How One B2B Company Doubled Win Rates and Conversion 

Vivian Batman on March 5, 2024

Is your sales team drowning in a sea of software?

This B2B software leader was too. They were overloaded with tools but slashed through the clutter and doubled their win rates.

How’d they do it?

In this video, Lindsey Plocek from our Product Marketing team, shares their story. Here’s what they did:

Key takeaways

  • Aligned their revenue teams: This customer aligned all stakeholders on its revenue team, including executives and leaders from sales, marketing, and customer success. They could set clear expectations and goals by establishing a unified vision and focus areas, such as driving pipeline growth and improving deal velocity.
  • Consolidated their tech stack: By moving to Mindtickle, the company consolidated multiple disparate technologies to streamline its operations and enhance productivity. Mindtickle enabled reps to access relevant content tailored to their customers, gain insights into deal risks and blockers, receive coaching, and engage buyers more effectively.
  • Focused on improving buyer engagement: Recognizing the critical role of buyer engagement in driving sales success, the company prioritized enhancing interactions between reps and customers. By providing personalized experiences and leveraging analytics to understand buyer preferences, they were able to improve the effectiveness of their sales efforts and ultimately accelerate win rates.

Transcription

Hi, I’m Lindsay with the Mindtickle product marketing team, and I’m going to be talking about how one of our top customers improved win rates with consolidation and share some of the great learnings that they shared with us.

This customer is a high-growth B2B tech company in the customer experience space. When we talk about this customer, we’re really talking about their full revenue team. Everyone from their CEO, CRO CMO, and leaders in customer success, onboarding, and enablement were involved in this challenge. They were tasked with improving win rates by at least 4% to hit their revenue goals, and they were able to do so on key deals, driving their win rates from 15 to 30% and actually doubling them.

They also improved conversions from stage to stage in key stages by 22%. Some of the use cases they pursued were driving that revenue team alignment and accountability into best practices, building a structure to scale data-driven enablement, and coaching as well as helping reps better-engaged buyers, and providing processes to better manage and accelerate deals.

They also really focused on driving adoption of their sales methodology. The first thing that they did, right, that I really learned from was just driving that cross-functional revenue alignment. They got everyone in a room, and they talked about what does the ideal onboarding look like, the ideal structure for ongoing training, which sales methodology did they really want to use. They established a few focus areas such as driving pipeline growth and improving deal velocity. They got everyone together, and they aligned on their expectations.

From there, it became clear they needed to focus on helping their team improve buyer and customer engagement. They consolidated many disparate technologies into one solution that would help reps bind, the top used most relevant content to their book of business would help reps and managers get really rich deal insights on deal risks and blockers as well as do call coaching.

They also provided reps with a new way to engage buyers and customers in Digital Sales Rooms and really provide that personalized experience and get analytics back on what actually engaged folks. As I mentioned, streamlining their sales tech stack was a big part of this. They were able to reduce down from four or five different tools to a single solution for all of the different use cases I’m mentioning here. They reduced cost by 10s of 1000s of dollars annually. They also simplified usage to drive the adoption of the tools that they implemented.

So that is how one company we work with reduced tech chaos to accelerate win rates. If you have questions, please reach out and hope you learned something interesting today. Thank you.

How to Use Your CMS, DSRs, and CRM to Inform Your Content Strategy

Vivian Batman on February 29, 2024

Is traditional sales content management stifling your org’s growth potential?

In this video, Mindtickle Principal Product Marketing Manager Christian Pieper outlines how orgs can build a content strategy using data from your CMS, DSRs and CRM.

The result? 

A content strategy that’s driven by data and perfectly aligned with the buyer journey. 

Key takeaways

Here’s the rundown of the key things Christian recommends for revenue enablement pros:

Centralize your content management:

  • Consolidate all sales content into one centralized platform to reduce administrative burden and increase adoption.
  • Bring content from various sources into a unified location for better visibility and data centralization.
  • One company reduced admin burden by 40% and increased content adoption by consolidating training and external content.

Layer engagement data

  • Move beyond merely attributing content usage to deals and instead focus on understanding how content impacts deals.
  • Use Digital Sales Rooms to track engagement with content by internal and external audiences.
  • Layer engagement data on top of usage data to gain insights into how content affects deals at different stages.

Plan your content strategically

  • Plan content around the buyer journey by integrating DSRs with your CRM.
  • Understand the buyer journey to create content that addresses specific buyer needs.
  • Identify high-performing pieces and focus on creating impactful content that aligns with buyer behavior.

Transcription

Hi, I’m Christian Pieper principal product marketer at Mindtickle. I’m excited to share this video as part of our series on reducing your technology chaos. Today specifically, I’m going to talk to you about how you can use different pieces of technology related to your sales content to inform your content strategy.

Again, the biggest problem people have with content is that they don’t know what’s happening. A big part of what we will talk about today is understanding how your content is being used. And using all of that data to find actual ways to improve the strategy you’re using for building and deploying content.

The first tip I’m going to talk about is how having all your content in one place helps streamline your efforts. The next one I’ll talk about is how layering engagement data on top of your usage data can help you understand the impact of content, not just how often it was used. And finally, I’m just talking about how you can structure your content in a way that makes it more likely that your sellers will use your content to move deals forward.

I already mentioned this, but if you don’t know what’s happening, you can’t inform your content strategy using data. Most places don’t know what’s being shared by whom and in what ways, and that’s usually because content is being housed in all kinds of places. Different solutions may be on the seller’s hard drive.

Ultimately, you want to bring all of your content into one place to reduce admin burden, increase your adoption, and centralize that data. This is critical. I spoke with the head of enablement and midmarket tech company recently, and they were facing a major problem before where they had their training content in one place, and their content for external audiences in another and sellers weren’t using either solution. They didn’t have good data, they didn’t know what was happening. So they consolidated all that together, and they estimated that they reduced their admin burden by 40% while increasing their adoption in both training and external content use. Now they’re gathering data on how that content is impacting deals.

I want to stress that it’s not enough just to attribute cost to attribute content usage to deals. Yeah, you can say this content was used in these deals. And these deals were worth X dollars. But you’re not saying anything about how that content impacted those deals, maybe those closed. Despite the use of that content. Maybe that content was instrumental, you don’t know.

To understand that, you have to layer engagement data on top of your usage data. That’s why it’s really important to use good sales tech that will allow you to track engagement with your content both by your internal and external audiences.

Digital Sales Rooms is an amazing piece of new tech that really helps you understand who is engaging with your content in the buyer organization,and at what points in your deals. That way, you can see how it’s impacting deals at different stages. And not just that it was used but to what effect. By comparing these two pieces of data, you can also discover opportunities for your strategy.

If content is used not very often but generates great engagement when it is you need to find a way to impact to improve the usage of that content, you might want to include it in templates for your digital sales herbs, might want to put it in the sales place your sellers use to understand how to sell to different personas. Regardless, you will have to find a way to get it used more often.

Now, if you have continents being used a lot and generating a little engagement, you probably have identifying content that isn’t doing its job; you should find a way to make that content more impactful. You want to look at slide-level analytics and adapt. For example, which slides are people engaging with the most get rid of the ones that they aren’t engaging with and focus on the stuff that they care about, that will help you generate content that impacts deals more effectively.

Finally, I want to talk about ways you can streamline your content by identifying it or by planning it around your buyer journey. To do that you have to understand your buyer journey. Again, if you’re sharing content from your hard drive and email if your sellers are doing that, you’re not going to know how the content is impacting the buyer journey.

But if you’re using digital sales rooms, if those are integrated with your CRM, then you’re going to know what content is being shared at what points and what kind of engagement it’s generating. That should help you understand the jobs that your buyers are trying to do and the questions that you’re trying to answer. And that can help you make content that accomplishes those jobs and answers those questions.

In the end result for this is overwhelmingly found when you look at the data inside your sales content solution, a small percentage of your content is generating the vast majority of your engagement. Look for your content superstars and make more of that make less stuff but make stuff that gets used much more often.

This is based on a really amazing presentation I saw from Kathleen Pierce at Forrester – if, you have a subscription at Forrester, I’d highly encourage you to seek her out and have her brief you on her question-based framework for content. It really helps you align your content strategy around data that you generate about your buyer behavior.

Hope this video was helpful on how you can reduce your chaos by consolidating technology and making it more impact. If you want more actionable insights. Please click our scan. This QR code will take you to more videos from my colleagues that will answer how you can do this and other ways in your organization. Thanks for your time and good luck out there.

What is Marketing Enablement and How is it Different From Sales Enablement?

Vivian Batman on January 3, 2024

Generic, one-size-fits-all marketing no longer works. Modern buyers expect personalized experiences – wherever they are on the purchase journey.

But often, organizations struggle to deliver marketing that resonates with buyers.

That’s where marketing enablement comes in.

In this post, we’ll explore what marketing enablement is, why it’s important, and how it differs from sales enablement. We’ll also share tips and best practices for an effective marketing enablement plan.

What is marketing enablement?

Today’s B2B buyers are more informed than ever. Oftentimes, they’ve done plenty of research on their own before engaging with a sales rep. In addition, these buyers have high expectations for outstanding experiences.

Marketing teams are under pressure to develop campaigns, content, and initiatives that resonate with these discerning buyers. Marketing enablement can help marketing teams deliver.

Let’s set the stage with a marketing enablement definition.

marketing enablement definition on an orange background

Essentially, marketing enablement is a practice focused on equipping marketing teams with the tools, data, information, and training they need to be better at their jobs. When marketing teams have what they need, they can create more effective, efficient campaigns and content that attract prospects and help move them through the funnel.

Marketing enablement helps ensure marketing teams better understand their buyers. This is foundational to any successful marketing program.

Marketing enablement also equips teams with the marketing enablement tools and resources they need to develop content and campaigns that engage buyers throughout the sales cycle.

Finally, marketing enablement also equips marketing teams with data (often, within a marketing enablement tool) that enables them to understand how (or whether) their content, campaigns, and other initiatives are impacting sales outcomes. With these insights, marketing teams can better align with sales and focus their attention on creating optimized content and campaigns that will improve sales outcomes.

Marketing enablement vs. sales enablement: What’s the difference?

In the world of B2B sales, marketing enablement, and sales enablement are two phrases we hear often. Sometimes, marketing enablement and sales enablement are even used interchangeably.

Both marketing enablement and sales enablement have the power to improve sales engagement and drive revenue growth. But marketing enablement and sales enablement aren’t the same thing.

Marketing enablement

Aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing initiatives.

Sales enablement

Aims to ensure every seller is ready to take on any deal that comes their way.

Marketing enablement aims to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of marketing initiatives. The goal is to ensure marketing initiatives – including content and campaigns – resonate with buyers. Optimized marketing activities increase buyer engagement. When buyers are engaged, it’s easier for sales reps to shepherd them to the next stage of the purchase journey.

On the other hand, sales enablement aims to ensure every seller is ready to take on any deal that comes their way. Sales enablement teams collaborate with key teams including sales, marketing, and sales ops to identify the key skills and competencies a seller needs to be successful in the field. Then, they develop and deliver myriad initiatives – including onboarding, training, content, information, and coaching – that enable those sellers to develop the skills and competencies needed to close more deals.

While marketing enablement and sales enablement are different practices, there are some similarities.

As we’ve already covered, both marketing and sales enablement can positively impact buyers’ experiences and enable reps to close more deals. In addition, both practices rely on the right data and technology to drive their activities. For example, sales enablement can leverage data available in their sales enablement platform to determine how many sales reps completed a recent training – and whether it impacted seller performance. On the other hand, marketing teams can leverage data in a marketing enablement platform to determine whether a piece of content is being used – and whether it’s impacting the outcome of deals.

Finally, effective marketing enablement and sales enablement both require a customer-centric mindset. Teams must understand their buyers – including their key opportunities and challenges. These buyer personas must be the north star of any marketing enablement or sales enablement activity.

What are the key benefits of marketing enablement?

Marketing enablement isn’t exactly a new concept. But recently, a growing number of organizations have started to adopt this practice.

The growing popularity of marketing enablement isn’t surprising. Marketing enablement – when it’s done well – delivers plenty of benefits. Let’s take a look at a few.

Improved alignment between marketing and sales

All too often, marketing and sales teams act as adversaries, rather than partners. Per a LinkedIn report, nine in 10 sales and marketing professionals indicate they are misaligned around strategy, content, process, and culture.

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Sales and marketing professionals think they're misaligned

This misalignment is costly. According to a Harvard Business Review article, misalignment between sales and marketing costs businesses an estimated $1 trillion each year.

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Sales and marketing pros feel that aligned messaging and initiatives lead to better customer experiences.

Marketing enablement facilitates better alignment between these two key teams. Sales and marketing collaborate to ensure that marketing initiatives are aligned with sales processes and goals. This alignment allows for better experiences for buyers. The same LinkedIn report found that 90% of sales and marketing professionals feel that aligned messaging and initiatives lead to better customer experiences.

Of course, when customers have better experiences, they’re more likely to make a purchase.

More effective lead generation

A key responsibility of many marketing teams is to generate leads for the sales team. All too often, lead generation efforts fall short. Maybe a particular campaign delivered fewer leads than expected. Or perhaps another campaign generated a high volume of leads, but the conversion rate was extremely low because the leads weren’t a good fit for what sellers are offering.

Marketing enablement empowers marketing teams to boost their lead-generation efforts. By aligning with the sales process and understanding how buyers are engaging, marketing teams can develop compelling campaigns and content that attract a high volume of good-fit leads. Then, marketing can serve up these quality leads to the sales team, who can guide them through the sales process.

Better buyer engagement

Today’s buyers are more informed than ever before. Generic will no longer do. Instead, they expect content, information, and experiences that are tailored to their specific needs.

Marketing enablement ensures marketing teams have the data, tools, and resources they need to develop content, campaigns, and messaging that resonate with buyers throughout the purchase journey. When buyer engagement increases, so too does purchase likelihood.

Increased content ROI

In the past, marketing teams would develop and launch marketing campaigns and content – and then hope for the best. There was no easy way to understand how buyers and sellers were (or weren’t) engaging with content – and how specific content and campaigns were (or weren’t) impacting sales outcomes.

With marketing enablement, marketing teams have access to rich data and analytics that help them understand how their initiatives are performing. This includes:

  • Whether a piece of content is being used
  • How a piece of content is being used by both sellers and buyers
  • How an initiative is impacting revenue

With this insight, marketers can make optimizations, prioritize their time and effort on what’s proven to work, and drive better ROI from their content, campaigns, and other efforts.

Tips for an effective marketing enablement plan

The importance of marketing enablement is clear. Marketing enablement – when it’s done well – can enhance marketing effectiveness and efficiency. Better marketing leads to better sales outcomes.

But what does an effective marketing enablement plan look like? There’s no easy answer. It depends on many factors, including size, industry, and marketing scope – among others.

However, there are some best practices for developing a successful marketing enablement plan.

Determine goals
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Collaborate with sales
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Conduct an audit
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Store content
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Partner with enablement
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Analyze & improve
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What are the goals of your marketing enablement efforts? Be sure to document them. For example, you might aim to increase lead generation or improve the ROI of your content.

Be sure your goals are specific and measurable. In addition, they should align with the goals of your sales team and the organization as a whole.

A marketing enablement plan shouldn’t be created solely by the marketing team. Instead, it should be a collaborative effort, incorporating input from teams including sales and sales enablement.

Sales teams know their customers best. They can provide valuable insight into what is resonating with buyers – and what is making it easier (or harder) to close deals.

Marketing should also collaborate with sales enablement. After all, sales enablement teams help ensure sellers understand how to use the content that’s available to them.

One of the foundational steps of marketing enablement is to take an inventory of all existing marketing assets. Once all content is accounted for, the marketing team can determine which assets need to be refreshed and which should be eliminated.

After your content inventory is complete, map your existing assets to the customer journey. This exercise can help you understand where there is a need for additional marketing support.

Taking inventory of content seems simple enough. But that’s not always the case.

Oftentimes, marketing content is stored in multiple, disparate systems. It can be challenging to get a handle on all content.

A best practice is to store all marketing content in a single system of record. A content management system within a sales productivity platform is an ideal marketing enablement tool.

Storing your content in a central location ensures your sales reps can always find the latest and greatest versions of the content they need for any sales scenario. In addition, a content management system makes it easy to update, delete, or add new content.

Once you’ve developed new content and campaigns, it’s important to ensure sellers know about it. Sales reps need to understand how marketing initiatives fit in with their sales process – and how they can use marketing content to move deals forward.

Be sure to partner with the sales enablement team to develop a plan for enabling sellers.

Data is a critical component of an effective marketing enablement strategy. Be sure you’re tapping into technology to measure the effectiveness of your messaging, content, and campaigns. Then, use this data to optimize accordingly.

For example, you can leverage your sales productivity platform to understand how buyers and sellers are engaging with a particular piece of content and how it is (or isn’t) improving deal outcomes. These insights can be used to optimize content.

In addition, ask for feedback from sales on an ongoing basis. Sales reps are meeting with customers all day. They have a good understanding of what’s working and what’s not.

Supercharge your marketing enablement strategy with Mindtickle

Modern buyers have high expectations for outstanding experiences. Generic marketing initiatives won’t cut it.

Today, a growing portion of organizations are turning to marketing enablement to deliver marketing that resonates with buyers throughout the sales cycle. It’s a win-win for marketing and sales alike. Better marketing leads to greater customer engagement. Engaged buyers are more likely to make a purchase.

Effective marketing enablement requires the right marketing enablement tools. Today, some of the world’s best organizations turn to Mindtickle to supercharge their marketing enablement strategy.

With Mindtickle’s integrated revenue productivity platform, sellers can easily access the content they need in any sales scenario. They can leverage training and coaching to better understand how to use the content and messaging that’s available to them.

Marketing teams turn to Mindtickle to understand how sales reps and buyers are engaging with content – and whether it’s impacting sales results. Marketing teams can use these insights to make optimizations that lead to better performance and ROI.

Enablement in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can boost the effectiveness and efficiency of your marketing? Contact us to schedule a live, personalized demo.

Get a Demo

8 Cold Calling Tips for Sellers and Sales Leaders 

Vivian Batman on December 5, 2023

Let’s not beat around the bush: nobody likes getting cold calls.

Buyers are already short on time, and the last thing they want is to listen to another sales pitch.

As sellers, you’re even more in the hot seat. Research from our 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report found that during a call, buyers asked an average of 18 questions, a significant increase from 13 questions in the 2022 report. This means customers are scrutinizing purchases more and are even more reluctant to take a cold call.

Number of questions buyers ask on calls
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Because many selling orgs maintain call quotas for their sales reps to achieve on a monthly or quarterly basis, sellers need tips on how to make these calls less cringe-worthy and more effective at getting that meeting booked.

Here are our tips for both sellers and sales enablement leaders on how to make your sellers amazing cold callers.

First things first: Is cold calling legal?

Yes, cold calling is generally legal, although specific regulations may vary depending on the country and jurisdiction. In many places, cold calling is allowed as long as it complies with certain rules and guidelines. For example, businesses may need to adhere to laws governing telemarketing practices, such as obtaining prior consent from recipients or respecting “Do Not Call” registries.

It’s critical for organizations to familiarize themselves with the relevant laws and regulations in their region to ensure compliance and maintain ethical business practices. Seeking legal advice or consulting industry-specific guidelines can help businesses navigate the legal landscape surrounding cold calling.

8 tips to nail your next cold call

Use these tips to warm up your cold calls and have more engaging and impactful conversations.

#1. Do your research

Do you actually know who you’re calling? No, we don’t mean their title, company, and industry — while this is important, to really engage the buyer, you must understand their pain points and business needs. The more information you have, the better you can gauge their level of interest and engage them with relevant messaging right off the bat. The following are some of the most effective methods for research:

  • Google Trends and Google Keyword Planner are keyword research tools that provide insight into what questions buyers are asking, what pain points they’re searching for, and what other brands are ranking for those keywords.
  • Posts on LinkedIn profiles and company pages can reveal what topics and challenges are most important to the buyer and their company/industry.
  • Search engines and social profiles provide insights into any events the company sponsored or attended, funding and other corporate milestones, and more.
  • Account intelligence tools like 6sense or UpLead dig even deeper to match online behaviors to certain IPs so you can identify a specific buyer’s activities and tailor your conversation based on them.

You may also find that the company isn’t a great fit for your product. In this case, you can cross them off your list and avoid wasting time for both parties.

Prioritize sales training that focuses on understanding buyer pain points and business needs for effective engagement.

Use keyword research, LinkedIn posts, search engines, social profiles, and account intelligence tools to gather relevant information.

#2. Don’t start with a sales pitch

In addition to knowing details about the person you’re calling, stand out from other vendors with a more conversational approach. Buyers are expecting a generic, robotic sales pitch — surprise them by aligning the value proposition to the research you’ve done. If your organization has a cold call script or template, try not to read directly from it — you’ll sound over-rehearsed as a result. Instead, use the script as a guide for staying focused and keeping the discussion on track.

Use a conversation intelligence tool to listen to calls to understand if sellers are immediately bombarding buyers with a sales pitch. Assign training to help them improve. 

If you sound like you’re reading from a script that pitches your product, your call will likely end sooner than you’d like. Simply use the script as a guide for the conversation to keep it on track.

#3 Keep things brief

Make sure you’re not disengaging the person from the outset by delivering a monologue about yourself and your company. Research from the 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report found that the average longest monologue delivered by reps is 2 minutes 43 seconds. The longest monologues happen when the rep either talks through a ton of content or provides a nervous response to a customer question that they were ill-prepared to handle. Talking in short snippets during cold calls is important to maintain engagement, convey key points efficiently, and avoid overwhelming the buyer with information.

Coach sellers on the art of orchestrating conversations rather than making presentations.

Don’t overwhelm the buyer by rapid-firing a monologue at them from the outset. Speak 1-2 sentences and then listen.

#4. Prove your value

You could talk all day about how effective your product is, but showing what your current customers have to say provides much more legitimate evidence of the value you can bring to the prospect. Share proof of the value of your company and products with the buyer, including first-hand customer testimonials and reviews on rating sites like G2. Awards and other professional recognition can also be testaments to how your organization serves its employees and customer base.

You can get valuable voice of the customer insights from a sales productivity tool. Infuse those learnings into your sales training so sellers can quickly and naturally mention those anecdotes during cold calls.

Real-life examples from customers tell the story better than you can. Make sure you have a few customer stories in your back pocket for every use case.

#5 Practice active listening

Just because you did some research upfront doesn’t mean you know everything about the buyer. In your first conversation with them, your focus should be on learning as much as you can about the team, company, industry, competitive landscape, existing tech stack, and more. This is a win-win: you get deeper, first-hand insights into this potential customer, and the buyer will appreciate you taking the time to understand the issues they’re facing and answer questions meaningfully.

Incorporate role-plays into your sales training program so sellers can practice cold-calling scenarios and get feedback about how well they’ve listened.

You’re there to learn. Give buyers the opportunity to talk about their pain points and make listening your main focus during cold calls.

#6 Find the best calling schedule

Don’t take advantage of a buyer’s time and be considerate about when you’re calling. They are likely tackling a long to-do list, and you will only irritate them if you call when they’re bogged down with meetings and other work. Calling closer to lunch or the end of the day, when people are preparing for a break, has a higher likelihood of success. Research shows that calls are most likely to be answered between 10 and 11am and 4 and 5pm. Remember, not everyone you call is in the same time zone, so be mindful of that before you dial.

Ask reps for feedback as part of your sales training program. If some reps have more success during a certain time of day, share that learning with the rest of your team.

Respect a buyer’s time by calling strategically only during optimal hours.

#7 Leave an impactful voicemail

Voicemails are tough. We know that only 11% of voicemails lead to a return call. Rather than giving up hopes of engaging the person on the other hand, leave them a message that will grab their attention. Demonstrate what you know about the individual, their company, their pain points, and how your solution can help. Avoid cramming too much information into the voicemail — keep it at a tight 20 seconds at most. Convey some energy and urgency and follow up within a week if you don’t hear back.

Use coaching sessions as an opportunity to coach sellers on how to leave an effective voicemail.

Leave attention-grabbing voicemails demonstrating knowledge, energy, and urgency. Follow up.

#8 Set proper next steps

You’re not closing any deals on the first call, so it’s important to establish clear steps agreed upon by both parties. These could include sending over additional resources, setting up a demo, or waiting a few months before touching base again. Rather than forcing them into your sales process, let the prospect bring you into their timeline and be respectful of how they would like to move forward. If they say they aren’t interested or ready, give them an appropriate amount of time before calling them again.

Coach sellers on how to create urgency with buyers so these cold calls lead to the next step.

Trust and listen to buyer’s process.

Other ways to reach prospects besides cold calling

Changing up your outreach methods helps relationship-building and engages buyers in a way that suits their preferences. Here are a few common ways to connect with buyers that don’t require picking up the phone:

Email marketing

Social media

Trade shows

Direct mail

 

Email marketing

Send your prospects personalized content that addresses their specific pain points. Make sure to use a combo of automated and personalized outreach but always ensure you’re sharing content that’s relevant to the buyer’s persona and pain points.

Social media engagement

Use LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks to connect with buyers. This is also a place where you can show off your creativity and personalize your outreach. Like email outreach, make sure you’re sharing content or ideas that engage your buyer. Groups and discussion forums are also a great way to position yourself as a thought leader without coming across as “too salsey.”

Networking events and conferences

In-person events might seem like an obvious one but it’s true: Take advantage of industry-specific events, conferences, and trade shows to meet buyers face-to-face. Meeting buyers in person allows for more meaningful connections and gives you a chance to show off your products or services.

Personalized direct mail

While direct mail might have fallen out of style as an engaging outreach tactic, it’s made a comeback. A carefully crafted, physical piece of mail can stand out in a digital world and leave a lasting impression.

How else are you building pipeline?

Cold calling isn't the only way your sellers should be building pipeline. Here's our complete guide. 

Get the Guide

This post was originally published in June 2023 and was updated in December 2023. 

How to Develop a Sales Training Program Personalized for Each Rep at Scale

Vivian Batman on November 27, 2023

Two sales reps walk into the office. (No, this isn’t the start of a joke — we promise.)

One has two years’ experience and has been with your company that whole time.

The other has decades of experience but joined a few months ago and has only recently completed their onboarding.

Companies need to develop personalized sales training programs for their sales teams at scale so they can achieve and maintain sales excellence across the organization. Otherwise, companies will see their sales teams living out the 80/20 rule, with the top 20% of their reps delivering 80% of their revenue and the rest of the team underachieving.

This blog is your guide to developing a sales training program that you can easily personalize for each rep — no matter the size of your sales team.

Given their different skills, knowledge, and experience, does it make sense for them both to go through the same sales training program?

Ad hoc sales training

Personalized sales training

  • One-size-fits all
  • Sporadic approach to training
  • Some reps benefit from your training
  • Low impact on overall team performance
  • One-and-done approach to training

 

  • Personalized to the needs of individual reps

  • Ongoing approach to developing skills 

  • All reps benefit from tailored training

  • Impact on overall team performance

  • Training is supported by reinforcement 

     

Define excellence for your sales team

Your reps need to master the right skills, knowledge, and behaviors if they’re going to successfully hit quota every month. Of course, you can train and coach reps to help them develop those abilities, but only if you’ve worked out what they need to learn.

Identify the skills and behaviors that correlate with positive sales outcomes. Then, use these to create an ideal rep profile (IRP) that documents the skills, knowledge, and behaviors your sales reps need to succeed. An IRP can be modeled on your top performers or based on competencies and skills you want to encourage in your sales team but don’t yet see in action.

 

Ideal rep profile competencies

 

Your IRP will combine product and industry knowledge, sales skills, and communication behaviors to build a detailed list of the competencies that will enable your reps to meet (or exceed) quota and improve their win rates. For example, you may want your sellers to excel at:

  • Using consistent product messaging on sales calls
  • Handling prospect objections effectively
  • Tailoring product demos to prospects’ needs or areas of concern
  • Using minimal filler words on calls so they sound confident
  • Getting the right balance of talk time and listening time, so they don’t dominate conversations with prospects

The examples in this list are some skills and competencies that make for a successful sales rep. But by looking at your recent deals, product, and reps’ skills, you can build out a more granular ideal rep profile that’s specific to your company and products.

Ideal rep profile key competencies

Define the outcomes for each sales training program

Once you’ve mapped out the IRP that your organization needs to succeed, you can plan out courses and programs that focus on each area. Start by defining the outcomes for each training program. The outcomes should align with the core skills, knowledge, and behaviors laid out in your IRP. For example:

  • Knowledge-based training programs based on role or different product features help reps manage the sales cycle and run product demos tailored to prospects’ needs
  • Behavior training programs help reps spot when they’re using filler words so they can reduce the frequency of using them on calls
  • Skills training programs on common objections help reps handle prospects’ objections confidently

Identify reps’ personalized sales training needs

Your sellers all have different levels of experience, skills, and knowledge gaps, which means they’ll get more out of personalized training programs than a one-size-fits-all training session. On small sales teams, managers may be able to assess their reps’ training needs by manually reviewing their work and listening back to their calls on a regular basis. But in large or fast-growing companies, managers can’t be as hands-on with their reps’ ongoing performance.

Instead, you can use technology to monitor performance, recording and analyzing customer calls and other interactions to understand how each rep conducts themself in real-world selling scenarios. A conversational intelligence tool like Mindtickle’s Call AI analyzes all your team’s sales conversations to identify skills and behaviors that need improvement, such as their tone, talk time, and use of filler words.

It’s easier to personalize training for your reps if you have multiple courses that map to different competencies rather than a single sales masterclass or lots of ad-hoc training activities without an overarching strategy.

Mindtickle Call AI with conversation intelligence insights

You can use that data to compare each rep’s skills, knowledge, and competencies against the standards set out in your ideal rep profile. This will help you identify areas where each rep excels and where they need to focus on improving.

Greg Myers, regional VP of sales at Turing Video, explained how Mindtickle helps him identify opportunities for his sellers to improve their messaging. “I can’t spend my entire workday listening to every single recorded meeting conducted by our sales reps, but it’s still important that I make sure their conversations are productive and on message,” he said.

"One of the best features of Call AI is its ability to search call transcripts for specific questions that should be asked. From there, we can start to refine reps’ questions to make sure we elicit the right information from the customer."
Greg Myers
VP of Sales, Turing Video

You can use the insights from call recordings and analysis to identify the key skills and knowledge each rep needs to develop. Identifying the skills gaps of each rep means you can determine the training programs that are most relevant to each person and will have the biggest impact on their work.

Topics for of sales training

  • Competitive intelligence
  • Sales methodology
  • Sales tools
  • Sales cycle processes
  • Product releases
  • Messaging & positioning
  • Onboarding
  • Campaign enablement
  • Marketing reports & resources
  • Pricing & packaging

Create a library of sales training materials

The most successful sales training programs combine self-guided learning with coaching to allow reps to learn the theory and then put it into practice. You need a library of training materials in different formats — educational content and interactive exercises — for sellers to work through for the self-guided part of their programs.

Your training library should include materials to help reps develop across all the areas defined in your ideal rep profile. Resources could include:

  • Datasheets on different product features
  • Video courses covering core skills like sales prospecting or outlining the different stages of your company’s sales process
  • Quizzes to recap courses reps have already reviewed to improve information retention through spaced reinforcement

Work with experts across your organization to build out training materials for your sellers. While sales training or enablement leaders may feel like they need to produce all the content themselves, they should engage other team members instead.

Your product team is an expert in that area, so they should help with modules about different features. Your marketing team can help you develop training on key messaging to help ensure there is consistency when sellers talk with prospects. And sales managers can help you put together courses to help reps learn about your sales process or ideal customer profile.

Using a revenue productivity platform like Mindtickle, you can set up a centralized content library in your sales content management system. You can build programs for different skills and topics, and your sellers can work through the programs that are most relevant to them. It is important that you can easily manage training content at scale, one where you can update or replace resources in just a few clicks.

Add dedicated sales coaching to self-guided learning

Traditionally, sales training has meant one-to-one coaching, where reps receive in-person training from their managers. But, in large organizations, remote companies, or fast-growing sales teams, your sales manager will become the bottleneck that holds back reps’ development because they don’t have enough time to train their teams and work toward the company’s revenue targets.

Technology like Mindtickle can help scale up your training and sales coaching by enabling reps to practice skills and sales scenarios on their own in a low-stakes environment. For example, they can complete virtual role-plays and record practice demos or training exercises on common sales scenarios like objection handling. Then they’ll receive AI-powered recommendations on their tone, length, pacing, and use of filler words to coach them on behavioral best practices.

Mindtickle Missions

The rep’s manager can then analyze their performance to identify skills and knowledge gaps without spending (at least) 30 minutes per rep watching their practice demo. After this analysis, the manager can compare the rep’s skills against the IRP. Then they can recommend specific training exercises or modules from your training library to any areas of weakness.

Sally Cox, instructional designer, global field enablement at Splunk, explained how using Mindtickle has helped them tailor coaching and training materials for their sales reps: “Managers can now create their own coaching content faster and personalize it to fit the specific needs of their reps.” Using technology to add coaching alongside self-guided learning makes it easier for managers to personalize training recommendations for their sales reps at scale.

Create ongoing training and coaching opportunities

Your sales training program shouldn’t just focus on teaching sellers new skills and sharing new information. If it did, you could get away with offering training once a quarter or on an ad-hoc basis. But sales reps need to have their skills, knowledge, and competencies regularly reinforced to ensure they retain important information and align with your company’s core messaging.

Companies need to think of sales training as a continuous process — something we here at Mindtickle call sales everboarding. The strongest sales teams (where all reps perform well rather than having a couple of top performers) have a culture of ongoing skills development and improvement through regular training and coaching.

You can develop a team culture of continuous improvement by providing ongoing training and coaching opportunities for reps and managers. Using a conversational intelligence tool like Call AI, you can analyze all your reps’ calls and sales interactions and automatically identify training opportunities and skills gaps. Managers can then recommend training programs and modules on an ongoing basis to help their reps improve.

You can also engage sellers with ongoing microlearning activities like live challenges and quizzes. These help reps improve information retention with spaced reinforcement and break their refresher training into bite-size chunks. And with an element of gamification, you can encourage some healthy competition between your reps to increase participation in your sales training.

Rethink traditional sales training with sales readiness

A structured sales readiness program is the best way for companies to change their traditional approach to sales training. The five-step framework encourages teams to pursue a continuous state of excellence across the whole sales organization by:

  1. Defining excellence
  2. Building knowledge
  3. Aligning content
  4. Analyzing performance
  5. Optimizing behavior

Instead of only providing reps with training during onboarding (plus your annual kick-off meetings), sales readiness creates a culture of learning through everboarding. By making training an ongoing process rather than an occasional investment, your sales team is always at its peak and ready for those high-value conversations with prospects.

Sales reps continually build knowledge through spaced reinforcement training exercises and microlearning activities tailored to areas where rep proficiency looks weaker. Then sales teams use AI-driven conversational intelligence to analyze reps’ performance on an ongoing basis. This enables reps (and their managers) to identify opportunities for improvement, where they can optimize skills and behavior with further personalized training.

Prioritizing sales readiness activities helps companies create a culture of sales excellence for their whole team, raising performance levels for all their reps, not just the historic top performers.

Build winning behaviors in your sales team with the help of Mindtickle

Personalized sales training programs help to set all your reps up for success and maintain a state of sales readiness. Mindtickle enables companies to move away from the cookie-cutter approach to sales training. Instead, you can build sales training programs that can be personalized to the needs of each individual rep — no matter how big or small your sales organization. 

Personalize Your Sales Training

See how Mindtickle helps you build and scale your sales training program. 

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This post was originally published in February 2022 and updated in November 2023. 

13 Ways To Measure Sales Enablement Success

Vivian Batman on November 6, 2023

To measure the success of your sales enablement program, you need to study more than just revenue and the number of units sold. Measuring sales enablement is about correlating sales activities with tangible business outcomes to discover what works and what doesn’t.

There are several effective ways to measure and track your sales enablement efforts. We’ll show you how each one works. Then you can pick the one best suited to your company’s needs.

Once you identify the best ways to measure your sales enablement program, you can start to make improvements, standardize activities, and develop successful sales enablement strategies.

Note: Each method is labeled direct or indirect. Direct ways of measuring sales enablement performance can be tied to revenue, while indirect ways can still impact the bottom line, but they’re not as immediate.

  1. Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate
  2. Win rate
  3. Competitive win rate
  4. Average deal size
  5. Quota attainment
  6. Sales process adherence
  7. Average time to productivity
  8. Time to quota
  9. Rep turnover rate
  10.  Employer Net Promoter Score (NPS)
  11.  Knowledge retention
  12.  Content usage and adoption
  13.  Call to action insights

1. Lead-to-opportunity conversion rate (direct)

Your lead-to-opportunity conversion rate tells you how often your salespeople convince your leads to stay in the sales funnel and potentially make a purchase. If your lead-to-opportunity conversion rate is high, your salespeople have the right skills, knowledge, and content to convince leads to consider buying your product or service.

How you track your lead-to-opportunity conversions depends on what you consider an opportunity. Opportunities have different specifications at different companies. A typical example of turning a lead into an opportunity is when a seller convinces a lead to attend a meeting or a demo. This scenario lets your company talk directly with your lead and move them through the sales funnel.

Track it in an Excel or Sheets spreadsheet or your CRM or sales readiness platform. Create a column for a list of leads and one for opportunities. At the end of each time period or cycle, pull a report from your CRM or sales readiness tool or use the formula below.

Take the number of opportunities divided by the total number of leads.

2. Win rate (direct)

Your sales win rate shows how often your salespeople convert opportunities into closed deals and gives you a gauge of individual sales rep performance and the abilities of your sales team(s) overall.

By looking at each rep’s win rate, you can tell whether or not they need more training or knowledge on how to convert. If the win rate of the team is consistently low, look into which practices aren’t working. For example, you may need to rethink your target customer, upskill all your sales reps, or review your marketing content.

Keep an ongoing record of your total number of opportunities and the number of those that turn into deals won. Track it in a spreadsheet or on your sales platform.

Create a column for a list of opportunities and one for wins. At the end of each sales cycle, pull a report using the win rate formula.

Take the number of wins your sales rep, sales team, or company has in a given month or quarter (sales cycle length) and divide it by the total number of opportunities.

3. Competitive win rate (direct)

This measurement is similar to win rate but only measures the rate of closed deals where your prospects (those who are in the opportunity stage) are also considered to be in a deal with a competitor.

If you have a lot of prospects who choose competitors, try to identify why they’re choosing competitors and use that info to equip your reps to close more of these deals. For example, if there’s a particular competitor your opportunities frequently choose over you, look at what they offer that you don’t. Or see what features their product or brand has that could be perceived as an advantage.

The ability to track your competitive win rate depends on whether or not prospects tell you that they’re considering purchasing from a competitor. You can make it part of your sales process to ask if they are, but they’ll have to voluntarily give you the information.

When you do get the information from your prospects, track it in a spreadsheet or on your sales platform. Make a column for a list of opportunities where the prospect considered working with a competitor and a column for how many were won. Then pull a monthly or quarterly report using the competitive win rate formula below.

Take the total number of team or company wins over a competitor and divide it by the total number of opportunities who considered a competitor.

4. Average deal size (direct)

This KPI tells you the average amount of money each customer spends on your product or service. Measure average deal size to identify patterns in the value of your deals. This can help you pinpoint better cross-selling and upselling opportunities for your salespeople.

 

To track average deal size, you need to log the amount of money each deal is worth and the number of deals closed. You can use a spreadsheet and the formula below to calculate the average deal size or pull a report from your sales platform.

Divide the total amount of money received from all customer orders in a given time frame by the number of deals you closed in that same period.

5. Quota attainment (direct)

Quota attainment is the percentage of your salespeople who are hitting their target sales goal during each sales cycle. In order for your team and your company to meet its quotas, each rep has to meet theirs. If you find you have team members who have trouble meeting their quotas, you can help them improve with coaching, training, and enhancing their knowledge.

At the end of each month, log the individual sales for all your sales reps. You can also compare each sales rep’s quota attainment to their performance in previous quarters or previous years to identify patterns. For example, maybe they performed better after they received training on a specific skill last year, and now they need a refresher course on that skill.

Use a spreadsheet or your sales platform. Make a column for their actual sales and one for their monthly quota. Use the formula below or pull a report from your CRM or revenue productivity platform.

For each salesperson, divide their actual sales in a given time period by their quota (or target sales) for that same period.

6. Sales process adherence (indirect)

This is a measurement of how well your sales process is adhered to by your sales reps. If you see your sales reps are not adhering to the process and also not meeting quotas, there may be a correlation. You can track this and find ways to get your reps to adhere to the process more closely.

Create a standard way for your reps to follow and document the process. For example, you could create a list of steps they can easily check off as they complete them. Or you can create a fill-in-the-blank template for the different steps of your process.

If your sales tool lets you track sales adherence (like with a checklist or template), you can use it to pull automatic reports. Otherwise, your sales managers will need to track and measure it manually using a spreadsheet.

This measurement requires some estimations based on company knowledge. To manually measure sales process adherence, you need a documented sales process — one that requires your sales reps to fill in or check off each step.

First, give each step of the sales process a weight. For example, if you have 10 steps, each step has a weight of 10%. If you have eight steps, each step weighs 12.5%.
Then, managers need to identify the percentage of steps each rep adheres to. (They have to refer to each rep’s documentation for this.) As an example, if your sales process has 10 steps and a sales rep adheres to seven, they adhere to 70% of the process.

7. Average time to productivity (indirect)

The average time to productivity is often referred to as ramp-up time, and it tells you the amount of time it takes for your newly hired sales reps to reach full productivity. Knowing the average time to productivity helps sales leaders make more accurate forecasts based on the capacity of each rep.

7. Average time to productivity (indirect)

The average time to productivity is often referred to as ramp-up time, and it tells you the amount of time it takes for your newly hired sales reps to reach full productivity. Knowing the average time to productivity helps sales leaders make more accurate forecasts based on the capacity of each rep.

Start by defining productivity. For example, maybe you define productivity as:

  • Making [X] calls per day,
  • Reaching at least [X]% of quota
  • Successfully demonstrating relevant skills (like product knowledge and building rapport).

Once you define productivity, use a spreadsheet or your sales tool if it has the capability to run a report. Keep a quarterly log of how long it takes each sales rep to reach productivity and how many reps have finished ramping up.

Take the sum of the time to productivity for all reps who finished ramping up in a quarter and divide it by the number of sales reps.

8. Time to quota (indirect)

This key metric measures the amount of time it takes for your reps to reach their sales quota for the first time. It can tell you how effective your sales enablement onboarding is. If you see it takes longer for reps to meet their quota, you can pinpoint areas of your onboarding process that aren’t setting them up to succeed. For example, maybe the onboarding process needs to have more emphasis or focus on time management.

Keep track of how many sales cycles it takes for each of your reps to meet their quota for the first time from after onboarding. Pull a report from your CRM or sales tool using the formula below with a spreadsheet.

Take the sum of the number of sales cycles it takes for each rep to meet their quota after onboarding, then divide it by the number of reps you’re measuring.

9. Rep turnover rate (indirect)

Rep turnover rate measures how often your reps voluntarily leave your company for any reason. This can be indicative of a few things but, in general, a high turnover rate indicates a problem among your sales reps that needs to be identified and fixed.

To find out more from your reps who leave, conduct a voluntary exit interview. Ask questions related to preparedness and your sales enablement program to find out how effective they perceive it to be.

Use a spreadsheet or a human resource management system to track your rep turnover rate. Create a you can add to whenever a sales rep voluntarily leaves the company. Pull the report or use the formula below monthly or quarterly.

Take the number of reps who voluntarily left the company in a specific time period and divide it by your total number of sales reps.

10. Employee Net Promoter Score (indirect)

You may already be familiar with a Net Promoter Score, which helps you gauge your customer experience and how satisfied your customers are. Similarly, an employee Net Promoter Score lets you measure your employees’ experience and satisfaction with your company. The more satisfied your employees are, the less likely it is you’ll see high turnover.

To track your employee Net Promoter Score, use a survey tool like Google Forms or Survey Monkey. When you create the questions, frame each one so the answers are a number. For example, ask “On a scale of 1-10…” so you can use the numbers 1-10 as a range for measuring answers.

Then you’ll designate each rep as a promoter, passive, or detractor based on their score:

  • Average of 9 or 10 = promoters: the rep is committed, satisfied, and engaged.
  • Average of 7 or 8 = passive: they’re neutral and generally content but not fully committed.
  • Average of 6 or less = detractors: they’re disengaged and probably won’t recommend your company to other job seekers.

After you’ve designated all your respondents in the appropriate category, take the number of promoters, subtract the number of detractors, divide that by the total number of respondents, and multiply this by 100.

11. Knowledge retention (indirect)

It’s not enough for sales teams to just understand the knowledge and content related to their jobs. Sales reps need to retain the information they learn so they can easily recall it for use during customer interactions.

The best way to track knowledge retention is by listening to interactions between your sales reps and customers. When you listen to customer phone conversations, you’ll be able to identify any gaps in sales reps’ knowledge.

You can use conversation intelligence software or take notes manually.

Take an assessment 30 days after initial sales training or consumption of knowledge. Use reinforcement activities like role-play or simulations where you mimic real-life sales scenarios in which they can use the knowledge they’ve acquired.

12. Content usage and adoption (indirect)

A big part of measuring sales enablement is tracking how well received and used related content is by your sellers and customers.

For sales teams, use a drive like Dropbox or Google Workspace to look at insights for your content. To track content adoption for customers, use Google Analytics or another website analytics tool.

Measure content adoption for your sales team and customers separately since they are two completely separate audiences.

To measure content adoption for customers, look at the number of views, how much time they spend on each piece of content, and/or the number of downloads.

To measure content adoption for sales teams, look at how often a piece of content is opened and used or shared.

13. Calls-to-action insights (indirect)

Calls-to-action (CTA) insights show you how often a potential customer takes action on your content, including blogs, paid ads, emails, and more. The more your leads click on your content to learn something or take an action, the more effective the content is.

You can compare whether the actions taken on your content correlate to more leads or more opportunities won by your sales reps.

You may need to use multiple tools to measure your CTAs, depending on how you distribute your content. For example, if you use Mailchimp for your email marketing and Google Ads for your paid advertising, you’ll need to individually track the CTAs for each one.

When you look at CTA insights, the number of clicks tells you the most. The content with the most clicks means that it resonated most with your audience and made them want to learn more or take some other action with your brand.

For a complete overview of your sales performance, take a holistic approach to revenue enablement

These 13 sales enablement metrics let you look at all the components of your program to measure how well each is working and the effect it has on your overall business outcomes. But it’s more than just looking at the components. You need to be able to analyze the data and information so you can make improvements.

Mindtickle lets you track, measure, and improve your sales enablement program holistically by emphasizing a focus on all aspects of the process. Our platform helps you keep your content up-to-date, analyze seller behaviors and skills, continuously provide sales training to get your teams ready to drive growth, and create a foolproof sales enablement strategy. Want to learn more? 

Start measuring what matters with Mindtickle

Create a foolproof sales enablement strategy. Want to learn more? 

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This post was originally published in August 2022 and was updated in November 2023. 

The Kirkpatrick Model: Measuring the Impact of Sales Training

Vivian Batman on October 9, 2023

One of the most common questions our customers ask is how to measure the impact of their sales training. While there’s no one-size-fits-all answer, the Kirkpatrick Model is a benchmark framework that has been used for over 60 years across many disciplines to measure training effectiveness. In this post, we’ll outline the Kirkpatrick Model and how it applies to sales training.

Orange pyramid of the Kirkpatrick model

 

What is the Kirkpatrick Model?

An integral part of any successful sales training program is measuring its contribution to skill building and improved performance. The Kirkpatrick Model is an internationally recognized tool for evaluating sales training results, taking any and all kinds of training into account, including formal, informal, in-person, and virtual.

With the level of visibility this model provides, sales leaders know which learning materials and formats are working to improve performance and which aren’t, helping to drive decisions and make changes that meet the team’s (and overall organization’s) needs.

The Kirkpatrick Model is comprised of four levels for evaluation:

Reaction
Learning
Behavior
Results

 

The four levels of the Kirkpatrick Model

Level 1: Reaction

This first level considers whether your reps found the sales training useful, engaging, and relevant to their role. It also allows you to discover topics that were missed in the training and topics that are redundant. Key to this level is actually utilizing the reactions and feedback you get to change the training program in ways that make a real difference.

  • Did your reps enjoy the sales training?
  • Was it a good use of your reps’ time?
  • Was the length of the training appropriate?
  • Did your reps feel comfortable participating?
  • Feedback from surveys and polls
  • Learning completion rates
  • Gamification scores
  • Grading via quizzes
  • Feedback on subsequent performance by managers

Much of this can be measured during and immediately after the training has been completed. You can also establish a specific cadence (monthly or quarterly, for example) in which to measure whether the learning has been both adopted and retained over time.

 

Level 2: Learning

Next, the model focuses on measuring how much reps’ knowledge and selling skills increased as a result of training. This will vary from one company to the next, according to their different business objectives. To get the most accurate measurement, set a baseline by testing reps prior to participating in the training.

  • Have your reps learned what they needed to?
  • Have reps’ skills improved in the way that was intended?
  • How much have the reps’ skills improved as a result of the training?
  • Knowledge certification
  • Sales skill certification
  • Program certification
  • Demo role-play certification

The degree to which some of these goals have been achieved can be measured during the training or immediately afterward. Others may require additional time to give reps the opportunity to absorb and practice selling skills. Again, the timeline is up to you based on how aggressive you want to be with developing competencies.

 

Level 3: Behavior

This measures how reps use what they have learned on a daily basis in their roles and how behaviors have changed as a result of the training. Managers must be very involved at this stage, in identifying and providing coaching to reinforce the changed behaviors.

  • Are reps using the knowledge and skills they learned?
  • How has performance changed as a result of the learning?
  • Have sales increased?
  • Did training help reps improve their selling skills?
  • Has time to productivity reduced? (for sales onboarding)
  • Are your sales reps aware that their sales skills have improved?
  • Manager-driven evaluations
  • Identifying and closing gaps
  • Reviewing sales performance by teams or individual reps over time

Some of these training goals can be measured immediately, but many will require performance reviews over a longer period of time. This could, for example, involve periodically evaluating improvements in sales performance.

 

Level 4: Results

This measures business outcomes and performance as a result of the training. You’ll have to determine which benefits, outcomes, or other results are most closely linked to the training and put a system in place for quantifying those outcomes moving forward.

  • Sales and revenue
  • Turnover of sales reps
  • Impact on specific stages of the sales funnel (e.g., demo conversions)
  • Number of calls/meetings held
  • Number of opportunities added to pipeline/CRM
  • Number of proposals/quotes submitted
  • Percentage of leads converted to opportunities
  • Percentage of opportunities converted to close
  • Average deal size per rep
  • Average deal cycle length
  • Percentage of forecast achieved

It’s important to look at these metrics in the early stages of a training program’s implemenation to see where performance has improved and to correct the course in areas that still need refinement. Continue tracking them over time for insights into long-term changes.

 

Benefits and limitations of the Kirkpatrick Model

As with any tool or initiative used within a sales organization, there are pros and cons to the Kirkpatrick Model.

In terms of pros, the model provides a scientific method for analyzing the impact of training. With its leveled approach, it offers clear steps to follow for evaluating reps individually, as well as gauging the performance of the greater team. The model works with different kinds of learning programs, whether you use a traditional program or a more sophisticated, digital solution.

However, there are a few downsides. While the Kirkpatrick Model has been continuously updated over time, its structure was developed over 60 years ago, and the way people learn and retain information has drastically changed since then — and it continues to evolve. Implementing the model will likely require a lot of time and resources and can be expensive to put in place. And finally, it doesn’t take into account how other factors like new leadership or a new technology, can influence results.

Mindtickle has the sales training solutions your team needs to kickstart a training program with ease. Quickly build competency and boost retention with tailored learning content for every sales rep. Learn more or request a demo today.

Sales Training in Mindtickle

Quickly build competency and boost retention with tailored learning content for every sales rep. Learn more or request a demo today.

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This post was originally published in August 2017, updated in November 2022, and again in October 2023.

 

8 Sales Statistics That Will Have You Questioning Your Selling Skills

Vivian Batman on September 6, 2023

You already know the hurdles in B2B selling.

With increasingly knowledgeable buyers, complex buying committees, and remote selling, today’s sales reps must elevate their expertise in order to win deals. Setting oneself apart from competitors is now more vital than ever.

Although certain sales professionals may believe they possess the complete skill set required to seal any deal, there’s always room for growth. The following sales stats can bolster sellers’ self-assurance and serve as a tool to pinpoint areas where further sales training may be necessary.

Infographic about selling skills sellers must have

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 Do you have a way to make sure every seller has the skills they need to close every deal? Mindtickle can help. 

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A Q&A on Data-Driven Enablement and the Power of AI

Vivian Batman on July 21, 2023

In a recent Q&A session with Teri Long, VP of Revenue Enablement at Mindtickle, we talked sales enablement, onboarding, and the power of AI in shaping the future of the industry. With 17 years of experience as an enablement leader, Teri shared valuable insights on the challenges faced by organizations in 2023, the importance of data-driven views in sales, and her passion for creating impactful onboarding programs.

Q: Tell us a little about your background before you got into an enablement role.

Teri shared that she spent years as a quota-carrying representative and how it’s shaped her perspective on sales enablement.

“I was in the trenches as a BDR, AE, and a CS rep. It has given me a unique perspective when it comes to how we enable the field,” Teri explained. “In a leadership role, I have incredible empathy and conviction for our sellers having walked in their shoes. That drives credibility with the field. I am thrilled to apply my expertise here at Mindtickle, which takes enablement to the next level for me, being at the epicenter of enablement.”

“I was in the trenches as a BDR, AE, and a CS rep. It has given me a unique perspective when it comes to how we enable the field."
Teri-long
Teri Long
VP of Revenue Enablement, Mindtickle

 

Q: What are the biggest challenges faced by sales enablement and revenue leaders and their teams in 2023?

Teri said one of the most significant challenges in 2023 is the lack of a data-driven view of what makes sellers successful and what doesn’t. Organizations struggle to predict each seller’s performance and maximize their potential for driving revenue growth.

“Not having a data-driven view or having the ability to maximize seller performance to drive revenue growth is the most important conversation that’s taking place right now. [Leaders] are concerned about not having the ability to predict every seller’s performance and being able to maximize the potential so that we drive revenue growth.”

The absence of an integrated platform to provide actionable insights creates difficulties in extracting and using valuable data effectively.

“Many organizations today have multiple platforms that live in disparate locations managed by various teams, or people, and the ability to consolidate the data in a meaningful and actionable way is incredibly difficult,” Teri said. 

“When you look at what Mindtickle brings to the market, having a fully integrated revenue productivity platform that can optimize all of those data inputs, and provide actionable insights you can act on to drive predictability – it’s a whole new game. That puts enablement and anybody in the suite C-suite in a position to drive predictable conversations.”

Q: Everyone is talking about generative AI and how it’s impacting their work. How do you see it impacting the enablement function?

“Coming out of Forrester B2B Summit, we spent a lot of time actually listening to the analysts talk about AI,” Teri said. One of the biggest takeaways is being aware of the security elements of AI and making sure to take a security-first approach. That’s going to be key.”

Teri then talked about four immediate impacts of generative AI on enablement. Here’s how she sees it changing the way work gets done:

Streamlined program operationalization, offering specific guidance to sales reps and optimizing enablement content

Enhanced selling efficiency by aiding meeting preparation, deal navigation, and pipeline prioritization, leading to higher-quality engagements.

Optimizing deal management by providing valuable team insights and improving coaching conversations, driving higher quota achievement.

Playing a vital role in forecasting, helping to identify risks, making adjustments, and providing more accurate revenue predictions, addressing a major challenge faced by C-suite executives

 

Q: What is the most prominent “sin” committed by leaders in onboarding, and how can they prevent it?

“Onboarding is often confused with orientation,” Teri explained. “Orientation is absolutely necessary, the paperwork, some of the routine tasks, Teri explained. “But onboarding is a comprehensive, integrated process to enable new hires with the knowledge, skills, product, process, and tools necessary to be successful. Time to productivity can vary greatly based on the organization, industry, and role. In some cases, we’ve seen programs running for up to 12 months.”

"Onboarding is a comprehensive, integrated process to enable new hires with the knowledge, skills, product, process, and tools necessary to be successful."
Teri-long
Teri Long
VP of Revenue Enablement, Mindtickle

Teri continued to explain that in order to understand if your program is successful, you need to determine success metrics.

“Measuring the success of the onboarding program can be incredibly ambiguous without the right systems and data,” she explained. “It requires determining your success metrics for the program. What – as an organization – indicates that your seller is successful by X time?”

Teri also emphasized that another common mistake is the belief that there’s only one Ideal Rep Profile (IRP) for all selling roles within an organization. This misconception can lead to hiring the wrong people for specific roles and negatively impact performance.

To prevent this, organizations must establish unique competencies for each selling role, allowing for targeted onboarding and hiring strategies. By defining and following IRPs, companies can drive more predictable revenue outcomes.

Q: What are the key metrics for evaluating a rep’s onboarding progress and performance?

Teri said that quota attainment comes first but there are other metrics that can indicate if a rep’s onboarding is complete.

“Ramp time, time to first deal closed, time to 4X pipe coverage, deal size, conversion rates, to name a few,” Teri explained. “Onboarding is a great opportunity for leaders to partner with enablement. We can help us drive different or correct behaviors that are impacting a seller’s ability to exceed productivity expectations.”

She continued to explain that various organizations have a wide range of success metrics and data points to measure their performance against, and these metrics may vary depending on one’s job title and the specific programs being implemented. However, some fundamental metrics remain crucial across the board. These include quota attainment, win rates, sales velocity, and conversion rates, which are vital in today’s market.

For teams working with segmented customer bases, cross-selling, upselling, and renewal rates, Teri said NPS scores play a significant role. They involve not only acquiring new customers but also expanding and retaining existing ones by introducing additional products or upselling to larger packages.

Q+A recap

In this Q&A, Teri shed light on the current challenges faced by sales enablement teams and shared actionable strategies to overcome them. Emphasizing the importance of data-driven views, strategic enablement, and personalized onboarding programs, Teri demonstrated how organizations can unlock their sales team’s full potential for driving revenue growth. As AI continues to evolve, it promises to revolutionize the sales enablement landscape, creating more efficient and successful sales teams.

Want more expert advice?

Watch videos from other Mindtickle experts to get advice on how to build a revenue-generating sales enablement machine. 

Take Me There

Podcast: How American Express Builds Long-Term Selling Skills

Vivian Batman on July 5, 2023

 

Episode summary

In this re-airing of an episode of Ready Set Sell, Hannah interviews Jeffrey D. Hatchell, an accomplished author and the Vice President of U.S. Sales Enablement & Global Leadership at American Express. With extensive experience as both a sales leader and a performance coach, Jeffrey brings valuable insights to the table. He is also the author of the highly regarded book, The Inspired Career, which focuses on inspirational leadership. Currently, Jeffrey leads a sales enablement organization dedicated to equipping salespeople and their leaders with the necessary skills to enhance their effectiveness with customers and prospects.

During their conversation, Hannah and Jeffrey delve into the concept of leading an inspired career. They explore how sales professionals can develop a deeper awareness of their own potential and discuss practical steps individuals can take to improve their leadership abilities. Jeffrey emphasizes the significance of transforming followers into leaders and cultivating leaders who can drive positive change within their organizations. He also sheds light on his role as an advocate for the Black community in the business world.

Overall, this engaging episode provides valuable insights into the pursuit of an inspired career, the importance of self-awareness for sales professionals, and the initiation of leadership skill enhancement. Furthermore, it highlights Jeffrey’s commitment to empowering individuals and fostering positive change within the business community, particularly in support of the Black community.

Keep checking back here to see more videos of our podcast.

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