doesn’t have to stop the moment a rep completes their first course. Use sales training as ongoing development to rethink market approaches and fine-tune skills.
    • Improve sales KPIs: Sales training prepares the reps to use the best practices and approaches to reach and convert potential customers. When reps are motivated to continually use training to optimize their sales approach, they are more likely to hit their quarterly KPIs and objectives.

    Now you’ve got a motivated sales team; what’s next?

    Although learning and completing a sales training course is a good start, it’s just the first step. The real action happens when those learned skills are put into practice with real-life scenarios.

    Keeping track of improvement and insights can be tricky. That’s why it’s helpful to use a sales enablement platform to keep training, content, data, and resources all in one place.

    With sales enablement platforms, data taken from real conversations, content management, deal negotiations, and seller approaches tracks the performance of your sales reps. This allows the correct training course to be recommended and tracked by management.

    By having all the sales data at hand, you can quickly pinpoint what skills need to be expanded upon for each repy. Not only that, but sales enablement platforms complement management’s ability to track sales reps’ development and performance and give insights when intervention or feedback is needed.

    Learn how Mindtickle can motivate your sales team with training tools that set your sales team up for success. Here’s where to set up time for a Mindtickle demo.

    The post Nobody Cares About Your Sales Training. Here’s Why appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    How Mindtickle Builds a Sales Coaching Culture https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-mindtickle-builds-a-sales-coaching-culture/ Fri, 21 Oct 2022 14:55:29 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14613 Every company has aspirations for a sales coaching culture, where frontline managers have the time, tools, and expertise to meet the individualized needs of every revenue producer, and align instruction with company-wide goals. In practice, however, until now I’ve never worked at a company where this vision was more than a pipe dream. At most …

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    Every company has aspirations for a sales coaching culture, where frontline managers have the time, tools, and expertise to meet the individualized needs of every revenue producer, and align instruction with company-wide goals. In practice, however, until now I’ve never worked at a company where this vision was more than a pipe dream. At most companies, reality gets in the way: managers are too busy to coach, there are no tools to support the effort, and tactical, deal-focused needs trump everything else.

    Mindtickle Guide to Sales Coaching Download

    But a key part of Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness Platform is the ability to deliver an effective, institutionalized approach to coaching that focuses on the competencies proven to win deals. Our Readiness team has been the beneficiary of this functionality and I thought I’d share how we use coaching internally to spark some consideration about how it would look in your organization.

    First steps to building a coaching culture

    I took over the team in early 2022, and one of my first aha moments was the realization that our sales onboarding focus needed to be reconsidered. We brought on a ton of new salespeople in the previous few months, but once our teams were mostly in seat and fully onboarded, I understood the need to better support them in the field. I think this is a pretty common refrain for sales enablement organizations right now: an increased focus on improving the productivity of existing teams vs. making new hires.

    My second aha was coming to grips with the idea that measuring the skills of our sellers once they’re in the field was no longer easily possible when they weren’t constantly being trained, We had certain tools — role-play exercises, spaced reinforcement programs, etc. — and they were good at showing what reps knew, but that didn’t really help quantify what they did.

    That’s when my team started focusing on providing support for coaching by our frontline managers. We’ve defined the competencies that make salespeople successful, and through insights from Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution, we can see how salespeople transfer knowledge to behaviors in the field. So we had lots of data to help with the coaching process, but we also needed to deliver a consistent, organization-wide, coaching approach.

    Using Mindtickle to reinforce a sales coaching culture

    That’s where Mindtickle — the platform, not the company — comes in. With Mindtickle, we can empower all of our frontline managers to provide individualized coaching for each rep, all aligned to ideal rep profiles (IRPs) we had previously defined. The coaching forms we provide managers are built to help them track the competencies that are exhibited by our most successful reps. Managers can use these forms as the foundation of bespoke coaching sessions with each seller, with three key outcomes:

    • Managers and the Readiness team can track each seller’s progress against each of the competencies we track
    • Based on this feedback, they can focus on coaching to the skill gaps needing the most attention, while de-emphasizing the areas where sellers demonstrate proficiency
    • These coaching evaluations go directly into the Mindtickle Readiness Index, which measures competency attainment vs. business performance — so we can always see how key skills are matching up against metrics like quota attainment, time to first deal, pipeline creation, deal acceleration, and more.

    The key thing about coaching, though, is that there’s still a time component. Managers always (understandably) have to focus on deals, particularly as we approach fiscal milestones.   But because coaching is so closely integrated into the Mindtickle platform, managers can more easily incorporate coaching into their day-to-day jobs. For example, every conversation recorded by Call AI, Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution, provides access to a variety of competency-focused coaching forms that managers can use to note their observations, grade sellers against a rubric of key competencies, and even recommend content for remediation. Frontline managers can also keep coaching forms open while they’re in sessions with reps, recording their impressions, insights, and feedback as part of an existing process.

    As well, sellers can easily see how they’re doing and where they need to improve. Coaching rooms, also part of the Mindtickle platform, help our reps check to see how they’ve been doing over time: where they’re making progress, and what needs improvement. So instead of all of this information having to be kept in frontline managers’ heads, it’s easily available.

    For me, one of the greatest aspects of the Mindtickle platform is its ability to transform from a powerful onboarding solution into a comprehensive way to track and improve existing seller performance. That’s only possible because we can empower our managers to coach and then track the impact of their efforts against the metrics that count: revenue generation. quota attainment, time to first deal, pipeline creation, deal acceleration, and other relevant criteria.

    Ready to see how Mindtickle can help you build and amplify a sales coaching culture? Set up time for a Mindtickle demo today.

    The post How Mindtickle Builds a Sales Coaching Culture appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Is Your Sales Onboarding Giving Your New Hires Buyer’s Remorse? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/is-your-sales-onboarding-giving-your-new-hires-buyers-remorse-mindtickle/ Tue, 04 Oct 2022 09:07:54 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14446 Seventy-two percent of the respondents in one survey expressed they have felt remorse or regret in accepting a new job that didn’t live up to their expectations. That’s the opposite of what hiring managers want to hear after spending time, resources, and money finding the perfect candidate. Buyer’s remorse is real and it’s not something …

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    Seventy-two percent of the respondents in one survey expressed they have felt remorse or regret in accepting a new job that didn’t live up to their expectations. That’s the opposite of what hiring managers want to hear after spending time, resources, and money finding the perfect candidate. Buyer’s remorse is real and it’s not something sellers should feel after just a few days on the job.

    Your sales onboarding process has a direct effect on the perception new hires have about your company. Understanding how to improve the ramp-up process will increase new employee satisfaction and engagement and reduce employee churn. Here are six expert tips for making sure your new sales reps don’t feel buyer’s remorse once they’ve joined your team and begun the sales onboarding process.

    Mindtickle Ramp Time EBook

    Spark curiosity with engaging sales onboarding content

    A pile of text-heavy learning material is not only intimidating, it’s also boring. It won’t get a new hire excited.

    As Rahul Mathew, a product marketing manager here at Mindtickle, says: “If there’s too much text or assets that they need to go through, they’re just going to feel disengaged. But then how can you make it interesting for them so they feel like it’s not something being pushed down their throat, but more like something they want to do?”

    The learning material must be as fun and engaging as possible to defeat new hire remorse or boredom. That can look like courses where new hires are required to interact with call recordings, practice pitches, or give feedback to colleagues as part of a process where team members learn from each other.

    It’s a good idea to employ real-world use cases in learning material, so new hires can learn from past scenarios. And replicating sales situations through video recordings, audio conversations, and checklists helps new hires embrace the selling approach of your company.

    Lastly, have new hires test themselves on course material via quizzes and skill assessments. This helps them practice their new skills before conversing with real prospects.

    Personalize training to your new hires’ needs

    Each new hire will come with a different industry background and experience. To create an exciting and relevant onboarding experience, give tailored learning according to their skill development needs.

    To understand your new hires’ skill level, use assessment tests and discovery exercises during the onboarding process. This will help you acknowledge and recognize each candidate’s strengths while also developing a personalized plan to improve their weaknesses.

    As Mathew puts it, “Each rep is going to have a different set of learnings. There’s gonna be a different learning curve for everybody, so there’s a need to provide individualized training. If, for example, someone is good at communication, having to go through the training again and again becomes monotonous; they’re going to disengage.

    “But, of course, there are also things that same rep may not be good at and may want to focus on. That is why we’re talking about providing individualized training. And then once you’ve done this, you need to reinforce and ensure that what they’ve learned is being tested.”

    In practical terms, this means developing bespoke onboarding plans that focus on strengthening a new hire’s weaknesses with the right learning material.

    Avoiding redundant or unrelatable content using personalized sales training helps new hires feel less regret about their new job.

    Give your new hires a vision to work toward

    Clear expectations and a detailed roadmap of how to meet goals battle new hire remorse by helping new hires understand what is expected of them and how to achieve these goals. That’s where an Ideal Rep Profile comes in.

    With an ideal rep profile (IRP), you’re able to formulate a “north star,” an ultimate goal to show new hires the behaviors and traits that’ll guide them toward success in their new role. This also helps new hires direct their learning efforts toward becoming an ideal rep and curtails feelings of regret when adapting to a new role.

    Ideal rep profile competencies

    When it comes to introducing the IRP in onboarding, Mathew gives helpful insights: “Sales leaders and managers identify all the competencies. This is the knowledge, skills, and behaviors that define what makes an ideal rep. And that can be codified within our platform. So, once you have the IRP, then you’re able to go ahead and curate or build programs around that.”

    Onboarding courses and materials can then be created to replicate the strengths and strategies new hires should learn. They’re able to visualize the end goal of their efforts and understand the impact their new skills will have on sales performance.

    And by having a figure to envision and achieve, employees can compare and contrast performance to pinpoint skills and strategies that need to be strengthened. As well, they will fully understand why it’s important to execute their duties in a certain way.

    Guide your new hires through onboarding

    New roles, tools, and company goals are overwhelming to new hires who may already feel a stark difference from their previous job. A clear roadmap to perform well in their role includes the materials each rep will need to learn and helps them overcome any feelings of confusion.

    This helps sales reps control their time and understand how much should be dedicated to each learning course.

    Mathew highlights the importance of time management as a key factor for onboarding success: “Let’s say you’re a learner; when you are given access to a course, you need to know how to navigate the platform. So, you need, for instance, a course map. As a learner, I know I’m expected to do five of these modules. And it’s going to take me this much time. And I need to allocate this much time towards doing this. So, that way, it’s not just that I start the course and then suddenly realize that this is taking more than four or five hours. And I honestly have just two hours to do this. So, you’re able to be in control. Do this in such a way that you’re taking it seriously, and not just stopping midway and losing that flow.”

    Each course must come closely tied to a reason why and metrics that show the difference the learned skill or behavior can make to sales closing rates.

    With clear onboarding guidelines and expectations, new hires won’t experience regret or be overwhelmed because they have clear next steps and are supported by their manager throughout their learning plan.

    Moreover, having guided onboarding material helps your sales enablement team and managers see the progress of new hires and lets them intervene when they see any disengagement or struggles.

    Encourage peer support and collaboration

    Company culture plays a big role in making new hires feel welcomed and part of a team. During the onboarding process, it’s important to set the standard and show the importance of teamwork.

    With peer support and collaboration, new hires can lean on their coworkers for help and get tips and resources that build trust and cooperation.

    During the onboarding process, it’s important to encourage team members to learn from one another with peer reviews and personalized feedback. Creating a culture of this nature is crucial to stop new hires from feeling like they are failing at their new job and instead see feedback as an opportunity for improvement.

    As cliché as the saying is, practice makes perfect, and Mathew sums up how feedback can improve performance:

    “When you practice a pitch; you may want to do a few takes. You may want to correct some things, recording your attempt multiple times, and then say, ‘Hey, this is the actual pitch that I want to be judged on,’ and have that shared with an expert or a senior rep who can provide the right set of inputs.”

    Nurture a feedback culture and encourage new hires to work with their team to learn from more experienced peers. The feedback, encouragement, and sense of community they receive will alleviate feelings of new job remorse.

    Motivate employees with gamification

    Eighty-nine percent of employees say gamification in the workplace makes them feel more productive. Gamification motivates and encourages employees to keep improving their skills in exchange for rewards and achievements.

    Gamification diminishes new hire remorse by promoting status achievement and rewarding improvement. It helps new hires visualize their improved professional skills.

    This is because gamification caters to the intrinsic and extrinsic motivation of employees. On the one hand, they want to compete against their peers and, on the other hand, they want to feel like they’ve improved and achieved a degree of status in the company.

    Mathew gives insight into the importance of gamification in the onboarding process: “In this era where we have short attention spans — how can you keep people engaged? One of the things to do is nurture engagement through encouragement. Show people where they stand; it’s a natural tendency that if I see my peers doing better, then I’m going to make extra effort to ensure I’m not at the bottom of the class and encourage competitiveness within the teams.”

    Leaderboards are great tools for encouraging employees to improve their skills or for seeing which sales reps are leading so new employees can ask them for help, tips, and insights to improve their own performance.

    Improve onboarding with data insights to keep new hires on track and avoid remorse

    Mindtickle provides onboarding insights and readiness scores to help managers understand when it’s time to step in and check on new hires to understand their level of engagement or stress.

    This can look like having a conversation to address any issues or providing new resources to make their onboarding smoother.

    Mindtickle Readiness Index

    Data insights help managers acknowledge employees when they’ve gained a new skill,. And with personalized data insights, managers can correlate new skills with revenue metrics to show new hires the impact of their knowledge. Each personalized approach makes employees feel appreciated and confident in their new job choice. Mindtickle delivers the data and tailored content to give new hires the relevant support needed to succeed in their roles.

    Ready to learn more about Mindtickle and how to make sure your sales onboarding engages, educates, and excites your sellers? Request a Mindtickle demo today.

    The post Is Your Sales Onboarding Giving Your New Hires Buyer’s Remorse? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    A New Batch of Reps Finished Sales Onboarding. Now What? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/a-new-batch-of-reps-finished-sales-onboarding-now-what-mindtickle/ Fri, 30 Sep 2022 12:07:44 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14458 You’ve gotten through another days- or weeks-long sales onboarding program with your new sales hires. It feels like it went well, but how can you really know whether it had an impact? Do you know the sales onboarding metrics that will show the impact of the program? Onboarding is important for introducing new hires to …

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    You’ve gotten through another days- or weeks-long sales onboarding program with your new sales hires. It feels like it went well, but how can you really know whether it had an impact? Do you know the sales onboarding metrics that will show the impact of the program?

    Onboarding is important for introducing new hires to your company and familiarizing them with their roles, teams, daily tasks, tools used, and more. But as happens to even the most experienced sellers, learning so much information in a matter of days is overwhelming — and some information is bound to get lost.

    Research shows that over 84% of salespeople forget what they learned in sales onboarding within the first three months.

    To really ensure reps are ramped up, ready for the field, and performing at a high level, you’ve got to supplement onboarding with continuous learning and support. These onboarding success metrics help you gauge your team’s performance and provide a more straightforward path on how you can guide them to improve throughout their tenure.

    Top sales onboarding metrics

    Knowledge retention

    Sales reps must retain important information about your company and products in order to properly engage buyers. You can measure retention by providing quizzes and certifications. The best way to help sellers stay up-to-date is with learning reinforcement through virtual micro-learning, videos, recorded role-plays, and simulated sales scenarios. Once you understand where each individual rep stacks up, you can provide personalized learning paths that address any gaps.

    Ramp-up time

    Also known as time to productivity, ramp-up time refers to the length of time from a new hire’s first day to the day they reach full productivity. This “full productivity” means the rep is embedded in the company culture, can effectively communicate product value, and optimizes use of your tech stack. A shorter average ramp-up time indicates that onboarding has been successful in building skills, knowledge, and behaviors.

    Mindtickle Ramp Time EBook

    Technology adoption

    Part of sales onboarding metrics is SaaS onboarding metrics. Sellers use a laundry list of tools to perform their daily responsibilities, so adoption is key in helping them succeed. Make sure your onboarding program includes a thorough review of SaaS applications. If new hires are slow to adopt them, they are either not confident in how to use it (meaning you’ve got some work to do with onboarding) or don’t find it useful for their job (meaning it’s time to reevaluate your tech stack).

    Employee satisfaction

    Finally, and perhaps most importantly, is ensuring your new hires feel supported and empowered from their onboarding program. People aren’t shy to leave a job if they don’t feel like they’re set up for success from day one. In fact, employees who had a negative new hire onboarding experience are twice as likely to leave a job than those who had a positive experience. Save money and hold on to your salespeople by offering a post-onboarding survey, and make changes based on their feedback.

    Time to refresh your onboarding program? Here’s a sales onboarding checklist to help you get started on creating a measurable, effective, scalable program.

    The post A New Batch of Reps Finished Sales Onboarding. Now What? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    So, You Record Sales Calls. Now Use Revenue Intelligence to Change Behaviors https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/so-you-record-sales-calls-now-use-revenue-intelligence-to-change-behaviors/ Thu, 22 Sep 2022 15:25:59 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14393 Now, more than ever, companies need to get ahead of deal risks to avoid budget cuts, hiring and spending freezes, and other impacts of an unstable economy. Revenue teams must work harder to coach their sales team on skills like how to handle competitor talk tracks, pricing, negotiation, and building an ROI-driven business case. They …

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    Now, more than ever, companies need to get ahead of deal risks to avoid budget cuts, hiring and spending freezes, and other impacts of an unstable economy.

    Revenue teams must work harder to coach their sales team on skills like how to handle competitor talk tracks, pricing, negotiation, and building an ROI-driven business case.

    They need visibility, focus, and confidence that can only be provided through automated insights that help them identify which deals are a priority and the best next steps to take to drive that deal home. They need one source of truth for sales leaders, revenue operations, front-line managers, and reps.

    But what’s data if you can’t act on it?

    To make a real impact, sales teams need this deal intelligence functionality built into an overall workflow where sellers can find relevant content, training, and tips to close deals faster and easier.

    The problem: performance pressure

    Sales has always been a notoriously high-pressure job.  Sprinkle in an economic downturn that’s shrinking prospect pools and budgets. Then, layer in hiring freezes that put more pressure on each rep to drive a bigger slice of the revenue pie, and you’ve got high potential to overwhelm even the highest performers on your team. That’s why it’s critical to provide sellers with the help they need the moment they need it. You must make it easy to find the required tools and provide reps with insights that help them personalize the buyer experience and build better relationships.

    The solution: revenue intelligence

    Revenue intelligence has the power to relieve pressure, not just on sales reps but on entire revenue teams, by providing better visibility, improving team focus, and boosting confidence across the board.

    In this article, we explore the ins and outs of revenue intelligence so you can better understand what it is, how it works, and who benefits from it. Here are some key questions this article will answer for you:

    Cover of Mindtickle Buyer's Guide to Conversation Intelligence Solutions

    Revenue intelligence: what is it and why is it important?

    Revenue intelligence provides the deep insights needed to focus sales reps, accurately forecast revenue, and fast-track deals. It gives you complete visibility into your pipeline health and deal risks, such as competitor mentions or objections, so you can provide reps with the coaching, content, and training they need to drive deals forward.

    Before the availability of location-based mapping services, such as Google Maps, driving to a new destination was a bit of a crap shoot. Even with a basic idea of how to get where you wanted to go, and a physical map at the ready, an unanticipated traffic snarl or road closure would easily derail your drive and significantly delay your arrival time.

    Google Maps changed the game with machine learning and data. It uses various data sources — like satellite imagery, traffic light cameras, and even real-time user feedback — to automatically assist drivers in navigating the fastest route and predict their arrival time with astonishing accuracy.

    You can think of revenue intelligence as providing your sales team with a similarly accurate way to reach your revenue goals most efficiently. It’s the compass you can count on even as conditions change in real time.

    How does revenue intelligence work?

    Revenue intelligence builds on conversation intelligence, which is technology that records, transcribes, and analyzes sales conversations, meetings, and emails.

    Revenue intelligence uses AI to analyze all sales interactions with a prospect, predict which deals are going to close, and give you a sense of both deal and account health. Conversation intelligence is a component of revenue intelligence.

    A robust revenue intelligence solution should:

    • Forecast sales
    • Score deal and account health
    • Surface key insights from calls, emails, and meetings
    • Identify all at-risk deals
    • Highlight missed opportunities and recommend next steps
    • Provide a holistic view of team skills and competencies
    • Allow reps to curate relevant content for customers in one place
    • Recommend personalized training and content to uplevel skills

    Who benefits from revenue intelligence?

    The right revenue intelligence solution takes the pressure off your entire team — from the back office to the front lines.

    table showing benefits of revenue intelligence

    RevOps team

    Practice fact-based forecasting. According to Gartner, less than 50% of sales leaders have high confidence in forecasting accuracy. Revenue intelligence provides robust visibility into teams, deals, accounts, and pipeline, freeing your team to rely on quality data to forecast with confidence.

    Understand pipeline health. When you can easily visualize how deals are progressing it’s easier to determine whether they’ll close on time.

    Simplify workflows. Sales teams have tool fatigue. They don’t want to log into multiple systems to get their work done (and sometimes they simply don’t, which leads to gaps in your data).

    The right revenue intelligence solution lets you deliver key functionalities, like sales enablement, content management, conversation intelligence, and coaching, through one integrated platform.

    Sales reps

    Keep them focused. Your sales reps should be able to see all of their opportunities in one place, including booked, committed, probable, and upside.

    Engagement risk scores make it clear who needs to be followed up with most urgently. And the ability to hone in on things, like meetings that have occurred, emails sent, next steps, customer call themes, and in-deal competitive threats, make it obvious where sales reps need to focus their time to achieve their targets.

    Screenshot of Mindtickle + BoostUp revenue intelligence solution

    Drive the right behaviors. Your reps must continually train and practice the right skills to reinforce key messages and behaviors. (Learn more about the forgetting curve here.)

    Boring, one-size-fits-all approaches won’t cut it. Instead, give reps a single location to access personalized training and support. This encourages compliance and reinforces learning, so it becomes second nature to do the right things in the right moments  — even in pressure-cooker situations.

    Capitalize on momentum. To keep deals moving forward, make it easy for reps to quickly personalize a deal with content, customer stories, and even a mutual action plan. The ability to see who on the prospect side is interacting with the content delivers an extra layer of insight that helps reps create personalized and timely follow-up messages.

    screenshot of BoostUp + Mindtickle revenue intelligence solution

    Managers and enablement leaders

    Get a singular view of risk profile. Managers should always have a bird’s-eye view of all deals the team is working on, as well as their risk scores.

    The ability to zoom in on the deal stage and see specific at-risk deals helps managers see buyer-seller activity, spot check messaging, and even listen to calls. This makes it crystal clear where to step in with support that makes a noticeable difference.

    screenshot of Mindtickle + BoostUp revenue intelligence technology

    Discover what customers really care about. Say goodbye to guesswork by diving into critical moments in a call, from talk/listen time to prevailing topics and themes. The flexibility to unpack sound bites of interest fuels targeted enablement and better collaboration with product and marketing teams.

    Improve sales coaching and readiness. Getting a complete picture of team skills, competencies, and shortcomings helps pinpoint who needs extra support, so you can proactively recommend exercises and content to fill knowledge gaps and create a team of top performers.

    screenshot of Mindtickle and BoostUp revenue intelligence solution

    How can you pressure-proof your revenue team?

    Sales reps are under non-stop pressure to meet (or exceed) their quotas, stop revenue leaks, and be on call 24-7. There’s no doubt that level of pressure degrades peak performance.

    Sales teams have many ways to collect data to help them sell smarter — perhaps too many — but if they can’t easily ingest and act on the insights buried within, the data isn’t going to move the needle on performance.

    Mindtickle combines revenue intelligence and sales readiness into one platform, giving you one source for deal intelligence to deeply understand team performance, readiness, and skill development.

    Want to see it in action? Get a quick demo from our revenue intelligence experts.

    There’s a lot riding on your revenue intelligence solution. Watch the video below to discover four mistakes you should avoid when choosing a partner to work with.


    FAQs

    What is revenue intelligence?

    Revenue intelligence provides the deep insights needed to focus sales reps, accurately forecast revenue, and fast-track deals. It gives you complete visibility into your pipeline health and deal risks, such as competitor mentions or objections, so you can provide reps with the coaching, content, and training they need to drive deals forward.

    Why are the benefits of revenue intelligence?

    Key benefits of revenue intelligence:

    • Data integration: Revenue intelligence frees you from relying on instinct or opinion by integrating sales, operations, and marketing data into a central location so you can get a full picture of every buyer-seller interaction and a deep-dive into every deal.
    • Efficient workflows: It helps your sellers and revenue leaders act on data faster by building insights on things like buyer engagement, objections, and competitor mentions into their overall workflows.
    • Sales readiness: It gives reps easy access to the coaching, content, and training needed to drive deals home.

    The post So, You Record Sales Calls. Now Use Revenue Intelligence to Change Behaviors appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Does Any Sales Leader Have Time for Sales Coaching? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/does-any-sales-leader-have-time-for-sales-coaching-mindtickle/ Thu, 15 Sep 2022 20:00:39 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14373 You may not feel like you’ve got time in your busy schedule to regularly coach every individual sales rep, but in reality, those who make the time to coach will reap the rewards in the form of improved performance, more closed deals, and greater generated revenue. Plus, good coaching isn’t about spending more time doing …

    The post Does Any Sales Leader Have Time for Sales Coaching? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    You may not feel like you’ve got time in your busy schedule to regularly coach every individual sales rep, but in reality, those who make the time to coach will reap the rewards in the form of improved performance, more closed deals, and greater generated revenue.

    Plus, good coaching isn’t about spending more time doing it — it’s about doing it right.

    If you need some sales coaching ideas to kickstart a lucrative program, we’ve got the tips you need for successful sales coaching below.

    Mindtickle Guide to Sales Coaching Download

    Best sales coaching techniques to optimize your time

    Establish a formal process and cadence

    Any good business initiative starts with a plan — not just a rough, spoken plan, but an organized documented one. Three-quarters of sales organizations waste resources due to random and informal coaching processes. Formalizing your sales coaching strategies means you’ve got a blueprint to follow and you’re more likely to stick to it, effectively and incrementally improving performance across your team.

    Devote time and focus to coaching sessions

    Being distracted while sitting down with a rep is not effective. If you can’t listen and provide relevant and impactful feedback, you’re not properly serving the members of your team. Put other tasks and stress aside to not only deliver more thoughtful and significant guidance but to also make the seller feel valued. When you know you’ve got a block of coaching sessions approaching, wrap up any outstanding work and close out any unrelated programs and windows to prevent your mind from wandering.

    Cater to performance and preferences

    Ahead of a coaching session with one of your reps, take a few minutes to look through performance metrics — like training completion, content usage, and insights from real buyer interactions — so you’ve got visibility into where that seller is succeeding and where they could use further support. This way, no time is wasted during the session trying to pinpoint areas to work on; you’re already up to speed and can offer more meaningful guidance during your one-on-one.

    Aside from utilizing performance insights to drive coaching sessions, managers should also consider reps’ unique learning styles and motivations. Structure and tailor your conversations accordingly for each seller so your feedback lands and has a greater impact.

    Build relationships and trust

    None of the above is possible if you don’t take the care to establish a relationship built on trust with your sellers. Get to know them and allow them to get to know you; this will open the door for reps to share achievements as well as concerns and struggles — helping you get to the heart of the matter and enabling you to provide higher-quality coaching that makes a real difference.

    The post Does Any Sales Leader Have Time for Sales Coaching? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Why I’m the VP of Sales Readiness and Not Sales Enablement https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/why-im-the-vp-of-sales-readiness-and-not-sales-enablement/ Thu, 07 Jul 2022 15:26:20 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=14071 A quick search on LinkedIn will return a lot of VP of sales enablement roles, but not so many equivalent roles for sales readiness. It’s not surprising; sales enablement is a more venerable concept, and it’s been widely adopted in the market. Sales readiness, on the other hand, is gathering steam because sales organizations increasingly …

    The post Why I’m the VP of Sales Readiness and Not Sales Enablement appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    A quick search on LinkedIn will return a lot of VP of sales enablement roles, but not so many equivalent roles for sales readiness. It’s not surprising; sales enablement is a more venerable concept, and it’s been widely adopted in the market. Sales readiness, on the other hand, is gathering steam because sales organizations increasingly need to justify their sales enablement expenditure by understanding its impact on their business. Tightening budgets require sales leaders to gauge the impact of enablement, but most enablement organizations are unable to provide the level of detail to leadership. For Mindtickle, these realities are at the core of our company vision and it’s why I was named the VP of Sales Readiness earlier this year.

    Revenue Reboot Registration link

    In this post I’ll talk about the Kirkpatrick model, using results to measure success, and building an ideal rep profile. Over the next few months, I’ll share more about how Mindtickle approaches readiness within our own organization, and offer tips that may affect the way you think about implementing and measuring the impact of your own readiness programs.

    What is the Kirkpatrick model?

    Those familiar with the Kirkpatrick model know that reaction (how enablement participants feel about training) is a common surrogate for success.  In this case enablement leaders gauge effectiveness based on participation and feedback rather than impact. Reaction is a common approach because enablers have typically had neither the charter nor the tools to develop a defensible ROI.

    Kirkpatrick recognizes that while reaction provides some feedback about the value of enablement efforts, the ultimate goal is to measure the results of your efforts against targeted outcomes.

    Here’s the full Kirkpatrick hierarchy:

    1. Reaction – Is training favorable, engaging, and relevant?
    2. Learning – Did participants acquire the intended knowledge, skills, attitude, confidence, and commitment needed to succeed?
    3. Behavior – Is learning applied on the job?
    4. Results – Did your efforts result in targeted outcomes?

    Measure impact by focusing on results

    It sounds like a cliche, but I’ve been a results-focused professional for some time, so the Kirkpatrick levels make a lot of sense to me. For the last 15 years, I’ve worked for companies seeking to improve results through improved sales training, practice, and execution. During that time, I’ve found that most companies struggle to get beyond anecdotal evidence of the impact of their efforts on the business. . As a result, anecdote-driven programs can lead enablement teams down unintended paths with the potential for significant opportunity costs.

    That’s why my team focuses on results to measure success—which takes me back to my preference of readiness over sales enablement. Readiness requires you to demonstrate measurable impacts on the business, while traditional sales enablement approaches are often less ambitious.

    First things first as VP of sales readiness: building an ideal rep profile

    As a readiness team, we do traditional sales enablement, which is critical but only a part of our charter. Our programs start with role-based competency models that are aligned to revenue (we call these ideal rep profiles, or IRPs). We base each IRP on CRM data, so there’s a clear correlation between skills and outcomes. From there, we are responsible for the following:

    • Delivering sales enablement to buyer-facing teams, including role-play practice and spaced reinforcements to ensure that reps retain the knowledge and skills they need to succeed in the field
    • Providing contextual, ad hoc content for use in on-the-job training and buyer interactions
    • Monitoring conversations between our sellers and buyers, using conversation intelligence software, to track the use of learned skills in real-world situations
    • Providing feedback and coaching guidelines for frontline managers to remediate skill gaps with bespoke coaching–and automatically assigning training remediation
    • Measuring and scoring all of the individualized knowledge, skills, and behaviors we track against Salesforce performance data using Mindtickle’s Readiness Index
    • Analyzing the correlations between top performers and their Readiness Index scores to ensure that we have our competency model right–and then making adjustments to either the competencies or their weighting over time as things inevitably change (Our company’s GTM, the competitive landscape, changes to the economy, etc.)

    Building from the IRP with each of these steps gives my team an important role in improving employee productivity, informing hiring decisions, and more. Looking at our role from the perspective of the Kirkpatrick model, this approach enables us to hit on all cylinders:

    • Measuring reaction through engagement and completion
    • Delivering and testing learning through sales enablement, assessments, role-plays, and reinforcement exercises
    • Ensuring proper behavior using conversation intelligence to tell us how well reps do against the competencies that count–and then coaching to address skill gaps
    • And measuring results by correlating competency attainment against the same metrics that are used to determine sales success

    I must admit that we have the advantage of using our own platform to achieve these goals, but that’s another reason why I took this job: I know that we have the tools to make us successful!

    If you’d like to find out more, please don’t hesitate to reach me at alex.salop@www.mindtickle.com and take the first steps toward building your ideal rep profile here.

    The post Why I’m the VP of Sales Readiness and Not Sales Enablement appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    A Blueprint for Digital-First Selling with Jeff Davis https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/a-blueprint-for-digital-first-selling-with-jeff-davis/ Thu, 09 Jun 2022 13:29:28 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13895 Our seventh episode  of Ready, Set, Sell recently aired featuring Jeff Davis, associate director of business and brand strategy at AbbVie and the founder and principal of Aligned Growth Strategies. In case you weren’t able to tune in, we’ve got a recap of the podcast below, covering major themes such as: The importance of strategically …

    The post A Blueprint for Digital-First Selling with Jeff Davis appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Our seventh episode  of Ready, Set, Sell recently aired featuring Jeff Davis, associate director of business and brand strategy at AbbVie and the founder and principal of Aligned Growth Strategies. In case you weren’t able to tune in, we’ve got a recap of the podcast below, covering major themes such as:

    • The importance of strategically aligning sales and marketing
    • Establishing a 360-degree view of the buyer
    • Using digital tools to seamlessly engage your customer
    • Retaining employee and customer attention
    • The eight steps to digital-first selling
    • Establishing a feedback loop from sales to marketing
    • Metrics that matter more than closing deals
    • NASA engineering and Dr. Suess

    Who is Jeff Davis?

    Tony: When it comes to finding success in any industry, pursuit, or discipline, perspective is everything.

    Hannah: And, as today’s guest reminds us, having the capacity to understand multiple perspectives at once can be an invaluable skill in today’s market.

    Tony: This is especially true for sales and marketing teams. In any organization, these two teams need to work together synergistically to produce the best results. But we all know that understanding the business through both a sales and marketing lens can be a challenge.

    Hannah: That’s why I’m so excited about our guest today, who is Jeff Davis, the associate director of business and brand strategy at AbbVie and the founder and principal of Aligned Growth Strategies. Jeff has spent most of his career helping B2B leaders align their sales and marketing teams to optimize outcomes overall.

    Tony: And he’s here with us today to share his top tricks of the trade when it comes to sales and marketing alignment, digital-first selling, and some of the key ingredients of accelerating revenue growth. You’re sure to walk away from this episode feeling more motivated than ever, inspired and knowledgeable more than ever before. Enjoy the episode.

    Hannah: Hey, Jeff, welcome to the podcast.

    Jeff: Hey, how are you? Thank you for having me.

    Hannah: You need to bless the listeners with your incredible career journey and give everybody a bit of insight into how you went from being a mechanical engineer at NASA to transitioning into a technical healthcare sales role. I need to hear this.

    Jeff: As you said, Hannah, I started my educational career at Purdue as a mechanical engineer. I always loved math and science. My mom actually was a math professor, so I couldn’t really be bad at math because that would look really bad. Right before I graduated, actually, I was interning at NASA and asked people what I should do with the rest of my life. Surprisingly, the two answers I got from the consultants we were working with was either sales or consulting, to which I said at the time absolutely not, because I just spent five years of my life getting this degree. I’m going to go be an engineer. But after undergrad, I actually took a leap of faith. I said, well, maybe they’re right. Right. You know, what’s the worst-case scenario? I can always go back to engineering. And so eventually ended up in healthcare sales. I’d always had an interest in healthcare and biotech and that sort of thing. And it actually stuck. Like, I really enjoyed it. I did well. I started my career at Pfizer as a rep here in Chicago. And I believe that a lot of the engineering process that I learned in school actually helped me be a successful salesperson. So, it all kind of came together.

    Tony: Well, it’s funny, when I looked into your background, I got a little intimidated right away because I think you’re the first NASA engineer I’ve ever spoken to in person. I appreciate you joining here, of course. When you think about the world of B2B sales, what interests you the most and, in particular, about increasing revenue growth?

    Jeff: It really does go back to the beginning of my journey. What I found as a rep is that there were many times that I felt there was a disconnect between us as boots on the ground and what marketing was doing. Back then — and industries have changed, and companies have gotten better at this— but it was very much an ivory tower. Like we said, strategy. If it doesn’t work, doesn’t happen. It’s the salespeople’s fault. And we’ll get to that in a second. But we would be frustrated because we’d be asking for things, and saying we really need to have these conversations. And, obviously, if you’re a seasoned salesperson, you can try to figure it out or you just make it on your own or whatnot but that’s not sustainable. At that time, that’s what motivated me actually to go back to business school because I didn’t have the language or the visibility to articulate what I was feeling. I knew something was off, I knew there was a disconnect. But at that vantage point, I’m only boots on the ground. I don’t see all the things that are happening, you know, behind the scenes. And so once I went back to business school, I transformed myself into a marketer, as I say, and then I joined the brand team as a brand lead.

    And, you know, and I talk about this on my LinkedIn, I’m a marketer with the soul of the salesperson, right. Like I will always be at my core a salesperson. No matter where I go and what I do, I’ve been a marketer for years. But I got in selfishly to advocate for salespeople. I was going to go to the corporate office and tell them what reps needed and all that sort of thing. And when I got there and started working with super-smart people, I realized they just didn’t have the vantage point of being a seller. It wasn’t that they had like this goal to make our lives difficult or they didn’t care. They just didn’t have that last little step of like actually talking to a customer.

    What I found was it wasn’t that sales and marketing hated each other. I believe they fundamentally don’t understand each other and that’s what causes conflict.

    Hannah: Not everybody’s going to know who AbbVie are so I’d love for you to share a bit about your role at AbbVie and what drew you to that company in particular.

    Jeff: At AbbVie, we’ve taken a really proactive approach to the fact that the industry as a whole has had to rethink what being patient-centric really is. Pharma tends to be a very conservative industry for many reasons. We’re making really significantly large investments in disease areas and therapeutic areas. But I think what we’re doing is rethinking what it means to be patient-centric — or customer-centric. Right. We have multiple customers. Their patients are the payers that we interact with.

    So we’re looking at how do we leverage this kind of digital-first landscape in order to create increased intimacy with our customers and patients and really understand what they need and be able to engage them in a way that looks very different than we did a decade to three ago, because the world is different.

    And if you really want to help people and you really want to get into their lives and help them understand what is out there that could potentially help save their life or make their life better. You’ve got to do it differently.

    Hannah: I think it just goes much deeper when you start thinking about customer-centricity in general, something that we talk about a lot in the B2B space. So when you talk about patients and healthcare, it’s just much deeper. So thinking about your passion, your experience, and your love for counseling sales and marketing teams and creating alignment. Just, just go a little bit deeper. On why it’s so crucial for accelerating revenue growth.

    Jeff: A lot of people will hang their hat on COVID and how that has changed things. And I absolutely believe that is true. But I think more than anything, it’s really brought to light some processes and things that were broken. It just made it worse. These themes, these issues that we’ve had have been brewing for quite some time, but a lot of us have relied on volume to mask the underlying infrastructure issues. Really today, because everything is so digital and because we’ve really been pushed into the future, it’s imperative that we change the way we sell and market. And a lot of companies are not realizing that the buyer is demanding a different experience.

    And for some reason, we don’t look at our own personal lives, and interactions with B2C and see the parallel to B2B. We are humans buying from other humans. And while there are, there are unique things that are very B2C, right? I get that. But fundamentally, we as B2B should be looking at our B2C cousins and being like, how do we mimic that in our space?

    Because people are getting more comfortable with buying larger purchases online. People do want more virtual human interactions. They don’t want traditional sales reps coming by as much, right? We have to take this hybrid approach. All of that stuff is happening. And I think a lot of revenue leaders and senior leaders that have been doing this for a really long time have been quite committed to saying yes, we fundamentally need to change the way that we go to market. That’s what’s causing some of this friction. And a lot of people seeing stagnant growth or declining growth are doing so because the way in which they’re engaging with the marketplace is out of date.

    Tony: There are so many different things that you do, Jeff, from you know, you were a company founder, you’re a speaker, you’ve got a podcast, but you’re also an author. So in speaking about the book, you know, what is togetherness really mean to you and how can sales leaders use that to apply to their everyday roles?

    Jeff: When I was in the early stages of my work, when I was just blogging, it hit me one day. And this is a\the true marketer in me, right? I was wondering about the ethos of what I’m trying to communicate. Togetherness can mean and does mean a lot of different things, but it is really beyond having skin in the game. It is a kind of omni joined presence where you always feel like you’re enmeshed with your counterpart. You can anticipate their needs. You have a strong sense of empathy because you know what their challenges are.

    Tony: If you think about it, selling is a social event. I mean, people buy from people. And if you don’t take that concept to heart, you’re not really going to get to the next level of where you want to be in a successful organization.

    Jeff: You are hundred percent correct. And we’re at a juncture where, as a revenue leader, whether it be sales and marketing, if you don’t fundamentally understand how much you need your counterpart, you are not going to be successful. Everybody is focused on the last 10, 20 percent of whatever it is of the buyer journey. Right. Some people say it’s 57, 75, 78, whatever, whatever the number is, we’ll say 57 to 75. If we’re all focused on that last 10, 15, 20 percent, we are just bombarding targets with the same stuff. And I said, There’s this open green pasture over here. Or they’re actually researching, they’re forming their ideas, they’re clarifying what their challenges are. And no one’s there. But you know who stereotypically is already there? Marketing. As a sales leader, your job is to get your people into the right conversations with the right type of accounts. That’s fundamentally your remit.

    If you don’t understand what marketing is putting out into the marketplace and you don’t understand the messages and the story they’re telling, you are not doing your job as a sales leader.

    Hannah: One thing you mentioned was that customers are demanding a different experience. And if I think about some of the conversations I have, I don’t even think they all know what that looks like. It just needs to be different. It needs to be more accommodating to their needs. Now, based on the fact that we are more virtual now, how would you start to define in your own words what digital-first setting is and why it’s important today?

    Jeff: I look at it as using all of our digital tools, resources, etc. content to identify, target and really seamlessly engage today’s buyer. Right? To your point, we’re very much more enmeshed in digital. We’re always online. So we’re just using all these collective tools together to target, to identify, and then to engage with our buyers. Because the front end of this buying experience has become more virtual, more digital. People are starting their buyer journey with search. An estimated — I think — 80 plus percent or 90 percent of B2B buyers are starting their journey with digital search. Ninety percent is a lot. So think about that. If 90 percent of the people are starting there and this is just B2B. Ninety percent of people start on a journey digitally. If you’re not there, you’re not even making the shortlists companies are considering.

    Finding one’s niche

    Tony: So, Hannah, I talk to a lot of different salespeople. They’re always trying to find out what is the niche or what’s the market that I should be selling into or how should I do these sorts of things? So how did you find the niche in what you’re doing?

    Hannah: That’s a really good question, actually. I think about this a lot because at the start of my career, I was, and you might have experienced this as well. There was a lot of structure. Like you had like one career path as a salesperson. It’s like you do some inbound stuff and you’re in the trenches and then maybe you have a little target and then you’re just on the road. That’s it. That’s what you do. And then maybe you’re a leader. And I think a lot of that’s changed. But I am I was following this path that was dictated by the industry for probably half of my career. I started to get a bit chill. I don’t know, something’s missing here. I don’t know what I should be doing, but I don’t know if I like this.

    I started to transition more into mentoring and onboarding people and coaching and team leadership and leading a few teams. I like this, that this is what I enjoy. I kind of carved out that helping and enabling other people to be incredible sales individuals. This is really where my niche is but it took me doing everything. And I’m a massive doer. I’m like, there’s an idea. Someone says, try this. I just do it. I just do it and figure it out. So yeah, I had to do a lot of stuff and fail at some things to realize that actually, this is my sweet spot.

    Tony: You know, it’s brilliant. When I graduated from college, I knew right away that I wanted to host a Ready, Set, Sell podcast someday. You know, this is well before podcasts were even a thing, but I fell into sales. It wasn’t anything that I thought was going to be my future career path. I started doing it to get beer money at the time. But I found out that I was empathetic, and I was good at it, and I was listening to what people wanted. I tried a couple of things that really didn’t work. And eventually, I found a niche that worked well for me. I was able to apply the things that I did well with my work ethic tied directly to it, and that just put me onto the path to where I am now — sitting here in a room with you. I couldn’t think of a better spot for me to be in my career right now.

    Hannah: Tony, finding alignment between sales and marketing is an important step to take on the road to success. As Jeff reminds us, it’s really that simple.

    Tony: Yeah, it is. And usually, a company’s senior leadership team, including the CEO, needs to be on board when it comes to major culture shifts and those that lag behind will ultimately lose out on opportunities for success.

    Hannah: I think Jeff’s concept of togetherness really captures the need for greater empathy across the board and more effective communication among teams.

    Tony: Absolutely. I think that’s key because, without a deep understanding of the organization’s needs, you won’t get far in the world of sales or marketing. Togetherness is about anticipating each other’s needs and recognizing the value of other roles within the organization… so we can really begin to view the company as a cohesive whole instead of as a fragmented jigsaw puzzle.

    Hannah: And this has only become more important in recent years as the pandemic accelerated many of the shifts that were already in motion. Let’s hear what Jeff has to say about the shift to digital-first selling and how sales execs can make the most of the changes.

    Eight steps to digital-first selling

    Tony: Companies are still struggling to figure out their selling identity. You know, as people are starting to convert to this digital-first selling, what tips or strategies would you recommend people to think about as they’re really trying to develop this identity?

    Jeff: I did an article for Selling Power where I go through the eight steps of digital-first selling. Can I bore your audience with these eight steps?

    Tony: They will not get bored. I can guarantee.

    Jeff: The first one is understanding the buyer-first mindset. Fundamentally as a leadership team, you’ve got to accept that the way that we buy is different. Like did a search first, digital-first, etc. The second one, which a lot of people overlook, is establishing a 360-degree view of the buyer. This means connecting all of your data sources. So that’s web, that’s email, that’s social, that’s your CRM. One of the reasons that we make very suboptimal decisions is because we have suboptimal data and we have a suboptimal view of the customer.

    So if I’m a sales leader and I don’t really interact with marketing, I may not have visibility to all the touchpoints that we’ve had with that customer prior to my seller getting in front of them. All I have is what my seller has done, which is not the complete picture. We’ve got to connect all those resources. And whether you do it internally or you hire somebody out to do that, it’s got to be connected. Because today it is table stakes to have a full view of our customer interactions.

    After we do that, then we want to develop a cross-functional ideal customer profile (ICP) because I’ve also seen companies have different ICP between marketing and sales. I’m like, That’s interesting. That’s not the same person. How is that working? So I need an aligned ICP across the organization and I don’t believe in creating that out of just how we feel. I want to look at your CRM. I want to look at closed deals. And I want to see proof that that is true because there are people that the ICP that we want to be true and there’s ICP that is true.

    And then I also want to dig a level deeper and look at does that ICP provide us the most ROI? After we have our clarity in our ICP, then we need to develop a buyer’s journey. This is for marketers more so than salespeople. I don’t mean developing a buyer’s journey in a vacuum where we never actually talk to customers.

    I mean, actually being really thoughtful and using all inputs like input from sales — like that last deal you closed, walk us through how that went. Where do you think that we can do things differently? And then actually talking to customers and saying like, tell us about your internal buying process.

    You may get some people that love you and want to tell you everything. Others may not. But I want to talk to people that we love, that are amazing customers, maybe some mid-tier people, and maybe even those that we’ve lost so that we can start to understand how our buyer buys so we can adapt our sales and marketing to their process and not try to push them through what we want them to go through.

    After that, I use what I call a buyer journey matrix where I actually put all of the info I collect for clients. I put all of the stages of the buyer journey. And then I want to litany what we have today that we can deliver on that so they get to the next level or the next stage. And that usually helps me find where there are gaps in your engagement with buyers. And they usually are clear. There’s usually a step. They’re like, “Oh, we really thought we had content or whatever around this, but we don’t.” Then we get to the tools and the tech.

    So a lot of us are leading with tools and tech because there’s a nice shiny object in the room. And I say pause. Tech enables us to sell in market better. It is not sales and marketing. So after we get done with tech, then we create a digital sales playbook or a playbook for sales reps.

    This is important because, back in my day, there was a very linear process. I did this and then I did this and then I did this and then hopefully close. That is not the case anymore because buyers are coming in from all over the place and sales reps today, in order to be successful, need to understand not the individual tools but how to orchestrate them together.

    And then, last but not least, establishing a feedback loop from sales to marketing. Typically, I have seen marketing as a great feedback loop for sales. This is what’s working; this is what you’re doing right; this is what you’re doing wrong. But there’s usually not as robust a mechanism to get feedback from sales. And I don’t mean sales leaders, I mean actually front-line salespeople of what they need and then be able to take that in aggregate to say like, okay, here are the themes where we’re seeing from our sales reps as well as competitive intelligence. Because a lot of times I’ve had instances where you have a conversation with a customer and they tell you something like, “Oh, this starting to shift.” You get that back to marketing, we iterate, and then we can pivot in the marketplace.

    So those are the kind of the eight steps that I’ve thought through and identified and helped my folks with. I think it’s a really, really clean framework because there’s a lot to do. But what I really focused on making sure that we understand who we are targeting first, we kind of really build that, that their strategy, we understand how they buy. And then you start to put on the tech and the and all the other stuff in order to able to enable that. So hopefully that was helpful.

    Hannah: Thinking about these things and this transition that a lot of companies are trying to make, what are your top suggestions for teams who may be encountering some bumps along the road as they try to make this conversion?

    Jeff: I always start with the conversation between sales and marketing. Where can we work together better? How can we partner with each other? What do you do? What are your challenges? I think starting there and understanding what your counterpart does and how what their work affects you is a great way to start. It increases empathy and it also helps you identify ways that you can work together better. And it may not, in the beginning, be a hundred percent right. It may be to your point, maybe it’s just reconciling your ICPs to make sure that you’re at least targeting the right people that my sales rep needs to get in front of. It could be establishing a feedback loop between sales marketing so that they know how they can pivot. It could be getting feedback from sales on the content. Is this content resonating? There are many marketing teams that create and develop content in a silo, like they just don’t get any real feedback. So I think that’s where you start.

    I think you also start by trying to think about your digital presence as an organization beyond your brand.com. Right. The majority of the people are not coming to your brand.com as their first step. This is more for marketing and sales, but I think sales should be involved. Looking at your SEO strategy. Looking at your perception in the marketplace and third-party sites.

    So, obviously, for SaaS software, G2 is a great place to start, right. Like a lot of people will start with search, they may go to G2 to learn about like the class of products that you sit in and then they’ll learn more about you. But if again, if you’re not in that kind of initial consideration, it’s going to be hard for you to make the shortlist.

    I think those are some things you can start with. You know, you don’t have to go fundamental like we’re going by all this new tech and then we’re going to just do digital disruption. That would be nice, right. But for companies that are just starting this journey, it’s not realistic. So it’s about starting to work together better, really thinking through like, what is your digital, what is your digital footprint? And starting to elevate those eventually starting to connect all those things and really map those to the buyer’s journey. I think those are ways to start this process.

    Hannah: Like looking at the big picture, what motivates you day to day? What’s the overarching goal that sort of drives you and get you out of bed on those rainy, cloudy days that I see in England every day?

    Jeff: Yeah, well, in right in Chicago, it’s about the same right now. At the end of day, it’s frustration and I know it probably doesn’t sound like the answer that most people give, but I still remember as a sales rep in the car, on the road, being frustrated. And it still motivates me today. I think what has evolved is that I now feel like I have a commitment and a duty to help other sales and marketing leaders do it differently and do it better.

    I fundamentally believe, and it’s happening more and more now, but back in the day, making a transition from sales into marketing was like parting the seas. They’d be like, you’re a sales rep and you want to be in marketing, well, that doesn’t work. But now that I’ve made that transition and I’ve seen the inside of both, it just really goes back to a marriage concept. If you understood the power of when you guys get each other and you work together, you can’t create these kinds of results on your own. Like you just can’t work in a vacuum or a silo and outdo a company even if they’re smaller. That really is lockstep. I would say frustration motivates me.

    Tony: Well, it’s funny, frustration is certainly an issue that I think a lot of salespeople experience. I think another one is distraction, especially over the last couple of years. You know, when people are working from home it’s extremely easy to get distracted. What would you say were some tips that you would give to retain customer interest? I missed all the distractions that are out there right now. There are so many different things out there. So how do you retain employee or customer attention at this point?

    Jeff: Consistency always wins. I have seen over the years so many people start campaigns and then, you know, you don’t hear from the can. You can put out okay content. But if you put out that content ecosystem basis and customers start to see you as a good source of information and you’re educating them on a consistent basis and they know they can trust it, you’re going to be there. You will win over somebody that does an amazing, splashy campaign and then goes away.

    Hannah: If we think about these things that people these myths and these really weird misconceptions that do exist in B2B sales, what are some of the main ones that you’ve heard or seen in the sales industry that you wish you could put to rest for good?

    Jeff: I would say that B2B sales is easy, like anybody off the street can do it. What you’re starting to see is that B2B sales, specifically tech, has become extremely complex. And so, you know, my buddy over Northern Illinois University, Dr. Robert Peterson, is an example of this curriculum starting to pop up that is just focused on professional selling, which did not exist a decade ago.

    I would say another one that I used to think was true is that you have to be an extrovert to be good at selling. At the end of the day, selling is really about educating your customers, providing value, and in some instances, depending on who you’re calling on. If you’re super extroverted, it can actually be a detriment. The other one, there always be closing. Did you close the deal? Close, close, close, close, close.

    Especially in B2B, there’s a longer sales cycle, and people need to understand that. I would say we shift that mindset to are we getting closer, closer to closing. The question really is, are we providing value? Are we building trust? Those things and those metrics matter more than did I close the sale because that no one’s buying anymore. It just doesn’t work.

    Sales podcast rapid fire quesitons

    Tony: Jeff, this has been just amazing, probably one of the best podcasts we’ve done, but you’re not done yet. So we’re going to hit you with some rapid-fire questions. First thing that comes to mind, just throw some answers out there and I’ll let Hannah kick it off.

    Hannah: All right. So what is your sales philosophy in just three words?

    Jeff: Always provide value.

    Hannah: And what would you say has been the best piece of advice you’ve been given in your career so far?

    Jeff: Shut up and listen.

    Tony: I’ve heard that so many times, but it wasn’t around sales. But that’s okay. What is your top productivity hack?

    Jeff: Focus on the things that provide the highest ROI.

    Tony: What’s your top prediction for the sales industry this year?

    Jeff: I would say one around sales tech. We’ll see a lot of a lot more consolidation of tools, like these unified platforms. I think that’s probably one that’s top of mind.

    Hannah: And if you can share just one piece of advice to all sales professionals, what would it be?

    Jeff: Strive to become a trusted advisor in your industry. And, you know, a lot of people have a feeling about that. What I mean is that really know your industry and be able to provide value outside of your product. That I think will make you successful and your target customers will view you as a partner more so than a sales rep.

    Tony: Where do you go to get your industry news?

    Jeff: I’m always on LinkedIn and I have a couple of newsletters that are just pushing to me, so I’m a little bit all over the place.

    Tony: What are the top three apps you could not live without?

    Jeff: Okay, so Notion, I have to have. I’m a big music guy, so I would say YouTube and I have the unlimited version so I can listen to it when I work out. The third one, I would say, is probably LinkedIn.

    Hannah: Are leaders made or born?

    Jeff: Oh, you guys aren’t playing around today.

    I would say the same way that people say, “Salespeople are either made or born.” I believe they can be made. I think that, if anybody is coachable enough and open enough to self-improvement, you can transform yourself into whatever you want to be.

    Hannah: And last but not least, what books inspired you the most in your career?

    Jeff: You know, so this can sound really crazy. What’s a book by Dr. Seuss? “Ah, the Places You’ll Go.” I got this book as a graduation present from a teacher of mine. And you would not imagine the emotional connection I had to that when I actually read it as a high school student. I really read it as going off to college and starting my journey and it just resonated in a very different way, which was to this day, to be honest with you, is surprising. And as I get older, it just means something very different. So that is probably not the answer you’re looking for.

    Hannah: I don’t want this to end. I want part two. When are we getting part two on this? I’m learning a lot.

    Jeff: Whatever you want part two is when it will happen.

    Tony: I mean, how many podcasts have NASA engineers and Dr. Seuss all built into one. I mean, you can’t you can’t beat that. Jeff, thank you so much. This has been an amazing experience for us. We do hope to have you back but thank you again and all the best to you. And go get his book right away.

    Hannah: Yeah, definitely.

    Jeff: Absolutely. Tony, Hannah, thank you so much. Createtogethernessbook.com and I encourage people to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I love having these conversations and let’s start, let’s make it happen, sales and marketing alignment all the way.

    What did we learn?

    Tony: So Hannah, I know you’re an elaborate content creator and it’s no secret that we’re living in an attention economy today. So with all the different things that you’re doing, what are some marketing tactics or maybe even sales techniques that draw you in and keep your attention for longer?

    Hannah: It’s really simple. It’s people or companies that are keeping it very real. And they strip back the corporate jargon and they talk to humans because, hey, guess what, we’re all humans and we have normal conversations and normal interactions with one another. So I love to see companies start to develop their personality. I think retail brands just get it right, or some of the restaurant brands and they’re on Twitter and that their social media team and at teasing each other like this is this has drawn me and this has captured my attention. And if I think in the sales context, LinkedIn’s my playground, I love it. I, you know, I interact and engage and create a lot of content for LinkedIn. But I love when I come across people who are sharing content around things that are it’s like, this is a new perspective. This is a new way of thinking about a problem that we’re trying to solve and we’re trying to kind of brainstorm rather than the attention-grabbing headlines. So yeah, I’m just like, keep it real and share some new perspectives.

    Tony: Well, even though my kids have probably accused me of not being human all the time, I think being human is the most important thing. Right. You really want to be able to be empathetic to someone. You need to establish that rapport and relationship. And especially since there haven’t been that many human interactions that are at least live over the last two years. You have to find a way to really get that connection right. I have problems, I have goals. I have things that I want to do. But, you know, if I can align them to things that are important to the person on the other end of the phone or on the other end of the camera, then that’s going to help me establish a rapport that will differentiate me from someone else I know. You know, over my career, I’ve had tons of customers that I’ve worked with at multiple companies because when you establish that relationship, it doesn’t just go away. When you leave a company or you leave a job, that relationship stays forever.

    Hannah: Yeah, I that relationship piece and that connection piece. And for me, it’s also about how people and businesses are just trying to start conversations. Accepting that we don’t know everything and saying let’s have a conversation. How about we start that? I think I  maybe have about 11,000 connections or followers on LinkedIn now and the ones that stand out to me are the people who will trigger conversations with me around something I posted or will share stuff with me and say, “Hey, I know that you were talking about this a few weeks ago. I saw this perspective from this other person. What do you think about that?” And we go back and forth. I love those conversation starters because now I remember that particular person, that guy. And if I think of something, I’m going to go to him first.

    Tony: When it comes to sales and marketing alignment, it’s not enough to ensure both teams are on board if you hope to make them stick. The changes need to come from a top-down approach involving members of the senior leadership team.

    Hannah: Completely agree. And this is where this concept really comes in. The word helped to illustrate the interconnected approach sales execs should be taking in this fast-paced digital-first world.

    Tony: Exactly. They really have to, because, you know, it’s become more important than ever that we all bring a greater sense of empathy to the table, regardless of our role or department. If we can put ourselves in someone else’s shoes will be quicker to respond to the needs of others and see the business from a holistic bird’s-eye perspective.

    Hannah: But Tony, another key takeaway from our conversation with Jeff involves making the shift to a true customer-centric approach rather than just paying lip service to the idea.

    Tony: Absolutely. And you know, in today’s market, Hannah, buyers are craving a fast, easy and frictionless experience. It’s up to a sales team to deliver that turnkey experience if they hope to accelerate growth and retain customers in the future.

    The post A Blueprint for Digital-First Selling with Jeff Davis appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    7 Ways to Improve the Effectiveness of Your Sales Role-Plays — and Start Closing More Deals  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-ways-to-improve-the-effectiveness-of-your-sales-role-plays-and-start-closing-more-deals/ Fri, 22 Apr 2022 12:42:23 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13556 Think back to the last time you started a new hobby. Maybe it was golf or swimming or basket weaving — it really doesn’t matter. Unless you’re some kind of unicorn, you probably weren’t perfect right out of the gate. Instead, you may have felt similar to a baby giraffe walking for the first time. …

    The post 7 Ways to Improve the Effectiveness of Your Sales Role-Plays — and Start Closing More Deals  appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Think back to the last time you started a new hobby. Maybe it was golf or swimming or basket weaving — it really doesn’t matter. Unless you’re some kind of unicorn, you probably weren’t perfect right out of the gate. Instead, you may have felt similar to a baby giraffe walking for the first time.

    But with regular practice, you probably made improvements and started to feel more comfortable and confident with your new pastime.

    The same can be said for sales. While training and coaching are key to getting them ready to sell, reps also need opportunities to practice what they’ve learned, risk free. That way, they can perfect their skills before going into the field — where there’s the risk of losing deals if things go south.

    A lot of sales organizations incorporate some practice and role-plays into their enablement programs. But what are the best sales orgs doing differently to help ensure these practice opportunities actually help sellers get ready to close more deals?

    Recently, we analyzed activity from more than one million users at 350 companies to understand what winning teams are doing differently to ensure reps are ready to sell. Based on these findings, we’ve identified the top ways you can improve the effectiveness of role-plays at your organization — and start empowering more reps to meet (or exceed) quota.

    1. Leverage virtual role-plays
    2. Assign role-plays on a quarterly basis, at minimum
    3. Use role-plays to prepare reps for different selling situations
    4. Incorporate written role-plays
    5. Keep role-plays short and sweet
    6. Allow sellers to take multiple passes at a role-play exercise
    7. Provide focused feedback

    Mindtickle-2022-State-of-Sales-Readiness

    Practice and role-play exercises benefit everyone on the team

    These days, when most sellers are pressed for time, are role-plays and practice exercises really worth the time and effort?

    Absolutely.

    In fact, when they’re done well, practice and role-plays benefit everyone on the sales team.

    Benefits to sellers

    Between onboarding and ongoing training, sellers get a lot of information thrown their way. But taking in this information isn’t enough. Sellers must also be able to apply it when it matters: when interacting with prospects.

    Role-plays give sales reps the opportunity to practice what they’ve learned in a risk-free environment and get feedback from others. This practice boosts their skills and their confidence so they’re better prepared for any interaction that comes their way.

    Benefits to sales managers

    The success of a sales manager hinges on their team’s achievements so managers can’t just deliver training and coaching to reps, send them out into the field, and then hope for the best.

    With practice and role-plays, managers can see their reps in action. Based on performance in role-plays, managers can then provide additional coaching and training to help reps hone their skills before money is on the line.

    Benefits to sales enablement managers

    According to Gartner, sellers forget almost 90% of information within 30 days of training. While practice is critical to ensuring learning sticks (and is applied in the field), sales enablement managers simply don’t have the time to facilitate real-time practice with every sales rep.

    Practice and role-plays enable sellers to practice new skills on their own and receive the feedback and coaching they need to improve.

    How to improve the effectiveness of practice exercises

    Based on our analysis of one million Mindtickle users at over 350 companies, here are seven things you can start doing to ensure role-plays and practice opportunities adequately equip your sellers to close more deals.

    1. Leverage virtual role-plays

    The term “role-play” might conjure up visions of a sales rep standing in front of a group of peers at an in-person training or team meeting, delivering a practice pitch, and getting real-time feedback. But at a time when remote and hybrid work has become the norm, this is becoming less common.

    Instead, the best organizations have shifted to virtual role-plays, with the help of AI-powered tools. With these, sellers have the opportunity to take multiple passes at a role-play — and they can do so on their own time. AI then analyzes the recorded role-play and delivers real-time insights and feedback to the presenter. Recordings can also be reviewed by managers and peers to provide additional feedback, which the seller can use to perfect their skills.

    2. Assign role-plays on a quarterly basis, at minimum

    Role-plays and practice exercises are important. But how frequently must organizations provide reps with these opportunities for practice?

    We’ve found that on average, sellers submit two to three recorded role-plays per year. However, at top-performing companies, sellers do four role-plays per year. Industries including pharmaceuticals, retail, and technology are particularly heavy users of role-plays.

    When it comes to role-plays, more is more. Aim to assign quarterly role-plays to ensure your sellers are always ready to close any deal.

    3. Use role-plays to prepare reps for different selling situations

    Many organizations use role-plays to help sellers perfect their sales presentations. But winning sales organizations leverage role-plays to help sellers master a whole host of selling scenarios.

    Here are the top three use cases for which winning sales organizations leverage role-plays.

    • Product knowledge: Sellers must have solid product knowledge before interacting with prospects. Role-plays assess reps’ product knowledge and help managers identify and address any knowledge gaps before the rep goes into the field.
    • Pitch practice and marketing messaging: Reps’ messaging needs to be on point during pitches — every single time. Role-plays can help grow their confidence and ensure they’re always on message when interacting with prospects.
    • Voicemail practice: Most reps are no stranger to going to a prospect’s voicemail. Voicemail role-plays ensure sellers have what it takes to leave clear, concise messages that entice prospects to call back.

    Consider incorporating these role-play use cases into your enablement strategy to ensure sellers are ready to handle every situation thrown their way.

    4. Incorporate written role-plays

    At many organizations, role-plays and practice are focused on improving verbal selling skills. But in today’s digital-first business environment, reps also need opportunities to practice their written selling skills. After all, poor writing can be a big turnoff for buyers.

    At Mindtickle, 30-40% of practice exercises are written role-plays. In fact, in 2021, we had a 2X year-over-year increase in the use of written role-plays.

    Be sure to leverage written role-plays to help your sellers hone their writing skills. A great place to start is to add written role-plays for top use cases, including cold outreach emails and post–discovery call recaps.

    5. Keep role-plays short and sweet

    It’s tempting to cram as much as you can into a single role-play exercise. But we suggest that you resist this urge. Sellers need practice perfecting short, high-impact messages. As such, the most successful sales organizations keep role-plays short and sweet: two to four minutes is ideal.

    Of course, there’s no one-size-fits-all role-play length. Instead, you must consider key points that need to be covered and non-negotiable points versus nice-to-haves. In addition, be sure to factor in the total number of role-plays and the amount of time it’ll take reviewers to score them.

    6. Allow sellers to take multiple passes at a role-play exercise

    When a rep is doing a real-time, in-person role-play, they have one chance to get it right. But we’ve found that, on average, sellers complete two drafts of a virtual role play before submitting it for review.

    When assigning role-plays, consider including an example of a great submission as a reference. In addition, consider leveraging AI in your role-play exercises. The best sales organizations see improved quality when they allow sellers to review AI feedback and make multiple attempts before sending in the assignment.

    7. Provide focused feedback

    After a role-play has been submitted, it’s imperative to provide feedback. Often, this feedback will come from the sales manager or enablement manager. Other times, it will come from peers. Still other times, a combination is used.

    Our analysis found that the top common role-play improvement instructions for reps include:

    • Be more concise
    • Sound more natural
    • Use customer examples

    What parameters should be used for role-play evaluation? If you include too many parameters, it’ll dilute the impact of the seller’s message. Instead, the best organizations focus on parameters that correspond to key seller competencies.

    Finally, be sure to require all reviewers to provide written feedback, as this will provide more valuable learning to the rep.

    Improve selling performance

    In the world of sales, role-plays are recognized as a great training tool — for good reason. Start improving the effectiveness of your role-plays by adopting the proven best practices of the most successful organizations. Giving your sellers more meaningful opportunities to practice their skills, will grow their confidence — and get them ready for any selling situation.

    Want to learn more about what winning sales organizations are doing to ensure their reps are always ready to close deals? Check out the 2022 State of Sales Readiness Report.

    The post 7 Ways to Improve the Effectiveness of Your Sales Role-Plays — and Start Closing More Deals  appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Hitting Targets Through Marketing and Sales Alignment with Chris Lynch https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/hitting-targets-through-marketing-and-sales-alignment-with-chris-lynch/ Thu, 21 Apr 2022 17:03:46 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13554 For a business to be effective, all teams need to work synergistically together and avoid operating in silos, especially sales and marketing. Optimizing outcomes for both teams means they need to prioritize constant communication and strong alignment on their end goals. In this episode, Hannah and Tony chat with Chris Lynch, the CMO of Mindtickle. …

    The post Hitting Targets Through Marketing and Sales Alignment with Chris Lynch appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    For a business to be effective, all teams need to work synergistically together and avoid operating in silos, especially sales and marketing. Optimizing outcomes for both teams means they need to prioritize constant communication and strong alignment on their end goals.

    In this episode, Hannah and Tony chat with Chris Lynch, the CMO of Mindtickle. During the episode, they discuss how sales and marketing teams can come together in pursuit of a company’s mission and vision to work more effectively, how to tell your brand story, the importance of being truthful as marketers and salespeople, and finding success through remaining adaptable to change.

    Tony: for a business to be effective. All teams need to work synergistically together and avoid operating in silos.

    Hannah: But there are two specific teams that need to work together now more than ever. Sales and marketing? Absolutely.

    Tony: And I think to optimize outcomes and meet or exceed sales targets, sales and marketing teams need to be in constant communication and strongly aligned on their end goals.

    Hannah: Aligning on desired outcomes, strategies and tactics is key to success in today’s constantly shifting landscape.

    Who is Chris Lynch?

    Tony: Today’s guest has an intimate awareness of the need for alignment between sales and marketing teams. Chris, welcome to the show.

    Hannah: Chris Lynch is the CMO of Mindtickle, and he’s here today to discuss how sales and marketing teams can come together to reach targets and optimize outcomes. We want to start by understanding a bit more about your career background and, more specifically, the things that have happened in your career that really helped you level up and were catalysts for change.

    Chris: I’ve been a CMO for about six years now, and I still like to call myself a product marketer in a CMO’s shoes. But that was really never part of the plan. I wanted to be a journalist way before I got into sales and marketing, so if you had asked me back when I was 22 if this is what I’d be doing, I’m not sure I would have said, “Oh, you’re going to be an executive of a high-growth tech company.” I got my start in journalism and was working for a company called IDG (International Data Group). It was a really great experience because I started covering tech companies and asking lots of questions from, at the time, a kid who had never really worked in business. A lot of what I was doing was just sort of learning by observation. IDG let me move out to San Francisco because at the time there were novel companies coming out there — like Google, Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn — and I ended up sort of falling into business through happenstance.

    Actually, I remember that I wanted to do PR and I was really sure I wanted to work at Google. I interviewed with eight people there and I found out that seven out of the eight liked me and one was a hard no. But it ended up being this really serendipitous moment because I was driving around in the valley that day and I met up with a guy named Ross Mayfield and he said, “Hey, I think you’d really have a bright future here.” And what was cool about it wasn’t necessarily great for the company, but it was great for me. Socialtext was one of those cautionary tales of being super early to a market. Your funding is kind of starting to draw down as everyone else is sort of ramping up, even though you had the idea a few years earlier. But for a kid who was then 24, it was an incredible opportunity because I got to work in sort of all facets of marketing. We were a lean team where you had to do a lot.

    Most important, and what set the pace for my career moving forward, was that there were two groups that I really enjoyed sitting in the middle of. The cube I was sitting at was right next to the bullpen for sales. I was listening to them pitch companies every single day and some of them would loop pretty much the same narrative as their cold calling and doing outreach. And I could tell, even without being able to hear other people on the other side of the phone, what was going to be successful and what wasn’t.

    So I talked a lot with them, and then I also spent this other part of my day with the product designers and engineers, and I applied my journalism skills at it, saying, “Hey, explain to me what you’re working on, what are you doing?” And then I would put that into plain English in our marketing materials. And lo and behold, that got my career off on a track of product marketing that ended up being in the marketing function.

    Hannah: I love the fact that you had so many conversations that you could start to tell what was actually happening.

    Tony: Can you tell us a little bit more about what brought you here?

    Chris: There are two answers to that. The more pragmatic one is I was probably just going to go broke living in San Francisco as a journalist. I still ended up having a ton of fun during that time, but then life becomes complicated for different reasons.

    But it really was about looking at sales and marketing as another opportunity for storytelling but doing so in a way where the challenge of persuading people is even harder because they know you’re trying to sell them something.

    There was an inherent challenge in the idea of walking into a room and convincing someone that I could fundamentally shift their business and push them into a different stratosphere.

    Moreover, working on a product you believe in and seeing that come to fruition is a really cool sensation —especially having that early on in my career. I also thought it was great being at that cross-section where you have the product and engineering on one side and then you have all the external go-to-market functions on the other, getting that context to understand both audiences and help triangulate some of the different types of considerations that people have in a growing business. That was really fun for me. I started to enjoy it. So, I think originally it started out of some basic Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. And then, as I started climbing up the pyramid a little bit, some of the work just became more intellectually interesting to me.

    Hannah: I’d love you to go into some detail about how you landed the role at Mindtickle. And I’m wondering what drew you to the company. And did you have a giggle when you first heard the name?

    Chris: I didn’t have a giggle when I first heard the name because, at this point with tech companies, I feel like I’ve seen everything. My progression to Mindtickle started back when I was at Oracle. I ran global product marketing for the cloud business unit. They were pulling in all these different players in the marketing space. There my job was really to be the chief storyteller. It was figuring out being able to integrate all those products together into one offering. How do you at least make it sound like a cohesive thing?

    So I did that, and then I became CMO of a company called Cision, which is in the PR software market. Similar deal They had been acquiring companies like PR Newswire, a slew of different software providers that focus on PR professionals. And again, it was, “How do you pull all of these things together into a cohesive story?” With Mindtickle, there were really two things that drew me.

    One was that we have a very comprehensive product that spans a number of different submarkets in the tech space. But really, what drew me to the company was that I’ve lived the problems before that Mindtickle is trying to solve,

    Tony: You obviously have a very diverse background and you’ve said some great things about the companies that you’ve worked at. What would you say, though, are some of the qualities that you have that have really contributed to bringing you to where you are right now. I think I have some ideas but it’s always interesting to hear how someone thinks about themselves.

    Chris: That’s always a tough one. But if I were to sum it up, I think it would be in a few key areas. One is that I’m honest and direct. I think marketers spend too much time using their positioning and messaging skills internally. And what I would say is that save that for when you’re out in the market competing, leave it all out in the field when you’re in the market, and do the best job you can to position effectively.

    I think that, particularly when you’re dealing with sales, it’s really important to be honest and direct. Be truthful about where you are with your performance, where you’re still gapped, and where you’re seeing challenges.

    Another key quality for me is that, although I consider myself a humble person, I do feel like I’m on top of my game. I’m probably peaking at my ability to tell great stories and make compelling messaging. I feel like, if you gave me any of our competitor products, I could probably, in a very short period of time, build a really compelling pitch from it. Even more effective than what they might be doing. And that’s with all respect to my competitors — some of them have skills I could never dream of having. But I think that I’m very good at that.

    The third thing I’d say is I’m always in it for the team and the company, and I feel like that’s a little bit unusual in this data-driven modern world. For me, the biggest satisfaction is just seeing the company be successful.

    Hannah: Going back to when you were talking about your core skillset and your superpowers, you were talking a little bit about positioning and working on the brand. What things do you have in the pipeline from a marketing perspective? And what overarching goals are these things helping to drive towards?

    Chris: There are a few things that we have going right now. I’m really thinking through what the next version of our digital experience looks like for our prospects and making that as compelling as possible. Tony’s probably heard me mention this internally at one of the town halls, but like I feel like selling went through this phase of the relationship sale, then there was the value sell — and you can really date yourself in the sales community based on what you say. The relationship sell worked its way even through the 90s where you had the three-martini lunch things… and then the early 2000s were all about the value sell. Like how much value are you demonstrating to your customer? I feel like we’ve moved into the era of the insight sell, where it’s actually not enough to say, “Oh, I can provide value for you.”

    The odds are, in a lot of these more mature markets, there are multiple companies that can provide, more or less, a similar value. I think it’s more like, can you tell a prospect something interesting or something they haven’t thought of? As I think about our marketing, for me, it comes down to can we provide experiences that help our prospect deliver more insight inside of their companies.

    We’ve been really advocating for this ideal profile concept, right? All marketers have ideal customer profiles. Sales leaders should have an ideal rep profile. We’re working through a digital experience where people can come to our site, get some interesting information about their organization, and then kind of turn back at least an introductory perspective on what their ideal profile could be. So we’re really looking to make compelling content experiences that help prospects have that insight. That’s one key thing we’re really focused on right now.

    The other thing is, like a lot of marketing shops in B2B right now, we’re working hard to rationalize what an ideal funnel looks like. I think the emergence of account-based marketing has really created a fervor within the B2B marketing community because, for a lot of folks, particularly those who had worked in the demand side of the house for a while, it ended up being this interesting change of the goalpost. If you had been working in the demand realm and found the grind of just generating leads to be a bear. It’s nice to just flip the script and change the narrative and say, “Oh, well, actually there’s an addressable market of accounts here that we should go after.”

    For me, intent models and some of that stuff that the ABM providers have are very interesting and they’re nice guidelines as to where you want to go in market. But I also think that staying very true to the persona you’re trying to reach and through market understanding have people come to your site who you can really solve a problem for. And I want to make sure that our system is flexible enough to accommodate those different people as they funnel through. When I worked at Oracle, I would use the term adaptive. I want our marketing to be very adaptive. I want it to be able to cater to different types of people in the revenue function and make sure they’re getting the experience that they want.

    Hannah: Tony, the world of sales and marketing actually have a lot more in common than you might think.

    Tony: Yes. As Chris mentioned, both sales and marketing rely on excellent storytelling skills, but even more so in sales because you’re really trying to convince someone to invest in something when they know it’s your job to do so.

    Hannah: I think that really underscores the importance of believing in whatever it is that you’re selling because if your passion and enthusiasm for the product isn’t genuine, people might sense that and be less inclined to go through the buyer journey with you.

    Tony: Yeah. And Chris is living proof of this relationship as he’s been on both sides of the equation,

    Hannah: I think it’s so interesting that he started his career as a journalist and writer. He’s put his skills to good use as a marketer, learning to really tell the story of a brand and the products or services he’s selling.

    Tony: So let’s hear more of Chris’s insights from his unique CMO perspective. What are some of the current challenges that you’re facing with your team and your day-to-day role starting from being brand new in the middle of this pandemic and changing roles and a lot of it was not in person. You’re doing a lot of things remotely. So how have you really tried to work through the challenges?

    Chris: I’d say the biggest challenge in a company like ours, that is probably growing at a rate that is well above industry standards, is that you have to run this parallel workstream in your day which, on one hand, is very similar to our partners in sales. It’s like, on one end, we’re being asked to hit our numbers, our pipeline goals, all the things that we need to do to contribute to the business. And then in parallel, it’s like we need to build this nice, beautiful house that we want to be our dream home for years into the future. This means things like building a new website, elevating the brand, updating some of the infrastructure, and more glossy initiatives. That itself is a massive list.

    And then on top of that, you’re trying to manage the daily grind of the business. And so, for me, the biggest challenge as a CMO is, frankly, that a lot of my day is looking through the prism of should I be telling this person to focus a little bit more on the immediate thing? Or do I have them kind of focus more on this where-we-want-to-be type of project? And there are consequences in both directions. It’s like if you pull them off that, it may have a little bit of impact on some of your day-to-day metrics, but then when you don’t start building the other thing, you’re also creating debt for yourself in a different capacity. So I’d say, at a high level, that’s our biggest challenge: making sure that we’re able to balance where we want to go with meeting the daily demands of the business.

    What I’ve observed with marketing so far is that, like with a lot of functions, the pandemic laid bare some things that we don’t need to do in-person — things around budgeting and even media mix planning and some other stuff that we do. It’s worked perfectly fine over Zoom.

    There are two areas of my function that I think have been more constrained remotely. One is the creative aspect. There is always going to be a part of marketing that depends on the energy of being in a room with other people while you’re brainstorming a campaign and whiteboarding and putting your computers and iPads and phones down and really all giving all your attention to each other to an idea. I miss that and I’m looking forward to that coming back.

    And the second part I would say is the PDR or, in some companies they call it SDR, function that rolls up through marketing. I do think that’s been a tougher function for remote work in certain cases. Not to say that it can’t be done effectively, but I think there’s a real energy to that role when you have a number of bidders sitting in proximity to each other. They’re getting a little bit of that verbal camaraderie and feedback, getting that direct kind of hands-on coaching. I think that, like every company, we’ve done our best to try to use the virtual tools available to us to make that a thing. But I think that’s another area where in-person interaction is super important, particularly if you look at the hiring profile of those types of apps, like where they are in their career — I think in-person matters a lot there.

    Hannah: Chris had an interesting point about trying to balance everything that’s happening and the overarching things that you’re working towards, but also trying to meet the demands of the business and sales in a very demanding business unit. It’s an immediate need for a customer who, if you just give me this one thing, it’s going to be millions, right? So there’s always that kind of dollar value that adds to the urgency. What does that alignment look like for you? What does that sales and marketing alignment look like? What are the parameters when you go in? What are the two or three go-to things that you typically look at or try to work at fixing to create better alignment?

    Chris: So, I think number one, I like to look at the full spectrum of resources that are made available to sales. So they’re sort of the all-boats-rise stuff — that would be like you’re branding just generally some of your demand programs that you’re running and things you’re doing to drive revenue — to drive pipeline for the business. I like to look at the full spectrum of those things because if I do that, it helps me deal with the case-by-case stuff in a more thoughtful way. And I think that one of the things that will probably always be the hallmark of any B2B marketing that I run is that we go heavy on product marketing investment out of the gate.

    Once I joined Mindtickle, not only did we build out new messaging because we have all these innovations in the sales readiness platform, we then built out discrete messaging as well. We wanted to provide a toolset with which customers could scale up or down appropriately. But first, I looked at the whole spectrum. It’s like, OK, what have we provided? And is that getting us 80 percent of what the sellers need in a lot of their deals and pretty much just working tirelessly till we get there? Because then, relative to some of the one-off requests, it makes it a little easier because there’s more back and forth that can happen in that conversation. “Well. Have you used X, Y and Z?” “Yes, I have, and I’ve used that and I still am now at this point” or “Well, by the way, the morale on my team is a lot better.”

    Once they’ve already been told that stuff they’ve worked really hard on already got utilized, and they’re still at a point where extra help is required, I manage my team to index heavily on supporting sales. And what I do in my role is I look for patterns. If there’s stuff where I feel like it’s a pattern of this really was available and you just don’t want to employ it. That’s a different problem to software than there being a meaningful gap.

    Secondly, in terms of sales and marketing alignment. I feel like it’s actually having a shared sense of failure. In other words, everyone likes to say that sales and marketing alignment is like a shared success, and it’s all about closing revenue — that would be the more popular answer.

    But I like seeing shared sense of failure because, in my experience, way more transformational business decisions get made between marketing and sales by looking at your losses and things that didn’t go so well.

    Everywhere I’ve worked, there are win notices sent out over email or Slack. We don’t spend as much time sending out the loss notices and talking about everything that went badly. We do win-loss analyses as an example, a mindset. But that’s less of a public thing for all the different reasons, because some of the stuff you get in those interviews is very candid and you’ve got to be thoughtful about making sure you’re not accidentally dressing down someone for something they did or didn’t do. But I do think that having a shared sense of failure and looking at very reflectively across the board at what could have been done better in all aspects of the value chain between marketing and sales is super important.

    And in the third place, I would say it’s important that stakeholders manage their teams toward walking a mile in the other person’s shoes. I don’t feel like that happens enough. I think it’s important for marketing to empathize with sales that it is the ultimate what have you done for me lately? And there’s an incredible pressure to deliver, particularly in an environment like we’re in, which is a high-growth business. And I think, you know, marketers get prickly with everyone… it’s a marketer syndrome.

    I always joke that like everyone thinks they’re good at marketing. You know, you always hear these different ideas around like, “Oh, if you just did this” or another big one for marketers is all the competitor stuff like, “Well, so-and-so did this.” It’s super important to realize that you know what the other person is going through and that really can be just an automatic compass going into any kind of interaction that you have.

    I think sales needs to remember that marketing usually has some spectrum of resources it’s working with, and it’s doing its best to deliver with that resource. And I think marketing also needs to remember that sales is dealing with the cold, hard, brutal realities of the market, which are always going to have some slight misalignment.

    Then there’s the academic work that people like me do on addressable market exercises and personas and all of this stuff, and I think marketers, in particular, don’t want to hear it sometimes, but I think that’s just like the way they get irritated with people saying they know all about what should be good marketing. I think they need to be careful about not presupposing that they know exactly always what great selling looks like. Sometimes it’s unnerving for them to know that I feel that way, but that is how I feel.

    Tony: You know, being someone on the sales side, it’s refreshing to hear that right, especially the alignment parts. If you really do want to have a well-oiled machine, you do have to have that alignment between sales and marketing. What do you think really are the key responsibilities for marketing in the sales process versus what sales might think they might need to do?

    Chris: I think the primary responsibility of marketing is to identify the addressable market, have a really cohesive strategy from a targeting perspective, from a content perspective, from an experience perspective of how to go and reach that target in market. And frankly, place some bets on what you think the majority of those people are missing in their current roles and actually need to see addressed in what they’re doing. I think that’s very much in marketing’s purview. There’s all the classical stuff that has been written about to death, which is all true, right? That more of the buying decision happens before anyone ever talks to a salesperson. I think that’s all true.

    But I also feel that it’s important for marketing to bring some point of view to those interactions. It’s not just enough to say, “Well, we think this target will be interested in sales coaching, so we’ll develop a white paper and a webinar around sales coaching and generate keywords and get the machines to notice us in some way.”

    But I think that it is on marketing to also come with a unique point of view that they are seeding in the mind of the prospect. So that way, sales peoples’ goal really is to get in there and take that seed that’s been planted and start getting really prescriptive about the strategy and what would be involved in bringing that to life at a company.

    For me, that’s where the division of labor is. If we’re talking about B2B, which we are, I think that one thing that is important for sales to remember that, when marketing is building these strategies, there is a point where they have to plan for the what works most of the time as our conversation here, because they’re trying to reach a more mass audience, even with all the data tools and the targeting and personalization and all this stuff. If people are being completely honest with you, there’s still some level of malleability that you have to have in some of your messaging if you want to reach some of these audiences. Then it’s really on sales to take it that level deeper. That is really going to make the value and the insight.

    Hannah: So, Chris, now, I’d really love to get your perspective on some of the things that you’re excited about when it comes to technology: the things that are happening in the world that are going to drive and revolutionize marketing and sales over the next two to five years.

    Chris: I think one of the greatest things that is going to revolutionize the B2B marketing industry is the revenue technology and the sales technology stack catching up and chief revenue officers, chief sales officers, whatever senior sales titles you can imagine are going to start leaning harder into a more digitally focused way of doing business.

    I feel that revenue technology is in a similar space right now where you have sort of this smattering of different providers that are solving the sales productivity and performance challenge from different angles. But we’re going to see more consolidation of that functionality coming together. I also think that that’s going to be an extraordinary thing for marketing as more of the sales process comes out of the shadows and gets brought into the digital realm. I think that’s going to put more context behind the data that we’ve sorely been missing for a long time.

    And the last point I want to make is about CMOs coming into the 2000s. You know, they always wanted to just hang their hat on the next brand campaign, the next tagline, that’s going to be my thing. And then they realized “ Oh, actually, I potentially have to be the most digitally first organization.” And what did we see? We saw all this spend that was going toward CEOs start to move over to CMOs. I think the same thing is happening with the chief revenue officers. I think what’s happening is they’re realizing that relying on sales ops or IT to manage all the technology is probably not good enough. I think that is going to be a massive change in leadership role and that they’re going to have to start leaning into this stuff in a way that CMOs did 10 years ago.

    Tony: So, Chris, it’s been a great conversation. We learned a lot. I think what we want to do is we’re going to put your CMO superpowers to work one last time. We’re going to go through a very quick, rapid fire round of questions.

    Sales podcast rapid fire quesitons

    Hannah: Okay, so what’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given in your career?

    Chris: I worked with a gentleman named Chandar Pattabhiram. He’s now CMO for Coupa Software. Before that, he was CMO of Marketo, so not exactly a lightweight. And he said, “We are always going to perceive ourselves in a slightly different way than everyone else perceives us. The best you can do is minimize the number of clicks you are away.”

    Tony: What would you say is your top productivity hack?

    Chris: You’ve got to wake up early. I can certainly say that, as the CMO, f you don’t utilize the hours of 6:30 to 9:30 a.m. effectively, I don’t see how you get through your day.

    Tony: Top prediction for the sales industry this year?

    Chris: I think more noise and more consolidation. Hmm.

    Hannah: If you could share a piece of advice to all marketers, what would that be?

    Chris: My advice would be make sure to remember that your ideas matter. It’s not simply enough to message value. You need to message sight.

    Tony: Where do you go to get your industry news?

    Chris: A little bit of everywhere? Maybe just because I’m a little bit of a sentimentalist, I still read TechCrunch quite a bit. And I also read a lot of the digital stuff on The Wall Street Journal. And then generally just sort of a smattering like I set up the feeds where I’m watching specific companies and then I’m sort of kind of plugging through and looking at the different news outlets that are covering them. So those are primary for me, and then I get all my regular news, primarily from the New York Times.

    Hannah: What book has inspired you the most in your career?

    Chris: Malcolm Gladwell’s “Blink” has still stuck with me all these years later. I’m sure there’s a lot in that book that has probably been refuted as pseudoscience in a number of different constructs. But I think through so much in my life around initial impressions and reactions to things and how much that shapes you and how much it shapes a lot of your business relationships. And, I mean, that book is probably 20 years old now, but that one has stuck with me this whole time,

    Tony: I’m going to throw one last question in. We’re going to go from books to movies since you brought movies up earlier. And this is a question we had asked the previous guest on the podcast. But which term would you use? Always be closing or sell me this pen.

    Chris: Sell me this pen.

    Tony: That is the correct answer. Chris, thanks so much for your time here on the podcast today. It was a pleasure for Hannah and I to have you on, and we’re looking forward to seeing what you do at Mindtickle.

    Chris: Thank you. Thank you both.

    Tony: Oh, so had I’ve had more positions than I care to reveal over the course of my career, but I’ve worked with a number of different marketing people… some good, some not as good, but I think there have been a bunch that I’ve worked with that have done an excellent job in setting up and driving awareness. I’ve been at some companies that were very early in the beginning of their fields where you were doing a lot of evangelizing, having to go out and really make sure that people got a first understanding of what the product or solution was that we were delivering. I think the best marketers that I’ve worked with have really done a phenomenal job of getting the name out there and the brand out there and making sure that the customers had a good sense of what it is that we could do. But more importantly, the value that we could provide does that. Does that ring true to what you’ve experienced with any of the marketing teams you’ve worked with?

    Hannah: Yeah, I’m with you completely. I’ve had many roles in my own career, and I have definitely been part of organizations where I haven’t known what marketing is doing. I just don’t know. I’m thinking “Are you here? Do you still work here? What are you working on?” And that has worried me, and I’ve been in situations as a salesperson where I’ve been like, “If I say something, am I going to get in trouble because I haven’t heard from marketing? I don’t know what they’re doing. I’m confused.” So I just started developing.

    Tony: What they’re doing is getting nice pens and shirts and things like that.

    Hannah: I’ve also been in environments in both small and large organizations where marketing are all over you. They’re like, “Here’s a campaign. This is what we’re doing. Here’s the script. Here’s a value prop presented to us. Walk us through a demonstration. Here’s what you should be talking about. Here’s the campaign that’s going out. Here’s the date we’re going to send you a list of people who have opened the email, clicked on the email. We’re going to show you all of their web activity.” So I think there are two distinctions when it comes to marketing people. I’m definitely going to lose followers talking about this, but you’re going to have some marketers who are like, “My job is to make money for the company.” That’s it. And you’re going to have other marketers who are saying, “I am here to drive bleeds,” and I think that’s just a really fine line. And when that revenue org isn’t thinking about numbers, that’s where I see things start to break down because you’re thinking of doing a great job, but there’re no numbers. So that’s my two cents.

    Tony: Yeah. And the thing is, you don’t need a huge marketing team in order to have success. I’ve been at some smaller organizations that just have phenomenal people that were very crisp in their messaging and very precise and knew how to target the right people at the right time with the right information. And that’s why sales and marketing are so intertwined, right? Because the outcomes and goals that they’re looking for aren’t really that dissimilar. It’s just really a slightly different approach and what they’re looking to do.

    So to me, the best people I’ve really worked with were the ones that were really smart in the way they thought about things and could execute at a higher level to really drive that retention, that information level that people are looking for. You know, I’m a movie guy, as you know, so telling a good story is always very important. But in sales, telling a good story about your brand relies on having a strong belief in the company’s overall vision and mission. I agree with Chris that to optimize sales outcomes and effectiveness, sales and marketing each need to build a team full of passionate people who can really get behind the product.

    Hannah: I mean, Chris even emphasized the importance of being truthful and direct, especially when working with the sales team.

    Tony: Exactly. And we all appreciate honesty when working with others. But if you really want to get in a salesperson’s good books, it’s important to be upfront about overall performance and any challenges you may be dealing with.

    Hannah: Honestly, remaining adaptable and flexible to change is really essential, especially in today’s rapidly evolving world.

    Tony: Exactly. Being able to help your customers solve problems as they crop up will help you build relationships founded on trust and credibility and a problem-solving attitude.

    Hannah: Thank you for listening to this episode of Ready Set Sell.

    Tony: We hope you took away some valuable lessons and insights that inspire you to reevaluate your approach to sales readiness.

    Hannah: Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the show when you get a minute.

    Tony: And stay tuned for the next episode of Ready Set Sell.

    The post Hitting Targets Through Marketing and Sales Alignment with Chris Lynch appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Achieving Excellence in Enterprise Sales with a Cross-Functional Mindset with Reid Oliver https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/achieving-excellence-in-enterprise-sales-with-a-cross-functional-mindset-with-reid-oliver/ Thu, 07 Apr 2022 14:31:25 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13428 Strong communication skills will serve you well in any industry, but they’re especially crucial in the sales world. Today companies are moving away from the traditional corporate structure of working in silos to adopt a more streamlined approach. And establishing synergy among teams is really essential if you’re hoping to optimize sales outcomes and meet …

    The post Achieving Excellence in Enterprise Sales with a Cross-Functional Mindset with Reid Oliver appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Strong communication skills will serve you well in any industry, but they’re especially crucial in the sales world. Today companies are moving away from the traditional corporate structure of working in silos to adopt a more streamlined approach.

    And establishing synergy among teams is really essential if you’re hoping to optimize sales outcomes and meet or exceed all of your sales targets.

    On the most recent episode of Ready, Set, Sell, our guest Reid Oliver shared his tips on finding cross-functional alignment to achieve excellence in enterprise sales.

    As the enterprise sales director at Splunk, Reid has found a few different leadership strategies that work for him and his team. He’s here today to let us in on all his secrets.

    Who is Reid Oliver?

    Hannah: Tony and I usually start by being a little bit nosy. What I’d love to do is get you to share a little bit about your career background so far — more specifically, the points that really made a difference in contributing to where you are today.

    Reid Sure. I have been in software sales for seven years now. So, I’m certainly not a grizzled veteran and I still have plenty to learn. I’ve been at two companies. My first foray into sales was with a Series C company called Vidyard. We were doing B2B video hosting, data analytics, internal communications. I started there about as entry level as you can get, as a sales development representative, managing inbound leads. We had a phenomenal manager at the time and I also took advantage of a good growth curve, so I was able to move into a business development representative role as an account executive (AE). And then my final role there was with our enterprise team, selling into some of the biggest customers that we had at the time.

    Addressing your question around getting to where I am today, I would recommend to anyone joining a startup early on in their sales career. You just get so much good exposure to wearing a lot of hats. Since then, I decided to move over to where I am right now, which is Splunk. I wanted to get to more large-enterprise complex-platform selling, with much larger deal sizes. And again, I’m really fortunate around timing and leadership and growth. I started as a commercial regional sales manager (RSM), an AE role, and today I’ve gone through a few different roles at Splunk because they are managing a strategic Canadian business. I’m now working with the largest customers and companies in Canada.

    Tony: Excellent. I actually know Vidyard very well because I was a customer for a while. Sounds like you’ve done a great job climbing the ladder, but what drew you to sales in the first place?

    Reid: A few factors. I think one of the biggest would be my parents and, in particular, my mom. She was always involved in our school and kind of thinking about careers and what would set us up for success. And part of that, we did some career kind of testing my brother and me, and one thing that always shone was that I always tended to score higher on EQ than IQ. So I wasn’t necessarily going to try to go for a surgeon or an investment banker. But pairing that with kind of playing a lot of sports, being competitive, maybe even just a general business interest, I thought that salesman made a ton of sense. And so that ended up where I ended up being, where I put a lot of my focus.

    Hannah: Splunk is an awesome company. I’m actually working with a few people at Splunk over the last year. Yeah, I’d love to know a bit more about how you landed your role at Splunk.

    Reid: Yeah. So it was, like a lot of roles these days, just networking. I was, as I mentioned, trying to figure out where my next step would be from Vidyard. I knew that cybersecurity and big data was a huge market still continues to be. And so I looked at who was a leader in that space, and Splunk was certainly top of the list (and continues to be), but at the time was really the key player. And so I ended up just looking up where I had connections and reaching out and having a cup of coffee with those individual sellers and one of the managers. And I ended up getting put into the interview process through that.

    Tony: Well, it sounds like you’ve kind of been climbing the ladder. You started at Vidyard, you made your way to commercial accounts, and now enterprise. What would you say you like most about enterprise sales and what you’re doing right now?

    Reid: I think the best part about enterprise sales is just the strategy behind it and the relationships that you build and the impact that you’re having on a customer account. I mean, enterprise deals are generally quite complex there. You need change agents across a company using multiple layers of champions across technical and key stakeholders. And so that’s certainly something that’s probably more absent in the more traditional kind of transactional selling model. I think it’s good to experience both, but the former certainly appeals to me from an enterprise perspective, and just getting the chance to be a part of a much larger deal cycle and impact from a revenue perspective to the company that you’re at is fun.

    Tony: Yeah, the checks are always bigger, too, which helps. So that’s good.

    Reid: This is true.

    Hannah: When it goes right, that is.

    Reid: Correct.

    What is Splunk?

    Hannah: Reid, I’m going to I’m going to try and remember what one of your company’s straplines are: is it data to anywhere? Is it something like that right for Splunk?

    Reid: Data to everything.

    Hannah: There we go. I was close! I’d love you to share an overview for those listening who don’t know what Splunk specializes in because I saw some material beneath the surface and I thought it was really cool. I’d love for you to help us understand how you help businesses grow and improve their outcomes.

    Reid: Sure. In an analogy that I heard early on — and we’ve certainly grown from this — but we used to be kind of Google for IT. We were the de-facto platform to help IT professionals and security professionals dig through massive amounts of data and get to their answers quickly.

    And from there, we’ve certainly developed into still being that critical query and big data ingest platform but we’re now turning also into visualizations, alerting orchestration and automation, and obviously applying layers of machine learning across these massive complex datasets. So ultimately, we’re helping security professionals ensure that their products and their companies are secure and identify when issues happen and where they are really quickly.

    On the IT and DevOps side, we’re helping folks ensure that their websites are up and running and we’re ensuring that if bugs and issues are happening, they’re finding the root cause very, very quickly and, oftentimes, doing that through a predictive model rather than reactive. So it sounds like it’s a really sophisticated process there that you guys have to go through. And I’m curious about the different teams that you have to engage with on the sales side. So, you know, as you’re going through your process, what are the different teams that you typically engage with? How do you do that? And you know, how do you make sure that everything is working cohesively together?

    Yeah, it’s not uncommon for our win notes on big deals to span multiple pages, and then you have to scroll through all the different teams and specialists that we have because it certainly takes a village. I would say core to our go-to-market function.

    We obviously have our direct sellers. We work very closely with our sales or solution engineers. So they are the technical prowess and strategy behind a lot of the projects we’re working on that we then have specialist teams that are verticalized. We have financial services, we have oil and gas energy, we have e-commerce and we’ll often pull in those folks to get multiple layers into a conversation, to ensure that we’re helping build out a broader business case. And then I would say marketing partners are huge components that we work really closely with — Google and AWS in particular. And on the marketing side, we’re always trying to do different events and workshops and things to keep our customers engaged and successful.

    Tony: Oh. You know, at this point in the pandemic, I think it’s safe to say we’re all a little bit Zoomed out.

    Hannah: Well, I couldn’t agree more. That’s why I love Reid’s approach to ensuring teams are communicating effectively without booking too many unnecessary meetings and touch-bases.

    Tony: Exactly. I can’t stand having too many unnecessary meetings. But I think cross-functional collaboration is all about striking the right balance between working effectively as an individual and keeping communication channels open with your entire team.

    Hannah: But I also love what Reid said about celebrating small wins to stay motivated. I think celebrating together as a team is a really great way to strengthen those bonds and form authentic connections.

    Tony: Absolutely. And if celebrating those wins together includes a cocktail or two, then we’ll do what we have to do. But I think finding cross-functional alignment is more important than ever today as the landscape becomes increasingly competitive. So going the extra mile is always worth it.

    Achieving excellence in enterprise sales

    Hannah: Agreed. Let’s hear what Reid has to say next about achieving excellence in enterprise sales.

    Tony: With all that in mind, do you have a specific focus for this year or is there a specific goal that you’re targeting… or how are you thinking about the upcoming fiscal year?

    Reid: I guess if my manager were listening, he’d want to hear my aim is to hit our team number for the year, which certainly is a goal. But the way that I look at it, and I’m obviously newer on leadership, I try to think about it as a bit of a framework or kind of trickle-down effect to our end goal, be hitting our number. What are some of the other kinds of leading indicator goals that we need in order to get there? A big one for me is ensuring that I understand what my team’s goals are for the year. Some of them are going to be purely numbers/financially based. Others want to get into leadership or get exposure to other teams.

    Making sure that I have a full understanding of what success means to them and then building that up into how we get there as a team to hit our number, that’s probably my overarching goal for the year.

    Hannah: And Reid just kind of expanding on what you were saying regarding enterprise selling: one of the key differences you mentioned is there’s the inherent strategic nature of an enterprise setting, right and also the multiple stakeholders that are typically involved. What’s bringing all that together? What are some of the recent sales wins — of course, those that you’re allowed to talk about — that you are proud of? And what do you think are some of the factors that resulted in these wins? So, think of a salesperson listening, who’s thinking: What do I need to do on my next call to be like, Reid?

    Reid: That’s a good question. A good win that we had that I could share happened prior to the holiday break. We were working with another data SaaS company, actually local here in Canada. They put a significant premium on security and, in turn, uptime. It wasn’t the largest from a dollar perspective but, from a complexity standpoint, it was pretty significant. So they have contracts in the US where they require steady ramp capabilities. We had unique compliance and legal components to it.

    I think one of the things I’m most proud of and what’s important on the enterprise side is it was a nine to 10-month sales cycle, but we did a really good job at the beginning, building a strong relationship with multiple stakeholders — leaders at the business, technical owners — and we tried to have some of the tough conversations early on to get those out of the way. We knew it was competitive and we were going to go to an RFQ, so we tried to get ahead of where we were strong and where we may be weaker or at least what our competitor was going to be meeting on,  what did our license model look like and what would the cost look like. That way, when we got towards the end, we had had a lot of those challenging conversations — the ones that maybe come with a little bit more back and forth — and it ended up being much smoother. There were still negotiations to be had, but we had built a lot of rapport early on so that we could have those conversations easily and ultimately partner. I think it’s a big reason we won the deal.

    Tony: It sounds like you did a great job and, like you said, establishing those relationships was a big part of that. And touching back a little bit to something you said earlier about getting to understand a little bit more about your internal teams: what their goals are, what sort of things they’re looking to do. As you’ve collected all this data, have you found that there are certain challenges that are bigger ones that you want to make sure that you can work through with your team? Are there any challenges that stand out to you right now?

    How to build natural urgency

    Reid: I think one of the biggest challenges that we come up against is just building natural urgency. I always try to get my team away from just selling to the end of a quarter or picking our own timeline or deadline, because that’s often when I find deals slip and forecasts get impacted. I also know that, as sellers, we can’t make our own agenda. To get a deal done, we have to work with our customers and understand what’s a compelling event for them. And that’s much easier said than done.

    Sometimes you have to do it around product launches or sprints, and the engineering team is running around dealing with other major projects that don’t even affect you, but they open up resources for your project. I try to get my team to do a far better job of just leaning in and identifying upfront, “Hey, we want to work with your team’s timelines, but we want to pick a date and work backward from it.” That inherently is a challenge, but it’s also something we’re trying to get better at because if we can build natural urgency, then we ultimately have a time and a date that we’re working towards. And we also have a bit more leverage when it comes to getting into final contract negotiations.

    How to be easy to work with

    Hannah: You were speaking briefly about the challenges that you’re working on for your team. And urgency in deals… it’s a hot topic, right? It always has been. But I’m just thinking about the wider ecosystem that you work in at Splunk. You’ve been there a few years now. You went from an RSM to it to a sales director. What were some of the key differences you noticed as you made that transition? What are some of the things that stand out with how you’ve had to work with the team as an RSM compared to how you need to work with the wider ecosystem as a sales director?

    Reid: As an RSM, one of your biggest focus areas needs to be ensuring that you’re working collaboratively with your sales engineer or solution engineer. Especially with a complex sale like Splunk, they’re so critical. And I think that, just like sellers, you get a wide range of personalities when it comes to sales engineers.

    And so, as I always tell my team, when I was an RSM, I was going out of my way to make their lives easier. So I didn’t expect them to do meetings, follow-ups. I didn’t. If I needed a technical document that I could Google just as easily as they could, I’d go out of my way to do some of those tasks so that when I really needed to lean on them — if we needed to go after hours and really close in on a project — they were willing to do that. I find that if a rep takes the easy way out or goes lazy, they’ll get the same in return from their SE. I made a very conscious effort to make working with me as easy and enjoyable as possible. And I now try to ensure my team is doing that so that when we need help, folks are willing and open to come and work with us.

    Tony: Digging into that a little bit, how do you align with your teams? Do you see it as, “Hey, this is just something I need to do one time?” Or is this part of you? It sounds like it’s part of your overall methodology with your teams but tell us a little bit more about that.

    Reid: Alignment is certainly always fluid and continuous, and it changes depending on the project and customer that we’re working with. But I always try to have consistent communication and alignment across all of our cross-functional teams.

    I am cautious of having too many meetings. I try not to have just meetings for the sake of them. I try to be as efficient as possible, but I count on my team to be ensuring we have that active alignment and that folks understand their roles and responsibilities from the early stages.

    So, when we’re doing our first-half kickoffs, for instance, or our quarterly business reviews, if we have accountability early on around, those folks know that they’re going to be counted on, and that generally breeds a good, healthy level of alignment and responsibility.

    Hannah: I’m a big believer in motivation and positive thinking and affirmations and things like that. And I think you need a lot of that in sales, right? This is the step: that one moment where something needs to help, right? Or the universal powers. But what is motivation like for you? How do you connect with and motivate the people around you, particularly the people in your team?

    Reid: Yeah, that’s a good point, Hannah. One thing I learned early on and I actually was not great at was managing the highs and lows in sales. A mentor of mine talked about just not getting too high and not getting too low either. And that was a learning curve for me. I was always more of an emotional seller and I think you’re right. You need you need to have positivity in the good times and the bad. With my team, we always try to celebrate the wins, even if they’re smaller wins. So maybe we haven’t yet closed the deal but we got through a huge milestone. Or maybe we broke into just booking meetings with an account that we know is a high priority but haven’t had much work with before.

    As part of our team meetings, I try to get my team to share and open up about what’s working for them. While selling can be an individual sport, at times we try to make it like an overall open landscape where people can celebrate and also where people can identify, “Hey, I’m having challenges here. Have you folks tried to do something different?”

    Also, sales folks are generally pretty competitive. So if you are the top performer on your team is continuously sharing wins, it tends to bubble up to other folks.

    Hannah: It really does.

    Tony: Well you said, you were a hockey player earlier, so I think you got to share the wins, right? That’s all part of the team mentality with hockey. So.

    Reid: Exactly.

    Tony: So it’s funny. We were talking about hockey offline before, but everybody consistently says about hockey players that they go above and beyond, right? They’re not like the guys who go down with the fake injury like in other sports. So how do you how would you relate that to sales?

    Reid: Yeah, I’d say there are two components of that that I’ve noticed. Number one is just if you’re willing to put in the work and work harder than the other 90 percent, you’re going to be largely successful in sales. It’s not the only telltale sign but I have found that, for the most part, if you really are hungry, you’re passionate about what you’re selling and you’re interested in what your customer’s goals are, that’s a way to stand out in itself.

    One of the big things I see is just the level of preparation. So with top sellers, there’s this framework.

    It’s like the principle agent framework where you want more and more of your team to think like an owner. I think the best reps treat their territories as they own that territory, right. They’re the GM or the CEO or whatever you want to call it, of that territory. And that means slowing down. Every single action is value add and putting themselves in the framework of their customers for the largest strategic deals, thinking like they’re a part of that team. Where does our solution have to fit? What challenges does it have to meet? That’s the top sellers that I see. They’re willing to go out of their way and above and beyond and to really think like an owner, and I think that’s a huge component of being successful in sales.

    Hannah: So Reid, you’ve mentioned quite a few things about what you can do to improve your ability to deliver sales outcomes for your business and your customers. You mentioned things about collaborating well internally. You mentioned acting like an owner and finding positivity during the highs and lows. But what about some of the recommendations that you’d make to somebody who’s getting started in their sales career? You’ve already mentioned working at a startup, so you can’t say that one again!

    Reid: Yeah, sure. That is a big one. I will say I was going to default back to that, but I’ll follow your guidance. I think finding a space that you’re passionate about is important. I think you really have to care about what you’re selling. You’re going to be doing it every single day and it can be a grind, so if you don’t necessarily believe in the space or you’re not genuinely interested in it, I think that would show on long calls, right? And in today’s world, you have to be much more of an advocate and customers just have so many different options. If you’re going to be successful, you’ve got to care about what you’re going into. And then also just picking strong, strong products in markets with lots of upside. I’ve always loved that the reason I went to Splunk was I looked at the size of the data market, data monitoring, and cyber, and I just felt that there’s so much growth opportunity. So finding markets with plenty of upside and tailwinds is important.

    Hannah: I think people often overlook that. It’s a really good point. Thanks for that.

    Tony: I’m sure Splunk is changing quickly. How do you go about refining your skillset right and making sure that you’re where you need to be, not only for your personal growth, but for the organization?

    Reid: One of the first things I do is try to identify people who are smarter than me or have been more successful than I have, and I just ask them for guidance and to spend time. I try to be as respectful as I can about it and I come prepared, but I don’t really shy away from it.

    At Splunk, one of the first things I did and I continue to do is have mentors who I try to keep up with, learning, taking their brain, kind of being a sponge, if you will, to pick up different tactics that they’re using and make them my own.

    So that’s a huge component of it. And then I also am fairly active. I use tools like Twitter and a number of different blogs from other sales leaders and go-to-market groups and just try to make sure that I’m staying up to date and relevant on a lot of the trends because I find that, once something is reaching kind of LinkedIn blog velocity, it’s already being used by a lot of sellers. Trying to remain consistent and sharp on new ways and strategies folks are using has typically yielded good results so far.

    Tony: Well, you’ve kind of defined my whole career: being smart enough to know I’m not the smartest person in the room. I think that we’re very much on the same page with that.

    Hannah: It takes a while to be comfortable with that and realize the benefits of that actually. I know this is definitely a valid point. We’ve spoken quite a bit, indirectly, about communication when it comes to working with internal teams and when it comes to working with your sales team. What are some of the tips you have for ensuring smooth and effective communication? Because there’s a lot of ways to communicate now, like informal, formal, etc. Tell me more about some of the tips that you would recommend when it comes to comms.

    Reid: Yeah, there is no shortage of communication channels these days. I really like the concept of radical candor: the idea of being openly transparent and also very direct. I find that that’s the feedback that I always hope to get and I try to embody that in my communication with my team. I find that it’s best to be very, very open and honest about performance. And if that’s to the negative side, obviously, it’s coming with constructive ways to improve on what we’re doing. And if it’s to the positive, we need to ensure we can replicate that and make it more of a playbook going forward. I guess to your point around channels, Hannah, I find that still just picking up the phone and calling is one of the best ways to really have a conversation, particularly if it’s more of a difficult one. I think Slack and email messages can sometimes be misconstrued, but there’s a time and a place for them. I also found that shift has been really different, moving from when I was in a full office. In a setting that’s been fully virtual the last two years, it’s been even more challenging at times to really connect with folks. I find there’s always a little bit of that barrier on Zoom calls and such. And so, again, meet for a coffee or get in person if you can, but if not, phone calls generally the best.

    Hannah: Yeah, but Reid, emoji or no emoji?

    Reid: I’m not much of an emoji guy. I’m a I “Iike” guy.

    Tony: Actually, thinking about the challenges you were just mentioning. Can you think of a time when there was a communication breakdown that had a direct impact on something you were doing? Can you think of anything and how did you solve it?

    Reid: I mean, there are communication breakdowns — they happen all the time. I’m even thinking how we work with customers. Sometimes emails can be misconstrued or just missed in general. And so the best way, in my view, to solve it is, if we feel like we’re going down a path or maybe there’s a disconnect, it’s just kind of hitting pause, with me putting my own hand up and saying, “Look, I think I’m missing the point or maybe I was I was unclear. Can we do like a hard reset on this and just kind of try to figure out if there is a better path forward?” And I think identifying that early, early on and not trying to pretend like we know everything or go down a path that’s not the right one. It’s probably best to nip it in the bud when you when you have risk of a miscommunication.

    Hannah: I’m just thinking about something you mentioned earlier. You said you’re relatively new to leadership. I think I was doing a little bit nosing around on your LinkedIn. It’s about a year, right, since you transitioned into a sales director?

    Reid: Yes. Yeah, I’m starting. We just kicked out at this level at the end of January. So this is the start of my second year.

    Hannah: What are you hoping to improve? You’ve had a year of learning and probably some shocks along the way, but how are you hoping to up level your leadership skills for 2022?

    Reid: There’s a long list. I’m actively trying to find ways to get better, and I’m pretty open with my team about that too. I’m in a unique situation where I joke that some of my team members have been selling since I was in high school. So they’re all far more senior than me. One thing I try to do is just take the approach of not knowing everything and being very open about, “Hey, here’s where I can help, and here’s where I where I want to get feedback.” Something I think I can do more of is press for more critical feedback. I find sometimes asking for feedback can be really difficult, and sometimes folks, particularly if you have a friendly relationship, will take the easy way out. They’ll say, “You’re doing a great job, thanks so much.” But that’s rarely the case. There are always going to be areas that I can improve on a one-on-one basis, but I also want feedback about how I manage teams. And I’m not going to let them off the hook when I do ask for feedback because it’s really the only way I’ll improve. So that’s the main focus of mine, among others.

    Tony: You said you’re about two weeks into your new fiscal, right? What’s next for you and for Splunk over the next year?

    Reid: So Splunk’s going through a pretty big transformation. I think we’re one of the largest companies, aside from Adobe and Autodesk, to move from a more traditional on-prem software to being fully cloud native and SaaS. And so that’s come with some growing pains over the past two years, but it’s also been really unique to be a part of. What’s next for us is just really ensuring that we’re laser tight on just what being a SaaS company means. What are the critical metrics I mentioned that touched on whether we have organic growth? How do we land new deals? How do we ensure we have retention and renewal? So that’s a huge focus area: best practices around being SaaS company now. And for my team, it’s a matter of ensuring that we are educating our customers about those changes and ensuring that they’re aware of all the different things that Splunk can do. We’ve always said it’s a blessing and a curse, where we are very good at a lot of different areas, but we often will get stuck in one segment. So jumping over to other buying centers, whether you’re in security or moving into IT, can be challenging because the folks that own Splunk tend to hug it and keep it very close. Having the opportunity to build and grow and expand teams can be tricky, but it’s needed if we’re going to kind of continue growing at the rate we are.

    Tony: Oh, that’s great. Well, Reid, this has been fantastic, but we’re not done with you yet. We have just a couple more questions that we’re going to do in our rapid-fire round. Hannah’s going to kick it off. Give really quick answers: the first thing that comes to mind.

    Sales podcast rapid fire quesitons

    Hannah: All right. Let’s get into it. So, OK, what is your sales philosophy in just three words?

    Reid: Always be interested.

    Hannah: I like it. What’s the best advice you’ve been given in your career so far?

    Reid: Find good mentors.

    Tony: I like that one. Your top productivity hack?

    Reid: Own your calendar. I’m a huge fan of blocking anything and everything I need to get done throughout my days.

    Tony: Very smart. Top prediction for the sales industry in the upcoming year?

    Reid: Product-led growth is going to continue to flourish so reps need to find ways to be effective and change their models in some cases.

    Hannah: What’s one thing that you believe is revolutionizing the sales industry?

    Reid: It’s probably the amount of tools and resources and, in some cases, cutting through the noise of what are effective tools and how to help reps work as efficiently as possible. I think the efficiency and productivity metric is just going to become more and more important, particularly for teams, when they’re justifying raising new rounds or where they’re allocating dollars for headcount. It’s a huge component and probably will be more and more.

    Hannah: I think I’m with you on that one. But on rep productivity, if you could share just one piece of advice to salespeople, what would it be?

    Reid: Always be authentic and transparent.  Be as open as you possibly can and then try to be somebody that a buyer likes to do business with. There are so many tools and options out there. People still like doing business with folks who they find enjoyable and whom they see they get value from.

    Tony: There are a lot of voices out there nowadays with blogs and posts and everything. So where do you go to for your best sales industry news?

    Reid: I’m a huge Twitter fan. I try to use Twitter and be selective of my followers, but also make sure that I’m staying up to speed. I like a few different podcasts, and then I also try to read more books. There are a lot of good books out there.

    Hannah: OK, so are leaders made or born?

    Reid: Both. I don’t know. I don’t think one versus the other.

    Hannah: You’re allowed.

    Tony: You can. You can.

    Hannah: You’re allowed.

    Tony: Well, this is our last question. I’m actually a big movie fan myself, so we’re going to tie this to movie quotes. But would you go with always be closing or sell me this pen?

    Reid: Always be closing.

    Tony: I knew you were going to say that because you gave us a couple of these already, so I had a good feeling that you are going to go that direction. But, Reid, this was a fantastic time today. We really appreciate you joining us on Ready Set Sell and we wish you the best of luck at Splunk. Thanks again for your time.

    Reid: Awesome. Thank you so much, Hannah and Tony. I really appreciate it.

    What we learned

    Tony: You know, I thought it was really interesting with all of the different roles that Reid has had over the years, because that’s pretty consistent with what I’ve seen from a number of top sales leaders: they’ve done different things and they have unique perspectives because they’ve really been able to see things from different lenses within the sales verticals. I think that gives him a great way of being able to really visualize from a different perspective.

    Hannah: I definitely agree with that. I think it even goes beyond having experience at various levels in sales. I think the sales leaders that really exceed expectations are the ones who have actually had the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of sales experience. So they’ve had incredible years but maybe they’ve had a quarter where they haven’t done so great. And the reason I mention that is that they are able to really think about, you know, how will my team be feeling right now when they’re doing great? Or how will my team be feeling when right in this instance when they haven’t hit a target? And I think when you’ve got leaders who have gone through various different roles in sales, full stop, they they’re much more relatable when they can relate to the different situations that salespeople find themselves in.

    Tony: Yeah, I think it really gives you a lot of credibility as you start rising the chain. I mean, I look at my background. My first job out of college, I was selling sneakers. You know, I was the top sneaker salesman in northern New Jersey, which brought me to where I am today, I suppose. But it really gives you an idea of how to think about things differently, because even though I was selling sneakers, I learned a lot about how to deal with people and different dynamics with the people I was working with. I think every job that you go through or every stop on your way really helps define who you’re going to be and how you’re going to work with colleagues within different structures.

    Hannah: Yeah, I love the sneakers. This is great. When you think about the roles that all of us had and you think about the importance of coaching now, as a sales leader, how can you coach if you haven’t done the job yourself? Or how can you really effectively coach if you just haven’t been in the trenches, the multiple roles that you play and the experience that you gather from that? I just think it sets you up to be a much stronger coach, which, in my opinion, is a key part of being in sales leadership.

    Tony: Yeah, absolutely. I think that all adds to credibility, right? And we’ve all had managers over the years that, you know, get put into positions of leadership and have not done the job that they’re asking you to do. And they don’t really get the credibility because they haven’t done it and they’re asking you to do things that either they don’t know how to do or just haven’t had any experience doing. I totally agree. I think it’s very important to have someone in that role that can not only talk the talk but walk the walk. Reid’s clear and articulate understanding of his role in the team really impressed me.

    Hannah: I know, right? Like, it became quite clear early on in the interview why he’s moved up the ladder to a leadership position.

    Tony: I know he really had some great suggestions to share about finding cross-functional alignment internally, managing teams effectively and really going above and beyond to achieve excellence in sales.

    Hannah: I think one point he made that really stood out to me was the value of finding someone who’s more successful or experienced than you and learning as much as you can from them.

    Tony: You know what they say? It’s funny. I use this too. If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room. I think Reid also emphasized the importance of following your passion in sales. You know, I couldn’t agree more with this point because if you’re not passionate about what you’re selling, people will be able to sense that and you’ll see it reflected in your results.

    Hannah: It’s true. And finally, Reid’s comments about accountability and responsibility were so on point. Getting clear on everyone’s roles and responsibilities from the very beginning will help set everyone up for success and lead to stronger alignment overall.

    Tony: You know, absolutely. I think, all in all, I learned a lot from today’s episode, and we hope that you did, too. Thanks again to our guest Reid for joining us today.

    Hannah: Thank you for listening to this episode of Ready Set Sell.

    Tony: We hope you took away some valuable lessons and insights that inspire you to reevaluate your approach to sales readiness.

    Hannah: Don’t forget to subscribe, rate and review the show when you get a minute.

    Tony: And stay tuned for the next episode of Ready Set Sell.

    The post Achieving Excellence in Enterprise Sales with a Cross-Functional Mindset with Reid Oliver appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    No More One-Size-Fits-All Coaching: How to Create an AI-driven Sales Coaching Program https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/no-more-one-size-fits-all-coaching-how-to-create-an-ai-driven-sales-coaching-program/ Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:21:35 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13310 As a front-line manager, it’s difficult to find the time to effectively coach reps on both specific deals and overall skill development. But that doesn’t mean coaching should be excluded from your list of priorities. Dynamic sales coaching is proven to improve both quota attainment and win rates. How can you optimize your time while …

    The post No More One-Size-Fits-All Coaching: How to Create an AI-driven Sales Coaching Program appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    As a front-line manager, it’s difficult to find the time to effectively coach reps on both specific deals and overall skill development. But that doesn’t mean coaching should be excluded from your list of priorities. Dynamic sales coaching is proven to improve both quota attainment and win rates.

    How can you optimize your time while ensuring your reps are getting the support they need to progress? A data-driven sales coaching strategy is the key to coaching success.

    Set sales coaching goals and expectations with key stakeholders

    Before you can introduce a solution, you need to establish the key goals and expectations of implementing a new coaching strategy. Evaluate what isn’t working currently, what needs to change, and what success will look like. Talk to your front-line managers, enablement team, and sales reps. Involve key sales stakeholders early in the process to get their buy-in to establish a coaching culture and make sure you set goals by defining what a successful coaching strategy would result in.

    Select a sales coaching technology

    Coaching technology is designed to support your coaching initiative not add more work. So, when assessing your options, consider how each solution will fit into your existing tech stack. If a platform creates a clunky experience with other solutions you’re already using, it will likely be more work than it’s worth. You need a tool that is fully integrated and makes life easier for managers and reps alike.

    All-in-one sales readiness platform

    The ideal solution for any sales organization is an all-in-one platform that doesn’t just aid in coaching activities, but also includes content, enablement, and conversation intelligence. With everything in one place, completing daily tasks is seamless, information doesn’t get lost in translation, and you can make more educated decisions when it comes to how you coach your team.

    Start at the top: “coach the coach”

    Sales enablement focuses on the performance of reps—but what about the managers tasked with coaching and leading them? Many front-line sales managers got their positions through being reps themselves, so it’s not fair to expect them to be experts on effective sales coaching from the jump.

    Train managers on your new coaching processes, including how to use the technology to be more efficient. And, just like with reps, provide reinforced learning and measure managers’ coaching performance over time to get the most out of the program.

    Prioritize sales coaching with conversation intelligence

    Coaching and call AI

    Managers cannot be on every call with every rep and, as a result, have very little visibility into sellers’ skills in the field. Most likely you are tracking how many calls each seller is making and the length of those calls, but this information doesn’t enable you to make informed decisions on how you can help reps improve performance.

    Conversation intelligence records, transcribes, and scores calls so reps don’t need to take notes or update the CRM and managers can unlock opportunities for skill coaching. With conversation intelligence, managers can sort calls by score to focus on reps who may need additional guidance, and filter calls by themes to highlight specific skills like negotiation or objection handling.

    Self coaching and peer coaching are also effective in getting a new perspective and collaborating as a team within conversation intelligence:

    • Self coaching: Enabling reps to evaluate their own call performance allows them to be proactive in their coaching process and come more prepared to one-on-one sessions.
    • Peer-to-peer coaching: Using tags and comments on call transcriptions allows reps to share best practices and work together to solve problems and handle common objections.

    self coaching vs. peer-to-peer coaching

    Personalize sales coaching with AI-powered insights

    Sales coaching report card

    Along with the insights gleaned from conversation intelligence, gather data from your training and enablement platform, as well as your CRM, to understand where reps are excelling and lagging—and determine the best path for coaching them. Every seller has their own strengths and weaknesses, so a one-size-fits-all approach won’t cut it. Artificial intelligence (AI) helps to automate data processing and give smart suggestions based on that data.

    Use this information to focus on unique skills and behaviors individual reps are struggling with in one-on-one coaching sessions, and follow up with enablement content to reinforce what was learned.

    Go beyond technology

    It’s easy to lean heavily on technology to help sellers do their jobs. But the purpose of a sales readiness platform is to supplement—not replace—the authentic relationships managers build with reps. If you truly want to alter performance, you need reps to trust you and take your guidance seriously. You aren’t just a manager; you’re also a mentor.

    Beyond data points, the only real way to know what your sellers need is to ask them. Ask them about their career goals and how you can help them achieve these. Together, you can create a plan of action using the methodologies above.

    Measure success and refine sales coaching processes

    Never assume your strategy is working because you are doing all the “right” things; coaching shouldn’t be a “set it and forget it” program. Periodically revisit the goals you have determined for your sales readiness program — these will change over time as your business evolves and new sellers come onboard. Collect feedback from reps to get their perspective and find ways to refine your program for the greatest impact.

    And actually act upon analytics and the feedback you receive. Just like you use performance metrics to improve sales skills, use this information about your coaching approach to pivot and get the best results possible. Your sellers will feel more valued, be happier and more productive employees, and, ultimately, close more deals.

    Be ready

    Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness Platform takes your sales training, coaching, enablement, and analytics to the next level with automated solutions for sales leaders, sales ops, front-line managers, and more. Unlock powerful insights into rep and team performance and translate those insights into successful coaching across your team.

    Get started today by requesting a demo.

    The post No More One-Size-Fits-All Coaching: How to Create an AI-driven Sales Coaching Program appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Mindtickle Unveils Sales Coaching Rooms to Empower Front-Line Managers https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-unveils-sales-coaching-rooms-to-empower-front-line-managers/ Tue, 22 Mar 2022 11:00:42 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?post_type=news&p=13328 Latest Product Provides Front-Line Sales Managers With the Actionable Insights, Resources, and a Single Interface to Deliver More Impactful and Personalized Coaching That Drives Seller Transformation SAN FRANCISCO — March 22, 2022 — Mindtickle, the leader in sales readiness technology, today announced the launch of Sales Coaching Rooms, a new product that empowers front-line managers …

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    Latest Product Provides Front-Line Sales Managers With the Actionable Insights, Resources, and a Single Interface to Deliver More Impactful and Personalized Coaching That Drives Seller Transformation

    SAN FRANCISCO — March 22, 2022 — Mindtickle, the leader in sales readiness technology, today announced the launch of Sales Coaching Rooms, a new product that empowers front-line managers to offer impactful feedback to their teams quickly and effectively within the flow of their day. The new capability is part of Mindtickle’s Spring 2022 release of its Sales Readiness Platform, a central place for revenue leadership to unify seller data, enhance team performance and adapt to changes in their rapidly changing business environments.

    As part of their bi-annual product announcement, Mindtickle is unveiling:

    • Sales Coaching Rooms for a single location to move deals forward and build the long-term skills reps need to succeed in the field
    • Role and team-based Ideal Rep Profiles (IRPs) to define and track the ideal skills and behaviors of different sales roles
    • Asset sharing, tracking and analytics to gather content-based engagement and deal intelligence
    • Role-based winning behaviors in Call AI to set benchmarks for call metrics of your different go-to-market teams
    • Embedded questions in videos to boost seller engagement and knowledge during longer-form video content

    Sales Coaching Rooms add significant firepower to Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness Platform, as the industry’s first tool to focus on making front-line managers better mentors and coaches. The product offers a number of time-saving and productivity-boosting features, including:

    • Coaching within conversation intelligence (Call AI) to support coaching in the context of real selling or customer support situations
    • Coaching integrated with enablement content to drive long-term skill development through practice and reinforcement
    • Self-coaching so reps can evaluate their own performance and compare gaps with manager feedback for better one-on-one coaching sessions
    • Coaching outcomes factored into the Mindtickle Readiness Index, showing leadership a full-picture view of the readiness of their teams and individuals
    • Actionable insights for front-line managers into the lagging skills of individuals to deliver personalized coaching

    Rep turnover is a serious problem among revenue organizations, with voluntary sales departures reaching as high as 67% last August. And, with every seller’s departure costing sales leaders 7.5 months of productivity, the front-line manager’s ability to hold onto their reps and help them succeed has never been more important. Sales coaching has been proven to reverse this trend. Recent Mindtickle research found that 8 out of 10 teams with effective coaching practices hit greater than 75% of their sales quotas. Still, according to Mindtickle’s “State of Sales Readiness 2022 Benchmark Report,” significant hurdles stand in the way of front-line managers’ ability to coach effectively. Managers cite lack of time as the No. 1 barrier to coaching, along with technology, the number of reps they manage, and a lack of formal processes. In addition, traditional sales coaching tools focus purely on rating sellers based on static forms. The insights shared never get utilized effectively in enablement and training programs, making it difficult to reinforce coaching sessions. As a result, coaching is often limited to ad-hoc deal reviews, which isn’t enough to move the needle.

    “With Mindtickle as Splunk Coach’s engine, Splunk can now begin to take action on its main enablement objectives, including increasing sales rep productivity and overall revenue impact, and creating more engaging and personalized learning journeys,” said Krishna Saw, Senior Systems Manager, Enablement and Content Platforms, Splunk.

    “Our customers recognize that enablement and training can’t solely move the needle on in-field performance. Seller transformation can only happen when you have enablement and coaching working in parallel,” said Nishant Mungali, Chief Product Officer, Mindtickle. “Sales Coaching Rooms provide managers with coaching insights and deal collaboration tools in a single view to save them time while reinforcing coaching with enablement and training content for long-term skill development.”

    Introducing Role-Based Ideal Rep Profiles and Winning Behaviors

    In Mindtickle’s previous product announcement last September, Ideal Rep Profiles were launched, unifying seller data with a readiness score that mapped learning behaviors and training performance with business metrics directly from CRM data. Building on that vision, Mindtickle is enhancing Ideal Rep Profiles with role-based capabilities to define the unique set of skills and behaviors that lead to success for different go-to-market teams. With those skills and behaviors defined in the Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform, sales leaders can then track individual sellers against stated benchmarks, and use that data to inform personalized training and coaching. For RevOps leaders, the IRP can be used as a model to predict individual reps’ sales readiness — ramp time, time to first deal, time to productivity, etc. When individual reps are measured against the IRP, RevOps leaders have a more predictable plan for revenue growth.

    For more information about Sales Coaching Rooms, Role-Based IRPs or additional Mindtickle solutions, please visit www.mindtickle.com to speak with a sales readiness expert. Click here to download a copy of Mindtickle’s “State of Sales Readiness 2022 Benchmark Report.”

    About Mindtickle

    Mindtickle is the market-leading sales readiness platform, helping revenue leaders at world-class companies like Johnson & Johnson, Splunk and Wipro be ready to grow revenue by increasing knowledge, understanding ideal sales behaviors and adapting to change. Dozens of Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies use Mindtickle to define excellence, build knowledge, align content, analyze performance and optimize behavior throughout their sales organizations. Mindtickle is recognized as a market leader by top industry analysts and is ranked by G2 as both the #1 enterprise software product and #5 sales software product. Visit www.mindtickle.com or find us on LinkedIn to learn more.

    Media Contact:

    Public Relations at Mindtickle

    pr@www.mindtickle.com

    # # #

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    Mindtickle Spring 2022 Announcement: Introducing Sales Coaching Rooms, Role-based Benchmarks, and More https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mindtickle-spring-2022-announcement-introducing-sales-coaching-rooms-role-based-benchmarks-and-more/ Tue, 22 Mar 2022 16:00:28 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13301 Front-line sales managers are some of the most underutilized weapons in sales. Why is that? Managers have the ability to transform rep performance through sales coaching. The problem? Managers are busy. Really busy. And traditionally, the tools created for front-line managers are focused on updating CRMs and forecasting, creating more busy work. Until now. As …

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    Front-line sales managers are some of the most underutilized weapons in sales.

    Why is that?

    Managers have the ability to transform rep performance through sales coaching. The problem? Managers are busy. Really busy. And traditionally, the tools created for front-line managers are focused on updating CRMs and forecasting, creating more busy work.

    Until now.

    As part of our 2022 Spring Announcement, we are launching Sales Coaching Rooms, the only sales coaching product specifically created for the front-line manager.

    We know seller transformation cannot occur through enablement and content alone. Reps are building knowledge through enablement and showing they know their stuff with training and practice. But, when it comes to executing, you need to make sure your reps are getting better deal after deal. Coaching is the only true way to change their behaviors in the field.

    Now, front-line managers can focus on seller transformation by becoming better managers and mentors — and find themselves on a fast track to the CRO seat!

    Introducing Mindtickle Sales Coaching Rooms

    Mindtickle Sales Coaching Rooms are dedicated one-to-one spaces to have revenue-boosting discussions. Coaching Rooms provide:

    • A single location to move deals forward and build the long-term skills reps need to succeed in the field
    • Coaching within conversation intelligence (Call AI) to support learning in the context of real selling situations
    • Coaching integrated with enablement content to drive long-term skill development through practice and reinforcement
    • Self-coaching so reps can evaluate their own performance compared with manager feedback and better prepare for one-on-one sessions
    • Coaching outcomes factored into the Mindtickle Readiness Index, showing leadership a full-picture view of the readiness of their teams and individuals
    • Actionable insights for front-line managers into the lagging skills of individuals to facilitate the delivery of personalized coaching

    In addition to Sales Coaching Rooms, Mindtickle is announcing features for better deal collaboration and detailed analytics to benchmark and track readiness.

    Deal collaboration tools that meet sellers in the flow of work

    Mindtickle Slack integration

    Deals and open opportunities are constantly evolving and sellers need to be able to work quickly to prepare for meetings, provide relevant content, and collaborate with teammates to make sure nothing stalls or falls through the cracks. To help sellers better collaborate on deals, we are announcing:

    • Email and Slack notifications in Call AI for meeting preparation, action items, and recording metrics
    • Asset sharing, tracking, and analytics for content engagement insights

    Detailed analytics for deeper readiness insights

    Mindtickle Readiness Index

    Your sellers are not the only ones interacting with prospects and customers. You have specialized teams, like business development representatives, account executives, solutions consultants, customer service managers, and more! Each of these roles requires a different set of skills to succeed. That’s why, as part of our Spring Announcement we’re releasing benchmarking and tracking with:

    • Role-based ideal rep profiles to define and track the key skills that lead to success for different sales positions
    • Role-based winning behavior in Call AI to benchmark call metrics by customer-facing teams
    • Readiness Index insights for managers to track the progress of their team

    These features help your teams be ready and achieve continued sales success. To learn more about the newly announced Sales Coaching Rooms, deal collaboration tools, and readiness analytics, save your seat for our LIVE demo webinar on March 30.

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    4 Reasons Why Sales Coaching Fails (and What to Do Instead) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/4-reasons-why-sales-coaching-fails-and-what-to-do-instead/ Tue, 15 Mar 2022 16:41:36 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13295 Sales coaching is key for revenue organizations to continue to hit quota quarter after quarter but, unfortunately, teams continue to consistently miss their numbers. It’s true that there is no magic one-size-fits-all coaching approach that works for every team. But there are commonalities in why some sales coaching programs fail. Learn what pitfalls to avoid …

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    Sales coaching is key for revenue organizations to continue to hit quota quarter after quarter but, unfortunately, teams continue to consistently miss their numbers. It’s true that there is no magic one-size-fits-all coaching approach that works for every team. But there are commonalities in why some sales coaching programs fail.

    Learn what pitfalls to avoid when evaluating your existing sales coaching approach or when starting a more formal process for the first time.

    Focusing on quantity of sales coaching sessions

    Often we see statistics about the amount of time spent coaching by sales managers per month or week.

    • Sales reps with 30 minutes or fewer of sales coaching per week receive win rates of 43%, and those who receive at least two hours of coaching per week have a win rate of 56%.
    •  23% of sales managers spend less than 30 minutes individually coaching their direct reports each week.
    • A good rule of thumb is to spend 25-40% of your time coaching your sales team.

    While these metrics help set a baseline of coaching frequency for managers, they can put too much emphasis on recurring sessions and too little emphasis on what will actually be covered in the sessions to help level up your reps.

    Instead, focus on the quality of your sales coaching sessions

    A little prep work can go a long way, and your preparation does not have to be exhaustive. After all, as a sales manager, you’re also juggling your own quota attainment, forecasting, and the ever-looming end of quarter. Setting agendas for coaching sessions, outlining action items, and reviewing your reps’ past achievements can help keep your sessions helpful and productive.

    If you start to notice that some reps are not showing progress or improvements, it may mean you need to dedicate more time to coaching these individuals.

    Alternatively, sessions with your best performers may be needed less frequently. If you find your one-on-ones with these people are repetitive and it’s a struggle to find topics to cover, try reducing the number of times you meet.

    Sales coaching that is only top-down

    Most of us have experienced a less-than-ideal manager at some point in our careers. Sometimes in sales, the highest performing reps become managers—but that doesn’t always mean they have the formal training on how to manage and coach reps. With a large revenue organization, it can be hard to track the effectiveness of your coaches. When your sales coaching process doesn’t incorporate the feedback of reps, you could be missing the true root of performance issues.

    Instead, implement a coaching feedback system

    There are two key components of a coaching feedback system. The first is giving reps the ability to easily provide feedback. If you’re using a sales coaching tool, this is a critical feature that makes it easy for reps to have their voices heard. In Mindtickle sales coaching, reps can approve or disapprove coaching sessions.

    In addition to providing a feedback method, make sure you are tracking this feedback. If you start to notice patterns such as negative feedback from sessions for the same manager, this manager may need more training on how to coach their team. This is a good opportunity to “coach the coach.”

    Sales coaching timeline

    Only deal coaching your reps

    Deal coaching will always be a critical part of sales coaching. Reps need to know how to move forward deals that they have right in front of them. It becomes easy to focus only on these deals during coaching sessions.

    Instead, spend the majority of your time on skill coaching

    A proactive approach to bettering your sales team, skill coaching works to improve upon the individual skills that reps are lagging behind in. Skill coaching ensures your sessions are relevant and reinforce long-term development to improve rep performance over time.  (Here’s more on deal vs. skill coaching.)

    Blanket skill coaching

    All of your reps possess different skill sets. They excel in different areas, have been at the company for different times, and consume training and enablement in different ways. While it saves time to focus on one skill for coaching each week or month, in the long run, this will not benefit your reps and improve their performance.

    Instead, focus on the individual skills each rep needs to improve upon

    Skill coaching is most effective when it is individualized. Take the time to assess the skills of your reps. View enablement and training performance, review recorded calls, and ask your reps what areas they can improve upon. A sales readiness platform can help aggregate this data and track the readiness of your reps over time.

    After skill gaps are identified, work with your reps to coach them on these skills. Then, reinforce your coaching efforts with training and enablement content.

    Sales coaching report card

    Coach your reps to success with Mindtickle

    The Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform gives you the tools and data you need to coach your reps to continued sales success. Integrating enablement and training, call recording, coaching, and content all in one platform enables revenue organizations to make data-driven decisions that win more deals. Want to learn more about how to become a sales mentor? Save your seat for our LIVE product announcement on March 22.

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    The 4 Fundamentals of Revenue Intelligence That Actually Matter https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-4-fundamentals-of-revenue-intelligence-that-actually-matter-to-sales-teams/ Tue, 01 Mar 2022 09:44:42 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13210 Revenue intelligence sounds like a dream come true for any sales leader. Of course, you want more intelligence about how to predict and grow revenue. But is it the game-changer it sounds like? According to Salesforce, it’s simply “a data-driven way to sell [using] AI and automation to create visibility across the revenue lifecycle.” Behind …

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    Revenue intelligence sounds like a dream come true for any sales leader. Of course, you want more intelligence about how to predict and grow revenue. But is it the game-changer it sounds like? According to Salesforce, it’s simply “a data-driven way to sell [using] AI and automation to create visibility across the revenue lifecycle.”

    Behind its shiny wrapper and market buzz, we’ve boiled down revenue intelligence into four fundamental elements that actually matter to sales teams.

    Mindtickle-2022-State-of-Sales-Readiness

    1. Automate data entry to improve data quality

    Revenue intelligence tools use AI and automation to reduce manual and repetitive tasks, such as data entry. The tools automatically collect data from every interaction your reps have with a prospect, such as call recordings and emails. This helps to improve the quality of data in your customer relationship management solution (CRM) as you’re not left with incomplete entries when your sales reps jump on another call before they finish updating their notes from the previous one.

    The improved data quality then enables revenue intelligence tools to more accurately predict revenue growth based on the data from your past deal flow.

    So far, so good — except sales forecasting is hardly a new concept. Capterra lists 199 sales forecasting tools so while improving the quality of data in your CRM is a worthwhile pursuit, a revenue intelligence tool isn’t the only option for achieving that outcome.

    And looking at the big picture, there’s more at stake than just revenue. The tools you use should also support the needs of your reps and automating data entry is one way to help them improve productivity and get some usable time back in their day. Reps can spend more time on knowledge building, training, and coaching to ensure sales readiness. The less time reps spend entering data into your CRM, the more time they have to prepare for their next calls — equipped with the right content assets and ready for the conversation, whether they’re talking pricing or delivering a demo of your latest features.

    2. Increase visibility into deal flow

    Revenue intelligence tools are already capturing data from customer interactions This data can be analyzed to identify key terms and topics covered — such as product features or competitors — making it easier for sales reps, managers, and other team members to get greater visibility into their deal flow and how customer conversations are progressing.

    But revenue intelligence tools aren’t the only way to get that level of visibility into your customer interactions. G2 lists 70 conversation intelligence tools that enable users to “identify keywords and topics of conversation so users can quickly jump to those points in the recorded sales calls and further analyze valuable insights.”

    Fundamentals of Revenue Intelligence

    Increased visibility into customer interactions is a good thing for sales teams — but only if you look at the bigger picture and use the insights to improve your whole team’s performance. Revenue intelligence tools provide those insights on a deal-by-deal basis. But it’s more useful if you make conversation intelligence part of an overarching sales readiness framework and use those insights to provide your team with optimal training, content, and coaching. That way, your sales team can learn from each other’s experiences, plus follow established best practices, to improve overall performance.

    3. Get real-time access to sales data

    According to Oracle, entering data into the CRM was one of the top five complaints from sellers who are frustrated with the time-consuming elements of their jobs. As a result, fewer than half of sellers use their CRM daily. The manual, time-consuming nature of data entry means that more than half of reps don’t enter data from their sales conversations until the next day, at the earliest.

    Revenue intelligence tools give sellers access to data from their sales conversations much sooner. Also, they analyze what’s being said in sales interactions as they happen, looking for key topics and messaging.

    Sellers can quickly see what was discussed on their last call. Similarly, managers can listen to call recordings or review transcripts to identify signs of a rep going off message or missing key opportunities.

    This sounds great — but what are you using that data for? Revenue intelligence tools allow you to identify the next best steps to move that particular deal forward. But sales interaction data can be better used to enable your sales team by helping them optimize behaviors to improve their overall performance.

    Mindtickle sales readiness framework

    The last two stages of Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness Framework enable sales teams to analyze their performance and optimize behavior. Our conversation intelligence tool, Call AI, analyzes sales data and uses those insights to deliver personalized, tailored training and coaching programs to your reps. In the long run, a more knowledgeable, informed, and skilled sales rep will be better prepared to handle complex selling situations and close more deals. Remember — it’s not the data that matters; it’s what you do with it.

    4. Operate based on facts, not opinions

    Revenue intelligence tools can help you make smarter decisions by giving you access to all your sales data, so you can act based on facts, not opinions. But often the focus is on gathering more and more data and assuming that insights will magically appear.

    If your aim is to collect sales data, your reps have a lot of tools at their disposal, like your CRM, call transcripts, conversation intelligence tools — even the handwritten notes they make while on a call with a prospect. Sure, some of those aren’t automated, but you’re still collecting and recording data about your customer interactions and using that as the basis for deciding how best to move forward with the sales process.

    Fundamentals-of-Revenue-Intelligence

    You can collect all the data you want — but if your reps don’t know how to uncover useful insights to help them improve, it won’t make a difference to your bottom line.

    What’s more important is developing a culture of continuous improvement for your sales team. Your sellers need to be able to interpret data and use it to move their deals forward. They also need to be able to learn from it — that conversation or customer email — and know how they do better next time. In the long run, that will have a bigger impact on your sales performance (and your revenue) than simply handing a load of data over to your reps and expecting actionable insights to materialize.

    Revenue intelligence misses your sellers

    What’s the top priority for sales orgs using revenue intelligence tools? The clue’s in the name — revenue. And while that’s likely true for your sales team, too, it’s your salespeople who are the real revenue drivers, not all your old sales data. All the revenue data in the world won’t change a thing unless you use it to empower your sales team.

    Now that you understand what revenue intelligence really means and where its blind spots are, you can find tools that meet your team’s practical needs — for your people, not just your company’s bottom line. Look for platforms that use data to empower your sellers through enablement, training, and coaching to help them build the skills, knowledge, and behaviors to achieve sales excellence.

    It’s time for sales organizations to put people before data as they’re the ones that bring in revenue.

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    Why It’s Almost Impossible to Get Sellers to Remember Sales Training (and Use it the Right Way) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/why-its-almost-impossible-to-get-sellers-to-remember-sales-training-and-use-it-the-right-way/ Thu, 17 Feb 2022 10:01:07 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13118 Hey, do you remember that training you went through last week? Last month? Chances are you ask anyone that question — whether they’re in sales or any other function — and the answer will be no. It’s not news that we have a hard time remembering and applying the information we learn. You’re probably familiar …

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    Hey, do you remember that training you went through last week? Last month? Chances are you ask anyone that question — whether they’re in sales or any other function — and the answer will be no.

    It’s not news that we have a hard time remembering and applying the information we learn. You’re probably familiar with the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, which has been around since the 1800s. And more recent research by Gartner finds that B2B sales reps forget 70% of information within one week of training, and 87% within one month. Suffice it to say that if sellers forget the information, they are not applying it in the field.

    So the bad news? Sellers aren’t using all the awesome training you’ve delivered.

    But the good news? There are strategies, processes, and tools that get sellers to remember sales training and use it the right way.

    To understand the strategies, let’s dig into the main reasons your approach might not be working today, and what you can do to change it.

    Your sales training content isn’t practiced

    Except for the occasional prodigy, sellers don’t typically master skills on the first try. Just like playing an instrument or a sport, selling is a skill that must be practiced. And research shows that training retention over time increases to 75% with practice and reinforcement activities.

    But typically hands-on practice isn’t consistently incorporated into sales training because it’s time consuming, difficult to scale across teams, and loathed by many sellers. “Practice” and “role-play” are trigger words for any seller who has been humiliated in front of their peers in a review exercise at a sales meeting in the past.

    Sales Enablement Certification

    Without a safe space to practice what they’ve been trained on, learn how to articulate messaging in their own words, and get feedback, sellers will either forget the new training material completely and revert back to their pre-training approach or, worse yet, practice on customers. Sellers need frequent role-play practice not only after initial onboarding, but virtually any time there is a new positioning training, product launches, or other major organizational change that affects their message.

    Virtual role-plays are a great way to improve retention and ensure readiness. With modern sales enablement and training technology, sales enablement teams can easily assign prompts and scenarios for sellers to record role-play exercises on their own time and submit them for review. Immediate AI-based recommendations give sellers insight into how their role-plays perform against evaluation criteria and then reps have the opportunity to re-record before submission.

    Without practice exercises that force sellers to digest training content, understand it well enough to synthesize the message in their own words, and prove their ability to apply it, your sales training won’t be remembered or used.

    Your sales training content isn’t reinforced

    While hands-on practice is critical, it’s only one of the ways to help sellers remember information post-session. Spaced reinforcements are another strategy that will help you move training from short-term knowledge to long-term memory.

    Spaced reinforcements use a systematic approach to information retrieval and consist of two parts: the spacing effect and the testing effect. The spacing effect refers to the repetition of content over selected intervals of time. You can think of it as the opposite of cramming. We’ve all had those experiences of staying up all night to study for an exam. You might perform well on the exam, but the information is quickly forgotten. The testing effect uses a question and answer approach to encode information differently and improves retention.

    Mindtickle sales enablement badges

    Comprehensive sales enablement and training platforms like Mindtickle provide an easy way to create and push adaptive, scenario-based questions to sellers on their mobiles or desktops so learners can apply their knowledge to real-world situations. Using artificial intelligence, the system varies each individual seller’s path through a spaced reinforcement exercise based on their response so it focuses each user on proficiency gaps and sustains engagement until they’ve proven mastery.

    Without a mechanism forcing sellers to recall key information repeatedly until it’s moved to long-term memory, whether it’s via spaced reinforcements or another approach, your sales training won’t be remembered or used.

    Your sales training isn’t memorable

    Don’t take this the wrong way, but another reason sellers don’t remember and use training is because your training could be boring. The forgetting curve plus today’s 8-second average attention span plus a seller’s number one priority to spend what little time they have talking to prospects and making money adds up to salespeople not paying attention to or remembering your training.

    Many organizations still rely too heavily on live, instructor-led training and basic voice-over-powerpoint recordings. Nobody remembers the session where a headless voice talked on and on about a new process or marketing message, but everyone remembers the session where the instructor busted out a rap, played a fun song related to the topic, or introduced a gamified, live challenge midway through.

    As one seller recently shared, “I know I have an attention span of probably five seconds, and there are a lot of shiny things out there.” So what can you do to make your training more shiny?

    Some examples include:

    • Cutting longer video segments into smaller chunks
    • Incorporating graphics, videos, and music throughout the session for semantic association
    • Recording quick updates in podcast format to be consumed on the go
    • Using a variety of presenters across sessions
    • Leveraging gamification and rewards during live sessions
    • Introducing ad-hoc questions and assessments

    Mindtickle customers leverage a variety of content delivery mechanisms to keep sellers engaged during training. Cole Lindbergh, sales enablement manager of revenue operations at ChowNow, prides himself on creative and interactive training content that uses a balance of business focus and silliness to boost engagement while contributing to his team’s success.

    “When people are surprised and caught off guard, they are more willing to engage. If you can add a level of ‘good chaos’ to what you’re doing, I think that gets people to buy in,” he explains. “And that’s extra important right now as more and more people are working from home — that’s going to impact how people do training in the future.”

    This doesn’t mean every session needs to be fun or silly, and don’t mistake this approach for clowning around. But introducing more variety into your content, and coupling it with some interactive or exciting surprises, you can ensure your training is likely to be remembered and applied.

    Your sellers aren’t coached on training application in the field

    Many businesses don’t know whether their training and talk tracks are being applied in the field. We’re all familiar with the adages “what they don’t know won’t hurt them” and “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” This is a mentality that sellers may naturally fall back on post-training if they know their sales leads don’t have visibility into whether they are applying new methodologies or messaging when they’re speaking to prospects.

    Conversation intelligence changes that by unlocking valuable insights into real-world customer conversation and enables leaders to understand whether sellers are or aren’t applying their training and the potential impact of this on deal performance. With insights into sellers’ calls, you can help coach them on how to best apply their new training in the field the right way, right away, so they don’t revert to their old ways after one misstep. Conversation intelligence, however, is meant to create a culture of continuous coaching and collaboration, not create a Big Brother atmosphere; so while in-field spot-checking and accountability are critical to training success, be conscious of seller paranoia and be thoughtful in your approach when taking action.

    Will you remember all that?

    You invest too much time, sweat, and tears into your sales training for it to not be remembered and used in the field by sellers. Hopefully, with some tweaks to your approach to practice, reinforcement, content delivery, and in-field coaching, you can create training that’s remembered for years to come.

    To learn more tips and to hear best practices on how Mastercard applies practice and role-plays in their organization, check out our webinar, “Putting Practice into Action: How to transform sales role-plays from forgettable games to game changers.

    The post Why It’s Almost Impossible to Get Sellers to Remember Sales Training (and Use it the Right Way) appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    AI Isn’t Replacing Sales People — It’s Making Them Better https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/ai-isnt-replacing-salespeople-its-making-them-better/ Tue, 15 Feb 2022 11:24:02 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=13071 One of the most frequently searched questions about AI in sales is, “Will AI replace salespeople?” The fear of this is driven by attention-grabbing headlines like this one from Forbes: Why Artificial Intelligence Will Eliminate Millions of Sales Jobs. With articles like that, it’s no surprise some reps worry that AI and automation will eliminate …

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    One of the most frequently searched questions about AI in sales is, “Will AI replace salespeople?” The fear of this is driven by attention-grabbing headlines like this one from Forbes: Why Artificial Intelligence Will Eliminate Millions of Sales Jobs. With articles like that, it’s no surprise some reps worry that AI and automation will eliminate their jobs and view technology as a competitor. Those reps are, subsequently, often resistant to adopting tools that help them and make their lives easier.

    But AI for sales teams can become an enabler and collaborator rather than a competitor. AI isn’t replacing salespeople; it’s helping optimize performance, improve close rates, and excel in their work.

    AI in sales streamlines lead prioritization

    Using AI for lead prioritization saves your reps time and helps them work more efficiently. AI tools automate and streamline lead scoring and prioritization, based on how likely prospects are to convert into customers. It analyzes multiple data sets including your sales team’s existing interactions with the prospect. Then it compares the lead against the profile of similar companies in your database, to prioritize the best-fit leads for your sales team.

    Without AI, sales reps would need to do a lot of that analysis themselves, or prioritize leads based on guesswork and their gut instinct. But if you use AI to handle lead prioritization, your sellers have more time to spend on core selling activities.

    Instead of needing to comb through your CRM, reps can now focus on building their knowledge around competitor products and handling objections, or practicing product demos and pitches. Sellers can prioritize readiness activities to ensure they’re fully prepared for their next customer call.

    Additionally, reps can focus more of their time on qualified leads rather than chasing the wrong opportunities. This makes it more likely that they’ll book their target number of meetings or hit quota, as they’re spending more time with engaged prospects.

    AI in sales analyzes customer conversations

    Sales teams can use AI tools to record, transcribe, and analyze customer calls and other sales interactions. Tools like Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution analyze customer conversations to identify the main topics and themes discussed. You can also track specific keywords, such as competitor names, product names, or common challenges.

    Mindtickle Call AI

    This data categorizes the prospect’s pain points and desired outcomes. With this information, sales reps can better tailor their follow-up messages and identify the next best actions to nurture their leads without having to listen back to their call recordings.

    Similarly, AI can help identify prospects who are a good fit for upsell or cross-sell conversations by detecting cues in their conversations, such as mentions of other products or use cases. By flagging any product names or competitors that prospects refer to on their sales calls, reps can spot when prospects are looking for other solutions or features and can explore that in future conversations.

    AI analyzes rep behavior to personalize coaching

    AI tools can help sales managers get real-time insights into rep performance during customer interactions. Mindtickle’s Call AI provides call scores after each sales activity and identifies the strengths and weaknesses demonstrated by the rep on that call.

    Based on the rep’s score and behavior on the call, it prescribes practice exercises and training activities for the rep to complete such as practice demos and virtual role-plays. Call AI then analyzes and scores the completed training exercises, which managers can also review to offer further coaching where required.

    “A manager will use the coaching template in Mindtickle to review a team member’s performance,” explained Tovi Dana, knowledge and learning director at Elmo Motion Control. “This provides a framework for their discussion afterward and makes it easy to track how much the rep is improving with these structured coaching sessions.”

    AI-assisted coaching makes personalized sales training possible at scale. Leveraging AI to monitor rep behavior and personalize training accordingly means reps are able to make bigger improvements in a shorter time. Instead of running through one-size-fits-all training exercises, they can focus on the specific areas they need to work on — such as cold outreach, closing deals, or handling objections.

    AI improves close rates across the sales org

    With an AI tool like Mindtickle’s Call AI, more salespeople make or exceed quota than before the company started using it to monitor their sales performance. For example, Turing Video saw a 200% increase in quota attainment year-on-year after implementing Call AI.

    Greg Myers, regional VP of sales at Turing Video, explained, “The recordings and transcripts provided by Call AI are a prime piece of business intelligence for me. This allows me to coach my team to more wins and emphasize what’s working for us.”

    Call AI creates a continuous cycle of performance analysis, skills development, coaching, assessment, and improvement. It gives sales leaders actionable insights into why deals are won or lost so they can make changes to their process and better set sellers up for success. As a result, your reps are more likely to win deals when they come up against your competitors because they can better prepare for high-value sales calls.

    AI helps set your sales team up for success

    AI isn’t going to replace your salespeople because the human touch is essential to building long-lasting customer relationships. If anything, sales is one of the business functions most unlikely to be replaced by AI because that human connection is so important. Just think of how quickly people hang up on an automated robocall compared with when they’re speaking to another person.

    While AI isn’t replacing salespeople, sales organizations are increasingly finding new use cases for AI, machine learning, and automation. AI helps sales teams improve their processes and engage more quickly with their prospects, fully equipped with the relevant information to move sales conversations forward.

    Ready to add artificial intelligence into your sales team’s toolkit? Check out our Buyer’s Guide to Conversation Intelligence Solutions.

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    Sales Readiness vs. Sales Enablement: Successful Sales Teams Need Both https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-readiness-vs-sales-enablement-successful-sales-teams-need-both/ Thu, 03 Feb 2022 14:34:46 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=12970 Some companies talk about sales readiness and sales enablement interchangeably. Others pit them against each other, as though they’re two opposing disciplines. But it’s not sales readiness versus sales enablement, because sales enablement is part of sales readiness. Sales enablement helps your sellers prepare for their interactions with prospects, which is an essential part of …

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    Some companies talk about sales readiness and sales enablement interchangeably. Others pit them against each other, as though they’re two opposing disciplines. But it’s not sales readiness versus sales enablement, because sales enablement is part of sales readiness.

    Sales enablement helps your sellers prepare for their interactions with prospects, which is an essential part of developing a successful, sales-ready team. Sales enablement is one element of your overall sales readiness framework. You need the whole framework — including data driven sales enablement— to improve your sales reps’ performance and create a culture of excellence within the team.

    Sales readiness is the measure of a successful sales team

    Sales readiness is a process of continuous improvement for sales teams. It ensures sellers have all the information and tools they need, plus the essential sales skills and behaviors to go into any sales conversation with any customer, fully prepared. It empowers managers to monitor and measure their team’s performance and put into place remedial training, coaching, and education to help sellers improve based on their demonstrated areas of weakness.

    At Mindtickle, we describe sales readiness as a continuous state of excellence that enables sales teams to grow revenue by using a suite of tools and processes to increase knowledge, enhance performance, and adapt to change.

    We’ve developed a sales readiness framework to help sales and revenue leaders understand whether their sellers have the skills, competencies, and knowledge necessary to hit quota and close deals successfully.

    Mindtickle sales readiness framework

    The sales readiness framework covers five steps to help sales leaders measure their sellers’ ongoing performance and sales readiness:

    1. Define excellence. Sales leaders identify the key knowledge, skills, and behaviors reps need to succeed in your organization. They document these skills in an ideal rep profile to set the baseline against which reps’ knowledge and capabilities are measured.
    2. Build knowledge. Sales leaders provide their reps with the information, tools, and resources that let them learn about the product and industry, plus essential selling skills and behaviors.
    3. Align content. Sellers are equipped with just-in-time access to content that prepares them for every selling situation. Marketing and sales teams align to ensure content helps sellers move deals forward, and reps know how the content helps them optimize every selling situation..
    4. Analyze performance. Sales managers review sellers’ real-life sales interactions to spot skills gaps and opportunities for improvement. They can analyze their team’s use of key messaging and themes and assess essential selling skills like objection handling and product demos.
    5. Optimize behavior. Sales managers provide personalized, tailored coaching for each rep based on revealed skill gaps. Individualized coaching helps sales reps develop the skills and behaviors that align with your ideal rep profile to help teams win deals.

    This framework helps sellers adapt to changing products, buyer needs, and business landscape. It also helps them develop and maintain the skills and knowledge they need to go into every customer conversation fully prepared.

    How sales enablement helps reps be ready

    Sales enablement is the training, reinforcement, and practice that lets sellers engage in successful interactions with prospects and customers, hit quota, and close deals. Sales enablement fits into several stages of our sales readiness framework, helping reps build the knowledge and skills they need to be ready for high-stakes sales interactions with prospects.

    Sales enablement helps sellers build knowledge

    Sales enablement helps reps develop their product and industry knowledge through continuous training and practice. Sellers build knowledge by completing training modules and then put that theory into practice by completing test product demos and virtual role-plays. Sales enablement also helps reps retain their knowledge through spaced reinforcement training exercises so they can recall and use their training correctly in sales interactions.

    For example, in the Mindtickle platform, reps can complete AI-guided role-plays to practice pitches, product demos, objection handling, and other common selling scenarios in a virtual environment. These exercises familiarize them with your company’s core messaging and product and ensure they’re following sales behavior best practices before they get in front of their next big prospect.

    Mindtickle Practice Pitch

    Ensuring sellers have foundational product and industry knowledge is essential for getting reps ready for high-value calls when they’re live with potential customers. Sales enablement helps reps develop their subject matter expertise and put in enough practice and reinforcement to retain that knowledge long-term.

    Sales enablement aligns content with the sales process

    Sales content is a valuable tool for sales reps for ad-hoc enablement or to use when nurturing leads and prospects to help move the conversation forward. Sales enablement ensures reps know how and when to use marketing content in sales conversations. Sellers should have access to your library of sales content, so they can find and identify the best pieces for their current sales interaction.

    For example, your marketing team can tag case studies about the buyer persona, vertical, or customer outcome to which it’s most relevant. Then your reps can search their content library for those key terms and easily find the case studies that best fit their current needs. And, in the same place, your enablement team can use the same tags to provide microlearning, recorded conversation snippets, competitive info, and other just-in-time training content to ensure proper preparation for every interaction.

    Regardless of whether it comes from sales, marketing, or another source, just-in-time sales enablement content should live in a single, searchable location to help your reps find and use your assets. Our platform combines intuitive filters and smart search functionality to help sellers identify and surface valuable sales content quickly and efficiently.

    Sales enablement helps reps and managers optimize behavior

    Sales enablement creates a culture of ongoing development, training, and improvement in sales teams. It isn’t just about enabling reps to gain new knowledge and skills — sales enablement is also focused on reinforcing key skills and behaviors through training and practice.

    With Mindtickle, managers facilitate training for their reps on an ongoing basis. They monitor and analyze reps’ performance by listening to call recordings, running debrief sessions after important calls, and using conversation intelligence solutions like Mindtickle’s Call AI. Analyzing their team’s real-world sales interactions enables managers to assess reps’ performance and identify gaps in skills and knowledge. Then they can share training resources and coaching exercises to help reps practice those skills that need remediation.

    Mindtickle Call AI

    For example, a sales manager identifies that some reps struggle to handle customer objections around their pricing plans. The manager can coach sellers directly or ask the reps to complete virtual role-plays to practice pricing conversations ahead of their next conversation with a real customer. The manager can also look at trends in reps’ scores and feedback from their role-plays to see how well each rep is progressing and retaining information from previous coaching efforts.

    Stop thinking of sales readiness vs sales enablement and give your sellers all the tools they need to succeed

    If you’re still thinking of sales readiness and sales enablement as two opposing approaches for your sellers, consider how they complement each other. Sales enablement is one part of a sales readiness program that ensures your reps have — and use — the knowledge and skills they need for every selling scenario.

    any companies see sales enablement as separate from sales readiness, so they silo enablement training and content in learning-centric tools that are disconnected from content management or conversation intelligence software, making sales enablement a one-and-done activity rather than a continuous part of the selling process.

    Mindtickle’s platform offers a suite of tools and processes to help reps increase knowledge, enhance performance, and go into every customer conversation ready to succeed. Our single platform offers:

    • Sales enablement
    • Sales content management
    • Conversation intelligence
    • Sales training and coaching

    Make sales enablement a key part of your sales readiness approach. Request a demo or learn more about how sales readiness pros use Mindtickle to build effective programs for their teams.

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    What Every Sales Enablement Leader Needs on Their 2022 Wish List  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-every-sales-enablement-leader-needs-on-their-2022-wish-list/ Tue, 11 Jan 2022 09:58:19 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=12868 Well, 2021 is in the books. If you’re like most sales enablement teams, you’ve onboarded tens (or even hundreds) of sellers globally, enabled and certified your revenue teams on new messaging, positioning, and product knowledge, and crushed your 2021 revenue goals. But 2022 marks a new year, with aggressive goals and challenges, and without some …

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    Well, 2021 is in the books. If you’re like most sales enablement teams, you’ve onboarded tens (or even hundreds) of sellers globally, enabled and certified your revenue teams on new messaging, positioning, and product knowledge, and crushed your 2021 revenue goals.

    But 2022 marks a new year, with aggressive goals and challenges, and without some changes to your resources, processes, or technology, you might be unsure you can do it.

    Wouldn’t it be nice if you could somehow get everything you need to achieve your 2022 goals? Well in case that happens, we’ve drafted this list to ensure you cover all your bases.

    And if any of these seem unreasonable, don’t panic. The Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform can do all these things (and more) so your 2022 goals might just be an evaluation process away.

    AE onboarding in Mindtickle

    1. Automate, personalize and scale onboarding. If you’re like other sales enablement leaders, you want to spend less time hand-holding and more time strategizing programs that drive ongoing seller performance beyond the first 90 days.so  A sales readiness software automates your onboarding process end-to-end and individualizes training based on each sellers’ background and experience.
    2. Capture, analyze, and score buyer interactions. While it’d be nice, it’s not possible to ride along on every call with every seller to document everything that’s said and give them personalized feedback – but with conversation intelligence, you can. In 2022, it’s all about identifying and replicating the winning behaviors of your top reps.
    3. Make your sales kickoff one for the ages. You’re probably already planning a 2022 hybrid sales kickoff that’s impactful, fun, and memorable. To help kickstart this planning, you can use an SKO toolkit that provides a framework with best practices for pre-work, breakout sessions, and post SKO activities.
    4. Get a sales content solution that’s actually designed for how sellers interact with content. Best-in-class sales readiness platforms have a smart search capability with deep indexing that goes beyond just titles or metadata, so sellers always find the best, most relevant content. Sales content management solutions also have a smart search capability, so it’s easier for sellers to search.
    5. Know what sellers are actually doing in the field. Let’s face it – right now you don’t know whether your talk tracks, content, or training best practices are being utilized or are helping close business. With a conversation intelligence tool in place, you can gain powerful insights to improve your sales enablement and marketing efforts.
    6. Ideal rep profile competenciesGet the formula for the ideal sales rep. You know your ideal customer profile (ICP), but like most sales teams, you probably don’t have a clue of what your ideal rep profile (IRP) looks like. With this recipe, you can understand the key skills and performance benchmarks of your peak performers and then create enablement and coaching programs that replicate those behaviors across the team.
    7. Measure the impact of your sales enablement initiatives. With everything else on your plate, it’s sometimes difficult to take a step back and understand which sales enablement activities are making an impact and which ones need to be re-evaluated. This can be the year that you are able to tie enablement efforts to business outcomes like revenue and ramp time.
    8. Finally get your content organized. You can’t snap your fingers and retroactively manage content the right way, but the right sales content solution can streamline your process and end the version control nightmare for good. Finally, perform a content audit. It’s possible to get insight into the content that’s actually being used – even those pieces used in training courses. This can be the year you implement a sales content solution that automatically updates content instantly, everywhere it’s being used.
    9. Sales coaching in MindtickleCoach your coaches. To meet your goals this year, you need to make sure your frontline managers are sales coaching superstars. Make it a priority to teach managers to tailor their coaching to individual rep strengths and weaknesses.
    10. . Quickly and easily roll out new sales enablement programs. Make 2022 the year you’re able to better anticipate all the programs you will have to launch this year in response to your competitors and market. Or leverage a platform that lets you quickly create and introduce new programs in minutes – not hours or days.
    11.  Make sales training stick. Right now sellers forget almost 90 percent of what you train them on in 30 days, and you need a way to reinforce concepts over and over until they finally remember so they can apply them in the field. With adaptive, spaced reinforcement quizzes, it’s possible to cement seller learning into long-term knowledge.
    12.  Practice pitch in Mindtickle Make it easy for sellers to practice their pitches. 2022 should be the year that your sellers stop practicing their pitches on buyers. You can implement an AI-powered practice technology that enables them to practice on their own, anytime, anywhere, and get immediate feedback for improvement.
    13.  Hit your massive 2022 revenue goal. Eight out of 10 sales teams hit more than 75% of their quota when they prioritize individual seller productivity and efficiency when tracking overall seller performance. So by tackling the goals above, you can stop relying on 20% of your sellers to hit 80% of your sales goal and create a well-rounded team of high performers.

    Want to see for yourself how the Mindtickle Data Driven Sales Readiness platform can make all your new year wishes come true? Schedule a demo today.

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    Using Conversation Intelligence During Sales Meetings to Uncover Insights https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/using-conversation-intelligence-during-sales-meetings-to-uncover-insights/ Fri, 17 Dec 2021 14:22:33 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=12806 What drives your sales readiness strategy? Assumptions? Hunches? Numbers? Data reveals a lot, but it’s only part of the story. What if you could use real-life customer conversations to inform selling decisions? Conversation intelligence makes this possible by using data from reps’ customer interactions to improve performance. Continue reading to learn more about what conversation …

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    What drives your sales readiness strategy? Assumptions? Hunches? Numbers?

    Data reveals a lot, but it’s only part of the story. What if you could use real-life customer conversations to inform selling decisions? Conversation intelligence makes this possible by using data from reps’ customer interactions to improve performance.

    Continue reading to learn more about what conversation intelligence is, and why it should be an essential piece of your sales readiness program.

    Common challenges with sales calls

    While handling sales calls is one of the most common responsibilities of a seller’s job, they are inherently unpredictable and can become derailed quickly — a reality that is even more common in a remote work environment. When meeting in person, it’s easier for reps to build rapport and keep things on track. On a video call, or even worse, on the phone, it’s hard to gauge how a buyer is feeling and respond accordingly to continue moving in the right direction.

    After reviewing notes, ensuring audio/video is working properly, and clearing video backgrounds of distractions, sellers have a lot to juggle during remote sales meetings. They’ve got to deliver product and solution messaging clearly and effectively; actively listen to the buyer’s questions, concerns, and hesitations; and jot down action items.

    Mindtickle Call AI snippet

    Call tracking solutions were introduced to help sellers overcome some of these challenges by enabling them to easily record calls to collect data about the length and number of calls. But, to get actionable data, sales teams need more.

    Conversation intelligence goes beyond deal insights

    Conversation intelligence takes call tracking not one, but several layers deeper. While it can help identify risks and challenges within specific deals by enabling you to access voice of customer insights, it can also help you go beyond what happened to actionably fix things through built-in sales training programs and sales content management.

    Like call tracking, conversation intelligence solutions record calls, but they also transcribe them so reps don’t have to take notes during meetings or go back to listen to recordings. With the added power of AI, conversation intelligence tracks additional information, such as customer sentiment and keywords, for more specific analysis. You can also integrate conversation intelligence with your sales content management system. As you do so, AI can suggest content reps might want to use before and after key meetings based on the call and account history.

    What conversation intelligence can measure

    So, what specific metrics can conversation intelligence assess? When set up properly, a conversation intelligence platform gathers the following data for every rep call:

    • Talk ratio (talking vs. listening)
    • Questions asked
    • Questions received
    • Longest monologue (buyer or seller)
    • Use of filler words
    • Keyword mentions
    • Sentiment

    As an example, keyword mentions could include tracking themes around competitor names, product names, and marketing messaging — for AI to flag. For instance, if you want sellers to discuss a new product with buyers, the name of this product can be set as a keyword. After a call, you can go back and see whether the product was mentioned and, if so, how many times. On the reverse side, you can create a set of words that you don’t want salespeople to mention.

    Finally, conversation intelligence technology uses certain terms (e.g., “I will send,” “as a next step”) to create a list of action items following the call, reducing the chance for something falling through the cracks and halting a deal.

    Turning call insights into action

    Analyzing data pulled from your conversation intelligence platform will tell you which reps on your team are having success and highlight the behaviors they practice during sales calls. But simply having this information isn’t enough. While conversation intelligence automates much of the call analysis process and can provide recommendations, sales leaders can also dive deeper into the context of specific calls to drive better decision-making.

    For instance, they can look at the call summaries of top sellers. How are they addressing objections and frequently asked questions? What products and features are they focused on? When competitors come up, what do they share with buyers?

    By pinpointing these winning behaviors, sales leaders can share snippets and best-of call playlists with their team. They can also more effectively benchmark performance and use data from real calls to inform one-to-one coaching sessions.

    Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

    It’s important to keep in mind that best practices will depend on the rep’s particular role on the team and the context of the conversation. A business development rep on a discovery call will ask questions and listen, while a sales engineer performing a demo will lead much of the conversation from the front. For this reason, you’ll likely end up with several best practices that apply to different teams, individuals, and call types.

    While you can identify top seller behaviors, you can also spot where lower performers may need help. For instance, AI can flag that when some reps speak about pricing, buyers start to get lost by asking lots of follow-up questions, speaking hesitantly, or mentioning objections. This should raise a red flag that the rep needs some additional coaching around your pricing model.

    Mindtickle Call AI recording

    Altogether, the use cases outlined above contribute to an impactful sales readiness program. Identifying best practices and knowledge gaps by using calls from top sellers will enable you to build an onboarding and ongoing coaching strategy based on real-life buyer interactions.

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    Building Seller Knowledge: The Key to Sales Readiness https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/building-seller-knowledge-the-key-to-sales-readiness/ Mon, 13 Dec 2021 06:18:41 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/?p=12750 Countless professions — from doctors to teachers to pilots to electricians — require years of formal training, hands-on practice, and official assessment of skills, and have further requirements for continuous education to maintain their licenses. Regardless of discipline, professionals must have a solid foundation of knowledge to be successful in their roles. Too often, though, …

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    Countless professions — from doctors to teachers to pilots to electricians — require years of formal training, hands-on practice, and official assessment of skills, and have further requirements for continuous education to maintain their licenses. Regardless of discipline, professionals must have a solid foundation of knowledge to be successful in their roles.

    Too often, though, sellers aren’t held to those same requirements for continuous learning and certification. While formal seller onboarding is more commonplace today than in the past, it’s still not unusual for sellers to be hired, handed a digital folder of company, industry, and product information, and sent to their task. This is especially frequent in high-growth, start-up sales teams.

    Even companies with onboarding programs that build initial seller knowledge typically fall short when it comes to hands-on practice, certification, and the ongoing training necessary to keep pace with product, market, competitive, and messaging changes.

    But, just like with other professions, continuously building seller knowledge is the key to sales readiness. To achieve it, sales teams need to develop a state of excellence to enhance performance, adapt to change, and — you guessed it — increase seller knowledge.

    Many sales teams, however, lack the resources, tools, and processes to create enablement programs that build and increase seller knowledge. But with the following tips, sales enablement leaders will be on their way to creating a team of highly knowledgeable sellers ready to take on the competition and grow revenue.

    Building initial sales knowledge

    Building initial sales knowledge starts on day one, but traditional onboarding approaches typically fall short of arming sellers with the knowledge and skills they need to be successful in the field. An effective approach to building initial seller knowledge includes the following characteristics:

    Individualized

    Every seller joins the team with a unique set of experiences. For example:

    • Seller 1 has 10 years of experience in your industry in other functions but is new to selling.
    • Seller 2 has been successfully selling for eight years, but never in your industry.
    • Seller 3 is a recent grad who is green in selling and new to your industry, but hungry and ready to prove themselves.

    A one-size-fits-all approach runs the risk of under-preparing sellers in areas where they lack experience while boring and disengaging them in topics they’ve already mastered.  According to McKinsey, high-performing companies are two times as likely to offer personalized training for their sales reps. While this may sound unattainable, the best sales readiness software uses a combination of rules and adaptive intelligence to personalize training to individual sellers during onboarding and well beyond into continuous training.

    Engaging, interactive formats

    Even the most patient, engaged learner gets bored with traditional learning approaches. To build seller knowledge, you need to ditch the boring, hours-long e-learning courses, or days-upon-days of learners sitting through training, and opt for more engaging, interactive formats that leverage a mixture of presentations, hands-on exercises, and insights from real-world sales scenarios. This includes using things like:

    • Shorter, visually rich content sourced from different subject matter experts and successful sellers
    • Snippets from real-world sales calls
    • Gamified assessments and knowledge checks
    • Live challenges to assess knowledge in the moment
    • Hands-on practice exercises to prove a seller’s mastery and readiness in topics

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    Reinforce knowledge

    Salespeople need to retain the information shared during training and move it to long-term knowledge if they’re going to use it in the field and succeed. But according to Gartner, nearly 90% of that training will be forgotten within 30 days if the knowledge isn’t reinforced over time. So starting at onboarding, incorporate strategies to build a knowledge base that will overcome the forgetting curve. Hands-on practice and reinforcement activities are a great place to start. Exercises like virtual role-plays force sellers to articulate concepts in their own words, building muscle memory and preparing them for the field. And bite-sized, spaced reinforcement quizzes provide a fun, on-the-go mechanism to ensure that no seller is off the hook until they’ve retained key information.

    Ongoing sales knowledge

    The tips above don’t start and end in the initial knowledge-building phase. To arm your sellers with the knowledge they need to succeed, apply those same concepts to continuous seller training. And incorporating the following tips helps your sales teams pivot quickly and continuously improve:

    • Just-in-time learning

    The topics and content that sellers need to be enabled on are dynamic. A seller’s day-to-day job is prone to external factors beyond the company’s control. So sellers need quick access to just-in-time learning that’s tailored for the current selling environment and every selling situation.

    • Bite-sized microlearning in accessible formats

    Sellers are typically on the go, with schedules at the mercy of customers and prospects. They might need to do training offline when on an airplane, or listen to training when driving between meetings in the field. So for ongoing training and updates, opt for formats like podcasts or short, micro-learning that can be consumed easily by sellers, no matter how much time they have or where they are.

    • Hands-on practice

    Role-plays and practice exercises provide a great space for sellers to continuously build their knowledge in the context of specific deals or new messaging. Create a safe space for sellers to continuously practice beyond onboarding. Using a tool with AI insights enables sellers to practice on their own and get immediate feedback, in addition to getting coaching and feedback from their leaders.

    • Real-world call snippets

    Sellers learn best when you take training concepts from hypothetical and bring them to life. That’s why leveraging snippets from real-world calls is key to building ongoing seller knowledge. When you incorporate snippets into training, sellers learn from peers what works and what doesn’t. And when you give sellers the ability to review the conversation intelligence from their own calls, you enable them to learn from their own experiences and open their eyes to knowledge gaps or key behaviors and selling skills they may need to develop.

    Be ready by building seller knowledge

    The knowledge built amongst your sales team is critical in preparing them to tackle business and revenue challenges. When you build initial and ongoing knowledge and skills through enablement training, practice, and reinforcement, you arm your sellers with the key to unlocking real sales readiness. Want more tips on how sales leaders ensure reps receive the continuous training that’s vital to closing deals? Check out Ramp Time to Productivity: Why Sales Everboarding is the Secret to Your Success.

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    7 Stats That Prove Continuous Improvement and Customized Training is Key to Achieving Revenue Goals https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-stats-that-prove-continuous-improvement-and-customized-training-is-key-to-achieving-revenue-goals/ Tue, 12 Oct 2021 12:55:50 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/7-stats-that-prove-continuous-improvement-and-customized-training-is-key-to-achieving-revenue-goals/ As a sales leader, it should be no surprise to hear that preparing your team to win starts with building knowledge through continuous training and reinforcement. Developing seller knowledge starts with onboarding, but it’s most effective when continually reinforced throughout a seller’s tenure with your company. We recently teamed up with Heinz Marketing to create …

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    As a sales leader, it should be no surprise to hear that preparing your team to win starts with building knowledge through continuous training and reinforcement. Developing seller knowledge starts with onboarding, but it’s most effective when continually reinforced throughout a seller’s tenure with your company.

    We recently teamed up with Heinz Marketing to create The New Sales Enablement Standard: How Today’s Sales Leaders Grow Revenue With a Sales Readiness Approach. In it, we look at how sales leaders can empower their teams to achieve revenue goals through customized readiness programs. Let’s dig in!

    1. Many sales leaders used to expect 20% of their sales force to generate 80% of their revenue.

    Mindtickle infosnack

    Gone are the days of sales leaders relying on a few top sellers to do the heavy lifting for the rest of their teams. In a typical organization, that means four out of five sellers wouldn’t be used to their full potential — causing a serious negative impact on the bottom line.

    By creating customized sales training plans, sales managers can unlock the true power of their full team. To do this, it’s important for managers to quantify every possible aspect of seller performance including things like sales performance based on business goals, completion of training modules, and the number of new skills obtained.

    When coaching and monitoring these specific key performance metrics in each seller, teams are able to customize their tactics to each individual seller to help them reach their goals.

    2. Of teams who hit 100% of their sales goals, 32% have a dedicated sales enablement program.

    The reality is that only 14.7% of sales teams hit their sales goals. That isn’t a particularly high amount when you consider the investments that most organizations put into sales headcount. But when you look at the teams that are crushing their targets, there’s something many of them have in common: a dedicated sales enablement program.

    Traditionally, sales and marketing teams have managed the sales enablement strategy entirely on their own. But a modern selling environment calls for the involvement of more teams in order to build a stronger program and ultimately a stronger team. The top three functions involved in sales enablement programs are sales/revenue operations, sales leadership, and marketing.

    3. 78.6% of companies that have an effective training program meet 100% of their selling quota.

    Mindtickle infosnack

    When an organization takes the time to invest in a sales training program, everybody wins. With nearly 80% of companies that have an effective training program in place meeting their quota, the results speak for themselves.

    The key is to take training beyond onboarding and on-the-job coaching and start regularly training employees on a more consistent basis, placing an emphasis on knowledge retention rather than just delivering information.

    4. Only 37% of companies extend their onboarding programs beyond the first month.

    Mindtickle infosnack

    While we’re all familiar with onboarding and how important it is to a seller’s success, very few organizations foster a learning environment for reps outside of that first 30-day window. The major problem with this is that it’s proven that companies who invest in ongoing training win more deals.

    In the results of a recent survey, of the respondents who hit 75% or of their quota, 90% participate in sales training on a monthly basis. Promoting continuous learning is essential to equipping sellers with the skills and knowledge they need to achieve their revenue goals.

    5. After just six days, people forget 75% of the information they learn in training.

    Mindtickle infosnack

    Reinforcing knowledge is just as important as the imparting of knowledge itself. We often speak about the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve, which is a formula that states that humans forget approximately 50% of new information within an hour, forget 70% in 24 hours, and 90% after 30 days.

    This is where spaced reinforcements come into play. By creating microlearning modules coupled with spaced repetition, retrieval practice, coaching, and personalization for each rep, sales managers can more effectively promote knowledge retention within their teams.

    6. 8 out of 10 teams who have effective coaching practices hit greater than 75% of sales quotas.

    Mindtickle infosnack

    It’s no secret that better coaching practices equate to more wins for your team. In fact, adopting a consistent coaching culture is vital to your team’s success. When done right, it can provide insight and opportunity to improve on every buyer interaction (like where something went wrong, how to uncover bottlenecks, and how to pivot for future success).

    Performance-related conversations can be difficult to have, especially if a rep isn’t doing well. But when we rely on data to guide these conversations, they not only become easier to have, but are also more valuable for the rep on the receiving end of the feedback.

    7. 57% of respondents who have effective practice opportunities see sellers achieving 75% and greater of their sales goals.

    Mindtickle infosnack

    Sales practice opportunities can include everything from microlearning, to role-play, to quizzes, to certifications, and beyond. The important thing is that sellers are given ample resources to flex their knowledge and build on their existing skills to grow in their roles.

    Of the respondents to our recent survey who hit 100% seller quota attainment, 57% rely heavily on coaching to build knowledge within their teams. This shows that with every bit of coaching a seller receives, their ability to move deals forward and close deals in real-world conversations dramatically increases.

    A worthy investment for sales leaders

    Sales coaching is definitely an investment, but when you look at the data, it’s not something sales leaders can afford to ignore. It’s clear that taking the time to build out training programs that go beyond a seller’s first 30 or 90 days on the job drive tangible results, and are well worth the efforts when it comes to achieving revenue goals.

    At the end of the day, we all want our teams to be successful and reach quota every quarter. But in order to hit those goals on a team level, we have to take a step back and start nurturing sellers’ abilities on an individual level too. After all, the greatest successes all start with one small change. Let a stellar training program be yours!

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    Mindtickle Expands Sales Readiness Platform with Ideal Rep Profiles, Sales Content Management https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-expands-sales-readiness-platform-with-ideal-rep-profiles-sales-content-management/ Tue, 14 Sep 2021 16:00:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-expands-sales-readiness-platform-with-ideal-rep-profiles-sales-content-management/ Following the recent addition of its conversation intelligence capability, new products make Mindtickle the only truly complete sales readiness platform for revenue organizations SAN FRANCISCO – Sep 14, 2021 – Mindtickle, the global leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced two new products and additional capabilities that transform how revenue organizations prepare their teams and …

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    Following the recent addition of its conversation intelligence capability, new products make Mindtickle the only truly complete sales readiness platform for revenue organizations

    SAN FRANCISCO – Sep 14, 2021 – Mindtickle, the global leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced two new products and additional capabilities that transform how revenue organizations prepare their teams and enhance individual seller performance. With the delivery of Mindtickle’s Fall 2021 release, revenue leaders, frontline managers, and sales enablement teams now have a centralized platform to identify winning behaviors, train and coach customer-facing reps based on those behaviors, and measure their real-world interactions with customers.

    The news follows Mindtickle’s recent Series E round when the company received an additional $100M in funding at a $1.2B valuation. These product investments, developed organically through feedback from customers, reflect its commitment to have the most complete platform for sales readiness at a time when revenue leaders are realizing that the discipline is one of the most critical levers to pull for growth. CSO Insights reported that 90.7% of enablement teams find their sales force engaged with sales enablement programs. But despite strong engagement and high adoption, Miller Heiman Group reported that only 24.9% of stakeholders thought that enablement delivered core business value. Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness approach ensures that companies derive true business value from enablement and coaching by defining performance benchmarks for reps and delivering personalized solutions for each individual.

    “With the Fall 2021 release we are delivering on our vision of Sales Readiness by giving revenue leaders, sales enablement and training teams the ability to create long-lasting behavioral change and a continuous state of excellence within the organizations,” said Krishna Depura, Mindtickle CEO and co-founder. “Selling has two key parties – the buyer and the seller. For years, sales leaders have made Ideal Customer Profiles (ICP) a core part of their strategy and go-to-market approach to help organize and focus efforts on the right buyers. Now we’ve given them the ability to set Ideal Rep Profiles (IRP) for their sellers and help trainers as well as frontline managers to replicate winning behaviors throughout the organization.”

    Following the announcement of Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution, Call AI, the Fall 2021 release from Mindtickle includes the Readiness Index, a sales performance product, where sales leadership teams can collaborate and set Ideal Rep Profiles (IRP). Mindtickle uses the IRP to calculate reps’ readiness scores based on their learning behaviors, quiz scores, and roleplay performances. It then correlates these insights with business metrics directly from Salesforce CRM data. Also included in the release is the new Asset Hub product that gives reps a single view into all training content as well as marketing collateral that can be used with prospects.

    “Our significant growth is driven in part due to our enablement program which is focused on nearly all aspects of making sellers more effective and efficient. And Mindtickle is a key partner in that effort,” said Ken Blank, Sr. Sales Enablement Programs Lead at Infoblox. “With Mindtickle we can consolidate and centralize content and assets in one place, have a view of the readiness of our reps that is tied to field performance and have established a coaching culture for ongoing success. We’re excited to be at the leading edge of driving rep readiness and look forward to driving continued growth with these programs.”

    “We’re driving a culture of continuous excellence and coaching to make our sellers more effective in communicating with our customers and driving better business and customer outcomes,” said Bill Mills, Manager, Sales Enablement at Thomson Reuters. “With Mindtickle we’ve adopted an integrated and engaging approach that takes into account the specific needs of each seller to help them build the knowledge, skills and behaviors on an ongoing basis for success in the field.”

    With the Fall 2021 release from Mindtickle, Revenue leaders and enablement teams can deliver end-to-end field readiness by:

    • Setting the Ideal Rep Profile (IRP) and winning behaviors that all reps should have in order to be successful. The new product Readiness Index helps sales leaders record their IRP in the Mindtickle platform and track gaps in reps and teams on an ongoing basis. It also correlates skill development with business outcomes from Salesforce CRM like quota achievement, win rates, sales cycle, and more.
    • Launching programs based on best-practice templates and engaging sales reps with new gamification features like Live Challenges during instructor-led sessions and Team Challenges during sales meetings and kickoffs.
    • Ensuring that their salespeople can access, learn, and share content that’s aligned with the readiness approach and proven to help them win deals. With Mindtickle’s new Asset Hub, reps always have the right content to share with prospects, get updates from SMEs in easy-to-consume microlearning formats, and respond to objections quickly and confidently.
    • Using role-based dashboards in Mindtickle for CROs, enablement, and frontline managers to make quick decisions and act on readiness gaps.

    For more information on Sales Readiness, visit Mindtickle.com or register for the next live demo of Mindtickle on Sept. 28 at 8:30am PT here.

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle is the market-leading sales readiness platform, helping revenue leaders at world-class companies like Johnson & Johnson, Splunk, and Wipro be ready to grow revenue by increasing knowledge, understanding ideal sales behaviors, and adapting to change. Dozens of Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies use Mindtickle to define excellence, build knowledge, align content, analyze performance, and optimize behavior throughout their sales organizations. Mindtickle is recognized as a market leader by top industry analysts, and is ranked by G2 as both the #1 enterprise software product and #5 sales software product. Visit www.mindtickle.com or find us on LinkedIn to learn more.

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    pr[at]www.mindtickle.com

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    Introducing Readiness Index: The Best Way to Set & Track Sales Performance Benchmarks https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/introducing-readiness-index-the-best-way-to-set-track-sales-performance-benchmarks/ Tue, 14 Sep 2021 18:00:53 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/introducing-readiness-index-the-best-way-to-set-track-sales-performance-benchmarks/ Imagine all the time we spend in sales and marketing developing ideal customer profiles, or as the acronym goes, ICPs. Sales leaders spend a lot of time and effort to: Ensure the leadership team agrees upon and documents the ICP Train everyone in the sales organization on sales motions aligned to the ICP Collaborate with …

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    Imagine all the time we spend in sales and marketing developing ideal customer profiles, or as the acronym goes, ICPs.

    Sales leaders spend a lot of time and effort to:

    1. Ensure the leadership team agrees upon and documents the ICP
    2. Train everyone in the sales organization on sales motions aligned to the ICP
    3. Collaborate with marketing and product teams to deliver content and offerings aligned to ICP needs

    However, as we all know well, every sales deal has two sides – the customer and the seller.

    While you may have targeted the right ICP-fit prospects, your success as a sales organization still rests greatly on the skills of your own sales rep.

    So, how much time do sales leaders spend thinking about and strategizing about the ideal rep profile – or as we call it, the IRP?

    Very little.

    Some sales leaders like Mark Roberge, the ex-CRO at Hubspot, evangelize the concept of ideal hiring profiles. But does good sales performance begin and end at hiring the right people?

    The truth is that it’s a long journey that might begin with hiring for the right fit, but along the way includes things like onboarding, ongoing training, practice, reinforcement, continuous coaching, account planning, and so much more.

    And all of these performance improvement initiatives cannot operate without a sales performance benchmark.

    Sales leadership teams need to define, document, and track gaps against ideal rep profiles or IRPs.

    What is an ideal rep profile?

    IRP is the science behind measuring and improving sales performance.

    Today Mindtickle announced the launch of its new sales performance measurement product, Readiness Index.

    Readiness Index helps sales leaders record their IRP competencies and skills. As an example, you could set up your IRP as a combination of competencies like:

    Mindtickle ideal rep profile

    Along with each competency, you can also add in the weight each of them has on the overall Readiness Index score for a rep or a team.

    My IRP is set. What’s next?

    Based on the IRP, enablement and frontline managers create custom programs and coaching plans to address every rep’s skill gaps.

    Now readiness initiatives like training by the enablement team and coaching by frontline managers address the needs of the individual, above and beyond addressing only the needs of the team and the organization.

    On the other hand, sales leaders can start tracking how teams and reps are performing based on their readiness score in Mindtickle.

    Mindtickle sales readiness index

    Now sales leaders know how each team, region, and rep (or any cohort) is performing.

    They know which team or rep needs help with which competency.

    Can we connect readiness with revenue?

    Readiness levels can now also be measured against business metrics from the Salesforce CRM.

    Think quota attainment, pipeline building, competitive win rates, meetings booked (for XDRs), churn, or customer NPS (for CSMs). All of these metrics can be used to understand the impact of all your readiness activities.

    Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

    Now you can focus your readiness efforts in a more targeted manner starting with the quadrant that needs improvement in both readiness and quota attainment.

    Take Susan for example:

    Mindtickle ideal rep report card

    We now know she needs help with customer personas, deep discovery, and value articulation.

    Steps sales leadership can take with Mindtickle to help improve Susan’s performance:

    1. Listen to her discovery calls in Call AI conversation intelligence and give her prescriptive feedback on questions to ask, talk time to reduce in discovery conversations
    2. Guide her on better value articulation by sending her a reinforcement course, as well as doing an AI-guided virtual role-play
    3. Ensure she can use Asset Hub to easily find all persona-related content, training, highly rated roleplays submitted by top reps

    Readiness Index creates more peak performers on your team by delivering bespoke education, content, and coaching based on every rep’s individual needs. Learn more about ideal rep profiles and the Readiness Index by getting a personalized demo today.

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    Mindtickle Launches Readiness Index and Asset Hub to Complete Its Readiness Vision https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mindtickles-fall-2021-announcement-sales-readiness-is-now-an-achievable-reality/ Tue, 14 Sep 2021 18:00:41 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/mindtickles-fall-2021-announcement-sales-readiness-is-now-an-achievable-reality/ “Sales is both an art and a science.” “It’s more about the attitude.” “We need more reps with the ‘it’ factor.” We’ve heard it all. Sales rep performance is a complex challenge we’ve tried to address through traditional training and enablement programs, and for many, it’s not working the way we hoped. A study by …

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    “Sales is both an art and a science.”

    “It’s more about the attitude.”

    “We need more reps with the ‘it’ factor.”

    We’ve heard it all.

    Sales rep performance is a complex challenge we’ve tried to address through traditional training and enablement programs, and for many, it’s not working the way we hoped. A study by CSO Insights suggests only 27.5% of stakeholders feel sales enablement initiatives meet or exceed their expectations.

    So, is it true that sales readiness is a dream state, a mission impossible? Or can revenue organizations actually improve performance through readiness? How can sales leaders create an all-star team of quota-crushers instead of relying on a handful to carry revenue targets?

    Sales leaders can master the science of sales performance by creating, tracking, and optimizing readiness with Mindtickle.

    I’m proud to say that with the Fall 2021 product announcement, Mindtickle built the sales readiness platform that revenue teams need to create a state of continuous excellence.

    The key highlights in the announcement include:

    1. Defining your ideal rep profile and correlating skills and behaviors with sales success in our new product, Readiness Index
    2. Equipping your sales teams more effectively with an integrated content experience for just-in-time learning and customer engagement in our new product, Asset Hub
    3. And a few more capabilities:
      • Create programs aligned to critical competencies and based on enablement best practices using Program Templates
      • Improve remote or hybrid team engagement in training sessions or kickoffs with gamification using Live and Team Challenges
      • Act on readiness insights and gaps with role-based dashboards that give full visibility into team and rep performance

    Readiness Index

    What’s your ideal rep profile (IRP)?

    Every deal has a customer and a rep. In sales, we devote a lot of effort to defining the ideal customer profile or ICP. But what about our own reps?

    True readiness begins when sales teams know not only their ICPs but also their IRPs — ideal rep profile. Mark Roberge at HubSpot introduced the concept of ideal hiring profiles. But sales performance isn’t a challenge that can be addressed by simply hiring reps based on a profile. Your reps always need to:

    1. Possess the skills
    2. Display the behaviors that help win deals
    3. Repeat winning behaviors consistently

    Now, for the first time in any sales technology, the leadership team – CRO/CSO, heads of enablement, ops, and regions – can come together and encode their ideal characteristics in Mindtickle’s Readiness Index.

    mindtickle ideal rep profile

    Once the IRP is set in Mindtickle, enablement programs and sales content can be aligned to deliver the knowledge and skills required to create more ideal closers. This is made even easier with our new Program Templates, which make it simpler and faster to get your courses off the ground.

    Then, as reps learn, reinforce, and practice key skills in Mindtickle’s enablement programs, their readiness scores start reflecting their proficiencies and gaps in the Readiness Index visualizations.

    Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index

    Now, enablement teams and frontline managers can tailor their programs and coaching to help bridge gaps for each individual rep.

    Asset Hub

    Do your reps have access to just-in-time sales content?

    When most sales teams think of sales content, they think mostly of marketing collateral. But is that all that makes reps successful? What about training content, internal talk tracks, battlecards, role-play videos, and recorded snippets from actual customer conversations?

    Many kinds of content drive rep success in the field. Mindtickle’s integrated content experience in Asset Hub ensures your reps can access, learn, and share the content that’s aligned with your readiness approach and proven to help win deals.

    mindtickle asset hub content management

    With the right content at their fingertips, reps can:

    • Prepare for calls by listening to real-world, winning conversations
    • Get the latest updates from SMEs in easy-to-consume microlearning
    • Respond to objections quickly and confidently
    • Practice pitches using AI-powered recommendations
    • Share marketing-approved assets that win, contextualized for key selling situations

    Additional sales readiness product capabilities released

    Role-based dashboards for sales leaders and enablement

    At any time, you have parallel programs as well 1-on-1 or team-level coaching activities underway. Mindtickle Insights bring you role-based reporting and analytics for sales leaders (CROs/CSOs), enablement, frontline managers, and ops.

    They cover the entire gamut of data analytics – from adoption and engagement to learning scores, conversation intelligence, and revenue outcomes. And if editing your dashboards with the widget style isn’t enough, then you can also build your own reports and dashboards from scratch.

    Live and Team Challenges to gamify sales enablement and training

    With Live Challenges, enablement teams and trainers can strategically intersperse interactive contests throughout live training sessions to boost attention and improve recall. Teams get a series of multiple-choice questions where scores are based on how quickly you respond. After each question, the leaderboard is flashed. It’s a great learning experience that promotes friendly competition and fun.

    Hybrid sales teams can now use Team Challenges to drive more rep engagement. The product design is our homage to the arcade games of the 1980s. Team Challenges encourage teamwork, camaraderie, and retention during sales meetings and kickoffs as it involves significant teamwork, communication, and knowledge to win the game.

    Templates to launch programs in days not weeks

    Quickly launch new programs using Mindtickle’s templates based on industry best practices.

    Use templates for onboarding, product/service knowledge, and sales methodology implementations to start delivering value quickly. These templates significantly cut down the time needed to launch a new program – the average time taken in the beta process was nine days. The Mindtickle Content-as-a-Service (CaaS) team will continue to build out the repository of templates till we eventually have an entire marketplace where enablement professionals and training organizations can offer their own templates.

    Mindtickle templates

    And that’s a wrap!

    That’s all we have in store for Fall and Winter 2021. But I can tell you that the product and engineering teams (400 strong now!) are already working toward an amazing roadmap for 2022. We’re working closely with customers and industry practitioners to get feedback.

    We want to hear from you! Reach out to marketing@www.mindtickle.com to let us know your thoughts on this release and ideas for future ones. Maybe you will see them in our Spring 2022 announcement.

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    Introducing Asset Hub: The First Sales Content Manager Built for Sales https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/introducing-asset-hub-the-first-sales-content-manager-built-for-sales/ Tue, 14 Sep 2021 18:00:12 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/introducing-asset-hub-the-first-sales-content-manager-built-for-sales/ As marketers, we tend to think pretty highly of our content and the role it plays in helping generate revenues, but drawing a direct line between content and results is misleading. After all, salespeople close the business, not us. The reality is that as much as 90% of our content goes unused by sales, and …

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    As marketers, we tend to think pretty highly of our content and the role it plays in helping generate revenues, but drawing a direct line between content and results is misleading. After all, salespeople close the business, not us. The reality is that as much as 90% of our content goes unused by sales, and according to Sirius Decisions, marketing efforts are far less effective unless they’re aligned with the needs of a sales organization.

    Sales content management software really helps align sales and marketing, but more often than not, these products are justified by marketing based on the ability to tie content to revenue. At Mindtickle, we think sales content management should be more about sales while still providing all the good stuff for marketing.

    That’s why we’re excited to announce Asset Hub from Mindtickle, the first sales content management software built for sales. Asset Hub was created from the ground up, and it’s tightly integrated into the Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform. This last part – integration with Mindtickle – is really important, and here’s why:

    We all know that salespeople spend more time selling than they do in formal training, so access to just-in-time assets is really important to help them move deals along and maintain consistent messaging. The challenge is what kind of assets they need. Sure, brochures and slides are really helpful – especially when contextualized to each selling situation, but reps also need easy-to-consume, just-in-time training as well, and more than just a Word document or Excel spreadsheet. They need to know what good looks like, be reminded about winning approaches, and be able to practice their pitches in a safe space – all just-in-time, anywhere, and anytime.

    mindtickle asset hub content management

    And that’s exactly what Asset Hub delivers. Because it’s part of the Mindtickle platform, Asset Hub automatically has access to all of the deep sales enablement training, practice, and reinforcement content already on the platform, as well as all of the conversation intelligence content from Call AI, Mindtickle’s integrated conversation intelligence solution.

    How sales content can drive deals forward

    Let’s say one of your reps is targeting a conversation with the CFO of a large tech company. She may have been trained on selling to tech or selling to CFOs, or maybe both, but maybe it’s not a persona she talks to every day or industry she normally covers. If she wants to succeed, she needs more than a few marketing assets and some documents to read. Instead of what she’d find in a typical sales content manager, Asset Hub delivers highly contextualized training to prepare her:

      • An example of a successful conversation between a top rep and a similar prospect, highlighting the winning behaviors that enabled the rep to gain interest and generate an opportunity
      • Short microlearning videos from internal SMEs about CFO personas and selling to tech companies
      • Reinforcement quizzes that jog her memory about selling to this persona and industry
      • Role-play practice exercises that enable her to practice her pitch with AI-powered feedback before she has the conversation with her buyer

    Once she’s able to establish interest and create an opportunity, then she can use Asset Hub to get ready for her next meeting:

      • Share and track viewership of marketing content to increase interest across the organization
      • Watch a sales presentation from one of her teammates
      • See training from Sales Enablement or Marketing on how to use the pitch deck
      • Practice the deck with AI-generated feedback
      • Share the practice pitch with others for feedback from respected teammates

    …and so on, all the way until the deal closes.

    Search in the Mindtickle Asset Hub

    How sales content can be a training tool

    She’s connected to Asset Hub during every step of her journey, always ensuring she’s ready to give her best at every step in the process. Even better, her content usage is being tracked, so when she closes the deal, sales leadership can track her activities – the training she consumes, the tools she uses, the external-facing material she shares, etc. – to identify and promote the behaviors (not just the content) that help reps close more deals.

    And that’s how Asset Hub differs from other sales content management solutions. While every vendor touts the use of their platforms for sales enablement, their focus is typically on content alone rather than the content and behaviors that win deals. Mindtickle differs because Asset Hub is part of our comprehensive sales readiness platform. Through its interaction with each of the planks of Mindtickle’s platform (listed below), Asset Hub offers far more benefits than a stand-alone sales content management platform:

    • Define excellence

    Because Mindtickle enables our customers to identify the winning behaviors that make top reps successful, these skills and activities can be translated into a blueprint for creating the just-in-time microlearning, sample conversations, reinforcement activities, and other best practices that are contextualized to every selling situation in Asset Hub. And by tracking the way content is accessed and used in Asset Hub – and its correlation with business outcomes – sales organizations will be able to update and refine their definition of winning behaviors over time.

    • Build knowledge

    Unlike other solutions, Asset Hub can draw from the entirety of content that has been created or curated for sales enablement purposes. Rather than having to start from scratch or create some static connection from existing content, native integration with Mindtickle increases the impact and ROI of your enablement content.

    • Align content

    This is Asset Hub’s domain: aligning content from sales enablement and marketing to meet the just-in-time needs of salespeople in the field, and then feeding back the data that helps organizations define and refine the winning behaviors that close deals.

    • Analyze performance

    With Mindticle’s Call AI conversation intelligence solution, sales organizations can use call scores to easily identify winning behaviors in real-world sales interactions and then correlate them to the scenarios where they can act as best practices. Contextualizing real-world examples of winning behaviors for just-in-time use in Access Hub gives salespeople a clear model for upcoming interactions and provides them valuable insights so they can make the most of every activity.

    • Optimize behavior

    Mindtickle facilitates a coaching culture by identifying each rep’s strengths and weaknesses and then empowering managers to coach salespeople to better performance. With Asset Hub, reps and managers can “favorite” the content and activities that will help remediate skill gaps, helping sales teams focus on the winning behaviors that will help them achieve better results.

    Ready to see what Mindtickle can do for revenue productivity at your org?

    Request a Demo

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    Mindtickle Raises An Additional $100 Million Led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-raises-an-additional-100-million-led-by-softbank-vision-fund-2/ Thu, 05 Aug 2021 11:00:23 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-raises-an-additional-100-million-led-by-softbank-vision-fund-2/ Following its recent raise of $100 million, sales readiness technology leader accelerates its growth and mission to transform and modernize revenue organizations SAN FRANCISCO— August 5, 2021 — Mindtickle, the leader in sales readiness technology, announced today that it has raised an additional $100 million in Series E funding. SoftBank Vision Fund 2* is leading …

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    Following its recent raise of $100 million, sales readiness technology leader accelerates its growth and mission to transform and modernize revenue organizations

    SAN FRANCISCO— August 5, 2021 Mindtickle, the leader in sales readiness technology, announced today that it has raised an additional $100 million in Series E funding. SoftBank Vision Fund 2* is leading the round with participation from existing investors Norwest Venture Partners, Canaan, NewView Capital, and Qualcomm Ventures. The latest fundraise comes on the heels of a $100 million investment led by Softbank last November. With a total of $281M in total funding, the company is now valued at $1.2 billion.

    Revenue leaders are investing in the emerging category of sales readiness platforms as they face unprecedented challenges in creating high-performing sales organizations. During the past decade, average sales quota attainment has dropped from 63% to 43% in the S&P 500. Consequently, CROs and other sales leaders have been looking more carefully at the issue of sales readiness within their organization. Traditional sales training and enablement programs, aimed at onboarding and providing ongoing support to sellers, are falling short: Less than one-fourth of these programs meet stakeholder expectations.

    Mindtickle helps world-class companies be ready to grow revenue by understanding ideal sales behaviors, increasing seller knowledge and skill sets, and incorporating real-world feedback from their meetings with customers. The Mindtickle sales readiness platform empowers revenue teams to enhance organizational performance with industry-leading sales enablement, content management, conversation intelligence, performance analytics, and coaching solutions – all in one place.

    “Revenue leaders understand that sales readiness is a mission-critical component of their strategy to consistently meet or exceed their goals,” says Krishna Depura, Mindtickle CEO and co-founder. “They are taking more square ownership of these programs, and partnering with their sales enablement, revenue operations, and training teams to create a continuous state of excellence across their organizations.”

    The investment in Mindtickle comes with the continued growth in market demand for sales readiness technologies. Sales enablement technologies are projected to grow to $4.23B by 2027, and the conversation intelligence market will reach $13B by 2025. The collision of these two investment areas is creating the sales readiness category as revenue leaders and sales enablement professionals seek to house these capabilities under one umbrella.

    “We continue to be impressed by Mindtickle’s performance in creating and becoming a category leader in the sales readiness space,” said Munish Varma, Managing Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers “The product has become an essential part of any sales organization and we are excited to support the company in its growth.”

    Sumer Juneja, Partner, SoftBank Investment Advisers, added “Since our last round, Mindtickle has consistently delivered ahead of plan across all metrics. We are encouraged by their increasing customer additions, contract expansions and new product launches and acceptance. We are delighted to be increasing our exposure to Mindtickle as they enter their next phase of growth.”

    Dozens of Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies use Mindtickle to create a continuous state of excellence to grow revenue and adapt to change with end-to-end tools to help business and revenue leaders define excellence, build knowledge, align content, analyze performance, and optimize behavior throughout their organization.

    Additional Resources:

     

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle is the market-leading sales readiness platform, helping revenue leaders at world-class companies like Johnson & Johnson, Splunk, and Wipro be ready to grow revenue by increasing knowledge, understanding ideal sales behaviors, and adapting to change. Dozens of Fortune 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies use Mindtickle to define excellence, build knowledge, align content, analyze performance, and optimize behavior throughout their sales organizations. Mindtickle is recognized as a market leader by top industry analysts, and is ranked by G2 as both the #1 enterprise software product and #5 sales software product. Visit www.mindtickle.com or find us on LinkedIn to learn more.

     

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    pr[at]www.mindtickle.com

    *As of the date of this press release, SoftBank Group Corp. has made capital contributions to allow investments by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 (“SVF 2”) in certain portfolio companies. The information included herein is made for informational purposes only and does not constitute an offer to sell or a solicitation of an offer to buy limited partnership interests in any fund, including SVF 2. SVF 2 has yet to have an external close, and any potential third-party investors shall receive additional information related to any SVF 2 investments prior to closing.

    1: https://go.forrester.com/blogs/sales-success-not-about-hitting-quota/

    2: https://salesenablement.pro/assets/2019/10/CSO-Insights-5th-Annual-Sales-Enablement-Study.pdf

    3: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20210324005389/en/1.3-Billion-Worldwide-Sales-Enablement-Platform-Industry-to-2027—Impact-of-COVID-19-on-the-Market—ResearchAndMarkets.com

    4: https://www.marketsandmarkets.com/Market-Reports/conversational-ai-market-49043506.html

     

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    What is Sales Readiness? (And Why it Matters) https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/what-is-sales-readiness-and-why-it-matters/ Tue, 29 Jun 2021 21:19:34 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/what-is-sales-readiness-and-why-it-matters/ There’s a cruel reality facing many revenue leaders today: most sellers aren’t ready to adapt to the fast-changing business environment they face daily. It’s not that they aren’t talented; it’s that traditional sales training and enablement programs are failing them. While the statement sounds hyperbolic, plenty of research supports it. According to CSO Insights, only …

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    There’s a cruel reality facing many revenue leaders today: most sellers aren’t ready to adapt to the fast-changing business environment they face daily. It’s not that they aren’t talented; it’s that traditional sales training and enablement programs are failing them.

    While the statement sounds hyperbolic, plenty of research supports it. According to CSO Insights, only 27.5% of stakeholders feel that sales enablement initiatives meet or exceed their expectations, and another research report found that 90% of sales training programs fail after 120 days.

    This squares with my experiences. Prior to Mindtickle, I’ve seen firsthand the challenges of enabling hundreds of sellers. The basic problem? Large scale certification and kickoff events create an initial burst of knowledge transfer and skills development, but fall off day-over-day, week-over-week, and month-over-month.

    To transform revenue organizations, they must embrace sales readiness. This post will offer a definition for it, and a framework for how to make it a reality.

    What is sales readiness?

    At Mindtickle, we define sales readiness as:

    Sales readiness is a continuous state of excellence to grow revenue by utilizing a suite of tools and processes to increase knowledge, enhance performance, and adapt to change.

    How do I achieve sales readiness?

    We’ve developed a Sales Readiness Framework that outlines what revenue and sales leaders must do to achieve it. Whether you have a sales readiness platform to help you do it, or you manage it with separate tools, spreadsheets and serious hacking skills, the concepts remain the same.

    The Sales Readiness Framework includes five core steps:

    1. Define excellence
    2. Build knowledge
    3. Align content
    4. Analyze performance
    5. Optimize behavior

     

    Step 1: Define excellence

    Most organizations track hard sales metrics such as quota attainment, pipeline and revenue. While you could argue hitting those goals constitutes excellence, excellence in this context is an order of magnitude more specific: what is the ideal rep profile and associated competencies? This notion of excellence needs to become more scientific than “this rep has an ‘it’ factor” and other vague business cliches that don’t create organization-wide excellence.

    Every business is different, but some that have been important for Mindtickle customers include:

    • Competitive knowledge
    • Product and services mastery
    • Industry proficiency
    • Persona and buyer comprehension
    • Sales process discipline
    • Product demo proficiency (without requiring a sales engineer)
    • Use case development

    Every organization will prioritize and weigh the importance of each competency differently. Take the time to partner with other members of sales leadership to define a readiness index based on the competencies you believe make up the ideal rep profile. It will help set a baseline for what knowledge, skills and capabilities each sales rep in your organization should possess.

    Step 2: Build knowledge

    According to Gartner, B2B sales reps forget 70% of the information they learn within a week of training, and 87% will forget it within a month. To move beyond the once-a-year kickoff meetings when sellers sit through hours of training, best-in-class sales organizations invest in modern sales enablement that emphasizes continuous excellence. These programs include three core components:

    • Spaced reinforcement to create “everboarding.” So much focus in enablement is on onboarding, but what happens after? With spaced reinforcement, you can intelligently create programs that revisit key themes and topics by facilitating scenario-based questions with videos, images, and explanations. The program should automatically adapt or double-down on questions where rep proficiency looks weaker.
    • Micro-learning. Sellers are busy, so it’s better to let them chip away at knowledge building bit-by-bit with quick-hitting notifications and questions. While each one may not be as comprehensive as traditional training programs, it’s a marathon, not a sprint.
    • Engagement mechanics. While selling is serious business, learning the skill sets necessary to win can, and should be, fun. Time-bound quizzes, missions, achievements, leaderboards, and the elevation of top performer’s reputation is proven to drive more engagement with sales enablement.

    Step 3: Align content 

    Alignment is the critical word here. While partners in marketing can create compelling content, today the majority of it goes unused by sellers. The reason is simple: while the intent by marketing is to help advance the buyer journey, there’s a pragmatism sellers employ with content. They will leverage it if it’ll advance a deal forward; they’ll avoid using it if it won’t.

    When sellers are enabled and equipped with relevant content, it plays an undeniably important role in driving deals forward. The key is enabling sellers to be ready to use it. A great example would be when a new case study is available. It’s vital that it’s not only shared in a central location, but sellers are given quick training on what it is, who it’s relevant to, when to use it, and how other sellers have leveraged it to move deals forward.

    Step 4: Analyze performance 

    For so long, we’ve spent significant time, money and resources on enablement programs. While they transfer important knowledge, they’re often done in more hypothetical, academic environments. The good news is that the rise of conversational intelligence abilities means we can start to see how these pieces of information actually resonate.

    Sales readiness means you have visibility to analyze the messaging, themes, and topics that are carried to market in the real-world interactions between sellers and customers. It’s imperative for sales leaders to understand the habits of great sellers if they are to course-correct those reps who need more guidance. A comprehensive sales readiness strategy should include conversational intelligence capabilities that leverage AI and machine learning to provide sales leaders insight into what’s happening in the field, and tie that back to competencies that were or weren’t achieved from an enablement standpoint.

    Step 5: Optimize behavior

    Based on the insights you gain from analyzing field interactions and rep competencies, the final step is to follow up with effective sales coaching programs. Role-play scenarios, scorecards, and practice are important first steps at the human, manger-to-rep level. But a comprehensive sales readiness program should also leverage AI to make programmatic changes and recommendations for coaching based on critical gaps that get identified in real-world selling scenarios.

    These coaching activities help sellers practice and prepare so they know how to handle complex selling situations. With these activities in place, you are essentially closing the readiness loop and ensuring feedback makes its way back to not only individual reps, but to your entire readiness program.

    Why sales readiness matters

    Without a structured sales readiness program in place (no matter if you’re following this one or not), the same problems will continue to persist. Sellers won’t be prepared for the moments that matter – when money is on the line. Understanding and prioritizing readiness activities helps organizations create the culture of sales excellence that is essential to driving revenue.

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    How Conversation Intelligence Puts Sales Coaching Into Overdrive https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-conversation-intelligence-puts-sales-coaching-into-overdrive/ Fri, 21 May 2021 15:00:30 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/how-conversation-intelligence-puts-sales-coaching-into-overdrive/ It might not come as a surprise that 57% of sales reps are expected to miss their quotas in 2021. Sellers often can’t explain why deals don’t work out, leaving your sales managers in the dark. Knowing a seller lost a deal isn’t enough to prevent it from happening again. Your sales managers need the …

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    It might not come as a surprise that 57% of sales reps are expected to miss their quotas in 2021. Sellers often can’t explain why deals don’t work out, leaving your sales managers in the dark. Knowing a seller lost a deal isn’t enough to prevent it from happening again. Your sales managers need the ability to identify why deals are lost and how they can train and coach reps to win today’s deal — and every deal in the future.

    Conversation intelligence solutions offer invaluable support to sales managers. These solutions record, transcribe and score customer calls, serving them back to sales managers to use as fuel for more effective coaching conversations. Managers gain insights into the seller’s performance, pinpoint areas of concern and develop targeted coaching techniques to improve outcomes. These solutions take the guesswork out of why deals were lost, giving visibility into every touchpoint of the sales cycle –  from the pre-qualification call all the way to closing the sale.

    In this blog post, we’ll walk through the sales cycle and offer up some AI-driven coaching opportunities each step of the way.

    Pre-qualification call

    The seller’s goal at this stage is to determine if the account should advance to the next step in the sales cycle or be sent back to marketing for further nurturing. Conversation intelligence gives managers insights into a seller’s missteps, potential skill gaps and the customer’s experience during the call. Opportunities for coaching could include:

    • Showing examples of performers in action and facilitating peer reviews: Did the rep nail the call or launch into an extended sales pitch? Maybe they focused too much on the solution vs. listening to the buyer. Have your seller learn from the best by reviewing a recording of a model pitch. Discuss how the model differed from the rep’s pitch then have the rep practice their pitch and submit a recording for a manager or peer review. You can then use AI insights to analyze the recording and identify areas for improvement.
    • Sharing a relevant learning module and AI-based insights: Was the rep able to gather the critical details they needed to pre-qualify the account, e.g., the customer’s challenges and goals, their current solution, their willingness to spend, the influencers and decision-makers in the buying cycle, etc.? To strengthen the rep’s ability to uncover this important information, share AI-based insights from the call around specific themes and topics, and then discuss how to listen and respond to these verbal cues. You can share a short learning module with them on how to pre-qualify a lead and then ask the rep to get certified on this training before the next pre-qualification call.
    • Assigning a learning course and using role-play to measure improvement: During the call, did the seller engage in active listening, letting the buyer describe their situation? Or did they talk too much and interrupt the customer?  Show your rep an analysis of the call, focusing on the ratio of time spent talking by the rep versus the buyer. Then share an active listening course, including the appropriate ratio of listening to talking at this stage, and how to paraphrase what was heard in the conversation and ask for confirmation. After the course is completed, have the rep role-play to demonstrate proficiency in active listening.

    Call insights showcasing call scoring

    Discovery call

    During this stage of the sales cycle, sellers are focused on reviewing buyers’ needs and criteria for selection, getting a clear view into the buying process and the other decision-makers involved. Managers can use conversation intelligence to review the seller’s performance during the call and inform coaching strategies that can improve their ability to uncover critical details. Opportunities for coaching could include:

    • Assigning micro-learning modules: Did the seller identify the other solutions the prospect is evaluating? Did they find out what stage of the sales cycle they’ve reached with each vendor? Were they able to discover how the buyer perceives the competition (pros and cons)? Point the rep to micro-learning training modules on competitors’ solutions so they can learn how to probe for the buyer’s perception of competitors and set traps as the sales cycle progresses.
    • Sharing tips from training experts: Did the seller miss the chance to explore opportunities to upsell and cross-sell? Direct the rep to a video with tips on upselling from sales training experts. Share snippets of conversations between other sellers and customers to give the rep examples of how to apply those skills in real-world scenarios.
    • Leveraging AI insights to pinpoint concerns and practicing critical skills to close gaps: Was the rep able to uncover more insight into the other decision-makers? Could they identify those stakeholders’ top concerns and pain points? Use intelligence features such as search, keyword identification and timeline analysis to ensure the rep asked the right questions. Have the rep practice how to ask buyers required questions and how to probe for answers.

    AI insights to identify and remediate

    Evaluation call

    The seller’s goals during this stage are to provide all of the information necessary for the buyer/buying committee to make a purchase decision and collect all information needed to put together a proposal to be discussed on the next call. Using conversation intelligence, managers can pinpoint ways to strengthen the rep’s role as a trusted advisor and reduce negotiation friction later in the sales cycle. Opportunities for coaching could include:

    • Reviewing top-performing demos and using role-play: Presenting a demo is a critical moment in the sale cycle. It’s proof of everything the seller has already discussed with the buyer and most importantly, the solution’s value relative to the buyer’s challenges. To help your rep prepare and go into this meeting with confidence, have them engage in a role-play to ensure the demo is engaging and relevant. Expose them to real-world scenarios and successes by reviewing recordings of top-performing demos and pointing out the key areas of excellence.
    • Analyzing the call for insights into the buyer’s experience and providing feedback: The buyer needs to leave this meeting fully understanding the product and how it will address their unique challenges. Use conversation intelligence to determine the buyer’s sentiment and open questions to make sure there’s no confusion or frustration during the demo. Discuss how the rep could have improved their understanding of the product and how it aligns with the buyer’s needs.
    • Quizzing the rep to keep knowledge fresh: Was the rep able to show how the solution is a better fit and better value compared to the other technologies being evaluated? Or did they miss the mark by using outdated messaging and positioning? Quiz your reps periodically on competitive positioning and features so their knowledge about the competition is reinforced and up to date. If needed, have them review existing competitive intelligence assets.

    Improve go to market strategy by analyzing call recording

    Negotiation call

    The seller’s goal is to close the deal and ensure all necessary elements are in place to put together a contract that will be signed by the buyer. Conversation intelligence enables sales leaders to review rep performance and provide laser-focused feedback on how they can sharpen critical negotiation skills. Opportunities for coaching could include:

    • Scheduling a one-on-one to review past calls and prepare for potential objections: It’s imperative the seller presents options (i.e., length of contract, terms) and product/service bundles that are relevant to the buyer’s needs. It’s also important that they avoid resorting to discounting. Set up a one-on-one the day before the next negotiation call to review the details of the deal, prospective discounts and potential objections and to work with the rep on any areas of concern. Review how the call went, identify areas of concern and provide feedback and guidance.
    • Using role-play to build confidence and trust: When a buyer is about to make a big investment, they need reassurance that they are making the right decision and that the company is dedicated to partnering with them on their long-term success. To ensure the rep comes across as confident and maintains a partnership approach to the conversation, have them role-play situations where the buyer makes various demands and/or takes an adversarial stance.
    • Showing examples of what a successful negotiation looks like: Your seller needs to make sure all parties are on the same page before concluding the call. Did the rep provide a summary of what was agreed to, define clear next steps and answer all questions? Coach the rep on best practices for summarizing at the end of a negotiation call and following up. You can do this by showing them what a successfully closed deal looks like using snippets of call recordings, prescribing role-plays so they can practice different techniques and finally identifying and fine-tuning areas of concern using AI-driven insights.

    Call recordings and feedback

    Purchase call

    The seller’s objective at this stage is to review the contract with the buyer and discuss any pending issues – clearing the path for the buyer to sign a contract and start the onboarding process. Conversation intelligence enables sales managers to analyze the seller’s ability to guide the conversation, demonstrate confidence and identify coaching techniques to improve these skills. Opportunities for coaching could include:

    • Measuring the rep’s performance and the customer’s experience: What was the rep’s approach to asking the buyer about the status of the purchase? Were they actively listening to the customer’s concerns and questions, and understanding any obstacles to signing the contract? Analyze insights to measure the rep’s listen-to-talk ratio and customer sentiment. Then review the recorded call with the rep to ensure the buyer did most of the talking and left the call satisfied.
    • Testing the seller’s knowledge: The buyer will expect to leave the call with important details and actionable information like the onboarding and training processes, customer support terms, pricing, implementation start date, and more. To prepare your seller, assign a quiz measuring knowledge of all contract-related terms and processes. Assign a targeted learning module based on any knowledge gaps, and then assign the quiz again to measure improvement.
    • Comparing the rep’s performance to best practices: How well did the rep manage the call? Did they check all the boxes by summarizing the discussion, committing to making changes in the contract as agreed to during the call, and setting expectations for when the buyer would have it signed? Analyze the rep’s performance for highs and lows, and discuss findings and feedback. Finally, show the rep a recorded call of a successful close and follow-up to reinforce your discussion.

    Comparing reps performance to best practices

    Call AI, Mindtickle’s conversation intelligence solution built into our comprehensive readiness platform, uniquely helps you identify and fix the real-world behaviors that stop your salespeople from closing every deal. Critical coaching moments happen at every stage that can drastically impact deal outcomes. Conversation intelligence, when paired with a readiness approach, gives you the ability to steer reps toward closing their current deals at every step in the process, and then arm them with the skills they need to close future deals with greater success.

    To learn more about how sales managers can use conversation intelligence to optimize coaching techniques and improve business outcomes, book a demo.

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    Mindtickle Boosts Sales Coaching Offering with Conversation Intelligence to Analyze Sales Interactions and Enable Continuous Improvement https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-boosts-sales-coaching-offering-with-conversation-intelligence-to-analyze-sales-interactions-and-enable-continuous-improvement/ Thu, 20 May 2021 13:00:50 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-boosts-sales-coaching-offering-with-conversation-intelligence-to-analyze-sales-interactions-and-enable-continuous-improvement/ Call AI expands vision for Sales Readiness and empowers revenue leaders to coach their reps and help them increase win rates and improve quota attainment SAN FRANCISCO—May 20, 2021—Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced the availability of Call AI™, the first AI and machine learning-enhanced conversation intelligence solution for sales leaders to …

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    Call AI expands vision for Sales Readiness and empowers revenue leaders to coach their reps and help them increase win rates and improve quota attainment

    SAN FRANCISCO—May 20, 2021—Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced the availability of Call AI™, the first AI and machine learning-enhanced conversation intelligence solution for sales leaders to pinpoint gaps and identify winning behaviors to grow revenue. Integrated with Mindtickle’s robust coaching capabilities, this advancement enables revenue leaders to make targeted improvements to help their salespeople close more deals.

    Mindtickle brings together all of the elements required to drive effective sales readiness — execution, coaching, skills development, knowledge reinforcement — in one place. The addition of Call AI expands sales leaders’ ability to know how to coach their reps more effectively at scale so that their teams can perform their best at critical moments in the sales process.

    “The ability for our customer-facing teams to be ready and empowered to help customers understand how to address the security challenges of their hybrid cloud and hybrid work infrastructures is of critical importance,” said Ken Blank, Senior Sales Enablement Programs Lead at Infoblox. “By leveraging Mindtickle and Call AI’s conversation intelligence, we’re able to see what’s happening in individual sales interactions, identify trends, and use those insights to build strategic coaching programs that help our sales force be more effective at building customer relationships and drive better business outcomes.”

    Call AI: Know the real-world sales behaviors that affect deal outcomes, and empower revenue leaders, enablement teams and front-line managers to fix them.

    Most enablement programs incorporate training, reinforcement, coaching and practice in an effort to help salespeople ramp up and be productive quickly. Still, insight into how those enablement efforts impact on-the-job performance remains elusive because revenue leaders and front-line managers don’t have visibility into individual reps’ strengths or weaknesses or how they correlate to business outcomes or revenue. As a result, not only are individual deals affected, revenue leaders are unable to make systematic changes to their coaching programs or entire enablement programs.

    “I can’t spend my entire workday listening to every single recorded meeting conducted by our sales reps, but it’s still important that I make sure their conversations are productive and on message,” said Rick Gouveia, chief revenue officer at Turing Video, Inc. “With the recordings and transcripts provided by Call AI, I can get a feel right away as to why a rep can’t close a piece of business, and I can coach them into better results.”

    “Ultimately, we want to use Call AI as a learning tool,” said Aradhana (Dolly) Ravindra, Director, Sales Enablement and Training at Turing Video. “Insight gained from Call AI provides direction for us to recalibrate certain aspects of our sales enablement program. It’s been key to refining our own training.”

    Call AI incorporates a number of key foundational capabilities to maximize a sales team’s potential to win deals, including call recording, call sharing and collaboration, and CRM integration. Mindtickle uniquely adds functionality that addresses some of the most critical blind spots in deal and skills coaching, helping sales better understand the voice of the customer. Call AI’s unique value includes:

    • Individualized, capability-based coaching. Identify sales rep mistakes, improve productivity, reduce churn and ensure reps make quota by building a coaching culture. Provide front-line managers with the tools they need to coach salespeople toward a consistent organizational standard based on individual strengths and weaknesses.
    • Closed-loop feedback. Enhance the impact of enablement programs designed to get reps ready by incorporating teachable moments from live conversations. Analyze sales conversations to determine the effect of readiness programs on sales execution, helping to improve future programs based on real-world evidence.
    • Actionable insights. Measure and compare individual interactions and benchmark best practices with AI-generated call scores. Integrating call scores into Mindtickle allows for a comprehensive analysis of the impact of capability on business outcomes. With this information, managers gain insight into individual and team readiness, and reps are automatically prescribed individualized follow-up training, coaching and practice accordingly in an effort to maximize the impact of every future sales interaction.

    “Call AI introduces an industry-first conversation intelligence solution that helps companies not only pinpoint what works well in customer interactions, but also identify areas of improvement so reps and teams can achieve their full potential,” said Nishant Mungali, co-founder and chief product officer at Mindtickle. “With Call AI, rather than simply looking at the health of a deal, revenue leaders can actually take corrective action to improve the ability of their sales people to deliver a better customer experience and business outcomes. We will continue to introduce new capabilities and functionality to build on our sales readiness foundational concepts — conversation intelligence, training, coaching and practice — so we can help organizations engage and develop their teams at scale to achieve their revenue objectives.”

    To learn more and hear from customers about how they’re using Call AI to help managers provide individualized coaching and improve business outcomes, register for the webinar Conversation Intelligence: Identify and Improve the Behaviors that Win on June 9th at 8:30 am PT.

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand value for dozens of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, and hundreds of the world’s most recognized companies across technology, life sciences, financial services, manufacturing and service sectors. With purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness, Mindtickle enables company leaders and sellers to continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Mindtickle has been recognized by leading industry analyst and research firms and has been ranked on G2’s Best Software 2021 lists as the #1 Enterprise Software Product and the 5th ranked software product for sales. For more information visit www.Mindtickle.com or find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    pr[at]www.mindtickle.com

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    Introducing Call AI: Mindtickle’s Conversation Intelligence Solution https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/introducing-call-ai-mindtickles-conversation-intelligence-solution/ Thu, 20 May 2021 16:10:52 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/introducing-call-ai-mindtickles-conversation-intelligence-solution/ When salespeople swing and miss in front of buyers, it’s always a priority to save the deal. But fixing the symptoms without addressing the root cause will limit your team’s potential. Without visibility into what your salespeople do in front of buyers and a way to improve their skills, you can’t win more deals — …

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    When salespeople swing and miss in front of buyers, it’s always a priority to save the deal. But fixing the symptoms without addressing the root cause will limit your team’s potential. Without visibility into what your salespeople do in front of buyers and a way to improve their skills, you can’t win more deals — just predict which ones you’re going to lose.

    Mindtickle’s Call AI is the only conversation intelligence solution where you can identify and fix the real-world behaviors that stop your salespeople from closing every deal. Call AI collects and analyzes data across all aspects of readiness – all in one place, giving sales leaders the unique ability to understand readiness levels, knowledge gaps, and skill improvements for each seller.

    Unlock the skills that drive successful sales interactions     

    According to McKinsey research, over 85% of B2B sales interactions happen on the phone or within web conferencing platforms, making it impossible for sales managers to shadow every interaction between sellers and buyers. Without an individualized remediation plan for every salesperson, you may be able to identify and save individual sales opportunities, but you likely won’t be able to address the root cause that put deals in peril in the first place.

    Call AI joins calls as a silent attendee, recording, transcribing and mining customer conversations for critical insights that drive improvements.

    How it works

    • Record and identify strengths and weaknesses demonstrated by salespeople in live sales interactions with AI-based insights
    • Collaborate to share snippets with examples and feedback privately and publicly
    • Identify and share successful sales behaviors team and organization-wide
    • Integrate conversations within Salesforce opportunities, contacts, leads and accounts to evaluate the number and quality of sales conversations throughout the buying cycle
    • Understand individual and team performance and competency attainment during sales interactions
    • Correlate competencies to outcomes such as win rates, revenue achievement, project success and more

    Unlike point solutions, Mindtickle enables organizations to influence selling skills before, during and after customer interactions. With actionable insights into a seller’s strengths, weaknesses and improvements, sales managers can create targeted coaching techniques to:

    • Improve the rep’s performance across every stage of the sales cycle
    • Deliver benefits and better outcomes across the entire enterprise

    Call AI delivers benefits across the organization

    • Managers have significant visibility into how salespeople perform during live interactions
    • Salespeople can correct mistakes, increasing productivity and positive business outcomes
    • Deal sizes increase as salespeople can more effectively capitalize on every opportunity
    • Best practices are easy to identify, share and replicate
    • Deals are won against more poorly prepared competitors
    • Companies meet or exceed revenue targets
    • Sales churn decreases as more salespeople achieve quota
    • More salespeople make or exceed quota
    • Key business initiatives succeed because they’re informed by critical field-based evidence

    Call AI quantifies individual and team competency strengths and weaknesses based on real-world interactions

    With core capabilities like call recording and AI-based insights, Call AI empowers sales leaders and sellers to understand why deals are lost, what to do about it and where to find the guidance or content to help them improve.

    • Call recording: Call AI automatically captures and transcribes calls and web conferences using AI-driven analysis to deliver actionable intelligence about buyer interactions. Sales managers can relive highs and lows within every conversation through search and timeline analysis, identify the prevailing topics and themes and score calls based on best practices. Managers can then use this data to create a personalized skill development program aimed at bridging skill gaps and maximizing every salesperson’s productivity.

    Call AI captures and transcribes calls and web conferences

    • Actionable insights: Call AI combines call scores with the Sales Capability Index™ to deliver a comprehensive view of individual and team readiness. Based on sellers’ strengths and weaknesses, Call AI will automatically prescribe follow-up training, coaching and practice focused on maximizing the impact of every sales interaction. Custom guidelines will be delivered to front-line managers so they can focus on both current deals and the skills that will help them improve future outcomes.

    Call AI provide insights based on seller's strength & weaknesses

    Deliver a comprehensive enablement program and inform future readiness initiatives based on conversation intelligence

    Capabilities like readiness integration, call-sharing and collaboration, and CRM integration create a continuous cycle by incorporating training, reinforcement, and practice; revealing the impact of these efforts in real-world sales interactions and measuring their effect on business outcomes. This continuous cycle fosters a culture of professional improvement, growth and success.

    • Readiness integration: Incorporate teachable moments from live conversations into enablement programs, providing detailed evidence that demonstrates how to maximize the impact of every selling situation. Analyze sales conversations to determine the effect of programs on sales execution, helping to improve future programs based on real-world evidence.

    • Call-sharing and collaboration: Share key moments for team feedback, public consumption or as best practices to inform readiness initiatives, using timestamps and comments for detailed feedback and asynchronous, idea-sharing conversations.

    Best practices to inform readiness initiatives

    • CRM integration: Automatically map interactions to CRM contacts, leads, accounts and opportunities, providing deeper insight into the buyer’s journey and correlating the impact of live interactions on revenue outcomes.

    Call AI maps interactions to your CRM

    “I had zero insight into why a rep couldn’t close a deal. Problem solved with Call AI. 

    Rick Gouveia, CRO, Turing Video

    Results: 

    • 200% increase in quota attainment year-on-year
    • 50% reduction in new rep ramp time in 2020
    • 2.5x improvement in average call scores across the team

    Close the loop in your readiness program with Call AI

    A successful enablement and readiness program must close the loop between coaching deals, coaching sales, and the voice of the customer. Call AI powers a continuous cycle of analysis, skill development, coaching and assessment, giving sales leaders actionable insights into why deals are won or lost and how to better prepare sellers and teams to succeed.

    Click here to learn more about Call AI.

    The post Introducing Call AI: Mindtickle’s Conversation Intelligence Solution appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    The Failproof Framework for a Sales Onboarding Program https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-failproof-framework-for-a-sales-onboarding-program/ Thu, 15 Apr 2021 20:00:55 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/the-failproof-framework-for-a-sales-onboarding-program/ Designing an effective sales onboarding program can be challenging. Finding a balance between the time new hires spend on self-paced learning, bootcamp or instructor-led training, on-the-job learning and one-on-one coaching seems like an impossible formula to perfect. Sales leaders need sellers ramped as quickly as possible and on top of that, they’re challenged to provide …

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    Designing an effective sales onboarding program can be challenging. Finding a balance between the time new hires spend on self-paced learning, bootcamp or instructor-led training, on-the-job learning and one-on-one coaching seems like an impossible formula to perfect. Sales leaders need sellers ramped as quickly as possible and on top of that, they’re challenged to provide effective and fresh learning to their existing salesforce so they’re educated on changing markets, new products or solutions and an ever-changing landscape.

    While it’s tempting to look at new hire sales onboarding and ongoing learning programs as two separate beasts, they are actually natural extensions of one another — especially during planning and design stages. Here at Mindtickle, we refer to all ongoing learning as “everboarding” because learning should be a continuous journey. In this blog post, we’ll explore the benefits of blending sales onboarding and everboarding strategies to create a cohesive and effective learning path for your sellers.

    Building a framework

    The essential first step to any effective onboarding program is evaluating your current state, where you want to go, when you want to get there and how you’ll do it. Here’s our recommended framework for transitioning from a static sales onboarding plan to a completely dynamic everboarding approach.

    1. Map sales process and activities to competencies and capabilities

    Before you design a slide or write a word, map out the activities sales reps, solutions consultants, etc. do. Start by listing each activity by sales stage. From there, define the competencies and skills or capabilities necessary to demonstrate for completion. This ensures your program is focused on what reps need to be successful while filtering out unnecessary topics. Additionally, mapping can also track trends and learner knowledge gaps.

    2. Outline a timeline and priorities

    Ask sales leaders what reps need to do their first day, week, month or whatever cadence works best for your organization. As you evolve toward an everboarding approach, look at quarterly and yearly strategic goals, determine the selling capabilities needed to achieve them, and then design your program with those in mind.

    As you identify topics, prioritize them by what reps need to recall or apply. Recalling or knowing information is different than being able to apply that knowledge. Defining where topics belong prioritizes them and identifies learning activities. Remember, people typically forget 70% of the information they learn within a week, and 87% will forget it within a month. Prioritizing the most important topics will help you determine the appropriate enablement methodology, recall or application.

    3. Determine the best delivery method

    As an enablement professional, you know everyone learns in a different way. The same concept is true for content. Not all content should be delivered the same way. When designing your program, consider both learners and content when determining your enablement methodology. Some content may be appropriate for simple knowledge delivery via a slideshow, but other topics may require a scenario-based approach. For example, including a video of a great pitch is more effective than a few slides about the pitch content.

    4. Get leadership buy-in

    Be sure to engage sales leaders upfront. They are experts at what sales reps do every day. You’ll need their help to map the activities mentioned above, but you’ll also need their buy-in to make your program successful. Leaders care about three main things:

    • When will my new hire be ramped? Be sure to clearly define ramp time. Work with leadership to determine what reps need to master before being considered fully ramped.
    • What’s in it for me? Let them know how effective enablement helps them meet their goals.
    • How much time will enablement activities take away from selling? ROE (return on enablement) is important. Understanding how programs tie to sales metrics helps make the case for rep time spent in enablement activities instead of active selling.

    Blending sales onboarding and everboarding

    Creating a great onboarding experience is crucial to building a culture of learning within your sales organization. When planning onboarding, think about the content reps need to get started, but also consider the overall experience. The rep’s experience sets the standard for participation in the entire enablement program. Ensure manager buy-in, content is engaging and applicable, and reps clearly understand expectations.

    • Set the standard
      Work with leadership and managers to establish a culture where onboarding is mandatory. In our experience, the most successful reps and onboarding programs have 90-100% completion and are often reinforced with incentives such as bonuses with accounts held until it’s completed. To create a learning culture, there should be an expectation that enablement activities are valuable, applicable and required.
    • Make it engaging
      While it’s tempting to use the video from your last team call, think about the learner experience. Break content into bite-sized chunks, and pull out key messages or underscore critical objectives. We’ve found that shorter content has a considerably higher completion rate, especially when it’s under five minutes. Break up videos or slide decks with knowledge checks and reinforcement questions. A few questions between topics is a great way to keep learners active and engaged.
    • Practice, reinforce, repeat
      Provide a safe space and multiple opportunities for reps to practice the skills they’ll need to be successful. Scenario-based activities not only allow reps to practice their pitches and internal talk tracks but also opportunities for managers to provide constructive feedback that can be implemented immediately. Using tools such as Mindtickle’s role-play functionality for video-based sales pitch activities, or our 1:1 scenario-based coaching helps reps gain confidence in their selling abilities and provides managers instant visibility into skill gaps so they can course correct.

    Any good sales leader knows that onboarding a rep is just the first activity in any readiness program. While there are key milestones for the first 30, 60 and 90 days, sellers need ongoing training and practice reinforced throughout the year to keep their skills sharp.

    Find what works for you

    Like most things in a modern sales organization, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to enablement. It’s important to take these insights and think about how you can make them work for your business.

    Factors like audience, culture, available content, and existing processes play a role — and it’s important to consider sellers’ maturity when building your sales onboarding program. It could be the difference between a heavier focus on product knowledge versus a more in-depth readiness program focused on basic sales skills.

    Whatever your approach, the number one goal should be to build a culture of learning so that your reps are engaged beyond their initial 30, 60, or 90 days on the job.

    The post The Failproof Framework for a Sales Onboarding Program appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Taking the Stress Out of Selling: 3 Steps to Keeping Your Teams Healthy and Productive https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/taking-the-stress-out-of-selling-3-steps-to-keeping-your-teams-healthy-and-productive/ Wed, 24 Mar 2021 22:00:15 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/taking-the-stress-out-of-selling-3-steps-to-keeping-your-teams-healthy-and-productive/ To say that the last year has been challenging would be an understatement. Between lockdowns, remote working, and general pandemic blues, we have all faced significant difficulties. As such, prioritizing mental wellness has been vital for organizations large and small over the last year, particularly for employees on the frontlines of customer interaction. Luckily many …

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    To say that the last year has been challenging would be an understatement. Between lockdowns, remote working, and general pandemic blues, we have all faced significant difficulties. As such, prioritizing mental wellness has been vital for organizations large and small over the last year, particularly for employees on the frontlines of customer interaction. Luckily many have benefited from applying readiness strategies, wellbeing principles and relevant content to engage and support their people.

    Sales teams have not been exempt from the challenges of prioritizing and maintaining their mental health and wellbeing. Current events have only exacerbated an already stressful role. A recent survey estimates that more than 40% of sales workers struggle with their mental health. That’s two out of every five members of your sales team. Additionally, a survey by PayScale ranked Sales Account Managers as the second most stressful job — a massive 73% of respondents said the job is highly stressful.

    Despite this, mental health issues are often stigmatized or swept under the rug. Worryingly, 92% of people with mental health conditions think that admitting these conditions at work would damage their career.

    These statistics should be concerning for anyone involved in sales. After all, to provide an amazing customer experience, sales managers, L&D, and sales enablement leaders must first support their sales team by providing an exceptional employee experience. Don’t just take our word for it. Statistics from the Sales Health Alliance show an average of 230% return on every dollar invested in creating a mentally healthy workplace.

    Basically, it is in everyone’s best interests to remove stigmas and support your sales team’s mental health. Not only is it the right thing to do, but it also leads to happier employees, more satisfied customers, and even increased ROI.

    So, what does supporting your sales team’s mental health look like in practice? Follow these three techniques.

    Reduce workplace stigma

    The first step to supporting your sales team’s mental health is reducing workplace stigma relating to mental health. As mentioned, 92% of people with mental health conditions think that admitting these conditions at work would damage their career. What’s more, a SANE Australia survey found that almost three-quarters of respondents living with a mental illness (74%) have experienced stigma.

    Mental health stigma is a barrier to open, supportive, and productive workplace dialogues. Not only are mental health stigmas harmful to employees, but they’re also just bad business. The business case for reducing mental health stigma at work includes:

    • Reduced turnover and costs related to recruitment and training
    • Attracting top talent that prefers a workplace that supports mental health
    • Reduced burnout as employees are supported to be productive at work
    • Corporate social responsibility by providing a workplace that supports employees
    • Improved performance by supporting employees to produce their best work

    Strategies to reduce workplace mental health stigma include: educating employees about mental health and the associated stigmas, fostering awareness through online training, encouraging open dialogues about mental health, and asking your leaders to promote mental health awareness.

    A great way to do this would be to encourage sales managers to use a sales readiness platform to communicate (with feedback flowing both ways), coach, and offer direct support to their reps, especially during today’s all-remote environment. For example, Mindtickle can be used by sales managers to keep in touch with their reps on a regular cadence to check in on them as well as to coach reps on ways to minimize stress and offer tips on working smarter, not harder, to beat quotas more efficiently.

    Provide social support

    All too often, mental health issues are isolating. People regularly feel like they have to suffer in silence. In times like these, a strong and robust social support network is essential.

    A social support network is a group of people you can turn to for support in times of need — particularly if you are experiencing mental health issues. Your support network may include family, friends, colleagues, or even online communities.
    Building your social support network is as simple as identifying the people in your life with whom you feel comfortable sharing important thoughts and feelings.

    According to Very Well, some of the key benefits of social support are increased motivation, healthier choices, and reduced stress. They add, “psychologists and other mental health professionals often talk about the importance of having a strong social support network. Research has also demonstrated the link between social relationships and many different aspects of health and wellness.”
    For many people, workplace teams can feel like a second family. As such, workplace social support is critical to supporting your sales team’s mental health.

    According to Health Behavior and Health Education, there are four different ways to provide social support. These are:

    • Emotional support, which means “expressions of empathy, love, trust, and caring.”
    • Instrumental support, which means offering “tangible aid and service.”
    • Informational support, which means offering “advice, suggestions, and information.”
    • Appraisal support, which means “providing information that is useful for self-evaluation.“

    To best support your sales team’s mental health, keep these four types of social support in mind.

    Promote mental health self-care strategies

    Finally, encouraging teams to develop mental health self-care plans is an excellent strategy for supporting your sales team’s mental health. In simple terms, a mental health self-care plan is a list of activities or techniques that you can turn to when things feel overwhelming. A mental health self-care plan can include general self-care, self-care at work, interpersonal self-care, and psychological self-care.

    General self-care strategies might include getting enough sleep and exercise and following a healthy and nourishing diet. In an office context, self-care might mean regularly checking in with your supervisor to reduce stress when your workload feels overwhelming, setting strict work-life boundaries, or taking regular self-care breaks throughout the day.

    Finally, psychological self-care strategies can include making time for hobbies, reframing negative thoughts, mindfulness meditation, and yoga.

    Tackling mental health can be a daunting task. Luckily, Go1 makes it easier, especially when its content can be used on Mindtickle, where it can be part of the ongoing readiness and enablement experience for every valued team member, helping to mitigate stress and address mental health issues head-on. With a range of mental health courses from world-class training providers, Go1 can help support your sales team’s mental health, reduce stigmas, and start open, productive conversations.

    Want to learn more about how you can leverage Go1 content on the Mindtickle platform? Request a demo here.

    The post Taking the Stress Out of Selling: 3 Steps to Keeping Your Teams Healthy and Productive appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    3 Priorities to Enable Digital-First Sales Teams from Experts at TOPO and SecureAuth https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/3-priorities-to-enable-digital-first-sales-teams-from-experts-at-topo-and-secureauth/ Sat, 05 Sep 2020 01:17:24 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/3-priorities-to-enable-digital-first-sales-teams-from-experts-at-topo-and-secureauth/ Enablement has been hard at work helping organizations and their sales teams accomplish change for a while now, but never at the pace we’ve seen over the past few months. In response to shifts in buyer and market demands, enablement has at once had to reinvent messaging, sales tactics and processes, all while helping sales …

    The post 3 Priorities to Enable Digital-First Sales Teams from Experts at TOPO and SecureAuth appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Enablement has been hard at work helping organizations and their sales teams accomplish change for a while now, but never at the pace we’ve seen over the past few months. In response to shifts in buyer and market demands, enablement has at once had to reinvent messaging, sales tactics and processes, all while helping sales teams navigate a heavier reliance on technology. Yes, enablement — along with operations — has facilitated the change needed so newly digital-first sales teams can continue with business as usual.

    In a recent webinar, sales enablement experts from TOPO and SecureAuth outlined three things they’ve learned over the past few months that are essential to enabling the success of digital-first sales teams.

    Shift in-person onboarding and re-boarding learning to a self-paced and milestone-driven model.
    A virtual buying environment, changes in pipeline initiatives and target markets, and shifts in territory coverage have all put pressure on enablement to rethink the competencies, skills and technology needed to create effective sellers. Now more than ever, defined competencies must match the evolving needs of buyers. For example, a strong shift to customer centricity means that enablement must refocus messaging on the needs of the buyer rather than a product pitch. And, because relationship-building is done remotely, enablement must consider how sellers can capture a virtual audience with standout selling skills or social selling. Enablement also must develop virtual selling and tools programs that teach sellers about all the tech tools available to engage buyers.

    Of course, learning these new competencies no longer takes place in a classroom, and organizations can’t necessarily rely on after-hours practice. Rather, onboarding and re-boarding exists through buyer centricity; a demonstrated ability to execute sales plays with the right skills (milestones); interactive training requiring the practice of key messaging skills (experiential learning); and feedback from mentors, managers and peers (mentoring and feedback).

    One way SecureAuth’s enablement team demonstrated its reinvention of onboarding and re-boarding was through a virtual sales kickoff. For just two hours each day for four days, SecureAuth’s sales enablement team focused on two areas that could move the needle: deal velocity and sales excellence. They homed in on a buyer-centric vision they wanted their team to embrace, and explored how to accelerate internal processes to make it easier for sellers to let the buyers buy. They discussed teamwork, internal collaboration and revised messaging, all over Zoom.

    Using existing logos, the team engaged in role playing to practice upselling and cross-selling. Every evening, attendees would record themselves pitching; managers were able to watch the videos and provide feedback, while at the same time getting a sense of where the sales team was in terms of communicating revised messaging. Mindtickle was used for prep work and homework; Slack for direct communication with attendees. SecureAuth even incorporated a trivia platform to bring gamification into the mix. The SKO’s experiential and peer-led nature kept the global salesforce engaged, which was key given that the remote sales team’s attention was likely divided by incoming texts and emails and distractions inherent to a work-from-home environment.

    Distribute content both traditionally and by collecting it from the front lines and redistributing. Changes and pivots in front-line messaging, new sales plays, and evolving mission-critical priorities have sparked some necessary changes in how enablement has had to deliver content over the past months. Enablement has responded by providing a seamless flow of content — but it can’t just be a content “dump.” Rather, it must be focused, concise and relevant.

    To this end, enablement must respond by developing a newsroom-like insight loop where they’re helping to collect and curate information, usually from front-line recorded conversations. A great example of this is SecureAuth’s “We Heard You” slide, which is presented at the beginning of every customer interaction to show the customer that the sellers are paying attention. It shows problems and results of the problems, as well as the desired state with the desired outcome. Creation of these slides helps SecureAuth’s enablement collect front-line messaging and distribute it digitally so the rest of the team can benefit from it.

    Enablement also must provide learning content that can be used at the right time and place by designing “just in time” learning experiences delivered in a short, impactful way with examples. Of course, part of what makes a content program successful is how it’s set up, accessible and consistently used. Enablement teams that can incorporate content into a seller’s workflow using sales enablement technology will ensure that content is convenient, used and valuable.

    Remove friction to enable effective remote coaching programs.
    One of the areas where enablement teams need to spend more resources is supporting 100% remote coaching programs for front-line managers — support in both their operating cadence as well as the tools they need in order to provide feedback to their teams.

    Defining a coaching culture is the first step here. It must be modeled at every level beginning on the first day of hire, must be peer- and feedback-driven, and must be process-driven with tools to document and track progress. The best coaching programs are the result of a partnership between enablement and operations: Performance components must be identified and aligned on to help sellers proactively focus on building selling habits that can improve overall performance.

    Enablement must also identify the tools and technology available to effectively provide virtual coaching. Last year, they held 1:1 meetings, and ride-alongs provided managers with an opportunity to observe their team in action. Today, virtual coaching sessions and recorded calls are taking the place of anything in-person. Let’s look at SecureAuth as an example.

    Over the past few months, coaching at SecureAuth has evolved significantly. Managers at SecureAuth have always been engaged coaches, but technology has made their coaching much more streamlined and straightforward. For example, rather than having to take time to listen to and analyze all call recordings, call intelligence technology helps surface trends and themes for each seller. Then, if they want to double-click on specific calls to get more information, they have the access they need to do so. The hard analytical work is done; they have the data they need to make decisions around how best to manage performance going forward.

    In the process of creating a digital-first sales team through enablement, we see that enablement is reinventing itself. No longer is it simply an engine that provides one-way information exchange. It’s instead becoming a talent development engine that provides value to organizations across industries.

    For even more details about creating a digital sales force and the reinvention of sales enablement, check out the webinar “Three Mandates for Enabling Virtual Sellers,” available now.

    The post 3 Priorities to Enable Digital-First Sales Teams from Experts at TOPO and SecureAuth appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    7 Tips for Hacking Sales Enablement to Drive Readiness in a New Era https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-tips-for-hacking-sales-enablement-to-drive-readiness-in-a-new-era/ Fri, 28 Aug 2020 22:52:46 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/7-tips-for-hacking-sales-enablement-to-drive-readiness-in-a-new-era/ A lot has changed since March — the way we interact, the way we work, the way we live. But as a SaaS-based company with high growth and high sales velocity, Security Scorecard’s goals are one thing that hasn’t changed. Rather, what’s changed are the tactics we use to achieve our goals. Now more than …

    The post 7 Tips for Hacking Sales Enablement to Drive Readiness in a New Era appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    A lot has changed since March — the way we interact, the way we work, the way we live. But as a SaaS-based company with high growth and high sales velocity, Security Scorecard’s goals are one thing that hasn’t changed. Rather, what’s changed are the tactics we use to achieve our goals.

    Now more than ever, sales organizations need smart and practical engagement, which probably looks a little different than it did at the beginning of the year. New tactics to ensure sales readiness must take into account the digital nature of our work world, where in-person interaction is now the exception rather than the rule. For the foreseeable future, leads no longer come in via live events, sales kickoffs are experienced through a screen, bootcamps and on-boarding new talent take place over video, and training and coaching are done virtually.

    Faced with this, there are some hacks that sales reps and enablement leaders can employ to navigate these new challenges and stay engaged and connected — with each other, their larger teams and the customer.

    Master the all-important virtual meeting. Aside from being familiar with the features and functionality of videoconferencing tools like Zoom, sales reps and leaders alike must ensure they have reliable internet service, quality headsets and a proper background to make remote communications as seamless as possible. This is especially important with customer meetings, as distractions and technology hiccups can negatively impact the flow of the conversation.

    Maintain clear communication and coaching. Clear communication is absolutely critical now so that sales reps are aligned and don’t feel like they’re operating in a vacuum. Sales and enablement leaders can help by keeping their team informed about the company’s approach to the new normal, new messaging and training. In addition, boost morale by recognizing accomplishments, whether in one-on-one meetings or in a virtual group setting.

    Align with marketing. Collaboration between sales and marketing hasn’t always been easy, but it’s more important now than ever. By working more closely together, sales can benefit from open lines of communication with customers across all digital channels to find and nurture leads and tie into the marketing side of the sale cycle.

    Support sales with technology. It’s imperative to support sales and keep remote workers connected with technology. For example, at Security Scorecard, we use Slack to send out daily selling tips, a new piece of content or a new top track that a sales rep used to communicate ROI. We also use technology to record sales conversations to help with on-boarding and training, and Mindtickle to reinforce reps’ product knowledge with continuous learning, refresh messaging and re-certify through virtual role play and assessments. And short training videos — maybe three to five minutes long — are perfect for driving home new tips and information that help the sales rep be successful.

    Engage with the customer in the context of the new world. More than ever, it’s critical for sales reps to understand that the customer is going through their own unique situation, and the sales rep must be empathetic to that. Messaging should be very deliberate and delivered in a way that keeps in mind the customer’s own circumstances: Perhaps their budget has been cut or they’re working from home; maybe they’ve been told to go through a risk exercise. In short, time saved by not traveling to meet a customer in person should be spent on building relationships against the backdrop of this new normal.

    Keep an eye on data, metrics and feedback to determine where sales enablement can boost sales velocity. Clearly, sales enablement can’t expect that tactics and strategies that worked before will work now to generate higher sales velocity. But determining what, exactly, to tweak is difficult to pinpoint without the insight gleaned from data, metrics and even the minds of those in the trenches. Start by tracking the four factors affecting sales velocity using this equation:

    number of opportunities in the pipeline x average deal size x win rate
    ————————————————————————
    sales cycle

    The resulting value is the amount of money coming into the company on any given day or month. Tracking this number over time can help optimize sales processes and tactics, and highlight what kinds of enablement programs can have an impact. Outside of hard numbers, sales enablement leaders can also tap into the reps themselves. Surveys or polls can yield insight that helps fine tune sales enablement programs so that they work for more reps, more often.

    Plan for the future. Engage with marketing and the entire sales organization to determine how enablement programs and strategy should be adjusted for the future. Explore how the market opportunity has changed and how to optimize account plans for new market opportunities. Reps can provide insight into how demand has changed in their territory, what the most frequent objections are, which channels perform best and the ideal customer profile. External information, such as from market research firms and investment banks, can also yield information to help companies plan for the future.

    As we move forward, sales enablement leaders must prepare for more of the same. Taking time to optimize training and materials so that they work for a remote workforce and finding new ways to communicate and engage with the team and customer are critical if sales organizations are to continue to come out on top in our new normal.

    For more information, check out my webinar, Sales Enablement Hacks: Keeping Remote Sales Teams from Falling Asleep Into the Next Normal.

    The post 7 Tips for Hacking Sales Enablement to Drive Readiness in a New Era appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Lessons Learned: Tales from a Virtual Business Review https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/lessons-learned-tales-from-a-virtual-business-review/ Fri, 28 Aug 2020 17:49:22 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/lessons-learned-tales-from-a-virtual-business-review/ This month, we held our second all-virtual sales QBR (Quarterly Business Review) here at Mindtickle, and like the one we held last quarter, we had some successes, but more importantly some lessons learned. These points are what I want to focus on here in order to help fellow enablement professionals as they are thinking about …

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    This month, we held our second all-virtual sales QBR (Quarterly Business Review) here at Mindtickle, and like the one we held last quarter, we had some successes, but more importantly some lessons learned. These points are what I want to focus on here in order to help fellow enablement professionals as they are thinking about executing all-virtual events, especially ones that hold as much importance to field reps as a QBR does. 

    The Successes

    Success #1: Gathering input from the teams is extremely important not only for setting the agenda, but also creating an atmosphere of collaboration. I sent a survey beforehand asking the field if they preferred two half-days, or one longer day of sessions. The consensus was that two half-days would be better, so we delivered sessions over two days, 4-hours a piece. This small change helped keep attention towards the sessions without getting Zoom fatigue. Also, using Mindtickle’s pre-built templates helped ensure that the content over the two days was aligned with the time expectations of the field. 

    Success #2: Pre-work is just as essential if not more so than the actual QBR itself.  Work done before fosters engagement with the team that will help them get more out the session.  The pre-work we asked the field to complete included a series of videos highlighting each session with the following:

    • 3 objectives the participants can expect to learn as a result of the session
    • Best next action or takeaway that the rep can expect to take back to their territory as a result of the session
    • An opportunity to ask the presenter a question based on the topic they were planning to present

    Completing this pre-work allowed the participants to get a glimpse of the agenda while providing context. An additional benefit is this drives more interactivity during the actual sessions with the built-in questions as pre-work.

    Success #3: Another part of the pre-work was their response to a simple question: What do you want to learn at the QBR? We caveated that with the fact that we would not be able to address all topics, but I took the feedback and customized the topics to cater to the specific needs of the field. More importantly, as we prepped the presenters, we were able to verify that their topics matched the expectations of the team, which we further emphasized during our dry runs with each presenter.

    Success #4: Having a theme for your QBR provides focus for the agenda, the speakers and the presentations. Last QBR, I wasn’t explicit or direct with a theme. This time, however, I made sure that our theme was emphasized in some form during each of the presentations. Additionally, the post-work we set up to follow QBR was specifically tied to the theme in order to reiterate the importance to the field. Furthermore, we put together role-play exercises so the field felt more confidence around that theme.

    Lessons to Remember

    Lesson learned #1: Keeping speakers on schedule and within their allotted times is difficult no matter how much you plan. But within a virtual environment, this is even more essential.  Although some flexibility is required, virtual meetings can quickly get out of hand in terms of time allotments, and it is important to moderate the time slots and keep presenters on topic. Always provide some buffer in the time allotted to each speaker and build that into your schedule.

    Lesson learned 2: Ensure the team is engaged is a challenge regardless of how much you plan especially because of the volume of content and topics. For me, organizing sessions through a sales readiness platform such as Mindtickle allows other presenters and participants to review the agenda and enroll in individual sessions ahead of time. Also, I used quizzes and games tied to a leaderboard to showcase team members completed assignments and retained knowledge of what they learned.

    Lesson learned 3: No matter how much you shorten the agenda, QBRs require a significant time commitment from the team. The virtual QBR is even more difficult because you’re either focusing on the video call intently or you’re easily distracted (e.g. emails, phone, etc.).  So remember to build in sufficient breaks for attendees. I like to fill breaks with small tasks and knowledge checks, but it is important that we give people TRUE breaks to let them take a breath and reset for the next set of sessions. 

    Overall, a successful virtual QBR relies heavily on preparation from both the enablement team who is organizing the event, to the participants who will be consuming the content. Keeping the presenters aligned to the specific needs of what sales needs to know in order to sell more software is key. Knowledge fall-off is a real thing, and without a plan around reiteration and reinforcement, the topics will quickly be forgotten. If the presentations and topics are relevant, tied to a sales role, quick to learn, and aligned with the initiatives of both the department and the company, your QBR has a higher likelihood of success. The most important thing to remember is to have fun!

    For more information, check out our Quick Start Kit for Virtual Sales Events.

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    Mindtickle Partners with Halifax Consulting To Address UK and EMEA Demand for Sales Enablement and Readiness https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-partners-with-halifax-consulting-to-address-uk-and-emea-demand-for-sales-enablement-and-readiness/ Wed, 29 Jul 2020 13:00:10 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-partners-with-halifax-consulting-to-address-uk-and-emea-demand-for-sales-enablement-and-readiness/ Partnership Brings Sales Readiness to European Market Through Unified Approach to Blended and Virtual Sales Training SAN FRANCISCO—July 29, 2020— Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced a partnership with Halifax Consulting, a Paris-based Consulting & Training company focused on improving sales performance. With this partnership, EMEA customers now have a unified Sales …

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    Partnership Brings Sales Readiness to European Market Through Unified Approach to Blended and Virtual Sales Training

    SAN FRANCISCO—July 29, 2020— Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced a partnership with Halifax Consulting, a Paris-based Consulting & Training company focused on improving sales performance. With this partnership, EMEA customers now have a unified Sales Readiness platform that not only leverages Halifax’s content and training methodology but also completes a fully virtual or blended learning experience with Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness platform for online training, skills development and virtual role play, microlearning, ongoing reinforcement and coaching. In addition, the partnership extends Mindtickle’s ability with cultural and language support to serve European enterprises looking to enhance the readiness of their customer-facing teams.

    “The blended learning approach with Halifax on Mindtickle provides a systematic approach to learning, skills development and coaching while also allowing our people to be autonomous and flexible so they can take ownership of their own development with the guidance of Halifax experts,” said Jennifer Marien, HR Manager at Deloitte. “Collective workshops and virtual classes allow people to share their experiences and reinforces team cohesion. The role play and scenario-based practice and personalized feedback are very much appreciated by our learners. Overall, it delivers a truly enriching experience that fulfills our current needs and adapts perfectly to the current climate.”

    Halifax offers a range of consulting and training services that drive the transformation of their client sales organizations. Historically, the company has worked with multiple vendors to deliver various components of online sales training for its clients. With this partnership, Halifax can now offer a unified user experience using Mindtickle’s comprehensive Sales Readiness platform. Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness platform for onboarding, skills development, training, coaching and ongoing readiness helps organizations prepare customer-facing employees to engage with customers, whether virtually or in-person. Developing the knowledge, skills and behaviors of customer-facing reps with prescriptive and personalized learning paths that helps them drive revenue and build brand value. This, combined with Halifax’s training methodology, content and coaching expertise, provides a seamless and cohesive continuum of learning to enable mastery of critical sales skills.

    “Virtual classroom instruction combined with a platform for virtual training was quickly becoming the preferred model for sales training among organizations. It’s now mandatory to offer this,” said Eric Leconte, Head of Digital Development at Halifax. “By partnering with Mindtickle, we can offer a single platform that eliminates any complexities that point solutions may introduce to an organization’s sales enablement program. At the same time, we can offer our joint customers a best-in-class program for training, coaching and guidance that is tailored down to the individual needs of each sales rep. This just in time and just in context approach to enablement and readiness improves engagement and knowledge retention, allows for more time spent on revenue-producing activities.”

    “Our partnership with Halifax represents two leaders united in extending a best-in-class readiness and enablement experience to customers around the world,” said Kevin Matsushita, Head of Partnerships and Alliances at Mindtickle. “Together, we are redefining expectations for a Sales Readiness solution with one, unified platform that addresses everything from content to virtual instruction and reinforced learning to coaching — critical elements for creating a sales-ready team.”

    For more information about how a data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement fuels revenue growth, visit www.mindtickle.com. To learn about Halifax Consulting and their leading training, methodology and consulting expertise, visit https://www.halifax-consulting.com/en/.

     

    Additional resources:

     

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand value for dozens of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, and hundreds of the world’s most recognized companies across technology, life sciences, financial services, manufacturing and service sectors. With purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness, Mindtickle enables company leaders and sellers to continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Mindtickle has been recognized by leading industry analyst and research firms and has been ranked on G2’s Best Software 2020 lists as the #1 Enterprise Software Product and the 5th ranked software product for sales. For more information visit www.Mindtickle.com or find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    pr[at]www.mindtickle.com

    # # #

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    It’s Not All About Efficiency – The Missing Link to Consistent Sales Performance https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/its-not-all-about-efficiency-the-missing-link-to-consistent-sales-performance/ Thu, 25 Jun 2020 20:00:12 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/its-not-all-about-efficiency-the-missing-link-to-consistent-sales-performance/ Balancing the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales team is a delicate act. Although closely intertwined, each plays a critical role in your sellers’ success – and the success of your business.  In the age of the customer, success ultimately does not come down to how many dials a seller makes, but to the impact …

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    Balancing the efficiency and effectiveness of your sales team is a delicate act. Although closely intertwined, each plays a critical role in your sellers’ success – and the success of your business. 

    In the age of the customer, success ultimately does not come down to how many dials a seller makes, but to the impact and quality of the customer conversation. Sellers often get one shot to deliver value to buyers who have already completed much of their journey alone. A rep’s confidence and readiness in these critical moments can mean the difference between a win or loss.

    Many leaders live and breathe the philosophy: “Keep the reps dialing – we can’t waste time on non-selling activities.” But what if the time spent off the floor is directly correlated to making reps more effective in closing deals? Used wisely, this time can create consistency and predictability in your reps producing desired results. 

    When done well, pulling reps off the floor to make them more effective can have a massive impact on performance. Efficiency may save time and effort – but effectiveness closes deals.

    THE KEY TO IMPROVING SELLER EFFECTIVENESS

    You’ve made the decision to invest time in enabling your salespeople – now what? The most successful companies ensure that their enablement activities are aligned to business initiatives and focused on increasing sales effectiveness

    To prepare your teams to have the most effective customer conversations, your sellers need the perfect combination of role- and regional-specific content and training plus guidance on when and how to use it – all at the moment of action.

    Within Highspot’s sales enablement platform, training and guidance come to life in the form of industry-first SmartPage technology. Enablement leaders can build out dynamic sales plays that help salespeople what they need to know, say, show and do in every unique customer conversation. With context on how to use the content, combined with experiential training, sellers are equipped to make the most of critical customer moments. 

    When preparing to pull your reps off the floor for an enablement session, follow these do’s and don’ts to ensure your training is relevant, actionable and measurable.  

    What to Avoid What to Do
    Generic presentations for all customer-facing teams  Role-specific content aligned to the buyer’s journey and sales process
    Global training programs that lack specific regional intelligence Role- and region-specific training programs that are interactive, engaging and ongoing
    Long-form static playbook used primarily in onboarding Plays that provide guidance for specific scenarios at the moment of action 
    Massive dump of competitive information Dynamic, curated competitive intelligence with customer stories to prove differentiation delivered in consumable microlearning formats
    Enablement updates sent via email Engaging homepages with the latest content, training and best practices to win with customers 
    Communication of business initiatives solely at the annual sales kickoff  Consistent consumable communications and a feedback loop on business initiatives, as well as guidance for customer-facing teams on how to execute 
    No clear way to measure the adoption and effectiveness of your business initiatives  Scorecards and analytics to measure the effectiveness of enablement programs and understand the sellers demonstrable capabilities with the ability to segment by initiative, role, region and more 

     

    MASTERING THE BALANCING ACT

    Efficiency alone is not enough. Your reps might be holding one hundred conversations a day, but if they’re not the right ones, then they will not be successful in driving your desired business outcomes. 

    To help your salespeople be more effective in producing results, you have to build, land, and optimize your training and guidance. Take action with Highspot’s Guidance Framework eBook that outlines how you can enable your revenue teams to provide value in every customer conversation. 

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    Keeping Your Remote Workforce On Message with the 2 C’s of Readiness for Remote Managers and Coaches https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/keeping-your-remote-workforce-on-message-with-the-2-cs-of-readiness-for-remote-managers-and-coaches/ Sat, 20 Jun 2020 04:26:12 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/keeping-your-remote-workforce-on-message-with-the-2-cs-of-readiness-for-remote-managers-and-coaches/ A remote workforce can be difficult to navigate especially for sales enablement leaders. And as some employees begin to return to an office, the ‘new normal’ of a hybrid environment will continue to increase these complexities. Regardless of location, sales enablement leaders must keep customer-facing teams actively engaged. In this context, the 2 C’s of …

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    A remote workforce can be difficult to navigate especially for sales enablement leaders. And as some employees begin to return to an office, the ‘new normal’ of a hybrid environment will continue to increase these complexities. Regardless of location, sales enablement leaders must keep customer-facing teams actively engaged. In this context, the 2 C’s of readiness enablement, Communication and Coaching are critical to get right. 

    Personalizing and adapting two-way communication, enabling new and upgraded remote selling skills while enabling visibility and the ability to intervene with proactive coaching (even at a distance) is a North Star for the emerging normal. Although challenging, working remotely is no excuse to pull back on training and coaching investments because it can be done just as well as in the office. 

    Before further discussing how to effectively facilitate remote training and coaching, sales enablement leaders must first make certain that all pertinent information and content are specific to the markets, segments and customers that your team is contacting. It needs to be closely aligned with the steps and activities sales reps execute as part of the process. Finally,  it must be in line with the sales methodology and expectations for customer-facing interactions and be designed to deliver visibility on delivery, engagement, usage and satisfaction for managers. This last point is critical as remote coaching programs and initiatives become critical in the emerging virtual everywhere environment. While self-service and 2-ways communications are a basic first principle for remote enablement, ensuring managers participate as recipients and coaches ensures that updates are resulting in updated teams. . 

    With that in place, let’s dive into how to ensure sales enablement delivers value for remote workers. First, every content asset and communication designed to align with and keep the sales force highly engaged must deliver ROI. Enabling this requires the following: 

    • Frequent push and pull-based, personalized communications sent in a rep’s preferred channel that will draw greater interest in training. For example, communications that pop up in the flow of a sales rep’s daily work life — such as in an email or app, through the Salesforce dashboard or other CRM, or in newsletters — drive higher engagement.
    • Reps must be able to consume content on their own schedule and modality. Never has this been more important than now, with an often-unpredictable work environment and work hours. Understanding engagement trends – what modules or learning is most revisited, offline vs. online consumption trends, mobile minutes, responsiveness to digital reminders are just a few of the compelling metrics afforded by modern platforms that should be embraced by managers and executives for coaching engagement as much as administrators of platforms. 
    • Learning delivered in different formats caters to different learning styles. Microlearning in the form of videos, polls, quizzes, podcasts and gamified content tends to drive higher consumption and retention among reps. Video is also a powerful tool for practicing and polishing pitches through guided role play. With it, reps can practice interacting with customers in simulated sales scenarios to improve their presentations and get real-time feedback from managers or coworkers. 
    • Don’t overlook remote coaching engagement. With regular video coaching sessions and use of shared competency assessments, reps and managers can prioritize, build and track skills incrementally while also providing valuable inputs to readiness and enablement teams. And, when it has structure and regular cadence, virtual coaching can be as valuable as in-person coaching while being cost and commute efficient.

    Keeping remote employees engaged and active isn’t a challenge relegated only to sales enablement leaders. CMOs and CROs alike are indirectly impacted by sales enablement’s success too, because hitting their numbers depends on reps’ active engagement with sales training. With CMOs heavily involved in driving leads through the sales pipeline, they must engage, motivate and align customer-facing teams with new, innovative messaging, the latest content and other assets, and new and ongoing campaigns. CROs need to equally be involved in engagement, adoption and effective tactics in order to achieve revenue targets.

    With that in mind, CMOs and CROs can help their team stay aligned in this remote setting and confirm that they’re retaining information in the following ways. 

    • Monitor updates in activity logs in the CRM
    • Conduct one-on-ones with managers and engagement reporting
    • Gather feedback from the field
    • Measure the amount of content consumption

    By monitoring whether their teams are seeing an uptick in deal velocity across stages and over time, driving better engagement with buyers, and securing more ‘solutioning’ activities like workshops and proofs of concept, CMOs and CROs can identify problem areas and develop plans of action to address them. And finally, by maintaining open lines of communication with marketing, revenue and marketing leaders can ensure the most impactful content is pushed out in the most effective ways. After all, we know what messaging will resonate with which channels to drive revenue.

    It’s unclear when we’ll be able to get back to business as usual, but that doesn’t mean that sales training and coaching initiatives should be put on hold. In fact, the 2 C’s of readiness enablement – Communication and Coaching – are more important than ever to ensure that sales teams are engaged and on message. Customer-facing employees can keep some sense of normalcy and continuity in their day-to-day by continuing to develop their skill sets from home, the office or a combination of both. Companies with an understanding that training, coaching and microlearning are the key to driving consistent customer engagement and messaging will be poised for success in today’s ‘new normal’. 

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    Mindtickle Partners with Sandler Training to Deliver Personalized World-Class Sales Readiness https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-partners-with-sandler-training-to-deliver-personalized-world-class-sales-readiness/ Thu, 11 Jun 2020 13:00:23 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-partners-with-sandler-training-to-deliver-personalized-world-class-sales-readiness/ Partnership combines leading sales methodology with proven sales enablement and readiness technology to drive revenue growth  SAN FRANCISCO—June 11, 2020—Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced a partnership with Sandler Training, the largest sales, management and leadership training organization, providing sales organizations with personalized training to improve customer engagement and drive revenue growth. …

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    Partnership combines leading sales methodology with proven sales enablement and readiness technology to drive revenue growth 

    SAN FRANCISCO—June 11, 2020—Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced a partnership with Sandler Training, the largest sales, management and leadership training organization, providing sales organizations with personalized training to improve customer engagement and drive revenue growth. Sandler Training content for sales and sales managers can now be tailored with a data-driven approach to further develop their skills and readiness leading to faster time to profitability and ongoing quota attainment.

    “The combination of Sandler Training and Mindtickle empowers professionals to change behaviors, develop new attitudes and improve techniques,” said David Mattson, CEO and president of Sandler Training. “This is proving to be especially important as today’s sales landscape is going through significant short-term and long changes due to the current socio-economic crisis. Partnering with the leader in sales readiness and enablement to deliver our content and methodology was an easy choice. Mindtickle’s ability to deliver personalized and data-driven training and skills development is extremely important as sales organizations are adapting to changing market conditions, but need to meet sales goals.”

    “The partnership between Mindtickle and Sandler is ideal because Sandler provides the methodology and Mindtickle provides the accessibility and feedback loop needed.  Sandler can inject forward-thinking sales training into Mindtickle, and Mindtickle will provide Sandler better flexibility in delivery.  This is exactly what I wanted!” said Christina Ortega, sales and technical enablement leader.

    A recent study conducted by The Sales Management Association found that B2B sales organizations “delivering training continuously enjoy substantially higher rates of improvement in sales force effectiveness, improving 22% more than other firms.” As companies look to improve their sales effectiveness to maximize revenue and drive brand value, they need to provide best-in-class content, methodologies, and expertise to the sales team. However, access to content or annual training isn’t enough to ensure success. Sales organizations require ongoing learning, skills development, and coaching to reinforce best practices and keep salespeople engaged. With this partnership, organizations can leverage Sandler’s exceptional sales training content within Mindtickle’s sales enablement and sales readiness platform providing sales organizations with comprehensive sales training.

    “With companies worldwide requiring employees to work from home, but also stay engaged and effective, the need for systematic alignment of methodology including manager observation and intervention as well as disciplined seller execution has never been more important. Mindtickle and Sandler can support these sales teams with a proven standard and a playbook of best practices, content, and training that is accessible anytime and anywhere, in the context of a buyer interaction,” said Gopkiran Rao, chief strategy and marketing officer at Mindtickle. “Our partnership with Sandler Training gives organizations access to top-notch expertise, training, and methodology as part of a holistic approach to sales readiness that enables companies to meet current or adjusted revenue targets.”

    For more information about how a data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement fuels revenue growth, visit www.Mindtickle.com. To learn about Sandler’s sales, management, and leadership training, visit https://www.Sandler.com/.

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand affinity. Its purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices are designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness. With Mindtickle, company leaders and sellers can continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Companies across a wide range of industries use Mindtickle’s innovative capabilities for on-demand, online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification-based learning, coaching and role-play to ensure world-class sales performance. Mindtickle is a global, privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Visit them at www.Mindtickle.com.

    About Sandler Training
    Sandler Training dominates the global training market through an unparalleled network of more than 250 training centers worldwide, serving organizations of all sizes, from small to medium-sized businesses to global enterprise organizations. Its business experts offer leading-edge expertise on a wide range of sales, sales management, leadership, and management topics. For more information about Sandler Training, please visit www.Sandler.com.

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    pr@www.mindtickle.com

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    10 Lessons Learned from Running a Fully Remote QBR https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/10-lessons-learned-from-running-a-fully-remote-qbr/ Sat, 30 May 2020 01:31:18 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/10-lessons-learned-from-running-a-fully-remote-qbr/ Like many other companies at the moment, Mindtickle has been learning to adapt to a 100% virtual environment. As such, we just wrapped up our Q2 Quarterly Business Review (QBR), and we were able to conduct the entire process and meeting virtually. In a way, it was a living QBR with sales and other team …

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    Like many other companies at the moment, Mindtickle has been learning to adapt to a 100% virtual environment. As such, we just wrapped up our Q2 Quarterly Business Review (QBR), and we were able to conduct the entire process and meeting virtually. In a way, it was a living QBR with sales and other team members presenting content based on their own lessons learned. Fortunately, it was a success with engagement being strong throughout! But of course, there are always lessons to be learned for making these better and better over time. As the Head of Sales Readiness, I oversaw the QBR ranging from the format and structure to the sessions and post-event engagement. As part of that experience, I wanted to take the opportunity to share some of the lessons learned.

    • Make sure you have a theme. Even though I know what the theme was and the objectives, I should have communicated better to the field instead of assuming they would discern the theme by piecing all of the sessions together. Make sure to market the QBR with a lot of excitement ahead of time.
    • Pick a platform to support your plan. Without Mindtickle, it would have been difficult to put a logical framework together for the sales teams to follow. Being able to use a platform designed specifically for making virtual QBR’s successful obviously gave me an advantage. But it is important to remember that, regardless of what platform you use to execute the virtual QBR, ensure that the flow and logic of the structure make sense. I constantly checked and re-checked that the sessions were being organized in the proper order and that the times were aligned with the agenda, and the technology helped keep me accountable to that.
    • Segment your virtual QBR. Breaks are not only encouraged, they are mandatory if you want your QBR to succeed. You can’t expect to have an engaged team for a full day or a couple of half days without building in some breathing room. I built in three breaks throughout the day and that seemed sufficient, but when creating the agenda, assume that your learners are going to need mental and physical breaks throughout.
    • Pre-work is essential. While pre-work is an important part of the virtual QBR, I would incorporate additional activities including having the presenters pre-record some brief messages and shorten the live presenting time. One key learning is resist the urge to schedule 60-minute sessions in a virtual QBR. 30-minute sessions are ideal and even those can test the attention spans of reps. Make the pre-work such that the live presentations take care of themselves and all that are left are questions and possible brief reiteration.
    • Keep people excited and engaged. Not only did I build in knowledge checks throughout the day and during breaks, but we also played online games with questions and topics completely unrelated to the QBR content. It shouldn’t be all work and no play and you should give the team an opportunity for a mental break to have some fun.
    • Assign a moderator to check messages. As the organizer especially in a virtual environment using Zoom, you’ll likely be bombarded with questions, technical issues, clarification, follow-up, etc. during the QBR, which is not only difficult but stressful. Ask someone to help moderate the questions and the chatter that comes through during the day.
    • Do dry runs beforehand. The dry runs we did with the presenters allowed myself, along with sales leadership, to ensure that the message was concise and focused, which helps keep people engaged throughout the day.
    • Create breakouts to accommodate different discussions. Something we didn’t do but will certainly incorporate next time, is to use the breakout room feature in Zoom. Give the teams time to digest and talk about how they can apply what they are learning throughout the day in a safe space without worrying about interrupting the sessions.
    • Keep participants on their toes and engaged. We’ve all done it – turned off our video during a video call. To keep everyone honest, randomly ask participants to turn on their cameras and say something about themselves throughout the day. This ensures they are staying engaged and provides everyone an opportunity to learn something new about their peers.
    • Reinforce knowledge and key learnings through structured post-work. Organize post-QBR work that will make an impact and that will reiterate key themes learned throughout the day. Using Mindtickle, we accomplish this through a series of quizzes and exercises that occur right after the QBR and over several weeks to ensure knowledge reinforcement.

    While the feedback was that this was a very successful event, I (and I’m sure my enablement professionals agree) am always looking for ways to improve the experience Every training is as much a learning experience for sales enablement as it is for the sales teams.

    I hope these insights are useful and I invite fellow sales readiness and enablement professionals to comment and join the discussion. For more blogs like this and other resources to help keep teams remote and ready, visit our “Remote and Ready” page.

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    5 Tips for Developing Effective Coaching for Your Virtual Workforce https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-tips-for-developing-effective-coaching-for-your-virtual-workforce/ Sat, 30 May 2020 05:55:47 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/5-tips-for-developing-effective-coaching-for-your-virtual-workforce/ 28%…that’s how much you can improve revenues through effective sales coaching. Over the past few months, companies have faced significant challenges as their sales teams have transitioned into remote workforces. Managing productive sellers working out of home or remote offices is not a new concept, but how you approach the art and science of coaching …

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    28%…that’s how much you can improve revenues through effective sales coaching.

    Over the past few months, companies have faced significant challenges as their sales teams have transitioned into remote workforces. Managing productive sellers working out of home or remote offices is not a new concept, but how you approach the art and science of coaching must if you’re to develop and maintain productive sales activity that has shifted entirely online.

    While onboarding and business reviews are key components of sales enablement, coaching is arguably the most important – and the most difficult – to implement for the following reasons:

    • Ongoing – While onboarding focuses on providing new information to reps, coaching reinforces and builds on this foundation with additional information through continual daily and weekly sessions.
    • Individualized – Whereas business reviews are vital for ensuring alignment on company and financial goals, coaching is tailored to the needs of an individual rep accounting for their strengths, challenges, and areas for improvement.
    • Behavioral – Coaching is behavior-based and focuses on correcting a rep’s unfavorable behaviors and habits while reinforcing effective ones.

    This begins with clearly defining the benefits for your organization for developing a coaching culture. Coaching just to say you coach isn’t enough. You need to understand your audience and the benefits of setting up an ongoing meeting between manager and rep. Especially in today’s separated workforce, regular meetings over the phone or video conference are essential for developing rapport and learning from others.

    Here are useful tips for developing a successful coaching strategy.

    Tip #1: Understand the needs of your organization

    • Develop a plan that outlines the needs of the organization, and more importantly, the needs of your sales team. For example, younger sales reps will benefit more by learning from others, while experienced reps will relate to knowledge and content in more of a self-paced environment.
    • Figure out where you want the program to go and identify what results and goals you have for this program. This begins with understanding the strengths, skills gaps and areas of improvement which will be useful for developing KPI benchmarks. Ultimately, you’ll want to be able to measure, follow-up and share these findings throughout the program.

    Tip #2: No person is an island (though it feels like that sometimes)

    • While coaching is a two-way street so is the process for getting buy-in from managers and reps. You’ll need to “educate” both sides on how coaching sessions benefit their professional and financial goals.
    • When developing expectations, seek and (as needed) integrate manager and rep feedback. This provides insight into what programs are working as well as a channel for additional topical ideas.

    Tip #3: Professional development roads lead to compensation

    • Money talks, and this can be an effective way to ensure everyone participates and actively engages in the program. For example, withholding commission until all training is completed (or achieving an 80% or higher passing rate), including coaching is not uncommon in some organizations.
    • For coaches, setting evaluation parameters that tie closely to reps’ KPIs (industry/domain knowledge, communication style, and accuracy) ensure reps meet their goals. They can be specific to an initiative, such as “Did the rep determine definitive next steps at the end of the call?”, or more interpretive, such as “Could the rep speak to the client’s use case, industry, and/or market?” Evaluation parameters help guide ongoing skills development as coaches and sales administrators can track progress over time to ensure reps are improving, or if not, develop training to address their needs.

    Tip 4: Coach the coaches

    • The practice of effective coaching relies as much on the coaches as it does on the participants. Develop a program that enables your coaches with best practices before beginning a coaching program. Coaches are key allies in facilitating change management by creating a positive experience for reps, while build buy-in for managers.
    • Best practices for coaches include:
      • Communications: Coaches need to have regular cadence for communications with reps that promotes engagement and reinforces the message of the opportunity to improve.
      • Feedback: Comprehensive written feedback can benefit reps significantly and should include constructive assessments, encouraging comments, action items and next steps. Not only will the rep benefit by incorporating this feedback into his/her next conversations, but the coaches can then reference their feedback during the next coaching session to ensure the rep is improving.

    Tip 5: Measure what you sow

    • Coaching can be viewed under two primary categories: hard skills and capabilities; and soft skills and performance. Your coaching program should take these categories into consideration and align them to the strategic objectives of your business and to the day-to-day activities of the reps.
    • For reps:
      • Engagement – completed sessions and average score
      • Progression – overall scores and competency
      • Soft Skills – rate of speech, demeanor/rapport, use of filler words, persuasiveness
      • KPI Comparison – improvement over time, impact specific to the skillset
    • For coaches:
      • Total completed sessions and disapproved sessions
      • Adherence to coaching sessions, number of coaching sessions scheduled and completed over a daily, weekly and monthly basis

    For more detailed information on these tips as well as how to create your own coaching structure for your remote workforce, download our checklist for effective remote coaching and check out our 6-minute demo.

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    Mindtickle Announces AI-enhancements to Virtual Role Play for Remote Skills Development https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-announces-ai-enhancements-to-virtual-role-play-for-remote-skills-development/ Wed, 20 May 2020 12:53:15 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-announces-ai-enhancements-to-virtual-role-play-for-remote-skills-development/ Sales enablement and readiness including new Model Pitch provides self-guided practice to develop the skills of remote customer-facing representatives SAN FRANCISCO—May 20, 2020 — Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced new AI-enhancements to their Missions virtual role-play to help customer-facing reps develop and practice effective hard and soft skills necessary to be …

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    Sales enablement and readiness including new Model Pitch provides self-guided practice to develop the skills of remote customer-facing representatives

    SAN FRANCISCO—May 20, 2020 Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced new AI-enhancements to their Missions virtual role-play to help customer-facing reps develop and practice effective hard and soft skills necessary to be effective no matter where they are. Today’s environment requires customer-facing employees to be ready to deliver the right message consistently across online channels to successfully engage prospects and customers, even if they’re remote. Missions virtual role play enhanced by AI provides a system for contextual feedback and accelerates improvement cycles against the desired baseline. The solution automatically highlights areas for improvement and enables sales enablement admins and managers to provide high-value coaching and feedback from improvement in real-time.

    “At e-Builder, we take pride in delivering a consistently exceptional level of customer experience and Mindtickle has been extremely effective at ensuring our sales teams are capable of that goal,” said Jon Antevy, co-founder at e-Builder, Inc. “We can ensure our sellers are engaging with our training, have demonstrated comprehension, proficiency and capability in being on message, and can be effective in the real world. The AI-powered capabilities of auto-reviews, including analysis of keywords, filler words, and cadence helps reps improve their practice sessions before they submit role plays. And for reviewers, the insights allow them to quickly identify and develop the necessary knowledge and skills for our reps to be successful. The new Model Pitch offering takes the value even further by allowing us to show what the ideal message and delivery looks like and creates a framework to systematically develop those attributes.”

    “Missions” virtual role-play allows sellers to develop their skills through practice voice-over slideshow, video role-play, email and task execution, and voice-over screen share in one unified experience tied to training, knowledge reinforcement and coaching. Mindtickle’s lead in the market has been demonstrated by advances in AI and machine learning capabilities, enhancing the user experience, as well as enabling user management at enterprise scale. This includes automated transcription, keyword and sentiment analysis, filler words, as well as length and speech pace. Mindtickle’s new Model Pitch capability builds on these capabilities allowing admins to now add a ‘Model Pitch’ to Missions to provide a best practice example for users. The Model Pitch can be created by leadership, product marketing, or brand marketing teams to ensure consistent messaging and maximize brand value. The AI-enhanced assistance automatically transcribes and extracts keywords from the Model Pitch, reducing Admin’s manual effort and streamlining the Mission creation process.

    According to the Forrester SiriusDecisions Research Brief, The Economics of Sales Talent: Improving Rep Quality, the authors state:

    Various technology platforms (e.g. video coaching, e-learning solutions, gamification applications) provide modern, digital- and Millennial-friendly formats for interactive sales competency learning and validation. Organizations that report highly effective video role-play deployments are 120 percent more likely than others to achieve their annual team-wide sales quota. Sales enablement must incorporate coaching tools into reps’ initial training. This is particularly important for sales professionals, whose eventual success is heavily influenced by how they interact with prospects and buyers. It also provides an opportunity to quickly identify individuals who are unlikely to succeed in the role for which they were hired.

    The benefits of AI-enhanced virtual role play is that customer-facing reps can refer to the Model Pitch before attempting the Mission exercise and practice the best-in-class messaging recommended by their organization. Once a Mission draft is recorded, instant AI-based feedback helps Learners easily identify gaps in keywords to use, words to avoid, speech pace, submission length, and filler word usage. Similarly, reviewers whether they admins, managers, or coaches, can now provide feedback by comparing the reps’ submissions to the standard set by the Model Pitch.

    “Being remote and ready means skills development has to happen remotely as well. Doing this virtually at enterprise scale effectively requires a modern, AI-enhanced approach, said Nishant Mungali, chief product officer at Mindtickle. “Virtual skill development is not just operationally efficient but we are making it more comprehensive and effective through technology innovation. Mindtickle is preparing sales reps to be on message and on task every time, no matter where they are in the sales process or the customer’s buying journey.”

    “Missions is particularly relevant for customer-facing teams that more than ever before need to be ready to engage with and advise prospects and customers, whether they continue to operate within the confines of an online interaction or in the future, in person,” said Gopkiran Rao, chief strategy and marketing officer at Mindtickle. “With decentralized sales forces, managers don’t have the chance to do live shadowing and observation, role plays or discussions. Reps and managers are in different time zones and meeting less often, yet new tools, skills, or knowledge training still need to be rolled out. The only way to accomplish all of this and drive toward faster time to field readiness is to leverage a systematic and data-driven approach to onboarding, skills development, training, coaching and ongoing readiness.”

     

    For additional information:

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand value for dozens of Fortune 500 and Global 2000 companies, and hundreds of the world’s most recognized companies across technology, life sciences, financial services, manufacturing and service sectors. With purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness, Mindtickle enables company leaders and sellers to continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Mindtickle has been recognized by leading industry analyst and research firms and has been ranked on G2’s Best Software 2020 lists as the #1 Enterprise Software Product and the 5th ranked software product for sales. For more information visit www.Mindtickle.com or find us on LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    PR(at)www.mindtickle.com

    # # #

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    Mindtickle Introduces Model Pitch: A New Way for Self-Guided Practice and Improved Message Consistency https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mindtickle-introduces-model-pitch-self-guided-practice-message-consistency/ Wed, 20 May 2020 17:50:33 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/mindtickle-introduces-model-pitch-self-guided-practice-message-consistency/ In our current dynamic environment, businesses across the globe are shifting gears. With the increasing adoption of working remotely, sales organizations are re-evaluating processes and operating procedures. With this change, many sales organization are facing one or more of the following challenges: Fewer face to face meetings – With more buyers starting to work from …

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    In our current dynamic environment, businesses across the globe are shifting gears. With the increasing adoption of working remotely, sales organizations are re-evaluating processes and operating procedures. With this change, many sales organization are facing one or more of the following challenges:

    1. Fewer face to face meetings – With more buyers starting to work from home, they are canceling in-person meetings. Field sales have had to transition to primarily inside sales tactics
    2. The shift in target buyer/industry/vertical – With more traditional companies increasingly trying to adopt digital tools, there is an opportunity to address their needs
    3. Budget cuts – Buyers will spend their time and money wisely. Sellers need to focus on mission-critical challenges now more than ever

    You need to make sure your sales organization is ready to address these challenges. They need to be able to sell on the phone, be able to position your offering to a new industry, and also focus on the mission-critical business challenges of the buyer.

    Now more than ever before, sellers are expected to deliver the right messaging consistently in each and every sales conversation. Delivering the wrong or inconsistent messages will hurt revenue outcomes and result in lost opportunities or diminished brand value.

    There are three factors which are impacting your seller’s readiness to be on message:

    1. Not knowing what ‘good’ looks like
    2. Lack of meaningful feedback
    3. Longer feedback and improvement cycles

    Mindtickle’s Missions virtual role play has always helped sellers overcome these challenges. And we’re doubling down on using AI to further assist sellers with Model Pitch.

    Introducing Model Pitch

    We are introducing the ability to put what good looks like in the flow of practice. Model pitch is the best-in-class pitch or a response to a particular sales scenario. And you’re probably sharing it with the sellers as:

    • Standard scripts shared with sales teams (BDRs, medical sales reps, etc)
    • Standard responses to handling objection
    • Call snippets of a great phone or web conference conversation
    • A recorded video from a senior leader or a rockstar seller
    • Collateral from product marketing or brand management teams

    Until now customers have been adding these as attachments in role play practice sessions or adding them to bite-sized Quick Updates or Courses so sellers learn from these and use them during their sales conversations.

    Now, users will be able to leverage Model Pitch in Missions to deliver faster and meaningful feedback to sellers. This will also help sellers address some basic gaps before their manager provides them feedback.

    Let’s see how Model Pitch and AI-enhanced analysis helps the three key users of the platform; Enablement Admins, Sellers, and Managers.

    Enablement Admins

    With the recent enhancements, admins can now configure keywords or phrases to include as well as avoid for their Missions. Configuring keywords or phrases to include is now simpler and automated by the use of Model Pitch. Mindtickle’s system automatically transcribes and fetches keywords or phrases such as names of businesses, people, location verbs, etc. Overall it is less tedious for admins to set up a Mission and much quicker.

    Sellers

    Sellers can learn what good looks like using Model Pitch before they practice. Every time they make a recording to practice, Mindtickle now delivers instant and meaningful feedback to them. It helps them find improvement areas. They can leverage the feedback and the model pitch to learn how to address the improvement areas and practice again. With feedback available at every practice, the seller is becoming consistent with the best in class pitch.

    Managers

    Managers can now focus on providing much more valuable feedback beyond the basic feedback which AI covered.

    With these insights, managers can also identify and prioritize the seller who needs the feedback first, so that the manager can help them improve and get them to the required readiness levels.

    We received incredible feedback from our users as we built the AI-based capabilities. 94% of them found these insights helpful while practicing and reviewing role plays. With these new capabilities in Missions, you can reduce the seller’s time to readiness and ensure they are well-verse to deliver the right message consistently. Someone rightly said, higher the readiness, better the sales outcomes! And we are just getting started. We’ll bring more AI-based insights to help improve the hard and soft skills needed to win customers.

    To learn more about Mindtickle’s virtual role play or our readiness platform, read our press release or request a demo here. Or if you’re already a customer and have any questions, please reach out to your Mindtickle Customer Success representative.

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    My Advice for the New World of Sales Onboarding – Leveraging Readiness Technology to Ensure Success https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/advice-new-world-of-sales-onboarding/ Sat, 16 May 2020 04:56:13 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/advice-new-world-of-sales-onboarding/ Prior to COVID-19, in the “old world,” sales readiness leaders and teams had one main responsibility: to deliver and personalize an adaptable learning experience across the life cycle of a seller. The goal was to achieve a perfect combination of knowledge and skills and behaviors in the field that would translate to more deals closed. …

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    Prior to COVID-19, in the “old world,” sales readiness leaders and teams had one main responsibility: to deliver and personalize an adaptable learning experience across the life cycle of a seller. The goal was to achieve a perfect combination of knowledge and skills and behaviors in the field that would translate to more deals closed.

    Old-world sales readiness teams managed onboarding by hosting cohorts of new hires at their headquarters for live training. They attended live presentations, listened in on meetings, and reviewed pitch decks and demos. Managers had one-on-one, in-person conversations with their direct reports and customers. In the old world, an interconnectivity existed, helped along by unscripted learning moments that occurred every day.

    In just a few short months, working remotely has become the rule rather than the exception, and it’ll remain like this for the foreseeable future. Already, Google and Twitter announced their employees will work from home for the rest of 2020, and it’s likely many more businesses will follow suit.

    In this “new world,” many of the in-person elements critical to effective sales onboarding are lost, such as travel, shadowing, new-hire boot camps, or team bonding. Remote sellers are faced with any number of challenges, such as connectivity issues resulting from shared bandwidth or IT problems; distractions like kids, pets, roommates or the leaf blower across the street; and lastly, misconstrued communications.
    In order to continue to prepare our sellers to be effective against the backdrop of this new world, sales readiness teams must rapidly pivot and re-strategize, incorporating and accommodating new success criteria into readiness programs, such as re-boarding, re-skilling and virtual instructor-led training (VILT). Of course, technology like a Sales Readiness platform can help underpin a fast, successful transition to the new remote world or be leveraged even more for a fully virtual approach to sales training and coaching.

    Effective sales readiness in the new world
    Now, sales readiness teams must be even more resourceful, creative and efficient in how they run an effective onboarding and continuous learning program. For example, new hires working remotely won’t be able to organically get a feel for company culture; therefore, sales readiness teams must find ways to virtually share the culture. And, instead of adding more content, sales readiness teams must re-strategize to provide context and community for the new hires. By personalizing learning, offering courses with some assessments along the way, and empowering reps to manage HR and administrative tasks on their own time with checklists, sales readiness teams can create an engaging onboarding and continuous learning program conducted remotely.

    To replicate in-person engagement and facilitate additional learning, sales readiness teams must also quickly ramp up on web conferencing technologies that enable VILT and virtual conferencing tools like breakout rooms and whiteboards. Also, include video practice and virtual role-play capabilities that show reps’ incremental improvements. A program that includes these elements — as well as analysis to track metrics — can serve as the framework for ongoing learning.

    Technologies that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) make all the difference in an effective sales readiness program for the new world. For example, let’s say that the CEO of a company wants to get field reps’ feedback on new messaging. An email is sent out containing videos with the new messaging and instructions to vote on which video they like best. If the company is using something like Mindtickle, the winning video can be loaded into a Mission in Mindtickle and the AI assistant helps the reps with the keywords and phrases that they need to replicate or assimilate. These are then shown as a benchmark for each draft the reps record during their practice. As reps practice, they are able to see how their pitch compares to the winning video and adjust to ensure continuity of the messaging and accountability. And lastly, once submitted, rep performance can easily be assessed at scale, with the AI assistant helping with speed and accuracy of the assessment.

    Incentivizing has never been more important in driving remote reps’ engagement and participation, so sales readiness teams should incorporate games and competitions into their remote readiness programs. As an added benefit, these elements also help managers to be more involved and to track reps’ learning and skills progression.

    Final thoughts
    Above all else, it’s important to gather ideas and be thoughtful about how to approach and implement a sales enablement and readiness program in this new world. The best way to create a surge of excitement about learning going forward is by asking for feedback from all parties involved. This also ensures you get the messaging right. Technology will make many tasks easier, and there are so many to choose from to tackle almost any task you can think of. Being creative with tech tools and using them during virtual engagements will be critical to the success of the program.

    By embracing the challenges and changes brought about by the new world and doubling-down on the right technology, smart leaders and companies will continue to grow and prosper.

    The post My Advice for the New World of Sales Onboarding – Leveraging Readiness Technology to Ensure Success appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Ensuring Engagement and Messaging Consistency With Today’s Remote Workforce https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/ensuring-engagement-messaging-consistency-remote-workforce/ Sat, 09 May 2020 04:29:47 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/ensuring-engagement-messaging-consistency-remote-workforce/ For sales enablement leaders, a remote workforce can be difficult to navigate. Their daily mandate is to keep customer-facing teams actively engaged through sales training and coaching, which can be challenging to conduct primarily or entirely remotely — or are they? The fact is, working remotely is no excuse to pull back on training and …

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    For sales enablement leaders, a remote workforce can be difficult to navigate. Their daily mandate is to keep customer-facing teams actively engaged through sales training and coaching, which can be challenging to conduct primarily or entirely remotely — or are they? The fact is, working remotely is no excuse to pull back on training and coaching because it CAN be done remotely just as well as it’s done in the office or better — that is, if communication is consistent and cogent, if everyone is aligned on sales methodology and processes, and if you have a Sales Readiness platform to underpin it.

    Before getting into how to facilitate remote training and coaching, however, it’s important that sales enablement leaders make sure all enabling information and content are specific to the markets, segments, and customers that customer-facing employees are encountering. It should all be aligned with the steps and activities sales reps execute as part of the sales process. It should also be in line with the sales methodology and expectations for customer-facing interactions.

    With that in place, let’s dive into how to ensure sales enablement delivers value for remote workers.
    First, every content asset and communication designed to align with and keep the sales force highly engaged must deliver ROI. Enabling this requires the following:

    • Frequent push and pull-based, personalized communications sent in a rep’s preferred channel will draw greater interest in training. For example, communications that pop up in the flow of a sales rep’s daily work life — such as in an email or app, through the Salesforce dashboard or other CRM, or in newsletters — drive higher engagement.
    • Reps must be able to consume content on their own schedule and modality. Never has this been more important than now, with an often-unpredictable work environment and work hours.
    • Learning delivered in different formats caters to different learning styles. Microlearning in the form of videos, polls, quizzes, podcasts, and gamified content tends to drive higher consumption and retention among reps. Video is also a powerful tool for practicing and polishing pitches through guided role play. With it, reps can practice interacting with customers in simulated sales scenarios to improve their presentations and get real-time feedback from managers or coworkers.
    • Don’t overlook coaching delivered remotely. With regular video coaching sessions, reps can build incremental skills development and then see how they’re tracking to plan. And, when it has structure and regular cadence, virtual coaching can be as valuable as in-person coaching.

    Keeping remote employees engaged and active isn’t a challenge relegated only to sales enablement leaders. CROs are indirectly impacted by sales enablement’s success too, because hitting their numbers depends on reps’ active engagement with sales training. With that in mind, CROs can help their team stay aligned in this remote setting and confirm that they’re retaining information in four ways.

    • The first is by monitoring updates in activity logs in the CRM, conducting one-on-ones with managers and engagement reporting.
    • CROs can also help their remote teams by tracking reps’ deliverability and engagement statistics, such as email sends, bounces, opens, click-throughs, and repeat opens. By monitoring whether their teams are seeing an uptick in deal velocity across stages and over time, driving better engagement with buyers, and securing more “solutioning” activities like workshops and proofs of concept, CROs can identify problem areas and develop plans of action to address them.
    • Finally, by maintaining open lines of communication with marketing, CROs can ensure the most impactful content is pushed out in the most effective ways. After all, CROs know what messaging will resonate with which channels to drive revenue.

    It’s unclear when we’ll be able to get back to business as usual, but that doesn’t mean that every task must be put on hold. Customer-facing employees can keep some sense of normalcy and continuity in their day-to-day by continuing to develop their skillsets from home. With an understanding that training, coaching and microlearning are just as important for reps working from home as they are for those in the office — and a Sales Readiness platform to support those functions — Mindtickle is well-prepared to help them.

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    Upskilling Solutions Consulting for Virtual Demos: Best Practices for Pre-Sales Effectiveness https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/upskilling-solutions-consulting-for-virtual-demos-best-practices-for-pre-sales-effectiveness/ Sat, 02 May 2020 09:00:06 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/upskilling-solutions-consulting-for-virtual-demos-best-practices-for-pre-sales-effectiveness/ Now more than ever, our homes have become our world. And for the foreseeable future, sales calls and product demos will be conducted from home, virtually. It’s a major adjustment and the challenges typically faced during in-person meetings (such as ensuring and maximizing knowledge retention) are made all the more challenging by additional complications that …

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    Now more than ever, our homes have become our world. And for the foreseeable future, sales calls and product demos will be conducted from home, virtually. It’s a major adjustment and the challenges typically faced during in-person meetings (such as ensuring and maximizing knowledge retention) are made all the more challenging by additional complications that arise from virtual meetings. This means sales readiness and enablement leaders need to rethink how they can partner with pre-sales leaders of solutions consulting / solutions engineering (SC / SE) teams to upskill and reskill their teams for this new normal.

    When your SCs are not in the same physical space as their meeting attendees, they’re not able to read the prospect’s or customer’s body language and adjust their presentation accordingly. However, while meeting virtually lacks the personal connection more easily achieved in face-to-face meetings, they still must strive to achieve the same goals — professionalism, making an impact, and closing deals.

    The following are 10 best practices pre-sales leaders and enablement practitioners should focus on when looking to onboard, develop, and maximize the knowledge and skills of solutions consulting and sales engineering teams.

    1. Do the pre-work. When SCs come prepared with a basic background on the prospect/customer and an idea of how the meeting will flow, they’re already at an advantage. Ahead of the meeting, research about the attendees should be conducted so that they can make a connection and build rapport early in the call. Things like looking for a colleague in common, similar hobbies, or previous work experience. Then, the SC should gather the participants on their team to conduct a dry run of the meeting (not just a demo dry run) and go through each part of the agenda to ensure alignment with the allotted time.
    2. Keep them on their toes. SCs should call someone by name early in the meeting. This not only engages the remote audience but also shows that they remember the names of the attendees. They need to also be prepared to pivot away from the defined agenda even if they went through it to confirm that everyone was on board with the flow of the meeting. An additional way to keep the audience engaged is by recapping any prior discussions using their names.
    3. Break up the flow. When people are on a virtual call, they tend to tune out. To avoid this, SCs should take intentional breaks every 5-7 minutes. During the presentation, they can ask for questions or even call out the champion in the room by name. Knowing and using the “tell-show-tell” approach multiple times over the call helps to break up the flow and reinforce points that need to be conveyed.
    4. Leverage third-party tools. The mouse pointer is not a demo tool, and circling a region on the screen is not ok. To make demos more professional using boxes and arrows, SCs should know how to use ZoomIt (for PC) or DemoPro (for Mac). Additionally, Poll Anywhere can make calls interactive and memorable. Your current tool may also have some of these capabilities too.
    5. Rely on the AE. The AE is the SC’s ‘wing-person’ and an invaluable asset during these calls. They can monitor the chat, record prospect questions and who asked the questions to review after the call, and even jump in on tough questions as needed. An open and private channel to communicate with them (e.g. Text or iMessage) may be needed during the call. Likewise, keeping their coach updated on how the meeting is progressing is important for guidance and feedback.
    6. Maintain a steady pace. Without body language or paralanguage to help in an in-person meeting, it’s difficult to perceive subtle cues that may indicate that a rep might be speaking too fast and that they’ve lost their audience. To help you stay on pace, they can take deliberate breaths.
    7. Turn on the video. SCs absolutely need to know how to work their video tool, including advanced features like surveys, notations, or whiteboarding. Even basic features like how to mute and unmute are important for a successful demo. Similarly, they should think about how they appear to the audience. Conducting the meeting from a bedroom is less than ideal. Knowing how to use and incorporate a green screen to mask surroundings can be helpful here. If you are using video and have limited network bandwidth, you may need to dial in for voice.
    8. Manage the time. SCs should plan for meetings to last 45 minutes for an hour meeting. Being mindful that attendees may have a hard stop, it’s important to try and not go over the allocated time. It can be much more difficult to stay on time with virtual meetings, so the meeting prep and taking extra care during the call will help them to finish on time.
    9. Be memorable. Another thing SCs can do to continue to build rapport is to present as if they were in person and make a connection by sharing something personal upfront. To avoid sounding robotic, they should use voice inflections to differentiate areas of importance. And to keep the focus on the rep and the demo, they need to minimize the words on their slides. Otherwise, the audience will be reading the slides instead of listening to the demo. And, if the rep isn’t speaking, they need to stay on mute (check and double-check this!).
    10. Close strong. Again, SCs need to employ the “tell-show-tell” approach. Before creating next steps together, they should remember to recap the entire flow and the business outcomes. It doesn’t hurt for them to ask their attendees if they were satisfied with what they saw, for situational awareness.

    We’ve survived a number of events — the dot-com bust, Y2k, 9/11, the ’07-’08 recession — and we’ve come out on the other side with a new definition of normal. With a few bruises and a whole lot more experience, we readjust and continue progressing forward. No one knows what our new normal will look like in six months, 12 months or two years from now, but what is clear is that more and more commerce will be done remotely, virtually, and not face to face. With that in mind, these best practices will stand the test of time to help pre-sales leaders and enablement practitioners develop the knowledge and skills SCs need to have impactful virtual meetings now and in the future.

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    Sales Enablement Statistics to Inform Your Strategy https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-enablement-statistics-to-inform-your-strategy/ Fri, 01 May 2020 03:17:03 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-enablement-statistics-to-inform-your-strategy/ The sales environment is constantly evolving as new strategies, markets, and products are introduced, reintroduced, or changed. In fact, according to a study of over 100 B2B organizations, 75% of firms have a refocused sales strategy, 70% have entered a new market, and 82% introduced a new product or service over the past twelve months. …

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    The sales environment is constantly evolving as new strategies, markets, and products are introduced, reintroduced, or changed. In fact, according to a study of over 100 B2B organizations, 75% of firms have a refocused sales strategy, 70% have entered a new market, and 82% introduced a new product or service over the past twelve months.

    In fact, according to a study of over 100 B2B organizations, 75% of firms have a refocused sales strategy, 70% have entered a new market, and 82% introduced a new product or service over the past twelve months.

    With the sales function constantly evolving, it’s critical for sales teams to have up-to-date support and the tools they need to sell. This is where data driven sales enablement comes in.

    Sales enablement is the strategy you use to ensure sales reps have the information, content, technology, and tools they need to sell effectively. An integral part of your overall sales readiness program, sales enablement focuses on providing everything your reps need to be successful, at every step of the sales journey. When you incorporate elements of sales training, asset management, ongoing coaching, and continuous development—all in a platform that supports a variety of content formats and learning styles—the results are amazing:

    The 2019 State of Sales Enablement Report 2019 found that organizations who employ an effective sales enablement strategy:

    • Achieve a win rate of 49% on average, which is 12% higher than those without an enablement strategy.
    • Hit their quotas 35% more often than those without a formal sales enablement strategy.
    • Experience 15% less turnover than those that approach sales enablement as one-off projects.
    • Collaboration is twice as likely within organizations that use a formal sales enablement strategy vs. those that use an informal or one-time initiative.

    But while 61% of organizations employ some type of sales enablement program, only 34.4% feel it meets their expectations. That number has only improved by a small margin, about 3%, over the past few years. Choosing the right enablement program with intuitive tools is just as critical as not having one at all.

    So, why are most organizations struggling when it comes to sales enablement? 

    Perhaps the topic is misunderstood as a whole—as a one-time project that, once complete, results in a new and improved sales function. Rather, sales enablement must be an ongoing initiative that involves content, training, coaching, and performance measurement.

    Sales enablement as part of your readiness strategy can have a significant impact on an organization’s bottom line. 52% of sales organizations who have a specific sales enablement function claim overall sales training effectiveness 29% higher than those who don’t. A sales enablement strategy makes it easy to gauge sales readiness with continuous, accessible training, trackable performance and outcome measures, and a modern approach geared for improved results.

    52% of sales organizations who have a specific sales enablement function claim overall sales training effectiveness 29% higher than those who don’t.

    There’s myriad data that demonstrates just how valuable a successful sales enablement strategy can be in driving revenue. And understanding what to do with those stats can help you build a better sales enablement program and overall environment for your sales teams. Whether you’ve yet to implement a sales enablement strategy or are looking to make improvements to your existing program, these statistics should be used to inform your next steps.

    Sales and Marketing Alignment

    A key best practice for any sales enablement strategy requires sales and marketing teams to work in harmony. Sales and morale suffer when knowledge isn’t routinely shared. That becomes a significant challenge for departments operating under differing definitions of the market or specific products.

    It’s a foregone conclusion that the two teams should be aligned, but is often not the case. In fact, only 8% of marketing and sales teams of B2B companies say they experience strong alignment.

    These two unique areas may have different roles, but should share the same goals and a clear roadmap that leads to them. So how can sales enablement turn the tables?

    • Debunk long-held beliefs within a company’s culture that sales and marketing are separate entities.
    • Demonstrate buy-in by leadership and build an open, collaborative relationship between the two departments.
    • Establish a modern marketing department that drives revenue, just like sales.

    Sales and Marketing Alignment: Key Stats

    Why does sales and marketing alignment matter? Here’s what the data show:

    • 36% higher customer retention rates and 38% higher overall sales wins are reported by marketing- and sales-aligned companies.
    • Over 75% of companies that use a sales enablement tool saw a sales increase over twelve months. 40% of those organizations reported growth over 25%.
    • 74% of high-performing organizations have strong sales and marketing alignment.
    • 59% of companies with established sales enablement functions surpassed revenue targets, and 72% of those exceeded them by 25% or more.

    Making up-to-date content available to sales reps is a crucial part of sales and marketing alignment. Here’s how content management affects the sales team:

    • On average, only 47% of salespeople feel they are provided with relevant and effective content. Either they don’t know what’s available, or they don’t have the time or resources to seek it.
    • 57% of businesses say high-quality content is their top driver of sales. Sales reps shouldn’t have to make their own content. Sales enablement ensures sales and marketing are working closely together to provide up-to-date, valuable content and collateral specific to each customer.
    • 60% of quality sales content goes unused, without a good process for distribution. That means wasted time and resources that could otherwise help drive the sales initiatives.
    • Just 20% of sales reps use content during a sales conversation, yet, a buyer usually requires touching more than five pieces of content before making a purchase.
    • Over $2.3 million are lost yearly by organizations that either didn’t use or underused marketing content.

    Sales Onboarding & Training

    First impressions are crucial. Successful sales reps require education, and undertrained reps can cause irreparable damage to customer relationships and sales.

    A sales enablement strategy should include an effective onboarding program that ensures new hire progress and performance is measured, supported, and consistently improved upon based on firm metrics to enhance your organization’s readiness.

    Sales-specific onboarding provides new hires with information about company values, corporate and product knowledge, and how to use company tools to improve quotas. The most successful onboarding programs help reps learn with smaller, easy to digest modules, clear objectives, and accessible materials.

    Sales Onboarding & Training: Key Stats

    A poorly trained rep is not equipped to sell, and may not choose to stay with your organization. That’s revenue lost on two counts: loss of sales, and cost of onboarding. Maybe it’s not the rep that isn’t prepared, but instead, materials used for training aren’t up to the task. Sales enablement provides tracking and options for each sales rep to achieve their best outcomes.

    Here’s how proper onboarding affects overall performance and success:

    • Training improves retention rates for new hires and products with an early, effective, onboarding information: The best companies are 53% more likely to undertake pre-boarding and begin onboarding early, often before the first day.
    • Most companies feel their onboarding efforts are subpar: 62% of companies consider themselves ineffective at onboarding new sales hires, despite leadership with an eye one sales enablement.
    • Employee turnover is expensive: The average economic cost of turning over a highly skilled job is over two times the salary of that role.  20% of staff turnover takes place in the first 45 days of employment.

    Sales Efficiency

    It’s easier to access the numbers associated with your organization’s revenue than to know what it’s actually costing to get your sales team up to speed and keep them there. The relation between those two things is sales efficiency. It includes the important task of streamlining sales operations to produce the highest return on investment.

    That’s where an effective sales enablement strategy ups the game. It enables your team to implement a consistent measure of those numbers over time and ensure your organization stays profitable. Insight from specific metrics provided by sales enablement helps a business develop and evolve overall strategy, sales training, product direction, and even qualified leads.

    Sales Efficiency: Key Stats

    These data points demonstrate just how essential sales enablement is for the efficiency of your reps:

    • 84% of sales reps can achieve quotas when their employer engages the best sales enablement strategies available.
    • Quota attainment was doubled among companies that adopted best practices for sales enablement, compared to those that did not.
    • 59% of companies surpassed yearly revenue targets as a result of a well-defined sales enablement strategy.
    • 65% of B2B organizations count sales productivity as their greatest challenge.

    Sales Enablement Technology

    Software that allows easy access to a sales enablement strategy and tools seamlessly connects operations, marketing, and sales. Sales enablement technology improves onboarding, coaching, and ongoing training by delivering engaging content in a measurable platform that can track progress.

    Technology-based sales enablement solutions help sales reps learn new skills, improve existing skills, and track progress toward development goals. The right sales enablement technology offers:

    • Automation: Data feeds, updates, and integration solutions for software like Salesforce, Excel, and industry-specific sources.
    • Customer insight: Customer details are tracked and accessible while reps are in the field. Make account updates. Note specific sales or company requests.
    • Rapid mobile access: No need to get back to a customer later with more information — account and product information is available via mobile devices, fast tracking answers to customer questions with actual company marketing or sell information.
    • Analytics: Users and managers can choose onboarding and learning materials relevant to individual needs. Outcome metrics about which tools are used most often with the best results help predict the best resources for the future.
    • Real-time updates: Collateral materials are automatically updated and available immediately. Relevant content is available to sales teams upon request, and product line information can be organized according to customer, location, or other specifics.

    Sales Enablement Technology: Key Stats

    The numbers prove how just how imperative technology has become among sales initiatives:

    • The use of AI is forecasted to grow 139% by 2022 as top sales teams use AI to create effective customer experiences.
    • 86% of sales managers believe the use of digital tools improves job performance. The opportunity to use mobile devices in the field allows easy access to those tools and can be used to significantly enhance the sales process, providing access to remote customer data, a CRM platform, continually relevant information, and the ability to complete menial tasks on the run.
    • Technology makes any environment a functional learning opportunity with continuous access to video, role-play opportunities, and even digital social learning environments.

    Your Future with Sales Enablement

    Choosing a sales enablement solution is a personal journey for your organization on the path to overall readiness. Consider a technology platform that balances your specific needs for marketing and sales collaboration, content management, sales onboarding and training, and a convenient, relevant use of automation.

    Review MindTIckle’s Readiness Value Assessment to determine how sales enablement can contribute to your ROI.  Or schedule a demo to see the Mindtickle Sales Readiness Platform in action today!

    The post Sales Enablement Statistics to Inform Your Strategy appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    How Great Sales Enablement Tools Drive Readiness https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-great-sales-enablement-tools-drive-readiness/ Fri, 01 May 2020 03:16:38 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/how-great-sales-enablement-tools-drive-readiness/ In a highly competitive environment, enabling your salespeople to be at their best—and giving them the right tools to do so—can make all the difference. Sales enablement refers to the training, tools, content management, and resources provided to the sales team to help them successfully close more deals. The ultimate goal of sales enablement is …

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    In a highly competitive environment, enabling your salespeople to be at their best—and giving them the right tools to do so—can make all the difference.

    Sales enablement refers to the training, tools, content management, and resources provided to the sales team to help them successfully close more deals. The ultimate goal of sales enablement is to equip sales reps for every conversation to help them build strong relationships with prospects and ultimately close more deals.

    While sales enablement is really an ecosystem of work that involves sales, marketing, and operations working together, technology is a critical part of getting sales enablement right. Marketing and operations provide case studies, documentation, and other resources that the sales team needs, and a data driven sales enablement platform makes it easy to access those resources and track how reps are engaging with them.

    When sales, marketing, and operations work together in this way, reps can onboard more quickly, upskill in key areas, and spend more time selling. But this requires a platform that not only delivers content to your sales reps, but also supports the larger goal of sales readiness.

    Sales enablement today

    When done well, the benefits of sales enablement speak for themselves:

    • Companies with a focus on sales enablement see overall sales training effectiveness 29% higher than those without.
    • Of companies with established sales enablement functions, 59% surpassed revenue targets, and 72% of those exceeded them by 25% or more.
    • 95% of customers buy from a sales rep who provides content at every step of the sale.

    Of companies with established sales enablement functions, 59% surpassed revenue targets, and 72% of those exceeded them by 25% or more.

    With a sales enablement function to organize and track content, combined with a sales readiness function that continually equips sellers with the right training and coaching for their needs, everyone is more effective. With the right technology, sales departments can use elements like virtual sales training, gamified onboarding activities, and coaching templates to continually improve and empower sales reps.

    Today’s sales enablement data helps sales reps in other ways, as well. Here are just a few:

    • Standardized reporting: allows for easy comparison, access by leadership, and targeted changes when needed.
    • Sales process review: automated processes makes sales information and materials accessible for reps to review and revise as necessary for more targeted customer contact.
    • Qualified leads: allows leads to be categorized according to demographics and behavior. When teams have content that is tracked for effectiveness and optimized for efficiency by category, improvements can be made that result in qualified leads, and readiness to purchase.
    • Optimized content: organized, updated, and targeted resources positively impact the end result.

    A quick online search shows just how many sales enablement options there are. To achieve your end goal—a better-equipped sales team that drives more revenue—you need to find the right tool (or integration) for your team’s needs. The right sales enablement platform is tailored to specific business needs, connects sales and marketing, simplifies the content library, and offers powerful sales metrics.

    Today’s smart technology provides opportunities for learning tools, formats, and modalities that connect reps online, and even offers interaction through social media platforms. It improves timeliness and effectiveness for resources, training, analysis, and ongoing support. Sales reps are more confident when they have all the resources they need, literally at their fingertips, and customer leads are targeted by the products and solutions they seek.

    How sales enablement drives sales readiness

    As part of a cohesive program, sales enablement tied with sales readiness results in a more effective sales team. Sales enablement ensures reps have the tools and resources—like ongoing training, coaching, and development—it takes to deliver the message, close the sale, and maintain strong customer relationships.

    Sales readiness, on the other hand, is a critical part of a sales enablement program, as it focuses on outcome- and data-oriented results. It gives managers, teams, and organizations insights into performance, outcomes, and gaps in the sales team. Further, sales-ready reps have the confidence and tools necessary to think outside the box while delivering on the goals of the sales, marketing, and operations teams.

    Organizations that employ modern sales enablement programs reap myriad benefits. Here are just a few:

    • Peak performance: a modern sales enablement and readiness program helps sales reps meet quotes sooner with access to tools for efficiency and effectiveness.
    • Improved time to sell: a sales enablement tool helps reps spend more time selling by providing qualified leads, content, and learning opportunities in small doses over time.
    • Continuous training: continuous training and accessible learning materials, up-to-date product and industry information, and a sales team that is ready means that increasing quota demands are met.
    • Marketing and sales in sync: all marketing efforts are regularly updated for easy access by sellers—sales enablement bridges the gap between the two departments.

    Sales ready reps are able to capitalize on these sales enablement benefits for successful outcomes:

    Access

    Provide timely access to information related to the most up-to-date resources, like CRM content, via systems often used by reps in the field, like laptops or mobile devices.

    Alignment

    Combine the power of your sales team’s knowledge with information about the customer journey throughout the sale process. Content, by way of collateral materials, video, or blogs are available at the touch of a button depending on need. Agility is accessible whenever it is needed.

    Education

    Organize product and service knowledge across your organization in an accessible format that answers any customer question. An enablement platform makes information available for use in similar situations, with intuitive access.

    Presentation

    Offer tools to personalize marketing content for clients on-the-go to ensure documents that are customized, updated, and approved for compliance.

    Tracking

    Provide tracking that reports how well resources are performing, as well as information on inconsistencies, and where additional content could be helpful. No more wasted content, knowledge, or resources.

    Must-have features in a sales enablement tool

    What’s the difference between the variety of sales enablement tools on the market and how do you choose?

    Remember that sales enablement is not a one-size-fits-all—if a tool claims that, it might not be the one. Focus areas of sales enablement tools can include sales content management, coaching and training, sales engagement, sales intelligence, sales management, and customer relationship management (CRM). The process of determining the specific tools your business needs will clarify the best fit for your company.

    Before you make that decision, consider the sales enablement best practices you need the platform to support. Then, match those best practices to some specific features that work best for your organization. Let’s take a look at some of the must-haves of a successful sales enablement tool:

    Feature: content management

    Content, tools, and resources are created based on intel from sales enablement and accessible from a single source, no matter where they were originally stored, for quick discovery and real-time updating.

    • Accessibility
      • With customized, user-friendly search capabilities, content is organized, easy to find, and available for publication quickly for every step of the sales journey, including updates, new product features, competitive insights, and success stories.
    • Customized collateral
      • Sales materials can be immediately tailored to fit different demographics, products, customers, or stages in the buying process and are easy to access through a flexible interface with other formats like Google Drive, Dropbox, or Youtube.
    • Marketing and sales alignment: 
      • Insights from content and collateral offer powerful sales effectiveness insights with feedback generating valuable changes that align the selling process to the customer’s path.
      • Customer interactions and data tracking for reports, dashboards, and planning improve the relationship between sales, marketing, and customer service.
    • Social selling
      • Social media channels, touchpoints along the customer path, provide access at a more personal level offering a clear path to potential sales.

    Feature: onboarding and training

    Time-to-productivity and win rates are improved with technology that enables automated training paths and adaptive learning.

    • Sale onboarding
      • Planned eLearning courses and training information are delivered in an accessible format.
      • Onboarding and learning progress is tracked,  showing completion and identifying knowledge gaps.
    • Customer experience
      • Training via coaching, gamification, and micro-learning modules support sellers in delivering incredible customer experiences.
    • Video resources
      • Reinforcing training and assessing readiness via video coaching and other online sources meets reps where they are and allows them to access tools to address weaknesses.

    Feature: analytics

    Support accountability, identify gaps, and provide feedback to sales and marketing to refine objectives.

    • Content usage and reporting
      • Analyze use of content to evaluate its effectiveness as it works for both reps and customers.
      • Identify areas for content improvement.
    • Outcome alignment
      • Evaluate alignment with overall business goals and objectives as well as how initiatives are impacting revenue.
      • Receive alerts when prospective customers engage with content.
    • Engagement
      • Gain insight into how your sales reps are doing in the field. Help review and revise communication with customers through templates and suggestions.
    • Sales management
      • Track sales rep efficiency and provide actionable insights to facilitate more time spent selling.

    Feature: engagement

    Provide customer-facing employees with the necessary tools for rich, valuable conversations with customers at each stage of the buying cycle, and as part of the overall training process.

    • Customer relationship management
      • Provide reps with information that improves the ability to develop better long-term relationships with buyers.
      • Reps can sell more effectively with content, training, and analytics at their fingertips.
      • Today’s buyer is informed, often entering a sales interaction with research and other market knowledge. Reps come prepared to have consultative—rather than transactional—conversations to engage customers at a deeper level.

    Feature: qualified prospects

    Identify and target the right leads with actionable data that enables your teams to establish the right relationships.

    • Define leads
      • Analysis from website visits and other customer touchpoints helps determine target buyers, and what characteristics are most likely to convert.
      • Identifying where leads are in the buying process, from prospect to marketing qualified (MQL) to sales-qualified (SQL), helps produce content that drives customers forward toward conversion.
    • Target buyers
      • Content that is tracked and optimized provides information to target collaterals for specific buyers.
    • Score prospects
      • Sales intelligence assigns positive or negative ranking to potential customers based on data, including location, or other demographics that affect conversion.
      • Less qualified prospects are moved to an area that can be addressed over time.
    • Create sales opportunity
      • Technology is used to structure the planning process and create a step-by-step guide for sales reps.

    Feature: sales integration

    Sellers use numerous tools when completing a sale. Tools that are integrated simplify the workflow.

    • Incorporated solutions
      • Communications, content, storage, and automation can be used as a system that works together seamlessly so information is available across all platforms and accessible where your sales reps are working, even on the road.
    • Real-time updates
      • New information, resources, and updates are automatic and available.
    • Customer focus
      • The buying experience is customizable and reporting is simplified using existing customer information.

    Sales enablement tools to consider

    A sales enablement solution that handles all processes including content, management and distribution, training tools, sales and marketing performance, customer outreach, and reporting can help you take your sales productivity and performance to the next level. Here are a few examples of sales enablement tools with integrated software solutions to support your sales team:

    Seismic

    Seismic’s sales enablement solution focuses on sales and marketing productivity and effectiveness with tools to collaborate, automate, manage and distribute content. Seismic uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to simplify the sales process for easy access to relevant information, updated insights, and program customization.

    The Seismic program includes:

    • Easy access to relevant selling materials.
    • Automated creation of sales content personalized to its audience.
    • Increased revenue per rep due to efficient and effective content and accessibility.

    Seismic’s scalable marketing and sales integration is general enough for most organizations and have been used in industries like asset management, banking, business services, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, technology and more.

    Seismic created a system that moved a financial advising firm, 361 Capital, from manual work to automatic updates with total accuracy. That sped up the process by 33%. In another case, a banking and financial services firm, SunTrust, was able to access data and content relevant to closing deals in a more timely manner.

    Highspot

    With a focus on sales readiness, personalized sales content, and improved sales performance, Highspot’s sales enablement program uses artificial intelligence, guided sales training, and simple integration between marketing, sales, and workflows to improve the sales process.

    Benefits include:

    • Connecting sellers to relevant contact information for each buyer.
    • Flexible delivery options for content.
    • Advanced analytics for sales pitch and content optimization.
    • Effective sales training and assessment accessibility.
    • Sales integration that incorporates other platforms including training materials, and  customer information.

    Providing a single source of truth for content is a game-changer for many companies. For example, Dun & Bradstreet was managing 6,000 pieces of content stored across 12 different locations.  Highspot streamlined that content with a single source, allowing more than 500 sales reps  to spend less time searching for the tools they need, and more time selling.

    Likewise, Highspot helped Tripadvisor to consolidate and integrate workflows with content lingering in multiple systems into a single platform for all sales enablement assets. The entire system was built to make life easier for the sales and marketing teams.

    Mediafly

    Sales and marketing are the focus of Mediafly’s enablement tool with an emphasis on creating a modern selling experience. Using a single, intuitive sales application, the company gives sellers and marketers a simple process to create, deliver, and analyze the sales process.

    Sales reps benefit from:

    • Training, coaching, and learning.
    • Access to interactive selling tools
    • Reports and analytic insights.
    • Easy creation and updating of dynamic content for distribution on any device.

    Mediafly helped pharma company Dr. Falk equip its sales team with the right materials for every sales situation providing a simple, accessible source for resources that are seamlessly updated and maintained, with integration options. Mobile presentation apps, content management, analytics and feedback provided Dr. Falk with the ability to have more valuable sales conversations.

    How Mindtickle ties it all together

    Integrated solution partners make Mindtickle’s sales readiness and enablement initiatives run smoothly and successfully. These partnerships offer complementary solutions with a simple-to-use interface that works for the entire organization. With that in place, Mindtickle can do what it does best: accelerate onboarding and ensure ongoing readiness and training.

    Partnerships like those with Seismic, Highpoint, and Mediafly are part of a natural evolution to ensure enablement in a multi-system environment. Integration with these initiatives helps align sales and marketing, organizing and updating content internally and externally to manage its lifecycle.

    • Seamless interface: curated content that is regularly updated, easily accessed, and personalized is critical.
    • Improved productivity: no need to go digging for content—it is delivered to sales reps intuitively depending on need and customer. That leaves more time for selling.
    • Outcome-oriented approach: data is used to predict and provide according to the capabilities of your reps, helping them grab more sales.
    • Enablement metrics: must be tracked and fed into your readiness strategy regularly to keep it fresh and evolving with the needs of your organization and sales reps.

    How Mindtickle can work for you

    Mindtickle’s platform enables customer-centric sales readiness and enablement strategies for organizations using proven technology to increase revenue and grow brand value. Take a Readiness Value Assessment to determine the return on investment of a partnership with Mindtickle.

    If you’re ready to see it for yourself, schedule a demo with Mindtickle today!

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    How Gamification Engages Millennial and Gen Z Employees https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-gamification-engages-millennial-and-gen-z-workers-mindtickle/ Fri, 01 May 2020 03:16:27 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/how-gamification-engages-millennial-and-gen-z-workers/ As more tech-savvy employees enter the workforce, businesses must think about how to engage Millennial and Gen Z employees during the onboarding process. After spending months finding the right person for a job, you don’t want to lose them due to a corporate onboarding process that doesn’t resonate or set them up for success. You …

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    As more tech-savvy employees enter the workforce, businesses must think about how to engage Millennial and Gen Z employees during the onboarding process. After spending months finding the right person for a job, you don’t want to lose them due to a corporate onboarding process that doesn’t resonate or set them up for success. You risk shrinking that new-employee honeymoon phase with boredom and disillusionment.

    Instead of leaving your new hires to read a manual or watch videos of company presentations, consider using gamification to create active challenges and track progress with shared metrics.

    What is onboarding gamification?

    Onboarding gamification is an approach that engages workers in corporate training and other learning activities using entertaining activities, rewards, gratification, and feedback. As a set of techniques, gamification uses tools refined in video games and apps to drive engagement with onboarding content.

    There’s a good reason gamification works. Video game and app developers discovered decades ago that by asking social scientists to analyze user behavior, they could refine the software to encourage engagement—even addiction. Thank a social scientist every time you smile when your post gets liked, or your iMessages “ping” for attention. The techniques of behavioral design apply as directly to training as they do to entertainment. Instead of focusing on keeping a gamer on an ad-supported platform, HR managers might apply these same techniques to progress a worker through a structured program to learn a defined set of skills.

    To demographers like Pew Research, 1996 is the birth year that defines the border between Millennials and Gen Z. As digital natives, today’s young Gen Z and Millennial workers have high expectations for engaged learning. If you were born in or after 1996, you never knew a world without high-speed internet access. You know you can look up almost anything you’ve ever wanted to know. Chances are, you’ve been using apps and playing video games for most of your life. To this generation, gamified onboarding is more natural, more fun—and more effective—than any passive alternative.

    Why change your strategy for Millennial and Gen Z workers?

    You’ll need to change your strategy because, simply put, gamification works better. Materials designed for the Post-War and Boomer generations might depend on videos, slideshows, and manuals, but they will never be as effective for this new cohort. And it’s not just about technology, either.

    Current events, social changes, and other forces have left new Millennial and Gen Z employees with very different motivational and behavioral patterns than their Boomer and Gen X parents. While everyone is shaped by their parents to a certain degree, generations as a whole are shaped to some extent by opposition to the previous generation.

    Members of both generations are typically comfortable with technology. Smartphone apps, collaboration software, and messaging are as familiar to these generations as jets and TVs were to Boomers. With their social relationships forged online using social media, texting, and other tools, these cohorts seamlessly communicate across time zones and physical locations. Similarly, technical gamification elements like unpredictability and social influence feel natural and make engagement interesting.

    Why gamifying the process is effective

    Gamifying the process is effective because “fun” is fundamentally a manipulation of behavior that leaves participants wanting more. The modern video game and social media industry have supported extensive social science research into human behavior. The result has been the development of social and interactive learning techniques, such as those described by Yu-kai Chou’s framework, that are much more sophisticated than the badges, progress bars, and notifications of the past. We’re already seeing tools like Slack and Workday take hold and apply the social engagement of Facebook into the serious business of project collaboration.

    Applying the research of gaming and social media into gamified onboarding can lead to important progress toward corporate goals for new hires:

    • Improved productivity comes from better knowledge of how an organization functions. For example, setting employees on a “quest” to learn from other employees allows new reps to spend more time “doing” and less time finding out “how to do” tasks at their new company.
    • Increased retention rates for new employees are ensured because individuals feel empowered and productive as quickly as possible. Effective onboarding programs can get new employees past those critical first 6 months when an estimated 86% of new hires make the decision to stay or leave a company.
    • Aligning business goals with onboarding is easier with a structured program that builds content for new hires with key business goals in mind. Without structure, new employees will learn on the job, and the company has less control over how the worker perceives the company, their day-to-day-work, and overall goals. By aligning onboarding games and activities with key company goals, businesses can reinforce core values and instill the right habits from day one.
    • More consistent results come from a structured program, which can be measured and refined over time based on feedback and results.
    • Better understanding of progress and areas for improvement is possible through a more structured, goal-oriented approach to onboarding. Gamified onboarding (as part of a larger onboarding program) allows you to gather feedback and data, and use that information for evaluation cycles that are key to continuous improvement. Adding competitions and social connections, for example, generates data that can be used to track the progress of the program itself.
    • Support for continuous training requires onboarding new employees in a structured and gamified program, which sets up expectations for continuous training.

    Effective onboarding programs can get new employees past those critical first 6 months when an estimated 86% of new hires make the decision to stay or leave a company.

    How technology can help

    Game mechanics don’t have to be derived from software, but it can help. At Deloitte LLP, for example, the onboarding program is very gamified. Early on, compliance, privacy, and ethics training materials were taught using a game board, modeled after the popular game “LIFE.” Today, the firm has expanded on the model to build an online game called The Chosen Analyst to teach professional consultants’ skills around a narrative of the coming Zombie Apocalypse.

    Deloitte learned the power of game mechanics first, then applied technology to serve those objectives. The process pulled from storytelling the way traditional video games do. A story, like the Zombie Apocalypse, had to be compelling—and a little outlandish—to be fun. A good onboarding platform implements the best gamification elements so that corporate resources can focus on learning to be transferred to new employees. Best practices for gamification elements include:

    • Game mechanics like points for accomplishments, bonuses for special features, time-based tracking and a progress countdown, defined goals and levels, and an acknowledgment of status.
    • Engagement where participants develop stories, take on challenges and quests, and develop characters and avatars
    • Elements that give participants control over the game, the freedom to fail, and consistent feedback.

    Recent disruptions caused by the novel Coronavirus pandemic have given firms everywhere an appreciation for virtual learning platforms and self-paced training activities that keep training moving even when participants can’t travel or interact directly. With cloud-based tools that can be continuously refined based on engagement and progress metrics, modern training platforms are applying these best practices to one of the biggest challenges in human resources: onboarding.

    The revenue generated by billions of gamers and social media users has created a golden age for social science research into online user behavior. Mindtickle has now applied this research to onboarding as a way to optimize how Millennial and Gen Z digital natives learn when they join the workforce. Onboarding success has the potential to not only improve retention, but also drive productivity and predictable quota attainment. 

    Ready to see what Mindtickle can do for revenue productivity at your org?

    Get a Demo

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    The Art of Field Communications in 2020: A CMO Perspective on Updating and Aligning Remote Teams https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-art-of-field-communications-in-2020-a-cmo-perspective-on-updating-and-aligning-remote-teams/ Sun, 26 Apr 2020 21:26:38 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/the-art-of-field-communications-in-2020-a-cmo-perspective-on-updating-and-aligning-remote-teams/ 6 weeks ago like for every other profession, what it meant to go to work changed for marketers too. We gave up commuting, dress shirts, dropping by unannounced to ask our sales friends how the quarter was going, and worrying about expo hall logistics. COVID-19 also had an unexpected, positive side effect. It has reinforced …

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    6 weeks ago like for every other profession, what it meant to go to work changed for marketers too. We gave up commuting, dress shirts, dropping by unannounced to ask our sales friends how the quarter was going, and worrying about expo hall logistics.

    COVID-19 also had an unexpected, positive side effect. It has reinforced the importance of marketing as a function to coordinate the GTM response across different field organizations as we move to a new normal in which remote or hybrid-remote is here to stay. This makes three GTM priorities even more critical than usual.

    • Ensure the category, company and its solutions are more relevant than ever
    • Ensure company executives, customers, frontline personnel and partners are staying up to date on market changes and the company’s response
    • Leverage expertise across the business to rapidly roll out initiatives to reskill, re-message, and engage customer-facing teams.

    This makes regular field communications and updates one of the most critical initiatives marketers can execute to engage their increasingly remote and virtual field teams. For those of us in the community sharing notes on emerging best practices for updating the field, three common, positive trends have emerged in the first wave of response to the new normal.

    First Principles for Field Communications in the remote-hybrid environment

    The best marketers in the business have quickly pivoted to:

    • Agile re-planning and management, manically focused on bite-sized updates produced through cross-team collaboration, while pushing urgent and transparent communications to the field
    • Continuous 1:1 feedback loops and micro-updates with individual sellers and other representatives to inform and prioritize efforts including new messaging and demand gen mechanisms like virtual events
    • Setting the expectation for scheduled, consistent field updates delivering usable information and tools with lower emphasis on ‘video perfect production values
    • Making the sensible pivot to a single cost-efficient platform like Mindtickle for communication and updates
    • Already familiar with product marketing, enablement, and content teams, as well as their audience in pre-sales, sales and services for learning, skill development, coaching and updates, the delivery platform, became a non-issue

    My own team and I have been fortunate to learn from, adopt and implement many of these first principles for our own field updates and communication. It has been one of the most strategic projects we have undertaken in the last month. The result has been consistently positive feedback and demonstrable value in the field. There are a few reasons for this, many of which are core principles that we talk about in sales readiness and enablement.

     

    (Engage, Motivate, Measure Effectiveness with customer content and social sharing)

    Principles Driving Mindtickle’s Effective Use of Mindtickle for Field Communication and Updates

    • An agile mentality and personal commitment from every member of the extended marketing team to focus on usable deliverables
      • Enabling our SDRs, AEs, CSMs and other colleagues to get meetings and drive value-added conversations with customers is the single filter we use to define and execute content.
    • Load sharing, cross-training and democratizing the ideation and feedback-loop
      • Implementing a tiger team, sponsored by me and led by product marketing and enablement has allowed us to draft campaigns and roll-out across pre-sales and sales initially, then to customer services and now the entire company.
    • Using multiple tools, but focusing on Mindtickle for Mindtickle as the defining authoring, consumption and tracking mechanism as the measure of effectiveness. This has been possible because of our approach to
      • Integrating our corporate collaboration hub and channels, content repositories, email, web conferencing and work management platforms with Mindtickle.
      • Enabling the marketing team to be power users of the platform across basic features such as native content collaboration and authoring tools, as well as interactive elements like gamification, social learning, surveys and polls.
      • For the first time, getting direct insight into how the messaging updates and tools are translating into improved field capability from advanced Mindtickle capabilities like call and web-presentation intelligence (integrated AI-evaluation) and coaching feedback.
    • Constant outreach to customers, partners, analysts, board members and industry colleagues to share and validate ideas on how to best position and deliver new messaging, virtual field campaigns and tools.
    • The support of an executive team that is open and welcomes being measured on their participation and completion of certifiable materials in these updates.

    Our Implementation and Experience

    Finding an agile approach, cadence and a structure that works for us has been an important aspect of why the weekend update, as it’s often referred to, has become something looked forward to by the marketing and consuming teams alike.

    A few highlights include

    • In Mindtickle’s case, we push out our updates every Sunday evening. After 3 weeks of waking up to the Monday morning ‘ping’, we have noticed seller participation and completion rates in excess of 50% within 2 hours of the first digital notification
    • In our working meetings we iterate on the coming week’s update and key dependencies and resources with the help of a lite Kanban board
    • Consistent content includes links to an information-packed marketing calendar, mini-customer podcasts, videos or information snippets, content, PR and analyst air cover or wins as well as competitive snippets
    • Using inputs from field surveys pushed out to the field teams; Since we started using Mindtickle’s native survey tools we have seen field input go up 100% to nearly 90%
    • While the priority is quality and speed of execution, we engage our Content as a Service team (CAAS) as a secret weapon for design, videos and graphics for market-facing content
    • Our head of strategic ops coordinates the schedule and team member submissions; By working closely with sales enablement we are now able to create a curated, sub-experience for our sales and pre-sales team while using the same content for the rest of the company
    • We use one of our most popular modules called the Quick Update to deliver the weekly update; This powerful feature allows the team to use the best possible combination of personal videos, slideware, documents as well as linked materials from customers or partners to serve up content; We are also incorporating simple assessment and certification features like quizzes, exercises and assessments to ensure retention in addition to completion
    • We regularly meet with the sales enablement and management team to share and receive feedback on completion and engagement blockers and understand how assets and tools are being perceived by customers as well as their teams

     

    (Simple quizzes and polls reinforce key talking points and drive interactivity)

    There is more to be done. Content across updates must be ever more relevant and usable, meet higher production standards and we are figuring out how to keep up the pace of producing 3-4 quality assets each week ranging from market-ready content like from how-to guides to fire-side chats with customers. This challenges our nimble, but small team–but the feedback and receptiveness from the company (and hopefully soon our partners) has been compelling and inspires us all to keep aiming high.

     

    (Content and Tools are only as good as the engagement they drive)

    New Tools for Remote and Ready Initiatives

    This week, with the benefit of not just these outside best practices, but our own evolving experience we are pleased to publish this blog post as well as a comprehensive guide for field communications and updates and a quick how-to video to our remote and ready resources repository.

    Whether you are a marketer, in the business of working with customers or an executive I hope you find these resources worth your time and will reach out to learn how I or my team might assist you in your own journey to engage and up-level your customer-facing teams with or without Mindtickle.

    The post The Art of Field Communications in 2020: A CMO Perspective on Updating and Aligning Remote Teams appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    3 Essential Best Practices to Quickly Shift to a Virtual Sales Learning Culture https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/3-essential-best-practices-virtual-sales-learning-culture/ Fri, 24 Apr 2020 01:28:21 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/3-essential-best-practices-virtual-sales-learning-culture/ As our nation endures another week of the COVID-19 pandemic, we at Mindtickle are acutely aware of the toll the virus is taking on lives and businesses, including our customers and partners and the extended enablement community. Indeed, with active shelter-in-place mandates issued for the majority of the US and around the globe, so many …

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    As our nation endures another week of the COVID-19 pandemic, we at Mindtickle are acutely aware of the toll the virus is taking on lives and businesses, including our customers and partners and the extended enablement community. Indeed, with active shelter-in-place mandates issued for the majority of the US and around the globe, so many in sales, specifically, are working from home. In an effort to keep things moving, many events and meetings are being held virtually. They include QBRs, sales kickoffs, new-hire bootcamps, training sessions and other in-person meetings. Amid this new reality, how can sales enablement leaders make sure reps continue on their learning path in a virtual sales culture, especially when the work-from-home environment is chaotic and full of distractions like kids, roommates, spouses, pets and the perpetually full laundry basket?

    The first thing to consider when rolling out any kind of virtual sales training is keeping the learner engaged by making training more consumable. Sales enablement leaders shouldn’t expect that a homebound learner — beset with myriad distractions — can sit down in front of their computer, rapt with attention, for hours of training. Rather, they should consider designing their online enablement program to deliver training in bite-sized chunks, starting with just the essential points of a topic. To ensure learners are taking it all in, include knowledge check questions that drive home whatever is most important in that training.

    Practice is another essential element that should be built into virtual sales training. Role play is a good way to practice what was learned or what skill the rep is trying to develop. And, to round it out, there should be some mechanism for providing feedback (ideally in real time) that can then be considered and applied to the rep’s next round of practice. With that, not only does practice like this help focus on revenue-generating activities and displaying the skills involved, it also helps create a culture of learning buoyed by the excitement of seeing growth and development.

    Just as important as the teach, show, and practice elements of virtual sales training is reinforcement. Studies show that adults tend to lose 70% of what they learned within 30 days of learning the information. Because of this, it is important to get ahead of the forgetting curve by reinforcing the knowledge that they should have learned. In addition to helping cement the knowledge in your rep’s heads, it will help you identify gaps within the knowledge sets of your teams to help you target the next areas of development. When skills and information that has been taught, shown and practiced are reinforced periodically with quiz questions pushed out to mobile phones or laptops, reps have a leg up on the so-called “Forgetting Curve.” They’re more likely to retain what they’ve learned — the knowledge becomes permanently etched in their memory.

    It’s also important to remember that learning is never over; rather, it’s an ongoing process of teach, show, practice, reinforce, and teach again; there’s always something new to learn about in any given industry (like a market trend, product or service, regulation, etc.).

    Training is critical for all sales professionals, but it’s not necessarily the one thing they look forward to in their job. That’s why virtual learning can be tricky. Sales enablement leaders must, therefore, empower the homebound sales rep with the ability to control how they’re learning and at what pace. With the simple best practices outlined here, they can continue to support and encourage stuck-at-home sales reps in their learning journey.

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    Best Practices for Working Remotely: Voices From the Field https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/best-practices-for-working-remotely-voices-from-the-field/ Thu, 23 Apr 2020 06:24:13 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/best-practices-for-working-remotely-voices-from-the-field/ As field marketing manager I have the unique opportunity to work with Mindtickle customer-facing teams that are engaging daily on our behalf with some of the world’s most sophisticated revenue organizations and executives. This has given me some unique perspectives on the new remote environment — not just with respect to our teams, but also …

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    As field marketing manager I have the unique opportunity to work with Mindtickle customer-facing teams that are engaging daily on our behalf with some of the world’s most sophisticated revenue organizations and executives. This has given me some unique perspectives on the new remote environment — not just with respect to our teams, but also the individuals that our solutions enable. I often ask my colleagues — sales leaders and account executives — what we can do as a team to engage them, and equally, what they’re hearing from our customers about how they are keeping their teams engaged and thriving during this “new normal.” I found the feedback insightful, and therefore thought there was value in sharing my takeaways with other marketing teams. The following are the four that stood out.

    1) Stay focused, productive and on message
    During this shelter-in-place, businesses must not only offer a safe environment to train employees on the way they will do business moving forward, but also how they’re messaging and presenting themselves to the outside world. Organizations want to show they’re changing and adapting, so they must make sure that message is clearly communicated in the right way.

    There must also be structure for the greater workforce that may not be accustomed to working from home, which includes providing flexible tools to deliver the right content to the users who need it. “Customer-facing employees need to have a platform for personal development in the palm of their hands. So it needs to be quick to launch and easy to use — one platform to learn it, practice it and apply it,” said Mike D’Angelo, an Enterprise Account Executive.

    Keeping teams together is another challenge. “Sales kickoffs and other traditionally on-site events can be managed more effectively with a Sales Readiness platform, and can help with remote coaching to bridge gaps in skills. If enablement managers do not know the effectiveness of their programs, what’s the point? They are at risk. It’s critical they know this information to report back and bring teams together.”

    Many businesses are facing a number of remote-training challenges right now as well, and Sales Readiness platforms can help address them virtually. “Businesses have been forced into a remote strategy without having had enough time to plan for it. In particular, they’re worried about upcoming events and how they will be handled. Their immediate reaction has been to shift to virtual meetings and lean heavily on tools like Zoom or WebEx for large conferences,” said Jordan Weinberg, enterprise solutions consultant. “But 100% virtual training has significant limitations when held via conferences. Prospects are looking for tools that can complement existing systems or completely replace the traditional conference-call structure. Driving engagement and reinforcing knowledge are top concerns, and businesses are all looking to quickly make a change.”

    2) Your worst enemy is a short attention span
    Relying solely on traditional offline methods like email, chat and even live conferencing services has its downsides. Those downsides center on the offline methods’ inability to capture reps’ steadily diminishing attention spans.

    “Data shows that the average human attention span is 20 minutes; for online video, it shrinks to around 60 seconds. Right now, especially, it’s critical to have a ‘mindset for success’ supported by a governance model to authentically engage and connect,” said Lori Gross, a strategic innovation enablement director at Mindtickle. “Of course, moderating productive discussions is difficult as the audience grows, and the ability to keep teams engaged needs to be considered. Live conferencing provides challenges for engagement and knowledge retention. Individuals often ‘tune in’ when the meeting starts and ‘tune out’ as they become distracted. In addition, instant responses and support are often missed with offline methods. Given our short attention span, it is important to think through the lens of “what have we historically believed to be the ‘rules’ of enablement and how can we ‘break’ them given this monumental shift? How do we become change agents? Like good actors, great leaders create and sell us on an alternative vision of the world – a better place of which we are an essential part. We currently see our strategic clients focus on quickly delivering high-impact use cases. We have seen programs developed and launched in two days. They create excitement. They are focused on outcomes in order to help build and drive a sustainable business. They start now with short-term wins, which gains support and engagement and they find that adoption then happens naturally.”

    Olivia Surmanska, enterprise solutions consultant, also acknowledged that content often takes too long to consume and understand. “People learn at their own pace, by their own method and on their own schedule, so businesses must empower employees to take control of their learning. The remedy for this is bite-sized learning.”

    Also, exclusive use of email and live conferencing services will not necessarily help with knowledge retention, as most employees will adopt a one-and-done philosophy where people will look at it or attend, and that’s the end of it. “With a Sales Readiness platform, not only will the content and knowledge be delivered, but a full strategy can be employed to ensure that information is being retained. Reports can illustrate gaps in knowledge and offer remediation where needed,” said Tony Germinario, an enterprise account executive.

    3) Over-communicate, over-communicate… and then over-communicate
    When it comes to communication with teammates, remote workers have many channels from which to choose. Slack emerged as a top tool, enabling fluid engagement in conversations, while allowing everyone to stay current with any issues. It’s used daily to ask questions, provide feedback, air concerns, and give insights and kudos. And, despite all the communications tools available, phone use is still prevalent.

    Despite having these tools, it’s still surprisingly easy to feel disconnected. “Over-communication is key, especially when working remotely, as so many are doing right now. So, find ways to regularly engage with the team,” said Weinberg. For many teams, this includes conducting the normal activities like daily scrums, QBRs and one-on-ones, but virtually.

    4) Your calendar is your new best friend
    Establishing a cadence and schedule is key to thriving remotely, as it builds structure into the day. “To stay focused and on task, break the day into chunks and have a clear goal or objective for each chunk,” said Weinberg. “Included in this schedule should be time for daily tasks and breaks, complete with start and finish times. Leverage tools to help schedule weekly updates across the company.”

    Veteran remote workers reinforce this idea of establishing a schedule. “As a ‘WFH’ pioneer and lover of all things related to space exploration, I’ve become familiar with astronaut Scott Kelly’s tips from his nearly yearlong space trip,” said Enterprise Account Manager Melissa McKenna. “The most relevant was to follow a schedule. We don’t have the physical cues of the workspace driving us. Quick updates consisting of relevant product, company or industry news keep us focused and on task.”

    Melissa McKenna, an enterprise account executive, had this to add: “When we are living and working in the same place for days on end, work has a way of taking over everything if you let it. Create rhythms that allow for your own sanity.”

    Please join me in thanking these intrepid field teams for imparting some of their insight and best practices. In addition, it’s reassuring to see how Sales Readiness tools can be a valuable asset to organizations, enabling anytime and anywhere learning that is uninterrupted by COVID-19 — or whatever else the world decides to throw at us. As for Mindtickle, we’ll continue to stay the course and support our customers and prospects with what we do best: Sales Readiness to keep remote customer-facing teams trained, connected and updated to handle any customer interaction.

    You can find constantly updated resources to help you keep remote teams engaged, productive and ready, check out: https://www.mindtickle.comcovid19/.

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    Five for 5: Five Tips to Virtualize a 5-Day Sales Certification Bootcamp https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/five-tips-to-virtualize-sales-certification-bootcamp/ Fri, 17 Apr 2020 04:51:39 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/five-tips-to-virtualize-sales-certification-bootcamp/ Whether you’re a sales enablement leader responsible for sales certification or an L&D practitioner ensuring your customer-facing teams are trained, you’re likely strategizing on how to engage and coach your remote teams. Typically, you’d develop a bootcamp for in-depth training or sales onboarding, but these aren’t normal times. Your challenge is creating a virtual equivalent …

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    Whether you’re a sales enablement leader responsible for sales certification or an L&D practitioner ensuring your customer-facing teams are trained, you’re likely strategizing on how to engage and coach your remote teams. Typically, you’d develop a bootcamp for in-depth training or sales onboarding, but these aren’t normal times. Your challenge is creating a virtual equivalent to the traditional 5-day sales certification in-person bootcamp slated for the end of the quarter. How do you take a “tried and true” certification program, that your organization has delivered in person for years, and successfully transition to a fully virtual offering? First, take a deep breath… Here are 5 critical tips for effectively transitioning a certification enablement bootcamp to online delivery.

    Don’t Try to Recreate the In-Person Experience
    This may seem like a no brainer, but when a certification program is an established institution at an organization, it may be hard to conceptualize anything else. Start by taking a close look at your agenda and decide what can be adapted or even cut out altogether. Activities like, introductions, company overviews, and trainer backgrounds could be provided ahead of time or cut completely.

    Consider a Blended Approach
    Use a blended framework that includes pre-work, self-paced content, virtual roleplay (e.g. Mindtickle Missions) and webinars to create an engaging learning experience. Assign pre-work and reading before the training begins. Asking sales leadership to record a video that demonstrates a best-in-class pitch or demo is a great way to keep learners engaged. (Pro tip: Be sure to keep it short and simple) Create self-paced voice over slideshows and pre-recorded videos to teach information and show what great looks like. Save the webinar (in person time) for discussions and Q&A. Consider requiring participants to complete pre-work in order to participate in the program. This will increase engagement and motivate learners to come prepared.

    Focus on Skills
    Re-evaluate your objectives and focus on the specific skills needed for certification. You will probably need to adjust the agenda and even the content in order to stay skills centered. Remember, while it may be important to know the five product lines at your company, focus only on the ones they are currently studying. Provide opportunities to apply their skills using virtual roleplay activities that include constructive feedback from managers or trainers. Consider using scenario based questions to reinforce skills and knowledge, then complement that with incentives to drive engagement. For example, Mindtickle leverages gamification and allows team members to earn badges as they go.

    Communicate Early and Often
    Write communications with a “what’s in it for me” mindset and set/send expectations well ahead of time. Be sure to clearly state due dates, timelines, technical requirements, and pre-work. Don’t forget to communicate with managers and leadership as well. They should be aware of the changes to the program and any new expectations so they can answer or direct questions. Additionally, if managers will participate in roleplay activities, it’s important they are enabled on the tools used and provided guidance on the activity parameters. Follow up with at least one additional communication prior to the first day of the training.

    Review and Refine
    As you move the certification program from in-person to virtual, it’s critical that you evaluate participant feedback, engagement, and performance during and after the program. Use polls or surveys after each section to gauge learner experience. Use the data to look for trends or gaps that need to be addressed. Be prepared to make changes on the fly. Creating a scalable program can be challenging but have a big impact on outcomes.

    Using these strategies as well as a robust Sales Readiness platform, such as Mindtickle, you can confidently deploy your virtual certification program. To learn more about Mindtickle’s enablement platform request a demo here. Or if you’re already a customer and have any questions, please reach out to your Mindtickle Customer Success representative.

    For more information, please see our page about how Mindtickle supports virtual and online sales events.

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    Sales Replanning without Anxiety: An Enablement Leader’s Practical Perspective on Executing an Effective Virtual Business Review https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-replanning-without-anxiety-an-enablement-leaders-practical-perspective-on-executing-an-effective-virtual-business-review/ Thu, 16 Apr 2020 17:12:12 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-replanning-without-anxiety-an-enablement-leaders-practical-perspective-on-executing-an-effective-virtual-business-review/ Business reviews are especially critical at the moment in aligning sales and management teams to adjusted targets, current quarter forecasts as well as a unified and standardized message. With no options to meet face-to-face, it is imperative that your virtual replanning and review strategy be one that is inclusive and prescriptive, including collaboration with internal …

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    Business reviews are especially critical at the moment in aligning sales and management teams to adjusted targets, current quarter forecasts as well as a unified and standardized message. With no options to meet face-to-face, it is imperative that your virtual replanning and review strategy be one that is inclusive and prescriptive, including collaboration with internal departments that have a stake in ensuring messaging and sales execution is done correctly. Getting the same level of involvement and team participation from collaborators (now in different zipcodes and timezones) can be impossible if you rely on a multi-hour or multi-day live streaming session or default to passing documents back and forth over content channels. 

    Luckily sales readiness technology such as Mindtickle can assist with soliciting feedback from the field team and managers, account planning and pre-meeting territory reviews. By enabling video or screen share submissions, auto- and manager-driven, 1:1 reviews, sellers benefit from  proper preparation and are impactful. Activities such as pre-work and video role play are great tools to include to increase participation, while gamification drives engagement that’s fun and effective. In my experience there are two key elements common to every successful QBR or business review I have been part of that I believe are critical in today’s environment.

    Consideration #1

    Business reviews should not be an anxiety-inducing exercise for sellers…far from it.  Sellers should look forward to receiving feedback from leaders and cross-departmental stakeholders to increase their skills and tactics. 

    Tip:

    • Sessions need to be upbeat, positive, and encouraging for sellers, and more importantly, this keeps them engaged and involved. 
    • Sales enablement leaders should ensure that the content being presented at business reviews correlate back to competencies and skills that have been identified as key to an individual seller’s success. For sales leaders, this can help in better evaluating skills gaps and learning opportunities that either hindered or helped in driving sellers to get their prospects converted through each stage of the sales process.

    Consideration #2

    Business reviews shouldn’t be an overwhelming experience in the amount of information that’s presented.  Consider the requirements and venue of your remote workforce since the business review will be done via video conference.

    Tip: 

    • Enablement leaders will have to reinforce a lot of the messaging, so keep it to just the essentials. If there is content that would be better delivered post business review as a follow-up, don’t include it in the core content. To encourage further engagement, include as much content from the field as possible. No one understands better what is happening in the field than the sellers so learning from each other is key to a seller’s success. 
    • Keep content as applicable as possible. Sales theories and methodologies are important to any sales strategy, but business reviews are a time to put those theories into practical application that lead to closing more business for the sellers. 

    I hope you enjoyed my thoughts and that you can benefit from the strategies and tactics I mentioned above. Learn more by downloading our Complete Guide and watch our demo video for running a virtual business review that inspires your organization.

    The post Sales Replanning without Anxiety: An Enablement Leader’s Practical Perspective on Executing an Effective Virtual Business Review appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    The Virtual Business Review as Your Strategic Cornerstone for Driving Revenue: A CRO’s Perspective https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-virtual-business-review-as-your-strategic-cornerstone-for-driving-revenue-a-cros-perspective/ Sun, 12 Apr 2020 21:46:35 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/the-virtual-business-review-as-your-strategic-cornerstone-for-driving-revenue-a-cros-perspective/ According to a recent Gartner CSO report, customer engagement remains critical in addressing both market downturns and demand rebounds. Because of this, executing a scheduled or emergency Business Review (e.g. QBR) is one of the most powerful strategic actions sales, marketing and service line leaders have to strategically re-plan, communicate and set focus on the …

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    According to a recent Gartner CSO report, customer engagement remains critical in addressing both market downturns and demand rebounds. Because of this, executing a scheduled or emergency Business Review (e.g. QBR) is one of the most powerful strategic actions sales, marketing and service line leaders have to strategically re-plan, communicate and set focus on the activities that will drive revenue outcomes for their organization.

    Unfortunately, there is typically a disconnect between the strategic intent and the actual execution of a QBR. Sellers oftentimes view the session as a management task, lazily filling out a template the night before their session, and disregard the content and takeaways immediately afterwards so ‘they can get on with their day job’. Presenters drone on, leaving their sales audience glossy-eyed and multitasking. And leadership oftentimes struggle to remain focused and provide consistent, detailed and actionable feedback as the parade of territory and opportunity reviews span multiple hours or days.

    So, we all need to flip the script to make your next QBR as strategic as we intend, whether its delivered in-person, remote, or some combination thereof.

    Here’s what sales leaders need to do now:

    • In a virtual setting, the break-out of the focus and effort should be as follows: 3/5 for pre-work, 1/5 in-session, 1/5 follow-on, and keep your in-session review to a maximum of 1 day, with 50% of that day spent on ‘state of the union’ and other important updates, and 50% of the day on upskilling and up-leveling your team.
    • Move your account and territory reviews into pre-work two weeks prior to the business review. Having your sellers record their presentations and talking points will force them to prepare and helps identify gaps in critical thinking. Mindtickle’s video role play capability provides a forum for practicing, getting automated feedback, and submitting a final presentation that hits the mark while staying on-time.
    • Plan ahead and ensure your reviewers explicitly carve out time to complete the reviews at least 1 week before the live session. This ensures ample time to provide quality reviews. Mindtickle accommodates reviews on web or mobile, making it convenient for reviewers to squeeze in the time they need to complete quality reviews. Mindtickle also allows for in-line comments with the video recording to deliver targeted feedback that emulates live-session interaction. Pre-built reviewer forms and templates also promote consistent, in-depth, and personalized feedback.
    • For the live-session QBR – implement a 3/5 presenter rule: push presenters to condense their presentations to 3 slides and a maximum of 5 minutes which forces them to tailor crisp and concise messaging specifically to the sales audience. Also ensure that each presenter outlines a maximum of 3 takeaways or action items. Use these to formulate post-presentation quiz questions to ensure these items are internalized by the sales team.

    At Mindtickle, we’re keen practitioners of the concepts I’ve laid out in this blog–regular business reviews like QBRs are an anchor of our revenue planning and alignment processes. Whether you’re a front-line sales manager responsible for a small team or a seasoned CRO managing a global sea of RVPs and seasoned enterprise account executives and have wondered how you can optimize your upcoming virtual business review initiative, I hope you found the read worth your while.

    The Mindtickle team has prepared a comprehensive guide to assist enablement, marketing and sales teams in executing an effective virtual business review. For more information, download our Complete Guide and watch our short video demo to learn how to run an effective virtual business review.

    The post The Virtual Business Review as Your Strategic Cornerstone for Driving Revenue: A CRO’s Perspective appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Sales Readiness: The Secret to a Thriving Sales Team https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-readiness-the-secret-to-a-thriving-sales-team/ Sat, 14 Mar 2020 02:17:08 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-readiness-the-secret-to-a-thriving-sales-team/ Sales cycles have become more complex and take longer than ever before. Buyers are more informed and their expectations have evolved, while buying teams are expanding to include more decision-makers. These trends mean it’s critical to engage and delight prospects and customers at every moment, including person-to-person interactions, to drive revenue and create a positive …

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    Sales cycles have become more complex and take longer than ever before. Buyers are more informed and their expectations have evolved, while buying teams are expanding to include more decision-makers. These trends mean it’s critical to engage and delight prospects and customers at every moment, including person-to-person interactions, to drive revenue and create a positive brand experience.

    The most effective sales reps are always ready to deliver the right message at the right time to the right prospects. When sales teams are well-equipped and well-prepared, they perform confidently and drive revenue. But to make that happen, organizations need a robust sales readiness strategy that gives sales reps the right tools to access relevant content, understand how to use the knowledge and skill, and execute on that strategy.

    Do your reps have the tools, information, and management oversight and coaching they need to close the sale? 

    When all team members are engaged in a successful sales readiness program, they’re better equipped to identify qualified leads and bring the right information to the table to engage the prospect—at every single stage of the sales funnel. Sales readiness is a game changer, providing all the tools the sales team needs to succeed, along with a continuous learning system that keeps things fresh and updated.

    What is sales readiness?

    Sales readiness means empowering your customer-facing teams to be on message and on task every time they interact with a prospect. A sales readiness strategy may include a wide range of activities, including training, coaching, eLearning and role playing, but sales readiness is more than specific exercises. Sales readiness is frequently confused with sales enablement, but, while an effective sales enablement program is an essential part of readiness, these two concepts differ greatly.

    Sales readiness is a results-oriented approach to improving your sales team. By measuring representatives’ skills, setting individualized goals, and implementing a plan to reach those goals, sales managers have the tools (and the data) to improve the effectiveness of the entire team.

    The strategy behind sales readiness involves ongoing development that prepares each team member for buyer interactions through role-specific training, customer-facing development, field coaching, and continual reinforcement of key skills. Training modules, simulations and live exercises, coaching practices, process documentation, and other elements are continuously assessed and updated to be current and relevant for sales reps.

    At its core, sales readiness is about building confidence by providing your team in the field with a strong offense and defense. Once they have the knowledge and skills to think on their feet, sellers can speak with conviction and confidence about the issues prospects care about—most of which go far beyond the product specifications.

    Sales reps who aren’t fully prepared to address prospects’ questions and needs will struggle to hit their sales targets and quotas—in fact, over half of sales reps missed their quotas in 2018.

    With a strong readiness program, you can better equip your reps to have the right conversations and nurture leads throughout the customer journey.

    Let’s get a better understanding of what sales readiness is, and how it can provide the tools your sales team needs to be successful in the field.

    Why is sales readiness important?

    Outcome-oriented sales readiness improves the preparedness and effectiveness of your sales teams at any level of interaction with prospects and customers, especially in-person communications. Sales readiness incorporates elements of sales training, but goes much further than that. Readiness incorporates sales training, content management, and coaching all in one data-driven system to help you identify gaps in knowledge, develop specific skills in individual reps, and track progress toward development goals.

    Here are just a few of the benefits of a strong sales readiness program:

    Increases revenue

    The most obvious benefit of adopting a sales readiness program is the growth to both the top  bottom lines. Businesses that commit to effective onboarding and ongoing communication, coaching, and training are investing in the most important asset in their revenue building machine—the sales force.

    When done well, sales readiness has several effects that are near and dear to revenue. An effective sales readiness program:

    • Reduces ramp time
    • Improves productivity
    • Shortens time to achieving quota attainment
    • Increases close rates
    • Enables reps to identify and pursue cross-selling opportunities
    • Prevents negative outcomes of sub-par onboarding

    When more time is available for selling (and for practicing those sales skills again and again), your sales reps have the power to drive long-term revenue.

    Equips leaders with the right metrics to analyze seller effectiveness

    A sales readiness program doesn’t just provide easy access to different knowledge bases, though. It’s also an easily accessible source of analytics and insight into how sellers are developing their skills. Rather than an admin, manager, or enablement leader pulling together several different tools and disparate data points to assess team members, a sales readiness platform provides and presents all of that information in one place. Some platforms even roll up different metrics for key competencies into one metric you can track over time.

    At Mindtickle, we refer to this source as the Sales Capability Index™. Because it tracks individual reps over time in the context of their specific roles, it can be aggregated at different levels of the company to provide a deep understanding of revenue-producing activities. This means that you’re not only capturing data in one accessible place, but you’re also equipped with an understanding of that data—allowing you to then apply it to improve sales reps’ performance.

    Improves communication & relationships with prospects

    A sales readiness program enables reps in real time to access and use the right marketing materials, key talking points, and other relevant information to have better and more informed conversations with prospects. In addition, 1:1 coaching sessions and ongoing training exercises as part of a readiness program help assess, engage and reinforce key behaviors, concepts or skills. More importantly for new hires, sales readiness builds and maintains sales-specific behaviors from Day 1.

    For example, a sales manager may do coaching sessions on active listening to evaluate reps’ communication skills, identify areas for improvement, set goals, and track progress toward those goals to create better connections with prospects. The art of communication combined with the right knowledge from your business leads to better outcomes in the sales process.

    Provides easy access to all training materials and product documentation

    Each business has unique products or services to offer. Knowing how to sell, position, and speak intelligently about those offerings involves ongoing learning and coaching about the company, the products, specific features, and upcoming enhancements. A sales readiness program helps reps easily access training materials and product documentation, even if they are stored in multiple places.

    Providing seamless access to internal documentation enables your sales team to work smarter. Reps always have access to the latest product spec sheets, talking points, company vision and mission statements, goals, key wins, and product roadmaps. Armed with this information, your reps are always ready for meaningful conversations with prospects, no matter their role; they have the latest API documentation for developers, the latest case studies for the CFO, and so on.

    Sales readiness means putting this information—regardless of where it lives—in the hands of your salespeople so they spend less time searching, and more time selling.

    Enables reps to get past “no”

    An effective sales readiness program helps sales reps develop their soft skills (e.g. building rapport, small talk, and conversation starters), which are essential for handling tough conversations. Sales readiness programs include a number of tools to help sales reps develop and practice their soft skills:

    • Role playing is a great way for sales managers and administrators to recreate specific, real-life scenarios and help reps practice managing tough conversations.
    • Virtual micro-learning uses bite-sized, individualized training content like videos, games, and quizzes to teach and reinforce key concepts in the near term and over time.
    • Continuous coaching is a great way for managers to upskill reps in the areas where they need it most. Since coaching is a 1:1 experience, rather than a large training setting, reps can get specific feedback and guidance on how to improve their communication and selling skills, turn negative questions into positive answers, and more.

    Using sales readiness tools to improve sales reps’ soft skills helps them turn ‘no’ into ‘maybe,’ and ‘maybe’ into ‘yes, next quarter.’ It also gives them the skills and support to move past rejection, identify new opportunities, and better meet the needs of potential customers. This means fewer surprises in sales conversations, and when surprises do come up, they are prepared to handle the situation gracefully.

    Boosts engagement through communication & updates

    A successful sales readiness program also includes regular, thorough communication of events and updates. Win wires, field updates, and virtual events like bootcamps and webinars are shared via mobile apps and bite-sized content files to ensure that reps are always in the know. This empowers your reps to stay informed and engaged without having to sift through lengthy emails or hard-to-find resources. Your organization’s goals should be underlying each of these updates, which further emphasizes overall strategy to get all your reps on board.

    Now that you understand just how essential sales readiness is for ongoing growth and development, let’s take a look at the foundational elements that build a successful sales readiness program.

    The elements of sales readiness

    Sales readiness should be a complete program: a 360-degree view of a team, who they are, what they know, and how well they can communicate your key differentiators to customers, all correlated to actual business results.

    It can be helpful to think about the elements of sales readiness as the major activities that fall underneath it. Keep in mind that traditional programs like talent management and sales training, among others, are key parts of sales readiness.

    The four pillars of modern sales readiness are:

    • Sales capability development: Looking for the right talent for your sales team can be challenging. Hard skills like product knowledge and demonstration expertise can be taught, but competencies, behaviors, and characteristics must align with your company’s needs. Evaluating these core areas will help you determine how open and teachable a potential new hire will be to the continuous learning required by a sales readiness strategy.
    • Sales training and coaching: Training and coaching help cement foundational and continuous readiness by providing information, micro- and mobile-learning, sales skills, role play opportunities, and certifications. These resources teach the skills necessary for successful conversations with customers. Complete information provided in an easy to absorb manner ensures more effective and achievable results. This pillar includes insights and analytics, which help to assess the competencies, strengths, and weaknesses of the team. Managers need this information to ensure sellers are learning and retaining knowledge, meeting specific goals, and following up on underperforming areas when needed.
    • Communication and events: Ongoing communication through field updates or releases, successful and unsuccessful stories, and through virtual events like bootcamps and webinars keep continuous learning accessible by bringing excitement and news directly to the sales team.
    • Sales content management:  Sales readiness enables users to know what content to use and when to use it, whether it resides in a single system or multiple systems. This prepares reps to remain consistent with brand messaging to enhance seller productivity.

    Sales readiness tips to get you started

    Whether sales readiness as a discipline, function, or even concept is new to your organization, or your quest for continuous improvement in effective customer-engagement has hit a roadblock, here are a few useful tips to get started:

    • Lead with the outcome in mind: Define the elements of your long-term strategic revenue plan or effective customer engagement first. Starting with a clear view of the goal will help determine the right steps and identify blockers that must be resolved before you can meet your goals. For example, your long-term goal could be to build a more predictable, high-performing revenue engine. But right now, some regions are significantly underperforming others. In order to make the revenue stream more predictable, you need data to understand how exactly this region is falling behind. With a sales readiness platform, you can evaluate sellers’ capability and performance in key areas, like converting first calls to discovery meetings or developing closing plans. Once you’ve identified that the close rate is 25% lower in this region than others, you can create a training and coaching plan to specifically address first call meeting best practices or developing a mutual close plan, then track reps’ progress over time. This allows you to take measurable, data-driven, personalized steps to improve the effectiveness of your sales team.
    • Focus on long-term objectives instead of short-term wins: Sure, you can celebrate the wins, but don’t get distracted by smaller wins along the way. Instead, concentrate on how that win provides a stepping stone en route to the long-term objective. Don’t let it pause the forward momentum.
    • Don’t operate within a vacuum: You’re not alone! Speak to your peers, others within the enablement community, and your product marketing and training leaders to understand what works and what doesn’t.
    • Find the right place for technology: Sales readiness software enables you to bring together a wide range of readiness initiatives—onboarding, training, coaching, etc.—for a common goal. Analytics and measurable outcomes are essential for understanding the effectiveness of sellers and of the enablement program as a whole. Are reps getting to the right level of knowledge and training? If not, what can you do to improve enabling them? Evaluate different options, ask questions, and consider how you will implement the solution in your existing tech stack.

    At the end of the day, it’s about choosing the right technology partner that provides a proven sales readiness strategy. The proper platform will help you take your well-chosen new hires through an onboarding program that includes all the basics, coaching opportunities that allow sellers to experience life-like selling situations, and support all the way to successful customer conversations. All that in a continuous, ongoing program that provides small digestible snippets will keep your sellers on track and ready for more opportunities.

    See sales readiness in action

    Mindtickle is a Sales Readiness platform designed for the challenges and opportunities of modern sales teams. Measurably connect seller potential to in-field behavior and revenue performance growth, track sales reps’ progression in desired competencies against target objectives, and improve the onboarding, upskilling and coaching  across your sales department. Mindtickle’s visuals make monitoring easy to understand, putting the power of valuable analytics in your hands.

    Imagine you could clearly connect sellers’ learning, proficiency, coaching, and quota attainment performance to revenue growth in one easy step. Mindtickle’s sales readiness platform helps your organization to tackle the challenges associated with readiness, offering capabilities that are proven to drive revenue and ongoing development.

    Use our comprehensive ROI calculator to understand what your return on readiness could be or request a demo to see the Mindtickle platform in action today!

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    Onboarding Your Sellers for the New B2B Buyer: Rapidly Building Sales Capability https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/onboarding-your-sellers-for-the-new-b2b-buyer-rapidly-building-sales-capability/ Thu, 12 Mar 2020 04:52:03 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/onboarding-your-sellers-for-the-new-b2b-buyer-rapidly-building-sales-capability/ According to the 2019 B2B Buyers Survey published by DemandGen Report, buying committees continue to grow. Over half (56%) of those surveyed see four or more people involved in a purchase decision, while 21% have seven or more stakeholders. Moreover, recent Gartner research shows 77% of buyers agree purchases have become very complex and difficult. …

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    According to the 2019 B2B Buyers Survey published by DemandGen Report, buying committees continue to grow. Over half (56%) of those surveyed see four or more people involved in a purchase decision, while 21% have seven or more stakeholders. Moreover, recent Gartner research shows 77% of buyers agree purchases have become very complex and difficult. It also revealed that when B2B buyers are considering a purchase‚ they spend just 17% of their research time meeting with potential suppliers. When comparing multiple suppliers‚ they might only spend 5% or 6% of that allotted time with any one sales rep.

    The limited amount of time reps have with buyers has taken on newfound levels of importance. If sales reps fail to deliver compelling value or perceived value during that time, they will find it exceedingly difficult to establish themselves as credible or consultative. In turn, they may find themselves shut out of an opportunity for good. 

    The challenge is that great sellers are not born, they are made. While trainers can onboard and educate them, experience is the ultimate teacher. However, without the luxury of time, organizations must distill the experience of winning strategies and tactics to rapidly build world-class, customer-facing capability across their teams.

     

    Poor Onboarding Derails Even the Best Organizations

    As we’ve discussed before, poor onboarding is often the first misstep on the way to building a substandard sales organization. Effective onboarding is a specific initiative within an overall readiness regimen focused on equipping sales reps with knowledge, skills, and behaviors aligned with the buyers’ journey so sellers can engage and convert buyers. Too many companies, however, think they have to throw out the baby with the bathwater when it comes to establishing an effective onboarding approach. 

    Let’s review some traditional onboarding approaches that have earned such a bad reputation that organizations often fail to take advantage of the positives.

    Classroom-based Sales Onboarding: With a great instructor, proper program structure, and a good curriculum, the classroom is an amazing way for sellers to learn. Classroom training allows you to teach your reps in a controlled setting, in large or small groups, free from the distractions and pressures of their work environment. Your reps get the benefit of the “human touch,” both from trainers and their peers they interact with and learn from. Plus, classroom training can help build teamwork across people who need to collaborate, such as pre-sales engineers and sales reps, and account managers and customer success. 

    The downside of a classroom is that as a one-time event, it lacks ongoing reinforcement even in the short term and fails to drive essential behavior change. Plus, for a consistent, global experience, you need certified instructors and a structured curriculum.

    Sales Onboarding with a Learning Management System (LMS): Geared towards company-wide collaboration, a successful LMS delivers a framework for managing virtual learning. An LMS is actually designed for more than training your sellers. While it encompasses many capabilities – including registration, catalog, and content delivery – its main purpose is for compliance, testing, and tracking. This system offers your reps self-study content, allowing them to learn on demand and at their convenience. And it works well as a central record-keeping system showing whether reps completed their training. 

    That said, an LMS alone is not enough. Most LMS content is static. While you can configure an LMS for basic interactivity, this modality doesn’t bring your sellers together. In other words, it’s an isolating learning experience for your sales reps. Moreover, these systems have a reputation for not being engaging. Reps tend to hate them because they lack rich media and the learning process is boring.  Even admins find an LMS hard to use for their purposes, such as developing content. In a dynamic sales environment, this more rigid structure makes it difficult to serve up timely and relevant training content. 

    In-the-field/on-the-job: This training can happen in two ways: Shadowing others, and being shadowed and coached by others. A structured in-the-field/on-the-job coaching program provides a framework to coach consistently and ensures reps are up to date and regularly trained in the areas they need the most. 

    However, in most cases, in-the-field/on-the-job training happens too early – reps are in the door and on the phones. Throwing them into the water to see if they can swim leads to lost opportunities. Your sellers only get one shot to make a first impression with a prospect, so you can’t afford less-than-ideal interactions and recovery attempts – or outright losses – and stressed reps.

    Other ways in-the-field and on-the-job training falls short is because they lack:

    • Knowledge and behavior reinforcement. No lever exists for reinforcing knowledge and changing behavior so sellers are more effective.
    • Skills and capability building. This onboarding approach doesn’t complement skills and capability development with coaching, role play and practice focused on specific scenarios.
    • Strategic onboarding. Putting reps straight into the field with little to no guidance, aka ‘trial by fire,’ typically results in less-than-stellar results and potentially impacts seller confidence and proficiency.
    • Constructive feedback from peers and managers. Sellers have little opportunity to learn from peers and managers and garner direct feedback.

    Obviously, there are benefits to each of these traditional approaches. But the secret to onboarding success is borrowing the best from each and augmenting them with modern sales approaches and sales onboarding. 

     

    What B2B Buyers Value

    Selling effectively in today’s environment is a matter of ensuring your sales reps are aligned with — and deliver value to — buyers at every turn, since there is little to no room for missteps. The first step is understanding the process from the buyers’ perspective. 

    Two years ago, Gartner CEB debunked the myth that even so-called empowered B2B buyers are firmly in control of their buying process. Today’s buyers can access a wealth of information about topics, solutions, and vendors – which creates challenges as well as opportunities. The challenge is that they are overwhelmed to the point of often feeling paralyzed in their ability to move forward. Complicating matters is the purchase-by-consensus model that bogs down discussions and decisions. 

    While it may seem counterintuitive, CEB warns that sellers should not simply offer up more information and explain a range of alternatives to buyers as doing so only exacerbates the information-deluge problem.  Instead, CEB found that sales reps who are prescriptive by clearly recommending and rationalizing a certain course of action, and present a specific offering helps ease the purchasing process by 86%. At a time when buyers are desperate for a simpler purchase process, this approach can set sales reps apart.

    Yet sales reps cannot provide guidance in a vacuum; they must align with the outcomes that matter to the buyer. That alignment begins with understanding buyer pains, criteria, value and everything else the buyer journey encompasses so your reps can anticipate and manage the process internally. 

     

    Equipping Your Sales Reps to Succeed

    Part of the job of a sales leader’s job is enabling reps with the knowledge, skills, and behaviors needed to be a consultative and trusted advisor to buyers. So, understanding what resonates with buyers is the first critical step to delivering value and building this perspective into the onboarding process. 

    Onboarding isn’t a once-and-done exercise. According to Ebbinghaus’ “forgetting curve,” people forget 79% of what they learn in 30 days. So it’s not a question of the quality of your program when it comes to making sure knowledge sticks – it’s a matter of how the brain works. That’s why it’s essential to focus on key capabilities driving success in the field.

    Organizations must identify and define needed field capabilities in line with how buyers research and purchase. In essence, sales reps must enable today’s buyers. As Gartner says, “To win in this B2B buying environment, suppliers should focus on providing customers with information that is specifically designed to help them complete their buying jobs. We call this ‘buyer enablement’ — the provisioning of information to customers in a way that enables them to complete critical buying jobs.”

    It starts with marketing and sales defining the journey and the sales plays: what is the target persona, the buyer journey, our value, etc. Without a clear understanding of this, onboarding is irrelevant because it will be teaching the wrong knowledge, skills, and behaviors. To learn and master these behaviors, your reps require knowledge of the sales process, buyer personas, buying cycles, and industry context combined with proven in-field skills. 

    According to Norman Behar, Managing Director at Sales Readiness Group, CROs should monitor results (aka lagging indicators) while monitoring and managing demonstrable knowledge and capabilities (aka leading indicators).

    At a macro level, today’s sales reps must understand how the buyer defines value/cultivate discovery skills to understand buyer criteria, etc. Specific examples of what a sales rep might need the ability to do are:

    • Qualify the prospect. The rep must conduct a discovery session with the prospect, asking questions to understand their needs and whether the company’s product or service can address them.
    • Guide a prospect through the buying process beyond the product or service. This requires determining the prospect’s needs, speaking to those issues, and referencing industry trends as applicable.
    • Keep a prospect engaged over time. In the B2B world, many purchase decisions take months. The seller’s task is to continue the conversation until the prospect is ready to buy. This involves understanding industry trends and news, changing product information, developments within the prospect’s business etc. to initiate and continue the conversation with the prospect over time.
    • Overcome objections. Prospects will come up with reasons they don’t want to move forward. The rep needs to respond to those objections, while reframing them in a way that is beneficial to both the prospect and the seller.
    • Demo the product or service. This entails walking through the key features that matter to the prospect while positioning those to address the prospect’s needs, as well as maneuvering around feature gaps. 
    • Engage multiple stakeholders. Selling today requires reps to engage with and speak to multiple stakeholders in the organization — from the champion to technical buyers, the economic buyer, etc. — in a consultative manner without losing their attention or trust.
    • Enable the Buyer: Buyer enablement instills confidence in buyers and their ability to make good decisions. Sellers must provide buyers with the right information, through the right channels, designed to make the purchase process easier. 
    • Close the deal. The seller needs to negotiate a contract that is appealing to the prospect and beneficial to the company and rep so no money is left on the table.

    Once your sales enablement organization has mapped out the knowledge, skills, process, as well as the tools to support execution, it can develop an effective onboarding program. However, success also hinges on selecting the right onboarding approach. 

     

    Enable True Sales Readiness With an Expanded Definition of Sales Training and Seller Development 

    The most effective onboarding is built on the following core pillars:

    • Developing a deep, data-driven understanding of the strengths and weaknesses of your sellers, which you then use to develop an individualized program suited for each rep. In other words, don’t take a cookie-cutter approach.
    • Taking control from Day 1 of the outcomes important to your organization. You do this by building and maintaining sales-specific behaviors that uniquely provide insight and perspective to customers, while ensuring the sales process is aligned to the customer’s journey. 
    • Showing (modeling excellence/best practices templates) – mentoring and coaching reps guide them towards proven winning methodologies, tactics, and behaviors. The objective here is to move beyond just a transfer of sales knowledge and helping them understand what is needed to succeed in the field.
    • Mastering skills before talking to customers. Ensure your reps practice through scenarios and at the appropriate time with virtual and classroom role plays so they can master the knowledge and skills needed in the field. Back this up with reinforcement that drives long-term knowledge retention and behavior change. Reinforcement includes mentoring and coaching, delivering contextual bite-sized content in the moment, and Spaced Learning.
    • Cultivating a feedback culture.  To promote and encourage ongoing knowledge sharing and reinforcement, give your sellers access to feedback from managers and peers. In addition,  create a 360-degree, two-way exchange of information that benefits Sellers and Managers, and keeps content current.

     

    Prepare Your Sellers for Success With Mindtickle 

    With it comes to effectively selling to today’s buyers, sales readiness and onboarding are arguably the most critical aspects of a sales enablement strategy. The Mindtickle platform is designed to enable effective, modern enablement and onboarding. Equipped with the necessary knowledge and skills — aligned with the process and outcomes that matter to your target buyers your sellers will confidently engage in productive interactions with prospects. That means more closed deals, larger deal sizes and, ultimately, higher revenue.

    To learn more about Mindtickle and our platform, you can request a demo here!

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    When No-Travel Policies Get in the Way of Sales Kick-off https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/when-no-travel-policies-disrupt-sales-kick-off/ Fri, 06 Mar 2020 09:22:56 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/when-no-travel-policies-disrupt-sales-kick-off/ Kick Off Productive Sales Bootcamps, Events and QBRs with Virtual Strategies This is the story of a company like mine, maybe yours.  Perhaps you’re an enablement director, marketing or sales exec, sales ops leader, training director, field event owner or an executive admin. It’s March 5, so it’s that time of year or quarter when …

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    Kick Off Productive Sales Bootcamps, Events and QBRs with Virtual Strategies

    This is the story of a company like mine, maybe yours.  Perhaps you’re an enablement director, marketing or sales exec, sales ops leader, training director, field event owner or an executive admin. It’s March 5, so it’s that time of year or quarter when you’re on the verge of the multi-week showcase known as Sales Bootcamp, Sales Kick-Off (SKO), Quarterly Business Review (QBR) or Company/Global Kick-Off  (GKO). This means you’re in the throes of your evening job as the “chief sales-kick-off officer” – responsible for pulling together in a single location, corporate and field teams distributed near and far.

    Then you have the mic drop moment. After all that really hard work – bad news goes viral! A no-travel policy is enforced or perhaps executive management makes the call. Employees are proactively asked to cancel all work-related travel as a precautionary measure. 

    In this moment, it’s logical to pivot towards one of a few options:

    Option 1: Panic 

    Option 2: Cancel everything, reschedule, or worse just wait, hoping for a miracle

    Option 3: Put everything, all content, all presentations in shared drives, your CMS and run long, boring web conferencing sessions, hoping against hope that something will stick

    The good news is that there is a proven approach to getting a high ROI on the work that has already been done. 

    • Presenting Option 4: World-class companies implement a blended approach to sales events designed to withstand emergencies including outbreaks, volcanoes, and earthquakes. Over the last 7 years, Mindtickle has been working with these organizations to implement a readiness approach across their sales events.

    Over the course of this post, I will review some of these best practices in the form of Do’s and Don’ts to help you go from a standstill to a winning virtual event in 2 weeks or less. (Scroll to the end for a link to connect with Mindtickle experts that are available for a 1:1 consultation on running great virtual sales events and kick-offs.)

    Do’s and Don’ts for Moving from In-Person to Virtual in 2 Weeks or Less

    Engaging Executives and Fellow Stakeholders – Build Your SWAT Team!

    DON’T

    • Don’t assume you are in this alone and try to pull off the shift to an online or virtual event on your own. Continue to engage and communicate with people that worked to support the event.
    • Why: These folks have a vested interest in being consulted and playing a part in a successful follow-through. While it’s easy to focus on assuring executives and leaders that ‘something’ will happen, consulting with the end recipients, peers in product marketing, pre-sales, services, and other organizing teams will create a meaningful, engaging, and collaborative experience. 

    DO

    • Do reach out to your existing telephony, conferencing, and readiness solutions partners to see what experience and insight they might offer to work with you on transforming your live event into a virtual experience. Talk to other industry peers on industry forums or in your network to incorporate their learnings.
    • Work with executives and leaders to inspire the troops.  From inspirational messages to short videos delivering and reinforcing key messages on themes, objectives, and the importance of virtual participation, the organization will feel supported and assured that business will not only continue but thrive amidst the uncertain business climate. Nothing delivers confidence like the message that business will continue as usual particularly with an event designed to make sellers and their supporting teams competitive. 
    • Virtual competitions, leaderboards and other fun activities like quizzes or polls, as well as micro-content formats on mobile to drip-serve long-form learning to pre-reading on mobile with gamification and rewards tied to completion, will also create an atmosphere of engagement with learning and reinforcement.

    Transitioning Quickly from In-Person to Online 

    DON’T

    • Don’t attempt to convert your live event to a live web-conferencing event on the same exact days and times as your original conference. 
    • Why: Locations, connectivity, time-zones, and home office settings are very different and not conducive to day-long sessions of one-sided content consumption in a vacuum.

    DO

    • Do leverage live presentation tools in conjunction with a platform aligned with pre-conference planning and attendee preferences.
    • Do solicit feedback from sellers and attendees using surveys and polls on how they would like to participate in a virtual setting, consume content (real-time, online, offline, mobile, video/pdf, gamified, etc.) and provide feedback.
    • Use visual journey builders, social engagement like leaderboards, and gamification to build a sense of virtual community.

    Keeping your Presenters and Experts Engaged Before, During and After the Event

    DON’T

    • Make your presenters record every session in long videos using a web conferencing solution or video in PowerPoint and post them to a shared folder or file sharing service.
    • Why: Presenters are human too and the best presenters draw energy from participation and reinforcement from attendees. Allowing Presenters to experiment with new formats like polls and voice-over video or role-plays as well as micro-learning or spaced reinforcement modalities and feedback mechanisms like polls will engage them and create a feedback loop.

    DO

    • Maximize the power of personalization to service every attendee based on their unique role. Survey reps online to collect ideas on topics that matter in the field.
    • Conduct online role-play competitions to find success stories.
    • Use a pop quiz to identify knowledge gaps.
    • Present your executive team with reasons to shift to a virtual model and get enthusiastic buy-in because of the better outcome it will offer versus simply shifting the in-person event to a series of web-conferences.
    • Take stock of and categorize your existing content and leverage internal teams or vendors like Mindtickle that have dedicated content services to help you quickly re-factor your content for consumption with modern modalities such as gamification, mobile micro-learning, virtual coaching forms, email-based reinforcement and role-plays.  

    Orchestrate the Event as Series of Mini-Exercises, Each Designed to Maximize Interaction, Engagement, and Long-term Retention 

    DO

    • Review my colleague Dhruv Markandey’s excellent post here on a practical action plan for implementing a quick virtual event in a few days. Our experience with our customers informs us that taking a micro-experience approach to sessions, content, exercises and a focus on personalization will drive the best possible outcomes. These include: 
      • Integrated pre-learning and pre-certification with instructor-led skill development workshops delivered via live streaming platforms. 
      • Short surveys after every micro-session to measure ROI and engagement.
      • Use of quizzes and virtual leaderboards to measure knowledge retention, engagement, and readiness.
      • Continuous drip delivery of bite-sized information updates like product and competitive snapshots from SMEs.
      • Online role plays for reps to practice their message during breaks or in between sequenced sessions on topics such as objection handling or elevator pitch.
      • Spaced reinforcement after the event to ensure reps have adopted product messages. 

    While there is no size fits all to define the perfect virtual sales or corporate event, platforms such as Mindtickle have evolved to help our customers address one overriding objective. Maximizing the capability of their people by supporting how they are onboarded, aligned and reinforced to deliver in the field. Bootcamps, SKOs, QBRs, and GKOs are perhaps the most important anchor events designed to achieve this objective in a single forum to deliver the executive vision, product launch training, messaging certification, competitive training and accreditation, coaching 1:1’s and feedback loop. 

    I hope this blog post sparks some ideas for your own event and look forward to opening up a conversation as we all come to grips with doing business no matter where people are.

    The post When No-Travel Policies Get in the Way of Sales Kick-off appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Mindtickle Named a Winner for Sales Enablement Solutions in 2020 Stevie® Awards For Sales & Customer Service https://www.mindtickle.com/news/winner-sales-enablement-2020-stevie-awards-for-sales/ Wed, 04 Mar 2020 16:30:52 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/winner-sales-enablement-2020-stevie-awards-for-sales/ Award for driving Sales Readiness validates customer results and product innovation SAN FRANCISCO, March 4, 2020 — Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, announced today that they have been presented with a Stevie® Award in the Sales Enablement Solution – New Version category at the 14th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. …

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    Award for driving Sales Readiness validates customer results and product innovation

    SAN FRANCISCO, March 4, 2020 — Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, announced today that they have been presented with a Stevie® Award in the Sales Enablement Solution – New Version category at the 14th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Mindtickle won the award with demonstrated strength in helping sales reps master the ability to have engaging interactions with customers through virtual role-play, and customer case studies that show measurable business benefits. The award comes after Mindtickle announced record enterprise customer growth in 2019.

    “Creating near real-world sales scenarios is a critical component of helping sales reps practice and prepare for the challenge of engaging and delighting prospects and customers,” said Gopkiran Rao, chief strategy and marketing officer at Mindtickle. “To meet performance targets while adapting to rapidly evolving and increasingly savvy buyers require preparing sellers to have valuable person-to-person interactions through a systematic and data-driven approach to readiness. We’re honored that the judges recognized not only our technological progress but also how we’re empowering our customers to measurably achieve their Sales Readiness goals.”

    Mindtickle was presented with a bronze award in the Sales Enablement Solution – New Version category for innovations in their “Missions” virtual role-play allowing sellers to practice voice-over slideshow, video role-play, email and task execution, and voice-over screen share — for sales interactions such as product demos and walkthroughs — in one unified experience. Mindtickle’s lead in the market was demonstrated by advances in AI and machine learning capabilities, enhancing the user experience, as well as enabling user management at enterprise scale. This includes automated transcription, keyword and sentiment analysis, as well as length and speech pace. Customer case studies included business results such as reducing onboarding time by 60 percent for one customer as well as achieving a 90 percent pass rate for certification and reducing time to certification by nearly 30 percent for another.

    Feedback from the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service judges included:

    • “Universally applicable platform with tailored fit results.”
    • “On-demand training and sales coaching with the help of gamification help to accelerate growth and business outcomes.”

    The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service are the world’s top honors for customer service, contact center, business development, and sales professionals.  The Stevie Awards organizes eight of the world’s leading business awards programs, also including the prestigious American Business Awards®  and International Business Awards®. More than 2,600 nominations from organizations in 48 nations of all sizes and in virtually every industry were evaluated in this year’s competition. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 180 professionals worldwide on seven specialized judging committees.

    “Stevie Award winners from around the world should be very proud of their achievements.  The judges were impressed with the vast range of nominations submitted for 2020 and have agreed that their accomplishments are worthy of public recognition,” said Stevie Awards executive chairman, Michael Gallagher.

    Additional Information:

    About Mindtickle

    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand affinity. Its purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices are designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness. With Mindtickle, company leaders and sellers can continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Companies across a wide range of industries use Mindtickle’s innovative capabilities for on-demand, online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification-based learning, coaching and role-play to ensure world-class sales performance. Mindtickle is a global, privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Visit us at http://www.Mindtickle.com.

    About the Stevie Awards

    Stevie Awards are conferred in eight programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, the Middle East Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business, and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

    Sponsors of the 14th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service include HCL Technologies, Sales Partnerships, Inc., and ValueSelling Associates, Inc.

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    Five Best Practices for Strong Alignment Between L&D and Sales https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/five-best-practices-for-strong-alignment-between-ld-and-sales/ Thu, 20 Feb 2020 23:00:21 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/five-best-practices-for-strong-alignment-between-ld-and-sales/ Learning — especially for sales reps and other customer-facing employees — is ideally intended to be ongoing to reinforce knowledge over time but to also reflect evolving business strategies, regular updates on products and services, and changes in regulatory requirements. After all, if the market landscape is dynamic, how can learning be a one-time endeavor? …

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    Learning — especially for sales reps and other customer-facing employees — is ideally intended to be ongoing to reinforce knowledge over time but to also reflect evolving business strategies, regular updates on products and services, and changes in regulatory requirements. After all, if the market landscape is dynamic, how can learning be a one-time endeavor?

    Considered a core piece of any sales enablement program, teams from Learning and Development (L&D) departments often step in to drive sales training and ongoing learning, initially aligning with HR for onboarding new sales talent. All too quickly, however, it can become disconnected from sales reps and other customer-facing employees. New sales reps, for example, often see working with L&D as a one-time, check-the-box activity, knowing that the faster they get through training, the faster they can begin to tackle their quotas. Perhaps their next brush with training/L&D comes annually with sales training sessions at SKOs or perhaps during a time specific to onboarding. Outside of these opportunities, ongoing learning and more importantly, sales skills development, falls on the list of priorities.

    This disconnect between the needs of sales and those tasked with training sales benefits neither customer-facing employees nor L&D itself. It can start with a lack of clarity about the sales mentality or process, communications break down leading to more missed opportunities by sales training to learn how to improve the way they operate and deliver value. And the misalignment can snowball for a number of reasons — sales enablement isn’t delivered in the flow of work, there is no feedback mechanism or there are no agreed-upon and measurable results. And this misalignment with sales usually spans across sales onboarding, sales training, and sales coaching. And for sales, the reps begin to neglect or miss opportunities to leverage best practices, resources, and development methodologies that have been proven to work.

    Fortunately, a number of best practices can be undertaken to avoid such a disconnect and misalignment. Here, we put forth five ways L&D can continue to engage with customer-facing teams to help them be more effective:

    Align outcomes. Define the business outcomes desired — such as better customer experiences, increased renewal revenues, the addition of net new logos, etc. — and align them with learning outcomes. In doing so, learning becomes a critical enabler of reaching the desired business outcomes, and L&D teams are more incentivized to stay engaged with the vehicles (sales reps) for reaching those outcomes.

    Create a skills framework. A framework communicates clear expectations for a sales rep’s competencies and capabilities. Ideally, the framework comprises the soft skills (such as active listening and concise speaking) and hard skills (such as prospecting, lead qualification and negotiating) that combined, make an effective sales rep. The framework should map back to the outcomes listed in best practice No. 1.

    Identify the engagement opportunities for customer-facing teams to enhance their knowledge, skills and behaviors. This includes leveraging gamification to challenge sellers and other teams to earn certifications and badges and implement rewards for participation and completion. Sellers should also be engaged in simulated and real-world scenarios through virtual role-plays to teach and reinforce desired behaviors. Another opportunity to engage teams is by distributing and sharing soft skills training and product knowledge at timed intervals while leveraging quizzes, open-ended questions, and materials in different formats to customer-facing teams.

    Leverage a sales readiness platform. Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness platform combines training, content, analytics, certifications and coaching to ensure that all customer-facing employees have the tools to be successful and field-ready. With a sales readiness platform, L&D can meet mandates for everything from on-boarding to up-skilling to ongoing learning.

    Build a culture of coaching. Coaching is valuable in its ability to improve performance and help the best reps perform even better through ongoing feedback that fine tunes hard and soft skills. L&D can support coaching by empowering managers to systematically assess reps’ capabilities and provide consistent, ongoing feedback and insights when and where their “coachees” need it. It’s important also to provide a coaching session cadence, easily facilitated through a sales readiness platform like Mindtickle.

    In its primary role of managing the development of employees — and to do so in a way that supports other key business priorities — L&D emerges as a critical piece of the overall success of a business. As such, a close and consistent alignment with sales is crucial. By following these five best practices, L&D and sales can remain a critical part of sales enablement and readiness with the ultimate goal of building value across an organization.

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    The Best Sales Training Ideas: Techniques to Ensure Success https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-best-sales-training-ideas-techniques-to-ensure-success/ Wed, 29 Jan 2020 02:53:19 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/the-best-sales-training-ideas-techniques-to-ensure-success/ We’ve entered a new era of sales training. For many decades, long presentations in classroom environments were the only form of career learning available. But today, sales reps expect more creative and comprehensive career development tools, and customers expect salespeople to be valuable industry experts. As technology evolves, attention spans decrease and customer knowledge skyrockets. …

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    We’ve entered a new era of sales training. For many decades, long presentations in classroom environments were the only form of career learning available. But today, sales reps expect more creative and comprehensive career development tools, and customers expect salespeople to be valuable industry experts.

    As technology evolves, attention spans decrease and customer knowledge skyrockets. Sales instruction must now include new methodologies that didn’t exist even 10 years ago. Today’s training is fueled by sales enablement technologies, and it’s bolstered by innovative coaching methods.

    What is Sales Training?

    Sales training is the ongoing process of teaching sales teams how to create profitable, deal-closing interactions with buyers. This may include in-person learning, e-learning, micro-learning, gamification, or other training techniques to help salespeople improve.

    Sales training is designed to help sales reps close more deals, of course. But it’s also about teaching reps to build long-term relationships with buyers and guide them to buying decisions that best benefit their organizations as well.

    Although the terms are sometimes used synonymously, sales training is not the same as “sales enablement” or “sales coaching.”

    Sales enablement is a wide umbrella. While it includes training, it also involves tools, content, processes, and other resources that enable sales reps to be at their best.

    Sales coaching is a crucial reinforcer of training. It’s the continuous, one-on-one guidance given to salespeople to fill each individual rep’s specific knowledge gaps.

    The Best Sales Training Techniques

    There’s no single training plan that works for every sales organization, and it’s beneficial to use a mix of different methods to keep things interesting. There are, however, several training techniques that, when implemented correctly, boost the performance of sales teams. Here are key sales training techniques to consider:

    E-learning

    Technology and flexible work arrangements continue to change how and where work is performed.

    Over 40% of U.S. employees worked remotely for at least part of the time in 2017, up from only 23% in 2003.

    and salespeople are no exception. Even when employees are in the office, sales teams are often dispersed throughout different cities, states, and even countries to serve different markets.

    Traditional, in-person training is challenging to coordinate, expensive to execute, and requires taking the sales staff away from valuable customer-facing activities for hours or days at a time.

    E-learning can take different forms, such as instructor-led classes vs. massive open online courses (MOOCs). These are most commonly used to teach several new concepts in a short span of time, such as during sales rep onboarding or training on a new system.

    E-learning eliminates many of the pitfalls of traditional sales training by providing:

    • Anywhere/anytime access: By offering training courses online via the cloud, sales reps can access training materials wherever and whenever is convenient for them. The best e-learning technology also enables learners to take courses from any device, whether desktops, laptops, tablets or phones.
    • Increased sales-rep productivity: The downtime required to travel to a conference center and sit through training would be better served on the front lines with buyers. Because e-learning enables salespeople to take courses whenever their schedules permit, they gain more time to focus on customer relationship building and revenue-generating activities.
    • Cost reductions: Although e-learning requires up-front investment, it ultimately leads to steep cost reductions. Virtual learning reduces the costs of travel, training centers, physical learning materials (like training guides), and the expenses associated with bringing in dedicated trainers.
    • Many engaging formats: E-learning can be as creative and engaging as you want it to be. And in our era of shrinking attention spans, engagement is important. The best e-learning training offers a mix of presentation formats that boost engagement. Examples include video, interactive infographics, whiteboard-style free animations, kinetic text, and challenging-yet-fun assessments to test the learner’s knowledge.
    • Attractive perks for top talent: Companies with the most convenient and robust learning opportunities can win top talent better than competitors. Sales training offers career and skill development—something that millennials want and expect from their employers. A sales organization that offers 24/7 access to industry-leading training materials can highlight their commitment to ongoing improvement in the recruiting process.

    Micro-learning

    https://joshbersin.com/

    Micro-learning is the practice of offering bite-sized, always-accessible, individualized training content to employees. This practice uses small learning opportunities to reinforce key concepts and drive employee development.

    Micro-learning is often focused on one topic or problem, and it is easily searchable so employees can find information on the right topic at the right time. Micro-learning may incorporate a range of content types, including quizzes, videos, games, simulations, audio clips, and more.

    Micro-learning taps into a key principle of how humans learn: the more we repeat and use information, the more ingrained it becomes in long-term memory. Research also shows that information is retained more effectively when it is spread over a longer period of time, compared to when the information is presented all at once.

    Not only does micro-learning aid in the learning process, but it also saves precious time and helps the learner absorb information in a way that’s fun and engaging.

    Here are some important benefits of micro-learning:

    • Retain more training information: Conventional e-learning typically covers numerous training objectives in one lengthy course. This can create “information overload,” causing reps to struggle to retain a wide range of concepts. Micro-learning flips this tactic on its head by presenting the learner with short-and-sweet training modules.
    • Fit into busy reps’ schedules: Each training module is quick, fun, and engaging. It focuses on one learning objective, with one vital concept to remember, and then ends. The learner can then either take another training module or go about their day with that one newly-learned concept in mind.
    • Identify knowledge gaps and track progress: Advanced micro-learning platforms provide the ability for sales leaders to identify reps’ knowledge gaps, assign training to fill that gap, and track the reps’ progress in that area.
    • Customize and personalize training programs: With larger sales teams, there are numerous knowledge gaps to fill. Traditionally, the way to deal with knowledge gaps was to present dozens (or even hundreds) of reps with one lengthy training session in an attempt to cover every possible need. With micro-learning, sales coaches can assign the exact modules needed to fill every rep’s knowledge gaps. This approach boosts efficiency, saves time for the entire sales team, and gives reps a more customized approach to development.
    • Provide information that is relevant here and now: Sales training should be refreshed frequently to accommodate the latest product knowledge, buyer insights, and industry trends. Traditional classroom materials or even e-learning can take months to update. Micro-learning modules, on the other hand, can be updated within hours to ensure reps are getting the most relevant information.
    • Improve training completion rates: The longer and more challenging the training, the less likely your reps are to complete the entire program. With shorter, more approachable training that is easy to fit in with day-to-day activities, reps are more likely to start and complete their training modules.
    • Gain a competitive advantage: Companies can gain and cement their competitive advantage by using micro-learning techniques. Dynamic learning opportunities like micro-learning improve the onboarding process, increase productivity, help attract and retain top talent, and require less time to find and update than traditional training materials. All of these benefits together help you build a competitive advantage and deliver more value to customers.

    Gamification

    Gamification provides something that was once unheard of: training programs that are fun. Training that’s enjoyable and engaging helps the learner retain more of the material for longer periods of time.

    When training and assessments are enjoyable, reps are motivated to complete modules even when they’re not assigned to them. This provides for more training opportunities and more reinforcement of key concepts covered in e-learning, micro-learning, or other training formats. When salespeople are motivated to complete more training, the result is a more highly skilled sales team that is prepared to drive revenue growth.

    Some of the most effective gamification elements include:

    • Video-game components: Gaming is a familiar format to millennials, who make up the largest share of the U.S. workforce. The gaming format offers fun and engaging challenges to help apply and reinforce what is learned.
    • Leaderboards: Leaderboards and badges add healthy colleague-to-colleague competition to the training mix. Since their achievements can be publicized company-wide, reps receive more recognition and motivation than they did with traditional training courses.
    • Social elements: Newsfeeds and open communication between reps make the gamification experience even more rewarding. Social elements can promote new business connections and profitable interactions (like knowledge sharing and meaningful encouragement) within the sales force.
    • Gamified quizzes: Even quizzes can be fun when they’re turned into games. When reps don’t pass an assessment on the first try, they’re more willing and motivated to play the learning game again to pick up the information they might have missed.

    Real-world incentives

    Salespeople are goal-driven and competitive by nature. Online training programs should leverage these traits. While many reps complete e-learning courses for their own career development, the right incentives can add motivational fuel to the fire. Here are a few important guidelines:

    • Make sure the incentives are desirable: Incentives can take many forms, like spiffs awarded after meeting a challenging training goal, or gift cards or concert tickets. Anything that will motivate your reps is fair game. Don’t make the common mistake of assuming your team will be motivated by company-branded giveaway items like pens and sport bottles—your reps are more valuable than that, so it’s worth putting time and thought into your incentives.
    • Incentives need to be achievable: If the incentive requirements aren’t attainable, such as earning 100% on all training quizzes for a month, reps will be discouraged rather than motivated. The requirements should be challenging, but reps need to believe they can actually win. Consider running “nearly impossible” incentives alongside achievable ones. For example, earning 85% or higher on all training quizzes this month will earn a standard (but desirable) reward, and landing 100% on all quizzes is worth an even more valuable reward.
    • Get input from sales reps: With larger sales teams, especially when they’re remote, it might be harder to anticipate what kinds of incentives resonate well with your reps. If you’re not sure what to offer, ask reps directly. Consider emailing a questionnaire with a list of rewards to choose from, whether gift cards, a donation to their favorite charity, etc. Then, when a rep earns an incentive, you’ll know their preferences.
    • Deliver the reward immediately: With remote sales reps, make sure the reward is mailed quickly. For reps working in the office, hand-deliver it the day it’s earned, if possible. To maintain the motivation, reps should see training incentives being received as promised.

    How a Sales Training Platform Can Help

    There are countless approaches to establishing effective sales training and onboarding at your organization. The right training platform can help your reps achieve quotas faster and improve new reps’ time to productivity. Look for a platform that enables you to:

    • Identify your reps’ specific knowledge gaps
    • Assign your reps the right learning paths based on their roles
    • Track onboarding progress with milestones and certifications
    • Provide training modules that incorporate gamification elements

    Mindtickle is a trusted sales training platform that enables sales teams worldwide to become more competitive and profitable. Schedule a demo to see how Mindtickle can help you establish and refine your sales training program.

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    How Mindtickle’s Best-in-Class ‘Missions’ Virtual Role-Play Got Even Better in 2019 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/missions-virtual-role-play-better-in-2019/ Tue, 24 Dec 2019 05:54:18 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/missions-virtual-role-play-better-in-2019/ In today’s digital age where everyone is glued to their phones, the traditional ‘Elevator Pitch’ rarely happens in the elevator. It is more likely that your sellers will never have the chance to be in that “elevator” or even the same conversation if they are not able to send a concise and effective LinkedIn invitation …

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    In today’s digital age where everyone is glued to their phones, the traditional ‘Elevator Pitch’ rarely happens in the elevator. It is more likely that your sellers will never have the chance to be in that “elevator” or even the same conversation if they are not able to send a concise and effective LinkedIn invitation or message and master a consultative introductory conversation with the prospect. The most successful sellers are able to capitalize on customer interactions regardless of the medium – email, phone, in-person, web-conference. 

    As the industry-leading readiness platform, we enable this mastery through our ‘Missions’ capability. Missions allow sellers to practice voice-over-slideshow, video roleplay, email and task evaluation, and voice-over-screen share (product demo/walkthrough, etc.) in one unified platform. To date, our platform has seen over a quarter million Missions submitted by hundreds of customers across 10 industry verticals. In addition, Mindtickle customers are creating Missions to target use cases in all sales stages.

    Here is a summary of the use cases we see:

    Meeting our customer needs at this scale and variety of use cases has only been possible through our continued commitment to keep the Missions capability in Mindtickle at the cutting edge. In 2019 we pushed the envelope around the use of innovative AI-driven capabilities. These often get all the attention, but along with the new AI capabilities, we also furthered our market differentiation and lead in the critical features that don’t usually make the headlines – configuration, management, and tracking of Missions. We even redesigned the entire Missions user interface (UI) for a fresh new and intuitive experience. This ensures that the comprehensiveness of the Missions features doesn’t come at the cost of usability. This has allowed Mindtickle Missions to truly stand out from all others in the space that also claim to have Missions or role-plays but don’t have the breadth and depth in the capabilities that are critical to the successful adoption at scale in the enterprise.

    Instead of simply giving a laundry list of the key capabilities, I want to articulate how we have built the Missions in Mindtickle to address the key challenges faced by three key users: the Enablement admin, the Reviewer (e.g. their rep manager or coach), and Seller. All of which are involved in the configuration, launch, and adoption of the Missions.

    Enablement Admins

    The admins are the lynchpin the entire Missions workflow. Here are some of their key needs to ensure the successful adoption of Missions.

    Target all forms of customer interactions:
    Multiple types of Missions to help target all forms of customer interactions – text emails, presentation or phone conversations

    Maintain consistency in definition and quality of Mission across all admins:
    Reduce time and error in Mission creation and get better consistency across admins with a guided creation workflow with intelligent default configuration values to ensure that key settings are never missed or improperly configured

    Match evaluation mechanism to the use case of Missions:
    Evaluation criteria of  ‘message certification’ Mission are very different from that of a ‘success story’ Mission. The criteria also vary based on the profile of the target sellers eg. Between BDRs and experienced account executives. A one size fits all approach just doesn’t work. Mindtickle Missions have extremely configurable evaluation criteria. Admins can pick between a  rating scale, multiple-choice and text feedback. They can organize the evaluation criteria in sections and customize the weights for each parameter. Certification and re-certification options allow Missions to be used for compliance or partner certification related use cases.

    Ensure unbiased and consistent responses across all reviewers:
    If sellers are being compared by their performance across a set of Missions, we need to make sure their Missions that are being evaluated by different people are as objective as possible

    • Reviewer guidance – This helps reduce reviewer error and bias and ensures good data quality when comparing sellers and reviewer performance
    • Multiple reviewers – helps add multiple perspectives  so you can quickly spot anomalies or at the very least help the seller get faster responses or encourage more per to peer collaboration

    Drive accountability and adoption of Missions:
    This usually takes a combined carrot and stick approach. Admins in Mindtickle have multiple options on both fronts at their disposal

    • Very flexible notification criteria allow admins to pick specific trigger points (e.g. on invitation, close to the due date, or submission or due date for review, etc.). They can also ensure the notifications to both the sellers and reviewers  are available over one or more preferred channels (eg. Slack notification, mobile notification or email, etc.) to avoid creating noise but ensure high open rates. All of our customers typically see at least a 15% bump in the submission/review rate around the moment a notification is sent.
    • Admins can quickly create visibility around managers/reviewers who take the extra effort in providing the most constructive feedback. Mindtickle generates this ‘review quality report’ by analyzing the text data from comments left by reviewers in Missions 
    • A global reviewer report helps admins get visibility across time to know who are their most proactive and diligent managers vs. the troublemakers. They can create the Mission completion and score reports and share it across the management chain where each manager’s data is automatically scoped by the platform to show their direct reports.
    • Some customers push the boundaries even further by integrating the certification data from Missions into their HRMS systems like Workday

    Mission Reviewers

    The experience of Mission reviewers in Mindtickle is optimized with AI assistance to ensure they can provide quick, consistent, and high-quality feedback. Reviewers are first shown Missions that are due or overdue to prioritize attention. Once inside the Mission, the system first shows reviewers how the submission performs on length, speech pace, and use of filler words. As the reviewers look through the evaluation criteria, they are shown inline guidance on rating parameter meaning and the difference between each value of the rating scale. They also get to see the machine analysis of the submission around the keywords that were important. The text transcript helps them quickly browse through the Mission so they can focus on the parts of the Mission where the machine shows weak coverage of the keywords. Once reviewers pinpoint the issues, they can quickly add contextual feedback using the in-line comment capability.

    Managers are able to also leverage the reports bookmarked for them by the admins to quickly get a sense of how their team stacks around the key evaluation parameters of the Missions so they can understand competency gaps.

    For more information about how Mindtickle helps equip front-line managers with a data-driven coaching platform, see our solutions page on Coaching and Skill Certification for Managers.

    Sellers

    For sellers to derive maximum value from the Missions, the experience for the seller needs to be very closely tailored to the scenario and feedback on their submission needs to be quick, actionable, unbiased, and contextual. With the comprehensive configuration options leveraged by admins, sellers in Mindtickle see Missions that are very closely customized and matched to the intent of the exercise.

    AI-enabled instant response from the machine gives seller input on the use of filler words, length, and talking pace of the role-play. This allows sellers to ‘re-attempt’ before submitting for review to their manager/reviewer. This machine-assisted practice leads to higher long term proficiency.

    For areas of improvement, sellers are able to see the remediation assigned by the reviewer tailored to the evaluation criteria that need improvements. Sellers also benefit from the use of the in-video comments capability leveraged by the reviewers. By looking at seller interaction data, we see that the sellers often revisit the in-context comments multiple times — underscoring their importance.

    Looking into 2020 we are excited to now leverage this Missions platform and wealth of data we have collected to add further AI-driven personalization and automation of the entire Mission workflow.

    Click here for more information about Missions and full site of Sales Readiness applications!

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    Join AWS Sales Enablement Leaders at SES 2019 for a Hands-on Workshop Supported by Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/aws-sales-enablement-workshop-mindtickle-ses-2019/ Wed, 09 Oct 2019 04:14:27 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/aws-sales-enablement-workshop-mindtickle-ses-2019/ Mindtickle is thrilled to participate in this year’s Sales Enablement Society’s Annual Conference! For those who aren’t familiar with the event, the conference features the industry’s best and brightest professional sales enablement leaders and practitioners. Attendees will hear from speakers who’ll share valuable insights, knowledge, and best practices learned throughout their careers. Emerging new trends …

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    AWS and Mindtickle Workshop at SES 2019

    Mindtickle is thrilled to participate in this year’s Sales Enablement Society’s Annual Conference! For those who aren’t familiar with the event, the conference features the industry’s best and brightest professional sales enablement leaders and practitioners. Attendees will hear from speakers who’ll share valuable insights, knowledge, and best practices learned throughout their careers. Emerging new trends and proven successful strategies will be discussed so to attendees conquer today’s toughest sales enablement and readiness challenges. 

     

    We’re particularly excited for a two-part session by Amazon Web Services’ Abby Vietor and Quintin Walker. The first part at 9:15am on October 17th, Building Next-Gen Sales Simulations for Purposeful Practice & Proficiency will cover how they use sales simulators to drive sales confidence and field effectiveness. Then, from 4:30pm – 5:15pm, they’ll lead a hands-on workshop with the support of Mindtickle.

     

    AWS and Mindtickle will walk attendees through a completed sales simulator based on industry, sales role, segment, etc. With the support of Mindtickle, attendees will be guided to build their own near real-world model of a sales environment. For a detailed session description of this can’t-miss workshop, see below!

     

    In addition, Mindtickle will be available throughout the conference in the exhibition hall. Our Sales Readiness experts will be offering demonstrations and actual hands-on time with our platform! We look forward to meeting you there! 

     

    To learn more about the conference agenda, click here or you can register here for the event.

     

    Session info:

    Design Workshop: Building Sales Simulators That Maximize and Reinforce Sales Performance
    Please bring a laptop to take full advantage of this hands-on session.

    Speakers: 

    • Abby Vietor – Global Sales Enablement Leader, Amazon Web Services
    • Quintin Walker – Senior Learning Experience Designer, Amazon Web Services
    • Deepna Sarkar – Enterprise Customer Success Manager, Mindtickle

     

    Date/Time: October 17, 4:30pm – 5:15pm CT

    Location: Encino Meeting Room, The Westin Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas (conference registration required)

     

    In this hands-on workshop, Enablement leaders from AWS provide the steps and tools guidance supported by Mindtickle for building a sales simulation program using sales enablement best practices and sales readiness tools that you can implement at your own organization. AWS and Mindtickle will walk attendees through a completed sales simulator based on industry, sales role, segment, etc. Then, with the support of Mindtickle, attendees will be guided to build their own near real-world model of a sales environment. 

     

    Attendees will learn:

    • Components required for providing an experience that takes a seller through an entire sales cycle from opportunity identification to closing the deal
    • How to build near-real world sales simulation with onboarding, skills development, ongoing learning, and coaching
    • How to create a continuous feedback channel that reinforces sales skills and sales strategy throughout the sales cycle
    • How to integrate best practices from peers and leaders as well as previous sales training and product training

     

    Mindtickle powers the world’s most customer-centric organizations with the capabilities proven to grow revenue and maximize brand value. Visit www.mindtickle.com to learn more about our Sales Readiness solutions, customers, resources or to schedule a demo.

    The post Join AWS Sales Enablement Leaders at SES 2019 for a Hands-on Workshop Supported by Mindtickle appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Sales Enablement Executive Q&A: In Conversation with SevOne’s Brian Promes https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-enablement-executive-interview-sevone-brian-promes/ Tue, 14 May 2019 20:00:46 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-enablement-executive-interview-sevone-brian-promes/ As the next installment in a series of interviews with sales enablement and readiness leaders, Mindtickle’s SVP of Strategy and GTM, Gopkiran Rao, recently spoke with Brian Promes to learn about his experience transforming sales enablement into an impactful and engaging initiative at SevOne. As the Vice President of Solutions and Product Marketing, Brian is …

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    As the next installment in a series of interviews with sales enablement and readiness leaders, Mindtickle’s SVP of Strategy and GTM, Gopkiran Rao, recently spoke with Brian Promes to learn about his experience transforming sales enablement into an impactful and engaging initiative at SevOne. As the Vice President of Solutions and Product Marketing, Brian is focused on making enablement an interactive, valuable and fun experience for his sales teams.

    Engaging executive and sales management in sales readiness initiatives

    Gop: We’ve asked this question of your peers and is a topic of interest in sales enablement societies, so it’s worth asking. How do you pitch sales readiness and a platform like Mindtickle to the CEO as a direct driver of sales enablement and effectiveness?

    Brian: The most important thing for us was to align our business leadership – sales, sales engineering, marketing, product management, and executive leadership – with our GTM plan for the coming fiscal year, particularly as it relates to our sales teams being market ready. One of the pillars of our approach was to create SevOne Sales Certifications for each of our key GTM plays.  We make sure each certification – each that takes about an hour to complete, containing elements like short videos, solution guides, datasheet, competitive overviews, and more – are mini sales playbooks that align with our business objectives.

    This alignment across sales enablement, sales, the leadership team and the business made a big difference when getting buy-in and support from the CEO because of Mindtickle’s role as a foundation. Also, initially, I was looking at Mindtickle not just as a communication tool, but also as a digital content system for sales. So, it serves as our content store for any marketing collateral we have, allowing us to save money on maintaining legacy systems.

    Gop: Great insights! And to continue along this line of thinking of seller empowerment to get better market outcomes, how do you drive sales manager buy-in and accountability – particularly from tenured sales reps?

    Brian: It really becomes important to set aside the time for this conversation because sales and leadership can discuss what’s expected of them in the context of the business and the market that is changing around them. While their jobs are to grow the business for their teams and for the company, they are not operating in a vacuum. Part of our job in enablement is to not be an additional burden and to bring additional measurable value through the delivery of timely information in a minimally disruptive and optimally engaging way.

    Mindtickle has done a great job of making training easily accessible to folks and to see how they compare against their peers. So once we have alignment within our team, one of the things that we do is turn key elements of our enablement program into a game. Sales teams are competitive by nature and we make the most of that by sharing achievement numbers within the regional teams every week for some friendly competition.

    Gop: And in terms of getting Mindtickle deployed in your organization, what were some things you did to ensure a smooth rollout?

    Brian: We kept it really simple by launching at out SKO where we hosted a special session for everyone to download and log into the app at the same time. This exercise made it really easy to ensure everyone had the app at the same time.

    The return on sales readiness investment


    Gop:
    How are you measuring and maximizing the impact of enablement’s efforts on the sales team? Have you seen the work you’re doing translate into business outcomes?

    Brian: For measuring impact, we try to focus on the two or three things that end up really mattering to an organization. One of the things that really drove us to Mindtickle was the ease of video communication. In the past, we’d use live or recorded WebEx sessions, but we never really knew if our reps were engaging and watching them — if they were getting what they needed. With Mindtickle, we instead started building “SevOne 2 Minute Field Updates” videos.

    To keep it relevant, we only sent updates when the news matters, so sales didn’t get overwhelmed. The update should be something they care about, like an important partnership or a new product announcement. A good recent example was when we did a joint press release with BT Global Services which adopted our software for use with their customers.
    In terms of tracking metrics, we look at engagement by video, by rep, and by region. Of course, we use the Mindtickle platform for other things as well, but we chose just to focus on these videos this past fiscal year and make sure that teams are watching them. Then after every video is a fun test that we use to reinforce the training.

    The journey to picking a solution that lasts


    Gop:
    When you’re evaluating a sales readiness tool for the very first time, what is it that you’re looking for? What are your evaluation parameters, and, to you, what is Mindtickle’s value proposition?

    Brian: I brought Mindtickle into the organization about a year and a half ago. I remember one moment around that time when I was in my backyard with my son, who’s a sales manager at a cybersecurity firm. I was telling him that I was really struggling to find a sales enablement tool or platform to work with. I had identified a few potential solutions, but they were more content management systems that had nonintuitive mobile front-ends. At SevOne, we cared about accessibility to content, the ability to track sales’ activities, awareness of enablement programs, and, of course, the video aspect of enablement.

    My son took out his phone, clicked on the now familiar orange icon, and said, “You need Mindtickle!” Within days after my “backyard introduction” to Mindtickle, SevOne had a trial instance up and running with more than 100 pieces of content, including a new “SevOne 2 Minute Field Update!”

    Gop: Thank you so much for sharing, Brian. It’s always insightful for us to hear this kind of feedback so we can make sure our team keeps moving in the right direction to help empower you and your company. Good luck with all your ventures at SevOne!

    The post Sales Enablement Executive Q&A: In Conversation with SevOne’s Brian Promes appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Mindtickle Named One of The 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Computing Companies To Work For https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-named-one-of-the-50-highest-rated-private-cloud-computing-companies-to-work-for/ Tue, 30 Apr 2019 12:15:57 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-named-one-of-the-50-highest-rated-private-cloud-computing-companies-to-work-for/ SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) APRIL 30, 2019 Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, was recognized as one of the 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Computing Companies To Work For, in a list released by Battery Ventures, a global investment firm and cloud investor, with data specifically provided by Glassdoor*, one of the world’s largest job and …

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    SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) APRIL 30, 2019

    Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, was recognized as one of the 50 Highest Rated Private Cloud Computing Companies To Work For, in a list released by Battery Ventures, a global investment firm and cloud investor, with data specifically provided by Glassdoor*, one of the world’s largest job and recruiting sites.” The list highlights 50 privately held companies—all business-to-business, cloud-computing companies–where employees report the highest levels of satisfaction at work, according to employee feedback shared on Glassdoor. This recognition follows a 2019 Stevie® Award for Sales & Customer Service for ‘Best Sales Enablement Solution’ and a recent report from Aragon Research which named Mindtickle a Leader in their Tech Spectrum for Sales Coaching and Learning.

    Mindtickle is honored to be named as one of the highest rated cloud companies to work for by employees. This recognition is a testament to the ongoing investment in our employees, which drives our continued success as an organization,” said Krishna Depura, Co-founder and CEO of Mindtickle. “One of Mindtickle’s founding principles is to delight customers by being customer-obsessed, and this would be impossible without the most talented and engaged employees. We encourage each member of our team to act as a founder of the company which empowers them to be creative, innovative and entrepreneurial. Every single member of our global team is critical in building this world-class organization together and delivering the greatest Sales Readiness platform for our growing list of enterprise customers.”

    This is the third year Battery has issued the list, along with a related ranking of the 25 Highest Rated Public Cloud Computing Companies to Work For. The rankings highlight the broader trend of businesses increasingly turning to the cloud to run critical technology systems and software, instead of using on-premise systems.

    They also highlight the increasing importance of cohesive culture and employee happiness in running a successful business, said Neeraj Agrawal, a Battery general partner who specializes in cloud investing.

    “The private companies on this list have not only scaled their products, teams and business functions—but they’ve managed to scale culture,” Agrawal said. “We view these rankings as a key indicator of company health and longevity, and we hope all companies on this list view it as an honor to be included.” It was also more difficult to make the list this year, compared with last year, Agrawal added. A Glassdoor economic research study, as well as other third-party studies, show that companies with high employee satisfaction often post stronger financial performance.

    The distinction placed Mindtickle at number 29 (out of 50 total) with an overall company rating of 4.6. The broader average across Glassdoor is 3.4. Mindtickle’s CEO, Krishna Depura, boasts a 100% approval rating on Glassdoor—compared to an average of 69% for all approximately 900,000 employers on the site–and the company has a 97 percent positive business-outlook rating, again based on the feedback shared by employees. The broader Glassdoor average is 49%. A positive business outlook means employees believe business will improve in the next six months.

    Glassdoor noted that employees at these highly rated companies commonly mention in online reviews that they enjoy working for mission-driven companies with strong and unique company cultures; employers that promote transparency; and companies with experienced senior leaders who regularly and clearly communicate with employees. For instance, according to one anonymous employee review of Mindtickle on Glassdoor:

    “They have their people, product and positioning nailed down. A few of the best people to work with who are passionate to listen to their customers. Extremely customer-centric and driven to delight their customers at every given opportunity. This is validated through the results and growth of the company. It’s only the beginning! They have a wonderful path carved out for themselves as a leader in a niche market.”

    Additional Information:
    Follow Mindtickle in Recent News
    See Mindtickle’s Customer Stories
    Connect with Mindtickle on LinkedIn
    Follow @Mindtickle on Twitter

    Full lists of the highest-rated 50 private cloud companies and 25 public cloud companies to work for can be found here.

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand affinity. Its purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices are designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness. With Mindtickle, company leaders and sellers can continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Companies across a wide range of industries use Mindtickle’s innovative capabilities for on-demand, online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification-based learning, coaching and role-play to ensure world-class sales performance. Mindtickle is a global, privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Visit them at http://www.Mindtickle.com.

    About Battery Ventures
    Battery strives to invest in cutting-edge, category-defining businesses in markets including software and services, Web infrastructure, consumer Internet, mobile and industrial technologies. Founded in 1983, the firm backs companies at stages ranging from seed to private equity and invests globally from offices in Boston, the San Francisco Bay Area, London, New York and Israel. Follow the firm on Twitter @BatteryVentures, visit our website at http://www.battery.com

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    Sales Enablement Executive Q&A: In Conversation with Dynamic Signal’s Danielle Schaumburg https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-enablement-executive-interview-dynamic-signal-danielle-schaumburg/ Thu, 18 Apr 2019 19:30:36 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-enablement-executive-interview-dynamic-signal-danielle-schaumburg/ As the first installment in a series of interviews with Sales Enablement and Readiness leaders, Mindtickle’s SVP of Strategy and GTM, Gopkiran Rao, recently spoke with Danielle Schaumburg of Dynamic Signal to learn about her experience making her sales team ready to delight customers. As the Director of Global Sales Enablement, Danielle is passionate about …

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    As the first installment in a series of interviews with Sales Enablement and Readiness leaders, Mindtickle’s SVP of Strategy and GTM, Gopkiran Rao, recently spoke with Danielle Schaumburg of Dynamic Signal to learn about her experience making her sales team ready to delight customers. As the Director of Global Sales Enablement, Danielle is passionate about increasing sales productivity by supporting reps with the content, training, and analytics they need to have more successful sales conversations. Danielle explains the ways she’s leveraging Mindtickle at her company to improve their efficiency and effectiveness in engaging customers and prospects.

    Engaging Executive and Sales Management in Sales Readiness Initiatives

    Gop:
    To start, here’s a question that’s been discussed in numerous sales enablement forums and sales enablement societies. How do you pitch sales readiness and a platform like Mindtickle to the CEO as a direct driver of sales enablement and effectiveness?
    Danielle:
    Before I even started at Dynamic Signal, my new boss and I discussed how I was using Mindtickle at my previous company – what type of programs we were running, why we were doing it, how I brought in the platform. He bought into the philosophy, vision, and purpose from the get-go, so it was easy to bring it to Dynamic Signal. It also just so happened that our CMO had used Mindtickle before, so that was another easy win for me. We rolled Mindtickle out at SKO, so we even had a relevant and compelling event that created buy-in for the entire organization.
    Gop:
    That’s great! To continue along this line of thinking, how do you drive sales manager buy-in and accountability – particularly from tenured sales reps?
    Danielle:
    While it can be difficult, alignment with management is imperative. For example, it’s critical to prioritize alignment with the VP or head of Sales. Part of that is constant communication related to the why, what, and when of readiness approaches. Regular engagement and meetings with the sales team are a must. Another aspect is to provide continuity across efforts. At Dynamic Signal, for example, we will do a training session that’s followed by a Mindtickle reinforcement module. We try and stick to this level of consistency regardless of the topic or what we’re training on – it guarantees alignment and commitment that goes well past ad-hoc communication.
    Gop:
    And in terms of getting Mindtickle deployed in your organization, what kind of change management did you have to lead with?
    Danielle:
    Mindtickle is a straightforward tool to learn and distribute. I think the biggest challenge here is behavioral: you have to train your team on getting used to a particular type of execution and consistency, as well as provide them with essential reinforcement from management.

    The Return on Sales Readiness Investment


    Gop:
    How do you measure the impact of your sales enablement program? More specifically, have you structured your readiness programs to align with on each stage of the sales funnel? How are you quantifying the impact of those activities, and showing that continuous value to leadership?
    Danielle:
    I try to keep my content specific to what my sales team genuinely needs. I try to make sure that sales training sessions are useful for my team: if I do one sales training that isn’t particularly aligned, I might re-engage them again the next week, but if I do two irrelevant sessions in a row, they’re likely to lose interest. It’s a matter of credibility and relevance, so everything I do has to have a direct correlation to the objectives my team has at that time.
    As far as specific activities go, I like to use quizzes to drive participation. It’s imperative for me to make sure that my managers all know how their teams’ productivity and participation stack up, so I try and keep to the top 3 – 5 key takeaways that we want our sellers to learn from each session. Assigning regular quizzes creates all-around consistency for me and the team – they know what’s happening and they know when it’s coming.
    Gop:
    Tell me a little bit of some of the ways you’ve benefited from being able to view specific data-driven metrics with Mindtickle.
    Danielle:
    One of the metrics I typically ask of all my leaders is a training metric. Not only do they have to talk about what kind of pipeline they have, what they’ve closed, where they’re going, but I also have the manager go back and ask – how did you do in the last quarter around your training requirements? We can track all of that in Mindtickle.
    Gop:
    So, beyond training onboarding and certification, a core focus at Mindtickle is encouraging managers to coach on an ongoing basis. How are your frontline managers coaching your sales reps? Is this something, which is of near-term importance or long-term importance?
    Danielle:
    I think if everything becomes a coaching session, it’s too much, and you won’t get the buy-in. However, one-on-one coaching is fundamental in meetings; we need that engagement. Moreover, the coaching capability, especially when you have a diverse workforce, and they’re in different offices, is a handy tool.
    If you seek to certify reps on everything, it dilutes the effectiveness of why and when you need to certify. Certification is also a big deal and is something that needs to be ingrained in behavior. It’s the same with coaching through a platform: use it when it’s necessary and when it makes sense. However, if you’re coaching through the platform the entire time, you’re losing that face-to-face interaction which is, and you need to have both.

    The Journey to Picking a Solution that Lasts


    Gop:
    What keeps you coming back to Mindtickle?
    Danielle:
    One of the key reasons why I’m a repeat customer is because you guys genuinely listen. Here’s an example: my reps were having some issues with the completion function not correctly displaying their progress. When I sent in the request to your Product team, they addressed the problem immediately. You’re always there to listen for use cases to help my sales team continue to use the platform, and it shows.
    Gop:
    When you’re evaluating a sales readiness tool for the very first time, what is it that you’re looking for? What are your evaluation parameters, and to you, what is Mindtickle’s value proposition?
    Danielle:
    I’m looking for something that is straightforward and easy for all of us to use. I’ve used many learning management systems in the past, and they are too clunky and too heavy – salespeople don’t want anything to do with them. Quite frankly, I don’t want anything to do with them either. For example, if I have a Zoom session, I want to record it, upload it, and be done as quickly as possible. I don’t have time to cross-check and do a review every time I need to share content with my team, so it’s vital for me to have a solution where I can set it and forget it.

    What’s Next for Sales Readiness and Sales Enablement


    Gop:
    There’s much activity that’s been happening in the sales enablement and sales readiness spaces. We’ve seen some consolidation, different partnerships, and more. Where do you see all this heading?
    Danielle:
    Throughout my career I’ve wanted to be in front of sales, talking to sales, engaging sales, and making sales smarter. I did this so that sales could go out and spend more time in front of customers rather than behind the scenes trying to figure out how to learn to be in front of customers. I think we’ve made much progress to that end. However, I see a lot more attention paid and investments made in this space, and the conversations are becoming more and more pointed and frequent.
    Gop:
    What is it that you’re most excited about in terms of new things that you’re looking forward to in the sales readiness space?
    Danielle:
    What we do is so integral to the sales process, it’s just a matter of making sure that my sales leaders understand how necessary it is. As long as I can get them engaged in the platform to know how important it is for them to be a part of the learning, I think then it will be a huge win for all. My 2019 strategy is that they have to be an integral part of the sales learning and the sales process around training. They can’t look at it as noise but look at it as critical to them hitting their number.
    Gop:
    Thank you so much for sharing, Danielle. It’s always insightful for us to hear this kind of feedback so we can make sure our team keeps moving in the right direction to help empower you and your company. Good luck with all your ventures at Dynamic Signal!

    The post Sales Enablement Executive Q&A: In Conversation with Dynamic Signal’s Danielle Schaumburg appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    SevOne Up-Levels Its Sales Enablement, Strengthens Sales-Marketing Relationship With Mindtickle https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sevone-uplevels-sales-enablement-with-mindtickle/ Mon, 15 Apr 2019 23:48:40 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sevone-uplevels-sales-enablement-with-mindtickle/   Opportunities abound for organizations who can branch out into new, overseas markets. Without the right Sales Readiness solution, however, it’s difficult for a geographically dispersed sales team to stay connected, engaged, and successful. SevOne’s initial attempt at creating a sales enablement strategy proved this to be true. Initially, the SevOne product marketing team hosted …

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    Opportunities abound for organizations who can branch out into new, overseas markets. Without the right Sales Readiness solution, however, it’s difficult for a geographically dispersed sales team to stay connected, engaged, and successful. SevOne’s initial attempt at creating a sales enablement strategy proved this to be true.

    Initially, the SevOne product marketing team hosted long WebEx calls to keep the worldwide team abreast of industry changes and company positioning. For those that couldn’t make the calls, recordings were loaded onto SevOne’s portal system. Unfortunately, marketing had no way of tracking whether those who missed the call actually listened to it, or what type of content actually ended up being consumed. To make matters more complex, accessing the content proved to be a clunky endeavor.

    Without a concrete way to measure engagement, test retention, or receive feedback on their sales enablement programs, SevOne finally turned to Mindtickle. After a triumphant initial rollout to one of the company’s sales regions, the cloud-based, secure Sales Readiness platform was introduced to the entire sales organization at SevOne’s 2018 sales kick-off (SKO). Each sales rep gained entry to the SKO by showing that they had downloaded the Mindtickle app, and they were required to pass a key messaging certification before leaving. In this way, SevOne drove awareness and adoption of the platform that extended company-wide.

    With Mindtickle deployed and actively used across the sales organization, SevOne could finally forgo the hour-long WebEx calls in favor of shorter, bite-sized videos followed by quizzes and content ratings. Since the videos are available on-demand and are easily accessible through the app, sales reps can view and re-watch them at their convenience. SevOne has even created a game in which points are given to the sales rep and team that views the most content through Mindtickle. This friendly competition drives an even higher usage rate with the platform.

    Today, Mindtickle helps SevOne generate weekly, data-driven reports to measure the performance and scores of each sales rep. Additionally, SevOne leadership can easily spot trends in individual performance and identify areas of improvement.

    Alex Studd, SevOne’s product marketing manager, said, “It’s obvious to me just talking with sales reps that they’re more knowledgeable than a year ago, and that’s largely thanks to Mindtickle.” As SevOne wraps up its first year using Mindtickle, the company can quantify that claim with the platform’s built-in analytics.

    Read the entire

    case study

    to learn more about how SevOne is using Mindtickle.

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    Mindtickle Named a ‘Best Sales Enablement Solution’ Winner in 2019 Stevie® Awards For Sales & Customer Service https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-named-a-best-sales-enablement-solution-winner-in-2019-stevie-awards-for-sales-customer-service/ Tue, 26 Mar 2019 12:55:06 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-named-a-best-sales-enablement-solution-winner-in-2019-stevie-awards-for-sales-customer-service/ SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) MARCH 26, 2019 Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, has been presented with a Silver Stevie® Award for the Sales Enablement Solution – New Version category at the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. This Stevie Award follows the recent report from Aragon Research which named Mindtickle a Leader …

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    SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) MARCH 26, 2019

    Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, has been presented with a Silver Stevie® Award for the Sales Enablement Solution – New Version category at the 13th annual Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. This Stevie Award follows the recent report from Aragon Research which named Mindtickle a Leader in their Tech Spectrum for Sales Coaching and Learning. The report noted that Mindtickle’s platform offers a “coaching framework which offers function and role-specific competency maps in the form of their Sales Capability Index™ that inform personalization of learning paths and coaching.”

    “We’re honored to receive this latest Stevie Award recognizing our continued innovation and commitment to our customers as we enable them to grow revenue and build their brand by equipping customer-facing teams to be on message and on task,” said Gopkiran Rao, senior vice president of strategy and go to market at Mindtickle. “Our Sales Readiness platform powers the world’s most capable sales organizations which have deployed Mindtickle to accelerate sales onboarding, develop and sustain winning skills, empower frontline managers with personalized insights and in-field and virtual coaching capabilities. At the same time, we provide executive management with a single, real-time view of sales capability.”

    Mindtickle is a winner in the Sales Enablement Solution – New Version category due to its unique technological approach to assessing sales capabilities and combining that with sales results to benchmark success across customers. The Mindtickle Sales Capability Index™ dynamically identifies, adapts and delivers personalized programs to build role-specific capabilities at scale because no two people or business situations are the same. Mindtickle’s programs are based on proven business results from specific customer environments and deployments, including historical sales and training analyses, training and coaching completion rates, and more.

    Feedback from the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service judges includes:

    • “This is a strong entry. Highlighting [customer] results really makes a difference. Great work!”
    • “Mindtickle equipped [customers] with a great data-driven solution for sales enablement!”
    • “Nice integration of online training, mobile updates, and gamification into their sales [readiness] solution.”
    • “Exciting results from their customers.”

    This is the fifth Stevie Award for Mindtickle and the second Silver Stevie Award in three years. In 2018, Mindtickle was recognized with a Gold Stevie Award in the New Product & Service Categories – Content. In 2017, Mindtickle was awarded a Bronze and People’s Choice Stevie in the People’s Choice Stevie Award for Favorite New Products and New Product Awards, respectively in the American Business Awards®. Also in 2017, Mindtickle won a Silver Stevie® Award in the New Product & Service Awards Categories at the Stevie® Awards for Sales & Customer Service.

    The Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service honor the world’s top performing companies in customer service, contact center, business development, and sales. The Stevie Awards organization stages seven of the world’s leading business awards programs, including the prestigious American Business Awards® and International Business Awards®.

    In this year’s competition, more than 2,700 nominations were received from 45 nations and organizations of all sizes and in virtually every industry. Winners were determined by the average scores of more than 150 professionals worldwide in seven specialized judging committees. Entries were considered in 93 categories for customer service and contact center achievements, including Contact Center of the Year, Award for Innovation in Customer Service, and Customer Service Department of the Year, in addition to categories for new products, services, and solution providers.

    “All of the Stevie Award winners should be very proud of their achievements. Independent professionals around the world have agreed that their accomplishments are worthy of public recognition,” said Stevie Awards President and founder, Michael Gallagher.

    Additional Information:
    Follow Mindtickle in Recent News
    See Mindtickle’s Customer Stories
    Connect with Mindtickle on LinkedIn
    Follow @Mindtickle on Twitter

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand affinity. Its purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices are designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness. With Mindtickle, company leaders and sellers can continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Companies across a wide range of industries use Mindtickle’s innovative capabilities for on-demand, online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification-based learning, coaching and role-play to ensure world-class sales performance. Mindtickle is a global, privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Visit them at http://www.Mindtickle.com.

    About the Stevie Awards
    Stevie Awards are conferred in seven programs: the Asia-Pacific Stevie Awards, the German Stevie Awards, The American Business Awards®, The International Business Awards®, the Stevie Awards for Great Employers, the Stevie Awards for Women in Business and the Stevie Awards for Sales & Customer Service. Stevie Awards competitions receive more than 12,000 entries each year from organizations in more than 70 nations. Honoring organizations of all types and sizes and the people behind them, the Stevies recognize outstanding performances in the workplace worldwide. Learn more about the Stevie Awards at http://www.StevieAwards.com.

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    pr(at)www.mindtickle.com

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    Mindtickle Continues Rapid Growth as Companies Make Customer-Facing Readiness an Enterprise Priority https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-continues-rapid-growth-as-companies-make-customer-facing-readiness-an-enterprise-priority/ Wed, 13 Mar 2019 13:00:53 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-continues-rapid-growth-as-companies-make-customer-facing-readiness-an-enterprise-priority/ SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) MARCH 13, 2019 Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced key developments and achievements demonstrating strong growth in recurring revenue, customer acquisition, continued product innovation, and industry validation. Businesses are increasingly striving for better customer experiences and greater levels of customer engagement. As these organizations relied on Mindtickle to ready their …

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    SAN FRANCISCO (PRWEB) MARCH 13, 2019

    Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced key developments and achievements demonstrating strong growth in recurring revenue, customer acquisition, continued product innovation, and industry validation. Businesses are increasingly striving for better customer experiences and greater levels of customer engagement. As these organizations relied on Mindtickle to ready their sales and other customer-facing teams with world-class customer engagement capabilities, Mindtickle grew its enterprise customer base by 200 percent and increased annual recurring revenue by more than 100 percent year over year. To support Mindtickle’s growth and expanding roster of marquee customers, Mindtickle brought new products to the market while earning recognition from industry experts and analysts.

    “Sales cycles have become more complex and are taking longer. Buyers are more informed and have evolved their expectations while buying teams are expanding to include more decision makers. These trends have made engaging and delighting prospects and customers at every moment, including person-to-person interactions, critical for companies to drive revenue and cultivate a positive brand experience,” said Krishna Depura, CEO and co-founder of Mindtickle. “Every organization today recognizes the need for a systematic approach to building, reinforcing and measuring the desired knowledge and behaviors through sales readiness and continuous learning programs. Mindtickle is providing these companies with an ongoing approach to prepare teams to develop and foster customer-centric relationships focused on lifetime value. This leads to faster ramp times, bigger deal sizes and increased win rates.”

    “Mindtickle is experiencing extraordinary growth in large part because we are providing a real-time understanding of the revenue-producing capability of our customers’ organizations — effectively the measure of their business. To that end, we are also investing in helping our customers define, adopt and implement best practices for onboarding and ongoing delivery of field-ready knowledge, development of measurable skills and observable execution in the field as a set of measurable KPIs and metrics,” said Gopkiran Rao, senior vice president of strategy and go to market at Mindtickle. “Our mix of AI-enhanced technology, mobile-ready learning and coaching applications, integrations and services expertise set us apart and make us the go-to partner for these organizations.”

    Strong Growth Across the Business

    Customers continue to validate Mindtickle’s Sales Readiness platform with the company growing their Fortune 500 and Global 2000 customer base by 200 percent year over year. Mindtickle now counts four of the largest 15 health and life sciences companies and three of the largest 15 global technology companies as customers. To support this growing list of customers, Mindtickle doubled its headcount, adding more than 110 employees in 2018 across departments like engineering and product management, customer success and sales. In addition, 25 channel and partner organizations were added as official partners to support customers’ sales enablement and readiness initiatives while expanding Mindtickle’s market reach.

    Innovating Products and Services to Help Customers Improve Sales Effectiveness and Efficiency

    In 2018, Mindtickle released a number of product capabilities that bring additional value to customers:

    • Embedded machine learning (ML) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to enable administrators and managers to assess rep performance effectively, coach individuals and teams, and prescribe targeted remediation. New capabilities included machine-assisted evaluations such as automatic transcription of virtual role-plays, keyword identification, and machine-assisted seller performance monitoring with quantitative and qualitative scoring.
    • Developed greater capabilities in sales coaching and virtual role-play that give enablement administrators smarter insights into the adoption of coaching and role-play programs and make it easier for managers to provide precise feedback, ensuring consistency across the sales organization
    • Provided new micro-learning and content creation capabilities with advanced support for webcam and screen capture. This capability assists creators in quickly developing and distributing relevant and timely content to teams.
    • Added advanced visual analytics to provide real-time insights into how reps are learning to further evolve their onboarding and enablement process. Radar charts, heat maps and engagement statistics help identify which reps need additional coaching, as well as which programs are most beneficial to targeted learning or remediation for more impactful enablement.
    • Released a next-generation integration platform to seamlessly and automatically create personalized sales readiness paths leveraging data and content from existing human resources (HR) and sales and marketing technology systems. The current platform includes more than 60 pre-developed connectors with HR Management Systems like Workday and BambooHR, CRM systems like Salesforce and Veeva, Content Management Systems like Highspot and Seismic, and content repositories like Microsoft OneDrive, Google Drive, Box and Dropbox.

    Industry Recognition

    Recently, Aragon Research named Mindtickle a Leader in their Tech Spectrum for Sales Coaching and Learning. The report assessed vendor technologies that enable companies to better train and coach their sales and customer-facing organizations. According to the report, Mindtickle’s platform offers a “coaching framework which offers function and role-specific competency maps in the form of their Sales Capability Index™ that inform personalization of learning paths and coaching.” In addition, they cited Mindtickle’s platform approach which leverages robust integrations to Customer Relationship Management, Sales Enablement, Learning Management Systems and Human Resources Management Systems. They similarly noted that Mindtickle supports micro-learning with native content creation and support for advanced analytics and AI/ML.

    In 2018, Mindtickle was recognized by various analyst firms and peer review sites:

    • Gartner listed Mindtickle as a representative vendor in The Hype Cycle for CRM Sales published on July 9, 2018 by Melissa Hilbert and Tad Travis in the Sales Training and Coaching Solutions category saying, “Application leaders supporting sales will implement training and coaching to augment their SFA implementation as these tools support significant increases in their productivity and performance. Training including internal systems and material needed to sell, as well as coaching and evaluating skills, are a part of onboarding as well as continued development of existing sales.”
    • Forrester Research also included Mindtickle as a Sales Readiness Provider in their report, Now Tech: Sales Readiness Tools, Q1, 2018. Author Mary Shea, says, “Gamification drives engagement, and content is served up in snackable chunks: It can take 3 minutes or less to complete a daily training event. These tools are ideal for the multitasking Millennial rep. Continuous reinforcement of concepts is a key differentiator for this segment.”
    • In the winter of 2018, G2 Crowd placed Mindtickle in the Leader category for all segments across four different areas of sales technology which include Sales Training and Onboarding SoftwareSales Enablement SoftwareSales Coaching Software, and Sales Performance Management Software.

    *Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, express or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle provides a comprehensive, data-driven solution for sales readiness and enablement that fuels revenue growth and brand affinity. Its purpose-built applications, proven methodologies, and best practices are designed to drive effective sales onboarding and ongoing readiness. With Mindtickle, company leaders and sellers can continually assess, diagnose and develop the knowledge, skills, and behaviors required to effectively engage customers and drive growth. Companies across a wide range of industries use Mindtickle’s innovative capabilities for on-demand, online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification-based learning, coaching and role-play to ensure world-class sales performance. Mindtickle is a global, privately-held company headquartered in San Francisco, CA. Visit them at http://www.Mindtickle.com.

    Media Contact:
    Public Relations at Mindtickle
    pr(at)www.mindtickle.com

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    6 Reasons Your Managers Need Sales Leadership Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/6-steps-to-coaching-the-sales-manager/ Fri, 16 Nov 2018 14:39:59 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/6-steps-to-coaching-the-sales-manager/ We know that sales coaching is an important part of sales management. It helps your reps become better salespeople overall, improves their skills, increases their engagement with your organization and, of course, improves your topline revenue. Studies have found that effective sales coaching programs can improve sales reps’ performance by up to 20%. But many …

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    coaching_the_sales_coach

    We know that sales coaching is an important part of sales management. It helps your reps become better salespeople overall, improves their skills, increases their engagement with your organization and, of course, improves your topline revenue. Studies have found that effective sales coaching programs can improve sales reps’ performance by up to 20%. But many managers actually don’t know how to coach well. Despite their abundance of experience as a rep, the promotion to a management role doesn’t always come hand-in-hand with specialized training.

    Effective sales coaching isn’t about occasionally auditing your reps’ activities, or giving some in-person feedback every once in a while, but about building a regular cadence to provide useful, insightful and specific coaching in areas where individual reps need help. After all, coaching sales reps can be tricky for management because each individual has unique areas that they excel and others where they need extra guidance.

    Here’s the thing: Sales Development Reps (SDRs) are one of the fastest growing teams inside B2B sales organizations. But when you look at some of the data about these specialized sellers you find out that over 80% of them have less than 2 years of experience and their average tenure at companies is 1.5 years, according to the Bridge Group.

    This presents a few challenges for sales managers. First, very inexperienced sales hires require a lot of information about industry, processes, methodologies and overall basic sales knowledge than your tenured salesperson, and their short tenures mean you will be constantly onboarding new sales development reps which may strain your onboarding program but most importantly, you need to ensure extremely short ramp times.

    To best enable the SDR team you have to think of your enablement program as more than just onboarding. Having a great sales onboarding program is great and the best way to ensure quick success for the SDR but think of it more holistically including:

    • Ongoing knowledge reinforcement
    • Experiential training and practicing
    • Coaching and career development

    For example, if your rep has five areas where they need coaching, how do you know if their sales managers can address every single one? And how do you prepare your managers to find these gaps in the first place? Perhaps they’re great at pipeline management but struggle when it comes to deal coaching.

    Given the breadth of the role of sales manager, it’s simply not possible for them to know how to coach sales reps on everything. But, just like their reps, they need sales leadership coaching so they can fill their own gaps.

    Look in the “too hard” basket

    Another issue that all sales leaders deal with at one point or another is “avoidance”. If something is difficult to do, or someone simply doesn’t know where to start, it’s much easier to put it in the “too hard” basket and forget about it until something bad happens.

    Trying to coach sales reps only in adversity, like when they’ve just lost a big deal, is hard for both the manager and the rep. After all, no one wants attention just because they haven’t done their best, and coaching isn’t about yelling at someone for not performing. It’s about encouraging and developing reps to be their best.

    That’s why it’s sales leadership coaching is so necessary; it’s important to ensure sales managers are coached to provide their teams with the skills and behaviors they need,  proactively rather than reactively.

    So what exactly is sales leadership coaching?

    Before we get into the detail of how to help your sales managers learn how to coach their reps, it’s important to differentiate between coaching, training, and managing.

    • Management is about overseeing things and making sure they stay on track.
    • Training focuses on learning new knowledge.
    • Coaching is about developing skills, improving performance and/or changing behaviors.

    Sales coaching is the ongoing, one-on-one mentorship of each rep on a sales team. It is a conversation between the rep and a coach, where the rep does most of the talking while the coach listens, observes, and offers feedback.

    It’s not about telling someone what to do, but about helping them look at different ways to achieve better results. When done well, sales coaching can drive sales’ productivity and effectiveness.

    1. Develop a coaching framework

    The first step in helping managers learn how to become an effective sales coach is to develop a sales coaching framework. But beware, there is no one-size-fits-all solution because every business is different. To work out what your coaching framework should include why not ask your sales reps what they need. Speak to your sales managers to find out what they would find useful, and ask your executives about the overall objectives.

    This information can then be used to build your aX + bY + cZ formula for effective sales coaching. This framework is tailored to your organization’s needs while ensuring you cover the necessary aspects of sales coaching including knowledge, messaging, sales skills, process, and execution rigor and discipline. While no sales coaching program will be identical, it’s critical that each ensures that managers have:

    • The knowledge required to coach in all the areas
    • The skills to actually coach
    • The tools required to build a cadence for coaching
    • The discipline to execute the coaching framework consistently

    2. Put the sales coach into training

    Once you’ve identified the key areas that your salespeople need coaching, you’ll need to identify whether your managers have the requisite skills. The best way to ensure managers have the knowledge and skills to coach is to provide them with formal training. There are many ways this can be done, from formal in-class training to peer to peer learning.

    Football coaches have to be certified before they get to coach players. In fact, the process for certifying a football coach is thorough, with several levels, depending on the experience of the coach and the level of the players they seek to coach. It should be the same for sales coaches.

    One of the most effective ways to coach is to give both the reps and their managers the same information and knowledge and make sure they are certified in key areas. This ensures they have the same baseline knowledge, and the certification ensures they have absorbed the information and are able to apply it.

    For example, one of our customers, a high growth tech company was launching a new product and wanted to ensure their sales team delivered a consistent message to prospects. To enable their sales managers to coach sales reps through this they first certified them on how to sell the product themselves. This ensured that they knew exactly what the reps had to do, and when combined with their own experience and skills were prepared to coach their teams effectively.

    When this approach is complemented by guidance on how to coach, it can be powerful.

    Provide live examples to managers on how to have coaching conversations. Help them understand what they should be looking for and what areas to focus in on for the greatest impact. Provide them with the opportunity to role-play their coaching so they can play it back and learn from it.

    3. Leverage reporting and tools

    All the training and practicing in the world won’t be of any use to a sales manager if they’re going into their coaching sessions blind. That’s where good reporting on the right things is critical. When determining what they should be coaching sales reps on, most managers just look at lagging indicators like pipeline activity and what deals reps have won or lost. But this doesn’t always provide enough useful data. That’s where efficiency and capability indicators are important.

    While effectiveness indicators look at the behaviors that sales reps can demonstrate to drive lagging indicators. Coaching is about behaviors, not quotas, this qualitative information needs to be available to managers so they know what to coach on.

    This information can be identified by bringing together information from several places, whether it’s from a CRM, sales enablement software or competitive intel. The key is giving managers the tools that can help them identify which indicators to look at and access to get the right information.

    For example, if you’re looking at what the indicators are for salespeople who win deals, your sales enablement software can provide you with information on what content your best reps are accessing before a big meeting. This may provide data about what behaviors are correlative with winning deals, and in turn what behaviors may need to change in order to improve the results of some of your reps.

    With useful data-driven reports in hand, managers are able to identify what specific areas individual reps require coaching in, and start working on improving their behaviors and results.

    4. Mentor the coach

    With the right tools, your sales managers will be much better equipped to coach. But they will still need to learn how to use tools to achieve the best effect. One of the best ways to learn coaching is to learn from peers. Your sales reps buddy up, so why not “buddy up” your sales managers? With role models to help mentor and demonstrate good practice, managers will be able to ask questions and share their knowledge with their peers.

    While mentoring and buddying is usually a one-on-one activity, you can encourage collaboration and peer-to-peer learning amongst the management team by bringing them together. Some of our customers have organized manager workshops that give sales managers the opportunity to share what works and what doesn’t in a supportive and collaborative environment.

    It’s also a great idea to encourage managers to share their coaching wins with the entire sales team. This has a dual impact for allowing the sales organization to learn from what works, and also demonstrates the value of coaching to any skeptics.

    5. Provide regular feedback from executives

    If your organization has a sales coaching culture then your sales leadership will want to know how your sales managers are performing. Rather than observing from afar, they should be encouraged to see how managers are coaching regularly and provide their own feedback and insight to the team or when appropriate, even individuals. By getting involved they can demonstrate just how important the sales coaching program is to the success of their sales team, and in doing so, boost engagement in the process.

    6. Incentivize successful coaches

    Along with executive buy-in, rewards and incentives are another good way to engage sales managers. While successful sales managers are incentivized when their team meets quota, how often are good sales coaches recognized or incentivized?

    Consider adding in a coaching specific incentive to your KPIs for encouragement for those who learn how to coach well. When used as part of a structured coaching program, these six steps will ensure that you give your sales managers the knowledge, skills, and discipline to coach consistently.

    Concluding thoughts

    Ultimately, more than helping SDRs craft an email or hone their pitch, sales enablement training for a manager can help them coach their reps based on the competency model that was developed (or recruit the managers to help craft it). Part of the problem most companies face is not giving good guidance for managers on what to coach their teams on and ensuring all managers are consistently coaching their teams on an ongoing basis. While this can be tricky to implement initially, some organizations turn to Coaching Reports in the form of an Excel file, Word document or similar which although well-intentioned end up being a burden for the managers and makes it difficult for the enablement team when it comes time to compile information and glean insights from it.

    Finally, technology here can help as well. With the ability to create electronic coaching forms that follow a competency profile and different online forms for different coaching situations you can ensure managers are all following the same guidance and the data collected can be analyzed and shared back with the managers to show them how their teams are doing in their expected competencies as well as guide the managers to where more coaching is needed.

    The ultimate takeaway here is that it’s extremely important to treat your sales manager training differently from all others –making sure to tailor each program to the needs of your particular reps based on their experience, tenure, and skill level will help your managers’ coaching significantly both in the short and the long run.

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    5 Reasons to Modernize Sales Enablement https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/modern-sales-enablement/ Sat, 10 Nov 2018 01:56:41 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/modern-sales-enablement/ As the pressure of digitization on sales functions has ratcheted up in the past couple of years, companies are taking another look at modernizing sales enablement – for good reason. Among them: Selling is getting harder. Fewer reps are hitting their quotas. According to a recent article by Forbes, 57% of sales reps missed their …

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    As the pressure of digitization on sales functions has ratcheted up in the past couple of years, companies are taking another look at modernizing sales enablement – for good reason. Among them:

    Selling is getting harder.

    Fewer reps are hitting their quotas. According to a recent article by Forbes, 57% of sales reps missed their quotas in the last year – concluding overall that what’s truly hindering sales’ success is the lack of cohesion between departments and the way new sellers are being introduced to the product.

    Onboarding is taking longer.

    With today’s complex product lines and ever-changing business models, it can take as much as nine months to ramp up new reps.

    Buyers are bypassing sales for the information they need.

    Customers often complete as much as 70 percent of their journey from their own research, according to industry estimates.

    Faced with these challenges, companies are increasingly seeing sales enablement as a strategic imperative that’s vital the sales organizations success. The stage is set for a new kind of sales enablement. For hard-pressed sales organizations, it can’t come soon enough.

    What is sales enablement?

    Sales enablement is a catch-all phrase with many meanings. But more importantly, what is its purpose?

    The idea of training new sales reps, or any other customer-facing employees, to align their objectives with the company’s goals and gain insight to be successful is not a new concept. Knowledge of product(s), brand, and the competitive landscape is imperative to their quickly becoming effective. In the search for continued revenue growth, companies have sought to better equip and prepare those on the front lines of revenue generation: sales teams.

    The goal has been, and continues to be, to enable them to reach quota as quickly as possible and consistently, thus the creation of sales enablement. However, as the state of sales enablement constantly changes in scope, it’s needless to say that there’s yet to be a single, universally adopted definition.

    Here are a few takes:

    • Search Google and you’ll find, “modern sales enablement is the enablement of sales teams with information, tools, and content that help salespeople sell more effectively.” A more visionary definition of sales enablement from SiriusDecisions explains, “Enablement’s purpose is to ensure salespeople have the skills, knowledge, behaviors, and tools needed to engage [buyers, team, other] in rich conversations.”
    • Forrester Research says, “Sales enablement is a strategic, ongoing process that equips all client-facing employees  with the ability to consistently and systematically have a valuable conversation with the right set of customer stakeholders at each stage of the customer’s problem-solving life cycle to optimize the return on investment of the selling system.”

    When Forrester Research asks, “What is sales enablement?” they characterize it with the idea that companies should put their customers upfront. Putting customers first is an excellent approach to creating your sales enablement initiatives. That said, it’s just as important to determine whether your business needs a dedicated sales enablement manager, a big decision for any company.

    No matter its current definitions, sales enablement has come a long way in the last five years towards helping sales teams perform better. Reps today are more comfortable in competitive environments, as well as those which sometimes require more complex strategic sales motions.

    At the same time, engaging with today’s highly informed and ever-more scrutinizing customers requires salespeople to retain and effectively use ever-more knowledge, skills, and behaviors.

    While sales enablement is designed to help sales turn more opportunities into revenue, most traditional sales enablement solutions cannot show how programs correlate to individual outcomes.

    What most don’t realize is that there are huge, previously untouched areas where enablement solutions (tools, platforms, and best practice methodologies) can bring more value and revenue to companies.

    What Gartner has to say about sales enablement

    Companies, both purposefully and accidentally, are missing some useful and obvious strategies. This short-sightedness also applies to sales consultants and training or learning tools vendors –all of whom have implemented or offered otherwise great technology for sales enablement. Let’s take a look at some numbers behind these pain points. Here are some key statistics Gartner recently shared at their conference about the complex reality of most salespeople today:

    • Customers are more complex: over 6 people are typically involved in B2B purchases with over 3 different functions represented.
    • Product complexity: the product portfolio that sellers represent have increased in size by 2.3 times, and only 37% of sellers find it easy to customize their offerings.
    • Internal complexity: sellers have reported that 16.4% of the sales cycle is spent on internal approvals and only 24% of sellers can easily calculate their variable compensation.

    What the figures above tell is a story of increased difficulty and complexity for the salesperson in your average B2B company. Now add the picture above with the new reality of how salespeople develop their skills, according to Gartner:

    • 58% of sellers develop their skills through their colleagues
    • 35% of skills sellers use today were acquired in the last year
    • 66% of sellers expect most learning and development to occur outside the classroom
    • 60% of sellers expect to learn and develop just-in-time

    Traditional training programs and methods are falling short of the expectations and needs of sellers today and leaving much to be desired. The facts presented by Gartner point in a few different directions as well:

    • Managers are more than ever required to be involved and help drive sales learning and coaching
    • Onboarding programs have to adapt to the new realities of today’s sellers and better enable them to help buyers during their journeys
    • Manager enablement is a critical need to help managers have better conversations, give feedback, identify seller skills gaps, and have career conversations with their reps

    Most sales enablement teams would agree that the biggest problem or obstacle they face when rolling out programs is getting managers to spend time with their sellers and with the programs.

    The key takeaway? Working with managers to show the impact that their actions can have in sales performance is one of the most important action items in your next sales enablement playbook.

    If you have a platform that allows you to measure your sales team’s “readiness” and you can show managers the skill gaps identified through the different initiatives rolled out, you’ll have a much easier conversation when it comes to implementation of a new sales enablement strategy. Regardless of technology, the first step is changing the frontline managers’ mindsets and presenting them with a strong case for enablement.

    What modernizing sales enablement programs can do for you

    The goal of modern sales enablement is straightforward: to help you and your team win more and bigger deals.

    “Sales enablement optimizes the selling motion in order to increase pipeline, move opportunities forward and win bigger deals more efficiently to drive profitable growth.” – Sales Enablement Society

    It helps achieve that goal through three its three core capabilities. In short, sales enablement:

    • Helps sellers build out skill sets to deliver phenomenal customer experience. It personalizes, gamifies, coaches, and provides micro-learning modules to deliver resonant and memorable experiences that help sellers master and operationalize new skills.
    • Combines a modern enablement platform with best-practice methodologies. Sellers need a digital solution that they can access anytime, on any device. Modern platforms’ design is informed with industry-leading insights on how acquired skills translate into revenue production and customer engagement.
    • Shows the connection between actions and outcomes. Modern sales enablement platforms harness artificial intelligence and data-driven analytics so you can see how your programs are improving sellers’ capabilities. You can identify knowledge gaps where you might want to do some coaching. The platform provides a clear picture of how sales capabilities impact sales performance and business outcomes.

    So without further ado, here are the top five reasons you should consider modernizing your sales readiness programs.

    1. Business is in a high growth phase

    Many businesses experiencing high-growth tend to deal with business challenges that are right in front of them. Usually when business is booming it’s easy to forget about the longer term future. This short-sightedness can cause major headaches down the road, particularly when there are no streamlined processes in place to track personal or business performance.

    Referring to an HBR blog Science of Building a Scalable Sales Team, Mark Roberge from Hubspot points out the importance of taking a disciplined approach when training salespeople so that everyone has good foundational selling skills. According to Mark the result at Hubspot stated that “our salespeople are able to connect on a far deeper level with our prospects and leads”, a process that has consistently resulted in high growth.

    2. New sales reps take a long time to meet quotas

    Hiring new sales reps is a significant investment for any company, and the longer they take to onboard and ramp up, the more money burned.

    “According to Aberdeen Research, companies that adopt best practices across their sales teams had double the quota attainment of their peers. Each sales enablement program that gives a rep more time for core selling nets more revenue. Each best practice program that makes reps more effective translates into topline improvement”.

    Modernizing sales readiness programs will help each member of the sales team achieve peak performance. Therefore, sales enablement programs should always include finding ways to improve sales reps’ efficiency and effectiveness with prospects so they can meet their quotas and keep on performing into the future.

    3. Sales reps spend too much time on non-selling tasks

    The primary job of any sales rep is to continually work on their sales process, generating and qualifying leads, conducting sales demos and closing deals. If Anytime they’re not on these selling tasks it’s usually unproductive, and a poor use of a valuable resource.

    “To increase sales productivity, you have to reduce or eliminate tasks that aren’t productive.”- Nancy Nardin

    Modernizing the sales readiness programs with a data driven sales enablement platform will help your organization have vision into the sales process and identify how it can help reduce non-selling tasks and increase efficiency across the entire process.

    4. Need to increase individual sales quotas next year

    According to CSO Insights, 94.5% of firms they surveyed said they were raising quotas. If you too are planning to increase quotas, then you’re going to need a new strategy and a new set of sales enablement tools to get more out of your sales team. A dedicated sales enablement manager should help to ensure that your sales reps be well trained regarding your customers’ needs, be up to date with industry and product news, have the necessary tools and information available with them when they need it. As CSO Insights discovered.

    As CSO Insights discovered that the key to achieving higher quotas with the same sales team is to keep your sales team well trained and ready with a new set of skill.

    5. Marketing efforts aren’t helping sales sell

    If you are increasing your marketing budgets but that’s not translating into helping sales sell more, then having a sales enablement manager could be the reason. A significant part of marketing’s role is to create sales collateral for each persona for every stage of the buyer’s journey, so, it’s crucial that both sales and marketing are aligned and work closely together.

    A sales enablement manager can help bridge the gap between marketing deliverables and what the sales team needs. Working with both sales and marketing can make a difference in sales ability to provide valuable content and collateral to customers. For example, the HubSpot sales enablement team sits with the sales reps but reports through to the marketing.

    Why change?

    To sum up, moving in a direction of a revamped, modernized sales enablement program has the potential to completely turn things around when it comes to your team and their sales readiness. A comprehensive and collaborative approach to sales enablement just might be that secret ingredient when it comes to revamping the way your organization tackles – and wins – sales deals.

    Ultimately, here’s what a modern sales enablement platform do for your organization:

    • Accelerate and enhance onboarding to telescope time-to-productivity
    • Coach sellers in the exact areas where they need help
    • Energize your meetings and kickoffs to propel profitability
    • Build sellers’ confidence and effectiveness through guided role-play
    • Track and accelerate business outcomes through reporting and analytics
    • Build reps’ skills through tailored, highly engaging learning and development activities
    • Help sales leaders to make their skills go viral, company-wide.

    The post 5 Reasons to Modernize Sales Enablement appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    A Playbook for Data-Driven Sales Enablement https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/a-playbook-for-data-driven-sales-enablement/ Thu, 25 Oct 2018 02:07:33 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/a-playbook-for-data-driven-sales-enablement/ Enablement success…or not? According to research from CSO Insights, “organizations with successful sales enablement programs see 67% quota attainment, compared to only 42% for companies that admit their enablement programs fall short of expectations”. This is great news if you’re running sales enablement for a company or trying to get buy-in across the organization for …

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    Enablement success…or not?

    According to research from CSO Insights, “organizations with successful sales enablement programs see 67% quota attainment, compared to only 42% for companies that admit their enablement programs fall short of expectations”. This is great news if you’re running sales enablement for a company or trying to get buy-in across the organization for your own enablement initiatives. The problem is, though, that even though the value of sales enablement is starting to become obvious, recent research on sales performance is putting a dark veil across what would otherwise be a positive initiative.

    Over the past few years, not only has quota attainment by sales reps dropped precipitously – with the latest number hovering around 53%

    – but the majority of sales leaders also maintain that their sales enablement programs are not fully meeting their expectations

    .

    If you’re wondering why this happens, you’re not the only one. While more and more organizations are starting to see the value of sales enablement, it seems that most programs still struggle to deliver the expected value. This predicament becomes a bit more clear when we address at a simple question that Mindtickle posed to hundreds of sales leaders at a conference earlier this year:

    “If you were to listen to your sales reps on the phone, how many would you say are on-point and delivering your value proposition accurately?”

    The results were startling. Over 60% of respondents indicated that they believe less than 50% of their sales teams deliver their value propositions accurately during a sales situation. This points us to two potential takeaways:

    1. There’s a problem with how sales training is done today
    2. Enablement teams are clearly not having the expected impact on sales behavior

    Tackling these two issues in a way that lasts requires a new, revamped playbook – and this blog post will provide some insight as to how a new sales enablement playbook could potentially look like.

    A new playbook for enablement

    The first question we typically ask companies looking to improve their sales enablement is what are they measuring and how. If you are still tracking and reporting on course completion rates or certification numbers, the odds that you’ll be getting the proverbial “seat at the table” are pretty slim.

    The most successful enablement teams we work with have been able to break out of the traditional learning and development mold and create a new measuring system aligned with what sales most needs: an improvement in seller competency and performance.

    But technology is only part of the formula. If you want to create a winning playbook for enablement there are four elements we suggest you think about:

    1. Approach enablement as a continuous journey through the seller lifecycle
    2. Prepare reps to handle different scenarios – not follow a script
    3. Guide and empower front-line managers to better coach their teams
    4. Institute a data-driven conversation about enablement

    Enablement as a continuous journey

    Multiple events happen throughout a seller’s time with a company that requires enablement. New products are introduced and new partnerships are formed, the marketing team launches new messaging, competitors change tactics or launch new offerings, changes in the go-to-market strategy open up new territories or industries – for all of these and more, a seller should be continuously informed.

    While we are all familiar with the above scenarios, if your enablement team wants to upgrade their playbook, a good start is to look at these enablement events not as isolated moments, but rather in the context of the buyer/seller journey.

    The seller journey is related to the seller’s own experience at your company (new rep vs veteran), performance (low, mid, high), and all the other facets that might impact how this person learns, applies their learning and wants to learn.

    The buyer’s journey, on the other hand, is related to what buyers are looking for throughout the sales process and how you are enabling the salesperson to engage with the buyer throughout those stages and help them make a decision. Understanding the “persona” of your sales rep, their needs throughout the buyer journey, and their needs for all of the scenarios which require enablement will help you start thinking differently about the plays you want to add to your playbook which will help guide the sales enablement team.

    Skills, not a script

    The next chapter in your playbook for better enablement is looking at the sales team’s skills and competencies, and working towards developing the ability for sales reps to adjust and adapt their approach to buyers based on the buyer’s needs instead of a standardized, predetermined pitch.

    While the pitch certification is important to establish a baseline and ground rules, reps should be “situational-aware,” and tailor their conversations accordingly. A high level of “situational awareness”

    requires better readiness for your sales team and the adequate tools to get them to where they need to excel.

    Great enablement programs incorporate different ways in which reps can practice sales scenarios and get constructive feedback and coaching. Virtual role-play technology is key in this area so that you can train Account Executives on how to counter objections, help Business Development Reps hone their outbound email writing skills, and Sales Engineers to try different ways to demo a solution or answer a technical question.

    Coaching in the frontlines

    While the impact of sales coaching is known to drive over 27% improvement in sales wins rates

    , many companies still lack this chapter in their playbooks. Best-in-class organizations, however, have decided to give frontline managers the tools they need to become better coaches. And while training sessions help, there are a few key elements that are essential when rolling out a coaching program:

    1. Coaching framework
    2. Coaching cadence
    3. Accountability
    4. Results

    Having a coaching framework gives managers tangible guidance on what to coach reps on and hot to coach them. Typically, this is connected with a competency model so that managers can tie observable behaviors back to the key competencies reps need to develop.

    A cadence helps make sure that coaching becomes a habit where managers drive and hold regular coaching sessions. The accountability bullet points to requiring a senior leadership sponsorship to ensure that the front line managers not only have the tools they need to implement coaching but are also measured and tracked on their coaching initiatives. Frontline managers who are held accountable for coaching their teams and have the resources to do it end up performing better than the average with the results to show.

    Finally, being able to track results is the missing link in most coaching programs. Companies using field coaching forms but not compiling the information or those who coach regularly but don’t track the impact on deal velocity or size end up missing the biggest incentive reps have to spend time in coaching sessions.

    When creating your own coaching playbook, make sure you have the tools to ensure both reps and their frontline managers are properly enabled to put the program into practice.

    Data-driven enablement plays

    Measuring and reporting on enablement success can only be done if you know what to measure and how to measure it. Any playbook will fall short and won’t be adopted if you can’t start tying those initiatives with lagging and leading indicators.

    At the top of the list is what we call your “Readiness Index”. How can you tell whether an individual rep is sales-ready? And what does readiness means for your organization? The best enablement leaders are not waiting for the VP of Sales to schedule a meeting and tell them her readiness goals. If this is not clear in your organization, take the reins and put together a draft document with a definition that you believe is the correct one for the team you work with and seek the sales leaders to either agree and approve or discuss and improve.

    Elements of readiness typically include:

    • Knowledge score:an indicator of whether the reps are able to recall key information required to do their jobs.
    • Skills or capability score:the metric showing how well each rep is doing related to the core competencies required for them to do their jobs and apply their knowledge in specific situations.
    • Execution or behavior score:a key value related to true field observation (either via ride-alongs, shadowing calls or reviewing recordings) that tells how reps are actually executing or using their knowledge and skills in real conversations with buyers.

    Ideally, you want to be able to have all this information in a system with visual analytics that you can share with managers and they can pull the information themselves about their teams. Once you start collecting hard data on the three key elements above, the conversations about enablement programs and priorities become grounded on true data and help show the value that sales enablement brings.

    Concluding thoughts

    Creating a sales enablement playbook can be hard if you try to do many things at once, but focusing on the core elements described in this post I hope we have guided you in a clear direction where you can start slowly building the different plays that tie into a continuous enablement journey, preparing reps for different scenarios, incorporating coaching and having a data-driven vision for how your programs can be measured and proven effective.

    The post A Playbook for Data-Driven Sales Enablement appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Why a Sales Onboarding Program Design for Sales Engineers is Important https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/onboarding-sales-engineers/ Mon, 14 May 2018 13:48:47 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/onboarding-sales-engineers/ Strategic sales onboarding, regardless of team size or role, should be a non-negotiable priority for any company. Research by the Aberdeen Group backs this up: a recent study found that when onboarded effectively, 71% of employees exceeded expectations, versus a reported 8% by companies without an onboarding strategy. And while it’s a given that every …

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    Strategic sales onboarding, regardless of team size or role, should be a non-negotiable priority for any company.

    Research by the Aberdeen Group backs this up: a recent study found that when onboarded effectively, 71% of employees exceeded expectations, versus a reported 8% by companies without an onboarding strategy. And while it’s a given that every team member needs to learn the same foundations about the company and its culture, different roles require specialized learning.

    What’s a sales onboarding program just for sales engineers?

    Due to the particular focus on cross-disciplinary skills, the specialized role of the technical sales engineer is a perfect example of the impact effective onboarding can have. Sales engineers bridge the gap between the sales reps and the product: since sales engineers bring deep technical knowledge to the sales process, they need in-depth immersion and training on the product.

    This means that basic product training or an overview of APIs, integrations, and use cases are not enough: sales engineers need to know and understand their product like the back of their hands. However, some capabilities that sales engineers need are similar to sales reps: they need to understand their customers and all the ways the product helps them relieve business pain points.

    So, what should a sales engineers onboarding include?

    Sales engineers need to understand the intricacies of how your product works and be able to apply specific use cases and solutions. They then must be able to explain these to a customer in a way that actually sells your product. To help them become proficient in each of these as quickly as possible, your onboarding should include:

    • Time with your product – The role of sales engineers is to know your product inside out. And, they don’t just need to know the features, they must understand how people use the product and be able to demonstrate it. They need to be able to test and put into practice what they’ve learned.
    • Detail on your product roadmap – Sales engineers need to understand what the product roadmap looks and how it affects your industry and competitive positioning. This will help them tailor discussions and solutions for customers. During the onboarding process, ask engineering and product development to get involved so they can give your engineers a holistic view of how the product works today and the future product roadmap.
    • Certify they can demo – The first time a customer meets an engineer will often be at the product demo. Before the demo, engineers need to understand the customer, their pain points, and needs so they can tailor the demo accordingly. Getting the demo right can make or break the deal. As part of their onboarding let sales engineers see other use cases (recorded or live) and get them to practice different scenarios. They should also be certified in how to complete a tailored demo before meeting a customer. This process ideally will include receiving plenty of feedback from both their peers and managers so they can keep improving and refine their technique.
    • Practice objection handling – Considered an expert, technical sales engineers often face the most challenging objections. They not only need to know what to say but also how to say it in a way that keeps the sale in play. This is a learned skill as it can be easy to get caught up in technical details that the customer doesn’t necessarily need to know. Using role plays and scenario-based training, technical sales engineers can make sure they have mastered handling objections.
    • Understanding competitor products – To explain to a customer why your product is superior to a competitor’s your sales engineers need to understand exactly what your competitor’s products do and don’t do; not just listed features. Depending on how complex your product is, your sales engineer’s onboarding should include a detailed explanation of your key product differentiators as compared to your competitors. For more complex products, give them access to your competitor’s products and let them spend some time seeing how they work.
    • Customer-based Solutions – To give customers real solutions to their problems, engineers need to understand your product in the context of how it works in a business environment. By spending time with your customer success team they can see these use cases in action and perhaps also gather feedback from customers so that they can learn what works and what doesn’t.
    • Relationship building with sales reps – Sales engineers need to build relationships with sales reps so that they bring them into their deals and promote overall sales effectiveness. It’s important to help sales engineers build these relationships and you get the ball rolling by onboarding them together where their coursework overlaps. Enabling engineers to shadow sales onboarding and vice versa, sharing technical sales engineer onboarding with the reps – including the checkpoints and certifications they must complete – will help build their relationships.

    Leveraging onboarding course for two different sales roles

    When developing your onboarding program you can create a range of courses that cover different roles, and then assign those that are relevant based on job role or even location. For example, your course on buyer personas could be assigned to both sales reps and engineers, but your product training modules for each role may be different.

    The need for two sets of skills combined into one company representative, as important as a technical sales engineer, means you can leverage the sales enablement courses for:

    • General corporate onboarding – policies, culture, and organizational strategy
    • Buyer and user personas
    • Product positioning and messaging
    • Industry trends

    While it may be tempting to put your engineers through the same onboarding program as your sales reps, it’s important to remember that this may impact their ability to ramp up quickly and start helping your reps sell. Investing in onboarding your sales engineers is one of the best ways to make sure your new hires – reps and engineers – achieve their quota quicker.

    The post Why a Sales Onboarding Program Design for Sales Engineers is Important appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Building an Integrated Sales Enablement Ecosystem https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/building-completely-integrated-sales-enablement-ecosystem/ Wed, 25 Apr 2018 22:00:04 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/building-completely-integrated-sales-enablement-ecosystem/ With today’s buyers waiting until they are 60 – 80% along their buying process, depending on which research you read, it’s becoming more and more important for these cross-functional departments to get on the same page. Without this alignment, it becomes nearly impossible for sales to function efficiently and close business as effectively as possible. …

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    With today’s buyers waiting until they are 60 – 80% along their buying process, depending on which research you read, it’s becoming more and more important for these cross-functional departments to get on the same page. Without this alignment, it becomes nearly impossible for sales to function efficiently and close business as effectively as possible. That’s why building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem is important.

    A sales enablement ecosystem should ensure that salespeople have access to the right content at the right time to advance sales. Plus, it should provide technology to sales staff that will help them streamline their tasks. An ecosystem that consists of a sales enablement platform that sits between the enterprise marketing automation (MA) system and its customer relationship management (CRM) system can facilitate the collection of intelligence from both systems and everything else that happens in between. Combining the data from both systems can help provide analytics and insights to use in decision making. With such a platform, the more solutions you can be integrated, the greater the insights. This intel is valuable to all involved departments including Marketing, Sales, Sales Ops, Product Development, Customer Service, and more. And, it puts everyone on the same page for more streamlined and efficient operations.

    There are many benefits to building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem, including:

    Consistent messaging
    Improved communications across the entire enterprise help with consistency of branding, messaging, and updated product information. It provides sales with timely information that’s needed to craft messages for specific prospects. Without this free flow of information between departments, it’s more difficult to achieve business success.

    Buyer’s journey alignment
    Improved marketing and sales alignment with the buyer’s journey is a result of improved intra-department communications. Marketing needs to remain informed concerning prospect motivators and challenges. Sales reps are in the best position to acquire this information and share it with Marketing. Salespeople see the ever-evolving pain points of their leads and are able to share them. This allows Marketing to continually create content to address these as they change.

    Agile strategy adjustments
    This open feedback from sales reps to other departments, such as Marketing and Operations, facilitates quick changes to sales and marketing strategies.

    Ability to share quickly and easily
    These adjustments are then easily communicated through this shared platform in the form of updates, training, and new content. And it’s all done with the simple click of a button.

    A huge competitive advantage
    Due to increased efficiencies, organizations who build a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem gain a huge competitive advantage in the marketplace.

    A fully enabled sales team
    With all training, coaching, content, and communications funneling through one platform, your sales team is always up-to-date. They are prepared for any prospect or situation and able to create valuable solutions easily.</>

    Increased sales performance and productivity
    With everything available in one place, sales reps are able to find the content they need quickly, gaining increased selling time. Plus, consistent updates, training, and coaching make them more effective. These elements improve sales results as well.

    Building your ecosystem

    With so many benefits you’re probably wondering how to go about building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem for your organization. Start by determining your objectives and goals. Next, select a sales enablement platform that will best meet your requirements. The selection process includes considerations such as ease of use, mobile readiness, integration options, and analytics capabilities. Be sure to consider whether the vendor will be a good partner on the long-term. Implement your selected solution. This includes defining scope, allocating resources, building a process, training, and more. You’ll find additional information about this process in this article.

    A clearer structure and open communications provide for better operations. Building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem keeps Sales, Marketing, Operations, and more on the same page. The many benefits you’ll gain include consistent messaging and improved buyer’s journey alignment. Agile strategy adjustments and sharing of information at the touch of a button allow your organization to stay ahead of other businesses in the marketplace. This gives your company an advantage over the competition. A fully enabled salesforce increases sales performance and productivity. Of course, all of this adds up to a stronger organization and better bottom line. As you can see, it’s worth the effort to start building a completely integrated sales enablement ecosystem so your organization can reap the benefits too.

    The post Building an Integrated Sales Enablement Ecosystem appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    How to Change from Feature-Based Selling to Value-Based Selling https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/change-feature-based-selling-value-based-selling/ Tue, 17 Apr 2018 22:00:27 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/change-feature-based-selling-value-based-selling/ When making changes to your sales approach or processes, you want to be sure you achieve your desired outcomes. With a plan in place, you increase the likelihood that you will. Below are the steps you need to take to change from feature-based selling to value-based selling. To make this transition you’ll want to follow …

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    When making changes to your sales approach or processes, you want to be sure you achieve your desired outcomes. With a plan in place, you increase the likelihood that you will. Below are the steps you need to take to change from feature-based selling to value-based selling.

    To make this transition you’ll want to follow these steps:

    •         Revise your sales process
    •         Update your competency framework
    •         Identify and create the required content
    •         Identify individual knowledge and skill gaps
    •         Guide and coach your reps through personalized training
    •         Provide ongoing updates

    Revise your sales process

    There are several reasons to revise your sales process. They include changes to your company, team, product, customer base, customer behaviors, and decreased results from your existing process. Changing your sales methodology is often the outcome of one of these reasons. To revise your sales process consider what changes will be necessary to accommodate your value-selling approach. When, in the buyer’s journey, will your reps be initially engaging with prospects? What steps will need to take place, using a value focus, to convert the prospect to a customer? Map this out very carefully so your sales team always knows what’s next to advance through the process successfully. Once the process is implemented, be sure to use metrics and rep feedback to fine-tune and adjust it as needed.

    Update your competency frameworks

    Before you can make the change from feature-based to value-based selling, you need to update your sales competency frameworks. These plans provide detailed information about behaviors, skills, and knowledge requirements for each sales position. They simplify benchmarking and help you easily recognize successful training outcomes. To update your frameworks, consider what knowledge, skills, and attributes should be removed from your current ones for each sales position. Next, add any new competencies that will be required for effective value selling. Depending on your particular product or service, these will vary. In our discussion about value-selling, we included several categories of skills and knowledge your team must have for success. They include product, case studies, marketplace, industry information, and buyer personas. Compare these to your current competencies to identify the updates needed. If you’d like more information relating to sales competency frameworks, we discuss this topic in more detail in

    this article

    .

    Identify and create the required content

    Once you’ve updated your sales process and your competency frameworks, you’ll be able to identify content gaps. Develop updated content that incorporates your new messaging for both internal and external use. Be sure that you have content for every stage of the sales process, prospect industries, and each persona involved in the buying process. Content will include training materials such as buyer personas and corresponding value propositions for each product, industry, and persona. Plus sales playbooks and training materials like audio, video, and written training snippets, assessment quizzes, games, and certification exercises. Client-facing content tools might include case studies, white papers, e-books, and the like. As this content is used, don’t forget to gather feedback on it from your sales team. Track which pieces are used and which are most effective. This will simplify future content planning.

    Identify individual knowledge and skill gaps

    If you training your entire sales team on the same material, you risk boring more experienced reps while confusing less experienced ones. You should allow reps to fulfill their individual training requirements. To do so, you must identify each team member’s specific knowledge and skill gaps. There are several ways to do this. These include observation of demonstrated skills and behaviors, assessments through task simulations, self-assessments, quizzes, and performance data. To learn more, you can read

    this article

    about identifying knowledge and skill gaps.

     

    Personalized training with coaching

    Armed with your reps’ knowledge and skill gap information, you can start guiding and coaching your reps through the personalized training they need. Prioritize their training needs to help them get started. Utilize short bite-sized written and video training modules. At the end of each module, include short quizzes and games designed to measure their understanding while reinforcing what they’ve learned. Simulation missions allow sales reps to practice and apply what they have learned. For minimal impact on their schedules, these are completed via mobile video and coach feedback is provided. This will reinforce correct practices and prevent the development of bad practices. It’s an excellent way to incorporate another layer of coaching.

    Leverage gamification

    to motivate them to advance through their training. Leaderboards and rewards will activate their competitive nature too while keeping the process fun and engaging. Incorporate certifications at the end of each course to ensure that reps are properly prepared to effectively apply their newly-learned knowledge and skills.

    Provide ongoing refreshers and updates

    It’s been shown that training, without ongoing reinforcement, is very quickly forgotten. This is why it is important that you provide your salesforce with refreshers and updates. Refreshers can include bite-sized pieces of supplemental information relating to what they’ve already learned. Share cheat sheets, best practice examples, and reminders. Send out pop quizzes from time to time also. This will allow them to recall knowledge they’ve been taught and apply it. Coaching and simulations exercises are also excellent ways to help your team remain effective by using their skills in different scenarios so they’re always prepared. Updates should include information about new content, new success stories, changes in the marketplace, and changes internally. With these, they’ll always have the latest information at their disposal and never be caught off guard by unexpected questions from prospects pertaining to the latest changes.

    Now you have a roadmap to help you change from feature-based to value-based selling. Once you’ve completed this process your team members will be prepared to provide more valuable solutions to their prospects. The end result will be consistently elevated rep performance and more closed deals. And isn’t that the goal? Now it’s time for you to get started with this process so you receive the benefits of value-based selling in your organization!

    The post How to Change from Feature-Based Selling to Value-Based Selling appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    The Impact of AI on Your Sales Strategies https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/impact-ai-sales-strategies/ Tue, 17 Apr 2018 13:54:10 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/impact-ai-sales-strategies/ Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. While there’s been a lot of hype about AI we’re yet to see it’s true value – but I don’t believe we’ll have to wait much longer. In fact, AI technology can be found in some sales software already. AI has the potential to have a profound impact …

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    Artificial intelligence (AI) is here to stay. While there’s been a lot of hype about AI we’re yet to see it’s true value – but I don’t believe we’ll have to wait much longer. In fact, AI technology can be found in some sales software already.

    AI has the potential to have a profound impact on your sales strategies and the sales readiness of your reps.

    Forrester predicts that AI will disrupt your sales strategy this year. In fact, 84% of businesses believe AI will give them a competitive advantage and 69% believe their competitors will use it too.
    Reasons-for-adopting-AI-worldwide-2017

    It will make your sales organization more intelligent agile, and customer-centric. It may even change the way you sell altogether.

    What is AI?

    AI is the ability for a computer program or a machine to think and learn. AI, therefore, needs a lot of data that it can filter and process quickly. The more data you give AI the more intelligent it will become.

    AI can be used in simple tasks, like playing a game of chess with you, or for more complex decisions like behind the wheel of a driverless car.

    Potentially, AI can be used to do anything that a human does. It can sort through your inbox and work out what emails you should prioritize and help you research your customers. The biggest limitation on AI in the future will be what your customers are happy to accept. For example, many may not want to have a complex discussion about your product, but they may be happy to ask a chatbot some preliminary questions.

    Research by Capgemini has found that AI increases sales of products and services and increases inbound customer leads.
    Areas-of-AI-driven-benefit-gain-for-respondents--sales

    Analyzing sales conversations

    It can take hours for managers to wade through taped phone calls or listen in on live calls so they can coach their salespeople. Converastion intelligence listens to conversations, transcribing, and then analyzing them. This technology exists today and is able to pick up on key parts of the conversation like when a customer starts talking about the issues they are facing or information that competitors have given them.

    This information can then be used by your sales managers to help coach their salespeople. Your sales enablement team can also use it to improve processes and best practices, like call scripts and training materials. The product and marketing teams can also use the competitor information for their market and customer insights.

    This technology has the potential to develop and improve even face-to-face sales conversations in the future. Imagine if it could ‘hear’ every conversation reps have out in the field. These could all be analyzed to provide information about how to improve how each individual rep sells.

    It could also be used to script phone conversations in real-time. This would give SDRs all the information they need to deal with customer questions and objections as they arise.

    Optimizing lead generation

    Finding the right leads for your salespeople can be like finding a needle in a haystack. Because AI can process large amounts of data quickly, and then learn from what it finds, it has the potential to revolutionize lead generation.

    Rather than a person having to go through Google, social media, or other data sources, AI can review these for you. The technology can not only identify the right job titles and businesses to target, but it can also analyze the sentiment in comments made on social media or by email. This means AI can help you identify whether someone is unhappy with a competitor’s product or is in the market for a new one. When you consider that 57% of buyers are already far along their decision-making process before they meet a salesperson, the earlier you can speak to them the better your opportunity to convert them.

    Some platforms already use AI to help them identify the right leads and contact them. The technology can create prospecting emails, monitor responses and improve how they react to them. It can compare lead responses to past data and even predict how each lead will respond, helping prioritize leads. This frees up the time of marketing and salespeople, qualifying prospects quicker and more cost-effectively.

    Having sales conversations

    While it’s unlikely that AI will replace salespeople in complex sales any time soon, they can help move sales conversations further down the process. Many businesses already use chatbots to answer simple questions for customers on their websites.

    According to Forrester, these are already replacing email in customer service channels in large companies like Nike and Apple and they may influence up to 10% of purchasing decisions. The more conversations the technology has with customers, the more it will learn.

    Customers are also getting used to talking to AI, with 48% of people favoring live chat compared to 54% preferring email. The gap is closing.
    Live-chat-is-nearly-as-popular-as-phone-and-email

    The power of AI extends far beyond the sales conversation and into the data that the technology can collect during these conversations. They can take the information that customers share, identify their sentiment and then feed that information back to your sales, enablement, product, and marketing teams. This can inform your sales training, processes, product features, and marketing strategies as well.

    Automating tasks

    Salespeople can spend almost a quarter of their time on administrative tasks. Managing their emails, logging their activity, and updating the CRM. This is all time that could be spent selling. It is here that AI can potentially generate the quickest wins. If it can give back selling hours to each of your salespeople’s days, that has the potential to go straight to your topline revenue.

    There are many ways that AI can potentially reduce administration at the frontline. Prioritizing emails and suggesting how a salesperson should respond to them is just one. Depending on the data available to it, AI could help put together the best pricing option for a customer, conduct credit checks and automate billing. AI can even do a salesperson’s reading for them, notifying them if something has changed that means they need to call a customer. If a customer has recently acquired another business or a new VP has been appointed, it may be time for your rep to touch base again.

    Forecasting

    Prediction is what AI specializes in so it’s only fitting that it would be used for forecasting. By providing data about past performance it can use it to predict future performance – but AI can go further.

    It can take data from a wide range of sources and pull them together to create a predictive model for future performance. Rather than just telling you if you’ll meet your quota at the end of the year, AI tells you which deals are more likely to close and when. Sales managers and reps can be far more strategic about their customer interactions.

    Taking it a step further, AI could tell you which customers to upsell to and when. This can save reps a significant amount of time and energy, by focusing efforts where it’s more likely to be rewarded. The result should be an increase in win rates and productivity.

    A study in MIT Sloan Management Review found that 76% of early adopters aimed for higher sales growth using AI and it’s easy to see why. AI has the potential to completely change the way reps play the game. It can give them more time to sell and improve how they sell as well.

    With so many different options available to you, the biggest challenge is to work out which AI technology to implement first – perhaps there’ll be an algorithm that can even tell you that soon.

    The post The Impact of AI on Your Sales Strategies appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    How to Personalize Sales Training to Fix Knowledge and Skill Gaps https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/personalize-sales-training-individuals-knowledge-skill-gaps/ Mon, 02 Apr 2018 22:00:36 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/personalize-sales-training-individuals-knowledge-skill-gaps/ Products, customer behaviors, and industry dynamics change quickly in today’s sales environment. This means that even the most seasoned sales reps require ongoing knowledge and skill development. Every rep in your sales force has a different background, skills set, knowledge, and experience. Because of these variables, one size does not fit all when it comes …

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    Products, customer behaviors, and industry dynamics change quickly in today’s sales environment. This means that even the most seasoned sales reps require ongoing knowledge and skill development. Every rep in your sales force has a different background, skills set, knowledge, and experience. Because of these variables, one size does not fit all when it comes to sales training. To provide training that meets your sales teams’ needs, it’s most effective to personalize sales training based on individual gaps in knowledge and skills. Complete the following steps to create these plans and see the best results.

    Develop sales competency frameworks

    Before you can identify skill and knowledge gaps for individual sales reps, you must first have a benchmark for comparison. A sales competency framework provides this by stating what skills, knowledge, and behaviors are expected. They help you identify gaps, simplify training establishment, and facilitate progress measurement. In case you missed it, we discuss how to go about developing these competencies below.

    Evaluate knowledge and skill gaps

    Once you have a definition of what your sales force needs to be able to do and what they must know, you are now ready to proceed. There are several ways to evaluate your team members for knowledge and skill gaps:

    • Observation: Watching your sales reps demonstrate skills and behaviors, or discussing various key topics, is one way to complete this evaluation. This may be completed in the field, for example, on a ride-along or by role play in person or via video recordings.
    • Assessments through task simulations: In this case, you may be focused on the rep’s ability to create a proposal or some other documentation. It could also be a method of determining their ability to effectively use software applications on the job. A mock scenario is provided when doing this and the staff member must complete the designated tasks to identify gaps.
    • Self-assessments: Asking your sales reps where they feel they need additional training is a helpful exercise when determining gaps. Revealing these gaps will serve to improve their effectiveness on the job.
    • Quizzes: When measuring gaps in knowledge, quizzes and serious games are effective methods. Plus, they can be engaging and fun.
    • Metrics: Reviewing performance data for individual reps will help you identify various training needs. This especially applies to weaknesses by stage of the sales process and levels of activity.

    Create individualized sales training plans

    After completing evaluations on individual sales reps, it is time to create their training plans. You should have a listing of where their skill and knowledge gaps exist. This is what training and coaching they need to receive. Prioritize these areas and direct them to the corresponding resources. Be sure to incorporate input from each individual, relating to areas they would like to develop. This will increase buy-in and commitment to the process.

    Make them accountable

    Provide clear expectations and well-defined goals. Your competency frameworks will help with this. You also want to observe and measure engagement in trainings provided. Obviously, if they don’t participate, they won’t progress.

    Continuously monitor progress

    Monitor participation and progress. Provide feedback as needed to facilitate growth. Certify reps on skills and knowledge to finalize each stage so they may advance to the next level.

    Reevaluate and update sales training

    Continuously cycle through this process to keep up with current training needs that correspond with product, customer, and market changes. Incorporate your reps’ personal goals into training plans to help motivate them. Guide them to additional training where appropriate and assist them with advancement as needed.

    Now you know how to personalize sales training for individual skill gaps. This will ensure that training will be better understood and more easily applied on the job. It meets each rep where they are, building on their existing skills and knowledge. If you have a sales readiness platform, this process will be even easier. According to Gartner’s research, it will encourage knowledge retention by including continuous learning applications, which deliver small pieces of information or short courses and quizzes on a regular (often daily) basis. Plus they’ll be available on mobile devices for easy participation.

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    How to Create a Sales Competency Framework That Aligns with Organizational Goals https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/create-sales-competency-framework-aligns-organizational-goals/ Thu, 29 Mar 2018 05:00:10 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/create-sales-competency-framework-aligns-organizational-goals/ Sales organizations today are being challenged to do more with less. With ever-rising quotas and a continuously changing marketplace, it’s important to communicate clear expectations. A sales competency framework facilitates this. It states what skills, knowledge, and behaviors are expected for each position. This simplifies hiring, training, and performance measurement. Such a useful asset is …

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    Sales organizations today are being challenged to do more with less. With ever-rising quotas and a continuously changing marketplace, it’s important to communicate clear expectations. A sales competency framework facilitates this. It states what skills, knowledge, and behaviors are expected for each position. This simplifies hiring, training, and performance measurement. Such a useful asset is unique to each organization, since it’s aligned with corporate goals and priorities. When created properly, a sales competency framework has been found to improve hiring, increase training focus, and elevate performance outcomes.

    Understanding sales competencies

    So many organizations have historically conducted training and failed to measure their results. The challenge has been, how to go about actually measuring progress and recognizing results. An effective sales competency framework not only makes it possible to know when training and coaching are having a positive impact, it makes measurement easier too because it identifies desired end results.

    These frameworks spell out specific profiles of ideal sales people too. This minimizes hiring errors because there’s clarity around what characteristics and abilities the best candidates should possess.

    They detail the end goal of behaviors, skills, and knowledge so benchmarking of teams and individuals is simplified. Plus, they establish measurement criteria to utilize during development.

    Overall, a sales competency framework lets you deliver a development program with the potential to change behavior for the better. It results in improved performance and a measurable return on investment.

    How to create a sales competency framework

    Now that you know what a sales competency framework is, let’s look at how to create one for your organization. Keep in mind that this is an evolutionary process that may take some time. Once you work through it, you’ll want to refine and update it periodically so it changes as your organization and marketplace do.

    Start by identifying the competencies for each of your difference sales roles. They should define the knowledge, skills, and attributes needed to perform the jobs effectively. Be sure that these are all measurable and determine how they will be measured.

    As you determine which competencies best represent each role, involve various people in the process. These should include top performers in your sales force as well as sales management. This will increase acceptance and use of competencies once they are implemented, plus it prevents inclusion of irrelevant competencies.

    To ensure that the most important competencies are included in the framework, information should be collected for each role. It can be collected in several ways:

    • Observing of individuals while performing their roles.
    • Interviews of people in each role either in small groups or individually.
    • Questionnaires may be used to gather data relating to roles.

    When putting it all together, define each of the key characteristics across a range of performance levels for easy measurement and benchmarking. These competencies need to be aligned with sales force strategies, processes, and goals so they drive the desired results of your organization.

    As you implement the competency framework, remember to communicate the end goal clearly. This will increase acceptance and utilization as well as results. The framework should be a handy tool and reference for all who use it. Don’t forget to enlist feedback to facilitate adjustments and updates on a routine basis.

    Having an established sales competency framework improves communication by proving a common language for describing effectiveness across your organization. It provides a vocabulary and examples for use by management when discussing performance with employees. Plus, it creates greater consistency and objectivity when assessing performance. This model reduces mistakes in recruitment and new hire selection. And, most importantly, individual employees can see a clear path for personal development and progress in their current and future roles. This simplifies the entire training and development planning and implementation process. If this is what you want for your organization, it’s time to get started developing your sales competency framework.

    The post How to Create a Sales Competency Framework That Aligns with Organizational Goals appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Managing Change when Implementing Sales Readiness Tools: a Four-Step Approach https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/managing-change-implementing-sales-readiness-tools-four-step-approach/ Mon, 19 Mar 2018 15:18:51 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/managing-change-implementing-sales-readiness-tools-four-step-approach/ Any form of change is challenging for organizations to manage, but sales teams are particularly sensitive to change. They don’t want anything to take them out of the field or negatively affect their results even for one day. This can make introducing new sales readiness tools particularly difficult. Mendix, a platform-as-a-service company that helps organizations …

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    Any form of change is challenging for organizations to manage, but sales teams are particularly sensitive to change. They don’t want anything to take them out of the field or negatively affect their results even for one day. This can make introducing new sales readiness tools particularly difficult.

    Mendix, a platform-as-a-service company that helps organizations make web and mobile applications, knew this was an issue but their onboarding and ongoing sales training program needed to change. They were growing rapidly, hiring 15 new sales hires a quarter in a team to a base team of only 68. At the same time, the company was tasked with improving their time to sale, the number of opportunities they generated and their win rate. They wanted to reduce the time and expense of face-to-face training so they chose to implement Mindtickle, a sales readiness platform.

    To ensure the new tool didn’t distract their salespeople and actually helped them to sell better sooner, they implemented a four-step approach to address the change.

    1. Top-performers engaged with the tool first

    Mindtickle was only rolled out to top-performing reps and engaged managers first. These people had all been identified as high performers across a range of metrics. They were called Mendix’s Champions and held up as role models in the organization.

    The Champions completed missions on Mindtickle – they practiced their selling skills on the platform and were measured on how they learned and what they had learned. The results were very positive, and they were shown to the entire sales team at their next sales kickoff. By showing top performers visibly embracing change and improving their performance as well, other reps were eager to get onboard.

    It was at this kickoff that the leaders of Mendix outlined what they expected of their sales organization in the coming year and explained how Mindtickle would help them achieve that. The sales readiness platform was positioned as critical to the company’s success.

    2. Roll it out to the rest of the sales force

    With the value of the platform clear and the sales’ objectives linked to Mindtickle, the tool was rolled out to the rest of their sales force. To help in this process Mendix’s Champions were given the responsibility of supporting members of the sales team on their missions. The champions would look at the video role plays in their missions, give them feedback and grade them. These grades were put on a leaderboard to create some healthy competition amongst the team.

    This approach worked well, particularly with the younger reps who were keen to learn and improve their selling skills. Seasoned reps were reluctant to try the new tool.

    3. Get CEO endorsement and incentive

    As they rolled out the tool, the CEO publicly endorsed the platform. This was targeted specifically at bringing the reluctant reps onboard. At the same time, the CEO also introduced a new compensation model where reps could earn a quarterly bonus if they scored well on their missions in Mindtickle. This additional sweetener started to encourage more reps to use the platform.

    4. Leaders publicly acknowledge those who have changed

    The final step was for the leaders of the sales organization to start publicly acknowledging the people who had embraced the change. This began with the first salespeople to complete their missions being recognized and their scores shared. This process of communication continued every week, where the highest performers in each region were held up as role models. This helped inspire all the other sales reps to adopt and use the platform.

    Within a month of rolling out Mindtickle people from each level of the sales organization were using the platform. Two months later 87% of their reps had done a mission on Mindtickle, with seven missions per seller on average. To check on how salespeople were really feeling, Mendix also collected feedback and found that even some of their strongest skeptics were seeing real value in the process. They were learning how to improve their own roles and improve how they communicate.

    To keep the momentum going, the company started releasing reports every quarter to the sales organization. These reports disclosed who used the platform most and showed how it was improving sales performance. Some of the successes include:

    • New business development reps were consistently meeting quota after just three months – this had previously taken six months.
    • Their prospecting success rates doubled
    • Top performers had reduced the amount of time it took them to qualify and progress opportunities from 30 days to just seven days
    • The entire sales team was performing at 105% of its targets

    Mindtickle is now an integral part of the culture of the sales organization at Mendix. It’s part of their day-to-day work, incentives, and reporting.

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    Why Companies are Transitioning from Traditional Training to Enablement and Readiness https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/companies-transitioning-traditional-training-enablement-readiness/ Thu, 15 Mar 2018 22:00:39 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/companies-transitioning-traditional-training-enablement-readiness/ More and more companies are transitioning from traditional training methods like classroom training and webinars. They’re recognizing the need for a change and transitioning from traditional training to sales enablement and readiness instead. According to CSO Insights, 59.2% of surveyed companies currently have a sales enablement program. Another 8.5% plan to start one this year. …

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    More and more companies are transitioning from traditional training methods like classroom training and webinars. They’re recognizing the need for a change and transitioning from traditional training to sales enablement and readiness instead. According to CSO Insights, 59.2% of surveyed companies currently have a sales enablement program. Another 8.5% plan to start one this year.  Let’s take a look at what’s causing this trend.

    Why make the change now?

    Companies are recognizing they need a change. Here are some symptoms they’re experiencing. These are clear signs that what they’re doing isn’t working anymore.

    Quota attainment continually decreasing: It’s been shown that the percentage of sales reps hitting their quotas have decreased year after year since 2012 and is now 53%. You can improve sales performance to meet ever-increasing targets with sales enablement and readiness.

    Sales’ declining ability to close Marketing-provided leads: An inability to continually hone sales skills with classroom training and webinars is an issue many companies fact. Sales enablement, when implemented properly, addresses this issue.

    Uncertain of what exactly is working and what needs to change: Sales enablement facilitates identification of weaknesses and strengths.  Plus, it makes it easier to implement corrections and adjustments needed to continuously fine-tune the sales process so it keeps pace with ongoing market changes.

    Sales rep ramp times are too long: Today’s sales reps average 2 years on the job before changing companies. With an average ramp time of 6 months to full productivity, reps are only effective for three-quarters of the time they are in any given position. The hiring and training process is too costly for team members to be inefficient for such a long time. Sales enablement initiatives shorten ramp time. Not only that, the ongoing learning and growth associated with sales enablement increases rep retention because it fulfills the desire of today’s’ employees for continual improvement.

    Sales processes didn’t match reality: Reps are being trained one way and then having to make their own adjustments to make it work on the job. Enablement and readiness ensure that training and practice are properly aligned or corrected as needed.

    Reps are only spending a fraction of their time selling: It’s been documented that sales reps are actually only spending 37% of their time on revenue-generating activities. Enablement corrects this issue by increasing their selling time and making them more effective as well.

    Competitors are winning:  Competitors who have implemented enablement and readiness are closing more business, due to increased efficiency and effectiveness. It hurts companies who haven’t jumped on the enablement/readiness bandwagon yet. Companies are feeling the pain, by losing market share. They know they need to make a change before it’s too late.

    Why are sales enablement and readiness better?

    It’s been known for some time that training isn’t productive by itself. Without ongoing coaching and reinforcement, 90% of information shared in a traditional classroom or webinar training is forgotten within a month’s time. There are many reasons that sales enablement and readiness are more favorable. Here are some of the more popular ones:

    • More cost-effective: Besides being ineffective, traditional training is costly, involving expenses such as room rental, transportation, trainers, and lost opportunity. Plus it’s time-consuming and reduces staff efficiency by cutting into valuable rep selling time. Sales enablement and readiness keeps costs under control by keeping reps on the job and productive while eliminating many of the additional costs.
    • Proactive: Current sales enablement practices allow companies to push sales learning or updates, instead of creating something and hoping it will be used/consumed. This creates a state of perpetual readiness for successful rep interactions of any type with prospects and customers.
    • Tailor-made learning paths: Transitioning from classroom and webinar training allows for personalized training. It means that not everyone needs to go through the same training, in the same order, and at the same pace. Reps are able to take quizzes to determine their individual training needs and priorities. This determines their specific learning path.
    • Internally sourced: It used to be that companies would hire external experts to train their salesforce. Enablement/readiness allows for the sharing of best practices through of an internally-sourced library. It can be approved by the enablement/operations and accessible/searchable by all, in bite-sized modules. This library may include examples, demonstrations, and explanations of how to do or accomplish certain goals or skills.
    • Bite-sized/spaced learning: Small, frequent learning sessions minimize the impact on busy schedules and provide repetition that reinforces learning. They’re easy to consume and easy to apply on the job. In fact, research by Hermann Ebbinghaus proves that this is the most effective way to learn and retain information, change behaviors, and develop new skills.
    • Available on-demand: Since sales enablement content is available anywhere and anytime, consistent participation is easy to fit into even the busiest schedule. This eliminates the negative impacts of taking reps off the job for training.
    • Facilitates practice and feedback: Enablement makes it possible for reps to practice new skills in a safe environment by recording themselves on the go. It removes the need to be in an office or to schedule meetings, to know what to strengthen and adjust, while learning new methods or information. Feedback, built into the process, reinforces correct behaviors and prevents the development of bad habits or incorrect information.
    • Allows measurement: Enablement and readiness simplify the documentation and measurement of progress through role-plays, quizzes and other methods. So often, companies don’t measure traditional training results or they are unmeasurable. The new way of learning makes it easy.

    I’m sure that it’s clear now why companies are transitioning from traditional training methods to more impactful enablement and readiness. Which methods sound better to you? If you need more information about this topic, read this article about readiness or this article about sales training and enablement.

    The post Why Companies are Transitioning from Traditional Training to Enablement and Readiness appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Best Practices for Successful Implementation of Sales Readiness Tools in 2018 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/best-practices-successful-implementation-sales-readiness-tools-2018/ Mon, 12 Mar 2018 15:00:12 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/best-practices-successful-implementation-sales-readiness-tools-2018/ Modern sales technologies have the potential to positively impact sales organizations with increased efficiencies and productivity while boosting results. In fact, according to Aberdeen Research, companies with a sales enablement tool had a 13% revenue growth rate, 3x that of companies without this technology. The challenge businesses face when implementing these tools, is how to …

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    Modern sales technologies have the potential to positively impact sales organizations with increased efficiencies and productivity while boosting results. In fact, according to Aberdeen Research, companies with a sales enablement tool had a 13% revenue growth rate, 3x that of companies without this technology. The challenge businesses face when implementing these tools, is how to effectively proceed so their salesforce will actually use it. So, how do companies successfully implement new sales readiness tools for optimum benefits?

    Define the scope
    Before getting started it is critical, to the success of your implementation, that you first define your goals, develop a plan, and designate roles for the process.

    If you don’t know what you want to accomplish, and how you plan to do so, how will you know what success looks like? It is also important that you identify who will be responsible for which roles during the process to ensure that all tasks are covered and that none are forgotten.

    Allocate resources and support
    It is important that you and your technology vendor allocate the necessary resources to handle all aspects of the implementation. It’s equally as necessary to have support mechanisms in place as you roll out your new sales tool. You don’t want your salesforce to abandon usage because they can’t gain answers to their questions, or assistance with issues while learning.

    Don’t try to do everything at once
    Most technologies have many features. Prioritize which features will benefit your organization the most, in the shortest time, and implement around those first. Then build from there. It’s important for your organization, especially your reps and managers, to see results quickly. If they feel that the tool is helping them be better, or more productive, they are more likely to adopt it and use it routinely.

    Build the process
    Prepare all elements needed throughout your initial process. Be sure that all materials are aligned with your sales process and buyer’s journey. Once you’ve done so you’ll know what content you’ll need throughout your implementation and will be able to plan for future requirements as well.

    Consider a pilot
    Complete a pilot first for a subset of your salesforce. This allows you to gather feedback from power users and laggards, to determine best practices and roadblocks, to tool use as well as the launch process. You’ll also have success stories and wins to share with the rest of the sale force when you roll out the new technology to them. Plus, you will have champions and mentors from the pilot group to assist with the balance of the launch.

    Train each role separately
    It’s best to train individuals based on how they will use the tool, not based on a title. This prevents confusion and overwhelm, by only training on tool functions they’ll actually be using, but not on those that don’t apply to them. This will also save valuable time for all involved.

    Drive adoption
    Keep it simple and provide opportunities for staff to easily utilize the new tool, so they’ll see its benefits quickly. Some companies find that using the new platform, for information updates and event pre-work, for an upcoming meeting is effective. This is true because it involves all who need to become familiar with the new platform and provides the repetitive practice needed for learning.

    Continuous feedback and refinement
    Be sure to set up a mechanism to collect user feedback on a routine basis. This allows timely adjustments to the process as you continue to introduce additional features and functionalities.

    Taking these steps will result in widespread adoption and successful implementation of your new sales readiness tools. For more tips on how organizations have launched sales technology for optimum results, check out this article or this case study.

    The post Best Practices for Successful Implementation of Sales Readiness Tools in 2018 appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    8 Benefits of Digital Learning for Sales https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/8-empowering-benefits-digitized-learning-sales/ Fri, 09 Mar 2018 04:15:56 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/8-empowering-benefits-digitized-learning-sales/ Not all that long ago, in-person classroom training was how companies prepared their sales force to engage in selling activities. They’d provide instructor-led classes that took reps out of their work environments for days at a time. Cumbersome paper binders and manuals were used for reference, being updated maybe once or twice a year, if …

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    Not all that long ago, in-person classroom training was how companies prepared their sales force to engage in selling activities. They’d provide instructor-led classes that took reps out of their work environments for days at a time. Cumbersome paper binders and manuals were used for reference, being updated maybe once or twice a year, if ever.

    It also used to be that managers and reps had to meet for coaching to ensure continuous performance improvement. Today, digitization of learning simplifies these processes and enables your sales force to learn and develop efficiently while hitting their targets. So what are some of the other benefits of digitization? Let’s take a look.

    Digital learning minimizes or eliminates in-person events

    Allows completion of pre-work, as well as post-work reinforcement, so that in-person training and coaching are kept to a minimum. This reduces the impact and costs associated with these sessions. Pre-work allows participants to prepare before attendance, so that any in-person time may be dedicated to discussion and practice, instead of instruction and one-sided demonstration.

    Post-work and ongoing learning is easily delivered in micro-learning modules. According to research by Hermann Ebbinghaus, these small, frequent sessions over time produce better knowledge retention and skills development when compared to less-frequent sessions. Digitization allows for the provision of these bite-sized learning modules that have minimal impact on schedules. They also reinforce lessons learned during live sessions.

    Gamification is often part of digital learning. It makes it more engaging and enjoyable, encouraging increased participation and improved outcomes.

    Enables timely feedback

    Feedback is important when learning. The fact that digitized learning is provided through the cloud makes it well-suited for technologies that are mobile-friendly. With portable, digital learning, reps are able to record audio or video of their practice pitch, demo, or skill to submit for feedback. Their coach, trainer, colleague, or manager may then provide timely input, reinforcing correct behaviors and preventing the development of poor habits.

    Flexibility

    Digitization of learning provides flexibility to reps and managers alike. Content is easily accessible and micro-learning is simple to incorporate into busy schedules. Plus sales coaching and readiness become a part of the day-to-day routine, instead of being an occasional occurrence. That’s a huge improvement over the 21.7% of sales managers who, according to CSO Insights, have implemented a formal coaching program.

    Personalized

    Digital learning facilitates personalization. Instead of teaching a group with various backgrounds and knowledge, material viewed by each rep is specific to their learning needs. This ensures continuous growth. It also makes it possible for individuals to progress at their own pace. Those who grasp new skills and information more rapidly no longer need to be held back by those who may need more assistance with certain skills or concepts.

    Improves accountability

    Learning in the cloud increases accountability. Since it easily fits into any schedule and participation can take place anywhere, there’s simply no excuse not to complete designated tasks on an ongoing basis. Each activity is documented, so there’s no doubt when and what has been accomplished by individual reps and managers.

    Simplified certification

    In the past, it used to be necessary to take reps and managers out of the field to certify them. They’d travel to a central location to demonstrate their understanding of new products or skills as well as their ability to effectively present them. This was a costly and time-consuming process for all involved. Now, digitization simplifies certifications by allowing performance and evaluation through audio or video recordings. For knowledge assessment, simple tests may also be used at the completion of modules.

    Facilitates sharing best practices

    It used to be that reps would ride along with more experienced ones in the field, to see how they interacted with or presented to, customers. This was costly, time-consuming, and not necessarily effective. Learning in the cloud facilitates the development of a library of best practices to easily share as examples in training and coaching. The added bonus is that these may be re-used and replayed as often as necessary to aid in the learning process. Not only that, they aren’t dependent on schedules or availability and may be accessed at any time.

    Always up to date

    The binders and manuals that were previously used for onboarding, training, and reference, were usually outdated by the time they were printed and distributed. There may have been additional updates and inserts distributed, but they were never as current as the digital versions created today. Being in the cloud, they aren’t cumbersome or difficult to handle and are easy to update – plus, no physical distribution is needed.

    Digitization also allows organizations to share critical updates without taking reps and management out of the field so they remain productive. It also keeps them current, so they’re aware of time-sensitive internal, product, and market changes.

    With all these benefits, shouldn’t you empower your salesforce by digitizing their learning too?

     

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    It’s the Year of the Coach https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/its-the-year-of-the-coach/ Wed, 28 Feb 2018 06:27:35 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/its-the-year-of-the-coach/ Coaching is at the top of everyone’s minds at the moment – for good reason. A good coach can help more salespeople achieve quota by up to 10% and when you combine training and coaching, sales productivity also increases. With these results, it’s no surprise that everyone is jumping on the coaching bandwagon, but not …

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    Coaching is at the top of everyone’s minds at the moment – for good reason. A good coach can help more salespeople achieve quota by up to 10% and when you combine training and coaching, sales productivity also increases.

    With these results, it’s no surprise that everyone is jumping on the coaching bandwagon, but not all coaching impactful.
    According to the International Coaching Federation, coaching is:

    “An interactive process to help individuals and organizations develop more rapidly and produce more satisfying results; improving other’s ability to set goals, take action, make better decisions and make full use of their natural strengths.”

    Impactful coaching focuses on the needs of your reps and helps them improve how they approach different parts of the sales process or their customers. The results from impactful coaching go straight to your topline revenue.

    Managers that are not impactful fail to move the needle on reps’ behavior and/or their performance. They just don’t have the skills required of a coach – perhaps they’re doing less coaching and more telling or controlling. Reps’ learn little from being told what they’re doing wrong, impactful coaching is a collaborative way to help them learn how to improve how they sell. Sometimes coaching is ineffective because managers just aren’t doing it properly — perhaps they’re just ticking a box or scoring their team more favorably in coaching exercises due to bias or even apathy.

    It is possible to turn ineffective coaches into impactful ones, but in order to do that, you need to identify who is actually ineffective. Every sales manager is different, and short of watching every coaching session, it can be difficult to objectively know whether they’re making a difference to their reps’ performance. To do this you require data – but not just any data – the right data.

    Identifying whether sales coaches are ineffective or impactful

    The Sales Capability Index™ (SCI) is an index that has been developed by Mindtickle, which provides a capabilities score that, for the first time in the industry, provides a holistic, quantified assessment of sales rep and team readiness while also producing a leading indicator of their expected performance.

    Essentially, the SCI provides a holistic, quantified assessment of individual sales reps and a manager’s entire team’s sales readiness. This is then linked to their performance, producing a leading indicator of their expected performance.Sales_capability_index

    The SCI combines not only coaching but also knowledge and skill, so you can see what’s really impacting performance and what’s not. For example, if you’ve just launched a new product, coaching program, competitor series or other sales enablement initiatives to your sales team, you can see what elements have had an impact and by looking at scores before and after.

    The score gives you a high level of conviction about how prepared your sales teams are and identify what initiatives are making an impact and what aren’t. It will also give you an indication of whether coaching (or other initiatives) are likely to impact your sales results so you can predict revenue more accurately.

    As the data can be broken down by individual and by team, you can also see whether individual sales managers are coaching effectively – are they making a difference to the sales outcomes or not. This brings issues with sales manager’s coaching abilities to the surface, so they can be addressed long before the quarter or year is lost.

    Coaching is only effective if it drives a business outcome. There is no point having your management team spend hours each week coaching reps if your top line revenue doesn’t grow. By using this data, coaching can be directly linked to real outcomes.

    The same data can be used for most sales enablement initiatives. So if you launch a new product you can also look at the curriculum that was delivered to reps and assess whether it’s helped them sell or not. This helps you measure your enablement initiatives and identify where they need to be adjusted to make a real impact on your sales teams.

    Coaching needs to have specific criteria for maximum effectiveness

    In order to be effective, sales managers also need to know what to coach. No rep needs to be developed in every aspect of the sales process, but trying to find what they need help with isn’t always clear-cut.

    By breaking down down the entire sales process and connecting each step with the enablement data that you have, you can look at sales competencies across each stage. This shows you exactly where a rep or a sales manager may need help.

    The chart below gives you an example that shows you a rep that is able to explore opportunities and manage objections well, but perhaps needs help upselling and in call scheduling. The data pinpoints exactly where opportunities fail and evaluates qualitatively and quantitatively what competencies are needed at that specific stage.
    Sales capability index™

    This level of granularity allows managers to do tactical coaching and allows you to identify whether sales managers have skewed competencies. It gets to the heart of the issue and allows you to hone in on what needs to be done.

    When looking at your sales team as a whole, it means you can identify if there is consistency across how teams are coached or if managers are perhaps playing to their strengths to the detriment of their team’s performance.

    This kind of data has the potential to be a game changer. It can help identify bias in coaching performance and gives you the opportunity to address it objectively.

    Empowering end users

    A final way to improve impactful coaching across your sales teams is to give users the ability to approve or disapprove coaching feedback. Rather than just letting the sales managers have a say about how a coaching session went, let the reps tell you if they felt the session made a difference to them. This data can also be telling, because if your reps don’t feel like they’re benefitting from their coaching sessions, then it may be symptomatic of a broader problem – either with your coaching program or with individual coaches.

    We all have so many tools in our sales stack, each providing an array of data. While it’s nice to have these numbers at our fingertips, they’re irrelevant if they can’t tell you how to improve your sales outcomes. After all, who has time to look through every data point available to them and work out what they’re saying.

    For the Year of the Coach to make a real difference to your sales outcomes, you need to ensure that you have access to data that clearly and succinctly helps you link your coaching plans to your sales outcomes like the SCI does.

    The post It’s the Year of the Coach appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Drive Behavioral Change Through a Sales Readiness Culture https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/behavioral-change-sales-readiness/ Wed, 21 Feb 2018 17:00:17 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/behavioral-change-sales-readiness/ One of the main goals of training and coaching is behavioral change. So often these activities, alone, don’t produce the desired improvements. Research by Hermann Ebbinghaus shows that training without reinforcement results in 80-90% of information being forgotten within just one month. A systemic approach to continuous coaching and training is necessary to really prepare …

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    One of the main goals of training and coaching is behavioral change. So often these activities, alone, don’t produce the desired improvements. Research by Hermann Ebbinghaus shows that training without reinforcement results in 80-90% of information being forgotten within just one month. A systemic approach to

    continuous

    coaching and training is necessary to really prepare your salesforce to be “ready” to effectively engage customers and keep them prepared. A culture of sales readiness will do the job. Let’s look at how developing this type of work environment will result in the behavior changes and outcomes you’re seeking.
    Continuous learning:

    According to Ebbinghaus, the information presented

    over spaced intervals is learned and retained more easily and more effectively.

    So, learning in bite-sized, frequent increments, also known as micro-learning, fits into sales rep schedules in their usual work environment. This allows them to remain productive as they learn. It also reduces the number of group trainings, or may completely eliminate them, while improving knowledge retention.
    Repetitive practice:

    Practicing new knowledge application or techniques through role playing is preferable to experimenting with sales pitches or presentation with actual prospects. Your team will be more prepared, confident, and effective in the field as a result.
    Feedback:

    Timely feedback on role play and practice reinforce desired behaviors while preventing the formation of bad habits. This sales coaching and guidance is critical to driving results. According to the 2017 CSO Insights Sales Enablement Optimization Report, formal and dynamic coaching delivers the most significant performance impacts.
    Easily applied:

    When contextual training is used, your reps don’t have to translate what they learn to effectively apply it in real-life situations. This allows them to easily build on what they know and continually improve.
    Accessible anywhere:

    Making the elements of sales readiness accessible from anywhere allows team members to learn and participate at their desks or on the go. This improves compliance and results because it makes it easy to complete desired activities without changing their schedules.
    Measurement:

    The only way to really know if your sales reps are progressing toward the desired level or type of performance is to measure it. Sales readiness includes documentation throughout the process and awards certification when the specified behavior is demonstrated. This may be used to qualify reps to promote new products, ensuring they have the proper knowledge and presentation techniques before doing so.
    Best practices:

    According to CSO Insights, the sharing of best practices across the sales team is a characteristic of a formal coaching process. This was once accomplished by reps riding along, or listening in on calls, with a more experienced one. A far more efficient method is to maintain recordings or videos of desired behaviors. These are then used as examples for those learning them and helps the student to recognize what success looks or sounds like.
    Up-to-date information:

    The sharing of internal communications are the final aspect of the sales readiness culture. They’re critical to keeping reps current on product, market, and company changes so they are always prepared to speak intelligently with customers.

    All these elements combined create a culture of sales readiness. They’ve been proven to produce the desired behavioral changes on an ongoing basis. Give it a try for continuous performance improvements and successfully attained goals. To learn how Mindtickle can help, check out the value our customers are gaining by reading our

    customer stories

    .

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    6 Ways Sales Managers can Make Time for Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/6-ways-sales-managers-can-make-time-for-coaching/ Fri, 02 Feb 2018 05:19:03 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/6-ways-sales-managers-can-make-time-for-coaching/ As a manager, there is so much to do and never enough time. Research has found that sales managers spend just 32% of their time managing their team and only part of that is spent coaching. To make the most of your time prioritization is key – and the top priority for any salesperson is …

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    6-ways-Sales-Managers-can-make-time-for-coachingAs a manager, there is so much to do and never enough time. Research has found that sales managers spend just 32% of their time managing their team and only part of that is spent coaching.
    How-Sales-Managers-Should-Spend-Thier-Time
    To make the most of your time prioritization is key – and the top priority for any salesperson is their targets. So it follows that any task that helps your team reach its targets should be at the top of your list.
    According to CSO Insights almost half of the businesses they studied left coaching up to sales managers. The same study found that quota attainment was only 53.4% when left up to managers, but this improved by over 10% when a dynamic approach to coaching was implemented and win rates increased by 27.9%. Coaching does make a significant difference in sales performance, so it’s imperative that you find time to do it.
    So how do you find more time to coach when you’ve still got to do all this other work? Here are 6 ways that you can find more time in your week.

    1. Look at what you’re reporting

    We have access to so much data now that it’s easy to fall down a rabbit hole of metrics and reports. Take a look at the reports that you generate and review each week. How many actually give you or others information that can impact the performance of your sales team? If some of the reporting and analysis that you’re doing doesn’t have a direct link to meeting quotas, giving your reps more selling time or improving your ability to make decisions, then it may be time to stop doing it.

    2. Give your meetings an overhaul

    Meetings are a fact of life in any business, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t be productive. Take an objective look at every regular meeting that you have scheduled in your diary and see if there are any that perhaps you don’t need to attend or can delegate. For those that are important and actually add some value to you or your team, consider whether they can be more efficient. Could you cut the meeting time in half with a clear agenda or pre-reading?

    3. Control technology don’t let it control you

    Many of us are slaves to technology. Every time we hear a ping we have to drop what we’re doing and check our email or pick up our phone. The reality is that most things aren’t urgent or don’t require our immediate attention but they are very distracting. Take back control of your time by turning off your phone or WiFi for blocks of time so you can concentrate on specific tasks. Alternatively, you could allocate a couple of times a day to check your emails and messages rather than having a look every time something new is in your inbox.
    If your inbox is becoming quite overwhelming you can also use tools or apps to manage your messages. Color code your messages and move them to different mailboxes so that you can then look at them when you need to.

    4. Use your calendar to your advantage

    Do you schedule regular one-on-one’s with your team? Even if you manage a remote team, you can book in regular calls with each of your team members. This means your coaching sessions will be planned and become part of your daily or weekly routine. By having the time scheduled you also demonstrate to your team how important coaching is to you. A good tip is to set up coaching sessions first thing in the morning before you and your reps become distracted with other things.
    Customer visits are another important task that you can schedule in each week. This not only ensures you get out and meet customers regularly but also gives you the opportunity to observe your sales reps in action so that you can give them immediate coaching and feedback.

    5. Say no

    Just because someone asks you to do something doesn’t mean that you have to do it. While saying “no” doesn’t come naturally to many people, it’s important to say it sometimes, particularly when you’re asked to do something that doesn’t add value or isn’t important. Otherwis, you may risk becoming overwhelmed by a growing to-do list that isn’t helping your team sell more.

    6. Set achievable goals

    Write to-do lists and actually set small goals to work through it. Perhaps allocate one crucial task that’s a priority each week. This means you can slowly chip away at your to-do list and actually get some of the most important tasks done slowly but surely.
    If it helps you can use tools that list tasks, prioritize them for you or allocate them to days or weeks. Tools like Asana or Trello let you keep track of things that you want to do and allocate them into the future.
    By following some or all of these tips you can take control over your to-do list and calendar and create time to coach your team. As coaching becomes an integral part of your schedule, you will also start to see a difference in the performance of your team.
    New Call-to-action

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    Understanding the Importance of Coaching for Sales Managers https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/understanding-importance-coaching-sales-managers/ Tue, 30 Jan 2018 15:12:12 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/understanding-importance-coaching-sales-managers/ Being a sales manager today is less about managing and more about developing, inspiring and growing the skills of your team. This is not easy and can leave a lot of sales managers chasing their tails trying to work out how to improve the performance of their team. Some focus in on performance appraisals, which …

    The post Understanding the Importance of Coaching for Sales Managers appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Understanding-the-importance-of-coaching-for-sales-managers_2Being a sales manager today is less about managing and more about developing, inspiring and growing the skills of your team. This is not easy and can leave a lot of sales managers chasing their tails trying to work out how to improve the performance of their team.
    Some focus in on performance appraisals, which means that they’re only checking in on their reps’ performance once or twice a year. That isn’t often enough to build cadence or really help improve how they sell. Others use intimidation tactics or micro-manage which can leave their team feeling discouraged and uninspired.
    While training is a useful way to teach new skills, it takes more than a training session or two to make sure it sticks. One of the most effective ways to reinforce, amplify and increase adoption of training is through coaching – in fact, CSO Insights found that implementing a formal or dynamic coaching process can help more salespeople achieve quota by up to 10%. The same research found that informal or ad hoc coaching didn’t achieve the same results.
    No great sports person gets to be a world champion without a good coach by the side day-in-day-out, so why do you expect your salespeople to tough it out on their own? The answer may lie in the fact that coaching is hard, and it’s human nature to avoid doing the things that are really difficult. But coaching doesn’t just benefit your reps, it also benefits you which is an added incentive to put in place a formal coaching regime.

    Coaching improves your skills

    Being able to coach well is a skill that’s in high demand. By increasing your skill base you become more attractive to other employers both within and outside your company. This has the potential to open up new and exciting opportunities to develop yourself or possibly take on a more senior role. If you’ve got your eye on another role in the not so distant future, consider whether learning to coach effectively may help you get there.
    Coaching also improves your skills as a manager. Coaching regularly gives you the cadence and insight to identify issues that may be impacting the performance of your team members. Rather than waiting for the annual performance review, you can nip them in the bud and then move onto the next issue. It can also help you put together a succession plan, thanks to the wealth of information that you learn about the strengths of each of your team members.
    A flow on effect of developing your team is that they are likely to feel more valued and inspired. Feedback helps people know where and how to improve themselves, giving them a feeling of control over their own destiny and increases their trust in you.
    This, in turn, has the potential to improve your retention rates. As you’re aware, recruiting new people is a costly and lengthy process, by improving retention you can improve the efficiency of running your team.
    Last but not least, coaching will improve the results for your team, as the research from CSO Insights has found, and improve their productivity. While this won’t happen overnight, as it builds over time your team may meet or even exceed their performance objectives – a benefit that will directly be reflected in your own performance objectives.

    So what does coaching really require?

    There are several things that you can do that will help you be a good coach.
    The most important is to focus on what your people need. This doesn’t mean just looking at what they need to develop but also understanding what they want to develop in themselves. One of the biggest ways to motivate someone to learn and adopt new skills is to do something that they want to do. The key is to set goals so that you can review their progress objectively together.
    To build trust it’s important to be mindful, patient and truly listens. There’s no point trying to coach with one eye on your emails and the other on your watch. Show your team members how important their development is to you by giving them your full attention and allowing them to talk and work through an issue with your guidance.
    Creating a safe environment is also important to build trust. No one will open up to a coach unless they feel secure, supported and know what they say is confidential. This includes following through on development opportunities or requests. Don’t leave it up them to ask you again – support them and give them the space to develop.
    Another element of building trust is to keep your judgment at the door. If your people are worried about being critiqued, they’re less likely to open up and be willing to change. Let them vent their frustrations and work in different ways to find a solution that works for them. While not everyone can perfect everything, a good coach can identify the diamond in the rough and find a way to polish it.
    One of the most valuable things a good coach can give is their strategic oversight. It’s difficult for an individual to step back and see how all the different moving parts work together, but a coach can help the individual pull everything together in a cohesive way. This gives them new insights that they can potentially use across different elements of their role. While coaching is about the individual, it’s really a partnership between you and your team member. Together you can both learn new skills and develop yourselves. If you approach coaching with this perspective in mind, it gives you more incentive to coach more often and to get better at it as well.

    The post Understanding the Importance of Coaching for Sales Managers appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Is Your Sales Team Over-Managed and Under-led? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-team-managed-led/ Tue, 09 Jan 2018 15:58:27 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-team-managed-led/ It’s a common misconception that management and leadership are the same things but they’re not. Managing involves dealing with or controlling things – for a sales manager this could be anything from fighting fires to telling reps what they should be doing. Whereas leadership is about leading people and guiding them to achieve. Both require …

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    5-proven-ways-to-increase-adoption-of-your-sales-enablement-initiatives-500x-500It’s a common misconception that management and leadership are the same things but they’re not. Managing involves dealing with or controlling things – for a sales manager this could be anything from fighting fires to telling reps what they should be doing.

    Whereas leadership is about leading people and guiding them to achieve. Both require different skill sets and have vastly different results when it comes to teams. According to author Tom Peters:

     

    “Management is about arranging and telling. Leadership is about nurturing and enhancing.”

    While sales managers need both management and leadership skills, many tend to manage more than they lead. After all, it’s easy to monitor and react to statistics, processes, and deadlines. But it’s much more challenging to inspire and develop a team to achieve by developing and executing a clear strategy. When a sales team is over-managed and under-led it can lead to several problems that may impact your sales results, team turnover and the overall culture of your sales organization.

    Managing is not motivating

    One of the biggest issues with managing people rather than leading them is that it can be demotivating. Very few people are inspired to succeed when they’re told that they’re not meeting quota.  By focusing in on the numbers or process constantly, sales managers risk alienating and demotivating the majority of their team and make them feel unappreciated.

    According to CSO Insights

    20% of salespeople turnover each year

    – that’s a significant investment walking out the door. They also found that sales managers only spend about 20% of their time actually helping sales reps sell, something that’s unlikely to be a coincidence. Reps that feel supported are more likely to feel motivated and willing to stay. In fact,

    87% of millennials and 69% of other employees

    say that development opportunities are important to them in a role. That’s one area where leadership is particularly important.

    Directing traffic serves a purpose but it’s far more exciting to take your team on a journey to get them to where they need to be. Rather than focusing in on what someone is doing, strong leadership can help guide salespeople on how they can improve and set a clear path to help them achieve it. This is particularly important in this day and age where buyers are well-informed and savvy. They require salespeople who are well-informed and adaptable, and reps need strong leadership to learn these skills.

    Leadership is liberating

    Sales teams that are truly led are liberated and unconstrained. They’re given wings to do their job well, rather than being bogged down in red tape and control. This doesn’t mean that leadership equates to anarchy, far from it. But a good leader knows how to influence behavior. They will help their team find a way through the necessary elements of their role so that they can focus on what’s really important – selling better and closing deals.

    The numbers are of course important, but a good leader knows which numbers to focus on and how to use them to influence their team. That final step is what makes the difference between a manager and a leader. Numbers and processes are good, but ultimately they are just a tool to inform decisions. If you want a salesperson to perform their best, then you need to look at all the aspects of their role. The numbers can inform this, but they will rarely tell the whole story.

    Bain & Co has conducted detailed research

    over several years about what makes a leader. Their research has identified leadership attributes that focus in on the human aspects of performance and grouped them into four key areas:
    over-managed under-led

    Leadership is less about monitoring and more about creating an environment where people can thrive. This involves building trust, encouraging people to learn and inspiring them to achieve. It’s about building a sales culture that reaps dividends long into the future.

    How to shift the balance from managing to leading

    There are several things that you can do to focus on leading over managing. One of the most important is to set a strategy and be clear about its goals. It should set the stage for what they need to achieve and how they will go about doing this. This can then be constantly reiterated through communications, coaching sessions, rewards and KPIs. This gives them clarity and also creates a cadence for them to look forward, develop and strive for their goals.

    By linking your team’s development, through training and coaching, they not only see that you’re investing in them but that there is a purpose to what they’re being asked to do. It is here where you can rely on management tools – track leading indicators to identify where to focus your energy. Use all the data available to identify the key areas of focus and inform coaching and training programs. While your reps don’t need to know the detail of the analysis, they should be able to see how the areas of focus link to the overall strategy.

    Another important aspect of a sales manager’s role is to make it easier for their team to sell. Many sales roles inevitably come with a lot of non-selling tasks and there’s always room for improvement. This often provides a good opportunity for leaders to seek out feedback and suggestions from their team. By giving their team a forum to have their say, the can feel some ownership over the issues and feel like they are proactively involved in trying to address them.

    The role of a sales manager certainly isn’t easy, but it can be far more effective by making a conscious effort to balance the need to manage with the importance of leading.

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    In Conversation with Mark Tefakis of Fuze https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/conversation-mark-tefakis-fuze/ Mon, 11 Dec 2017 17:37:22 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/conversation-mark-tefakis-fuze/ This post is based on a webinar where Mark Tefakis, VP of Global Enablement at Fuze, shares the key pillars of successful sales enablement and how to show its ROI to your leadership. Fuze is an award-winning “cloud-based unified communication platform that addresses complexities around the modern workforce with the ability to work in a …

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    MARK-TEFAKIS_sales enablement_fuzeThis post is based on a webinar where Mark Tefakis, VP of Global Enablement at Fuze, shares the key pillars of successful sales enablement and how to show its ROI to your leadership.
    Fuze is an award-winning “cloud-based unified communication platform that addresses complexities around the modern workforce with the ability to work in a way that drives efficiency and effectiveness for the growth and profitability metrics companies need,” explains Mark. “Founded in 2006, we’re headquartered in Boston and have offices throughout Europe, into Australia, Latin America, and Asia Pacific.”

    The evolution and need for sales enablement

    “Sales Enablement centered around training and development initially and expanded into how you fully enable the sales organization,” Mark continued. “A lot of CSOs are being challenged with having a constant pulse on the business, to be able to report on where they are today, where they’re going tomorrow, and knowing the lead and lag indicators so they can be responsive to the demands of the business. The discipline of sales enablement is a foundational set of processes and standards that help the CSO address that pressure and scrutiny. This foundation includes time to ramp (TTR) [onboarding], ongoing enablement [to increase productivity], and [preventing] unplanned churn.”

    The five pillars of sales enablement

    Mark developed the concept of the five pillars of sales enablement through his experience in sales and sales leadership. They are:

    1. Organizational alignment: “Before you get started you have to understand the dynamics around the organizational alignment. Do you have governance and some process in place where everybody understands the vision, strategies, initiatives, scorecards, and metrics that you’re putting in place to drive the success of the program? That’s critically important,” explained Mark.
    2. Role-based certification: Most sales organizations have several different roles that vary by company and industry. Role-based certification involves identifying the competency model tied to the skills and knowledge associated with each role. As you look through the motion of each role, what is the thing reps need to know, say, show, and do as they manage the day-in-a-life of performing against the expectations of the role? Next, turn it into a curriculum and how you want to train, develop, and evaluate the performance of these roles. There are three levels that comprise this certification model:
      1. Lecture and test the retention of knowledge;
      2. Exercise and application, transitioning from understanding a concept into applying and exercising the skill tied to that concept prior to going out into the field; and
      3. Managers evaluateperformance in the field and coach.
    3. Enablement on demand: “Leverage technology to streamline how effectively you execute against the things that are defined in the role-based competency model. There’s no need for heavy dependency on instructor-led training or virtual training when there are technology and applications that allow you to better drive efficiency and effectiveness, plus scale better for the organization within a proper cost model,” explains Mark. “Leverage technology as part of this foundational layer and put the power in the palm of the hand of the individual. Do this within cloud-based applications, with integration into CRM, where you can tie learning and sales supporting assets to a specific sales scenario, prescribing assets and learning based on that scenario. Also building in some gamification to drive contest around how people learn is really compelling. I would encourage you to think about enablement on demand,” he continues.
    4. Predictive analytics: “It’s one thing to look at reports and reference a dashboard of things that happened in the past. It’s another to look through the windshield, at the road ahead, and predictively be able to tell where your business is going. If you establish the right lead and lag metrics, supporting technology can show when individuals in your sales organization are heading for disaster. You can then start to prescribe specific learning to get them over that hurdle so they can start to perform much better,” suggests Mark.
    5. Sales advisory boards (a.k.a. voice of the customer): “If you don’t establish champions and have a feedback loop from the sales organization, you will battle some apprehensive people while you’re pushing programs out. This is a mechanism for you to be able to gather insight and feedback in a structured fashion. Sales can contribute to the design and development of your initiatives through localized champions who can support and help drive adoption,” he explains.

    “With the five pillars of successful sales enablement,” Mark explained, “we’re leveraging really interesting technology to help do this so you can scale with the demands of the business. You’re not asking the CFO for a ton of bodies, you’re actually leveraging the power of technology, and better equipping and enabling the field based on the power in the palm of your hand, which ties back to the center pillar of enabling on demand.”

    How sales enablement works at Fuze

    “First and foremost is sales methodology. Whether you do it internally or you leverage an external partner, you have to start there because that is the foundation that drives the rest of the bubbles to the right,” Mark continued.
    “Once you have that in place, you then start to think in terms of how to establish a best practice approach to outreach and engagement to the marketplace. We use Mindtickle for our learning management system and recently launched it to our global sales organization. We use Savo for our content management system and a combination of both Mindtickle and Savo to help us with ‘voice of the customer’ and engagement with the field.  This gives us the pulse of what’s going on,” explains Mark.
    “All of these equate to very effective sales productivity based on the pillars and the underlying enablement technology that you can put in place.”

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    5 Proven Ways to Increase Adoption of Your Sales Enablement Initiatives https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-proven-ways-increase-adoption-sales-enablement-initiatives/ Thu, 30 Nov 2017 23:01:07 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/5-proven-ways-increase-adoption-sales-enablement-initiatives/ Sales enablement initiatives are only as effective as the people who utilize them. According to CSO Insights, 94.3% of sales enablement initiatives are focused on salespeople and account managers, and 63.1% are also focused on sales managers. But no matter how brilliant your enablement initiative is, if you build it they may not come – …

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    5-proven-ways-to-increase-adoption-of-your-sales-enablement-initiativesSales enablement initiatives are only as effective as the people who utilize them. According to CSO Insights, 94.3% of sales enablement initiatives are focused on salespeople and account managers, and 63.1% are also focused on sales managers. But no matter how brilliant your enablement initiative is, if you build it they may not come – this isn’t a fun trip to Vegas. Sales managers and reps have a trillion things to do each day, getting them to use a new tool or change their process requires a lot more persuasion than simply telling them it will benefit them.

    While humans have a natural bias against change, for salespeople this is exacerbated. A survey of over 2,000 reps found that 62% of perceived seller burden can be attributed to overly complex internal processes and procedures that reps are asked to follow. So it’s no surprise that reps and managers may be reluctant to embrace the idea of adding yet another new tool or process to the mix.

    While sales enablement exists to improve “seller experience” your initiative has to earn its stripes before your sellers see it that way. Best practice sales enablement leaders understand that their sellers are their customers, and a good seller experience is crucial to engagement and in turn adoption. While many focus on managing upwards – for recognition, funding, and reward – managing your customers is imperative to long-term success.

    Here are five proven ways to ensure your sellers have the best experience with your new sales enablement initiative, so it has the best chance of succeeding.

    1. Have a launch campaign

    If your reps and managers don’t know that the new tool or process exists, they can’t use it. In a large company, this can be a real problem. Sending an email won’t be sufficient, just think how carefully you read every broadcast message that hits your inbox in a week. To succeed you need to launch your initiative, so it’s news rather than noise.

    Reps will also need to know how the new initiative fits in and if it requires training, this needs to be provided in a way that ensures your reps are comfortable doing the new process or using the new tool in front of a customer. If they know how to use something, they’re more likely to try it rather than just putting it into the too-hard-basket and avoiding it.

    2. Lead by example

    Informing your sales team and training them is great, but your launch will be more impactful if you lead by example. One of our customers, Mulesoft, did just that when launching their new corporate messaging. The initiative was launched at their weekly town hall meeting by their CEO who completed a role play mission on Mindtickle in front of the entire company. He not only showed everyone what the messaging should sound like but also how to use their sales readiness tools, role modeling the behavior for the entire organization. Once he completed the mission he then encouraged everyone in the company, not just the sales team, to complete the mission.

    3. Give them proof

    If your sellers see no value in your sales enablement initiatives, they will be destined to fail. It’s one thing to tell someone that they will benefit from a new process or tool, but it’s another to back that up with hard data. After all, salespeople are focused on closing deals, they don’t value something immediately unless they can see the connection to achieving their end goal.

    Mendix found the value in this when executing their Sales Champions Program. They showed sales managers the impact the new initiatives had on conversion rates. It is difficult, even for the most dedicated naysayer, to deny cold hard facts.
    Depending on what you’re measuring, it may be difficult or even too early to have hard data. There are other types of proof that you can use that are just as impactful. Get one of your sales reps to video their success story and share that with the broader team, or interview a customer so they can hear how the change has made a difference to them. These are both powerful ways to demonstrate value and provide real proof of success. You can learn more about Mindtickle customer success by visiting our customers page.

    4. Create a new normal with gamification

    Over 90% of VP of Sales report that their gamification initiatives are successful, with 70% reporting an increase in sales performance from between 11% and 50%. Gamification, whether it’s through leaderboards, badges or other techniques that generate healthy competition among your sales reps, increases engagement and if they’re engaged they’ll adopt your new initiative. Adoption is the only way to ensure your initiative sticks.

    You know you’ll have truly achieved adoption when your new tools or process become second nature – they’re the new normal. The new normal is the sign of success – your reps and managers do this day in day out without friction or complaint because it works!

    5. Get feedback

    To increase engagement your reps and managers need to know that they are being heard. Seek feedback on your initiative soon after implementation and again later once it’s been used by your team for a few weeks. This will help identify any issues and give you the opportunity to iron out any teething problems. By heeding their feedback and letting them know it’s being addressed it will also increase the chance of adoption and engagement. Otherwise, it may negatively impact the seller experience and the success of your initiative.

    Some companies do this by pushing out surveys to their reps. This can be used to obtain feedback on a range of initiatives such as your sales kickoff. It’s also a handy way to inform what topics your reps want to see at your events.
    No matter how great your sales enablement initiative is, the proof of its success is in the execution. For any implementation to succeed the users need to be on board and adopt the change. So don’t just focus your efforts up the line, spend time looking at your seller’s experience. This will also augur well for any future initiatives that you implement.

    The post 5 Proven Ways to Increase Adoption of Your Sales Enablement Initiatives appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    [Podcast] Bridging the Gap Between Sales Operations and Enablement – Episode 25 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/podcast-bridging-the-gap-between-sales-operations-and-enablement-episode-25/ Tue, 28 Nov 2017 22:53:27 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/podcast-bridging-the-gap-between-sales-operations-and-enablement-episode-25/ In this 21 minute podcast Aarti explains: What sales enablement needs to know about collaborating with sales operation How sales enablement and ops can drive change within the sales organization together How sales enablement differs between large and smaller companies Collaboration between sales enablement and sales operations is crucial for effective enablement, but it’s not always easy …

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    In this 21 minute podcast Aarti explains:

    • What sales enablement needs to know about collaborating with sales operation
    • How sales enablement and ops can drive change within the sales organization together
    • How sales enablement differs between large and smaller companies

    Collaboration between sales enablement and sales operations is crucial for effective enablement, but it’s not always easy to achieve. Aarti Kumar, VP of Sales Operations at BrightEdge, has some helpful advice for sales enablement professionals who want to build collaboration with sales ops and get a seat at the table.
    “Be proactive and make sure that you’re in the loop. This is critical, because if you want to know where the ball is going, then you should be there. Also be engaged and understand what works for the sales team and what doesn’t work. If you can be that bridge or have that knowledge, you can be the bridge to communicate between two departments.”
    With over seven years experience at Symantec, and now at BrightEdge, Aarti has seen how much value a collaborative relationship between sales ops and sales enablement can generate, but it’s not something that happens overnight.
    “From a strategic aspect, being in tune with what the company and the business are trying to drive is critical for sales enablement. They have to work with sales operations to understand what the company is solving for and how sales operations are playing a role there. It needs to be an ongoing dialogue, it’s not a one and done process,” she explains.
    “Sales enablement and ops need to speak, on a weekly basis, on a monthly and a quarterly basis. It’s best to have a seat at that table, so you know what’s coming down the pipeline and you can plan for it accordingly,” continues Aarti.
    To ensure the relationship runs smoothly, maintaining a constructive feedback loop is key.
    Every time decisions were made or projects moved forward the sales enablement team was kept informed. We would tell them the what and they would tell us the how, in terms of getting information to sales. On the flip side, we also got a lot of feedback from them, because, they’re closest to the sales team. That feedback was super effective and it helped shape some of the decisions from the sales operations side,” explains Aarti.

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    Conversation with Jonathan Hinz and Daniel Kuperman https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/conversation-jonathan-hinz-daniel-kuperman/ Tue, 31 Oct 2017 11:18:39 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/conversation-jonathan-hinz-daniel-kuperman/ This post is based on a webinar where Jonathan Hinz, Director of Product Marketing at Seismic and Daniel Kuperman, Director of Product Marketing at Mindtickle, discuss maximizing the impact of sales enablement with content and learning. You can listen to the entire webinar here. Today’s buyers are more informed before they meet with sales reps. …

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    Seismic and Mindtickle sales enablementThis post is based on a webinar where Jonathan Hinz, Director of Product Marketing at Seismic and Daniel Kuperman, Director of Product Marketing at Mindtickle, discuss maximizing the impact of sales enablement with content and learning. You can listen to the entire webinar here.
    Today’s buyers are more informed before they meet with sales reps. They expect reps to be prepared to help them make an educated decision. Unfortunately, modern sellers are stretched so thin by day-to-day demands that they’re often challenged to find the time to really understand their buyers. “This is the gap of knowledge and preparation for sales,” Daniel explained, “There are several aspects to this gap:

    • How prepared the salesperson is to have a conversation with the buyer;
    • What they can offer during that conversation in terms of solutions and insights; and
    • How much they know about your pain, your challenges, and your industry to educate you to move towards the ideal scenario.”

    Things have changed for Marketing

    Marketing needs to change to ensure it can feed the right leads to sales in this new world order. “At the marketing level, we’ve had this conversation one too many times. We’ve been using marketing automation platforms to broadcast our messages to find and advance leads until they’re good marketing-qualified leads to hand off to sales,” Jonathan said.
    “Sales works these leads until they’re won or lost,” Jonathan continued. “Where are the key learnings? How do we win? What content was used? How was training effective? What element went into that salesperson being able to close that deal? How did marketing know what content worked? How did they enhance those leads to get to the point where there was a signature on a piece of paper? These metrics all need to be captured for marketing to optimize the flow and drive better-qualified leads.”

    What is the solution?

    Sales also need to be equipped to meet these changes.
    According to Daniel, “There are three things you need to do to meet these challenges:

    1. Prepare sellers to have the value-added conversations buyers expect from them. This is not just about sales training, but really making sure reps have the knowledge, skills, and behaviors they need to perform in the field;
    2. Ensure sellers have the right information at the right stage of the sales cycle. In today’s environment, reps need very specific training and content at different stages in the sales cycle. This ensures they can adapt to the various situations and demands of their buyers; and
    3. Create a culture of continuous learning so sellers are always prepared to engage with buyers. This is the best way for sales reps to become familiar with new features and product updates quickly without taking them out of their selling environment.”

    There are some constraints that must be addressed for this to happen. According to Daniel, these include:

    • Creating a culture of continuous learning without impacting selling time;
    • Understanding that one solution won’t necessarily meet every organization’s needs;
    • Being able to demonstrate the value of your sales enablement initiatives; and
    • Reviewing existing systems to determine if they are inefficient or and need to be updated.

    How you really fix these issues?

    Sales Enablement plays an important role in addressing these issues.
    “The essence of Sales Enablement is really about setting up the framework so Sales can be successful,” according to Jonathan. “Plus, you need to have the right training in place to provide context at the same time. This includes new product launches, new competitive messaging, new decks, new content – sales needs all these different things to quickly absorb this information so they can have better customer conversations.
    When that’s done right, sales reps are easily able to access the right assets. They know how to use them, the results are awesome, and they can accelerate deals. They also have a better deal impact and their teams become more efficient.”

    The organizational benefits multiply

    It isn’t just the sales reps that benefit from these enablement initiatives. There are flow-on effects throughout the organization. From a business perspective, what we see across companies that we work with, is a stage of effects,” explains Jonathan.
    “First, there is increased efficiency across the business thanks to improved sales and marketing alignment. People can find content as it’s all in one place. Sales teams can pull assets and know how to use them because the right training is in place. This results in improved content ROI and increased seller productivity,” he continues.
    “All this together creates a higher focus on commercial outcomes for the business. New and organic revenue growth is driven by these more productive and effective teams.”
    “This improves morale amongst the sales team, particularly because sales reps realize their organization is taking them into consideration,” adds in Daniel. “This also results in significantly reduced attrition rates. If you want to grow your sales organization, improving morale, and how your sales reps are perceived internally is extremely important. It’s a great outcome that will positively impact your bottom line.”

    The future state of sales enablement with Mindtickle and Seismic

    Mindtickle and Seismic integrate with your CRM system so sales reps have access to them every minute of every day,” Jonathan explains. “They give them the tools and the resources they need to have great customer conversations. By providing them access to the platforms they already use, sales reps do not need to go to offsite training that takes up their valuable sales time.
    With this combined solution, you’re able to lock content until knowledge certification has been completed. This means sales reps have to take the training before they can access some content. It’s an awesome capability that can magnify your ability to train and educate your entire sales team.
    The solution also has the capability to combine content and training on a landing page that sales can see on a daily basis. The reality is that only a small volume of content in the library is actually used. 80% to 90% of content is generally unused for a good reason -it’s not the stuff that closes deals. It’s the 10% to 20% that does. This is what sales see on their landing page.
    If they’re looking for something on a more occasional basis, that’s what Search is for – the every so often use. The training content can be extracted from Mindtickle and put it into the Seismic platform. It’s an incredible capability that really enhances the content and gives it context, “ explains Jonathan.

    Customers see ROI and results

    Companies that use Seismic and Mindtickle achieve the following results:
    Seismic Mindtickle

    Organizations need to become agiler to succeed

    Sales Enablement is charged with leading the way organizations to address new business challenges so they can accelerate their sales now and into the future.
    “Enablement leaders need to create a  culture of continuous learning so their organizations can become agile and adapt well to changes happening in the marketplace,” Daniel advises. “This can be achieved by looking at the technology available today. Mindtickle and Seismic offer one possibility by working together.”
    “Regardless of the technology platform that you choose, my recommendation is to make sure that it is aligned with the vision for Sales Enablement at your organization,” he continues. “Make sure that the platform, or combination of platforms, that you choose is actually going to help you move the needle now and as you grow. Don’t just look at the problems you need to solve today, but also think about whether the solution can grow with your organization. A good sales enablement platform should help you tackle all of your issues,  provide strategic insights and facilitate the change management that is required from sales enablement today at organizations of any size.”

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    Best Practices for Dealing with Sales Enablement Software Vendors https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/really-need-dealing-sales-enablement-software-vendors/ Thu, 26 Oct 2017 11:09:49 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/really-need-dealing-sales-enablement-software-vendors/ Purchasing sales enablement software isn’t as simple as deciding what features you want and ticking them off a list. That’s because sales enablement as an industry is at a nascent stage which makes it difficult to know exactly what your business will need today, tomorrow, and into the future. Sales leaders are also still defining …

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    Purchasing_sales_enablement-Software_vendor Purchasing sales enablement software isn’t as simple as deciding what features you want and ticking them off a list. That’s because sales enablement as an industry is at a nascent stage which makes it difficult to know exactly what your business will need today, tomorrow, and into the future.
    Sales leaders are also still defining what they need and want from sales enablement. The objectives, success factors and KPIs for sales enablement are still being defined and may continue to evolve. That’s where the right vendor can empower a business to shape its sales enablement strategy in a way that meets its long-term objectives.
    Having worked in both Customer Success and Sales, I’ve seen how challenging it can be for a customer to make the right decision, and how that decision can impact their business either positively or negatively. Many businesses tend to start with training and select their software based on the features they need. But enabling a sales force is rarely just about training – it may require a wide range of activities including content, structured coaching, process improvement, and internal communication. It often also requires reporting to sales management that helps identify gaps and opportunities.
    The challenge for any sales enablement function is identifying and solving the bigger issues that are impacting their reps. If your sales enablement function is relatively new, you may still be identifying issues and prioritizing them, or trying to anticipate what your business needs in the medium to long-term future. This can be even more confusing if you’re having to deal with salespeople who are focused on selling you software rather than helping you solve your problem.

    Start with your end-goal

    Tools are an enabler but they’re not the end-game. Before purchasing software it’s important to identify what you want to achieve. Perhaps identify your top sales enablement initiatives for the next one to three years and align these with the objectives of your sales leadership team. These initiatives will depend on your specific business needs. Some examples include revamping your sales onboarding, instigating a manager-led coaching program or ensuring your reps can articulate your value proposition consistently.
    Each of your initiatives should be based on the outcomes that you and your business want to achieve. Questions that may be helpful to ask here include:

    • What do your leaders want to achieve?
    • What do our frontline reps want and need?
    • What do our sales managers want and need?

    If you’re speaking with a software vendor at this stage they should be able to help you define each of these questions and unravel your issues and help you find a way to solve them. At this point, it’s best not to focus on product features, but rather look at how you can elevate your sales game.

    Focus on a partnership

    Of course, the features that your sales readiness platform has are important, but a solution needs to have the flexibility and capability to meet your needs now and in the future. This is where it’s important for you to look at the product roadmap and see what’s coming in the future and understand how that may help your organization.
    Ask the vendor how they develop their product roadmap and determine its direction. Some take onboard feedback from customers, while others may develop their strategy based on the whims and fancies of a handful of product geeks.

    Value transparency and honesty

    Software vendors shouldn’t just be there to sell you their platform. What’s most important is that you find the right solution for your business. There’s no point trying to force fit a solution, it will only end up costing you more in the long-run. That’s why I’ve actually referred some prospects to other solutions when I know that we don’t have the solution to their problems. It doesn’t help our customers to end up with a platform that doesn’t address their needs.
    That’s where transparency and honesty are important. Every sales enablement platform has its strengths and weaknesses. The key is for you to find the platform that best meets your needs now and in the future. Sales reps play a valuable role in the process of deciding which sales enablement platform is right for your business. A good vendor salesperson will help you solve the problems you’re facing so that your sales can be elevated.

    The post Best Practices for Dealing with Sales Enablement Software Vendors appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    The Missing Link in B2B Selling: Prescriptive Selling https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/the-missing-link-in-b2b-selling-prescriptive-selling/ Mon, 16 Oct 2017 01:33:36 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/the-missing-link-in-b2b-selling-prescriptive-selling/ While buyers have access to more information, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re equipped to make better decisions. In fact, all this information has the potential to overwhelm them, making it even harder to make a decision about a big purchase. The result is a prolonged decision making process and an elongated sales cycle. Research by …

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    B2B-sales-prescriptive-sellingWhile buyers have access to more information, this doesn’t necessarily mean they’re equipped to make better decisions. In fact, all this information has the potential to overwhelm them, making it even harder to make a decision about a big purchase. The result is a prolonged decision making process and an elongated sales cycle.

    Research by Corporate Executive Board has found that more information just means customers have more questions, with 65% spending as much time getting ready to speak to a sales rep as they’d anticipated the entire purchase process would take. When coupled with an increase in the number of decision makers – up from 5.4 to 6.8 people in the past two years – it’s even harder to get a decision.

    This brings current selling techniques into question. While reps have been focused on responding to customers by giving them more information to help them make decisions, this reduces the ease of purchase by 18%. Whereas reps who are more prescriptive in their approach actually increase the purchase ease for their customers by 86%.

    What is prescriptive selling?

    Prescriptive selling involves making a recommendation to customers backed with reasons why it’s the best solution for them. This approach involves the rep demonstrating their understanding of the customer’s pain points and needs while offering a valuable solution. It’s proactive and makes it easier for the customer to purchase. It may even reduce the chances that the customer will regret the purchase later on.

    And here’s the clincher – a supplier is 62% more likely to win a high-quality sale if they make purchasing easier for their buyers.

    The key to prescriptive selling isn’t just about giving the customer a clear recommendation – it’s actually in the organization’s approach to selling. Sales organizations need to be more prescriptive in how their reps can convey these messages in their customer conversations.

    So how do you start?

    The starting point for any prescriptive selling approach is the customer’s journey. This journey must start before the customer is even aware of your organization or product. Because it’s at this early stage when they’re first bombarded with information and need a prescriptive approach to help guide them through their decision. This means each piece of content across all channels should have a prescriptive lens.

    This approach then flows onto all aspects of the sales process. How reps approach conversations, how they articulate the value proposition, and how they deal with objections, should all be more prescriptive. They should all focus on how to help customers make a decision, rather than why they should purchase your product.

    This approach also requires a more prescriptive approach to how your reps sell. While formal scripts are rarely appropriate in many complex sales situations, sales organizations should be more prescriptive about how their salespeople should approach different sales situations.

    Don’t worry, consultative selling still has its place

    While it may seem like prescriptive selling is moving away from the consultative approach to selling, and towards a more rigid sales process, it actually brings together the best of both approaches. Customers won’t respond to well something that feels like a hard sell. Rather they want a solution that meets their specific needs.

    But salespeople can rely on more prescriptive content and diagnostic exercises that help customers pinpoint their needs. By providing reps with access to information and real-time training that helps them respond to a customer’s questions they can be more prescriptive and more consultative in how they sell.

    The end result is a consistent sales approach. All reps sing from the same songbook, and the way they guide customers along their purchasing journey is similar. With everything tied to the customer’s own purchasing journey, it should also make the process easier for the customer. And as the research shows, the easier the purchasing journey the more chance of a positive decision.

    While marketing content is one important part of this process, sales reps also need to be enabled with the tools and information they need to be prescriptive. That may include role plays to practice their messaging, on-demand feedback and coaching from their managers, success stories and examples from their peers, and up-to-date information that they can apply in their customer conversations.

    This is a fundamental shift away from the traditional sales approach. No longer can reps just focus on how to get a customer to buy their product. Their role now is to help customers make a decision, full stop. Their customers will thank them for it, and so will their leaders.


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    Striking a Balance between Proactive and In the Field Sales Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/striking-balance-proactive-field-sales-coaching/ Mon, 25 Sep 2017 11:14:42 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/striking-balance-proactive-field-sales-coaching/ Marathon runners don’t go out on the field and keep running until they get an injury. They work with their coach to put in place a plan that makes them strong and keeps their muscles supple. All those hours in the gym and time spent with trainers is helping them to increase their chance of …

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    proactive-in-the-field-sales-coachingMarathon runners don’t go out on the field and keep running until they get an injury. They work with their coach to put in place a plan that makes them strong and keeps their muscles supple. All those hours in the gym and time spent with trainers is helping them to increase their chance of winning and reduce their chance of injury. This ensures they’re not worrying about it when they’re racing towards the finish line. But when they’re in the race they still need refreshments to keep them going and performing their best.

    They need both proactive coaching and refreshments in the field.

    It’s no different for sales reps. They need proactive sales coaching to help build and improve their sales skills for long-term benefit. But they also need on-the-field coaching so they’re refreshed and ready for their next customer meeting.

    The benefits of sales coaching are well established, but coaching is often misunderstood.

    While coaching on the pipeline and tactical sales activities is important, reps need more to be successful. They need a proactive approach that reinforces behaviors. And they need a cadence to this, it’s not enough to rely on coaching sessions at QBRs or sales kickoffs. That’s why managers and sales enablement teams need to find the right balance between the two.

    Too little proactive coaching and your reps will be unprepared for the field. Not enough in-the-field coaching and they might find themselves struggling to close deals.

    Proactive sales coaching is about prevention

    Proactive coaching is about honing your rep’s skills, building their knowledge and ensuring they understand and can articulate the messaging. It focuses on product knowledge, competitive insights, and industry information.

    Now I can hear sales managers starting to gasp. After all, you’ve got a lot on your plate – helping out with demos and objection handling – but your role as a sales manager is much bigger than that.

    That’s why best practice sales organizations have a structured coaching program. It provides a framework to coach consistently and ensures reps are up to date and trained in the areas they need the most regularly. By leveraging technology, your reps can handle part of the process themselves. They can practice a demo and allow you to give them feedback without having to be in the same room.

    If you are in a hyper-growth industry this type of coaching may occur quarterly, or even more frequently.

    In-the-field coaching is about reinforcement

    Traditionally, most managers have focused on in-the-field coaching. You sit through a meeting with a sales rep and, in the car ride back to the office, give them feedback and coach them on how they could improve their performance. This is trigger based coaching – you saw something that needed to be coached and reacted.

    While this kind of tactical coaching has its place, it isn’t strategic. For in-the-field coaching to be strategic it requires managers to have the ability to step back and look at the bigger picture. What are your reps doing well and where do they need to improve?

    For example, if a rep is struggling in three stages – demo, competitive objections and closing – how do you approach all three? This requires a structured approach – show, observe and remediate. You need to show them how to do their demo. This must be coupled with regular, on-field observation so you can monitor how they are performing. Then finally it requires remediation at each specific stage, not just a broad brush approach.

    Their coaching strategy also needs to be aligned with the broader business objectives and identify what ongoing issues their individual team members need to have reinforced. This then sets the foundations of what to coach on.

    To achieve this, the proactive coaching must be specific and well-structured.

    Data holds the key to coaching

    Traditionally, managers have had access to lagging indicators to help them identify what to coach on. But by the time you can see your win rates declining, it’s already too late to stop the losses from happening.

    To stay ahead of the game, managers need to leverage data to identify what their reps need to be coached on and identify their gaps. This is important for both proactive coaching and structuring in-the-field coaching. That’s where data analytics comes in.

    Thanks to the advent of sales readiness and enablement technology you now have access to a wide range of data that can help you identify where your reps might be struggling or where their knowledge or skill gaps are.

    Structured coaching on baseline knowledge, new product updates and message articulation can be performed when it is convenient for reps using sales readiness technology like Mindtickle. Coaching is accessible anywhere and reps can complete role plays when it suits them. Feedback can be provided instantly, or reviewed by the rep when they have time.

    Certifications and quizzes give managers information about who is up to speed and what areas your individual reps may require additional training or coaching on. When integrated with your SalesForce CRM you can also conduct analysis based on role, region, cohort, whatever way you want.

    This data can also be used for in-the-field training. Analyze how your best reps use their sales readiness technology before meeting a prospect. This information can then be used to identify how to coach your B and C players before their next big meeting. Leverage quizzes to identify areas where your reps need to have their knowledge reinforced. When combined with structured activities, like specific objection handling exercises, managers can provide valuable in-the-field coaching based on what reps actually need, rather than their own intuition or observation.

    With the power of data at your fingertips, you can make a fundamental shift in how you coach your reps, build their sales skills and resolving immediate issues. Rather than solving a problem once it’s come to your attention, you can proactively nip issues in the bud.

    So rather than waiting to find out where your reps weak spots are, leverage tools that help you prevent issues becoming injuries that leave your sales reps sitting on the bench.

    The post Striking a Balance between Proactive and In the Field Sales Coaching appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    In Conversation with Christopher Fulmer https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-enablement-symantec-christopher-fulmer/ Mon, 25 Sep 2017 11:12:22 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-enablement-symantec-christopher-fulmer/ This post is based on a webinar where Christopher Fulmer, formerly of Blue Coat and now Director of Global Sales Enablement and Product Evaluations at Symantec, explained the importance of data-driven sales enablement to maximize sales effectiveness. You can listen to the entire webinar here. “Our team in enablement is held responsible for making sure the …

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    Conversation-Christopher-Fulmer_sales_enablement_symantecThis post is based on a webinar where Christopher Fulmer, formerly of Blue Coat and now Director of Global Sales Enablement and Product Evaluations at Symantec, explained the importance of data-driven sales enablement to maximize sales effectiveness. You can listen to the entire webinar here.
    “Our team in enablement is held responsible for making sure the sales teams have what they need to be successful. It’s their responsibility, and their manager’s responsibility, to make sure they’re continually taking those steps to stay educated. Sales enablement is not just training. My team partners with key teams within our company such as product management, engineering, product marketing, sales leadership, operations, finance, and HR to drive forward the end goal of making us all successful. I’ve found a lot of success when we form those strategic partnerships. When sales win, we win. That’s where we find our success.”
    Initially Blue Coat, before being acquired by Symantec, introduced Mindtickle to their sales team. “We took a sales kickoff, which could have been perceived as a challenging time to roll out the technology, and chose that as the time to roll out Mindtickle. This environment, where sales were coming together, helped us roll out Mindtickle as it was an essential tool at that sales kickoff. Because Mindtickle has the flexibility to create separate audiences, it allowed us to push out personal agendas, quick references, surveys, and feedback,” he explained.
    “When we left that sales kickoff, every sales rep had been on Mindtickle, was using the tool, knew how to navigate it, and was comfortable with it. When they got back in their sales roles, and I needed to get product information out, I knew that I was pushing it to a team that could quickly absorb it,” he continued.

    Blue Coat continued to leverage Mindtickle as their sales team grew

    “We found ourselves growing at a hyper rate,” Christopher explained. “We were a fast-moving company in a constantly changing environment. We were leveraging Mindtickle for two main things during that time – our incoming new hires and our existing salesforce.”
    “In the cybersecurity area, your entire industry can take a left turn overnight. With just one outbreak or vulnerability, things can dramatically change. How quickly you get information to your sales team and they understand, absorb and go forward with that information can be a driving force as to whether you have a successful outcome. That’s one of the areas that we found success with Mindtickle,” he continued.
    According to Christopher, sales onboarding was another way Blue Coat successfully leveraged Mindtickle. “We were onboarding 25 to 35 new sales reps per month, at a minimum, and there were months where we were just wearing out our team running onboarding sessions every week or two. We were able to use Mindtickle to experience faster ramp-up times with our incoming sales reps,” he explained.

    Sales enablement was crucial when Symantec acquired Blue Coat

    “An acquisition is a great opportunity for sales enablement to be engaged. During Symantec’s acquisition of BlueCoat, our main challenge was how to enable two separate sales teams concurrently. We also had a couple of back-office systems like SFDC. We were able to work with them by working with the Mindtickle team,” Fulmer explained.
    “We had a big desire to communicate to the field, and everybody within the company had something they wanted to communicate to them – our integration team, our executive leadership team, and the sales teams. Mindtickle gave us the ability to push out corporate communications, a corporate pitch, and executive communications to the teams very quickly. Through the technology, we were able to target specific teams and simplify messaging. It was a huge benefit to us as we went through that acquisition.”

    Symantec now uses Mindtickle to enable their sales teams

    Fulmar identified four ways that Symantec still uses Mindtickle to enable their sales teams:
    1. Onboarding
    “An Olympic rowing team is all in sync. Everyone’s got their hand on an oar and they’re driving that boat forward as fast as they can. That’s like a highly effective sales team in action. Everyone with a single focus, driving the boat forward, in sync, working together. A new hire, until that person is ramped up and effective, is in a big pool float dragging behind the boat. They’re not helping, they’re slowing things down. My job is to get that person out of the water, in the boat, put an oar in their hand, and get them working with the team,” explains Fulmar.
    Mindtickle is used by Symantec for their onboarding program as Fulmar explains, “I can use it for pre-work to level the playing field so when they do arrive at an onsite training everyone is on the same page. I really need that time, onsite, to be high value, high return. Technology allows us to do that. The ability to track the pre-work and verify that they’ve done it with quizzes and certifications adds the ability to see where there may be gaps or where you need to spend a bit more time with an individual before, so they’re on the right page when they come in. The strengths of the analytics give us the ability to do that.”
    “Having them jump on that technology as part of the onboarding process sets the new hires up for success as they continue in their life as a sale team member. I teach them, from day one, how to use that tool and where to find value in it. They’re much more likely to use it when they get in the field than if I wait and expose them to that tool after they’ve been at their onboarding session as a new hire,” Fulmar continues.
    2. Quick updates
    “This is a big area where we leverage Mindtickle. When I say quick updates, I want to be realistic on what quick is. If it’s something that’s going to take an hour or multiples hours to read and absorb, that’s not my target for a quick update. I use it for something that they can quickly access and absorb. A product update, something around a product release, executive communications, or sales communications are things that I push out in that quick format,” Fulmar explains.
    3. Coaching
    “The landscape has changed in the sales enablement world over the years,” according to Christopher. “For example, when we used to work on a corporate pitch, we wanted to “certify” the sales reps on it. So we would come up with a plan where someone from my team and someone from the sales management team would get in a room together. We would then ask the sales rep to take time away from the field and come and give that corporate pitch to us so we could certify them. As you can imagine, it was very costly and took time.”
    “Now we use Mindtickle. If I want to know whether everyone knows how to articulate our corporate message I can give them an example of me giving that corporate message and then ask each of them, using Mindtickle, to record themselves. They then send that to me on Mindtickle and I can give them feedback and send it back to them. If there needs to be a correction, I can do the correction and send it back to them. They can then redo it and send it back to me.”
    “Basically, I can certify that they understand that message without ever having to get on a flight or asking them to take time out of the field. Coaching with Mindtickle is an area that we’re just scratching the surface on now and have found success with,” outlines Fulmar.
    4. Surveys and feedback
    “I use this when we do a meeting, such as a sales kickoff, to get feedback on the speakers and identify any hot topics the team may want to hear before the meeting.  We then push information out to the reps afterward and understand whether that information has been absorbed, they understand it, and if we need to spend more time on it,” explains Fulmar.

    Data-driven sales enablement is crucial to maximizing sales effectiveness

    “Data is what allows you to show that something you’re doing is working. Without the data, it’s your opinion. I want to be able to show management with something that can be measured and show a result,” according to Fulmar.
    “Just a quick example, NFL players go in on day one of offseason and do measurements like strength, speed, agility. They have a measurable starting point. Then towards the end of the offseason training program, they go back and remeasure. They can show where there has been growth and where they didn’t get the growth they expected. Until they have those measurable results, a general manager can say we had a great offseason. Unless you have measurable results, how do you back that up? That’s why I feel like data-driven sales enablement is important for maximizing the sales effectiveness,” he explains.
    “Whether we’re running a report on our entire sales force or our managers are running a detailed manager dashboard, Mindtickle gives us the analytics to maximize our sales effectiveness.” Fulmar identified three areas in particular:

    1. It gives the ability to take data and continually learn and refine how they enable their sales team;
    2. It highlights what the sales team is using—what content are they taking advantage of and what are they not; and
    3. If they’re not using content it allows sales enablement to question why. Perhaps the format didn’t work well or the information wasn’t right.

    “If I’m looking at the numbers, I can see that kind of information and make adjustments to move forward. I can also show value to our leadership team. If I can show that people within our top 20% of sales are also those people that are our top users on Mindtickle, then I can show a direct correlation that our top people are taking advantage of the technology. Being able to show that kind of value to our senior leadership team, to our board, that’s priceless!”

    The post In Conversation with Christopher Fulmer appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Mindtickle announces season 2 of ‘The Sales Excellence Podcast’ https://www.mindtickle.com/news/mindtickle-announces-season-2-of-the-sales-excellence-podcast/ Thu, 21 Sep 2017 19:11:01 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/mindtickle-announces-season-2-of-the-sales-excellence-podcast/ SUNNYVALE, CA–(Marketwired – Sep 21, 2017) – Mindtickle, the leading sales readiness platform, today announced the second season of the “The Sales Excellence Podcast” that gathers top B2B sales enablement leaders to share winning strategies. CSO Insights reported that 32.7 percent of organizations had sales enablement roles in 2016, up seven percent from the previous year. As …

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    SUNNYVALE, CA–(Marketwired – Sep 21, 2017) – Mindtickle, the leading sales readiness platform, today announced the second season of the “The Sales Excellence Podcast” that gathers top B2B sales enablement leaders to share winning strategies.

    CSO Insights reported that 32.7 percent of organizations had sales enablement roles in 2016, up seven percent from the previous year. As buyers increasingly control the sales process, sales organizations must become more sophisticated and equipped with the right information and questions that lead to a meaningful sales conversation. To help sales leaders navigate this growing space, Mindtickle created “The Sales Excellence Podcast” to create a platform for sharing winning sales strategies.

    “The sales leaders we speak to face similar challenges – how to scale their sales organization quickly, keep their reps up to date, and deliver revenue to support top-line growth,” said Mohit Garg, co-founder at Mindtickle. “‘The Sales Excellence Podcast’ was created to give a voice to the leaders who have tackled these challenges and can share their best practices for achieving the hypergrowth their executives demand.”

    The inaugural season of the podcast covered topics including Scaling Revenue with Channel PartnersHarnessing Sales PlaybooksDelivering a Consistent Pitch, and more. Season 2 will include interviews with leaders at SAP, Playboox, WinningByDesign, Stackoverflow and Brightedge, among others.

    To listen in, visit https://www.mindtickle.comsales-enablement-resources/the-sales-excellence-podcast/ and share your feedback through SoundCloud or iTunes.

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle offers the industry’s most comprehensive readiness solution for closing the knowledge and skill gaps found in customer-facing teams. Sales teams across a wide range of industries use Mindtickle’s award-winning platform to train, coach, and align their sales teams to make reps and their managers more effective. Combining on-demand online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification, coaching and role-play with a data-driven approach, Mindtickle accelerates time-to-productivity, ensures consistent execution, and helps boost sales performance. Companies leveraging Mindtickle for sales enablement to assess and certify the readiness of each rep see bigger deal sizes, higher win rates and reduced sales cycles. Mindtickle is a global, privately-held company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. Investors include NEA and Accel Partners. For more information, please visit www.mindtickle.com.

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    In Conversation with Jordy Brazier https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/conversation-jordy-brazier/ Sun, 06 Aug 2017 15:39:18 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/conversation-jordy-brazier/   This post is based on a podcast with Jordy Brazier, VP of Sales Operations for Qubole. You can listen to the entire podcast here . Qubole is the largest cloud and diagnostic big data service, providing businesses with a self-service data platform to help them make data-driven decisions. Their vision is to create an …

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    Conversation-With-Jordy-Brazier_500x500This post is based on a podcast with Jordy Brazier, VP of Sales Operations for Qubole. You can listen to the entire podcast

    here

    .

    Qubole is the largest cloud and diagnostic big data service, providing businesses with a self-service data platform to help them make data-driven decisions. Their vision is to create an autonomous data platform that is capable of optimizing its performance so data teams can focus on the more strategic and value-added work. Jordy Brazier is responsible for their Sales Operations and enablement, an area he is passionate about.

    As a business, Qubole sells primarily to IT decision makers in data-driven enterprise companies. Their customers understand the value of big data and want to leverage it in a more cost-efficient way to improve their performance.  In an industry that’s rapidly evolving, sales enablement is key to driving competitive advantage.

    “For us, sales enablement is about how we can use content and develop training that increases sales productivity. By sales productivity, we mean the productivity of our reps. Do we look at things like how can we increase their deal size? How can we increase how fast they onboard? We use several programs to execute this, onboarding boot camps, QBR’s, kickoffs and ongoing training as well,”

    outlines Brazier.

    For each sales enablement initiative, Brazier focuses in on a core metric.

    “For example, the primary metric for the onboarding program is time to first deal. We now have a 90-day onboarding program, and we measure how we’re improving by looking at everyone who goes through that program. Are they faster to close? Do they get to their first deal quicker? If we look at other parts of the sales cycle we’re going to use different metrics, but it’s very important to measure a specific metric that’s most directly related to what you’re trying to achieve,”

    he explains.

    As the company has been scaling rapidly, onboarding has been an area of focus for sales enablement.

    “Our sales onboarding is a 90-day program. Once a field rep starts they attend boot camp within the first 30 days,”

    Brazier explains.

    While Qubole would previously send Wiki and other information to new hires they had no way of knowing who had looked at it before boot camp. But using Mindtickle now gives them the ability to make this process interactive. New hires go through role play certification and now management can measure who’s actually confident and absorbed the information.

    Everyone is on the same page when we start. It’s not just a 30-minute class and then a test. The questions follow the learning. It’s not a testing platform it’s a learning platform. So we know exactly what they already know and we can take it from there.”

    This has allowed Qubole to refocus its boot camp.

    “The boot camp is now more of a tool versus being a class. They’ve already trained in the app or in a bite-sized way with quizzes, so when they come to boot camp they’ve already reviewed all the training. And when we put them in front of our executives at boot camp the reps can actually ask much more meaningful questions,”

    he continues.

    “After getting feedback and looking at the metrics, we’ve focused the boot camp to be all about understanding the value of the company, why is the company’s solution the best. To achieve this we do simulations throughout the boot camp. Reps have to present twice during the boot camp, at the beginning and at the end of the week. They pitch to the rest of the class and get feedback from management, the class, and an existing rep,”

    Brazier explains.

    It may be intense but it gives Qubole’s new reps the confidence to pitch the product. And they need it because once boot camp is over there is a real customer waiting for them. Working with marketing and the management team, new reps attend a field marketing event within 30 to 45 days of starting, just after boot camp.

    “They can pitch live, face to face with good prospects and start to build a pipeline. That really moved the needle for us and shortened the time to the first deal,”

    he says. “

    We then do a 60 day check in to see if they need help with anything and again at 90 days.”

    Qubole also runs several other initiatives including a kickoff twice a year.

    “At the kickoff, we look at overall positioning and messaging. We’re in a fast moving market so at each kickoff we revamp the company deck for the entire team,”

    he explains.

    Before the kickoff, new materials and presentations are made available to reps on Mindtickle. The reps record their pitches and these are reviewed at the kickoff as a learning experience.

    The best ones are presented to everyone at the kickoff, leveraging the competitive spirit of their salespeople.

    Ongoing learning is also important to Qubole.

    “Every week we release a new course or update on what products we have or how to compete on specific products. In Mindtickle we can see who is learning and who needs improvement. We actually give a $100 gift card to the top learner each week. It’s helpful to drive adoption and it makes it fun. It’s one way that we make sure that we are prepared, are true trusted advisors to our customers and are able to deliver true value. That’s super important and that’s why we take enablement very seriously. We really invest in those programs and technology that makes our team the best and puts the firepower behind it,”

    explains Brazier.

    Interestingly, Qubole also found a correlation between learning scores and the performance of their reps. Their consistently low performers were also struggling to pass the tests on Mindtickle. It was a good indicator that something was just not working.

    “It’s all about raising the average. The top-performing reps will probably still be the top performing reps even without training, but if you can bring the majority of middle reps up then you can make a significant difference in the overall productivity,”

    he says.

    Qubole has certainly gone through a considerable learning curve while implementing its enablement initiatives and Brazier is happy to share his top three tips.

    “First, if you don’t have a learning platform, bring one in ASAP. I think that really moved the needle for us. Also, narrow the focus of your boot camp. Don’t incorporate everything under the sun, just focus on the value. And understand that you will only be successful if there is very strong cross-functional collaboration. You need to get the best out of product management and the best out of marketing, so include them early on. Asking them for their inputs and get their buy-in.”

    This approach has certainly worked for Qubole, who continues to go from strength to strength.

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    When Hiring for Sales Enablement, What’s the Best Fit – Product Marketing or Sales? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/hiring-sales-enablement-whats-best-fit-product-marketing-sales/ Mon, 24 Jul 2017 15:14:33 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/hiring-sales-enablement-whats-best-fit-product-marketing-sales/ Sales enablement is currently at a nascent stage, which means it can be difficult to find good quality people with enablement experience. Many often fall into sales enablement roles because someone suggests it to them or perhaps they’ve taken on some of the functions of the role as part of their position in sales or …

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    hiring-sales-enablement-marketing-salesSales enablement is currently at a nascent stage, which means it can be difficult to find good quality people with enablement experience. Many often fall into sales enablement roles because someone suggests it to them or perhaps they’ve taken on some of the functions of the role as part of their position in sales or marketing. It’s something we’ve been thinking about a lot at Mindtickle as we help sales organizations scale rapidly, so when our co-founder and CRO, Mohit Garg, asked this question on LinkedIn, I found the broad range of responses quite interesting.
    According to Lucas Gerler, The Sales Enablement Society polled its members and found that about 40% of current practitioners come from marketing, about 30% from sales, and the remaining 30% from other roles. There are benefits to be gained from hiring from both sales and marketing backgrounds.

    Sales is in your DNA

    As Renee Capovilla said “If you have “walked” in the shoes of the customers you are serving your deliverables reflect that DNA.” And when it comes to sales enablement your customer is the sales organization, so having experience in sales is a big advantage. It gives you credibility on the field, particularly if the role involves delivering sales training and liaising with the sales organization regularly. Having sales management experience also gives you credibility with the C-Suite according to Chuck Marcouiller, “I believe the key customer of sales enablement is the CRO and senior sales leaders. Having a sales leadership background gives the street credibility and insight into what sales leadership is facing.”
    The benefit of having sales experience extends beyond just credibility. It means that you know how to empathize with your customers and the problems that sales reps experience daily. A view affirmed by Nancy Maluso who said: “insights into the seller persona is critical.” This includes an understanding of the buying process and the sales skills that are required to convert a prospect to an opportunity and close the deal faster. Salespeople don’t need to know the thought process behind the product, they need to know their customer and how the product helps them.
    But having sales experience isn’t enough as sales enablement must collaborate with so many areas and brings together a diverse range of skills. That’s why salespeople who have held a range of roles in an organization tend to be a good fit. If someone has worked in sales ops, been involved in process improvement, knows how to build partnerships internally or understands how to leverage technology to improve how they do their job, then they bring a lot to the table.
    “I’ve found that folks with a pre-sales background perform very well. They understand selling and the sales process and they have deep knowledge of your products and can translate their value in a way sales (and customers) can understand,” explains Daniel West.

    Marketing skills enrich customer conversations

    While sales understand the customer, product marketing understands the persona and how they relate to the product. This means they can synthesize information about the customer from research and other sources and understand the psychology behind how to communicate with a customer effectively. When coupled with execution skills like lead generation this can be a very powerful skill set that enriches the sales enablement team.
    Marketing skills are also favorable at the execution level for some aspects of sales enablement. Content delivery and program management are two areas where marketing can really create knowledge. It may also be beneficial to look beyond product marketing and consider people in regional marketing functions. This is because those roles often incorporate many types of enablement and field sales activities.

    Blending sales and marketing may be the right mix

    Perhaps the real answer lies in not choosing one over the other, but rather bringing together a blend of skills in your sales enablement team. While people with a sales background know how to approach customers, those in marketing understand how to craft a compelling message to a persona. When both come together they can create the right blend that can enable your sales team and continuously hone and improve their skills.
    It’s not easy to find people who have straddled both sales and marketing over the course of their career but you can occasionally find a salesperson who has a knack for product marketing or vice versa. But if you have a sales enablement team then it is perhaps best to create an environment where you can leverage a cross-functional skill base and place people in roles that work to their strengths. This approach can give you the best of both worlds.

    Sales enablement is multi-faceted

    While the primary discussion is around whether sales or marketing skills are best for sales enablement roles, the reality is that enablement is a multi-faceted role. It’s not enough to understand the customer, craft a message and train the sales team. It also involves making sure they’re more effective at their role and have everything they need to be ready for every sales conversation. This requires analytical skills, an understanding of technology and the ability to improve and re-engineer processes. Sales enablement needs the skills to develop and execute content and training programs, which requires a combination of these skills.
    In many respects, sales enablement requires a multidisciplinary approach, which is why some practitioners come from consulting, engineering or even training. The key for any sales enablement leader is to align the desired business outcomes to projects and milestones. They must work with learning specialists to design the right outcome-oriented program.

    Each sales organization is different and must find its right blend

    When it comes down to it, there isn’t necessarily a right or wrong answer to this question – it really depends. It depends on the stage your business is, the verticals you’re targeting, your product and your growth trajectory.
    The needs of a sales organization also change over time and so do the skills they require in their enablement team. That’s why identifying what your organization requires now and then building a strategy and a team that can deliver those specific needs is so important.
    By its very nature, sales enablement needs to be forward-looking and able to pre-empt what sales require before it becomes a real problem. This strategic outlook should translate into your hiring strategy. A sales enablement team needs to enable the acceleration of sales, and you need a team that can support your strategy to achieve this. 

    The post When Hiring for Sales Enablement, What’s the Best Fit – Product Marketing or Sales? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Sales Disrupted: A Framework to Deal with Disruptive Forces https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-disrupted-a-framework-to-deal-with-disruptive-forces/ Tue, 04 Jul 2017 15:53:24 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-disrupted-a-framework-to-deal-with-disruptive-forces/ We live in an age of constant change. An age where disruption is the new normal. But there are some events that can jolt your sales organization into a new phase instantly. And in an instant, you have to rethink your approach and adapt. The disruptions that impact our customer’s most often include: Mergers and …

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    We live in an age of constant change. An age where disruption is the new normal. But there are some events that can jolt your sales organization into a new phase instantly. And in an instant, you have to rethink your approach and adapt.
    Sales-Disrupted

    The disruptions that impact our customer’s most often include:

    • Mergers and acquisitions
    • Preparing to IPO and beyond
    • A surprise new competitor
    • Regulatory changes that impact how you sell

    Perhaps your business has been part of a merger or acquisition or is preparing to IPO, a new competitor strategy has taken you by surprise, or a regulatory change has completely changed how you can sell. These significant events can take the

    sales readiness of your sales organization

    back a step or two and it can take you weeks, months or even years to recover and adapt. But that doesn’t mean you need to recreate the wheel every single time. By following or framework you can identify how your business needs to adapt and get back on track quicker.

    A framework for enabling sales disrupted

    The key to recovering from a sales disruption is to be agile. Your reps need to be enabled so they can pick themselves up and get back out there quickly.  But speed alone isn’t enough if your reps aren’t prepared with the right things to get them back on track.

    Before reacting, take a step back and look at

    what parts of your business

    the disruption is impacting:

    • Resources: Do you have the right resources to take your business forward? This isn’t just about having enough salespeople, but also consider whether they’re all up to standard. Perhaps you need more support resources or different tools to help your sales organization be agiler.
    • Processes: Do your processes meet the needs of your sales organization now? Your processes need to be agile enough to adapt or at least be reviewed when a disruptive change occurs. It’s also important to look beyond your sales processes and to any other business process that may be impacted like customer success or logistics to ensure that they also meet the needs of your new world order. The more stable and adaptable your processes are, the easier it will be for your business to react quickly to disruption.
    • Values: Your corporate values flow through your entire organization, but how are they applied to your sales organization. Your sales reps need to have some autonomy to apply your values, but these need to first be communicated well so they are applied correctly. This can filter down to the type of business you wish to attract or how your reps react when faced with stiff price competition. Agile businesses empower their employees to act within their values.

    Taking this approach one level down, you can then establish an enablement framework that considers the three areas where your reps may need support; Knowledge and Messaging, Sales Skills, and Execution Discipline.

    Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help identify what enablement initiatives need to be in place.
    Knowledge-and-messaging

    What initiatives your sales organization needs the most will depend on what has caused the disruption to your business. For example:
    Disruption #1: Mergers & Acquisitions:

     The core objective here is to retain customers and maintain momentum through a period of internal change. Often knowledge and messaging is the most crucial focus area for enablement activities as reps require regular communication and the value proposition may need to be rebaselined.
    Disruption #2: IPO:

     As you prepare for IPO execution discipline is key, ensuring you have all your processes in place. Post-IPO this may shift to knowledge and messaging as communication becomes more important and the business’ messaging changes.
    Disruption #3: Surprise competitor:

     Knowledge and messaging are critical when going into battle with a new competitor. YYour value proposition needs to be sharp and your reps will need to be up-to-date with the competitive landscape and offerings.
    Disruption #4: Regulatory changes:

    – While knowledge and messaging is important, depending on the regulatory change, it may impact the sales process and the skills your reps require.

    Put a plan in place

    To drive your enablement program put in place milestones and a process to achieve these. For example, if you want to develop a consistent message across the organization, what’s the message? How will you communicate this? How will you know that it has been a success? Who will need to be involved in the process?

    This plan will map not only what needs to be done, but also which stakeholders will be involved in each step and what other tools you need to achieve it.

    Measure, measure, measure

    Once you know what areas require focus you can then consider what insights you require. The closer you are able to monitor your reps progress, the quicker you will be able to identify any gaps in their knowledge or skills and plug them. This will keep any revenue leakage from the disruption to a minimum.

    By focusing in on leading indicators of

     sales effectiveness and efficiency

    , rather than lagging indicators, the more control you will have over your revenue. For example, if your value proposition has changed then reviewing your reps’ elevator pitch will be important. Role plays can be used to provide coaching and feedback and certifications provide a mechanism to measure how prepared reps are for their customer conversations.

    Dealing with disruption is never easy. Knee-jerk reactions are common, but they rarely have the desired effect. By following a structured approach you can ensure your sales reps are enabled to deal with the disruption quickly and confidently. Who knows, it may even put you in the position to outsmart the disruptive force.

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    Transforming from Sales Manager 2.0 to Sales Manager 3.0 and Beyond https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/transforming-from-sales-manager-2-0-to-sales-manager-3-0-and-beyond/ Thu, 29 Jun 2017 15:43:00 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/transforming-from-sales-manager-2-0-to-sales-manager-3-0-and-beyond/ Sales managers are critical to the success of their sales reps. While sales managers are charged with ensuring reps meet their numbers, how they meet their numbers is not as simple as it once was. In the past, focusing in on pipeline and activities was the hallmark of a good sales manager, but the way …

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    sales manager of the futureSales managers are critical to the success of their sales reps. While sales managers are charged with ensuring reps meet their numbers, how they meet their numbers is not as simple as it once was. In the past, focusing in on pipeline and activities was the hallmark of a good sales manager, but the way customers purchase and reps sell has changed, and the role of sales managers has evolved as well.

    A highly successful sales manager now invests significant time in coaching their reps to improve their knowledge and skills, drive excellence in execution, and of course keep them on track. Yet businesses often under-invest in their sales managers. Harvard Business Review reported that only 12% of organizations currently invest sufficiently in the development of their frontline sales managers.

    Sales managers have a difficult job and yet we often leave them to figure out things on their own.

    While the

     70/20/10 learning model

     says that the majority of learning does happen on-the-job, for managers to develop they still need to receive their 10% of formal learning and 20% through coaching or mentoring. This model just doesn’t work anymore. If we leave our sales managers to work out what they’re doing on their own it may take them years to get it right. Can your sales reps wait that long?

    In this day and age that’s simply not good enough. The role of sales is rapidly evolving and we expect much more of our sales reps, so it naturally follows that their leaders also need to evolve.

    As we move into the era of Sales 3.0, we’re constantly looking for new ways to help our sales reps adapt to the changing world order. This search should start with taking a good look at the sales managers to make sure they have the skills and tools they need to lead their reps through this change. The time has come for organizations to retire Sales Manager 1.0 and Sales Manager 2.0, and set about enabling Sales Manager 3.0.

    Sales Manager 2.0 is no longer compatible with Sales 3.0

    sales manager of the future

    Sales Manager 1.0: The expert administrator

    • Manages sales and administrative tasks
    • Dealing with complaints or individual issues with sales reps
    • Executives performance management
    • Gives feedback on individual issues
    • Responds to queries by sales leaders

    Sales Manager 2.0: The activity generator

    • Undertakes the same activities as Sales Manager 1.0 

      plus

    • Leverages email automation tools to improve productivity
    • Relies on scaling customer communications to broaden the reach
    • Focuses on a high turnover with power dialers and other productivity tools

    Sales Manager 3.0: The strategist and mentor

    • Manages sales reps
    • Ensures execution of account and territory strategies
    • Helping sales reps create business
    • Developing and executing customer-management strategies
    • Coaches and mentors reps using a structured approach to improve performance and behaviors
    • Supports executives to make strategic decisions about a sales organization
    • Forecasting
    • Funnel management

    So how do you get your Sales Manager 2.0 to Sales Manager 3.0

    The key is to plan your approach and enable your sales managers to perform at their best. Here are four steps to transform your sales managers.

    1. Define their role

    Sales management is rarely a one-size-fits-all role. In most organizations there are several sales management roles; for example inside sales managers, field sales managers, territory managers. Each of these roles has different responsibilities and requires different skills.

    Before you can determine what your sales managers need to be enabled on, their role needs to be clearly defined. In this step, outline the parameters of each role and what they are expected to achieve. This sets the basis for the next step.

    2. Determine the skills required for each role

    Once the role of each sales manager in your organization is defined you can then determine what skills are required to perform the roles effectively. As part of this process, it’s essential to consider the behaviors and activities that your managers need to demonstrate to be successful in their role. Questions you can ask include:

    • Do they know how to focus on their team over their individual performance? Many sales managers are promoted from the field where they were judged on their own performance. Making the mental shift to focusing on the performance of the collective can be challenging for some.
    • Do they know how the business of sales runs? Forecasting, reporting, sales methodologies, and processes; these are all skills that are fundamental to leading a successful sales team.
    • Do they know how to create an effective sales strategy? Stepping back and mapping out the big picture is essential to Sales Manager 3.0. This requires being able to identify skill gaps and understanding how these can be plugged and their reps’ skills developed over time.
    • How much experience have they had leading people? A core skill for any sales manager is leading people. This covers more than just hiring and monitoring their quotas. Leading a sales team involves identifying and developing skills as well as coaching and mentoring.
    • Do they know what to coach on and how to do it? Coaching is much more than just giving feedback to reps about how they performed in a meeting. It covers all aspects of selling from lead identification to how they close the deal.
    • Do they know how to mentor individuals? Mentoring is different from coaching. It’s about guiding and providing advice to help reps develop their own skills. This is a skill that can be difficult for anyone to learn, yet it’s crucial to the success of Sales Manager 3.0.
    • Do they know what success looks like? Meeting quota is no longer the only indicator of a sales reps’ success. It’s important that sales managers not only understand what success looks like for their reps but also what it means in terms of their own role, so they can then build their own skill gaps if necessary.

    3. Identify where the skill gaps are

    Once you know what skills your sales managers require to perform their jobs effectively you can then overlay their existing skills to help you identify areas where they require improvement or development.

    A useful tool to help identify areas where your sales managers may require development is by looking at your

    efficiency and sales effectiveness indicators

    . These metrics focus in on the areas that are important to sales managers when looking at the progress of their reps. So it makes sense that they need to be able to drive the behaviors and capabilities that will drive these indicators in the right direction.

    For example, if your reps are struggling in their elevator pitches then they need support from their managers to improve. This requires managers to coach them on improving their messaging and pitch skills. So it follows that your managers may require some help bringing their coaching skills in these areas up to the mark.

    4. Leverage technology to enable your sales managers

    Just like your sales stack helps your reps perform at their best, your sales managers need a technology stack of their own. This goes beyond your CRM and really hones in on helping them perform each of the elements of their role better. Their stack can borrow from the existing sales stack and also leverage tools from other parts of the organization. The sales managers stack may include:

    • Hiring: To improve their hiring process consider tools that help test candidates for sales aptitude and competency.
    • Coaching: Sales readiness platforms can help optimize coaching by establishing a formal framework that helps managers identify skill gaps and then focus on remediation by developing reps’ skills. This should incorporate a range of coaching activities including role plays, so managers can focus in on specific skills.
    • Messaging: Video and audio tools can often be found in sales readiness platforms. These can help reps practice their messaging and get feedback, not only from their managers but also from other subject matter experts, on how they articulate their value proposition in different situations.
    • Forecasting: Tools like your CRM can help your managers accurately forecast sales results, so they can identify issues early and act quickly when necessary.
    • Managing: This can include the basics of management, like how to motivate their team or conduct performance reviews. If your sales managers have never led a team before then the basics are essential to learning.

    These tools will help you enable your sales managers, but the key focus shouldn’t be on helping take your sales managers to the next level. After all, they play an integral role in the overall sales success of your business. But it’s important to remember that enablement isn’t a set and forget exercise. Once you’ve built Sales Manager 3.0 it will almost certainly be time to start working on the next model.

    The post Transforming from Sales Manager 2.0 to Sales Manager 3.0 and Beyond appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    In Conversation with Dabur on Sales Effectiveness https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/in-conversation-with-dabur-on-sales-effectiveness/ Tue, 13 Jun 2017 13:59:30 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/in-conversation-with-dabur-on-sales-effectiveness/ This post is based on an interview with Chirag Singh, Sales Capability Development Manager at Dabur.  Dabur is the world’s largest Ayurvedic and natural healthcare company.  With over 2,000 sales reps Dabur has certainly had its challenges finding the best way to train and coach its salespeople working in different geographical regions. Chirag Singh who …

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    This post is based on an interview with Chirag Singh, Sales Capability Development Manager at Dabur. 

    Dabur is the world’s largest Ayurvedic and natural healthcare company.  With over 2,000 sales reps Dabur has certainly had its challenges finding the best way to train and coach its salespeople working in different geographical regions. Chirag Singh who leads the sales capability development function at Dabur talk to us about how this FMCG giant enabled their sales team, regardless of their location.

    Their sales organization structure has many levels

    FMCG sales reps require specific skills

    Sales in the FMCG space is very different to B2B sales. Sales reps require very different skill sets to deal with the unique challenges of their business model, where they deal with a range of distributors from large chains to mom and pop stores.

    Apart from the typical negotiations, conflict management, and partner management skills, it’s important to drive process adherence. Coaching focuses not only on team handling and negotiations skills but also basic analytical skills. This helps identify whether sales reps are able to interpret data as expected.

    Prioritizing sales readiness initiatives was crucial

    It was important for Dabur to create a strategy for their initiatives that focused on the skill sets that their reps needed to improve. To achieve this, prioritizing their initiatives was crucial, particularly when you consider the size of their team. To improve the sales effectiveness of their team Dabur implemented several initiatives.

    “The most important initiative, and one of the most basic is to standardize the onboarding process for all new hires in the sales team. Dabur is a large and diverse organization so it is even more important to have a standard onboarding system in place.  We use Mindtickle to provide us with visibility on the learning curve of every new hire in the sales team,” explains Singh.

    Dabur also had a long-term vision for their digital sales readiness initiatives that extended beyond sales onboarding.

    “Another thing that is really helping us is the creation of a knowledge bank. This is a repository of all sales processes and sales related collaterals. Since the Mindtickle platform is online and agile, it is much easier for us to add and update modules as and when there is a change in our process. It’s been about 8 months since we started and this has now become a part of our daily work,” continues Singh.

    Managers have visibility into every sales rep’s progress

    “Using a platform like Mindtickle gives us visibility into what skills each rep needs to improve. That is the greatest benefit we’ve obtained from this initiative. Improvement takes time, for some individuals it can take a few weeks, and for some, it can take a few months. It really depends on the kind of work assigned to them,”  explains Singh.

    Dabur’s initiatives also help them identify and fix their rep’s knowledge gaps. They have implemented a manager led feedback system that has been essential to their sales transformation program.
    “Mindtickle allows us to track the coaching tasks given to each sales rep after the fact. We then involve the manager, using a feedback mechanism, to review the improvement in their reps’ performance and actually give them feedback. This process is really helping us drive effectiveness and improve our performance,” explains Singh.

    By leveraging technology Dabur has automated and simplified its sales process. At the same time, they have brought their sales team much closer towards their end goal of achieving best-in-class sales effectiveness.

    Boost your sales efficiency!

    See Mindtickle in action today!

    The post In Conversation with Dabur on Sales Effectiveness appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    5 Steps to Evaluate a Sales Readiness Solution https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-steps-to-evaluate-a-sales-readiness-solution/ Tue, 06 Jun 2017 06:08:02 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/5-steps-to-evaluate-a-sales-readiness-solution/ You know that sales enablement can help your sales reps be more effective at their role, but how do you know which sales enablement platform is best for you? There are so many to choose from and some have very different features, which can make comparing them confusing. Generally, sales enablement platforms fall into two …

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    steps-evaluate-sales-readiness-platformYou know that sales enablement can help your sales reps be more effective at their role, but how do you know which sales enablement platform is best for you? There are so many to choose from and some have very different features, which can make comparing them confusing.

    Generally, sales enablement platforms fall into two categories;

    sales readiness and sales asset management

    .

    Sales readiness platforms help you prepare your sales reps to have meaningful conversations with their customers. Sales asset management platforms enable reps to manage their sales content. In this post, I’m going to focus in on the five steps that will help you find the right sales readiness platform for your business.

    Step 1: Step back and define your objectives

    While you may be eager to pick a solution and get started, it’s important to take some time to reflect on what you’re trying to achieve first. While you may feel like you’re wasting precious time, in the long run, this step will save you from making the wrong decision, and it will help you gain clarity on what your business really needs.

    There isn’t a one size fits all approach to sales readiness, what your sales reps need to be sales ready may be very different from other businesses. Consider the following questions:

    • What stage is your business in?If you’re scaling rapidly perhaps you’re struggling to ramp up all your new hires effectively with your current onboarding program. If you’re an established business with a large sales team perhaps you find it challenging to keep all your reps on message.
    • How dynamic is your industry?If your competitors (and you) are releasing new product features every other week, then communicating regularly and keeping your reps on message is crucial to their readiness.
    • How much visibility do you have on your reps’ capabilities?If you don’t have a process in place to identify skill or capability gaps then a solution that enables you to assess their capabilities would be helpful.
    • Are you developing a culture of coaching and sales effectiveness?If the majority of your reps aren’t meeting quota regularly or turning over too soon then your coaching process may need more structure to give your reps the cadence they need to close more deals. Your managers may also need more support to create a culture of coaching and feedback, enabling them to focus on broader sales effectiveness, rather than just pipeline and sales skills.
    • Is your business in need of a sales transformation?If you’ve recently gone through an M&A or you’ve launched a new product you may need an effective way to ensure your customer-facing team is aligned to the new messaging quickly and effectively.
    • Is your current system really working?Old school LMS and classroom training sessions just don’t cut it anymore. To keep your reps engaged, achieve ROI for your sales enablement efforts and keep up with your competitors, it may be time to update your system to something that addresses the sales issues you face today.

    Once you have identified your key objectives, you’re ready to move onto the next stage.

    Step 2: Identify your dependencies

    Your sales readiness platform is probably not the only tool in your sales stack. While all these tools are designed to make life easier for your sales team, they can actually make it more challenging if they’re not integrated. After all, how many logins can you remember?

    That’s why it’s a good idea to identify what tools or platforms you would like your sales readiness platform to talk to. Would reporting be easier if your sales readiness platform could report based on the categories in your CRM? Would your sales reps find it useful if your sales readiness tool could help them identify contextual content for customer conversations from your sales asset management tool?

    By including this level of integration on your wishlist you can narrow down the sales readiness platforms that best suit your needs.

    Step 3: Prioritize what’s important

    This is where the objectives you identified in step 1 become important. They should drive the features and functionalities that you need the most from your sales readiness platform. It’s helpful to identify what your priorities are using a basic framework and then listing out the key elements that your business needs under each category. I suggest using a framework that includes knowledge enablement, skill development, scenario-based training, analytics and other features:

    Knowledge Enablement:

    This refers to the ability of your reps to use knowledge in the context of their sales situations.

    Feature: Learning modules

    You need this if you want to

      • Assign modules to personalize learning tracks for different learners or groups.
      • Selectively invite individuals and groups to learning modules.

    Feature: Mobile app and bite-sized content files

    You need this if you want to

      • Share regular updates on new product features, competitive insights, success stories and marketing collateral in real time.

    Feature: Assessments and Certifications

    You need this if you want to

      • Customize benchmarks or pass scores for goal-based assessments.
      • Generate and award certificates to reps when they complete a level.

    Feature: Flexible content formats

    You need this if you want to

      • Import content from other sources (like Dropbox, Google Drive, Slideshare or Youtube).
      • Directly upload or amend content in any file format.
      • Create short and long form training content.

    Feature: Quick quizzes

    You need this if you want to

      • Measure knowledge retention with pop quizzes and reinforce key information.
      • Intertwine quizzes with content for effective reinforcement.
      • Conduct timed quizzes and randomize questions.

    Feature: Easy content search and discovery

    You need this if you want to

      • Enable your reps to be able to find content easily when they need it.
      • Ensure your reps can bookmark content so they can access easily.
      • Enable content to be saved offline so they can find it anytime.

    Feature: Gamification

    You need this if you want to

      • Drive adoption and ensure your sales reps actually use the platform and even enjoy using it.
      • Customize rewards based on content importance.

    Feature: Integration with other systems

    You need this if you want to

      • Integrate with your sales asset management tool so you can enable your reps to access content that is relevant to their specific situation at the time they need it most.
      • Integrate with your CRM so you can leverage the segmentation and team profiles you have created there for analytics or to allocate learning tracks.
      • Integrate with HR systems so you can leverage the team and individual profiles you have created there for analytics or to allocate learning tracks.

    Skill development:

    These features help your reps handle specific sales scenarios.

    Feature: Structured coaching

    You need this if you want to:

      • Enable contextual coaching so managers can objectively observe reps while they are in their sales motion. They can then provide feedback and training and support reps when navigating complex sales scenarios in real time.
      • Give your manager the ability to conduct on-the-job coaching, even when they’re in a different location to their reps. They can observe and rate how reps perform their sales activities

    Scenario-based training:

    These features help your reps execute your plan through coaching. This teaches them to follow the sales process and even receive specific feedback on their deals.

    Feature: Video / audio role plays

    You need this if you want to:

      • Help your reps practice how they respond to specific and contextual sales situations.
      • Ensure your reps are articulating your product value proposition consistently, know how to demo your product or can deliver a compelling elevator pitch.
      • Enable managers to review video, voice over powerpoint, voiceover screen capture and audio responses in real time.
      • Enable managers to review and grade email responses and offline learning.
      • Customize evaluation parameters for role plays.

    Feature: Automated workflows

    You need this if you want to:

      • Enable your sales managers, sales enablement or other team members to provide qualitative and quantitative feedback on the video or audio recordings your reps submit.
      • Create accountability and a cadence for coaching, so it becomes something that your managers and reps do every day.

    Feature: Best practices library

    You need this if you want to:

      • Share best practices and success stories across your team and facilitate peer to peer learning.

    Feature: Contextual remediation

    You need this if you want to:

      • Suggest training tracks to reps based on identified knowledge or skill gaps.
      • Automate training based on gaps identified by their manager.

    Analytics:

    These features help you drive accountability, identify knowledge and skill gaps, and report back to sales managers and leaders.

    Feature: Drill down views and reports

    You need this if you want to:

      • Measure and track the engagement and retention of each rep, sales team or region.
      • Track cohorts (based on their onboarding batch, sales kickoff attendance etc) to see how each has performed against other cohorts.
      • Export user data into Salesforce.

    Feature: Reporting on content effectiveness

    You need this if you want to:

      • Identify which content has an impact on your reps’ performance and which do not.

    Feature: Reporting on business impact

    You need this if you want to:

      • Correlate sales enablement activities with business outcomes. This will help demonstrate the impact on revenue of initiatives or improvements in capability.

    Other priorities

    Aside from features, there are several other questions that you may want to ask a vendor including:

    • What is their roadmap in terms of product enhancements and expansions?
    • What are the minimum software/hardware requirements to use the solution?
    • What are the solution’s implementation strategy and process?
    • How long will the implementation process take?
    • How much of your support is typically required during implementation?
    • What Is Customer Success support available after implementation?

    Step 4: Evaluate platforms against your priorities

    It may be tempting to just pick the first platform you demo but it may not have everything you need. It’s important to at least compare two or three sales readiness platforms so you can see just how different they are. By listing out the criteria that are your priorities, and then assessing each platform against that criteria, you can objectively identify which platform will best meet your needs.

    Step 5: Get feedback or read reviews

    Once you’ve identified the sales readiness platform that best meets your needs, it’s always helpful to hear from people who actually use the product. This is actually easier to do than you may realize. Websites like G2 Crowd allow users to provide unbiased reviews of software platforms they’ve used in real time. You can see how people rated different aspects of each platform and read their comments about what it’s like to use the tool.

    While it may sound daunting, by taking a little extra time to evaluate and choose the right sales readiness platform you will save yourself a lot of time and effort in the long run.

    The post 5 Steps to Evaluate a Sales Readiness Solution appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    In Conversation with MuleSoft on Sales Coaching https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/in-conversation-with-mulesoft-on-sales-coaching/ Tue, 16 May 2017 13:53:52 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/in-conversation-with-mulesoft-on-sales-coaching/   This post is based on a webinar where Stephen Hallowell, VP of Sales Enablement at MuleSoft discusses why companies should invest in sales coaching. MuleSoft is a leading high-growth technology company that focuses on application integration under one platform. With over 800 employees and over 1000 enterprise customers across 60 countries, MuleSoft has had …

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    This post is based on a webinar where Stephen Hallowell, VP of Sales Enablement at MuleSoft discusses why companies should invest in sales coaching.

    MuleSoft is a leading high-growth technology company that focuses on application integration under one platform. With over 800 employees and over 1000 enterprise customers across 60 countries, MuleSoft has had astounding growth.
    “We have been evolving quite a bit as a company over the years. We have gone from what was a fairly tactical engagement to selling business value associated with what otherwise can be a pretty technical concept. We are enabling change on a broad scale inside some very large companies,” explains Hallowell.

    Why sales coaching matters

    A significant part of MuleSoft’s success can be credited to their investment in sales coaching. “To improve the outcome and win more deals, the sales rep has to start doing things in a fundamentally different way than they were previously. Natural behavior is to put one foot in front of the other and keep marching straight. We need our sales reps to stop and take a left turn at some point. The only way that we’ve been able to drive that behavior change is through coaching, ” says Hallowell

    Two main aspects of the coaching program 

    Sales leadership at MuleSoft decided that their sales coaching initiative should answer two questions:

    1. Are

      their reps doing what is important?

    2. How can their managers help their reps sell the right way?

    Most sales teams get their approach to the second question right by coaching their sales reps. But the first question is often under-recognized yet it’s vital to ‘accountability’.
    “If the manager doesn’t actually know and doesn’t have the ability to know, whether somebody’s doing the right thing, and the individual contributor also doesn’t know, you can never get that self-diagnosis. The more you can make it very apparent to people what they’re doing well and what they’re not doing well, you create the need for change,” explains Hallowell.
    “If somebody comes in and coaches me and says, “Ah, well, hey, here’s a better way of doing things,” and I haven’t seen that reason yet for doing things differently, I’m not going to get the results out of it,” he continues.

    Building a competency map

    The first step was to identify what knowledge gaps their managers had. This was done through effective benchmarking.
    “To kick this off, we did some benchmarking with our managers by assessing them against some third party statistics. That helped us realize some are exceptional and some are not. That helped create that need for change across all levels of the organization,” explains Hallowell.
    Once the gaps were identified, the next step in the process was to train them effectively on their skill gaps. “The next thing we did was build the competency maps. We did that probably 9 to 12 months into the process. In my experience, for a competency map to be effective it’s got to be somewhat detailed, just because you’ve got to be precise about what you want people to do. That level of detail delivered too early can be a bit overwhelming. Trying to find that right balance of really defining for the managers, these are the specific behaviors and skills you need to coach, to giving them enough detail to be actionable, but not so much detail that you overwhelm them,” explains Hallowell.

    Designing the certification program

    “One important thing we drove was a significant relaunch of our messaging. A pool of leaders and individual contributors locked themselves in a room for a couple of days and came out with something that everybody felt really good about. Once it reached the field, there was no question of “Is this the right message?” Our leaders bought into it,” says Hallowell. The primary element in the coaching program at MuleSoft was message calibration, which was done by the leadership team.
    “We had the core team record themselves in the Mindtickle platform to provide examples and best practices. Then we formed a group of best performing reps and managers who we call black belts. This group of black belts then certified the full team. We had over 500 people go through this program,” explained Hallowell.

    Coaching is not a checkbox exercise 

    The importance of this program is well understood given that over 500 employees went through the coaching program. The program was well received across the organization. What exactly worked for MuleSoft?
    There were multiple factors including support from their leadership, setting high benchmarks for their sales reps and providing personalized feedback for each rep.
    “One of the things that were really important for us is that this wasn’t just a check the box exercise. If it had been simply a box-checking exercise, there wouldn’t have been a lot of opportunity for coaching. I can’t overstate the importance of really broad management support and solving a pain point that everybody recognizes. The next thing is holding that performance bar very high. We did not pass people who were not completely 100%. Yeah, it might take a little longer than we want, but we’re going to make sure we get everybody’s attention on,” says Hallowell.

    Finally, make it awesome

    The success of a coaching program is measured on how well it is adopted.

    The last thing I’ll leave you with is we have a set of core values at MuleSoft. One of them is to make it awesome. It’s one that I love. I use it with my team all the time, and I think it’s so important in our role. You’re going to ask a lot of people going through this program. If they detect anything that’s not awesome, they’re not going to invest,

    says Hallowell.

    Did Hallowell and his team make it awesome? Given their success, it sure looks like they did. The coaching program helped MuleSoft scale their sales team without compromising on the performance of any individual. Their average selling price went up from $ 77K to $169K. And feedback about the coaching program was really positive across all levels of the organization.

    “A number of people that came up to me and just said, “Thanks for making me go through that.” I think this quote is verbatim from half a dozen people, said, “You know, I was pretty skeptical about this thing when we first started, but I’m so glad you made me do it. I’m so much more confident with my customers,” says Hallowell proudly.

    The post In Conversation with MuleSoft on Sales Coaching appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Increase your Revenue per Sales Rep with Mindtickle and Seismic https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/increase-your-revenue-per-sales-rep-with-seismic-and-mindtickle/ Mon, 08 May 2017 12:33:33 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/increase-your-revenue-per-sales-rep-with-seismic-and-mindtickle/ There are two main reasons why 63% of sales reps fail to achieve their quota according to SiriusDecisions – improper training and an inability to find and use the relevant content. This week, Mindtickle and Seismic – the leading enterprise-grade sales readiness solution and sales enablement solution respectively – have created a technology partnership that …

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    There are two main reasons why 63% of sales reps fail to achieve their quota according to SiriusDecisions – improper training and an inability to find and use the relevant content. This week, Mindtickle and Seismic – the leading enterprise-grade sales readiness solution and sales enablement solution respectively – have created a technology partnership that solves these issues. Together they enable enterprise sales reps to train for and execute their sales interactions more effectively than ever before.

    In this day and age, buyers have changed the way they purchase and interact with salespeople, and sales organizations need to be agiler to keep up. Customers now come to the table well informed and much further down their purchasing journey, and they expect reps to be ready to respond to their questions, needs, and objections. That’s why it’s now crucial to ensure your reps are prepared, up-to-date and able to engage prospects with the most relevant and personalized content.

    The sales organizations that have adapted to this new world order have achieved this by ensuring their reps and everyone in the enablement process, from content creators in marketing to sales ops and training, have access to technologies that:
    Mindtickle-Siesmic_table

    • Provide on-demand access to all materials necessary to increase performance:It’s no longer sufficient to just email updates or conduct training sessions a couple of times a year. Best-in-class organizations ensure their reps receive feedback on both presentation dry-runs and the content used within them. Their reps are able to tweak content on Seismic and receive coaching on their pitch on Mindtickle whenever and wherever they need.
    • Enable just-in-time readiness on new content:By leveraging Mindtickle’s training and video coaching capabilities, sales reps can access new content and become smarter quicker. This has the added benefit of decreasing the time spent on separate training sessions or on requesting guidance from content creators.
    • Give access to valuable information:Information on reps’ performance and content engagement collected in Seismic and Mindtickle is fed back to individual reps. This enables them to continuously and intelligently improve how they perform their job, focusing in on the aspects that are directly tied to closing deals more effectively.
    • Provide holistic sales engagement data:In this data-driven world, teams involved in the creation of sales content and training collateral require a comprehensive view of their reps’ engagement with all sales-oriented materials. Best practice sales organizations leverage this data to pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of their salespeople and further inform their enablement initiatives.
    • Enable new content certification:It’s no longer sufficient to certify your reps once when they are onboarded and then forget about it. Reps in best-in-class sales organizations are constantly learning and improving their knowledge. Mindtickle’s certification process responds to this by applying to new collateral, including product brochures and case studies. This ensures that their reps only use the content in the field once they have demonstrated proficiency and expertise in presenting it.

    By integrating Mindtickle’s training, coaching, role play and communication capabilities with Seismic’s personalized content creation and analytical capabilities, this technology partnership brings together each of these aspects. The result is a technology solution that enables best-in-class sales teams to focus on driving revenue. All teams involved in the sales enablement process, from Sales Ops to Content and Product marketing are enabled to accelerate deals, improve win rates and increase the revenue earned per sales rep.

    “At Nutanix, we pride ourselves in providing sales reps with the right technologies they need to exceed quotas and drive revenue,” said Amir Chaudry, Head of Global Sales Enablement, Educational Services & Field Readiness at Nutanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing. “The combination of Seismic and Mindtickle does just that, helping reps prepare and master messaging before meetings, and win the deal with the most relevant information and collateral during them.”

    We’re excited about this partnership and believe it will add value to our customer’s businesses by helping their sales organizations to sell more effectively.

    For more information on the Mindtickle-Seismic technology partnership, read the full press release here.

    The post Increase your Revenue per Sales Rep with Mindtickle and Seismic appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Seismic and Mindtickle Partner to Increase Revenue per Rep at Large Enterprises http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/seismic-and-mindtickle-partner-to-increase-revenue-per-rep-at-large-enterprises-300450338.html Wed, 03 May 2017 14:12:14 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/news/seismic-and-mindtickle-partner-to-increase-revenue-per-rep-at-large-enterprises/ SAN DIEGO and SAN FRANCISCO, May 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — According to SiriusDecisions, 63 percent of sales reps fail to achieve quota due to improper training or the inability to find and use relevant content. Today, Seismic, the leading enterprise-grade sales enablement solution, and sales readiness solution Mindtickle announced a technology partnership that will attack both issues, resulting in enterprise …

    The post Seismic and Mindtickle Partner to Increase Revenue per Rep at Large Enterprises appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    SAN DIEGO and SAN FRANCISCOMay 3, 2017 /PRNewswire/ — According to SiriusDecisions, 63 percent of sales reps fail to achieve quota due to improper training or the inability to find and use relevant content. Today, Seismic, the leading enterprise-grade sales enablement solution, and sales readiness solution Mindtickle announced a technology partnership that will attack both issues, resulting in enterprise sales reps training for, and then executing in sales interactions in a more effective manner than ever before.

    “Top-performing sales reps are the ones who want to become better at every aspect of their job, from intelligently preparing and training to engaging prospects with the most relevant, personalized content,” said Doug Winter, Seismic co-founder and CEO at Seismic. “Companies looking to ensure that such top-performing sales reps remain satisfied and up-and-comers reach their fullest potential can only do so today with the help of best-in-class technologies. This is why we’ve partnered with Mindtickle.”

    The integration opens up new opportunities for sales reps using both technologies, including:

    • On-demand access to all materials necessary to increase performance: Reps using Seismic and Mindtickle can now receive feedback on both presentation dry-runs and the content used within them at any place and time. Whether they are seated at their desks, in their hotel rooms, or in the lobby before a meeting, reps can tweak content and get coaching on their pitch whenever and wherever they need.
    • Just-in-time readiness on new content: Through Mindtickle’s training and video coaching capabilities, new content within Seismic will be served with Mindtickle modules on how to use it effectively. Sales reps can get smarter on new materials right from within the content platform they are most familiar with, thus decreasing time spent scheduling separate training sessions or requesting guidance from content creators.
    • Valuable information they need to get better: Information collected within Mindtickle and Seismic on rep performance and content engagement will now be fed back to each individual rep, enabling reps to continuously and intelligently improve areas of their job that are directly tied to more effectively closing deals.

    “At Nutanix, we pride ourselves in providing sales reps with the right technologies they need to exceed quotas and drive revenue,” said Amir Chaudry, Head of Global Sales Enablement, Educational Services & Field Readiness at Nutanix, a leader in enterprise cloud computing. “The combination of Seismic and Mindtickle does just that, helping reps prepare and master messaging before meetings, and win the deal with the most relevant information and collateral during them.”

    Benefits of the technology integration also expand to all teams involved in the enablement process, from content creators in marketing to sales ops and training. These benefits include:

    • Holistic sales engagement data: The combination of the two technologies means that teams involved in the creation of sales content and training collateral now have a comprehensive view of reps’ engagement with all sales-oriented materials, helping them to further pinpoint areas of strengths and weaknesses of their salespeople.
    • New content certification: When integrated with Seismic, Mindtickle’s certification process can be applied to new collateral, including product brochures and case studies. This ensures that reps only use the content in the field once they have demonstrated proficiency and expertize in presenting it.

    “A truly best-in-class sales team is one with a laser focus on driving revenue that is supported by a high-performing culture across the entire sales and marketing organization,” said Krishna Depura, CEO of Mindtickle. “With Mindtickle and Seismic, every team involved in enabling sales to accelerate deals and increase win rates—from Sales Ops to Sales Enablement and Product Marketing—will know that they are doing their part to have their impact felt on the bottom line.”

    For more information on the integration and Seismic’s partnership with Mindtickle, visit Seismic’s site at http://info.seismic.com/sales-readiness.

    About Seismic
    Seismic’s leading sales enablement solution allows marketing teams to personalize content at scale and equips large sales teams with the right content for every interaction, dramatically improving time spent selling and win rates. Seismic is the only sales enablement platform powered by machine learning algorithms and the award-winning LiveDocs® technology, which automates the creation of personalized sales materials within seconds. Real-time analytics provide unprecedented insight for marketing teams looking to gauge which content helps close deals, further aligning marketing and sales efforts. Headquartered in San Diego and with more than 250 employees across the globe, Seismic is privately held by its executive team and investment firms General Atlantic, JMI Equity, and Jackson Square Ventures.

    To see how Seismic is being used by firms in your industry, visit http://www.seismic.com.

    About Mindtickle
    Mindtickle offers the industry’s most comprehensive readiness solution for closing the knowledge and skill gaps found in customer facing teams. Sales teams across a wide range of industries use Mindtickle’s award-winning platform to train, coach, and align their sales teams to make reps and their managers more effective. Combining on-demand online training, bite-sized mobile updates, gamification, coaching and role-play with a data-driven approach, Mindtickle accelerates time-to-productivity, ensures consistent execution, and helps boost sales performance. Companies leveraging Mindtickle for sales enablement to assess and certify the readiness of each rep see bigger deal sizes, higher win rates and reduced sales cycles. Mindtickle is a global privately held company with headquarters in Sunnyvale, CA. Investors include NEA and Accel Partners. For more information please visit www.mindtickle.com.

    The post Seismic and Mindtickle Partner to Increase Revenue per Rep at Large Enterprises appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Coaching Quotes to Inspire your Sales Coaches https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/coaching-quotes-to-inspire-your-sales-coaches/ Wed, 22 Mar 2017 00:17:36 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/coaching-quotes-to-inspire-your-sales-coaches/ Coaching is often proffered but not performed. Being able to execute it right is one of the biggest challenges faced by sales organizations. Managers put it in the too hard basket leaving them, and their sales reps, behind the eight ball. Companies that understand the impact that coaching has on their sales managers invest more …

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    quotes-inspire-sales-coaches

    Coaching is often proffered but not performed. Being able to execute it right is one of the biggest challenges faced by sales organizations. Managers put it in the too hard basket leaving them, and their sales reps, behind the eight ball. Companies that understand the impact that coaching has on their sales managers invest more and see greater top-line revenue. In fact, they prioritize coaching with frontline managers spending up to

    70% of their time coaching

    and mentoring their reps. Some businesses even attributed an

    increase

    o

    f

    2

    5

    % in their win rates to their focus on coaching.

    But don’t just take our word for it. Here are six quotes from successful sales coaches on the power of coaching.

    “Coaching is unlocking a person’s potential to maximize their own performance. It is helping them to learn rather than teaching them.” ~ Timothy Gallwey, Author

    Coaching is not about telling someone what they should be doing, it is about helping them develop so that they get there on their own. Even the most self-aware rep might find it challenging to see how far they can go, that is where a good coach steps in.

    “Big things are accomplished only through the perfection of minor details” ~ John Wooden, former basketball player and coach

    While coaching will lead to transformative change in your reps, the devil is in the detail. Helping reps make small behavioral changes can actually have a huge impact on their performance in the short, as well as long-term.

    “The most important thing in coaching is communication. It’s not what you say as much as what they absorb.” ~ Red Auerbach, former basketball coach

    While giving feedback is one part of coaching, the coaching process as a whole has an important role to play. If your reps are coached in a structured manner where they have visibility of their progression path, the coaching is likely to have a greater impact and drive behavioral change than if they’re just given ad hoc feedback. This is also where coaching tools that enable role play and watching peers can help reps gather insights into their own behavior that they can use to improve their performance.

    “What do you coach? You coach the gap. Build a bridge that takes your people from where they are today to where they want or need to be” ~ Keith Rosen, Author and CEO Profit Builders

    Gap identification is the foundation of effective coaching. Having a structured process in place to identify gaps is crucial for coaching to commence. Once a comprehensive plan is designed to fill the gaps, reaching your target objectives will be relatively easy.

    “When you’re coaching your sales reps, make sure your feedback is timely, consistent, objective, accurate, individualised and relevant.” ~ Barry Trailer, Research Principal CSO Insights

    In order to be effective, coaching needs to be contextual. This helps reps understand how to put it into practice and be their best in their customer conversations. Unless you’re sitting next to your reps it’s impossible to provide feedback that meets each of these objectives all the time, but it can be achieved by leveraging sales enablement technology that enables structuring coaching.

    “Everyone needs a coach” ~ Bill Gates, Founder and CEO Microsoft

    Even when you’re at the top of your field, there is still scope to be better with effective coaching. Here’s what Bill Gates, Founder of Microsoft, and Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Alphabet, have to say about corporate coaching

    .

    Don’t you think it’s time to take coaching seriously in your sales organization? 

    New Call-to-action

    The post Coaching Quotes to Inspire your Sales Coaches appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Sales Onboarding at Hyper-Growth Companies: Key Learnings from Autodesk, Google, LinkedIn and Zenefits https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/sales-onboarding-at-hyper-growth-companies-key-learnings-from-autodesk-google-linkedin-and-zenefits/ Mon, 05 Dec 2016 12:45:48 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/sales-onboarding-at-hyper-growth-companies-key-learnings-from-autodesk-google-linkedin-and-zenefits/ Last week I attended the Onboarding 2025 event in San Francisco at the beautiful Autodesk Gallery where Sales Enablement leaders from some of the top companies in Silicon Valley shared their sales onboarding plans and their experiences in what proved to be an extremely productive discussion. Here are part 1 of the key takeaways from …

    The post Sales Onboarding at Hyper-Growth Companies: Key Learnings from Autodesk, Google, LinkedIn and Zenefits appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    sales_onboarding_aurodesk_google_linkedin_ZenefitsLast week I attended the

    Onboarding 2025

    event in San Francisco at the beautiful

    Autodesk Gallery

    where Sales Enablement leaders from some of the top companies in Silicon Valley shared their sales onboarding plans and their experiences in what proved to be an extremely productive discussion.

    Here are part 1 of the key takeaways from each session. You can find part 2 here.

    Autodesk: Julie Sokley, VP Global Sales Operations

    Julie gave a great overview of the challenges she faced when taking over Sales Ops at Autodesk. She had to enable a team of over 250 sales reps globally. Her approach followed three key elements: Processes, productivity, and people.

    Focusing on the “people” element, she established a sales methodology, built out a hub-based selling approach and created a sales onboarding program.

    Key Learnings:

    • Think about structuring your sales onboarding into three phases:
    1. Before you join
    2. While you are here
    3. After onboarding
    • Pre-work is important. Autodesk gives new sales hires 50 hours of pre-work.
    • Autodesk transitioned from product-based selling to pain-point selling, which contributed to their growth. How are your teams approaching selling situations?
    • Don’t send sales reps data, send them stories. This was a critical takeaway as we sometimes get so focused on data that we forget that you need compelling stories to change sales behaviors.
    • Focus on the “why” of training, not the “what”. This will help you get executive buy-in and involvement in sales onboarding.

    Google: Jen Bradburn, Sales Training and Development Lead

    For the past ten years, Jen has led sales training programs at Google for different groups. During her presentation, she explained how she has changed the sales onboarding for new Google sales reps from a pure online and self-serve experience to interactive and case-study based training. The use of real scenarios during the onboarding program has helped prepare and give reps the confidence they need to work on deals as soon as their onboarding is over.

    Key Learnings:

    • Use real sales scenarios and make them interactive case studies for the reps, so they can apply the theory into real sales situations.
    • By overloading the reps with the information they would face in a live selling scenario you can simulate what they would encounter in real life and assess their selling skills.
    • Reps face many surprises in real life, so how can you add those dynamics during onboarding? Google reorganizes the teams going through onboarding so the reps have to scramble and form new teams as they work on case studies which mimic challenges they will have in real situations.
    • Google has designed their sales onboarding with a mix of 50/50 instruction and practice. Find the right balance for your organization.

    LinkedIn: Amy Borsetti, Global Director of Sales Effectiveness; Naomi Davidson, Sr. Operations Mgr of Sales Effectiveness; Thomas Igeme, Sales Effectiveness Strategy & Innovations Lead; Jade Bonacolta, Strategy, Innovation & Analytics Associate

    Four people from LinkedIn led an incredibly interesting session focusing on data-driven sales coaching, which aims to address the most important question in everyone’s mind:

    Are sales reps truly ramping effectively?

    Amy had a great slide that said:

    “Successful onboarding calls for mutual accountability across sales effectiveness and sales managers”

    She talked about the importance of involving sales managers during onboarding and beyond. The new sales onboarding at LinkedIn also has a different approach, focusing on five phases:

    Phase 1: Structured pre-work

    Phase 2: Classroom-based simulation

    Phase 3: Role-based sales clinics and leader-led series

    Phase 4: Sales coaching

    Phase 5: Success program for under-performers

    They also have an interesting approach in which they talk about “Learning Quota” (Phase 1 and 2), “Behavioral Quota” (Phase 3) and “Sales Quota” (Phase 4 and 5).

    But the most impactful change the team at LinkedIn did was related to sales coaching. They deployed a “Coaching for Gold” program to train sales managers on how to coach. It explained why to coach, how to coach, and who to coach. They also taught managers the difference between teaching, coaching, and mentoring and implemented a tracking tool to help them record and track their coaching sessions.

    Key Learnings:

    • Approach your onboarding program with the different types of quotes in mind and create KPIs for each phase. You want to identify reps that are not going to be a good fit early on.
    • Focus on your B players. LinkedIn saw the best results in terms of lift in performance from their B players.
    • Managers should prioritize coaching efforts and identify the reps who need the most. In fact for reps that received 3 or more coaching sessions on the same competency the lift in quota attainment was up to 14% more than before. That’s a huge impact on revenue.
    • Identify what are the core competencies every rep needs to master and document it and measure how each one impacts results.
    • Build a culture of coaching at your company starting with senior level executive sponsorship so that it becomes a habit for all sales managers.

    Zenefits: Elizabeth Pierce, Director of Training and Enablement

    Elizabeth walked us through the sales onboarding program at Zenefits and the technology they rely on to get reps up to speed. From pitching, flashcards, quizzes, and more, the sales reps are fully supported by a variety of technology tools that help them ramp up faster.

    At Zenefits she implemented a 70:20:10 learning model that splits the time reps spent on different learning activities:

    70%: Experience (immersion, experiential learning, learn and develop through experience)

    20: Exposure (social learning, learning, and development through others, feedback, and coaching)

    10%: Education (formal learning, learning and development through structured courses and programs, in-house and outsourced training and e-learning)

    Key Learnings:

    • Leverage the technology your reps are comfortable with. At Zenefits most of the new hires are millennials and use SnapChat, so they created specific training that leverages the platform the team is comfortable with. It also has the added benefit of giving them 24 hours to see and act on a video or other training component. Very creative!
    • Link sales reward with certification. By linking opportunities in SFDC with sales certification, they ensure reps can only see sales opportunities if they keep their sales certification up to date (as soon as their certification expires, they lose visibility into new opportunities).
    • Ramp time needs to match the company’s stage. Startups can’t wait 9 months for a rep to be fully ramped. Your ramp time needs to acknowledge your company’s stage in growth and lifecycle.
    • Use ongoing assessments in the form of short quizzes to keep reps on top of their game and share the data with the sales manager so they have full visibility.

    The post Sales Onboarding at Hyper-Growth Companies: Key Learnings from Autodesk, Google, LinkedIn and Zenefits appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    In conversation with Jeremy Powers on Sales Enablement at MongoDB https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/mongodb-sales-enablement/ Mon, 05 Dec 2016 12:41:04 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/mongodb-sales-enablement/ This post is based on a podcast on MongoDB’s formula for sales enablement success. You can listen to the entire podcast here . MongoDB is the database for giant ideas. It offers the best features of traditional databases while providing the flexibility, scale, and performance that modern applications require. It is known for helping its …

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    MongoDB sales enablementThis post is based on a podcast on MongoDB’s formula for sales enablement success. You can listen to the entire podcast

    here

    .
    MongoDB is the database for giant ideas. It offers the best features of traditional databases while providing the flexibility, scale, and performance that modern applications require. It is known for helping its customers gain a competitive advantage by leveraging information and technology. It helps customers reduce their risk for mission-critical deployments and accelerates their time to value, enabling them to bring new and interesting apps to market faster. It also dramatically reduces the total cost of ownership across an organization by harnessing the innovations of the NoSQL world and maintaining the core tenets of relational databases.

    The company is expanding globally and hiring new sales staff to keep up with its phenomenal growth trajectory. It is seeking more enterprise-ready salespeople to help more organizations leverage their product to scale faster and achieve success.

    Maintaining sales effectiveness is a challenge

    The key challenge MongoDB faces as it scales is maintaining the effectiveness of its sales team,

    “We have to have a very effective onboarding program and support sales to be more effective, be more productive. That’s the main goal and that’s our focus,”

    outlines Jeremy Powers who heads up Sales Enablement for the company.

    “The goal is to provide the sales team with an in-depth understanding of the industry, our customers, our technology and our solution sets. We then build upon that baseline and knowledge to equip our reps to consistently qualify for opportunities and getting and setting great meetings with the right people. Then ultimately prepare them to engage in highly effective, highly valuable conversations with prospects.  Ultimately we want to arm our sales team to not only differentiate themselves based on what we sell but also based on how they sell and how they interact with the customer. We want to provide an environment through our onboarding program where they can practice these things and really receive feedback, valuable feedback as part of the process,”

    explains Powers.

    Onboarding, advanced training, and analytics are key to sales effectiveness

    MongoDB has taken a three-pronged approach that leverages technology to maintain and improve the sales effectiveness of its sales team.

    Onboarding sets the baseline

    MongoDB has established a 30, 60 and 90-day onboarding program. In their first month, new hires attend a week-long boot camp. Prior to attending the Bootcamp the new hires use Mindtickle to read up on pre-work so they have a baseline knowledge before attending in-person training.

    “We have tried to put participants in the best possible position to succeed and get the most out of the training, the pre-work really provides a great foundation upon which they can build,”

    explains Powers.

    “It introduces new folks to all kinds of things: the industry, our customers, what we sell and how we sell it. It’s a very comprehensive program that also allows them to do missions that are really effective and provides an opportunity for sales reps to really try things on, have them record themselves delivering a customer success story or proof points.”

    Mindtickle is then leveraged to deliver follow-up courses and advanced training, along with new product releases and information to keep sellers up to date.

    Advanced sales training brings in real-world learnings

    Everyone undertakes advanced sales training within their first 6 months. This is a three-day comprehensive deep dive that builds on their onboarding and learnings from the real world. This boot camp style training is delivered by a cross-functional group that includes executives, sales leaders, product marketing and the sales enablement team.

    “We’ve really made the choice, as a company, to make a significant investment in our time and our resources, in order to provide a great development opportunity for our sales team. In fact, we ran the numbers on this and we spent over 6 times the industry average on developing our sellers and that is something we are really proud of,”

    explains Powers.

    Mindtickle is leveraged again in the advanced training to deliver relevant content, conduct missions and deliver feedback to management and the sales enablement team.

    Accountability and constant evaluation keep the team on track

    To help keep reps accountable MongoDB leverages Mindtickle’s functionality.

    “We really believe in setting clear expectations and a standard of accountability and this like anything else really starts with the sales leaders. We refer to it as leading from the front,”

    explains Powers.

    “When we look at performance to really evaluate how can we move the needle with specific sales teams and sales reps, objectively we have been able to gauge the degree to which folks really understand and complete the pre-work and quizzes through Mindtickle. We can leverage things called missions in which we have reps record themselves delivering customer success stories that they learn or delivering a standard pitch. Accessibility to items like abaya vaate on garazastyle.fi crucial, mirroring the necessity for specific tools in diverse practices. We get feedback and managers can also see how someone’s tracking.”

    “In Bootcamp we have an entrance exam to kick things off and the much anticipated final exam towards the end of the week. These things give us a really good sense of, Is this sinking in? Is it sticking?”

    explains Powers.

    “There is a feedback mechanism that we have in place to capture all this data and anecdotal stuff as well, and then feed that into the follow-up process. In terms of adoption and reinforcement, we leverage Mindtickle in a spaced learning concept keeping the contents and concepts top of mind.”

    New hire ramp-up time has reduced from 11 to 5 months

    This comprehensive program has really started to deliver results for MongoDB, allowing them to reduce their ramp-up time for new hires from over 11 months to just 5 months.

    “I think the thing that really set us apart is being able to identify where people are struggling, giving them the support they need, and keeping things recent and relevant. Staying up with new things, new and interesting and great things that we are releasing in the product that address more and more customer problems. Helping them to achieve business outcomes and really being able to attach to that and enable reps to have great conversations. We really find that this process dramatically improved our onboarding,”

    explains Powers.

    By using the data within Mindtickle MongoDB has been able to provide data to its managers that give them the ability to really focus in on how to improve the effectiveness of each individual rep.

    “The great part about it [Mindtickle] is that we are able to take all the data points like the exams and the minor feedbacks from the final presentations and really give managers some great direction. Hey what are the key things that you need to focus on, where are the knowledge gaps, and really equipping and arming them to have a great targeted approach in how they coach and develop their teams,”

    explains Powers.

    The post In conversation with Jeremy Powers on Sales Enablement at MongoDB appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    How Field Sales Enablement Differs from Inside Sales Enablement https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-does-field-sales-enablement-differ-from-inside-sales-enablement/ Mon, 05 Dec 2016 12:00:23 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/how-does-field-sales-enablement-differ-from-inside-sales-enablement/ Sales Enablement needs of field reps are far more complex than that of inside sales teams. Inside teams are in close proximity to their managers and mentors. Field reps, more often than not, are left to their own devices to ensure their readiness to close a deal. Knowledge baselining and message calibration For large events such as …

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    Sales Enablement needs of field reps are far more complex than that of inside sales teams. Inside teams are in close proximity to their managers and mentors. Field reps, more often than not, are left to their own devices to ensure their readiness to close a deal.

    Difference_between_inside_sales_enablement_field_salesKnowledge baselining and message calibration

    For large events such as onboarding or a new product launch, businesses often prefer to interact in person so field reps are flown in, taking them away from valuable selling time at considerable expense. As inside teams are often located in the same place, these initiatives still require an investment of time, but it’s generally far less disruptive than for their field counterparts.

    It’s one thing to fly reps in, but to then convey a large volume of information and expect them to digest it, take it back to the field and apply it is a big ask. The forgetting curve kicks in if there is not adequate reinforcement, which often means the new knowledge isn’t applied in sales conversations. As inside reps are in close contact with their peers and their manager, there is more opportunity for these issues to be identified and addressed quickly. That’s why it’s more important to consider how to make baselining and calibration more effective for field sales teams.

    One way that’s proved to be effective, while also making use of the valuable time in the office, is to use a

    flipped classroom

    . This approach allows you to actually calibrate and get the reps on the message rather than just talking them through it from a lectern. Where it’s possible, like before a sales kickoff, you can even give them some pre-work so they already have some background knowledge before attending the sessions.

    Refreshing

    To overcome the forgetting curve refreshing is important for both field and inside sales reps, and the same techniques are effective for both teams. The main difference for field sales reps is that the way the information is reinforced needs to fit in with their work day. This is where leveraging technology that enables reinforcement initiatives to be mobile is helpful. The technologies can be applied just as readily to inside sales, which makes it more efficient for the sales enablement team as well.

    Communication

    Because field reps are often physically isolated from their colleagues and managers, communication plays a crucial role in their sales readiness. And when you’re communicating something you want to ensure that every update is applied to sales conversations in a consistent way across the region. Because sales managers can’t have these conversations in person with their field reps technology is the best bridge to meet this challenge. But before turning to technology, it’s important to have clarity on what type of behavior you’re hoping to achieve and how the information needs to be used by the reps, as this will dictate the design of your communication program.

    For example, if your team’s win rate vis a vis a competitor is on the decline and you learn some new insights about the competitor that may be useful, you need to determine the most effective way to communicate this. One way could be to just tell them the information like “Competitor X has launched a new feature”. This disseminates the information but doesn’t help you understand or control how each of your reps uses the information.

    Some effective ways that this could be communicated include videoing an example of how the information could be leveraged in a customer discussion. Alternatively, you could set a small mission for your reps, where they video how they would handle a customer objection using the competitor information. This provides you with a way to actually see how they apply the information and provide actionable feedback.

    Another aspect that can be helpful is reverse communication. Again technology can be leveraged to poll reps to obtain their feedback on important issues. This can also increase engagement by giving them an opportunity to be heard.

    Similarly, success stories are another great way to share information peer to peer. So if a rep in Boston has a big win they can make a short video explaining how they did it so reps in San Francisco can learn and use those special nuggets in their customer conversations.

    Coaching and Accountability

    Coaching is very challenging for managers of field sales teams, but it’s critical for reps to receive actionable feedback on their command of message and process. As managers aren’t able to monitor or see what their field reps are doing every day, technology is an important tool that can help them coach and evaluate performance effectively.

    In many companies, sales enablement looks after organization-wide coaching and accountability initiatives, but there’s still a large role for sales managers in one on one coaching. For example, there may be local factors that influence customer conversations, such as a specific competitor, that require coaching on message. In these instances, technology allows managers to set localized missions to train their people. They may select a specific topic for a week and roll out a role play for the reps that it’s relevant to. The manager can then evaluate them and provide feedback at an individual level, even if they’re in a different city, state or country. It’s a powerful way to incrementally improve the performance of their team members and identify and address weaknesses before they become larger issues.


    The post How Field Sales Enablement Differs from Inside Sales Enablement appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    What Is The Future of HR? https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/future-hr/ Sat, 12 Nov 2016 08:47:29 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/future-hr/ There has not been a better time to work in HR. What we do quite literally makes or breaks a company. If we can’t attract, train, and retain the best talent, then the company will lose ground rapidly. HR is undergoing change. Not just small-scale change, but a fundamental seismic shift. A change that will …

    The post What Is The Future of HR? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    HR - Mindtickle

    There has not been a better time to work in HR.

    What we do quite literally makes or breaks a company. If we can’t attract, train, and retain the best talent, then the company will lose ground rapidly.

    HR is undergoing change. Not just small-scale change, but a fundamental seismic shift. A change that will see traditional HR falling behind and be replaced by new, skilled HR, ready to change the future of HR. In particular, everything from technology to social media and distributed workspaces has a major impact in the way we hire, train, and retain the millennial workforce.

    According to Deloitte, 91% of Millennials expect to stay in their current job for 3 years or less, with 45% of companies reporting higher turnover rates among this group vs. other generations. When looking at the future of HR, it is critical to understand that Millennials behave differently and need different types of solutions to stay engaged at work.

    What are the top 3 trends that you see shaping the HR landscape?

    Nisha: I’m seeing a shift where HR is getting transitioned into a true business partner who not only understands HR implications but also the core business operations as well. HR is now more connected to how the whole business is functioning, how the business is making revenue, and why the organization works the way it does. Knowing this, HR can more effectively manage the human capital needs of the organization. In fact,  human capital is one of the top three challenges for CEOs globally. So HR professionals who have a phenomenal knowledge of what’s happening at the bottom level can manage human capital needs based on business needs.

    The other trend that I wanted to highlight is that HR is becoming more data-driven. Using data and analytics, HR is able to make accurate projections and take front decisions to lead the change that helps the organization achieves success. In fact, while we’re talking about HR transformation, one of the key competencies for transforming HR is the ability to analyze data effectively, find answers to those key business questions, and then manage people to achieve success.

    When Google initially launched People Analytics as a tool to make their human capital decisions, it was an alien strategy for most of the companies out there. Now, more and more companies are using workforce analytics to predict the future needs and make decisions accordingly. For example, you can find out if there are any talent shortages that are going to happen in the future and if so, what type of talent or what type of skills would the organization require in the future. Can that talent be trained in the organization? If not, where we can we find them? All these questions can be answered by using data and analytics, and HR is becoming more data-driven.

    The third trend is that I’m now noticing is that HR is becoming more specialized. Because, as we’ve seen, more and more new roles are emerging in the HR industry like recruitment marketing, employer branding, and HR analytics or data analytics. I want to highlight one of the recent studies conducted by Bersin Associate, which is a Deloitte company. They say that ‘ 7% of HR’s real value comes from its role as an internal people operations team: more than 5 times its value comes from its role in supporting, developing, and identifying leaders’.

    So in the future, business leaders want HR professionals to be specialists who have in-depth knowledge in data analysis, who know how to assess talent and how to build compelling employer brand, and who can handle the HR technology as well.

    What is the role of technology in HR of the future?

    Nisha: That’s a great question. As we all know, technology is an enabler, right? Being in the HR industry, I know it’s impossible to run an HR function without multiple technologies. When it comes to HR technology, the good thing is that all the new technologies are highly integrated into letting the HR professional see the trends and insights. This is really crucial going forward for HR to be able to make decisions and manage human capital.

    From identifying talent to handling the employee lifecycle management, maintaining workforce data to analyzing the talent trends and facilitating online training, technology is playing a great role. An organization with the right type of talent who knows how to make the most of HR technologies are bound to succeed. That being said, as an HR person I should definitely say this, technology cannot replace the human element.

    There are some particular areas where HR interaction is a must have. For example, the one-on-one interaction between the employee and the manager. It is also needed during retention issues or if there’s any conflict resolution needed.

    But as a whole, HR is evolving and technology has and will continue to impact the way HR drives business outcomes from employee onboarding to continuing skill development and beyond.

    How has social media, social conversation, and digital in general influenced HR leadership and how will this continue to evolve?

    Nisha: Social media, in general, has influenced the way HR attracts, hires, and engages talent. It is a competitive advantage to build a compelling, authentic, and genuine employer brand and attract talent. The greatest impact that I see right now is organizations can have some control over how their organization is perceived as a workplace, by providing content on social media.

    For example, from a tweet that talks about how excited to work at the organization, to an employee sharing a photograph of their work desk, or an employee letting their audience know how they have fun working at your organization.

    For instance the employer branding approach of Zappos. They have actually created a separate Twitter handle for employer branding. If you haven’t checked it out, you should check it out – it’s @InsideZappos. Their ultimate goal is to let everyone know what life is really like at Zappos. How cool is that!

    They do a fun weekly tweet-chat where Zappos employees and HR team are available to talk to everyone and let their audience know how it’s like to work at their organization as well as what are the current possibilities that they’re exploring at their organization. This gives an opportunity for potential talent to interact with Zappos HR professionals and even employees.

    Let me make it clear. Social media is not just a tool to broadcast. Use it as a way to engage your audience – it’s a two-way communication.

    The use of social and digital will continue to evolve. As HR professionals, we’ll have to collaborate with marketing and learn some marketing skills to come up with compelling recruitment marketing techniques. We need to know how to make employer branding message reach our target audience in general.

    Companies are using social media as a tool to identify cultural fit as well. Going through candidates social profiles now recruiters know what the candidates are like. For example, going through a Facebook feeds of a candidate, you can get to know a little more about candidate’s interests and passions. All the data is exposed on social media and that’s what recruiters are really looking for. What type of person is this candidate? Is he going to be a right fit for the organization? Is he going to mash up with the culture of the organization? That’s going to be an initial key in choosing a candidate. After that, once he comes for an interview, the recruiter or HR will be able to ask him behavioral and technical questions to identify the cultural fit and competence.

    How can HR leaders prepare for the future?

    Nisha: One of the top talent issues that is keeping business leaders up at night is the widening skills gap among HR professionals. One of the things organizations should do is to have a professional development or career advancement program for all employees across business functions. When it comes to HR, it’s not that prevalent out there. I really wanted to shout out to all the HR leaders out there to have a professional development program for your HR team in order to prepare them for the competencies that are going to be required in the future.HR is about the intersection of people with business, strategy, and technology. Keep your fingers on the pulse of these three factors and Understand what is important for your company in terms of HR are be open to all the changes that are happening in your industry, you’ll succeed for sure. crypto and blockchain media source https://cryptofingers.com/news provides trending crypto news and latest updates on Bitcoin, ETH, Solana and trading

    Thank you for your insight Nisha!

    Nisha Raghavan - MindtickleNisha Raghavan, Founder & host of India HR LIVE, is a Global HR professional with extensive experience in handling Talent Management, Employee Engagement, and Cultural diversity in the workplace. After having worked in Corporate India for a while, she moved to The United States and talks about her Global HR experiences on her blog.

    The post What Is The Future of HR? appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Employee Onboarding Experts on Building a Great Experience in New Hire Onboarding https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/employee-onboarding-experts-building-great-pre-join-experience-new-hire-onboarding/ Fri, 14 Oct 2016 00:55:01 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/employee-onboarding-experts-building-great-pre-join-experience-new-hire-onboarding/ Effective onboarding is the cornerstone of human capital management. There’s no doubt that it sets the tone and in many cases can also set the trajectory for new hires joining your organization. According to an Aberdeen Onboarding Benchmark report, “New employees often feel that the attention they receive during the pre-hire stages is abandoned once …

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    Effective onboarding is the cornerstone of human capital management. There’s no doubt that it sets the tone and in many cases can also set the trajectory for new hires joining your organization.

    According to an Aberdeen Onboarding Benchmark report, “New employees often feel that the attention they receive during the pre-hire stages is abandoned once they are hired.” In Fortune 500 companies alone, about 500,000 managers take on new roles each year and, overall, managers begin new jobs every two to four years. Unfortunately, in the midst of all these transitions:

    • Half of all senior outside hires fail within 18 months in a new position
    • Half of all hourly workers leave new jobs within the first 120 days

    Screen Shot 2014-10-08 at 12.28.19 PM

    Source: Aberdeen Group, The Onboarding Benchmark Report

    What we want to avoid is new hires feeling that your organization is not meeting the expectations set by the hiring process. Fortunately, this challenge can be overcome with investment in a pre-join program. Pre-join is the time between the employee accepting the offer of employment and starting in your company on day one. For most companies, the pre-join investment includes checklists with tasks like ‘get your email set up, take a drug test, and register for your employee number’. If this doesn’t sound inspiring, that’s because it isn’t.

    For more inspired ways to deliver an excellent pre-join new hire onboarding experience, we decided to speak with two experts: Mohit Garg, Co-Founder of Mindtickle and Todd Raphael, Chief Editor at ERE. Ere is the premier resource for the employment, HR, and recruiting world.

    Read on for our conversation!

    In your experience, can organizations benefit from engaging with new hires between the offer and the first day of work? How does this help the new hire?

    Mohit Garg: Modern-day talent development is about keeping your employee at the center of the experience. It’s important to treat every new hire as a new customer that you are prospecting or pitching and, like a marketing campaign, invest in building the relationship through referral and retention. When you look through this lens, it is similar to onboarding a new customer. You want the experience to be high touch and ensure that expectations are met.

    In many ways, your new hire is forming an opinion about your organization before the hiring process begins. Research from Aberdeen Group shows that employees make a  decision to work with a company long-term within three months of joining an organization! They are asking, “Is this consistent with my expectations?” They are comparing your organization’s values to their worldview and value system.

    The pre-join phase is an opportunity to engage your new hire with the value proposition of the business. You can show new employees what it means to work in your organization by starting your new hires off in an excited and positive state of mind.  Focus on fostering a strong appetite to learn and get engaged. Having info on what to expect can reduce your new hire’s anxiety on day one.

    Todd Raphael: I agree that investing in the pre-join experience is a great opportunity to invest in your new hires. However, it’s important to really consider your approach and ensure that your pre-join experience is relevant and voluntary.

    For example, you don’t want to bombard your new hire with parties and conference calls. You are supposed to get to know people as you join a new company, but it is important to be aware that when people leave a job, they sometimes need time before starting. Sometimes you just want a vacation and to be with your friends and family. You don’t want to create a pre-join experience that makes the candidate feel like it is controlling their life.

    Instead, ask someone what their availability is. This allows them to set aside time in a way that makes sense for them. Just be careful about making them feel like this is going to take over their life.

    What are the activities that organizations can deliver during the pre-joining period?

    Mohit Garg: Let’s look at this from the perspective of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. At the basic level, a new hire needs to understand how the organization offers an opportunity for a secure life for their family. At the next level, an employee is concerned with work-life balance as well as how to further learning and their future career. They want to align their aspirations with the business. The third level is for new hire self-actualization with the new hire thinking about corporate social responsibility and the ecological footprint of the business. They want to know how the business is investing in the community and working with employee partners in charity opportunities.

    You want to try to hit on all three levels of Maslow’s hierarchy with a readily available pre-join program that communicates the value proposition of the business. Incorporate success examples. For example, show the “12-year employee story” featuring a long-time respected employee in the business. You can also show how the organization is making the world a better place with stories of how the business supports the community. Think of it as a welcome package with continued engagement, delivered through multiple channels – email, print materials, and online communities.

    Todd Raphael: Here are some more ideas. You can facilitate many activities online. Sodexo and ADP send newsletters to employees and send a modified version to potential employees – of course, you want to make sure that it is relevant. You could have future employees meet their future co-workers in a private online group or use Twitter or other social media to have current employees welcome future employees. Put together a document, an email, or a video with half a dozen employees talking about what they are doing and what they are excited about.

    Make an inspiring video. For example, if you are a shoe company, you can feature an inspiring athlete who has used your shoes. If you provide medical devices, show a patient that has benefited. This can be really inspiring. In every industry, you have former customers, buyers, and partners. Show the impact your business is making on the world to future employees.

    In terms of offline activities, you could Invite your new hire to company calls and get-togethers, but again be respectful of time. Check in with the new hire and see how they are feeling. Allow time for a check-in to address any concerns they may have before the first day.

    Another angle to consider is your current employees. When a new employee starts, the employer is often thinking about how to make the experience good for them, but they don’t think about current employees who are often nervous. The current employee may be thinking: are they going to be promoted in my place? Are they a threat?

    To address this, consider communicating what the new employee’s role is all about. Make your current team member feel valued. Work on reducing their anxiety and nervousness.

    How can you influence the possibility of employee retention during pre-join?

    Todd Raphael: The problem starts pretty early for external hires. It stems from when they get to work and it isn’t like what they expected. Start with setting expectations early. To get a handle on expectations, talk to your own employees and see what they experienced. You might find out things you didn’t know about the new hire experience and then you can tailor accordingly.

    Also, there may be an opportunity for long-time employees to be involved. Have the new hire meet up with a mentor for coffee during pre-join. This is often more beneficial than the new hire meeting with their future manager who may be busy or not as good at coaching. The new hire benefits from knowing that they can ask questions of someone who can advise them but is not connected to hiring and firing.

    Mohit Garg: To add to Todd’s point, you also have to consider what stage the employee is in and connect the pre-join to the post-join experience. This requires communication between human resources, recruiting, and learning and development as the new hire get handed off to different groups throughout the new hire onboarding experience. A seamless view of the new hire experience is needed.

    Typically only public domain material is available. Once they are inside the building, then proprietary information is then made available. So one of the challenges for businesses in the pre-join period is having a way to deliver access to secure company information before day one.

    Secure online learning platforms like Mindtickle enable you to provide links to private information with a pre-join program login. This provides an opportunity for motivated new hires to learn as much as they want before formal new hire orientation starts.

    Using gamification in a pre-join program, you can begin to identify the strengths of new hires beyond what you know from the interview process. It also allows employees to self-select and show progress as part of the pre-join experience. New hire self-selection and performance on learning modules can be good indicators in order to skill matching. This can help retention in the long run.

    What is the best way for organizations get started developing a pre-join program?

    Todd Raphael: Human resources managers should speak with recruiters to get a sense of what would be good. Look at your company’s history with pre-join and new hire onboarding to figure out what the gaps are. You are looking for what prospective employees are concerned about.

    You might also look at Glassdoor to see what are people saying about your company. Don’t forget to talk to your current employees as they are a valuable resource in creating a strong pre-join experience!

    Mohit Garg: It is also important to begin by looking at the mix of hires joining your organization. For example, are the entry-level hires or lateral hires? These segments have different needs. You have to treat entry-level campus hires differently than lateral recruiting hires that come to the business with more experience. Technology can help you deliver a flexible experience that recognizes differences in new hire needs. Technology can help automate the order and priority for pre-join content delivery.

    Next, you can implement a small pilot and have pre-join new hires go through it. You can get feedback and ensure that target outcomes are being achieved. Start with a geography or a region and scale from there.

    Thank you, Todd and Mohit for your helpful insight on building a great new hire pre-join experience!

    What are your thoughts on more inspired ways to deliver an excellent pre-join new hire onboarding experience? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section.

    Todd RaphaelTodd Raphael is a widely cited/quoted figure in the employment/HR/recruiting world and is the Chief Editor at ERE. Find ERE at www.ere.net.
    Mohit GargMohit Garg is the Co-Founder of Mindtickle. Prior to co-founding Mindtickle, he served as a Director in PwC’s management consulting practice in New York. He was awarded “Entrepreneur of the Year” by Startup Leadership Program (SLP) in 2012. Mr. Garg holds an MBA degree from ISB and an MSEE from Stanford University.





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    New Employee Orientation for Remote Members of Your Team https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/new-employee-orientation-for-remote-members-of-your-team/ Sun, 02 Oct 2016 07:58:27 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/new-employee-orientation-for-remote-members-of-your-team/ While having remote team members is often more cost effective for businesses than having in-office employees, it is important for you to remember that such individuals are humans with human needs! Remote members must become part of their teams in spirit as much as in name before you can expect productivity on par with team …

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    While having remote team members is often more cost effective for businesses than having in-office employees, it is important for you to remember that such individuals are humans with human needs! Remote members must become part of their teams in spirit as much as in name before you can expect productivity on par with team members that are all in an office together.
    Even though welcoming remote employees into their teams is an ongoing process that cannot be completed in a single step, providing an outstanding new employee orientation experience is the right place to start. In order to help your employees have an ideal new employee orientation, we’ll cover the challenges and successes of remote employee onboarding.

    Challenges to Remote Employee Onboarding

    There are challenges to bringing remote employees onboard that are not present for their on-site counterparts. One obvious challenge is that communication is more difficult! Unlike their live counterparts, remote employees are less often able to digest information verbally or in context. Fortunately, this challenge is not insurmountable and you can overcome this with a little extra effort!

    Achieving New Employee Orientation Success With Remote Team Members

    In order for remote new employee orientation to succeed, it must meet a couple of basic conditions:
    1.  Hire Self Motivated Resources: In the hiring process make sure that your screen to hire the services of remote employees who are both capable and self-motivated with a history of strong performance.
    2. Onboard and Introduce Step by Step: Provide remote employees with the means of carrying out their duties with the right remote communication tools. Have a series of steps in place to help remote employees integrate into their assigned teams. Having formal procedures in place means that you will be better able to ease them into their positions so that the learning process is as smooth and uncomplicated as possible. Separating the onboarding experience into smaller and less complicated steps makes new employee orientation more manageable.
    3. Set Up Well Defined Processes and Set Expectations: Remote employees with thrive with the support of defined business processes and clear expectations. This means less room for expensive mistakes and misinterpretations. Help remote employees understand how their team’s function, connect them with the individuals on their teams and plug them into vital team communications so that they can be productive and comfortable with their role as quickly as possible.
    4. Communicate Well: The problems of remote communication can be remedied with clear communication. For example, you want to remain in contact with remote employees as much as possible, both to monitor their progress and to resolve their concerns. Email, instant messaging, conferencing and project management tools remain excellent tools for keeping in touch, but you can also use Skype and similar services to replicate in-person meetings as much as possible. Relationship building is a key benefit of in-person meetings, so you want to strive to offer as much relationship building opportunities as possible!
    5. Get Feedback: Finally, ask remote employees about their opinions on the onboarding experience. This information is invaluable and should be used to improve over time.
    Helping your remote team members feel like they are an important part of your team starting in the new hire orientation is both the right thing and the smart thing to do!

    What steps are you taking to make your remote team members feel important during new hire orientation? 

    The post New Employee Orientation for Remote Members of Your Team appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    10 Millennial Personality Traits That HR Managers Can’t Ignore https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/10-millennial-personality-traits-hr-managers-cant-ignore/ Thu, 01 Sep 2016 22:37:59 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/10-millennial-personality-traits-hr-managers-cant-ignore/ According to research, 91% of Millennials expect to stay in their current job for three years or less, with 45% of companies reporting higher turnover rates among this group vs. other generations. They have no problem leaving a job for one that will be more accommodating to their millennial characteristics such as personal values and …

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    According to research, 91% of Millennials expect to stay in their current job for three years or less, with 45% of companies reporting higher turnover rates among this group vs. other generations. They have no problem leaving a job for one that will be more accommodating to their millennial characteristics such as personal values and ambitions, holding these at a premium over career advancement in their current company. While Millennials are ambitious to move up in their careers, loyalty to the organization is not a particularly strong value.

    If this is setting off your alarms, you are not the only one. Many hiring managers are concerned with the rapid job turnover of Millennials. You already know the impact of losing an employee after a short time after having invested in their learning and development.

    It is critical to understand Millennial characteristics and how to keep them engaged at work.

    Irrespective of the long-term aims and ambitions of an individual company, the ability to attract and retain millennial talent will be a vital step to achieving it. 

     – PwC’s 14th Annual Global CEO Survey

    Here are 10 key personality traits human resources managers and learning and development professionals should understand when cultivating today’s Millennials to be tomorrow’s business leaders.

    1. Millennial characteristics: motivated by meaning

    What else do they want for career happiness? Millennials are constantly on the lookout for a job that provides more “meaning”. What does “meaning” mean, exactly? Through interviews, Fast Company uncovered that meaningful work allows you to:

    1. Share your gifts
    2. Make an impact in the lives of others
    3. Live your desired quality of life.

    Getting these three components to align is the goal, but it’s certainly not easy. Millennials derive a sense of meaning from helping others, with 84% agreeing with the statement, “Knowing I am helping to make a positive difference in the world is more important to me than professional recognition.”

    Finding meaning in their work isn’t just a “wouldn’t it be nice” factor – it’s fundamental. 77% of Millennials stated that their ability to excel in their job is contingent upon deriving meaning from their work. Unfortunately, less than half report feeling that they actually get this sense of “meaning”. Clearly, the structures currently in place by most organizations to motivate Millennials simply aren’t cutting it.

    According to the 2013 Millennial Impact Research Report, organizations will know their message is resonating when Millennials are compelled to share their content. It’s an instant feedback loop that tells organizations what this audience finds interesting and worth disseminating. Sharing, in fact, is a form of indirect advocacy, in that it furthers education about the cause and draws other people to the issue.

    2. Millennials challenge hierarchical structures

    Millennials aren’t afraid to share their opinions and ideas, nor challenge those of their superiors. This comes not from a disdain for authority, but from the notion that the best possible outcome for the company will come from listening to everybody’s point of view.

    They prefer a cross-functional way of working that transcends the constraints of rank, genuinely believing this is better for the business than blindly following orders passed down from the top of the totem pole.

    3. Millennials want a relationship with their boss

    Millennials want a manager that they can regard as a mentor, even a friend. They want to feel comfortable asking for feedback and advice and establishing a rapport of frequent communication. They work best in companies where they feel they have a “work family”, with co-workers and superiors looking out for them as individuals, not just trying to retain them as a “resource”.

    4. Millennials are tech savvy, to say the least

    Millennials breathe technology – though that may be an understatement… 53% of millennials said they rather get rid of their sense of smell than their digital devices. These “digital natives” grew up playing educational games in middle school and expressing themselves on social media in high school. In the work setting, Millennials don’t just approve of using social media, they insist on it, with 56% saying they would not accept jobs from companies that ban social media. They disagree with the notion that social media is a productivity-suck, having a keen understanding of the many ways that it can support a company’s business goals. Millennials have a firm grasp on how to use these tools to do things like build relationships, crowdsource solutions and research information on demand.

    5. Millennials are open to change

    Millennials don’t agree with doing something a certain way just because that’s how it’s always been done. They recognize that the business and technology landscape is constantly changing and that our ways of working should change with them. This gives them the reputation of sticking their nose up at the status quo, but with how quickly things are changing – is this really a bad thing?

    6. Millennials are task (not time) oriented 

    69% of Millennials say they believe office attendance on a regular basis is unnecessary and 89% prefer to choose when and where they work rather than being placed in a 9-5 position. This is because they measure productivity by work completed, not by time spent in the office. They see no point in tracking an employee’s “facetime”, finding more importance in the actual value that he or she delivers to the organization. They are comfortable telecommuting and don’t mind working late nights and weekends, while recognizing the importance of taking personal time to recharge, for themselves and for their work. The ability to be flexible with when and where they do their work allows them to make more room for family and personal pursuits, aspects which they hold in high regard. For this reason, 45% of Millennials will choose a workplace with more flexibility over one with higher pay

    7. Millennials have a hunger for learning 

    Just because Millennials are out of college, doesn’t mean they want to be done with learning. In fact, a strong millennial characteristic is that they are eager to continue expanding their skill sets and amassing knowledge, and holding intellectual stimulation as a top factor in workplace motivation.

    Beyond understanding how to perform a task – Millennials want to know why. 95% said that they are motivated to work harder when they understand the importance of a particular task within the context of the company’s big-picture goals.

    Also, social media is a key channel for learning and information transfer. According to the 2013 Millennial Impact Research Report, Millennials who want constant updates on an organization no longer rely on or return to websites to receive that information. Instead, they use websites first to learn about the organization, and then to connect with its social networks to stay updated. The smoother and more integrated the online experience, the better.

    8. Millennials crave constant feedback

    80% of Millennials said they want to receive regular feedback from their managers. They don’t want to have to wait for their mid-year review, preferring to receive bite-size feedback more often. They want to have clarity on how they’re doing day-by-day, seeing performance management as an ongoing journey, vs. a one-off event.

    9. Millennials want recognition

    Millennials also expect recognition for their hard work and accomplishments, with 89% saying a reward should be given for a job well done. This isn’t because this generation is needy and self-centered, rather – it’s because they crave indications that their superiors approve of their work. Unlike previous generations, they’re not holding off for the promotions and raises promised down the road – they want to know if they’re being successful today.

    10. Millennials (don’t just) want to have fun!

    Arguably, everyone wants to have fun – but Millennials want and even expect it in the workplace. With their less formal, task-oriented approach to work – they want to be able to have light moments in the workplace. This shouldn’t be confused with laziness or lack of professionalism – indeed, Millennials find business value in bonding with teammates and taking a break for creative inspiration. Not surprisingly, 90% of Millennials want their workplace to be social and fun, and 88% say that a positive company culture is essential to their dream job.

    Next steps for learning and development professionals

    So what does this mean for learning and development professionals? You can start by nailing down the following points for a successful Millennial learning and development plan described in this recent report by PWC:

    • Provide mentoring and coaching. Millennials respond well to mentoring from more experienced employees. They would like to see their manager as a coach who supports them in their professional development – just keep in mind that they generally prefer to learn by the application than by being told what to do.
    • Set clear targets and offer regular and structured feedback. Millennials welcome and expect detailed regular feedback. 51% of those questioned said feedback should be given very frequently or continually on the job and only 1% said feedback was not important to them. That’s huge!
    • Cultivate an environment of continuous learning. Millennials expect ongoing learning as they enter the workplace and spend a high proportion of their time absorbing new information. 35% said they were attracted to employers who offer excellent training and development programs for this reason and saw it as the top benefit they wanted from an employer.
    • Invest in learning technology. Millennials respond well to a range of digital learning styles and delivery methods, which might include online learning modules, webinars or interactive game-play. They are innately collaborative and accustomed to learning in teams and by doing.
    • Offer training in workplace behavior and culture. Human resources leaders have found that millennials often require training in fundamental workplace behavior and culture. Because they are accustomed to instant responses when they chat with friends via text, they may not realize that older workers do not always treat messages with the same urgency.

    By understanding the millennial generation characteristics outlined above, companies can address the professional values that make this demographic so different from past generations.

    The post 10 Millennial Personality Traits That HR Managers Can’t Ignore appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    Need Help Creating a New Hire Training Program? Try These Shortcuts https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/need-help-creating-new-hire-training-programtry-shortcuts/ Fri, 01 Jul 2016 00:26:20 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/need-help-creating-new-hire-training-programtry-shortcuts/ Do you find it a struggle to come up with material for your new hire training program? Perhaps you’re putting off developing a new hire training program because the idea of developing the modules from scratch is an overwhelming prospect. A ton of time can be involved with developing a new hire training program completely …

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    New Hire Training Program - Mindtickle Do you find it a struggle to come up with material for your new hire training program? Perhaps you’re putting off developing a new hire training program because the idea of developing the modules from scratch is an overwhelming prospect. A ton of time can be involved with developing a new hire training program completely from scratch. However, there are ways to greatly speed up the process. One of the best ways to jumpstart your efforts is evaluating your existing content and seeing how it can be repurposed as part of your new hire orientation program. You may be overlooking high quality existing content that you already have at your disposal! Save precious time and effort by using these shortcuts that can help you quickly repurpose content for your new hire training program.

    Create Your Training Plan

    Effective employees and happy customers are the lifeblood of a successful business. This is why it is important to create a training plan that creates both effective employees and satisfied customers. Most training programs are adequate and packed with lots of great content. However, a successful program is not just about content, but also the delivery. No matter how great the content is, it is only useful to the extent that the trainees will grasp and use it. The secret to successful training lies in combining valuable content with great presentation. Mindtickle has produced numerous blogs to help you create your training plan including:

    1. You Don’t Have to Be a Creative Genius to Design An Effective Online Training. This article provides useful tips on getting started on the creative canvas for your new hire training program.
    2. How to Measure the Impact of Your Training Program. This article shows you how to take practical steps up front to measure the ROI of your training.

    Auditing Your Existing Content

    Even though repurposing existing content can be a time saver, there is still work involved. Whether you are changing the format of the content or changing the target audience for your content, the next step after sketching your course is to start taking stock of the existing content you have and begin categorizing it. The points in the next section will help you gauge the value of your existing content as it relates to your new hire orientation plan.

    Get Employee Feedback

    Your existing employees can be a valued resource in helping you evaluate and repurpose your existing content. You can seek their feedback in determining whether or not the material is useful and engaging. You can also seek feedback in determining what type of information will need to be included as part of your training materials. You may want to use notecards, a whiteboard or online mind mapping tools to help organize your team’s thinking.

    Is the Content Ideal for Repurposing?

    When making a decision in reusing content, you want to creatively recycle old content into something that is new and fresh. Consider these questions:

    • Does the content contain information that would be useful to your new employees?
    • How much of the content would need to be modified to make it useful, fresh and current?
    • What stage of your learner’s journey does the content address? You may need to change the format and angle of your content to align with this.

    If the information contained in the content is really out of date, it might not be worth your time to make the extensive edits needed to bring it up to par. That could be compared to trying to repurpose an old Netscape Navigator instruction manual to help people learn how to use Google Chrome.

    5  Practical Ways to Repurpose Content

    Having a variety of learning paths can be effective in reaching employees with different experiences before starting their new role. Here are some practical ways to spruce up your content while considering the journey that will get them successfully from point A to point B:

    1. If you have presentations explaining helpful concepts, convert them into helpful video tutorials.
    2. Add colorful visual aids to blog posts or written materials to convert them into them into checklists or guides.
    3. Organize related written pieces into a series that your learners can read them in sequence.
    4. Take key statistics from webinars and presentations and create reference infographics. Infographics can help new hires to view complex and complicated information in a clear, visually appealing, and simple format. Programs like Piktochart allow anyone to create their own infographics.
    5. Use existing related content to create a longer and more in-depth ebook.

    For your new hire training to reach its desired result, it will need to capture the attention of the new employee. Ensure that your modifications and the path you develop enable your new hires to see how the content connects to their assigned tasks and the goals you set in the first step. The shortcuts that we discussed will help you effectively use existing content in a fresh and relevant way. Instead of developing material completely from scratch, you can save precious time and resources by making repurposing your existing content. How have you been able to repurpose content as part of your new hire orientation? Share your comments below!

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    Your Best Employees are Your Best Trainers  https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/best-employees-best-trainers/ Sun, 05 Jun 2016 02:39:33 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/best-employees-best-trainers/ Your team is awesome. Each member is doing what they need to do to get the job done. However, over time you’ve come to realize that the even amongst your awesome team members, the differences in the way they approach their tasks to lead to varied results. E.g. the way Patrick completes a project is …

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    Best Employees - Mindtickle

    Your team is awesome. Each member is doing what they need to do to get the job done. However, over time you’ve come to realize that the even amongst your awesome team members, the differences in the way they approach their tasks to lead to varied results. E.g. the way Patrick completes a project is very different from the way that Veronica completes it. Also, Patrick and Veronica occasionally miss the mark on achieving the results you believe they should be achieving. On the other hand, when top performer Karen does a project, you are ecstatic. Karen gets amazing results to the point where the clients write rave reviews about her. You are now convinced – everyone needs to approach their projects more like Karen.

    Your top employees have the knowledge, understanding of company culture, and the personal touch that can help make your business more successful. The key is to unlock the potential of the best and brightest ideas from your team. With just a little effort, you can enlist the help of skilled employees to uplift the rest of the team to a new level of excellence.

    Imagine how standardizing your processes according to the best practices pioneered by top performers like Karen could help your employees work more efficiently and improve the performance. When your organization is quickly growing, and your team is doing ad-hoc solutions, it becomes increasingly difficult to make sure that the best ideas are diffused across your organization. This becomes ten times more challenging when you have multiple offices.

    Benefits of getting your top performers involved in the training process

    Getting your team involved in the training process will reap the following benefits:

    1. Effective application of the material. You can ensure that the employee not only gets the information but that they are also effectively applying it to their specific role when you have your top employees helping to train them. Getting the day to day application knowledge first hand from the people who use it daily is, quite simply, the best way to get them to hit the ground running.
    2. A more engaging experience. You are offering your team a more engaging learning and bonding experience when they can have a hands-on experience with a team member that currently knows the ins and outs of the company. It builds a more cohesive team for the employees to be learning from each other.
    3. Easier evaluation of employees. It is easier to evaluate the progress of employees when your established team members help with the training process because your experts know how the role should be performed and can clearly see any performance gaps in their trainees.
    4. Adds additional structure to the learning experience. It is also vital to involve your top employees who are already performing the job in the training process. One of the most effective ways to learn is to engage in intelligent conversation with an expert on a subject. Mentoring and shadowing are an excellent supplement to research and independent learning.
    5. Connects knowledge seekers to knowledge creators.You can tap into your top employees’ experiences by seeking their feedback in creating a training program that is specific to their function. They should also share their best practices and tips with the team.

    A word of warning – expert employees don’t automatically make expert trainers

    You might initially conclude that your most experienced employees would automatically make your best trainers. However, that is not automatically the case. Over time, we can develop what is referred to as an unconscious competence. We become so experienced that we can expertly accomplish the task without even thinking. E.g. we all seem to be able to type our passwords correctly without even having to think, but when we have to think of the password, it takes us a minute to remember it. Once you reach that level of unconscious competence, it can be difficult to train others. That process could be frustrating to both the trainer and the trainee. There are, however, ways to help turn expert employees who might not naturally be expert trainers into some of your company’s best training resources.

    How to help your expert employees be excellent trainers

    In order to properly utilize your employees as excellent trainers, you want to ensure that your employees have the following skills:

    • They know how to perform the necessary tasks.
    • They know how to explain the tasks.

    Both of those points are necessary in order to have your current employees truly be beneficial to your training program.

    If your expert employee knows how to perform the tasks, but is not fully prepared to explain the tasks you can:

    1. Have your employee participate in mock training sessions with their team members. These mock training sessions can help your employee gain valuable training experience and help to make them more comfortable with the training process. Also, it helps them understand their unconscious competence, and become aware of their own best practices that they have become habituated to.

    Action Item: Your expert employees can practice training others within their department different aspects of their role until they feel comfortable training on the same material.  Your employees can also provide valuable feedback to one another based on these mock training sessions.

    2. Seek the feedback of your employees to determine the strength and weakness of each potential trainer.  If you have employees that perform similar roles, you can have each employee train only the portions of the material that they both know how to perform and know how to explain.

    Action Item: If you have two-star employees that both perform sales, you can have each employee explain what they are comfortable teaching and have them train others together. This helps each of your star employees focus on their strengths with the safety of having their colleague there to help train on the things that they may not feel as confident about.

    3. Leverage psychology to help your current employees become expert trainers.  The issue may not be that your employee lacks the skill to be an excellent trainer, but that they lack the confidence or motivation to do so.  Leverage psychology to spark the internal drive of your employees.

    Action Item: Consider integrating game mechanics and social engagement such as points, medals, badges and leaderboards, social tools profiles, comments, chats, and walls. Your trainees can collaborate making learning more efficient, effective and delightful.

    Your best employees have the potential to be your best trainers. By utilizing your top employees, you can grant your organization access to the most efficient and successful ways of serving customers. How do you currently use your employees for training programs? Do you have any tips that you want to share? Leave your comments below!


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    How to Conduct Half Year Reviews For Your Sales Team https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-conduct-half-year-reviews-for-your-sales-team/ Fri, 03 Jun 2016 22:00:25 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/how-to-conduct-half-year-reviews-for-your-sales-team/ It’s nearly time for the bi-annual performance review performance again. As I pulled out data and started to fill out forms for each of my sales reps, I started to think about how much benefit this process provides to them and whether there’s a way to actually make the mid-year performance review process more relevant …

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    How to Conduct Half Yearly Reviews For Your Sales TeamIt’s nearly time for the bi-annual performance review performance again. As I pulled out data and started to fill out forms for each of my sales reps, I started to think about how much benefit this process provides to them and whether there’s a way to actually make the mid-year performance review process more relevant from a sales perspective.
    Turning to LinkedIn, I came across some interesting conversations on the way different managers approach reviews for their sales staff. The consensus seems to be that while a biannual review process may suit some business teams, it just isn’t adequate for sales managers. As David Collins Oliver observes, “The key is that if your sales manager is effective, they should be shadowing each salesperson periodically, doing quick one on ones, actively communicating with their team to truly understand the effectiveness of each salesperson. Thus, the one on ones should not be a major ordeal, unless of course the salesperson has not been performinng.
    Edmund Chien agrees that more regular reviews are necessary for sales managers, “We conduct weekly mini-reviews. It’s much better to make small adjustments than going the wrong way for 6 or 12 months.”
    In fact Brian Geery went as far as to say that you could almost do away with the biannual review process altogether:
    “If your sales manager(s) are providing regular coaching and if you have monthly sales activity goals and annual sales quotas, there is no need for a mid-year review.”
    However, others did offer some good thoughts on how to use the mid-year check-in to gather feedback and plan development opportunities. I really like this idea put forward by Craig Preston, “I think a great tool for mutual benefit is the 2-way review (allowing staff to also provide a review for management). This helps managers as well, and really aligns expectations of both salespeople and their managers.”
    What appeared clear from my research is that coaching and reviews go hand in hand, and they should be part of the day-to-day management of a sales rep.

    So How Often Should You Review Your Sales Reps?

    There really are no hard and fast rules about how often you should review your sales reps, but it’s closely aligned to the level of coaching that they require. So it really depends on what stage of maturity they’re at as a sales rep. For example, your new hires will require a much higher touch than seasoned professionals who are operating at full productivity. There are four stages of development that we’ve identified that indicate the level of both coaching and periodic reviews. There are four stages of development that we’ve identified that indicate the level of both coaching and periodic reviews.
    How to Conduct Half Year Reviews For Your Sales Team
    Micromanagement – When you’re just getting your newbie up and running they need more tactical coaching and micro-management. For these reps, you’re probably speaking to them every day, reviewing their numbers and seeing how they’re doing;
    Activity – For new reps who are moving up their cycle of growth or your C Players, their performance may look predictable but it’s still not quite up to par.  Their coaching needs are more activity based, focusing on specific skill gaps but they will still need you to watch over their performance closely. At this stage, you’re probably reviewing their performance a few times a week.
    Pipeline – For consistent performers, your solid B Players, they’re ready to be more independent. Coaching should focus on helping them manage their pipeline. As they progress into this stage, they may only need you to review their performance once a week.
    Results – The final stage of development is for those who are clear challengers, achieving results and performing at full productivity. These are your A Players and they’re independent performers. While you may not need to review them every week, it’s still important to check in regularly and work on areas of strategic coaching for fine-tuning and to keep them engaged.
    While you prepare to tick the box for the mid-year review process, the reality is that this shouldn’t be the first time you talk to your reps about their quota or their development. Conducting regular reviews and structured coaching to plug gaps and develop each rep based on their individual needs will ensure there are no surprises at the end of the year. While HR may not allow you to do away with the mid-year performance review altogether, you can use this time to create a solid plan for developing your sales staff and a checkpoint to ensure that structured development and coaching plans are on track.
    While HR may not allow you to do away with the mid-year performance review altogether, you can use this time to create a solid plan for developing your sales staff and a checkpoint to ensure that structured development and coaching plans are on track.


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    New Hire Orientation Ideas to Engage New Employees Beyond Day 1 https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/new-hire-orientation-ideas-employee-engagement-beyond-day-1/ Fri, 06 May 2016 22:28:41 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/new-hire-orientation-ideas-employee-engagement-beyond-day-1/ New hire orientation ideas are indispensable to drive employee engagement beyond day one.  First impressions will be created on day one of your new hire orientation program. Introductions and hand-holding, but what’s next? What approaches can companies adopt? What methods are being used? Who can be leveraged in the organization for orienting new hires? These …

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    New hire orientation ideas are indispensable to drive employee engagement beyond day one. 

    First impressions will be created on day one of your new hire orientation program. Introductions and hand-holding, but what’s next? What approaches can companies adopt? What methods are being used? Who can be leveraged in the organization for orienting new hires? These questions and other initiatives surrounding new hires can be addressed effectively with the help of a new hire orientation map.

    TouchPoints of the New Hire

    A new hire’s early experience is highly influenced by his peers, managers, subordinates, the HR team members, and the organization’s top management either directly or indirectly. This new hire orientation map depicts the various touch points for the new hire during the new hire orientation process. An onboarding manager’s approach and initiatives should take into cognizance all touch points. We look at some ideas.

    New Hire Onboarding is a Two Way Street

    Employers should be open to accepting ideas and opinions from the new hires.

    • Organizations like Google, Zappos etc. have Chief Culture Officers whose primary function is to gather the thoughts of employees, especially new hires and work on assimilating them into their companies, based on its merit. The openness and team spirit showed by top management is an incentive for new hires to continue to stay with their jobs.
    • Integrate feedback sessions, formal and informal into the onboarding schedule. Arrange structured meetings with peers, managers, HR and training managers who in turn, collect feedback and update the new hire of the status.

    Help the New Hire Hit the Ground Running

    Effective New hire onboarding has learning and training and employee engagement programs integrated into its structure. All new hires, fresh graduates, and laterals need some form of training to help them assimilate into their job and start contributing at the earliest.

    • Informal Learning is more effective – Create a setup where the new hire is able to learn through observations and by participating in the group discussion with peers and managers.
    • Learn at your own pace – While instructor-led training programs are effective, new hires must be provided access to various online resources so that they can learn at their own pace.
    • Leverage Technology – Given the attention span of today’s younger workforce, an innovative approach to learning is a must. Enterprise gamification, for instance, is emerging as a popular method for onboarding activities and employee engagement. Cap Gemini’s enterprise gamification consulting paper highlighted the InMobi case study in which the Mindtickle Gamified social learning platform was used for new hire onboarding.
    • Pay attention to sales – for a sales-specific onboarding checklist, take a look at this specialized resource to optimize their learning and ramp time. 

    Engage the New Hire

    Early engagement of the new hire is critical to the success of the new employee orientation program. Employee engagement is no longer just about motivation to contribute as an individual but to be aligned to employer business goals and customer requirements.

    • Early engagement – Involve the new hire in group activities with peers.
    • Frequently schedule team lunches with senior members frequently.
    • Organize team building activities involving other team members as well.
    • Aligning the new hire with the company goals and customer needs (if in sales and marketing) at the earliest is critical for their performance.

    Look out for Leaders

    Companies are always scouting for that special talent with leadership abilities. Onboarding managers and senior leaders should leverage the onboarding phase to identify this talent and fast track them into the organization’s existing leadership development programs.

    The line of Sight – Career Decision, Not Just a Job

    Popular question managers ask their new hires, “Where do you see yourself in the next 2 years, 5 years?”. An onboarding program provides an opportunity to gauge the long-term goals of the new hire at the earliest. Onboarding managers can team up with manager and peer-mentors during the new hire orientation program and help the new hire make a career decision.

    Organizational Socialization

    A study by SHRM Foundation titled Onboarding New Employees: Maximizing Success refers to organizational socialization as one of the approaches to onboarding. According to this study “Every organization has its own version of the complex process through which new hires can learn attitudes, knowledge, skills, culture, and behaviors”.  While onboarding researchers term this as organizational socialization, the basic idea is to ensure that the new hires feel welcome and are prepared enough to make contributions at the earliest. Employers of choice have recognized the possible role of peers, managers and top management in helping an individual contribute to a company’s growth – another testimony to Organizational Socialization.

    So, what new hire orientation ideas does your organization implement after day 1? What has worked, and what hasn’t? Do share in comments.

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    New Employee Orientation Best Practices – Measure https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/new-employee-orientation-best-practices-measure/ Fri, 29 Apr 2016 21:05:18 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/new-employee-orientation-best-practices-measure/ ew employee orientation best practices are fundamental to the success of any new hire orientation and it begins with measurement. Now that your organization has a new employee orientation program, it is time to determine if it is a success.  In order to determine if it is a success or not, it is important to …

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    ew employee orientation best practices are fundamental to the success of any new hire orientation and it begins with measurement.

    Now that your organization has a new employee orientation program, it is time to determine if it is a success.  In order to determine if it is a success or not, it is important to ask yourself the following questions:

    1. Did you measure the outcomes?
    2. What outcomes should you measure?
    3. How did you measure?

    Let’s address each of these million dollar questions.

    It is important to start with the BIG picture. Measure those aspects that directly contribute to your business goals. Establish a baseline, which is more or less similar for most organizations – rate of employee turnover or retention, time to productivity, and employee satisfaction.

    Once the areas to be measured are identified, integrate corresponding methods for periodic assessments. The exact metrics and methods depend on your company size, employee demographics, and business objectives, but it is most important to establish upfront what needs to be measured, why, and when.

    Numbers say it all – Quantitative Metrics

    Addressing employee turnover and employee productivity are key when following new employee orientation best practices.

    Headache of the Modern business – Employee Turnover

    This critical figure helps you identify the success of an onboarding program as it is directly tied to the business goals of the organization. Organizations can compare employee turnover figures before and after the inclusion of a new hire orientation program.

    Productivity

    Productivity metrics associated with business and support functions could help determine the business contribution of new hires, and thus the effectiveness of a new hire orientation program. In the absence of past organizational data, Michael Watkins’ average of 6.2 months can be used as a break-even point for new hires.

    Following new employee orientation best practices, organizations would do well to automate measurements using onboarding software. Usually, SaaS-based, these onboarding software help capture data pertaining to performance, onboarding checklists, training schedules, and milestones.

    The Human Element – Qualitative Data

    Apart from the above specific data points, there is a need to capture qualitative attributes in relation to the new hires. An organization could see increased retention rates, but it may be worthwhile to see if that was accompanied with enthusiasm and ownership, not just of the new hires, but also of all stakeholders.

    Onboarding managers need to conduct periodic assessments to assess goals, both with respect to the new employee and the employer. Such periodic assessments could cover the following:

    New Employee Engagement – How Engaged is the New Hire?

    The answer to this question clearly indicates the effectiveness and success of your new hire onboarding program. But, how do you actually measure if an employee is engaged enough?

    a) Pre-Onboarding / First Few Weeks

    Assess the needs and wants of the new hire early, as early as the pre-onboarding phase or the first week of joining. This information can be obtained by simply asking a few questions to the new hire and also consulting the hiring manager. It is critical to plan the coming months of the new hire.

    b) The First 30 to 90 Days and beyond

    Regular interviews with the new hire covering the following topics would give a sense of engagement levels.

    • Company culture and job
    • Role in the team
    • Challenges
    • Alignment with company goals

    The timeline of these interviews will depend on the needs of organization.

    Take Continuous Feedback from New Hires

    Feedback sessions are important for mid-course corrections. This may also be a good opportunity to put forward the company’s expectations from the new hire, instead of waiting for the end of the probation period.

    Exclusive Performance Appraisal Process for New Hires

    Organizations should complement a formal new employee orientation program with a corresponding performance appraisal process that is exclusive for new hires. In addition to assessing the new hire directly, this appraisal should obtain feedback from the new hire’s peers, subordinates, manager, and the human resources team.

    This would ensure that the organization goals in respect to the new hires are achieved. An exclusive new hire appraisal process would increase the chances of bringing out the effectiveness of the new employee orientation program.

    Quantitative and qualitative measurements are both important in determining the effectiveness of a new employee orientation program. It is vital that the two sets of measurements corroborate each other. Positive correlation between the two would increase your confidence levels in the measurement process, whereas a negative correlation would mean going back to the drawing board.

    Leave us a comment and tell us all about your organization’s experience in measuring the implementation of new employee orientation best practices!

    Ready to see what Mindtickle can do for revenue productivity at your org?

    Get a Demo

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    How to Measure the Impact of Your Training Program https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/measure-impact-training-program-beta/ Sun, 24 Apr 2016 07:20:35 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/measure-impact-training-program/ You’re sitting in your office after the big training initiative you just launched and wondering: “How do we know that they understood the material? Was the training effective? How do we measure the impact of sales training?” Perhaps you sent a survey to your attendees to get feedback on the training and everyone loved it! …

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    You’re sitting in your office after the big training initiative you just launched and wondering: “How do we know that they understood the material? Was the training effective? How do we measure the impact of sales training?” Perhaps you sent a survey to your attendees to get feedback on the training and everyone loved it! But is a survey really enough?

    Ultimately you are relying on your team to drive performance and to sustain your company’s competitive edge. So how do you know your training’s contribution to building your organization?

    The question at the core of sales training performance measurement

    You, your manager, director, and the powers that be want to know: Did your training result in benefits to the organization? This is the core question at the heart of training evaluation because training must contribute to building your organization.

    Training is the mechanism by which investment is made in ensuring competence and efficacy of employees. The results of training must, therefore, be measured/evaluated in the context of impact on your organization. A good place to begin is to ask: How do I know that the training resulted in benefits to the organization?

    Don’t fall Into the trap of reporting for the sake of reporting

    While it may seem like we’re stating the obvious, many managers leap to delivering performance metrics forgetting WHY they are delivering training in the first place! Don’t fall into the trap of reporting metrics just for the sake of reporting.

    Measuring enables you to:

    • Identify what the organization gained
    • Determine costs versus benefits of the gain
    • Determines justification for continuing training

    Measuring the worth of a sales training program

    Regardless of how impressive or popular training programs appear to be, outcomes rule the day and they must be measured in systematic and quantitative terms. This boils down to two areas: 1. costs and 2. results. The standard formula for calculating your training ROI is ROI (percentage) = ((Monetary benefits – Training Costs)/Training Costs) x 100. ROI can also be measured in terms of decreased product cost or time. Let’s take a look at how you might calculate your training costs.

    1. Establish sales training costs

    According to this Inc.com article on establishing training costs: “Once all of the relevant factors have been isolated and supported by data, it is much easier to decide when and how the training will be conducted, if at all. Similarly, with the right data the decision to conduct training in-house or by an outsourcer can be determined.”

    Evaluating training costs can be challenging without having a system in place. Here are some areas to consider when building an all-inclusive training cost analysis framework:

    1. Development costs – e.g., salaries, benefits of personnel, and equipment.
    2. Direct implementation costs – e.g., training material, technology costs, facilities, travel, communication and marketing of the program, instructor’s salary, and benefits.
    3. Compensation for participants – e.g., the salaries and benefits costs that will be dedicated to the time spent on training.
    4. Lost productivity during training – e.g., cost of time spent away from work.
    5. Learning curve cost – e.g., cost of time needed for your employees to adapt to new practices and ways of working after the training program.
    6. Company culture shift (change management) – e.g., cost of incentives (tangible and intangible) put into place to foster wanted behavior after training.

    2. Assess the results

    • Significant changes in cognitive outcomes, such as the amount of information learned as evidenced by improved work processes
    • Changes in skill-based outcomes, such as improvement in quantity and quality of production
    • Changes in effective outcomes, such as higher levels of motivation and positive attitude

    How do know whether or not your training made an impact? Donald Kirkpatrick, past president of the American Society for Training and Development (ASTD), pioneered what is referred to as the four levels of evaluation for training programs.

    We will consider each of these levels one at a time. As we move up the levels, it becomes more difficult to measure the results. But at the same time, it becomes more aligned with the business objectives. While it is tempting to focus on the higher levels of assessment straightaway, it is imperative that we first focus on getting the maximum insight out of the lower levels and properly implement their measurement.

    Let’s consider how we can take actionable steps to improve the quality of your sales training at each level.

    1. Reaction

    This involves how your participants feel about the training program. This level may not be an immediate or obvious link to ROI. That being said, if your trainees feel positive about the training program, this will have an impact on how they will perform. This could result in a future impact on your bottom line.

    Action step:

    This level of performance is all about your employee’s reaction to the training program. Level one training data is easy to gather and analyze. Start the feedback process by delivering post-training surveys or getting a verbal reaction from trainees. Online learning programs also enable you to build short questionnaires into your training that will allow you to gauge the “temperature” of your program all the time. For instance, with the Mindtickle online learning platform, you can get analytics about how many people are getting stuck at a question or a topic, how many people have skipped a question, as well as how many people liked or disliked a video. Having access to this level of granularity is very helpful for you to get actionable level 1 feedback about your training program.

    2. Learning

    This level of evaluation involves any skills, knowledge, or change of attitude that resulted in the training. In practical ways, this can be measured through tests or some form of demonstration of skills/knowledge.

    Action step:

    With a little planning before your training program begins you can conduct level 2 measurement. Prior to your program, consider what are the skills that you want your team to master? You can then use assessments or tests before and after the training to benchmark performance changes as a result of your program. Level 2 performance assessments are relatively easy to establish if the skills you are trying to teach are readily quantifiable. When using quizzes and other assessments, remember to keep them engaging and fresh to ensure your learners absorb the material fully.

    3. Behavior

    In many ways, this is the practical (and long-term) application of level two assessments. This involves measuring how your trainee applies what they have learned in the workplace. This would be done mostly through observations, interviews, and constant monitoring.

    Action step:

    Measuring performance changes at level 3 is an extension of level 2 in that you are not just wanting to inspire a one-time change in your employees. Instead, you are striving to establish lasting changes that boost performance and impact your business’s bottom line. To measure at level 3, set up a plan to conduct observations and interview employees in ongoing ways in order to evaluate the sustainability of the skills you want to instill. This will typically involve coordination with your management team in order to get access to speak with their direct reports. In order for you to be able to measure the impact at this level, the pre-requisite would be that you should have created the training while keeping in mind the business objectives and the skills gaps of the employees in the first place.

    4. Results

    This level is the most closely linked with ROI. For example, have there been significant sales increases after employees have gone through training? Has there been a noticeable boost in productivity? These are tangible areas that can be measured by looking at the before and after stats.

    Action step:

    Before you get started with level four measurement, it is important to already have established a system for management and reporting employee performance over time. Your measurement system should clearly define goals and costs and have a way to attribute clear accountabilities to both. Once those criteria are met, you can analyze the correlation between the goal attainment levels and the training that employees underwent.

    Measuring results helps build your case

    Taking practical steps to measure the ROI of your training will help you make the necessary adjustments in your training program and allow you to rest assured that your investment is a sound one. Being able to speak to the data to back up the stellar experience you provide is empowering and enables you to build a credible business case for funding. Also, there are organizational benefits like increased output, time savings, improved quality control, and reduction in error rate. These benefits can be converted into dollar values to indicate their worth to your organization! And if you’re still not convinced, check out this eBook on how sales enablement best practices can help you get there.

    Training and development is a substantial investment of both money and time. You need to know the value of training programs, specifically whether or not they are worth pursuing or sustaining. What steps will you take to make sure that your performance metrics are meaningful?

    The post How to Measure the Impact of Your Training Program appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    5 Tips to Reinforce Sales Training https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/5-tips-to-reinforce-sales-training-mindtickle/ Fri, 01 Apr 2016 11:22:13 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/5-best-practices-reinforce-sales-training/ I’m often asked by sales leaders about how to ensure that sales onboarding delivers long-lasting results. After all, you spend so much time and energy hiring and onboarding new sales reps, but like a shiny new car, your investment depreciates the minute they step outside. Trying to reinforce sales training is a challenge many enablement …

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    I’m often asked by sales leaders about how to ensure that sales onboarding delivers long-lasting results. After all, you spend so much time and energy hiring and onboarding new sales reps, but like a shiny new car, your investment depreciates the minute they step outside. Trying to reinforce sales training is a challenge many enablement leaders face.

    It is natural for the reps to forget the training content and even if they retained everything the readiness of your reps will decline on a relative scale because it is a moving target. Competitors change strategy, industry dynamics change, you introduce new product features or you have published new referenceable case studies.

    It’s not only important to help your newbies maintain their level of knowledge by reinforcing their training, but also to sustain their overall sales readiness so they can continue to level up. Therefore, reinforcement is a critical part of an effective onboarding program.

    But how should one go about creating a reinforcement plan for new reps that delivers the goods? Some of your gaps for new reps may be knowledge related, while others may be behavioral. So it’s important to use different methods of reinforcement to target specific issues. To get your reps on their way to achieving their sales quota, here are 5 best practices:

    Implement periodic refreshers to reinforce sales training

    Broadly, speaking there are two types of sales training formats – baseline training modules (think of them as long-form modules that provide a well-structured and comprehensive knowledge about a subject matter, and bite-sized updates to refresh the knowledge imparted in the training modules. These updates when delivered in the right context can not only serve to refresh the knowledge of your sales reps, but they can also help the sales reps connect the dots on how those pieces of information can help them win more deals. Here are a few examples:

    • Send out a cheat sheet on how to handle specific customer objections or one that outlines the steps to complete one part of the sales process
    • Send out bite-sized updates on specific product features and how they contribute to the value proposition
    • Set reminders in SalesForce at points in the process that are critical to CRM compliance
    • Send a short reminder on their mobile phone that outlines how an A Player prepares for a meeting

    Some of your priorities may be knowledge related, while others may be behavioral. So it’s important to use different methods of reinforcement to target specific issues.

    Spot check sales readiness

    Quick pop-quizzes are a great way to periodically test and reinforce what your sales reps have retained. When combined with explanations for the quiz answers, these quizzes can serve to enhance the knowledge of the reps. This can be particularly useful for small nuggets of information that are easily forgotten.

    Mindtickle has over eight different types of quizzes that can make this quite simple to implement, and provide you with data on how your reps performed on each question as well. For example, use a multiple choice question to test their knowledge of the value proposition or label matching to update them on the benefits of a new product feature.

    Reinforce sales training with coaching and simulation exercises

    While a structured coaching plan should already be part of your sales onboarding, you can reinforce specific skills and troubleshoot issues using mini-simulations. For example, if there is a specific objection that many reps struggle to deal with, you can have them record their response and then go over this with them in your next feedback session. And if done on a regular basis, such exercises help ensure that all sales reps have consistent messaging.

    Mindtickle offers an automated workflow for managing these simulation exercises called Sales Missions. Sales managers can create online exercises for their team members which require them to submit an audio-video recording of how they would respond to a sales situation. These could range from cold pitches, elevator pitches, leaving voicemails to handling specific customer queries or objections.  These bite-sized missions should take no more than 5 minutes for the rep to do but can help provide very actionable feedback.

    Mentoring

    You already know your high-performing quota carriers are the best inspiration you can give to a new hire, but they can also help them reinforce the best practices they’ve heard about during their onboarding. By establishing a formal mentoring program or even an informal buddy system, your new hires can hear success stories and winning strategies directly from your rockstars. When positioned as a buddy or mentor relationship, the new hires are likely to be more open to asking questions that they perhaps might consider too “dumb” to ask their manager.

    Certain sales leaders do not want to spare a minute of their top sellers for such mentoring activities. I believe that is a short-sighted approach and can be detrimental to the career progression of your “A player” sales reps. Such mentoring programs have dual benefits in the long term. Not only are they beneficial for the newbies, they also offer an opportunity to your “A” reps to get a first-hand experience of essential managerial skills such as coaching, as the first step towards graduation to senior roles.

    Make it mobile

    By ensuring that reinforcement content and activities are made available to the reps on their mobile devices, those interactions will be integrated into your reps daily routine and quickly become just another part of their everyday sales activities. Moreover, for reinforcement to be effective, the tips and refreshers are much more meaningful when presented in the context of customer situations. For example – the value of a case study or a win story would be most appreciated by a sales rep when presented in the middle of a similar deal that he/she may be assisting with.

    Bonus tip: Amplify the impact of reinforcement by leveraging the power of analytics

    According to the Aberdeen Group, 20% more sales reps achieve quota when their team implements post-training reinforcement. But before you jump straight in, you must prioritize the key capabilities that you want your reps to focus on, and then determine how best to reinforce those. For example, ensuring that they fully understand your customer personas may be a challenge for some, or many may find CRM compliance to be a pain point. This is where analytics and data can play a big role again.

    At Mindtickle, we export the learning performance (scores in quizzes, engagement metrics, and results from pitch testing) in order to create groups of new hires based on their development needs. This data has also been very useful for us to create a standardized refresher track that applies to all new hires.

    For example – we observed that most new hires find it hard to retain the advanced functionality of the Mindtickle analytics. Additionally, our data also tells us that the A player reps on our team have consistently shown a very high degree of awareness regarding competition. So we added competition battle-cards to the reinforcement track and additional reinforcement on advanced analytic functionality.

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    14 Best Practices for Making Sales Kickoff a Success https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/14-best-practices-to-make-your-sales-kickoff-a-success/ Thu, 24 Mar 2016 03:00:05 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/14-best-practices-to-make-your-sales-kickoff-a-success/ Your sales kickoff is one of your most important initiatives, with the potential to motivate your reps to achieve phenomenal success this year. How do you inspire, educate, motivate and celebrate your sales team in a way that helps them not only achieve but exceed their revenue targets for the year? Some of the most …

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    Your sales kickoff is one of your most important initiatives, with the potential to motivate your reps to achieve phenomenal success this year. How do you inspire, educate, motivate and celebrate your sales team in a way that helps them not only achieve but exceed their revenue targets for the year? Some of the most successful minds in the business share their secrets to a successful sales kickoff.

    Mindtickle Sales Kickoff Kit Download

    1. Align sales kickoff content with company goals

    To achieve your revenue targets, your sales team needs to align with the overall goals of your organization. A great way to do this according to Cara Hogan of Insight Squared is by the Executive level talking about business strategy, “This kind of open and transparent discussion of company strategy helps the sales team see the bigger picture so they understand that they’re working toward a larger goal.”

    Going further, Joe Wilburn, Director of Sales for Brooks Group says, “People need a purpose (other than just commission), so each and every member of your team should know exactly how their work positively contributes to the company’s mission. Aligning individual efforts with your organization’s purpose will keep everyone motivated to hit their own goals throughout the year—doing their part to add to the success of the team. Lay out the strategy and exactly how each player will be expected to contribute so your salespeople can clearly see where the company is going and their role within it.”

    2. Choose a theme for your event

    Choosing a theme will help set the tone and agenda for your sales kickoff. Tom Snyder, Co-Founder and Managing Partner of VorsightBP says, “Too often we see sales kickoffs without a theme or with a theme that is lackluster. If success [to you]  is about motivation then you want a theme that you will recognize as motivating.”

    3. Set the agenda carefully

    After the theme, comes an agenda that must meet your objectives. But as David Freeman, VP Corporate Sales of Nutanix points out, what you put into the agenda is just as important as what you leave out.

    “We have a lot of execs who want to talk about their area. We have to limit the airtime for people who just want to get up there. We have to focus on what the participants need for this session in a face-to-face session. We may give them another opportunity to address the team, but we’re not giving people airtime just because they ask for it. We also don’t do topics that can be covered by webinars anymore. If it’s just updated on product releases or informative one-way sessions, we’ll schedule webinars or other sessions.”

    Mohit Garg, Co-Founder and CRO of Mindtickle suggest, “Before you settle on an agenda, talk to your reps and crowdsource ideas, obtain feedback, and help direct the sessions. Their suggestions, as well as some quick quizzes, may help you highlight knowledge gaps that you can focus on, rather than guessing what the reps need.”

    It’s also important to ensure that the agenda remains flexible. Freeman comments, “It can’t be one size fits all. Let people choose their own adventure. It’s important to let people figure out what they need at this point in their career, based on their role, their tenure, and their specialization. Allow them to develop the skills they need.”

    4. Set pre-work for the sales kickoff

    Your sales kickoff is an integral part of your annual sales calendar, so it’s only reasonable to expect your reps to prepare for the big event. As Art Sobczak, Author of “Smart Calling” notes “Just like a comedian has a warm-up act, so too should you, in order for the sales pros to be excited and prepped when they arrive. Assign pre-work, have speakers do videos or webinars “teasing” the material, or even short sessions on the content to be covered.”

    5. Create an atmosphere of healthy competition

    As part of the pre-work, you can get the reps motivated with a little healthy competition. Mohit Garg suggests, “Have your reps do a pitch competition or complete bite-sized quizzes at the end of every day, and host a leaderboard so each rep can see how they compare against their peers. The competition can continue throughout the kickoff and culminate in an award at the recognition night. Gamified techniques like leaderboards are a great way to create a bit of healthy competition and get everyone excited, before, during, and even after the event.”

    6. Provide time for interaction and cross-pollination

    Whether it’s a casual dinner or more formal roundtables, providing time for people from different business units to interact and share ideas will be invaluable as the year progresses. David Freeman suggests, “Create opportunities for interaction between execs and reps, reps and reps, engineers and reps. We’ve forced this into our kickoffs sessions that force these. Panels with execs with Q&A, roundtables with salespeople, breakouts with engineers and reps. And time at the bar is just as important as the time in the session. Need to give people time to unwind, have fun, share war stories.”

    7. Share success stories

    One of the best ways for salespeople to learn how to close a deal is by hearing success stories straight from the horse’s mouth. Steve W. Martin, Author of the “Heavy Hitter” series makes some suggestions on how to present these to the team, “I would recommend that you have your top salespeople be interviewed in a talk show program format by a moderator who has an extensive sales background. I have found these types of panels are the most effective way to relay both the tangible and intangible aspects of winning to the rest of the team.” Mohit Garg adds, “I recommend recording these interviews and making them accessible in an online content library so reps can refer back to them whenever they need to.”

    8. Include a variety of sessions

    There’s nothing worse than sitting in one PowerPoint presentation after another. To keep people engaged Steve W. Martin suggests, “Break the session into chunks of time no longer than sixty minutes. Also, break up heavy technical chunks with lighter topics, completely different subject matter, or audience participation activities. This way, the attendees will remain mentally fresh and have higher retention.”

    9. Don’t forget your customers

    When planning the agenda, it’s important to ensure that your customer’s voice is heard. Joshua Meeks, Revenue Growth Consultant suggests conducting customer research, “Conduct at least 5 win and 5 loss interviews. During the interviews ask the customer about the process they went through to come to their decision. Why did they choose to do nothing, go with the competition or select us? What was their opinion of us? It is important to ensure the content covered and the skills developed are in sync with buyer needs.”

    Steve W. Martin also suggests using customer interviews to understand the decision-making process of your customers, “it provides a true snapshot of the competition’s strengths and weaknesses according to the person who matters most—the prospective customer.”

    10. Celebrate and recognize your top players

    “Recognition is critical,” David Freeman says. “Make sure you’re recognizing the top people. One because they deserve recognition and need to be acknowledged, but also it’s great for everyone who’s new or not so successful to see the celebration of those people and give them something to shoot for in the coming year.”

    “If you’re giving awards for specific achievements make sure you capture on video a clip of the rep talking about how they achieved their accomplishment. This can be used later as sound-bites or in the online content library,” recommend Mohit Garg.

    11. Reinforce concepts

    Lori Richardson of Score More Sales suggests reinforcing some of the key concepts during the event, “Games like Jeopardy are great because they can reinforce ideas for the upcoming year while also being fun and they get everyone involved.”

    But once the kickoff ends, the hard work really begins. The team at Selling Power recommends, “Whenever you send an email, start a meeting, or get the team on a conference call, take a minute to highlight a recent story that illustrates the messaging from your sales kickoff – and make an explicit connection between the two.”

    Mohit Garg also suggests leveraging the content from the kickoff, “Weave sound-bites from the kickoff into follow-up sessions to make sure the messages stay with the team and build a cadence for reinforcement that continues throughout the year.”

    12. Pay attention to the details

    While it may seem more like administration, David Freeman notes, “The location matters – you want people to have fun and socialize. You get more out of people engaged that way and more motivated when out in the field. Put in extra attention to make sure people are happy with the food. It might seem small but it can increase morale significantly.”

    13. Request and act on feedback

    We’re all used to filling out forms at the end of a sales kickoff, but there’s more to gain by checking the pulse of the event while it’s still going on. Mohit Garg suggests, “Take a quick poll at the end of each session to find out what’s resonating and get some real-time feedback that you can act on immediately. It’s energizing when people can see that they’re being listened to and taken seriously.”

    14. Evaluate the event

    Once it’s all done and dusted, it’s important to make sure the kickoff achieved your objectives. Joshua Meeks recommends, “To ensure proper adoption of content and sales skills, survey the sales force. Ascertain if knowledge gaps have been closed and skill sets improve. The best time to survey the field is one month after sales kickoff. If sales reps aren’t using the new content and skills after a month, they never will.”

    Mohit Garg also suggests, “You can track who is engaged with the content long after the event by using technology. If materials are accessible online, some platforms allow you to track who has accessed it and how frequently. This is a good indicator of engagement and can indicate adoption of the materials.”

    The post 14 Best Practices for Making Sales Kickoff a Success appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    How to Create a Structured Coaching Program for New Sales Reps https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/how-to-create-a-structured-sales-coaching-program-for-your-new-sales-reps/ Mon, 14 Mar 2016 11:19:14 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/how-to-create-a-structured-sales-coaching-program-for-your-new-sales-reps/ We all know coaching is an important part of a sales manager’s role, and as a sales enablement leader, you enable them to do it more effectively. However, traditionally sales coaching more often than not ends up being a one-size-fits-all pep talk focusing on what formula worked for the manager when they were a sales …

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    We all know coaching is an important part of a sales manager’s role, and as a sales enablement leader, you enable them to do it more effectively. However, traditionally sales coaching more often than not ends up being a one-size-fits-all pep talk focusing on what formula worked for the manager when they were a sales rep. But to help a new sales hire the focus of coaching actually needs to be on their needs.

    Using a data-driven approach to coaching, rather than relying solely on intuition, can provide your sales managers with direction on what skill gaps each individual rep need to be coached on. You can even leverage technology to make the coaching process more efficient – through video recordings and online feedback forms for example.

    This can have the additional benefit of making coaching a regular and planned activity that is in the calendar without the need to sync schedules or travel in the case of distributed teams. By implementing a structured approach, your sales manager can be more effective at coaching and spend less time doing it, leaving them with more time driving sales.

    When creating an effective coaching plan for your new sales reps, you need to look at it in the context of the entire onboarding process. I recommend introducing coaching after you have trained and tested the knowledge of your new hire. Sequencing it in this order has several advantages. Firstly, the new hire will get more out of your coaching sessions as they come in prepared with all their baseline knowledge, and you will spend less time explaining the basics of “what to sell” and “how to sell”. Secondly, and more importantly, sales managers can build on the data collected from the first two steps in the process to put together a customized coaching plan that will help address the specific areas that require development and reinforcement.

    To coach or to give feedback

    Before I get into the details of creating a structured coaching plan, it’s important to clarify exactly what coaching is. Many managers confuse coaching with giving feedback, but in reality, they are two very different things. Feedback is where a manager tells a rep what they think about their performance and what they could do differently. It’s not really about the rep at all, but rather about the sales manager’s perspective on their performance. On the other hand, coaching is all about the sales rep; what would address their gaps, how they can perform better, and strengthen their skills. Coaching is a structured and intentional process to guide your new sales rep to be sales ready so they can achieve their maximum potential. Coaching a new sales rep is a critical step in onboarding them, and when provided in a structured manner, it can accelerate the onboarding ramp significantly. Tactical feedback can then be given once they’re out in the field. For this reason, it’s important that sales managers are able to set aside time for coaching, as Jeff Hoffman correctly states:

    Identifying skill gaps

    Typically, after the training and certification stages of onboarding have been completed, the sales reps should understand “What to Sell” by this stage, but may be struggling with aspects of the “How to Sell”. Perhaps they need more work articulating the value proposition of the company’s offering or they may be struggling with objection handling or even competitive positioning. But each new hire may have a different Achilles heel and this is where technology can really help you. If you could record and file away voice-over presentations or videos of the reps practicing their pitches, this would be a goldmine of insights for the sales manager, helping them identify where the exact skill gaps are – for each individual.

    Creating a structured sales coaching plan

    Once you know what needs to be coached, you can then help the sales manager create a structured plan, with tasks and activities that have been designed to reinforce their training. This stage of the onboarding process can be completed over 4 to 6 weeks; 3 to 4 weeks of intense coaching, followed by 1 to 2 weeks of on-the-job coaching. An integral part of the process is to complement the coaching by having the newbie shadow one of your A players. Where possible, the new hire can shadow someone when they are demonstrating the specific skill sets that are being coached. This will give them the opportunity to see how it’s done in practice as

    No two coaching plans will be the same. Even if two reps have passed their sales certification process they may still have different areas of weakness so their coaching plan will be different, and customized to address their individual skills and needs. However, there are four main areas where coaching is likely to be required when onboarding a sales rep: 

    1. Articulating the product value proposition
    2. Objection handling
    3. Creating the customer pitch deck
    4. Following the sales process

    These areas cannot be taught solely through an online training platform, they require coaching and face-to-face time to make sure they are perfected. But before the sales manager does that, you can assign the rep different tasks or activities to complete that meet these objectives and can then be used as part of the coaching process.

    For example, if they need to improve how they articulate the value proposition, then they can do some more simulation missions that include practicing, videoing themselves, and then watching back with their sales manager. The coaching can occur as they play it back together and identify areas where they can improve their articulation of the value proposition. If following the sales process is an issue, then practicing with dummy leads will help identify where behavior needs to be corrected.

    To make this job easier for you, I suggest putting together some pre-designed exercises that cover each of these areas. You can then select and assign the ones that are to be included in the coaching plan for each individual rep.

    Once each of the assigned tasks has been completed the sales rep should be ready for face-to-face coaching. The sales manager can use these recorded tasks and data from the assignments to give the rep structured coaching where they need it the most.

    Combine this coaching with a shadowing program, where the newbies can watch your A players in action and see a realistic view of how the coached techniques are applied out in the field. This integrated approach to coaching can be very powerful and will have your newbies ready to get out there and sell quicker.

    Create a Sales Coaching Program for your Reps!

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    Is New Employee Orientation Good Business Strategy? – Insights from Mindtickle Research https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/is-new-employee-orientation-good-business-strategy-insights-from-mindtickle-research-2/ Sat, 12 Mar 2016 19:33:08 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/is-new-employee-orientation-good-business-strategy-insights-from-mindtickle-research-2/ Today’s businesses – big and small – are under tremendous pressure to deliver profitable growth year after year. Equity markets, private investors, competition – you name it. Add to this, the uncertain elements of risk. It is pretty tough out there for most businesses – global and local. To address these challenges with confidence, businesses …

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    Today’s businesses – big and small – are under tremendous pressure to deliver profitable growth year after year. Equity markets, private investors, competition – you name it. Add to this, the uncertain elements of risk. It is pretty tough out there for most businesses – global and local.

    To address these challenges with confidence, businesses need the dependable lever of high-performing engaged employees. Ironically, this throws up another business challenge, of Managing Talent. A shrinking workforce because of aging employees is further complicating this matter. Never before in business, has it been so important to attract, retain and grow talent, as today – and become an Employer of Choice. Therefore, the increasing importance of new employee orientation.

    New Employee Orientation isn’t just an HR initiative, as most businesses think, but a unique opportunity to catapult your new employees into a high-performance orbit in the pursuit of business objectives. World-Class companies and organizations understand the link between New Employee Orientation and Business Execution. The annual “The Great Place to Work” list featuring the World’s top blue-chip companies is a standing testimony to this. These companies have also created stakeholder value consistently over the years, emerging as corporate leaders in their respective industry sectors and beyond. Businesses, across the board, have this incredible opportunity to leverage New Employee Orientation to drive good competitive business focused on profitable growth, employer of choice, risk management.

    1. Profitable growth

    Businesses exist to maximize profits – an objective they need to pursue in a sensitive, sustainable and relentless manner, in this fast-changing milieu. Simply put, businesses have to grow revenues and minimize costs. New Employee Orientation has a critical role to play in impacting each of these positively, by driving,

    • Time to productivity of new hires
    • Employee retention and addressing employee turnover
    • Employee engagement

    Aberdeen Group, a Harte-Hanks Company and a global thought leader in business research, has been at the forefront of exhaustive cutting-edge business research in the area of New Employee Orientation. Its numerous studies on Onboarding, over the years, have time and again, established how businesses have achieved improved productivity, employee retention, and engagement, through New Employee Orientation. The studies have established that through new hire onboarding, organizations can focus on their biggest asset, their employees because the experience of new hires has a direct impact on profitability.

    In the book “The First 90 Days” Michael Watkins puts the break-even point of new hires at 6.2 months, highlighting it remarkably through this graphic.

    As can be seen from the graphic, new hires consume value for the first three months and then begin contributing. New Employee Orientation can improve the chances of achieving this break-even on time and at times, even early. Any slippage in onboarding new hires would not only add to direct and indirect costs, it would also result in loss of revenues, especially in the case of top management executives and business facing employees.

    Employees and new hires in an organization, given their bearing on revenues and expenses, can be broadly classified into the following:

    a) Top management – Employees at a senior level often in leadership roles are the most expensive assets for an organization, but they can be the most productive of the new hires as they will be the one to guide their team to perform up to potential and contribute to the company’s growth. Personalized new employee orientation for leaders that help them is indispensable to get them contributing in a meaningful productive way. They:

    • Align with the company’s overall business strategy,
    • Understand short and medium term business imperatives,
    • Experience the company culture, and
    • Bond with their team

    b) Employees on the Business Front – New hires who are in the marketing and sales departments contribute to the revenue and profits of organizations directly. New Employee Orientation can establish and communicate a ‘line of sight’ from the new hire’s performance to the company’s goal. This can help them see and understand how quickly their productive contribution can benefit the organization, their performance and ultimately their professional careers.

    c) Business Support Functions like Human Resources, Accounts – While new hires in these departments do not impact company revenues directly, it is essential that they get productive at the earliest to optimize on costs. New Employee Orientation can help engage and motivate these new hires to become productive sooner.

    In one of its studies, Aberdeen interviewed 466 companies that were running some form of new employee orientation. It was found that the top 100 of these companies reported a 24% year-over-year decrease in time to productivity for new employees and 12% year-over-year decrease in cost per employee for onboarding. Another example is to look at the talent management practices of IT and ITES outsourcing companies that have been recruiting in large numbers over the last few years. All the top tier IT outsourcing companies have institutionalized new employee orientation to buttress their off-shoring business strategy that thrives on “cost arbitrage” and “value creation”.

    The present-day economy continues to make it expensive and challenging to find, hire and retain talent. The cost and time involved in the recruitment process make employee retention a priority for all business. Retention of employees is critical because hiring employees and training them to contribute directly to business costs. Added is the fact that a new employee makes a decision to stay with the company within the first six months. So, in the initial onboarding phase, the employer is vulnerable with respect to the new employee. Therefore, the necessity of new employee orientation.

    Employee turnover is not always about direct costs. It consumes expensive management bandwidth, dampens employee morale and not to mention the loss in revenue opportunities. Worse still, if the leaving employee joins the competition, it increases the possibility of loss in market share. So, new employee orientation assumes significance when onboarding new hires.

    An Aberdeen Survey based on the analysis of about 282 organizations, reported that organizations which conducted a new employee orientation program saw a 50 % increase in retention rates. The report also stated that the new employee orientation program was used as a means to reaffirm the new hire’s decision to join the organization and ensure a long-term commitment from the new hire thereby reducing costs of hiring and training. Other than increasing employee retention rates, the study highlighted the opportunity of leveraging new employee orientation to help new employees plan long-term careers with companies. Without a doubt, organizations have experienced higher retention rates and lower turnover costs by having a new employee orientation program.

    3  Employee engagement

    An exhaustive study by Aberdeen on Employee Engagement pointed out that almost all 466 participating organizations identified New Employee orientation as a means to engage and align employees. The same report states that employee engagement contributes to retention, productivity and most importantly drives customer satisfaction – an important revenue driver. In fact, the top 100 organizations marked engaging employees to drive customer satisfaction as the top objective of their onboarding program, and rightfully so.

    Increased customer satisfaction leads to positive word of mouth, loyalty, repeat business, cross-selling opportunities, and high-quality referrals. All these are key revenue opportunities that businesses can capitalize on, by driving employee engagement through new employee orientation.

    New employee orientation can drive employee engagement and alignment by focusing on new hire development and performance, taking frequent informal feedbacks, updating them on a company’s vision and encourage leadership where appropriate. New Employee Orientation can work wonders in aligning the new hires to business strategy and execution. Employees who are engaged early, from the word “GO”, are better placed to deliver a quality experience to customers.

    2. Employer of choice

    The ups and downs of the economy have made, sourcing and retaining good talent, extremely challenging. To counter this, organizations are striving hard to become employers of choice, as part of a business strategy. Therefore, businesses are adopting Talent Management Best Practices with New Employee Orientation being right up there. The reason is simple and straightforward, to make a good solid First Impression. This is also corroborated by the research from Aberdeen that suggests that New Employee orientation can help make that first good impression, which in turn positions the company as an employer of choice.

    New employee orientation is a good “first” opportunity to introduce company culture and tradition. Culture and traditions are unique to an organization and give it the advantage which takes them towards successful business outcomes. Onboarding program can help introduce this culture to the new hires at the earliest. The sooner the new hires understand the culture of the organization, the more engaged and aligned they are, to perform. New employee orientation is also an opportunity for employers to demonstrate respect, reward, and responsibility, such that they are able to retain the new hires forever.

    It is really interesting to note how Facebook and Google – Best companies to work for in 2013 – communicate their engineering and people culture through New Employee Orientation.

    All new engineers – fresh or laterals – at Facebook undergo the Engineering Bootcamp during new employee orientation. This Bootcamp is intricately linked to Facebook’s Scale strategy. Facebook uses the ratio of users to engineers metric, to scale and grow. Through the Engineering Bootcamp, Facebook not only onboard engineers to push code onto the live site, but also germinates an engineering culture of fearlessly fixing bugs and not leaving it to code another day.

    The new hires at Google are called Nooglers, no marks for guessing why. Through this, Google propagates its culture to new hires, helps new hires make connections in their workplace and increase their motivation.

    Not surprisingly, both Google and Facebook appear in the Best companies to work for in 2013 list. Employers of choice, undoubtedly.

    Great workplaces are responsible towards their employees. They respect, reward and compensate the employees well enough to earn their trust and loyalty creating a brand name for their company in the eyes of the outsider.  Great workplaces are employee focused and judiciously use the new employee orientation to also share the company’s immediate goals with the new hires. They understand that an aligned, engaged employee who trusts the leaders of the company will make extraordinary contributions to the success of the business.

    3. Risk management

    Remember Enron and Arthur Andersen. And more recently, Lehman. The risk is truly real – whether it is market, regulatory, reputational and operational. New Employee Orientation is a non-negotiable opportunity to sensitize the new hires on the various aspects of risk, whether it is with respect to the organization or the industry sector it operates in. Organizations would do well to customize the New Employee Orientation program with respect to risk sensitization, depending on the criticality of the position of the new hires. Senior management onboarding can definitely feature an exclusive track on risk management.

    New employee orientation, so what’s next?

    Challenges of the Economy, the positive impact new hires can have on business and many other business imperatives, are putting increasing pressure on organizations to include New Hire Onboarding in their business strategy and with good reason. Business profitability, typical HR challenges like Employee Engagement and also risk management, new employee orientation programs can address it all.

    Only having a new employee orientation is not enough. As the wants and needs of each organization are different, the approach to new employee orientation should also correspond accordingly. Organizations have to determine the best practices for their new employee orientation and implement them in the pursuit of their business objectives. Many approaches to new employee orientation are possible:

    • Formal and informal
    • Full and partial Automation
    • Mentoring
    • and more currently, Enterprise GamificatioN

    Onboarding approaches that drive engagement, alignment, productivity and contribute to company growth, have the highest chance of driving business success. This is where the importance of social HR comes to the fore. Jeanne Meister, best-selling author of “The 2020 Workplace: How Innovative Companies Attract, Develop, and Keep Tomorrow’s Employees Today” in her January 2013 Forbes article touted 2013 as the Year of the Social HR, wherein organizations would integrate social technologies in recruiting, developing and engaging employees. Of the five social media trends that Meister writes, will impact HR in 2013, Enterprise Gamification ranks at the top.

    The World’s leading knowledge organizations like Deloitte and Capgemini have already taken leadership in employing Enterprise Gamification to drive higher levels of employee engagement. Fresh graduates joining the workforce, the now omnipresence of Gen Y millennials at the workplace and the rise of remote teams, are all contributing to heightened interest in the concept of gamification to drive business execution.

    Business, it seems is discovering FUN, all over again. And what better than to begin at from the starting line – New Employee Orientation. Get, set, go!

    The post Is New Employee Orientation Good Business Strategy? – Insights from Mindtickle Research appeared first on Mindtickle.

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    How to Convert Your Training Presentations Into Awesome Videos https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/convert-training-presentations-awesome-videos/ Sun, 28 Feb 2016 00:30:58 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/convert-training-presentations-awesome-videos/ You can create interactive videos to engage your learners at a whole new level. In the age of interactive and gamified learning, the one obstacle Learning & Development teams face is the ability to convert the existing text-heavy content into an interactive video. The charge to hire professionals to make great videos is quite high …

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    You can create interactive videos to engage your learners at a whole new level. In the age of interactive and gamified learning, the one obstacle Learning & Development teams face is the ability to convert the existing text-heavy content into an interactive video. The charge to hire professionals to make great videos is quite high and one does not always have the budget for these video professionals.

    What if you could quickly create your own videos, right from your desktop? Surprised? Well, don’t be! Even you can create interactive videos which are short, crisp, to the point, and engage your learners at a whole new level. And guess what? There are many basic tools which are easily available on the internet that allow you to make great videos!

    Let’s step through the process of creating a learning video of your existing presentation, with the help of these tools.

    The Planning Stage

    It is absolutely vital that you plan your conversion process first. This would help you avoid unnecessary “outtakes” and prevent you from pulling your hair out.

    To get started, make sure you:

    1. Break down the content into small presentations which cover all the topics. Make sure each topic is a bite-sized one so that you don’t overwhelm your learners.
    2. Remember to use animations to strengthen your presentation. These will be very useful to focus your learner’s attention, something that you might have relied on a trainer to do in a classroom setting.
    3. Identify how you can test each topic at the end of the videos and also give them further material to explore. This will ensure that your learners’ interest is kept high even after the lesson has ended
    4. Prepare a script for the voice over that you will record when running the slideshow. You need to have a plan about what to talk about on each slide. It is as good as giving a live presentation in a training session. Make sure the narrative is as interactive as possible. Keeping it casual and having a sense of humor in the script is the way to go.
    5. Keep the video script short and crisp. A learner’s attention span is usually around 3 to 4 minutes, which is why the ideal length of a learning video should not be more than that.

    Here is a sample plan for the narrative for a screencast to search for a product on Google.

    The Execution Stage

    Once you have the topic presentation ready, then starts the fun part! Download a screen recording tool

    The tool that we recommend (and use internally) is Camtasia. It has extensive features but is also extremely user-friendly. Camtasia even adds a plug into your MS Office PowerPoint, from which you can record your presentations with a single click. In case you do not like Camtasia, there are lots of screen recorders that can be found on the internet which include:

    Download any one of the above, which will enable you to record your screen when you are running a presentation.

    Record the Video:

    To start recording the video, you will have to use the screen recording tool. Prior to recording, make sure you have adjusted the settings according to your requirements. This will save you a lot of headaches if in case something goes wrong!

    Once you are ready with the settings, click the Record button and start the presentation.

    Voice During Recording

    A very common beginner’s’ mistake during recording videos is that we forget to pay attention to our own energy levels. During a classroom training, the trainers also feed off the energy of the learners, and hence it creates an energetic, interactive experience. But while recording a video, the trainer does not have the energy of the classroom to feed off of. Due to this, even his energy levels drop while recording. This is the surest way to create extremely boring videos.

    There are many ways to avoid having low energy during the recording session. Some people have found coffee or energy drinks to be useful, whereas others might resort to standing during the sessions or even jumping up and down in between the recording to maintain their high energy levels.

    Important tip: Voice modulation can be the most versatile tool you have while recording a video, to bring emphasis to certain points. Try to use this to your advantage! Even minor fluctuations can be very effective.

    Put on the Editor’s Hat:

    Now that you have finished recording the video, it’s time to wear the editor’s hat! No movie is recorded in a single shot. You do not want the video to be incomplete or miss its crispness. Let’s add some make-up before it goes live!

    • In Camtasia, once you are done with the recording, the first step is to set the video output resolution. For web purposes, the best practice is to use the dimensions of 1280 x 720 pixels. If you do not select this and choose a setting which is lesser, the video that will be generated will not be ideal for full-screen playback on today’s screens. This means that your text and images might be too small for the learner to read and comprehend.
    • A simple timeline with the recording tool allows you to edit the video. In case you are not happy with the current recording, you can go back and record only those parts and merge it to the current timeline.
    • In the editor, you can very easily trim the video, cut it, increase the voice pitch for certain sections, and even zoom into the video while explaining the important parts. These (and a host of other more powerful features) really put the finishing touches on your video.

    The Publishing Stage

    Now comes the time to cut, save, and call it a day!

    Once you have edited the video, the last step is to save the file in the format most preferred by you. If you any text in your presentations, then the ideal output for the video is the HD option which gives you a high-quality output. However, this does create quite large video files. Hence, if you wish to lower your bandwidth costs, then you could go in for a lesser resolution format. But do make sure that the text in the video is readable for your learners!

    Run the video past your teammates or users and collect feedback. Use the feedback when creating the next video!

    Congratulations! You just recorded a video with no help from professional video makers. The number of people using this method to record videos is increasing by the day. Though we just focused on making videos through screen recordings, the other popular forms are getting a cam recorder and record the demonstration of you presenting on stage or on a blackboard. Once recorded, you can edit the video with the help of your favorite recording tool.

    We certainly hope that you will be creating a lot more videos from your presentations now, and join the brigade of L&D professionals who are using video regularly in their courses.

    How do you record your videos? Do you have any tips or tricks that you can share with our community? Do share with us in the comments below!


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    7 Habits of Effective Sales Enablement: Continuous Improvement https://www.mindtickle.com/blog/7-habits-of-effective-sales-enablement-continuous-improvement/ Wed, 27 Jan 2016 15:22:48 +0000 https://mindticklestg.wpengine.com/post/7-habits-of-effective-sales-enablement-continuous-improvement/ You’ve spent painstaking hours, weeks, and months designing and implementing a sales enablement plan and the results are in. You’ve reduced the time it takes to ramp-up new sales hires and make them productive by nearly a month and the sales managers are sitting up and taking notice. It’s finally time to sit back and …

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    You’ve spent painstaking hours, weeks, and months designing and implementing a sales enablement plan and the results are in. You’ve reduced the time it takes to ramp-up new sales hires and make them productive by nearly a month and the sales managers are sitting up and taking notice. It’s finally time to sit back and take a break, right. Wrong!

    Sales enablement isn’t something you can design once, and then set and forget. Things are changing every day; new features, new customers, new competitors, new strategies. Before you’ve even seen the results from your new design it’s already out of date. This is why effective sales enablement managers always enable continuous process improvement. They aim to strive higher, set new benchmarks, and improve on their design

    This doesn’t mean that you have to redesign your entire process every other week, but making time to continuously question, analyze and improve, can make all the difference to your sales performance.

    Owning the sales enablement process

    It’s important to first understand the key players in the process that you want to evaluate and improve, in particular, the process owner and the outcome owner.

    The process owner in sales enablement is almost invariably you, the sales enablement leader. You have an overriding responsibility to ensure that the process fits within your company’s policies, existing processes, and meets its objectives. Looking at the entire end-to-end sales enablement process across a rep’s lifeline (from onboarding, ensuring consistent messaging, field communication, etc.), you understand what capabilities and tools are available and required to enable reps at each stage. Essentially you are the process champion.

    However, the process owner doesn’t always own the outcomes of their process. For example, sales managers may be responsible for win rates, but it’s you who helps them achieve this. To an outcome owner, the process is just a means to an end.

    This distinction is important when considering continuous improvement. While identifying the required outcomes for the process is part of the process owner’s role, you are merely facilitators to achieve the end of an objective. your evaluation process needs to look at a broad range of factors that may impact that outcome, focusing on improving the actual process, not just zeroing in on the outcomes.

    Making time for evaluation

    With the specific roles clarified, the real work starts. The key to continuous process improvement is leveraging data to measure and identify what’s working and what’s not.

    Now you know it’s easy to get caught up in the day-to-day, that’s why you need to schedule a time to evaluate your process. One effective way I’ve seen this done is by having a quarterly review process. For 11 weeks you run your sales enablement initiatives and then for one week a quarter you step back, review data, and business information, and identify ways to improve the process.

    So in that one week a quarter, what should you be looking for? Here are some things that you could evaluate to identify improvements to your sales enablement process:

    • Undertake a cohort analysis to see what trends are evolving. For example, if your business is hiring a lot of new sales reps, look at how one month’s recruits compare to the next, in terms of ramp-up speed, readiness levels, etc. If it’s improving, what has been working and how can that be improved upon?
    • Take a look at whether there have been any changes to your organization’s sales and product strategy. Has the business started pursuing enterprise prospects more aggressively, when they previously focused on the SMB segment? What changes are needed to enable sales reps to meet these customers’ needs?
    • Review your competitors and identify if there have been any changes that may have shifted your relative strengths and weaknesses. These then need to be communicated to reps, and their readiness tested to ensure they understand this competitive intelligence and how it may impact how they talk to buyers.
    • If there have been major product releases this quarter, are reps up to speed with how these are positioned and the messaging that should be communicated to buyers? Can the product update process be improved so that reps are up to speed quicker?

    By monitoring and analyzing this data you may find the areas where your sales enablement can be improved or even changed. Even if you only make small changes, over time it will make a significant improvement to your reps’ results and the bottom line of your business.

    Encouraging continuous improvement

    While you may be the process owner, that doesn’t mean others can’t be involved in improving the process with you. Effective sales enablement leaders find ways to share relevant data and analysis with other stakeholders, like sales managers, and obtain their input into the improvement process. After all, those who use different parts of the process each day will no doubt have ideas on how it can be improved upon. It’s particularly important for sales managers to be consulted as they have day-to-day communication with their reps and can provide insights on the coaching required to improve weaknesses.

    Surveys, polls, and even one on ones, where you request feedback, can all be helpful ways to encourage others to share their ideas.

    Process improvement is always a work in progress. What works today may not fit the organization tomorrow, or some new tool or technology could transform a part of your process overnight. The trick to effective sales enablement is to never stop looking for those little gems, that all add up to a transformational sales process.

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