What is Virtual Selling and How Has it Evolved?

Vivian Batman on December 13, 2023

Ever since pandemic lockdowns inspired companies to think outside the box, virtual selling has been firmly in the spotlight.

It’s not a new concept, but as technology advances and customer expectations grow ever more complex, virtual sales — and the people, training and tools that enable it — must continuously evolve.

Learn more about virtual selling, how it’s evolved, and what your reps need to know to jump in.

According to McKinsey

of B2B orgs expect hybrid reps to become the most common sales role
0 %

What is virtual selling?

Virtual selling, as you’ve probably guessed, is a sale completely orchestrated by technology. However, it’s not the same as simply making a sale online — so what is virtual sales and what does the term really mean?

The difference is that the former uses technology to complete a process designed for in-person interactions. The latter is built from the ground up to be an entirely virtual experience — one that reimagines sales rather than just repackaging it.

Part of this difference is due to evolution driven by B2C buying experiences and expectations. Virtual selling is a response to changing customer demands; for example, 56% of surveyed shoppers said they like the flexibility of shopping on their own schedule, while 50% noted they like the convenience of avoiding shopping trips.

What do B2C buyers like about virtual shopping?

Flexibility of shopping on their own schedule
56%
Convenience of avoiding shopping trips
50%

5 challenges of virtual selling

Although the right virtual selling software and skills can make digital interactions feel just as real as face-to-face experiences, there are certain drawbacks to this method. Here are a few key examples:

Sales reps may feel that their interactions are more limited and their ability to personalize service is reduced. This can leave virtual sales feeling a bit distant, hollow, or mechanical.

Many reps find it easier to build trust in face-to-face interactions where body language, proximity, and even a friendly handshake are all at their disposal. While connection over a distance is one of the biggest benefits of virtual selling, it can also be a drawback.

Virtual communication means there can be a lot of noise during a deal – whether it’s in the form of emails, Zoom meetings, phone calls, etc. Sellers have to rely on virtual-only communication with a prospect and it’s more likely that things can get lost (or go completely unseen) when shared digitally.

In some industries, demonstrating and showing a product in person is a huge differentiator. In-person product demos also allow sellers to give buyers hands-on experience and create a lasting impression. When everything is virtual, the power of the product can sometimes be lost.

33% of employees worry about what remote work can do to company culture, especially when it comes to connection, communication, and collaboration. That’s particularly relevant for sales, marketing, and customer success teams, who need to be on the same page to manage virtual selling tools and experiences.

A virtual selling environment may not be as engaging to some customers because it isn’t as immediate and all-encompassing. For example, shoppers in a conference room can’t exactly switch to another tab to check the weather or browse social media while a rep talks to them.

Distractions can include kids, pets, home noise, and all kinds of tech trouble. This can make virtual sales feel more disconnected for both the reps and the customers.

Research shows challenges with virtual selling

[Source: The RAIN Group Virtual Selling Skills and Challenges Report]

Gaining a buyer's attention and keeping buyer engaged
91%
Changing buyer's point of view on what's possible or how to solve a problem
89%
Developing relationships with buyers virtually
88%
Connecting with buyers and building rapport
87%
Overcoming objections and dealing with resistence
87%
Collaborating and interacting with buyers virtually
82%
Prospecting and filling the pipeline virtually
81%
Making the transition to virtual selling
80%
Leading virtual needs discovery
80%
Educating buyers with new ideas and perspectives
79%

Best practices for virtual selling

While there are certainly challenges in virtual sales, there are also plenty of remote-selling best practices to set your reps up for success. And virtual selling does work. According to McKinsey research, 75% of decision-makers think virtual engagement serves buyers equally well or even better than the shift to remote work.

According to McKinsey

of decision-makers think virtual engagement serves buyers equally well or better than in-person
0 %

Here are some tips for making sure your virtual meetings are successful:

  • Have a professional setup: Good lighting and technology can make a huge difference, especially when it comes to eliminating distractions. Blur your surroundings or use branded background images to keep the focus on you — and don’t forget to dress to impress.
  • Take every virtual selling training opportunity: Virtual selling skills aren’t the same as in-person selling skills. Use training and coaching as a chance to learn more about the environment, customer expectations, best practices, and more.
  • Share data-driven sales materials: Different kinds of media can help grab and keep a prospect’s attention. Use videos, infographics, product images, and any data-driven material you can offer virtually.
  • Create follow-up and nurture strategies: Losing contact in the virtual world is easy. Make sure you follow up with prospects to stay top-of-mind — and always leverage nurture strategies to gradually reel them in over time.

4 best virtual selling tools

To capture all the benefits of virtual selling, you need a fully digitized environment, including sales rooms, enablement materials and more. Remember, you can’t just adapt existing sales techniques to the digital world; you have to completely reimagine them and build every step with technology in mind.

Here are some of the best virtual selling software options:

  • Zoominfo logo

    B2B database: Zoominfo

    Zoominfo is a business-to-business (B2B) tool that connects revenue teams to customers. It unites sales, marketing, operations and talent via data-driven software and interconnected platforms.

  • Video conferencing: Zoom

    Aside from being flexible, easy to use and full of additional features such as email and calendar integration, Zoom has the benefit of being familiar to just about everyone. This video conferencing platform enables virtual selling and a whole lot more through its connected solutions.

  • Document sharing: Google Drive

    If you’re looking for cloud storage and document sharing, you couldn’t do much better than Google’s suite of data solutions. Docs, Sheets, Slides, Forms — Google Drive enables you to share documents of all kinds and even integrates with the company’s email and conferencing offerings.

  • Virtual selling platform: Mindtickle

The above examples are great virtual selling tools, but you’d need to juggle more than one to succeed. Mindtickle eliminates the need to jump back and forth between different platforms.

With Mindtickle, all your sales and revenue activities are together in one place. From sales onboarding and virtual selling training to forecasting and analytics, you’ll have access to a full lineup of solutions. This enables all your teams to communicate and collaborate in a shared digital environment, allowing you to build digitally native processes tailored to your virtual selling best practices. (Check out the flipbook gallery below to see Mindtickle in action.)

readiness-index-onboarding-gray
Revenue-Intelligence-Webpage-600x386-1-3
call-ai-recording-and-reporting-white-600x480 (1)
Manager-Report-Coaching-1024x837
SalesContentinMindtickle
Mindtickle Sales Readiness Index screenshot
Mindtickle for Sales Kickoffs

Future trends in virtual selling

As more companies discover the benefits of virtual selling, the platforms necessary to enable it, and the skills that make it more profitable, the environment will continue to shift. Trends will likely include:

  • Personalization and customization: To overcome the inherent limitations of virtual selling, reps will find new ways to personalize interactions and build sales around customized digital experiences. Marketing and sales teams will likely need to keep conversations going across multiple platforms. For example, a prospect who reaches out on social media will want continuity when switching to email or video chat.
  • AI and automation: From workflow automation to AI chatbots, new tools will make it even easier to build digital-first processes and eliminate manual tasks that slow down your reps’ days.
  • Self-service: Self-service solutions enable prospects to do their own research, essentially letting them be their own sales reps until they need more in-depth support. This saves time and money while boosting customer satisfaction.

How Mindtickle supports virtual selling

If you’re looking for a way to bring it all together — virtual selling tools, skills, best practices, and whole teams — this is it.

Mindtickle doesn’t just put your processes in one place. It enables reps to do more and sell more by better utilizing digital tools, data, sales enablement materials, and even coaching opportunities. Top solutions include:

  • Sales training: Individualized goals, AI-supported lessons, practice opportunities, and consistent reinforcement — that’s all part of Mindtickle sales training.
  • Analytics: Role-based dashboards and customized insights help you track your teams’ progress and identify skills or knowledge gaps in real time.
  • Conversation intelligence: Help your reps sharpen their virtual selling skills by tapping into sales conversations, identifying best practices, and supporting growth across your team.

See Mindtickle in Action

Enable your reps to do more and sell more by better utilizing digital tools, data, sales enablement materials, and coaching opportunities.

Get a Demo

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

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
0

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. 

What is a Sales Playbook and How Do You Build One? 

Vivian Batman on November 20, 2023

Every sales organization aims to close more deals and grow revenue. Of course, sales reps play a critical role in achieving these goals. But often, they’re ill-equipped to guide deals to the finish line.

Each prospective customer comes with a unique set of needs and challenges. All too often, sales reps spend time developing a unique sales strategy for each prospect based on what they think will work. In other words, these sales reps attempt to “reinvent the wheel” each and every time.

A better approach is for the sales team to determine what actually works with top sales reps – and then equip the entire sales team with those proven strategies and best practices. That’s where sales playbooks come in.

In this post, we’ll explore what a playbook is, what it includes, how you can build one that works well for your sales team. We’ll also cover some of the key challenges organizations face when creating and implementing a sales playbook.

What is a sales playbook?

Before we dive into how to create a sales playbook, let’s first align on what a sales playbook is.

A sales playbook is a guide that outlines your organization’s sales strategies, processes, procedures, and best practices. Sales playbooks aren’t simply a collection of generic tips and practices. Instead, a sales playbook outlines strategies, processes, and techniques that are proven to work at that specific organization.

There are many benefits of a sales playbook. But at the end of the day, a sales playbook is a great resource for engaging any buyer at any point in the sales cycle. When sellers employ the strategies in the playbook, they can close more deals, hit quota, and grow revenue.

A sales playbook is a powerful tool. However, sales organizations must deliver training and ongoing learning opportunities to ensure sellers master the strategies outlined in the playbook. In addition, sales managers must deliver sales coaching to help sellers understand how to use the strategies and best practices in the sales playbook.

What is included in a sales playbook?

There’s no single sales playbook that works for all companies. Instead, sales playbooks vary from company to company, depending on factors including industry and audience (among others).

However, there are some common elements you’ll find across most sales playbook templates. Let’s take a closer look at a few of those B2B sales playbook components.

Company overview

This section of the sales playbook includes high-level information about your company, its goals, and the role of sellers in achieving those goals. That information includes the organization’s:

  • Mission
  • Values
  • Strategy

This section also includes an organizational chart to help sellers understand who reports to whom – and how the organization fits together. There may also be a section in the enterprise sales playbook that outlines the roles and responsibilities of each individual on the sales team.

Product information

Successful sellers must become product experts. This section of the B2B sales playbook includes details about each of your product or service offerings – including pricing. Here, sellers can better understand:

  • What you sell
  • What your products and services do
  • How your products and services help buyers solve challenges and address pain points
  • How much your products and services cost

This section should also include details and pricing for any packages your company offers.

Compensation structure

HR should communicate a rep’s compensation structure during the hiring process. However, it’s also important to incorporate information about compensation structure in your sales playbook. Be clear and transparent. This will help sellers understand what to expect and eliminate confusion down the road.

Sales methodology

In the world of sales, there are myriad sales methodologies. Some of those methodologies include:

An organization must identify the sales methodology that best aligns with its goals and values.

Be sure to outline your organization’s chosen methodology in your enterprise sales playbook. This will serve as a framework for every deal your sellers face. In addition, you may want to include information about why this methodology was chosen.

Sales process

The sales process section should take up a good portion of your B2B sales playbook. Essentially, it explores each step sellers must take during the sales process – from identifying prospects to closing the deal. This section is a key resource for helping sellers understand what they need to do to be successful at each stage of the selling cycle.

Ideal customer profiles

Your reps have limited time. As such, you want them to spend their time with good-fit prospects.

Your ideal customer profiles outline the key characteristics of a prospect that’s a good fit for your offerings. The ICP can include information such as:

  • Company size
  • Industry
  • Geographic location
  • Job title
  • Challenges
  • Goals

Of course, a rep may engage with multiple personas during the sales cycle. For example, a rep selling sales enablement software might interact with sales, marketing, and sales enablement professionals. Including these personas in your sales playbook can help your sellers understand who these people are and what matters to them.

Sales plays

This critical section of the sales playbook provides sellers to follow in a specific sales scenario – whether it be lead qualification or negotiation. Remember: sales plays shouldn’t be based on hunches. Instead, they should be rooted in practices that are proven to work at your organization.

Sales messaging

It’s important to ensure sellers are aligned on company messaging. This section of the B2B sales playbook helps sellers know what to say in certain circumstances. It might include messaging for:

  • Prospecting via phone or email
  • Delivering an elevator pitch
  • Handling objections
  • Asking questions
  • Closing deals

KPIs

Sellers must have a good understanding of what’s expected of them. That way, they can prioritize their time accordingly. Be specific about the seller’s key performance indicators (KPIs) and keep them in the loop if those KPIs change.

Additional resources

Most likely, your sellers have plenty of additional resources at their disposal to help them move deals forward. For example, they may have access to internal sources, including:

  • Training
  • Battle cards
  • Sales decks

They may also have access to customer-facing content, such as:

  • Sales sheets
  • Case studies
  • Product presentations

This section of your enterprise sales playbook should outline what resources are available to sellers and where they can find these resources.

How to create a sales playbook

Sales playbooks are unique to each organization. So it’s not as simple as running a Google search for “sales playbook” – and then adopting one of the top results as your own.

So, how can you go about building a sales playbook that works for your organization?

Some organizations start with a sales playbook template. In addition, there are some key sales playbook best practices to keep in mind.

1. Form your playbook team
2. Do your research
3. Determine your sales methodology
4. Map the sales process
5. Design sales plays based on what works for your top sellers
6. Create your playbook
7. Revisit your playbooks often

 

1. Form your sales playbook team

A sales playbook can’t be a single-person effort. Instead, it requires cross-functional collaboration. Typically, you need to include representatives from the following groups:

  • Sales leadership
  • Top sales reps
  • Marketing
  • HR
  • Product development
  • Executive team

While this is a collaborative effort, one person should be tapped to lead the project. This person will be responsible for coordinating the entire process and ensuring the team develops an effective sales playbook.

 

2. Do your research

Once you’ve established your sales playbook team, it’s time to do an audit of your organization’s current processes. During this stage, your goal is to gain a deep understanding of what processes, strategies, and resources are currently being used in the field – and how (or whether) they’re driving reps’ success. You’ll also want to identify common challenges and pain points.

Your sales reps are a great source of information. After all, they’re the ones in the field interacting with buyers all day. Top sellers can convey what they do that sets them apart from the rest. In addition, sellers of all experience levels can share insights on their processes and key challenges.

 

3. Determine your sales methodology

A sales methodology sets the tone for how your sellers interact with buyers. If you haven’t already, now is the time to determine which sales methodology fits best for your organization’s goals and values. Be sure to include details on your chosen sales methodology in your sales playbook.

 

4. Map the sales process

In order to create an effective sales playbook, it’s key to understand how both buyers and sellers navigate the sales process.

Based on your research, map the sales process – both from a buyer’s and a seller’s perspective. Be sure to define the common needs and pain points at each point in the purchase journey.

Then, identify which tactics and techniques are most effective for moving buyers from one stage of the sales process to the next.

 

5. Design sales plays based on what works for your top sellers

Sales plays are a key component of a sales playbook. But those sales plays shouldn’t be based on what should work. Instead, they must be based on strategies and techniques that are proven to work. Your top sellers are a great source of information for what works well.

 

6. Create your sales playbook

Once you’ve done all the background work, it’s time to write and format your sales playbook.

One common question is, “How long should a sales playbook be?” There’s no easy answer. It’s important to include all necessary information. But don’t be needlessly verbose. Sellers are more likely to read the entire sales playbook if it’s clear and concise.

Regardless of length, be sure to include a table of contents. While sellers should read the playbook in its entirety, they will also use it as a reference guide. A table of contents helps them easily find exactly what they’re looking for.

In addition, be sure to consider format. Some organizations use printed sales playbooks. However, this approach isn’t usually effective. A better approach is to ensure sellers can digitally access the sales playbook – and all supporting resources – within a single platform. With such a platform, you can also make updates digitally. That means sellers always have access to the latest and greatest version of the sales playbook.

 

7. Revisit your sales playbook often

In the world of business, change is constant. Markets evolve. Product and service offerings change. New sales techniques and tactics come to light that help sellers successfully close more deals. Your sales playbook must evolve to keep up.

Be sure to track usage of the playbook. In addition, ask for feedback. This will help you understand what’s working – and what’s not. Then, you can use those insights to optimize your sales playbook on a regular basis.

Key challenges when creating and implementing a sales playbook

A sales playbook serves as a guide to help sellers successfully navigate deals. As such, it’s well worth the time and effort required to create an effective sales playbook.

However, there are some challenges organizations face when creating and implementing a sales playbook. Let’s take a look at some of the common challenges.

Change can be difficult in all facets of life – including business. When you introduce a sales playbook, this is a change for your sellers. Some sellers and sales managers will resist this change

The market is always in flux. It’s important to ensure your sales playbook serves your sellers today – and in the future. However, it can be challenging to ensure your sales playbook always reflects these constant changes in the market.

Ongoing feedback is key to creating an effective sales playbook. Early on in the process, sales feedback ensures you understand what techniques and strategies are (and aren’t) working in the field. You’ll also have sellers who share feedback after the sales playbook has been created and distributed.

It can be challenging to collect feedback in a way that represents all sellers. In addition, it’s tough to distill this feedback into actionable insights you can use to improve and enhance your sales playbook.

The most effective sales playbooks are those that are revised regularly to reflect changes and feedback. However, regular updates increase the likelihood that sellers are using an outdated version of the sales playbook. This is especially true if you use printed sales playbooks or PDF versions that are distributed via email.

Using a revenue productivity platform can help. Your sales playbook – as well as all accompanying training and resources – are all housed in a single platform. It’s easy to make changes to the sales playbook and you can be sure your sellers are always turning to the most up-to-date version of the sales playbook.

Elevate your sales performance using sales playbooks

Sellers have a limited number of hours in the day. There’s no need to reinvent the wheel for each deal – especially when there are strategies that are proven to work.

Sales playbooks are a powerful tool for new and veteran sellers alike. Sales playbooks – when they’re done well – equip sales reps with proven tools and strategies to move any deal forward. When sellers have access to a proven formula, they’re more likely to close deals and drive revenue growth.

Printed and PDF playbooks aren’t the best approach as they quickly become outdated. A better approach is to create your sales playbook with a revenue productivity platform like Mindtickle. With Mindtickle, your sellers always have access to the sales training, enablement, and call insights they need to close more deals – all within a single platform.

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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? 

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

7 Reasons Why Your Quota Attainment and Sales Productivity is Slipping

Vivian Batman on October 19, 2023

Our 2022-2023 State of Sales Enablement Outlook Report found that only 26% of sellers achieved above 90% of their quotas. With so many sellers missing quota, leaders are often asking themselves:

Reps who meet 90% or more of quota
0%

 

What’s going wrong?

Before you can identify a solution, you first need to identify the root of the problem. This blog post will help you diagnose why the majority of sellers are missing their numbers each quarter.

And even though these issues might ring a little too true for you and your team but don’t worry. Now that you know why quota attainment is a problem, you’ll be able to determine a solution and the next steps.

Read on to explore seven of the top reasons why your quota attainment and sales productivity may be slipping – and what you can do to turn things around.

  1. Reason #1: You’re only focused on onboarding
  2. Reason #2: Your reps can’t find the content they need — or they don’t even know it exists
  3. Reason #4: You’re taking an ad hoc approach to sales coaching
  4. Reason #5: You’re using the wrong metrics to measure readiness (or not measuring at all)
  5. Reason #6: Your training program is all over the place
  6. Reason #7: You’re using point solutions that focus on a single piece of the readiness puzzle

What is a sales quota and why is it important?

A sales quota is the sales performance target sellers must achieve during a certain time period, usually a quarter.

When a seller achieves their quota, they’ll also receive their incentive target pay. Sales quotas are set by sales leaders and are an incentive for sellers to perform. Sales enablement teams work closely with sales leadership to monitor quota attainment to ensure enablement efforts are focused on helping every seller meet and beat their quota each quarter.

Reason #1: You’re only focused on onboarding

Often, sales organizations invest a lot of time and resources into developing a great onboarding program. And that’s certainly not a bad thing. A solid onboarding program can serve as a great foundation for sellers’ success, familiarizing them with the company, its products, goals, and how sellers will play a role in achieving those goals. What’s more, great onboarding is proven to get you closer to your revenue goals.

According to the 2022 State of Sales Readiness Report, on average, sellers at winning organizations take four weeks to complete an onboarding program and are fully ramped in four to five months. 

4 weeks

4-5 months

 

This 40-50% decrease in industry average ramp time ensures sellers can start generating revenue earlier.

But the thing is, new reps are bombarded with information during onboarding — and unlikely to retain it all. In fact, research from Ardent Learning shows that the most significant loss of knowledge happens within the first day and within three months, most people have forgotten between 84% and 90% of the information they learned during training.

Instead, organizations must also incorporate continuous learning (what we refer to as sales everboarding) if they expect reps to absorb and retain information — and then apply that information in the field. Our research with Heinz Marketing found that 78.6% of companies that have an effective training program meet 100% of their selling quota. And 90% who hit 75% or more of their quota participate in sales training on a monthly basis. If you’re not there already, now’s the time to transition from onboarding to sales everboarding.

Companies with effective training that hit 100% of quota
0%

 

Reason #2: Your reps can’t find the content they need — or they don’t even know it exists

We’ve all heard the adage about content being king. For revenue organizations, the sentiment is certainly true. Sales content — both internal and external — plays a key role in selling success.
Most organizations understand the importance of content and devote time to creating plenty of it. This normally includes internal content (such as a just-in-time training piece or a recording of a top seller delivering their sales pitch) and external content (such as pitch decks and sell sheets).

The goal of content is to ensure sellers are always ready – and have what they need to move deals forward. But even the greatest content is completely useless if a rep doesn’t know where to find it — or that it even exists. And this happens… a lot. Our 2022 State of Sales Readiness Report found that 50% of all engagement is generated by just 10% of content.

The most successful revenue organizations house all content — both internal and external — in a single, easily searchable platform. That way, reps have easy access to the content they need, when they need it, so that they can spend less time hunting for content (or — gasp! — creating their own) and more time moving deals forward and hitting revenue targets.

 

Reason #3: Your reps don’t know why deals go south

A rep shares the news that they’ve lost a deal they thought was in the bag. You try to dig for more information, but the rep can’t seem to articulate exactly why the deal was lost. And that makes it pretty difficult (if not impossible) to coach that rep toward better outcomes in the future.

Of course, frontline managers are busy. They don’t have the time to sit in on every rep call to understand what’s going right or wrong.

But the good news is that conversation intelligence solutions, such as Mindtickle’s Call AI, allow managers to understand what’s really happening in the field. With conversation intelligence, sales managers can identify competency and knowledge gaps that might be standing in the way of a seller closing more deals — and then work to deliver coaching that’ll diminish those gaps and empower the rep to close more deals.

 

Reason #4: You’re taking an ad hoc approach to sales coaching

Sales coaching — when it’s done well — can have a tremendous impact on rep productivity and quota attainment. Research tells us eight out of 10 teams who have effective coaching practices hit greater than 75% of sales quotas.

But sales coaching often isn’t done well. Often, there’s no top-down agreement on coaching goals and methods. Instead, frontline managers are left to their own devices to coach as they see fit. This means many of them take an ad hoc approach that involves purely tactical efforts like deal reviews, and they don’t have the time, sales coaching tools, or training needed for effective coaching.

The ad hoc approach to coaching isn’t effective. In fact, it’s downright counterproductive. Research from CSO Insights tells us that 75% of sales organizations waste resources due to random and informal coaching approaches.

Instead, an organization must build a culture of coaching if it expects to see improvements to quota attainment and productivity. And this has got to start from the top, with the chief revenue officer.

But how?

Start by defining what you hope to achieve by building a culture of coaching. Then, there must be alignment on a standard coaching approach that’ll help you achieve those goals.

In addition, if it’s going to be effective, coaching must be individualized for each rep. Organizations should first define their ideal rep profile (IRP).

Ideal rep profile competencies

 

This is the set of skills and competencies a given rep must have to succeed at the organization. With the IRP in place, it’s easier for managers to identify skill gaps — and then provide personalized sales coaching to address those gaps.

Reason #5: You’re using the wrong metrics to measure readiness (or not measuring at all)

The same CSO Insights report mentioned earlier found that a mere 24% of enablement teams are able to measure the ROI of their programs. That’s a big problem. Without consistent measurement, you can’t understand how your efforts are impacting sales readiness — and how to optimize programs for better results.

A lot of organizations say they measure impact. But often this involves tracking metrics like adoption and engagement. Sure, usage data matters — but it only tells a small part of the story. A rep might consume all the training assigned to them, yet continue to miss quota every quarter.

Instead, organizations must regularly track a wide range of data on sales performance to understand how their programs are actually impacting productivity and quota attainment. Of course, these metrics vary from organization to organization, but there are some core metrics that should be tracked by all. For example, organizations can (and should) track each individual’s performance against the company’s ideal rep profile. They should also leverage data from sales conversations to measure how training is (or isn’t) applied in the field.

The right technology equips sales leaders with the right data at the right time — presented in a way that’s easy to consume and take action on.

 

Reason #6: Your training program is all over the place

With everything else on your plate, focusing on building out ongoing sales training programs sometimes falls to the wayside. However, there’s a case to be made for making sales training programs a priority project in the year ahead. Our research with Heinz Marketing found that 78.6% of companies with an effective program meet 100% of their selling quota. Outside of that, organizations have seen improved seller engagement and retention. To build a sales training program that works, make sure you’re:

  • Going beyond onboarding
  • Defining what good looks like
  • Making it personal
  • Reinforcing it
  • Mixing up the format
  • Measuring the impact

Reason #7: You’re using point solutions that focus on a single piece of the productivity puzzle

The revenue technology landscape is complicated. There are quite literally hundreds of vendors that promise their solution will solve the problem of sales productivity and quota attainment.

Some of these vendors may even bill their wares as revenue productivity or sales readiness solutions. But in reality, these offerings only address a single component of true revenue productivity, such as training or content. On their own, they’re not enough to improve quota attainment and productivity. And investing in multiple solutions is expensive and complicated.

They often don’t play well together — and they require your reps to learn and use several technologies.

In order to truly increase quota attainment and sales productivity (and achieve sales readiness), sales leaders must be able to:

  • Define excellence
  • Build the knowledge their reps need to close deals
  • Equip sellers with content aligned to the sales process
  • Analyze what’s happening in the field
  • Optimize reps’ behaviors to improve outcomes

While you may have invested in products that address one of these, the most successful sales teams are those that use a solution that addresses them all — within a single revenue productivity platform.

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This post was originally published in January 2022, was updated in January 2023, and again in October 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.

 

Is Measuring ROI the Holy Grail of Sales Enablement?

Vivian Batman on September 7, 2023

Given how much investment companies make in coaching sales reps, it’s not great to know that, commonly, 20% of sellers generate 80% of sales.

Can you imagine the ROI that could be achieved if every seller were empowered to reach their monthly sales quota?

This is why you’ve invested in sales enablement.

Simple calculations aren’t enough to determine if your investment in sales enablement has been worthwhile. To get a real grasp on sales enablement ROI, you’ll need a comprehensive look at the impact sales enablement has on your company.

3 best practices to get a holistic view of your sales enablement ROI

Traditional ROI calculations don’t give the full picture of how sales enablement impacts your profit.

That’s because sales enablement creates an ecosystem that impacts different stages of the sales cycle, which all have different effects on ROI.

From the performance of sales content to the quality of deal negotiations or the ramp-up time of new sales hires, sales enablement provides insights and tools that streamline processes and optimize practices to continually improve sales results.

Listed below are metrics that affect the ROI of your sales enablement tool.

Sales and performance metrics

About a quarter of organizations measure the impact of sales enablement using productivity metrics and milestones. But to calculate the ROI of sales enablement with sales and performance metrics, you first need to understand how sales enablement improves these metrics.

Sales enablement improves performance metrics by enabling insights and seller development. These platforms use data from past deals to provide insights into what aptitudes and selling approaches generate the highest number of wins.

In turn, sales reps are able to use these insights to concentrate on developing skills that impact their sales quotas and improve overall ROI.

Measure the following to understand the ROI of your sales enablement platform:

How has sales enablement increased the marketing qualified lead (MQL) to sales qualified lead (SQL) pool and quality of leads?

Has the sales cycle shortened between an SQL and a closed deal?

Have win rates and overall average quota attainment improved?

For sales reps who have completed their sales training, how has their personal win rate improved compared to those who haven’t completed sales training?

Has the average purchase value increased thanks to behavior insights provided by your sales enablement platform?

Has your company been able to forecast with higher accuracy and better manage quarter objectives and budget thanks to sales enablement insights?

 

To continually improve your sales enablement performance metrics, invest in your team’s skill development to create stronger sellers that meet the qualities outlined by your IRP and reach sales quotas. This snowball effect of leads’ learning and developing produces a sales team that is optimized against market changes and agile enough to learn new skills that benefit the company’s profitability.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Content metrics

Half of all prospect engagement is generated by just 10% of content. And sales enablement is the tool that helps you pinpoint and magnify that 10%.

With sales enablement, your content ROI increases as it tracks content engagement and performance. In turn, you can replicate selling material and improve content conversion metrics continually.

For the best ROI, you need quality sales leads that convert into customers. And to convert leads, you need to optimize content with personalization and engaging features. You need sales enablement for both, and those features affect the health of your sales.

Content metrics you should be tracking are:

How much time does the prospect spend with optimized content? What actions do they perform afterward?

How have sales enablement platform insights improved content clickthrough rates (CTRs)? This is important, as clickthroughs often lead to requests for appointments, more information, or demos.

Understand how sales enablement improves the quality of your content and decreases bounce rates.

Understand how your team uses content to complement their sales approach.

Sales enablement platforms help improve these content ROI metrics by providing a centralized hub for sales and marketing to share and distribute materials. As such, each piece of content generates its own analytics to track performance and engagement.

Mindtickle Asset Hub

Staff onboarding and adoption metrics

It’s clear that time is money and when it comes to ramping up new hires to their full sales capacity, the faster a new sales hire is able to capture new leads, the quicker ROI will be reached.

Sales enablement catalyzes ROI by decreasing onboarding time by 40-50%, which generates revenue faster. The amount of time saved, and revenue generated, must be taken into account when measuring the ROI of a sales enablement platform.

With sales enablement platforms that offer proper onboarding, new hires will strengthen the skills needed to succeed in their roles, and future sales quota attainment will be impacted. Reports show proper tools will improve win rates by 7%.

To calculate your ROI, take into consideration these onboarding metrics:

 

How has sales enablement lessened onboarding time and saved management time to onboard new hires?

Understand the time saved for a new hire to start winning deals independently.

How long did new sales hires take to reach their monthly sales quotas?

How many sellers stay or leave after six months, a year, and three years? A 2017 report found the average cost of turnover per employee is $97,690; that’s a hefty loss per salesperson.

Determine how well-prepared your sales reps are by comparing them to your IRP and sales readiness chart.

 

Sales enablement platforms help improve these metrics by providing new hires with real-life examples and best practices. Moreover, by comparing their attributes to those of an IRP, sellers can work toward the skills and practices with the highest win rates.

You can improve your sales enablement platform’s ROI with a personalized onboarding program and deal coaching to develop a sales team that meets your company’s standards and expectations. Moreover, with constant career development and support, sales reps are more likely to be engaged and remain in your company for longer.

 

Rethink your sales approach

ROI is an insightful metric to understand which procedures and tools are positively or negatively affecting your company’s bottom line. It helps you understand if strategy and content could be improved.

The ability to attribute which measures directly influence the success of a sales strategy is a powerful tool that allows you to continually optimize your sales force for the better. In terms of sales enablement, the precise insights and data will help you understand which areas of your sales enablement strategy need improvement.

Measuring every aspect that contributes to sales enablement ROI gives a clear path to reaching quarterly KPIs and objectives. The data pinpoints what content needs to be updated and which skills need to be developed to reach that quota.

Not all benefits can be measured in terms of ROI

There are certain factors that, by nature, aren’t as easy to include in the ROI calculation. However, it’s important to keep them in mind, as they benefit the health of a sales cycle and quota achievement.

The investment in sales enablement tools isn’t just about purchasing a platform. It’s an investment in the development of your sales team’s skills, which makes them strong sellers and improves their engagement in continually developing their sales strategies.

Sales enablement gives the insight needed to adjust strategies according to buyer behavior. In turn, the buying experience for the prospect runs more smoothly and improves the overall view of the company, which affects the level of trust and commitment between the company and the prospect.

Sales enablement data and insights align the marketing and sales departments to work together and unify their revenue efforts. The centralized location for information and material combines the knowledge and strategies of the two departments. This saves costs arising from misunderstandings or lost information.

The company’s brand identity is reinforced because of the sales enablement platform’s ability to centralize material and create a baseline communication strategy that is proven to be successful. This way, the company’s core values, and objectives are echoed in every sales and marketing interaction, building a strong brand identity. In turn, the brand impacts the level of affinity customers feel toward a company.

Now that you know your sales enablement ROI, here’s what to do next

Once you measure your ROI, the real strategy begins. It’s important to keep an eye on all the metrics that contribute to ROI on a monthly basis to be able to improve or test new strategies continually.

Use the data from sales enablement to pinpoint what skills need development, what content needs to be repurposed, or how to switch up the sales strategy. You will need to be able to compare monthly data to understand what improvement looks like.

Not only that, but improving your sales enablement ROI will also mean an improvement in onboarding, content management, and sales strategies to maintain goals and improve ROI in the future.

Want to keep a helpful sales checklist at hand for a future quarterly meeting? Here’s our free checklist.

How are you measuring sales enablement?

Mindtickle can help you better measure your sales enablement efforts and impact on revenue. 

Get a Mindtickle Demo

 

This post was originally published in November 2022 and was updated in September 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?

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