SevOne Up-Levels Its Sales Enablement, Strengthens Sales-Marketing Relationship With Mindtickle

JT Eger on April 15, 2019

 

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.

Viewpoint Accelerates Onboarding, Achieves Over 90% Training Completion with Mindtickle

Simona Galant on April 1, 2019

Business growth is a good thing — unless your sales team lacks the tools necessary to quickly and easily scale alongside it.

This was the challenge Viewpoint faced in 2017

. The global provider of cloud-based software solutions for the construction industry had just created a sales enablement department and found that its incumbent system of multiple siloed tools wasn’t effective enough to streamline sales readiness and enablement programs for the rapidly growing company.

For example, when it came to sales training, Viewpoint had been using a video conferencing tool and sharing recordings via an email blast or SharePoint. This approach lacked any kind of tracking for training and certifications. In addition, there was no clear cadence for enablement communications, and onboarding for new reps was not fast enough – delaying new reps’ contributions to the sales pipeline.

In search of a solution that would unite their sales team’s efforts, Viewpoint evaluated a number of sales enablement and sales readiness platforms before ultimately selecting Mindtickle. Once implemented, the platform was fully launched within three months and rolled out across the Viewpoint sales team. And, just a few months after the initial launch, Viewpoint extended the platform to its channel partners and Professional Services and Support departments.

With a concerted effort underpinned by Mindtickle, Viewpoint has realized its vision to systematize enablement and readiness in a number of ways.

  • By streamlining and consolidating sales enablement and readiness onto a single platform, Viewpoint gained better insight into training and boosted certifications by over 90%.This was driven, in part, by flexible options for ongoing learning via different channels like podcasts.

 

  • Mindtickle has simplified enablement communicationsat Viewpoint as well. Now, the team creates short videos once a week and conducts knowledge assessments through test questions.

 

  • Viewpoint has also accelerated onboarding, which was a key 2018 initiative for the company. Remarkably, Mindtickle helped Viewpoint reduce its new reps’ time to first booked deal from 130 days to 52 — a 60% year-over-year improvement.

“Reps have told us this is the best onboarding experience they’ve had at any company,” says Jake Boenisch, Senior Director of Integrated Learning and Field Enablement at Viewpoint. “I think a lot of credit goes to the Mindtickle platform and having the technology in place to differentiate us from our competitors.”

To learn more about Viewpoint’s success with Mindtickle, read the entire case study here.

TurnKey Vacation Rentals Reimagines Sales Enablement Strategy With Mindtickle and Achieves 40% Top-Line Growth

Simona Galant on March 29, 2019

 

Like many of its clients, TurnKey Vacation Rentals wanted to get away from it all

— that is, get away from its very basic training software. The company found that its incumbent solution had a number of shortcomings, among them:

  • No support for key content types such as SCORM packages
  • Limited analytics functionality to track sales rep performance
  • Difficulty evaluating whether training was working for its geographically dispersed sales team

In short, the solution couldn’t deliver on the functionality TurnKey required to measure, track, and improve their sales performance.

After evaluating other solutions, TurnKey selected Mindtickle’s data-driven sales readiness platform, keeping their growing team in mind. Within 18 months, the platform’s use extended beyond the sales team to include the guest experience team, the customer success team, and the field operations technicians — more than 300 TurnKey employees in all, located all over the country.

“Without Mindtickle, it would be harder for us to make sure that our sales principles are reinforced with such a large remote sales force,” says Brian Steele, Sales Training Manager at TurnKey.

TurnKey’s sales team, in particular, was impressed by Mindtickle’s robust, yet targeted functionality. It enabled the creation and optimization of a training curriculum that reinforced specific skills and strategies reps needed to stay competitive in a complex industry. Additionally, the platform’s video role-play capabilities helped reps evaluate, develop, and refine their sales skills alongside a constantly evolving product. TurnKey’s sales managers also now had a holistic view of individual and group performance, course completion, and certification through Mindtickle’s analytics-driven enablement dashboard.

In particular, TurnKey was impressed by how quickly they saw measurable results. Within 12 months, TurnKey achieved a 40% increase in deal quantity and a 15% improvement in pipeline generation by field. The benefits Turnkey achieved with Mindtickle were immediate as the platform rollout supported the company’s new sales methodology, which contributed to swift process changes in the organization and improved levels of execution.

With a newly established readiness standard now in place for company-wide training, TurnKey reinforces its approach to sales productivity so reps can be more successful in deals, and the entire organization can benefit from a unified strategy.

Read the entire case study to learn more about how TurnKey is using Mindtickle.

Sales Enablement in Real Time: How to Deliver Learning When it Matters

Simona Galant on March 27, 2019

 

In a recent webinar with Mindtickle and SiriusDecisions

,Peter Ostrow, Senior Research Director, Sales Enablement Strategies for SiriusDecisions, and Paulette Greene, Vice President of Professional Services for Mindtickle discussed how high performing organizations are approaching their sales knowledge transfer strategy.

In the webinar, they presented tips and action items on how to build an enablement model that takes into consideration the needs of the sellers, leverages the appropriate selling motion, and is integrated with a top-down sales learning strategy.

When it comes to delivering information and insights to buyers that help them make informed decisions, your sales team is probably your biggest and most valuable resource. Far too often, ad hoc approaches to educating sales reps result in knowledge gaps, and non-systemic learning approaches often don’t resonate and lead to a lack of scalability across the team. As you grow and adapt to changing market conditions, your company’s product messaging can develop and change. Your sellers should have the know-how to mold their approach and message in a systematic, deliberate way. The key to providing useful and ongoing learning opportunities comes down to methodical knowledge transfer.

SiriusDecisions defines knowledge transfer as “the process of enabling sales reps with the knowledge they need to apply during the buying process to accelerate deals in the pipeline and increase overall sales”.  So, how do you go about figuring out the best practices that apply to your specific reps?

Without an emphasis on personalization that addresses the scope of experienced sellers versus those who are just starting out, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t result in successful sales knowledge transfer. A lack of customization for sales teams can create hurdles when it comes to buy-in and long-term motivation. Additionally, the lack of structure can interfere with collaboration across teams as messaging and knowledge transfer programs become lost in translation.

SiriusDecisions suggests managers tackle this by “promoting rep knowledge retention by demonstrating application, allowing reps to practice applying it, and arming coaches with criteria for feedback and monitoring results.” It’s important to keep your team engaged in consistent learning, and by committing to a sales enablement and readiness program, you can avoid those potential pitfalls.

Here’s the good news: you may actually already set up for success. The webinar goes into the details of SiriusDecisions research which shows that reps believe they should, in fact, spend more time learning. In the recent surveys by SiriusDecisions, findings indicated that reps want to spend more time on personal and professional development – so the buy-in is already there. Sales reps know the importance of fully understanding the products they sell but feel that they often lack resources beyond foundational knowledge. As a sales enablement leader, how do you provide your team with the right sales coaching support?

The truth is that many sales team leaders struggle from something of a “not-it” syndrome. Overwhelmed with making sure their reps are hitting quotas, managers often don’t spend the time to make sure to coach their reps on an ongoing basis. According to SiriusDecisions, 85% of high performing sales managers recognize the value of their reps understanding the company offering and spend time and additional focus on offering reps specific sales coaching and sales training on buyer personas.

Ultimately, your goal as a sales manager is to figure out and provide an approach that is consistent – one that enables your sales team with the knowledge needed to maximize their buyer interaction. If you align the general, required knowledge to specific activities that teach appropriate responses and selling motions, it’ll become much easier for both you and your team to create and ensure actionable and relevant learning outcomes.

According to Peter and Paulette, you can begin implementing changes to your sales productivity initiatives with a few action items. When it comes to sales enablement, start by:

  • Clearly defining knowledge requirements and provide a learning strategy that supports the application of knowledge.
  • Developing tools and job aids specific to learners and managers to reinforce competency attainment.

And when you combine your sales readiness goals with other teams in your organization, make sure to partner with sales enablement early in the process to ensure alignment to rep needs. Try thinking beyond delivering tactics and begin targeting reps with programs in the same way that buyers are targeted.

For a deep-dive into sales enablement in real time, watch the recording of their webinar here.

Milaap Meets Mindtickle

Deepti Sundareshan on March 12, 2019

Milaap is India’s largest online crowdfunding platform. Founded in 2010 by a team of young and passionate entrepreneurs, Milaap has pioneered the vision to enable people to directly assist individuals in need.  They have changed the scenario of person to person giving in India and how Indians support a cause.

Over the past eight years, it has emerged as a preferred platform to fund medical emergencies. Online crowdfunding is now becoming accessible to more people across the country, backed by social media and the ease of digital payments. Today, Indians are effectively mobilizing support to face difficult situations through online communities across the world. This crowdfunding approach has applications in almost every domain.

While an increasing number of students are able to explore more opportunities for higher studies, people are more empowered to address local issues with help communities that connect with their cause.

“Over 80 percent of the funds raised on crowdfunding platform Milaap are for medical needs,” says co-founder and President Anoj Viswanathan.
Milaap.org has gone one step ahead and taken the ease of online fundraising a notch higher. They are moving away from conventional, mechanical forms to a more empathetic and conversational approach through chatbots. Based on intensive research, and feedback from their community of users, the platform has pioneered a way to make it easier for people to share their need with others.

With an overwhelming majority of funds raised for medical causes, the platform is now focusing on making quality healthcare affordable, and therefore accessible to more people in the country. The Milaap platform not only helps one share sensitive stories with greater comfort but also makes the process extremely easy for new users, who may be from extremely remote places. With all the required details in place, the verification process is much faster. This new feature is so unique that Milaap is in the process of applying to get a patent.

With the industry growing rapidly and the concept gaining more acceptance, the team at Milaap is striving to take crowdfunding to a broader audience. Especially, those who may be from the most remote areas of the country. This is indeed a big step into the future, where people can share their cause with the world over a simple conversation. As Anoj Viswanathan says, “Quality healthcare is becoming accessible to more people, without financial constraints.”

Milaap collaborates with hospitals and corporations and seeks to widen its network by going into smaller cities and carrying campaigns in local languages. With families being pushed into poverty because of medical expenses, the “tech-for-good” company’s initiative gives patients’ families an avenue to cope with massive medical bills.

About Mindtickle

Mindtickle is a global Sales Readiness platform which helps companies across industries build robust sales teams. Mindtickle’s core focus is on enabling companies to grow revenue and build brand by equipping customer-facing teams to be on message and on task.

At Mindtickle, we are always looking for ways to give back to society in various forms. We support social causes and try to help people during natural disasters and raise funds to help with relief efforts during a crisis.

“We have grown with the help and support of the Society, and every individual who is privileged and fortunate enough should help the less privileged and give back,” says Krishna Depura, Co-Founder and CEO of Mindtickle.

While some of our professionals have started their own dog shelter to rescue dogs, some reach out to orphanages and nursing homes to donate, celebrate, or spend some fun time while making artwork.

Milaap joins hands with Mindtickle

Mindtickle’s founders have always strived to support socially conscious organizations and activities. This support includes donating their technology to help organizations like Milaap train their team members to be ready to render help to those in need.

“When we heard of Milaap we thought what could be a better way to give back to the society while helping the process of connecting individuals to donors! Hence, we are helping Milaap to use our platform to train their team members and keep them posted on how they can enable individuals to avail and raise donations on the go,” said Krishna Depura.

The tool also helps train members to reach out to doctors, and with hospitals they collaborate with, to guide patients or their relatives to reach out to Milaap when in need.

Milaap runs several campaigns to help crowdsource funds for individuals and patients out of which came a campaign named “Feet on Street.” In this campaign, team members are stationed in every super specialty hospital across India to help patients know more about crowdfunding, and educate the hospitals about the help that Milaap provides.

The Mindtickle platform, in such cases, becomes a valuable tool to help them provide the right info and training material to help individuals without losing precious time.  The platform also helps them fast track the fund-raising process by training team members with regular updates and enabling people to create campaigns on the Milaap website to get timely help.

Mindtickle helps Milaap ensure the right distribution of resources required by the representatives, with up-to-date info on the go, efficient training to help the patients at the sensitive time of need and to address their issues with the right guidance.

Augmented Sales Readiness: What Sales Success in the Financial Services Industry Looks Like Today

Oscar Collingwood-Smith on February 28, 2019

Financial service institutions looking to thrive shortly should look to augment sales readiness methodologies of technology companies – here are some of their proven practices we’ve observed that yield high ROI.

It’s no secret that we’re approaching an inflection point in the investments industry: for over a decade now we’ve been running with the most extended bull market ever, but as history tells us, all good things must eventually come to an end. Firms are on the edge of a precipice – not only because of the cyclical nature of the market – but pressures that they were historically immune to, are finally catching up. Automated robotic competition and self-service platforms, better-informed buyers, ETFs, regulatory changes, and cost adjustments just to name a few. Fundamentally, it’s become almost impossible for associate sellers to stay informed and ready to put their best foot forward when interacting with clients.

So, what do you do if you’re a financial services institution selling complex financial planning solutions like fixed income strategies, business banking, or alternatives?

There’s another industry that has been dealing with these pressures for over 30 years – from complex products, stiff competition, waves of automation and changes in buyer behavior – that can provide us with lessons learned, and, subsequently, proven practices.

Technology sales are dynamic and highly competitive: often you’re in a crowd of many fighting for buyer attention. Deals are rarely won based off the feature and function of your solution, and often, it comes down to the salesperson’s ability to demonstrate their value in the process and become a trusted advisor to the customer.

To help their sellers, technology companies birthed the concept of sales enablement or “readiness,” a methodology (usually facilitated by platforms) that proactively arms sellers with the right knowledge and behaviors to consistently out-smart, out-skill, and ultimately out-win the competition.

Here’s how:

1. Their “ambassadors” evangelize the brand and culture

When it comes to learning culture from technology companies, I’m not talking about bean-bags and craft beer. Employees consistently rate technology companies as the best place to work in the US, and that translates the satisfaction of their customers with some of the highest NPS scores in the world. These companies foster a community of “best” by regularly engaging employees on the latest wins, recognizing champions and obtaining feedback on perceived vs. actual performance with initiatives. They also recognize ALL their employees as “brand ambassadors” who need to clearly articulate the value proposition, arming them with the latest company/product updates to ensure the most accurate and up to date information reaches their customers.

Investment firms could augment this practice with ‘“just the right amount, just in time” market information to their associates. Imagine a world where we see a drastic drop in market capital, and there’s an influx of calls from customers and intermediaries looking to understand what’s going on and how it affects their assets. With the right enablement program and readiness platform, portfolio managers and market experts would be able to proactively prepare answers to these questions, distribute to their team, track who’s up to date and who needs to be followed up. All before the calls start rolling in!

2. They practice a coaching culture

Technology companies recognize that their products and services are only as good as their ambassador’s ability to find a customer’s problem and tailor a solution to fit their needs. To do this, they flip their customer discovery process around on their ambassadors and assess their capabilities and support requirements. This process is underpinned by a consistent operating rhythm that stretches beyond the onboarding boot-camp, focusing on incremental skill building, crowdsourcing best practice and leveraging peer-to-peer coaching. A recent study by Deloitte highlighted that a one size fits all approach to performance management was no longer sustainable, and that a shift to a data-driven, continuous coaching and development model was the best path forward.

Investment services could augment a coaching culture on two levels:

Advisor coaching. If it’s pitching a new fund, educating a broker, or handling difficult questions, set a clearly defined and consistent process to coach incrementally to the specific scenario or behavior. Firms could leverage their top associates to demonstrate the correct response or methodology to establish a baseline, build an observation or role play around the scenario and coach to that specific behavior. Determining what the core competencies are, where skill gaps lie and prioritizing training initiatives based on this data is critical to establishing a robust and meaningful coaching culture.

Intermediary coaching. One of the biggest challenges for investment firms is managing a high volume of intermediaries who sell their funds. Gaps in portfolio understanding cause an unwillingness to pitch it to a customer meaning brokers will often default to presenting alternate options they understand the best. Firms could solve this problem by engaging brokers with portfolio updates with an enablement platform that has engaging and interactive ways to explore fund information, supported by robust reporting. This method would allow for investment firms to understand which brokers are (and are not) interacting with what portfolio training materials at what time – correlate that data in real time against actual broker performance – and enable their associates to prioritize what relationships need the most attention and coaching.

Putting your best foot forward

For financial services companies looking to stay competitive and elevate their existing training programs, take a page from sales playbooks of the best technology companies in the world. They’re putting programs and technologies in place that enable and ready their customer-facing representatives to have differentiated, prescriptive and engaging conversations with customers and prospects. These reps can convey their company’s culture, brand and value proposition because they’ve they have the training, coaching and ongoing remediation to make them successful.

If you’re interested in learning more…

If you’re ready to take the next step towards improving your sales enablement strategy and learn how Mindtickle has helped our Financial Service Customers to drive results with a blended approach, schedule a demo with one of our Financial Service Industry experts below.

Mindtickle Partners with Healthcare Sales Performance for Sales Readiness in the Life Sciences Industries

JT Eger on February 26, 2019

Partners to showcase solution for Sales Readiness at 12th Annual Medical Device & Diagnostic Sales Training and Development event.

SAN FRANCISCO — February 26th, 2019—Mindtickle, the leader in Sales Readiness technology, today announced a partnership with Healthcare Sales Performance (HSP) to help medical device, diagnostic and life science companies increase gross sales, improve team productivity and reduce onboarding and training costs. Through developing, training, coaching and measuring selling behaviors, the partnership enables more efficient and effective sales coaching, boosts new hire productivity and enhances product launches, events and training programs resulting in field effectiveness for life sciences companies.

“We are thrilled to announce our partnership with Mindtickle. As the healthcare market shifts, it puts pressure on sales organizations to adapt in order to be competitive,” Matt Switzer, co-founder and sales consultant at Healthcare Sales Performance. “That’s why we are so excited to be able to deliver a combination of healthcare-specific methodology, coaching effectiveness and performance analytics to our Life Sciences customers. Our customers will be able to impact sales results with relatively minimal resources and amazing speed of execution.”

The healthcare buying process has changed dramatically and manufacturers can no longer rely on sales relationships to navigate the healthcare buying process, as decisions are less clinical and more economical in nature. BioPharma and Medical Technology manufacturers and distributors must connect sales competencies, knowledge, messaging and skill, and align that with hospital structure, buying process, to reach healthcare customers. The partnership of HSP and Mindtickle offers an industry-specific commercial readiness solution for knowledge transfer, front-line manager coaching and reinforcement that allows reps to be competitive in the markets and close more sales

“There’s a perfect storm of market forces ranging from the increasing power of IDN and group-based purchasing to reliance on clinical evidence impacting the buying the hospital process. Reps must be continuously readied with online learning and coaching to have value-driven conversations tied to patient outcomes. This requires a modern approach blending technology and experiences to guide life sciences companies on the right mix of skills and behaviors to make salespeople successful,” said Gopkiran Rao, senior vice president of strategy and go to market at Mindtickle. “With HSP and Mindtickle, life sciences companies can measurably drive the knowledge, capabilities, and engagement required to drive better outcomes.”

Mindtickle is pleased to be a Gold Sponsor of the 12th Annual Medical Device & Diagnostic Sales Training and Development event, February 26-27 at the Sheraton Charlotte in North Carolina. Tom Griffin, Sr. Director, Commercial Strategy Execution at Endologix will be joined by Pam Switzer from HSP for a discussion on Wednesday the 27th entitled Blended Learning Best Practices That Boost Knowledge Retention. In this session, attendees will learn from Endologix about their journey in transforming key commercial readiness and related sales training initiatives across sales onboarding, product launches, field updates and how they put their sales training strategy on a modern footing. The presentation will showcase the programs, methodologies, and a new partnership that combines healthcare sales methodology with sales enablement and readiness technology.

For more information about the partnership and joint solution, you can learn more here.

About Healthcare Sales Performance

Healthcare Sales Performance (HSP), Inc. is a research, training and sales performance company committed to the advancement of healthcare through supporting the introduction of innovation to the marketplace. For over 25 years, HSP has consulted with the generators of healthcare innovation and healthcare providers to improve collaboration, adoption of change and outcomes for vendors, health systems and patients.

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.

Media Contact:
Public Relations at Mindtickle
[email protected]

What Makes for a Great Sales Kick-Off? It’s Not What You Think…

Daniel Kuperman on January 24, 2019

During this time of year, companies are often either conducting their annual sales meetings or preparing for their upcoming sales kick-off. Either way, companies want their sales teams to feel energized, excited, and confident that the year ahead will be their best yet! Whether you have large or small sales teams, whether your sales meetings take one day or are week-long affairs – the stakes are one and the same.

After working on and attending several annual sales meetings ourselves, (commonly called a Sales Kick Off), we were able to identify a few common characteristics that set apart a great sales event from a good one. In fact, in talking with other sales enablement professionals and sales leaders alike, there’s one common key attribute that differentiates the best kick-off events from the average ones – and it’s not what you might think.

Let’s first take a look at the three most common mistakes.

Mistake #1: Focusing too much on training

For many sales leaders, the fact that the entire team is present and engaged for a few days in a common location is an excellent opportunity for some much-needed training. Leaders pack their agendas with new sales techniques, product releases, and competitive updates. Although some “information download” is a productive way of ensuring reps’ awareness of critical information, focusing too much on training and lectures is a sure-fire way to overwhelm the team.

Mistake #2: Executive speaking overload

Getting your company’s top executives onstage so that they have the opportunity to talk to the sales team and give them an update on different departments can be enticing, but while the intention is valid, spending too much time on having executives lecture the sales team can misfire and become yet another talk session. Ask yourself the tough question: how much will reps retain after all the talk?

Mistake #3: Too futuristic and blue-sky talking

Surprisingly, this mistake is far more common than most realize. The CEO/President/Chairman walks onstage and delivers an outstanding, visionary presentation about where the company will be five years from now and how everyone in the room will make tons of money. Sure, there needs to be a right amount of future/vision in a top-exec keynote and tell people that there is a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, but it needs to connect – tangibly – with specific programs or initiatives mentioned throughout the kick-off.

Here’s what makes a great SKO

The most critical element of your sales event is creating a memorable moment; sometimes called an EPIC moment. Let me explain what that means.

While it may seem obvious to create a memorable moment, it’s easy to get lost during the several planning sessions and scheduling of speakers and activities. Of course, it all depends on what you want your sales kick-off to be like, but thinking about “what do we want our reps to remember and how we want them to feel” can serve as a guiding principle when putting the agenda together.

Think of it this way, if you want to energize the team, how can you do that in a way that will capture their attention and make it memorable? Even for the critical information, you are hoping they will remember after the event, how can you make it so they truly appreciate and can use it in their jobs?

For creating these EPIC moments, the best framework we’ve seen for thinking in those terms comes from the Heath brothers in their excellent book “The Power of Moments.” In this book they describe using several examples their EPIC framework:

Elevation: Moments of elevation are experiences that rise above the routine. They make us feel engaged, joyful, surprised, motivated.

Pride: Moments of pride commemorate people’s achievements.

Insight: Moments of insight deliver realizations and transformations.

Connection: Moments of connection bond us together.

We want to highlight that creating these ‘moments’ requires some serious thought processes and honest discussions with everyone involved in the event. It also expects a re-think your SKO to be more than a series of lectures, training or team-building activities. It forces us to identify the essentials of what we want this crucial sales moment to be and how we can make it a milestone to our sales force.

So for your next annual sales meeting or kick-off, we encourage you to start with the EPIC framework (read the book, it’s much better than our brief reference here!) and use it as a lens for how you will plan and execute the event.

Should Virtual Classrooms Replace In-Person Events to Keep Valuable Reps in the Field?

Simona Galant on January 10, 2019

With demand on the rise for measurable sales skills training that keeps reps in the field, companies are turning to virtual classroom experiences as a replacement for in-person events. But should they be? Or do the same flaws of the traditional classroom-only approach get exacerbated in a virtual classroom environment?

The issue? Changes in the modern seller profile are creating challenges as teams move towards being desk-less, digital, and distant.

When thinking about virtual selling, how often do you take time to consider the ways in which your team might be struggling with job-specific training? Truth be told, this is something many companies are starting to realize – and address.

According to research from CVI4 out of 5 salespeople aren’t getting the skills training they need – and while some attribute this to budget limitations, the majority blame time-out-of-field constraints. It also makes sense that oftentimes, managers end up choosing training that isn’t very flexible or individually-specialized. So, how are companies thinking of tackling this?

Virtual training gives your team different kinds of opportunities – ones that with their flexibility and timeliness, can actually increase productivity in the long-run. Take custom scheduling for example: when training activities fit into your sales teams routines without disrupting their flow, learning can actually become much more continuous.

Teams benefit and learn on a daily basis with ongoing reinforcement videos, opportunities to review and compare with peers, and revisit key concepts on demand. Coaching becomes more comprehensive too: reviewers and managers have a renewed flexibility to review and provide more detailed feedback on assignments.

But the most impressive finding from CVI research is the fact that virtual training increases sales reps confidence twice as much as traditional classroom training. This is huge if you add to this the typical cost savings gained with virtual training sessions.

Running a successful virtual training program, however, requires a different approach. It is not enough to upload your traditional training content online and share it with everyone. The truly impactful virtual programs follow a framework consisting of:

  1. Identify knowledge and skills gaps
  2. Plan and deploy  personalized programs
  3. Enable practice and feedback
  4. Leverage guided coaching

To learn more about this framework for virtual training and the details behind what make for successful programs, watch the online recording of where Gopkiran Rao, SVP Strategy at Mindtickle, and Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy Officer of Corporate Visions, explore a virtual training approach that breaks free of classroom constraints altogether.

Click here to watch now.

Forbes: 4 Sales Trends That You Need To Know About In 2019

Simona Galant on January 4, 2019

Looking back at the last year, we’ve seen some exciting trends in 2018 – and as we kick off the new year, we’re excited to talk about some of the sales trends that are soon to come.
How is sales technology expected to change and expand? What new technologies should your company be gearing up towards in 2019? How are your key audiences and prospects going to shift and evolve? These questions are just some of the topics covered in the recent article by Forbes.
Recently, Forbes released an article on just this subject, discussing how technology has evolved and became more accessible to businesses and sales teams across niches. In their research, Forbes identified four main trends to watch out for this coming year.
In order to improve productivity and overall sales, Forbes pointed out that it’s important to stay on top of the following trends and implement new technologies and new tactics, such as:

  •      Learning how to sell to Generation Z
  •      Implementing a sales enablement strategy to help your sales team be more productive
  •      Leveraging new technology like AI and machine learning to improve sales and knowledge
  •      Integrating marketing and sales and developing more omni-channel experiences for your audience

To read more about how you can prepare for the upcoming sales evolution in 2019, read on here!

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