The Complete Guide to AI Sales Assistants 

Poornima Mohandas on September 4, 2024

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
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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.

AI sales assistant Conversation intelligence
What it is A tool that leverages AI to simplify and streamline the sales process and support sellers. A tool that records and analyzes sales conversations to help revenue teams better understand customer interactions.
Goals To improve sales processes and free up reps’ time so they can spend more time on revenue generating activities.
  • Enable rep to focus on calls
  • Provide the sales rep with real-time feedback for improvement
  • Identify coaching opportunities
  • Simplify meeting prep
Who uses it Revenue teams Revenue teams
Tools AI sales assistants may be standalone solutions or incorporated into existing sales tools and technologies Conversation intelligence software, which may be a standalone solution or part of an integrated revenue enablement platform.

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.

AI in action with Mindtickle

Ready to get a firsthand look at how Mindtickle’s AI features and functionality can supercharge your revenue growth?

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How AI Sales Role-Plays Elevate Your Sales Enablement Game

Poornima Mohandas on August 20, 2024

In sales enablement, you spend a lot of time designing and rolling out training programs for your sales teams. But how much time do you spend to ensure sellers practice what they learned?

If you want your training to stick, practice should be essential to your sales enablement strategy. So, what’s the best way for a sales rep to practice a pitch?

Role-plays.

While training is typically passive learning, where the learner watches a video or reads a PDF, AI sales role-plays are an active form of learning and allow the learner to apply what they learned in a realistic selling scenario.

Like a pilot trains on a flight simulator, a sales rep can practice using role-plays. Be it a new messaging talk track or objection handling with a customer, sellers need to get comfortable using the talk track to perfect their game. And practice makes perfect.

While role-plays are typically rolled out at in-person events like an SKO or conference, AI can make them more scalable and more frequently used.

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 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 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 4-6 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 product they’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
0 %
increase in value of booked deals
0 %
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

#6. Role-plays make practice possible

Passive learning doesn’t cut it when it comes to sales training. Listening to a product launch webinar training session doesn’t equip a seller to ask the right questions and use the right talk track when talking to real customers. Practice and reinforcement are a crucial part of your sales enablement strategy. While quizzes and assessments can help with reinforcements, practice is best served with AI role-plays.

How to create an AI role-play

Let’s explore the step-by-step process of crafting an AI-driven role-play that tackles specific problem areas within your sales strategy. From identifying the exact issues your team faces to building realistic scenarios and testing them for effectiveness, we’ll guide you through creating a role-play experience that delivers impactful results.

Identify problem areas

What are the problems your sellers, BDRs, or customer success managers are grappling with? Do they need help to qualify customers or is the problem around adopting a new sales methodology? Or do they need help to renew deals?

Whether the problem is at the top or at the bottom of the sales funnel, you can use role-plays to solve it.

Build out scenarios

You want to outline the typical scenario your reps face by listening to relevant customer conversations and talking to a few sellers. The scenario should typically cover:

  • The buyer persona your sellers typically talk to
  • The context in this case around discovery
  • The goal your seller should try to achieve
  • A time limit

For instance, if you are a car maker, your scenario may look something like this:

AI persona Context Goal
Male senior citizen looking for a second-hand yet safe and reliable car You are a sales rep. Do a detailed discovery conversation to see if the buyer is a good fit. Understand the buyer’s requirements, budget, and financing eligibility and suggest some suitable options. Time limit: 5 mins.

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.

Interactive role plays using Mindtickle Copilot

In Mindtickle’s interactive AI role-plays, we have used Copilot as a creator, an AI buyer persona to practice with, and a coach to evaluate and give feedback on role-plays.

We 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…

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. 

Mindtickle Copilot in Action

Ready to see how Copilot powers better role-plays and gets your sellers ready for real-world scenarios? 

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Video: How an AI-Driven Pitch Contest at Cisco Saved Managers 38 Weeks

Poornima Mohandas on August 5, 2024

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? 

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What Makes a Successful Sales Training Program?

Poornima Mohandas on May 17, 2024

Every revenue leader will tell you that ongoing training is key to getting reps the skills and knowledge they need to close deals. 

While most organizations invest in a sales enablement department (84%), according to our 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, only 40% of these C-level executives said they can identify rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training.

According to research, only

of C-level execs can identify rep strengths and weaknesses
0 %

So, while leaders know that training is necessary, they lack visibility into where to focus training efforts. 

When effective, sales training becomes one of the most important investments in your sellers and an invaluable use of their time. In this blog post, we’ll define sales training and programs and why they’re important. We’ll then outline:

  • Why one-size-fits-all sales training won’t work
  • The essentials for a successful sales training program
  • Different types of sales training programs
  • How sales training technology helps
  • How to use Mindtickle for sales training.

What is sales training?

A sales training program teaches sales reps the skills needed for every step of the sales journey—from first contact through the close of a sale. It’s the ongoing process of teaching sales teams how to create deal-closing interactions with buyers. This includes in-person learning, e-learning, micro-learning, gamification, or other training techniques to help sales reps improve performance.

Although sometimes used interchangeably, sales training is not the same as sales enablement or sales coaching.

What is a sales training program and why is it needed?

Organizations need to develop personalized sales training programs for their sales teams so they can achieve and maintain sales excellence across the organization.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Once you’ve mapped out your ideal rep profile and understand the specific selling skills, behaviors, and knowledge your salespeople need to succeed, you can plan out courses and programs that focus on each area.

Start by defining the outcomes for each training program. For example:

Focus on on different product features to help reps run product demos tailored to prospects’ needs

Help reps spot when they’re using filler words so they can reduce the frequency of using them on calls

Focus on on common objections to help reps handle prospects’ objections confidently

Why one-size-fits-all training won’t work

If you choose a sales training program with a one-size-fits-all manual, you may be throwing away time and money.

Despite significant investments in sales training programs, the average rate of quota attainment has been declining for years. In fact, according to some research, only 42.8% of reps met their quotas last year. One-size-fits-all training programs assume there is just one way to sell and therefore fail at the very thing they are teaching.

According to research, only

of reps met their quotas last year
0 %

No two sales reps have the same needs or experience. Similarly, no two businesses are alike—a technology company and a retailer have different needs relevant to the industry and each has a unique sales process.

For example:

  • A retail sale — B2C —might require a shorter, but more personal interaction.
  • Reps selling products in B2B, like technology, require an intricate knowledge of customers, products, trends, and advancement in the industry.

In both examples, the sales rep must deliver a modern sales approach that can compete with information available online, and the complexities of each product require specific understanding. But the approach to these differing sales requires unique knowledge and techniques, meaning training must be suited to the individual rep, business, product, and customer.

While there is some benefit to be gained from any initiative, the results won’t be nearly as effective as those from an individually designed program that incorporates your company’s methodology and provides ongoing training and coaching opportunities.

The essentials for a successful sales training program

What are “the essentials” of choosing a sales training program, and why do they matter? Conventional training programs focus on behavior modification, communication, and negotiation skills. Those things play an important role in sales success, but other strategies can improve results faster and give your sales reps an advantage in the field.

The best sales training program for your company should include these essential features.

#1 Diverse training formats

Offering several different formats for presenting training material means teaching sales reps in the manner that they learn best.

Video provides a forum for role-play and live lectures, as well as narrated slide presentations to keep reps engaged.

Audio recordings work well for delivering training when complete attention is not necessary, like while driving or completing other activities.

Written materials allow reps to review and study resources in a written form with PDF files that can be made available for easy download and/or printing.

Gamification turns lackluster training modules into a fun, competitive learning opportunity. Video games, quizzes, and more can keep reps engaged and eager to continue their training.

#2. Customizable platform

While standard training programs can offer the basics, a customizable program allows you to add content specific to your business, including techniques that work well in your market or with your product, and change and grow with your needs.

At the program’s onset, expect a framework driven by your organization’s sales strategy and a practical understanding of your products, services, and process. Intuitive real-time editing means the program adjusts via sales rep input, evaluating what reps need according to what they have completed, how they learn, and even existing or desired customers. Front-line managers can coach teams and review analytics by utilizing easy-to-use mobile tools.

#3. Real-world scenarios

A successful sales training program uses real-world buying scenarios (and proven solutions) to train the team to handle any common situation. It must offer the flexibility to successfully address every aspect of a business reality. This type of program allows reps to practice real-world scenarios before they actually enter a high-stakes conversation with prospects or customers.

#4. Structured reinforcement

Effective training requires time, repetition, and detailed individuality. A customized training program enables your sales team to achieve milestones while continuing to sell successfully.

Reinforcement is key to helping salespeople retain what they’ve learned. Without systematic, continual learning and reinforcement, sales reps forget 70% of information within one week of training, and 87% within one month.

#5. Tracking and metrics

How do you know if reps use the program and if it’s working? A good sales training program should include progress tracking for each sales rep and analysis through quizzes, tests, and other assessments. This information should be used to generate performance metrics and continually improve the program.

#6. Different instructional modalities

Providing learning opportunities that meet your sales team where they are, physically and mentally, is the best way to get their attention and make learning fun and interactive.

Your sales team is always on the go. Training materials should be agile, available via streaming or download to mobile devices for use when the time is right.

Online lectures and virtual conferences provide a forum where everyone can participate without being in the same physical location.

Discussion forums, chat capabilities, and social interactions provide learning in an environment that enhances engagement through connection and discussion.

#7. Micro-learning capabilities

Micro-learning offers information as bite-sized, easily accessed, individualized content for sales reps. Usually focused on one topic or problem, it is presented in various ways like quizzes, videos, games, or simulations. Micro-learning uses information about how our long-term memory performs and incorporates the use of repetition over time. Learning that is fun and engaging—presented over time—helps learners avoid information overload and increases retained information. It is quick and easy to complete and provides the opportunity for tracking progress and identifying gaps for future learning.

#8. Gamification

When learning is less tedious and more fun, information is retained better. Reps are more likely to complete training modules involving video games, leaderboards, social networking, and gamified quizzes, even when they aren’t assigned. Sales reps are motivated to do the work, becoming increasingly skilled in the process, which drives revenue growth.

Different types of sales training programs

General sales skills include relationship-building, questioning, solution-building, negotiation, problem-solving, and proposal writing. Different types of sales training programs focus on different areas. When you choose just one area to focus on, not all reps on your sales team will benefit.

Here are a few types of sales training.

Teaches information or steps that improve the chance of a positive outcome. Usually a standard format, it creates a common approach and language for sales reps and emphasizes skill development.

Long-form modules with in-depth subject knowledge that teach essential sales skills. Reps learn how to sell with fundamental skills like finding prospects, active listening, asking questions, negotiation, sidestepping objections, giving presentations, follow-up, and other administrative communication skills. These skills have no expiration date and continue to evolve over time, as your reps’ confidence and knowledge grows.

Focuses on the product features and benefits, giving a sales rep a solid foundation regarding what they are selling, so they can focus on the customers’ needs.

Information refreshers that reinforce knowledge from training modules. Small, frequent updates prompt knowledge retention and connect information that reps have already learned for improved results.

 

How sales training technology helps

Enlisting a data-driven sales training program can change the game for your business. Technology-based onboarding alone can propel your success rate forward. A quality, customizable program offers cost-savings, flexibility, logistical simplicity, accessibility, and the chance for self-paced learning and repetition as needed.

Online or off, effective sales training programs should be customizable to adapt to the changing needs of any business. Key metrics provide a barometer for results. Diverse training opportunities coupled with a variety of learning modalities can help you reach your sales rep and improve retention. Micro-learning and bite-sized updates provide refreshers and continual learning.

Choose a training program that uses technology to make learning easier, empowers sales reps, and drives excellence.

Mindtickle for sales training

With a comprehensive suite of sales productivity applications, Mindtickle provides your sales team with a positive learning environment and never-ending learning. Sales reps learn and practice concepts from engaging, accessible delivery platforms that convey knowledge, offer role-play opportunities for eventual success in the field, and improve mastery for customer engagement.

Tracked usage offers accessibility and visibility—a window into progress and performance, that emphasizes knowledge retention through quizzes, gamification, and coaching. Mindtickle’s data-driven approach provides easy mobile access that ties individual performance to revenue growth with metrics that reveal what’s working, what needs adjusting, where gaps exist, and how training is affecting sales outcomes.

See Sales Training in Mindtickle

Build a sales training program that actually helps your reps close more deals. 

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This post was originally published in April 2020, updated in November 2022, October 2023, and May 2024. 

Change Sales Behaviors Using AI with the Mindtickle Spring 2024 Launch

Poornima Mohandas on May 15, 2024

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.

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Enterprise Sales Enablement: What is it and Why is it Important?

Poornima Mohandas on May 8, 2024

Enterprise sales play an important role in many organizations’ growth strategies. That’s not surprising. Enterprise deals are typically large, which means even a single deal can significantly impact revenue growth.

While the benefits of enterprise sales are clear, navigating these deals isn’t easy. Sales reps must contend with large (and growing) buying committees, long sales cycles, evolving markets, shrinking budgets, and many other challenges.

With enterprise sales enablement, your sales reps can overcome these challenges, deliver engaging experiences to each buyer, and, ultimately, close more enterprise deals.

In this post, we’ll explore:

  • What is enterprise selling?
  • What are the key challenges of enterprise sales?
  • What is the importance of enterprise sales enablement?
  • What is enterprise selling?

B2B sales enablement is key to enterprise sales success. But what exactly is enterprise sales enablement?

Let’s break it down.

Enterprise selling defined

First things first: what is enterprise sales?

Enterprise sales involves selling products and services to large companies, often called enterprises.

Enterprise sales are often referred to as complex sales. That makes sense, as enterprise deals involve a lot of complexity, including longer sales cycles and large buying committees. We’ll explore some of these challenges and complexities in more detail later.
Enterprise sales enablement, defined

Mindtickle defines sales enablement as “a practice that provides members of the sales team with learning, content, and tools that allow them to succeed at their job.”

Enterprise sales enablement supports sales reps who engage with enterprise organizations. With enterprise sales enablement, sales reps can build the skills and behaviors needed to be successful in enterprise SaaS sales. With the right sales enablement, these enterprise sales reps can close more deals faster.

Today, the impact of sales enablement is well understood. According to the 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, the vast majority – 84% – of organizations invest in a sales enablement department.

According the resaerch,

of orgs invest in sales enablement
0 %

Yet many organizations continue to take a one-size-fits-all approach to sales enablement. They build and deliver generic sales enablement initiatives that may or may not address sellers’ needs. Often, this is because organizations don’t know what those needs are. The same report found that just 40% of C-level executives can identify rep strengths and weaknesses for customized training.

According to the same research, only

of C-level leaders can identify rep strengths + weaknesses
0 %

Enterprise sales enablement must be personalized to be effective. The first step is to determine the skills and behaviors enterprise sales reps need to be successful in your organization. Then, the enablement team can develop and deliver initiatives to help each rep hone those skills.

What are the challenges of enterprise sales?

Enterprise sales deliver many benefits to revenue organizations. For starters, these deals are often large, which boosts revenue. In addition, adding recognizable enterprise logos to your client roster can increase your credibility, which will help you build trust with other large organizations.

But enterprise SaaS sales also presents a whole host of challenges. A generic sales playbook may not address these challenges.

Some of the top enterprise sales challenges include:

Change #1: Large (and growing) buying committees

Many people are involved in enterprise sales, and that number continues to grow. Per the Gartner B2B Buying Report, the typical B2B enterprise buying group includes as many as 11 stakeholders. Those stakeholders represent an average of five different business functions.

The typical B2B enterprise buying group includes

stakeholders
0 +

Each stakeholder has different priorities and different requests. Meeting the expectations of each of these stakeholders can be a lot for a B2B sales rep to juggle.

Challenge #2: Long sales cycles

The sales cycle can take weeks or months when selling to small businesses, or it can take days.

The enterprise sales cycle typically takes much longer. It can take several months or even a year to close a deal.

Keeping everything on track and buyers engaged during such a lengthy sales cycle is challenging.

Furthermore, your chosen sales methodology may not be the right fit for long sales cycles.

Challenge #3: Constant change

Because enterprise sales cycles are long, change is guaranteed. Members of the buying committee may leave the company, while others are added. Customers’ needs and budgets can change. Your products and pricing (as well as that of your competitors) may change. A sales rep assigned to an enterprise account may leave their position for another company.

It can be tough to stay on top of rapid change and adapt accordingly to keep buyers engaged.

Challenge #4: Fierce competition

Competitors present challenges to all sellers. Enterprise sales reps are no exception.

Enterprise sales reps must understand their competitors’ offerings well and be prepared to overcome customers’ objections.

What is the importance of enterprise sales enablement?

Why is sales enablement important for enterprises? In short, it positively impacts customers’ experiences and sales performance.

With a strong enterprise sales enablement strategy, sellers are equipped to deliver outstanding experiences that meet customers’ expectations. This is key to closing more deals.

Let’s look at some of the key benefits of enterprise sales enablement.

Alignment between sales and marketing teams

A top goal of sales and marketing teams alike is to increase sales. But often, the two teams work in silos. Sales and marketing often have little visibility into each other’s goals and priorities, and they act as advisors rather than partners.

Enterprise sales enablement must be a cross-functional effort that requires sales and marketing alignment. When these two teams work together, the company can achieve its sales goals faster.

Content that resonates with customers

B2B buyers rely on content to make informed purchase decisions. A recent survey found that over half of B2B buyers now rely on sales content more than they did in the past.

But generic content won’t cut it. Modern enterprise buyers expect personalized content that’s relevant to their needs.

With enterprise sales enablement, sellers can easily access content that will resonate with each buyer – wherever they are in the sales cycle. In addition, sales enablement teams can deliver training to ensure enterprise sellers know how and when to use the available content.

Tailored training and enablement for each rep

Your enterprise sales reps need certain skills and competencies to be successful in their roles. Documenting these must-have skills is foundational to any sales enablement strategy.

Once you’ve documented your ideal rep profile, you can measure your enterprise sales reps against it. That way, you can identify their strengths and weaknesses and deliver personalized training that addresses the needs of each sales rep.

Mindtickle sales enablement demo missions

Personalized coaching to improve sales skills

Sales coaching is a key pillar of any B2B sales enablement program. It’s also a proven, powerful tool for improving enterprise sales rep performance.

But generic sales coaching isn’t effective. Sales coaching must be customized to the needs of each seller.

With the right B2B sales enablement tools, sales managers can identify each seller’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, enterprise sales reps can receive customized coaching that’ll help them strengthen lagging skills.

Insights to inform next steps and improve sales outcomes

Enterprise sales cycles are often quite long. It can be challenging for sellers to determine what steps to take to keep buyers engaged – and when to do so.

A winning sales enablement program—complete with an integrated sales enablement platform—equips sales teams with insights they can use to determine the next best step in any deal. Today, some sales enablement platforms use AI to deliver data-based recommendations.

For example, B2B sales enablement software can capture much data about how customers interact with different pieces of sales content and how (or whether) this content impacts sales outcomes. The sales enablement platform can analyze this data and data about the specific customer to suggest content that will resonate with the buyer.

Increased customer engagement

B2B buyers have high expectations for outstanding buying experiences. An integrated sales enablement program ensures sellers have the knowledge, tools, and resources to deliver experiences that meet those expectations. This increases customer engagement and the likelihood of the prospect making a purchase.

Build an entire team of top enterprise sellers with enterprise sales enablement

Enterprise sales can be lucrative. But these complex deals are also challenging.

Sales reps must develop the right skills to succeed in enterprise sales. Enterprise sales enablement ensures your teams have what they need to engage customers and close more enterprise deals.

A solid enterprise sales enablement strategy requires the right technology.

Today, many technologies address a single pillar of sales enablement – for example, sales content management. However, a better option is to choose an integrated solution that incorporates all the key pillars of sales enablement.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue productivity solution incorporating all essential sales enablement components. With Mindtickle, sales reps have easy access to training, coaching, enablement, and sales content – all from one platform. In addition, sales teams have access to robust insights that can help them determine what steps to take to keep deals on track – and moving toward the finish line. Sales managers also have visibility into their reps’ in-field performance so they can identify where additional coaching is needed.

Enterprise Sales Enablement with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can help you build a team of top sellers who are ready to tackle any enterprise deal?

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The Future of Sales: AI Guided Selling Explained

Poornima Mohandas on May 1, 2024

The human connection has always been important in B2B sales, and that’s not going to change. According to McKinsey & Company, organizations that add the human touch to digital sales consistently perform better than their peers.

But making those connections isn’t always easy.

B2B buyers have increasingly high (and ever-evolving) expectations for personalized experiences and content. On the other hand, sellers are often pulled in a million different directions, leaving them with little time to deliver the bespoke content and experiences buyers crave.

But that doesn’t mean sellers should throw in the towel.

With AI-guided selling, sales reps can effectively and efficiently navigate the complex world of B2B sales, meet each buyer’s expectations, and close more deals.

In this guide, we’ll explore AI in sales and what it means for modern sales teams. We’ll answer questions including:

  • What is AI-guided selling?
  • How does it work?
  • What are the benefits?
  • How can AI help sellers close more deals?
  • What are some examples?
  • When is the right time for my business to invest in it?

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
0 %

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?

According to McKinsey & Company, 71% of consumers expect personalized interactions from the companies they do business with. Generic sales presentations and content will no longer cut it.

According to McKinsey & Company,

of buyers expect personalized interactions
0 %

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 purchase journey.

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.

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

Now’s the time to invest in AI-guided selling

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.

AI-guided selling requires the right tools. Today, many of the world’s best revenue organizations rely on Mindtickle to drive success.

Mindtickle is an integrated revenue productivity platform that equips your teams with sales training, enablement, and call insights – all from one platform. Copilot from Mindtickle is a generative AI assistant that empowers your entire sales team to expertly navigate the sales cycle based on data, not hunches.

Copilot combines the power of your enablement and RevOps data with generative AI. With this winning combination, you can spend less time making sense of data and guessing what action to take next – and more time delighting customers and closing deals.

AI-Guided Selling with Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s Copilot can empower your entire team to navigate the sales cycle and close more deals?

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10 Sales Coaching Tips and Techniques to Improve Sales

Poornima Mohandas on April 26, 2024

Effective sales coaching can improve quota attainment by 21% and win rates by 19%. As it significantly impacts your team’s revenue generation, it’s essential to make time for coaching — even in your busiest periods like the end of the quarter.

Sales coaching can only be effective if you know how to coach your reps. Sales managers are busy, meaning companies must provide the tools, training, and resources to help them deliver effective sales coaches without requiring much prep time.

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 productivity 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 sales readiness 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. Sales managers aren’t the only coaches in the sales team

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. 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.

A revenue productivity platform makes running effective coaching sessions for your sellers simple

Providing data-informed, strategic, dynamic sales coaching can be challenging, especially if you manage a large team. A revenue productivity platform can help by automating much of the manual work, like reviewing sales calls and training exercises. With the right platform in place, you can spend more time coaching and supporting your reps and less time on the admin work that goes with it.

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This post was originally published in August 2022, updated in July 2023, and again in April 2024. 

How to Achieve Sales Excellence Through Sales Management Training

Poornima Mohandas on April 23, 2024

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
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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
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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
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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.

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Your Complete Guide to Sales Enablement vs. Sales Operations 

Poornima Mohandas on April 15, 2024

It’s no secret that sales reps are critical in driving revenue growth. But they’re not doing it alone.

Winning organizations understand that sales is a team effort, and sales teams need the right support to be successful. Of course, many teams support sellers throughout the sales cycle. However, two teams play particularly important roles: sales enablement and sales operations.

While sales enablement and sales operations aim to boost sales productivity, they’re not the same. Read on as we look at what sales enablement and sales operations are, how they differ, and why the two teams must align to drive sales success.

Sales enablement and sales operations explained

Before we dive into the key differences between sales enablement and sales operations, let’s take a step back to define each of these terms.

What is sales enablement?

Sales enablement (also referred to as revenue enablement) is the practice of equipping sellers with the information, content, and tools they need to be effective and efficient in their roles and achieve their sales quotas. Sales enablement aims to create an entire team of top performers who have what it takes to engage buyers throughout the sales process.

of organizations invest in a sales enablement department.
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In the business world, sales enablement is a relatively new concept, but it’s quickly caught on. Per the 2024-2025 Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, 84% of organizations invest in a sales enablement department. This isn’t surprising, as sales enablement can have a large, measurable impact on the sales metrics that matter most.

What is sales operations?

Behind every deal, there are a ton of moving pieces. Sales operations (also known as sales ops) is the term used to describe the “behind the scenes) activities and processes that support the revenue organization. The goal of the sales ops team is to ensure sellers can work faster and smarter.

Though sales operations teams were once the unsung heroes of the revenue organization, they’re now getting the recognition they deserve. Research from Salesforce found that more than eight in 10 sales professionals believe sales ops plays a “critical role in growing the business.”

of sales professionals say ops play a critical role in growing business
+ %

It’s important to note that while sales operations focus on supporting the sales team, revenue operations (or RevOps for short) examine how sales operations connect with other parts of the business that drive revenue.

What’s the difference between sales enablement and sales operations?

Sales enablement and sales operations are certainly related, as they are both responsible for supporting the sales team and increasing sales effectiveness. In addition, both teams typically report to the Chief Revenue Officer. However, sales enablement and operations are not the same, as each team supports the sales team differently.

B2B buyers have lofty expectations. Sellers must have the right skills and behaviors to meet those expectations and close more deals. Sales enablement supports the sales team by delivering training, information, and coaching to help sales reps build and hone their skills to succeed.

Sales enablement teams also collaborate with sales and marketing teams to ensure sales reps have the right sales content for any sales situation. This is an important way to support sellers, as B2B buyers rely on sales content to make informed buying decisions.

While the duties of the sales enablement team vary from organization to organization, some common sales enablement responsibilities include:

  • Sales onboarding
  • Creating and delivering continuous learning programs to ensure sales reps are always prepared
  • Support sales reps with training and enablement for product launches
  • Creating opportunities for sales reps to practice the skills they’ve learned
  • Establishing a sales coaching program and equipping sales managers with the tools, data, and best practices to deliver personalized coaching at scale
  • Collaborating with marketing and sales to develop sales content and deliver training and sales enablement to ensure sales reps know how and when to use key sales content
  • Continuously measuring the impact of various elements of sales enablement on seller performance and optimizing accordingly


Sales operations, on the other hand, supports the sales team by building and optimizing processes that ensure the revenue organization can run as a well-oiled machine.

Some examples of common sales operations responsibilities include:

  • Developing sales forecasts
  • Managing sales pipeline
  • Contributing to revenue strategies
  • Developing and evaluating sales reps’ compensation plans
  • Creating pricing structures for products and service offerings
  • Leveraging data to optimize sales processes
  • Measuring and analyzing sales metrics

Sales operations teams are also responsible for implementing and administering the tools and technologies sellers rely on to be successful. Some examples of such sales tools and technologies are customer relationship management (CRM) platforms, sales enablement platforms, revenue productivity tools, and sales content management systems.

How can sales enablement combined with sales operations drive sales success?

Sales enablement and sales operations aren’t the same. But both organizations help revenue organizations reach their sales goals and boost quota attainment.

As such, these two teams need to form a strong partnership. That way, there is alignment, which is especially important when the responsibilities of the two teams overlap – which they often do.

For example, imagine you’re rolling out a new CRM across the entire team. Typically, the sales operations team is responsible for setting up the new platform and ready for the sales team to use. This might include taking the lead on setting up accounts for each sales rep and building key dashboards for different roles to use.

But providing the sales team with a new tool and leaving them to their own devices isn’t effective. Instead, the sales enablement team must create and deliver sales training and sales enablement that ensures sales reps know how and when to use the new tool. This will increase adoption and ensure sellers use the tool as effectively as possible.

Power your sales enablement and sales ops with Mindtickle

Sales reps play a key role in growing revenue. However, sellers need the right support to be effective in their roles and achieve their sales quotas.

Sales enablement and sales operations are both key to a winning sales strategy. While the goal of both sales enablement and sales operations teams is to support the sales organization, the way they go about achieving this goal differs.

Sales operations teams evaluate and optimize processes that make sales reps more productive. Sales enablement teams create and deliver the training, enablement, coaching, and content sellers need to engage buyers and close more deals.

Copilot - Just in Time Enablement (2)

Both sales enablement and sales operations teams rely on the right tools and technology to accomplish their goals.Today, the world’s best enablement and revenue teams leverage Mindtickle’s integrated revenue productivity platform to drive team performance.

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