Are You Outgrowing Your Enablement Platform? 4 Signs It’s Time to Switch

Christian Pieper on December 12, 2024

It would be awesome if every enablement professional could solve all their problems by simply choosing the perfect vendor, but sadly, no revenue enablement platform comes with a magic wand.

Sales enablement success hinges on building a partnership between your company and your vendor–a partnership that meets you where you are at, supports your needs, and grows alongside you as your enablement needs mature.

Whether you are using Seismic, HIghspot, or Allego, alternatives are out there. Even if your revenue enablement platform met your needs when you chose it, how have your needs changed since? Are there steps you would like to take to take your enablement to the next level? It might be time to explore other sales enablement platforms.

Here are four signs that you’ve outgrown your current revenue enablement solution.

1. You’re chasing adoption/completion long after implementation.

Adoption is important, but it’s not an end unto itself. You want the adoption and consumption of your training content because you want your reps to improve their selling behavior and win more and bigger deals.

Less mature solutions like learning management solutions (LMS – a fitting acronym in this case), point solutions, and less robust platforms are designed to drive consumption and report on it. If you want to prove your impact on the numbers that matter, you need a comprehensive revenue enablement solution like Mindtickle.

2. You’re shopping for point solutions to fill gaps.

When your needs outgrow your revenue enablement vendor, one common strategy is to augment your base platform with point solutions to serve unmet use cases. If you’ve considered adding new tech to provide AI role-plays, personalized learning, or partner enablement, it’s worth asking why your current platform doesn’t offer those solutions.

Adding point solutions might expand your use cases, but it will also complicate your seller experience, create data siloes, and add to your admin burden. In contrast, upgrading to a robust revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, will simplify your tech stack while serving your present and future growth needs.

3. You’re doing the same manual steps over and over.

Simple enablement solutions are great if you’re looking to serve basic use cases for a small team. Even then, you’ll compensate for the platform’s limited functionality with more repetitive, time-consuming, manual work from your enablement team. You can get by that way for a while, but as your needs grow, those small inconveniences become major drains on your resources and ROI.

When your admins complain about an extra click or manual step or two, they complain about hundreds or thousands of extra steps over a few months. Consider how much more agile, effective, and comprehensive your enablement initiatives could be without this massive drain on your output. Considering the initial use cases, a better platform could be enabled with its focus on automation, artificial intelligence, and other critical time savers.

4. You’re struggling to keep up with change.

As companies grow, so does the rate of change they confront. New acquisitions, competitors, products, etc.–all of these advancements pose unique challenges to enablement teams. How do you keep your reps up-to-date with everything that happens? How do you keep them ready for every interaction, every day?

Simple, old-fashioned enablement platforms make it harder for you to adapt to change. If you can’t easily find, update, and maintain content, your enablement programs are growing out-of-date before you even get them fully adopted. Modern revenue enablement platforms should provide you with lots of different learning modalities for getting answers in the hands of your reps right when they need them. And they’ll provide you with AI assistants, templates, and pre-built content that help you get up-to-date information in your reps’ hands significantly faster.

Seamlessly upgrade your sales enablement strategy

If any of these sound like you, don’t worry. It’s a good sign. Your enablement function is ready to take the next step to unlock a higher return on a new investment. You just need the right sales enablement tools in your toolbelt.

Worried about the challenges and costs of migration? Don’t let that hold you back. As Seismic, Highspot, and Allego competitors, we at Mindtickle hear this all the time, and we’ve helped dozens of companies make the switch to a more robust revenue enablement platform to match their evolving needs.

Our expert support and services professionals make it as simple as possible for you to migrate your valuable content, while quickly unlocking the new value supported by Mindtickle’s advanced revenue enablement technology. Before you know it, you’ll be giving your growing team the support they need, while enjoying the support from a true partnership with a mature revenue enablement vendor.

Take the Next Step in Sales Enablement

Upgrade to Mindtickle and unlock the full potential of your revenue team.

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How to Create a Mutual Action Plan That’ll Help You Close More Deals

Christian Pieper on December 5, 2024

Let’s face it: B2B selling isn’t getting any easier. According to recent data, over half of sales professionals feel it’s harder to sell now than it was a year ago.

But the truth is, B2B buying is often difficult, too. Per Gartner, more than three-quarters of B2B buyers rate their last purchase as very complex or difficult.

of B2B buyers say purchases are very complex or difficult
> 0 %

A mutual action plan can simplify the sales process for buyers and sellers alike. How? By ensuring all parties are aligned throughout the entire purchase journey.

But what is it?

In this post, we’ll explore everything you need about mutual action plans. We’ll share examples and tips for developing an action plan that aligns buyers and sellers and empowers reps to close more deals faster.

What is a mutual action plan (MAP)?

You may ask yourself, “What is a mutual action plan?” If that’s the case, you’ve come to the right place.

A mutual action plan clearly defines action items and assigns responsibility for each. They also include deadlines for when each action item must be completed.

Some mutual action plans also outline decision criteria, the factors a buyer will evaluate when determining if the solution fits them. They may also include a list of potential risks – and how they can be overcome.

A mutual action plan isn’t simply a list of checkboxes for a seller to tick off. Instead, it’s a collaborative document between sellers and buyers. Buyers and sellers must align on the outlined action items, next steps, milestones, and timelines.

A mutual action plan (also known as a MAP) is a collaborative framework that outlines the actions buyers and sellers must take throughout the entire purchase journey. In other words, the MAP answers, “What must happen for this deal to close?”

Why does your sales team need a mutual action plan?

Now that we’re clear on what a mutual action plan is, does your sales team really need one?

Absolutely yes.

Mutual action plans are extremely beneficial to any sales team. Let’s look at some of the key benefits of developing and implementing one.

Better alignment throughout the purchase journey

There was a time when B2B sellers were in the driver’s seat. But today, B2B buyers are active participants. As such, B2B sales must be a collaborative process.

A well-written mutual action plan ensures buyers and sellers are aligned every step of the way. Both parties have a single source of truth for referencing goals and the steps that need to happen to make those goals a reality. In addition, buyers and sellers alike are held accountable for the action items assigned to them. This builds trust and increases follow-through.

Consistent customer experiences

Ideally, your prospects would have seamless, consistent experiences with your brand, regardless of which sales rep they’re engaging with. But often, that’s not the case.

New sellers may struggle to reinvent the wheel every time. And even veteran sellers may get hung up determining what step to take next.

Providing sellers with templates helps them deliver consistent experiences every time. New sellers can hit the ground running faster, and more seasoned reps can spend less time guessing – and more time executing.

Improved close rates

Sales mutual action plans improve alignment and facilitate better customer experiences. As a result, prospects are more likely to convert to customers, and your close rates will grow.

Accelerated sales cycles

We all know that B2B sales cycles can be quite long. With large buying committees, progress can often be held up.

They facilitate a structured sales journey for buyers and sellers alike. Everyone is aligned on goals and understands what they must do (and when) to achieve them, which increases sales acceleration.

More accurate forecasting

Accurate forecasting is important, but it’s often a struggle. Per Gartner, less than 50% of sales leaders and sales reps have high confidence in forecasting accuracy.

of sales leaders and reps have high confidence in forecasting accuracy
< 0 %

Mutual action plans outline a given deal’s timeline and key milestones. This can help you understand when a deal will likely close so you can more accurately predict revenue.

How to create and implement a mutual action plan

There are many benefits of using mutual action plans. But getting started with them can seem overwhelming.

It doesn’t have to be that way.

When developing and using a mutual action plan during the sales cycle, certain steps must be taken.

Team up with your stakeholders

A mutual action plan isn’t simply a checklist used by sellers. Rather, it’s a collaborative document between buyers and sellers. As such, the first step of the process is to meet with your key stakeholders.

You may have one primary contact with the buying organization, but remember: several people are likely weighing in on the purchase decision. According to Gartner, the typical B2B buying group consists of six to ten stakeholders. Make sure you involve as many as you can.

Ask the right questions

To develop a mutual action plan, you must understand your prospect’s needs, preferences, challenges, decision-making criteria, and internal processes.

Asking the right questions is critical to getting the information you need. When you have the right information, you can create an effective plan that accurately reflects what needs to be done for a deal to close.

Align on timing

A seller may want to close a deal by the end of the month. But the buyer won’t have the budget until the start of the next quarter.

It’s important to ensure everyone is aligned on timing.

A good starting point is to determine the buyer’s projected launch date. Then, you can work backward to assign deadlines. That way, the deal stays on track, and the buyer can launch on time.

Develop a template

Use the information you’ve gathered up to this point to develop a mutual action plan template. Your template should incorporate the stages of your sales process and the key milestones of the prospect’s purchase journey.

Collaboratively refine your mutual action plan with stakeholders

We’ve said it once, and we’ll say it again: a mutual action plan is a collaborative document. After you’ve developed the template, share it with your prospects. Ask for their feedback and incorporate it into your template. That way, you can ensure everyone is on the same page.

Track progress

Creating a template and never looking at it again doesn’t make sense. Instead, it’s important to track progress regularly.

Meet milestones and deadlines and ensure deals are progressing as expected. Consider scheduling regular check-ins to discuss progress and increase accountability among everyone involved in the purchase journey.

Update to your mutual action plan as needed

In the world of B2B sales, change is inevitable. For example, a prospect’s decision-making criteria can change. Or, a stakeholder may leave or join the buying committee. Or, perhaps the seller simply uncovers new information they didn’t have before.

Be sure to update your mutual action plan to reflect any changes that arise. Otherwise, your template will quickly become outdated and irrelevant.

How to increase adoption of your mutual action plan templates

Creating a mutual action plan template is the first step. But your templates are useless if your sellers aren’t using them.

It’s important to ensure your sellers know that these templates exist and how to use them to keep deals on track and convert more customers faster.

Here are some best practices for increasing seller adoption of your mutual action plan templates.

Provide training

Some of your sellers have probably used mutual action plans in the past. Others haven’t. It’s important to ensure your entire sales team knows where to find your templates and how to use them to improve sales results.

You can share your templates during sales onboarding as a starting point. You can also create micro-learning modules to share tips and best practices for using templates.

Deliver personalized coaching

Sales coaching can improve how your sellers use mutual action plans throughout the sales cycle. But sales coaching must be personalized for it to be effective.

First, sales managers must determine how a seller uses mutual action plans. If you use a platform like Mindtickle to create them, you can likely access data to see how buyers and sellers engage with it. Using a conversation intelligence tool, you can reference call recordings and summaries to get insights into how sellers use them in their prospect conversations. Once you have the right data, you can identify the seller’s strengths and deliver coaching to improve their weaknesses.

Centralize your tools and resources

Sellers only have so many hours in the day. They shouldn’t waste time finding the necessary tools and resources, such as templates.

Be sure to store and organize your mutual action plan templates in a single repository so they are easy for your sellers to find. If you use an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, your mutual action plans can live within the platform and the other tools, information, and content your sellers use to engage buyers.

Use a mutual action plan tool

Creating a MAP doesn’t have to be a high-tech endeavor. Some organizations use Microsoft Excel or Word to create their MAPs.

If possible, consider using a tool instead. With the right tool, you can easily create plans, collaborate with customers, and access analytics on how buyers engage with the mutual action plan.

Mutual action plan examples and template

There’s no single, one-size-fits-all template that works for all deals. Instead, mutual action plans must be tailored to each specific sales scenario.

As a starting point, consider creating mutual action plans for common scenarios your sellers encounter. Some examples include those based on:

  • Industry
  • Deal size
  • Company size

There are many different examples, ranging from simple to complex. Here’s one simple example you can use as a starting point.

Mutual Action Plan: Marketing Automation Platform Evaluation

Customer: [Name]
Sales executive: [Name, title, company]
Date: xx/xx/xxxx
Project Overview

  • Prospect’s goals: Short paragraph outlining prospective customer’s goals.
  • Sales goals: Short paragraph outlining sales objectives.

Timeline and Project Milestones

Action item Responsible party Due date Status
Task #1 Seller 11/11/2024 Completed
Task #2 Buyer 1/22/2025 In progress
Task #3 Seller 1/30/2025 Not started

Decision Criteria

  • Criteria #1
  • Criteria #2
  • Criteria #3
  • Criteria #4

Risk Mitigation Plan

Potential risk Mitigation plan
Potential risk #1 How you plan to mitigate this risk.
Potential risk #2 How you plan to mitigate this risk.
Potentail risk #3 How you plan to mitigate this risk.

Examples of mutual action plan tools

As mentioned earlier, some businesses create mutual action plans using Microsoft Office or Google Workspace. This can be as simple as a spreadsheet outlining roles and responsibilities throughout the purchase journey and corresponding deadlines. The upside of this approach is that you can create plans with tools you already own.

Other businesses prefer to use a tool. For example, Mindtickle’s  digital sales rooms allow sellers to create and share mutual action plans for each deal.

Digital collaboration rooms

Buyers and sellers can then collaborate on the mutual action plan. Updates are made in real-time, so buyers and sellers can be sure they’re always working with the most current version. Furthermore, sellers can access analytics on how buyers engage with the plan and the digital sales room. They can use these insights to adapt their approach.

Start closing deals faster with a mutual action plan

Navigating the B2B purchase journey can be tough. Mutual action plans make it much easier for buyers and sellers alike.

With the right template, your sellers can collaborate more effectively with buyers throughout the sales cycle, ensure alignment every step of the way, and close more deals faster.

Mutual Action Plans With Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle makes it easy to create and execute mutual action plans that engage buyers and accelerate deals?

Request a Demo

9 Top Highspot Competitors and Alternatives 

Christian Pieper on December 5, 2024

A solid sales enablement strategy can significantly impact sales productivity and performance, and revenue leaders are taking note. According to recent research, training and enablement are now the #1 tactic for revenue growth.

The right sales enablement tools are essential to an effective sales enablement strategy.

If you’ve researched sales enablement tools, there’s no doubt you’ve come across Highspot as one option. Highspot has been around for over a decade, and it’s become a popular option for sales enablement.

However, there are plenty of Highspot competitors that may be a better option for your business.

So, which Highspot competitor is the best out there?

In this post, we’ll explore 10 alternatives to Highspot you may want to consider. We’ll examine key factors, including pros, cons, and pricing, so you can more easily determine which sales enablement tool fits your organization.

Why consider Highspot competitors and alternatives?

Highspot is a popular sales enablement platform, serving customers of all sizes, from startup businesses to Fortune 500 enterprises. The platform has a lot of great features and functionality to support go-to-market teams, so it’s easy to understand why it’s become a top revenue enablement platform.

However, the Highspot platform has some notable downsides. One major drawback is that its sales training and readiness capabilities are limited and unlikely to meet the needs of mature, enterprise organizations.

In addition, there are some significant drawbacks in terms of user experience.
Another theme in user reviews for Highspot is that there’s a steep learning curve. This can hurt user adoption. And if user adoption is low, you’re unlikely to experience significant ROI.

Because of its downsides, it makes sense to also consider Highspot competitors and alternatives.

10 Best Highspot competitors in the market today


Which revenue enablement tool is the best choice for your business? Let’s explore the pros and cons of 10 Highspot competitors so you can zero in on the solution that best fits your needs.

1. Mindtickle

G2 rating: 4.7 out of 5
Price: Multiple pricing tiers are available. Contact us for customized pricing.

Mindtickle is an award-winning, market-leading revenue enablement platform that provides go-to-market teams with the tools, training, and information they need to deliver great experiences and win deals. It is an integrated platform for onboarding, training, content, digital sales rooms, AI role-plays, and more. In other words, it addresses all the major areas of a holistic sales enablement program—all in one platform.

Enablement leaders use Mindtickle to build and deploy tailored programs that address the needs of every seller. With Mindtickle Copilot, enablement teams can launch programs even faster, which means they’ll see an impact sooner.

Mindtickle delivers robust data and analytics that help revenue and enablement leaders make better decisions. For example, Mindtickle’s Readiness Index helps teams understand how their efforts impact sales outcomes. They can use these insights to optimize their programs. As another example, sales content analytics can help teams understand how buyers and sellers engage with sales content and how that engagement impacts outcomes. Teams can use these insights to develop and optimize content strategies that have a larger, positive impact on sales outcomes.

Customer-facing teams use Mindtickle to access tools, including training, content, digital sales rooms, conversation intelligence, and AI role-plays, all in one spot. In addition, Mindtickle Copilot helps automate and streamline time-consuming tasks like taking notes during customer calls, finding answers to questions, and drafting written communication to prospects. That means sellers can spend more time building relationships with prospective buyers.

Leading analysts recognize Mindtickle as an industry leader. It’s also ranked as the #1 sales onboarding and training product on G2, among many other accolades.

Notable features

  • Ideal rep profiles allow you to define the skills and competencies each customer-facing role needs for success. Then, the Readiness Index allows organizations to track individuals and teams against the IRP.
  • Onboarding helps ensure every new rep is up to speed and ready to sell ASAP.
  • Ongoing, tailored enablement and training programs enable each seller to grow the skills they need for success.
  • Sales content management capabilities ensure reps can access relevant, approved sales content for any sales scenario. Mindtickle delivers content recommendations based on buyer signals and can even help draft contextual emails to accompany sales content.
  • Mindtickle Copilot eliminates the need to wait on subject matter experts. Sellers can ask questions and get instant, accurate answers.
  • Sales coaching empowers sales managers to deliver individualized coaching that improves performance – at scale.
  • Digital sales rooms allow sellers to deliver engaging buying experiences. Buyers and sellers can communicate and collaborate throughout the sales cycle, and sellers can share relevant sales content.
  • Sellers get insight into how buyers are engaging in the digital sales room so they can properly adapt their approach.
  • Conversation intelligence tools record and transcribe every sales call so sellers can stay focused. Sellers can use Mindtickle
  • Copilot to quickly surface insights from calls to strategically plan their next steps.
  • Conversation intelligence tools deliver insights to sales managers so they can understand what’s happening in the field and deliver coaching to improve outcomes and reps’ long-term behaviors.
  • AI role-plays allow sellers to practice their skills before money is on the line. Sellers get real-time feedback for improvement that they can implement immediately–without waiting on their sales manager.
  • Robust analytics and insights allow enablement teams to prove ROI. Teams can see how sellers engage with different enablement programs and how that engagement improves behaviors and sales performance.

Best for

Mindtickle is built with features and functionality that serve many teams throughout the organization, including:
Sales

  • Marketing
  • Sales/revenue enablement
  • Sales/revenue operations
  • Leadership teams

There are over one million users throughout the world that rely on Mindtickle. These users hail from businesses ranging from small startups to the largest enterprises. Mindtickle powers revenue enablement programs for businesses in industries including:

  • Automotive
  • Medical devices
  • Pharmaceuticals
  • Consumer goods
  • Manufacturing
  • Chemicals
  • Technology
  • Many more

2. Seismic

Price: Multiple pricing tiers are available. Contact the company for customized pricing.

Seismic is a popular sales enablement platform that equips go-to-market teams with skills, content, tools, and insights. It is used by more than 2,200 companies worldwide, ranging from startups to large enterprises.

Notable features

  • Rich content management capabilities so enablement teams can build, maintain, and control content and sellers can find and share the right content with the right buyers.
  • Robust analytics to optimize performance and prove the ROI of sales enablement.
    150+ integrations so you can unify enablement with your existing tech stack.

Cons

Users cite several downsides to the Seismic platform, including:

  • Navigation difficulty
  • Limited features
  • Layout issues
  • Not user-friendly

3. Showpad

Price: There are multiple pricing plans for Showpad Content and Showpad Coach. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Showpad eOS® is an AI-powered revenue platform. The platform has two key components, Showpad Content and Showpad Coach, which are sold as separate product offerings. Showpad Content enables sellers to find and share the right content at the right time. Showpad Coach enables organizations to provide sellers with the right onboarding, training, and coaching to engage buyers and deliver value throughout the purchase journey.

Notable features

  • Content management features that provide teams with a single source of truth for finding, managing, and sharing the right sales content.
  • Digital experiences, including 3D models and 360° immersive showrooms that bring products to life.
  • Robust analytics and insights empower teams to make strategic decisions and double down on impactful initiatives.
  • Flexible platform, including over 65 pre-configured integrations and an open AI, enables Showpad to fit into your existing processes.

Cons

User reviews shed light on multiple downsides of Showpad, including:

  • Limited features
  • Platform limitations
  • Issues with content management
  • Admin issues
  • User experience

4.  Allego

Price: Allego’s product offerings are available via a la carte pricing. Alternatively, customers can bundle products. Pricing varies depending on the number of users and contract length. Contact the company for detailed pricing information.

Allego is an AI-powered revenue enablement platform that provides customer-facing teams with the knowledge, content, and insights they need to engage buyers throughout the purchase journey. With Allego, sales, marketing, and enablement teams can collaborate to deliver the outstanding experiences B2B buyers have come to expect. Allego is used by one quarter of Dow Jones Industrial Average companies.

Notable features

  • Digital sales rooms allow sellers to collaborate with buyers
  • Sales content management capabilities make it easy for sellers to find the right sales content for any sales scenario.
  • Conversation intelligence analyzes calls and provides real-time coaching to sellers.
  • Generative AI enables sellers to ask questions and get real-time answers incorporating insights from sales content, learning materials, and subject matter experts.

Cons

Users cite several downsides of Allego, including those related to:

  • A steep learning curve
  • Poor platform organization
  • Missing features that are available in other platforms
  • Counterintuitive platform

5. Bigtincan Readiness (Formerly Brainshark)

Price: Bigtincan Readiness offers multiple pricing tiers, depending on company size. Contact the company to get personalized pricing information.

Bigtincan Readiness (formerly Brainshark) is Bigtincan’s AI-powered sales readiness solution. With it, organizations can equip sales teams with the right training, sales coaching, practice opportunities, and learning content to be ready for any sales interaction. Businesses in industries including IT, manufacturing, insurance, and banking use Bigtincan Readiness.

Notable features

  • Interactive experiences – including AR and VR – help teach complex concepts to go-to-market teams.
  • A drag-and-drop editor enables administrators to quickly and easily build and launch courses.
  • Readiness Scorecards make it easy to visualize individual and team improvement – and provide remediation when necessary.

Cons

Reviewers mention several cons of Bigtincan Readiness, including those related to:

  • Missing features
  • Steep learning curve
  • Limited editing
  • Admin issues

6. Bigtincan

Price: Packages and pricing are customized to the organization’s needs. Contact the company for personalized pricing information.

Bigtincan is an AI-driven sales enablement platform that empowers go-to-market teams to deliver better buying experiences. The platform includes three elements: Readiness, Content, and Engagement. The platform is flexible and can be customized to the needs of organizations of all types and sizes.

Notable features

  • Bite-sized training and coaching helps ensure go-to-market teams are ready to deliver outstanding buying experiences.
  • Sales content management capabilities provide sellers with a one-stop shop for quality, approved sales content, and the ability to personalize it.
  • Robust analytics and reporting help you understand what’s working and what’s not so you can make data-based decisions.

Cons

Reviews shed light on several downsides of Bigtincan, with trends emerging related to:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Limited functionality
  • Limited reporting
  • Not intuitive

7. Paperflite

Price: Paperflite offers a free trial. After that, pricing starts at $50 per user per month, with a five-user minimum.

Paperflite is a sales enablement tool focused on sales content management. With it, sales and marketing teams can store, organize, distribute, and track content. Organizations also use Paperflite to create engaging content, including custom microsites, landing pages, and interactive experiences.

Notable features

  • Brings together all sales content into one intuitive interface.
  • Sellers can share content with buyers via personalized, engaging microsites.
  • Leverages behavior patterns and AI to help sellers surface the right content at the right time for the right situation.
    Integrates with many top sales technology tools.

Cons

Paperflite is primarily focused on sales content. That means businesses must use other tools to address the other elements of sales enablement, such as onboarding, training, and role-plays.

User reviews shed light on other issues with the platform, including:

  • Limited features
  • Layout issues
  • Platform limitations
  • Content management difficulties

8. Salesloft

Price: Salesloft offers Advanced and Premier pricing tiers. However, they don’t publish pricing. Contact the company for pricing information.

Salesloft is a popular revenue orchestration platform that helps organizations grow efficiently and drive revenue. It uses AI to analyze buyer signals and provides insights to help sellers determine how best to engage with prospects, wherever they are on the purchase journey. Over 5,000 businesses rely on Salesloft, including IBM, 3M, Instacart, and Shopify.

Notable features

  • Salesloft’s AI-powered engine integrates buyer signals into the seller workflow, so sellers know what steps to take and when to take them to close more deals faster.
  • Robust analytics and insights help sales leaders understand which actions have the most revenue impact so they can replicate winning behaviors across the entire team.
  • Conversation intelligence analyze sales calls, enabling sellers to tailor their follow-up

Cons

User reviews mention several cons of Salesloft, including:

  • Missing features
  • Call issues
  • Integration issues
  • Platform limitations

9. SalesHood

saleshood-logo

Price: Three pricing packages are available, starting at $40 per user per month. Contact the company for detailed pricing information

SalesHood is a revenue enablement platform that leverages AI to help sellers understand what to do and what to share with buyers to move deals forward. The platform is equipped with guidance and templates, enabling professionals to launch programs quickly and see impact faster. SalesHood offers robust reporting and analytics that make it easy for you to measure the ROI of enablement and understand where there are opportunities for optimization.

Notable features

  • Digital sales rooms enable sellers to deliver engaging, personalized experiences to buyers and understand how they engage throughout the sales cycle.
  • AI enables sellers to get real-time answers and guidance, which increases efficiency and accelerates the sales cycle.
  • AI role-playing allows sellers to practice their skills and get real-time coaching.

Cons

While there are many benefits to SalesHood, users cite many downsides, including:

  • Steep learning curve
  • Difficult navigation
  • Layout issues
  • Missing features

Which is the best Highspot competitor?

The right technology is a key component of any revenue enablement strategy. While Highspot is a popular option, the platform has shortcomings. Luckily, several Highspot competitors are in the market today.

So which is the best Highspot competitor among those we explored in this post?

While each Highspot competitor has unique features and benefits to support go-to-market teams, Mindtickle stands above the rest.

Mindtickle is an all-in-one revenue enablement platform. Revenue teams can access onboarding, training, content, AI role plays, digital sales rooms, conversational intelligence, and more – all from one platform. That means your teams will have the skills, tools, and information they need to deliver outstanding experiences and close more deals faster.

See Mindtickle in Action

Ready to see firsthand why Mindtickle is the best Highspot competitor on the market?

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What is Sales Collateral and How Does it Help Reps Close More Deals?

Christian Pieper on November 25, 2024

Modern B2B buyers are more informed than ever before. Sellers must be ready to meet them where they are and deliver relevant information and experiences every step of the way.

With the right sales collateral, your sellers can effectively engage each buyer – no matter where they are on their purchase journey.

Sales collateral can take many forms – from sell sheets and presentations to case studies and ebooks. Sellers must share the right content at the right time with the right prospects.

In this post, we’ll explore sales collateral and how different types can be used throughout the purchase journey to boost sales engagement. We’ll also share tried-and-true best practices for creating winning sales collateral that helps your reps guide more prospects through the sales funnel – and convert more of them to customers.

What is sales collateral and why is it important?

First things first: what is sales collateral?

It’s any type of asset that enables sales reps to engage prospects and guide them through the sales funnel. It takes many forms, which we’ll explore in detail a little later on.

Print

Digital

Internal

External

Print vs. digital sales collateral

Today, some organizations continue to use printed sales assets. However, the vast majority of sales organizations are transitioning to digital collateral. This is especially true in today’s world, when many sales are conducted without a buyer and seller ever meeting face-to-face.

A best practice is to leverage a sales content management solution to centralize your digital collateral.

Internal vs. external sales collateral

Some sales collateral is used externally. In other words, this collateral is shared with customers and prospects. Some examples include case studies and data sheets.

Other collateral is for internal use only. This collateral (often referred to as sales enablement collateral) is developed only for use by the sales team. Some examples of internal collateral include sales playbooks and sales battlecards.

The importance of sales collateral

Now, we’re clear on what sales collateral is. But why is it important?

Sales collateral drives sales effectiveness and sales efficiency. When it’s done well, it engages buyers with the right information at the right time in the right format. Outstanding collateral can accelerate the sales cycle, so sales reps can close deals faster. When reps can close more deals, your revenue will grow.

What are the different types of sales collateral?

There are many different types of sales and marketing collateral. Each type is especially effective in certain parts of the purchase journey. For example, a case study may be impactful for a prospect who is close to making a decision – but first wants to get a better idea of how other businesses have leveraged a similar solution to achieve their goals. However, the same case study may not resonate with prospects who are higher up in the funnel and just starting to research their options.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the different stages of the sales journey – and some of the best collateral for each stage.

Sales and marketing collateral for the awareness stage

During the awareness stage, prospective customers are aware that they have a challenge (or multiple challenges), and they’ve started to look for solutions to address it. B2B collateral is an important tool that helps ensure prospects become aware of your company and its solutions.

The purpose of collateral at this stage is to make your brand known – and demonstrate that your business is a thought leader. Some common types of collateral that resonate during the awareness stage include:

Blogs are a great way to demonstrate your thought leadership during the awareness phase.

Videos can convey key information in a format that’s easy to digest.

Enables prospects to see what’s new at your organization.

These are a great way to quickly convey a lot of information in an easy-to-digest format.

Regularly posting on key social media channels can increase prospects’ awareness of your brand.

Sales and marketing collateral for the consideration stage

During the consideration stage, prospects start weighing their options. They know about your organization and may have some knowledge about your products and services. But they’re not ready to sign on the dotted line just yet.

Collateral can help sellers build relationships and deliver value during the consideration phase with assets including:

These can be an effective way to present a large amount of information.

eBooks and guides are popular ways to add value during the consideration stage.

Conducting surveys – and then summarizing your findings in a research report – is a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

Webinars are an interactive way to share a variety of information and data with prospects.

At this stage, sellers should be sure to use B2B sales content that is industry-specific and speaks to the buyer’s specific challenges.

Sales and marketing collateral for the decision-making stage

At this stage, prospects are getting ready to buy. They’re likely considering your business – as well as a few competitors. The right collateral can build their confidence about your solution being the best option. Collateral that’s effective during the decision-making stage includes:

You can put together fact sheets to concisely convey key product information.

Tells the story of how a company has leveraged your solution to solve their challenges.

These customer quotes give prospects an idea of what it’s like to work with your company.

Provides prospects with concise feedback from your current customers.

Tools like ROI calculators can help prospects understand what they can expect from investing in your products or services.

Demos enable buyers to see your solution in action.

Sales and marketing collateral for retention stage

After you’ve closed a deal, the goal is to keep that customer around long-term. After all, retaining an existing customer is a whole lot easier (and less expensive) than acquiring a new one.

This can be a great way to share best practices to ensure customers are getting the most value from your solution.

Let customers know what’s new with your product and how it benefits them.

Newsletters are a great way to share what’s new at your company. They can also include links to other resources that’ll build customers’ knowledge and ensure they’re getting the most from your solutions.

You can engage customers by sending automated emails when they complete certain activities.

How do you create sales collateral for your business?

The right sales collateral can help you grow revenue. But creating collateral for the sake of creating collateral isn’t effective. After all, research suggests that up to 70% of B2B sales collateral sits unused.

Asking key questions for sales content development

It’s important to create collateral that resonates with buyers throughout the purchase journey – and is proven to move deals forward. It’s also imperative to ensure sellers know where to find the collateral they need – as well as how to use it.

So, how can you start creating more effective collateral for your team? The first, foundational step is to answer these five questions:

Question #1: Who is your customer?

Before developing any type of asset, you must have a clear understanding of who you are talking to. Today, many sales organizations develop buyer personas. Buyer personas are detailed descriptions of fictitious prospects who are a good fit for your organization’s products or services.

Question #2: What are your customers’ pain points?

Generic B2B sales content isn’t effective. Instead, it must speak to a customer’s specific pain points.

When developing your buyer personas, it’s important to understand their challenges. That way, you can develop sales content that specifically addresses those pain points.

Question #3: How can prospects trust your solution?

To close deals, you must articulate why your solution is the best option for solving your customers’ challenges.

Of course, it’s important to establish your brand messaging. However, incorporating the voices of your existing customers into your sales content can be a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

A recent Gartner study found that “third-party interactions, such as reading customer references or reviews and consulting directly with third-party experts, are better suited to provide customers with value affirmation.”

Question #4: What types of content will help in the buyer journey?

You know who your customers are and you understand their pain points. You also understand how your solution is ideal to address those pain points. Next, you have to determine what types of content are right for delivering your message throughout the purchase journey.

There’s no right answer here. As we discussed earlier, different types of sales collateral resonate with buyers at different points in the purchase journey. It’s important to determine the right mix of sales assets, measure regularly, and optimize accordingly.

Question #5: How can you retain your existing customers?

Often, sales content is focused on acquiring new customers. However, it’s also important to develop collateral that aids in customer retention.

It’s important to ask yourself what you need to keep your customers around long-term. Then, develop the right content to engage them.

You can use the answers to these key questions to develop the right sales collateral.

Streamlining  management

You’ve answered the key questions above and used the answers to develop sales collateral. What now?

It’s important to ensure your sellers know how to find and use your newly created sales content.

At some sales organizations, collateral is stored in multiple repositories or distributed by email. This makes it difficult for sellers to find the sales assets they need in a specific situation. In addition, it’s common for sellers to use outdated content.

A best practice is to store and organize your sales collateral in a single platform. Many revenue enablement solutions include content management functionality so you can store all content in one place. That way, sales reps can easily find the best content for any selling scenario.

In addition, sales enablement teams must provide training to ensure sellers know when and how to use the sales collateral that’s available to them.

Measuring and optimizing 

Sometimes, organizations develop a piece of sales collateral, upload it to a repository, and then never think about it again. This isn’t an effective approach.

Instead, it’s important to consistently measure usage of sales collateral. In other words, how often are sellers using a specific piece of sales collateral? And how are buyers engaging with it?

Measuring how (or whether) sales collateral impacts sales outcomes is also important. That way, you can understand which collateral has the biggest impact. Then, you can use those insights to optimize your sales content strategy accordingly.

When should salespeople use sales collateral?

Your sales reps may have a large amount of sales collateral available to them. But when should they use it?

There’s no simple answer to that question. As we already explored, sales collateral plays an important role in every stage of the sales funnel.

Early on in the purchase journey, sellers can use sales collateral to earn a prospect’s trust and help them understand more about their business. For example, a sales rep could share an ebook or whitepaper to demonstrate industry expertise and provide value early on.

Later on in the journey, sellers can use sales collateral to help overcome objections and convey why their solution is the best option. For example, a sales rep could share a case study about how a similar business overcame a similar challenge. Or, they could share a sales battlecard to help buyers understand how different solutions stack up.

The important thing is to share the right sales collateral at the right time.

Sharing relevant content at the right time helps sellers earn buyers’ trust and entice them to continue on the purchase journey. On the other hand, sharing irrelevant content will cause the buyer to disengage.

Organizing your sales collateral in a sales content management system is an important way to ensure sellers can quickly surface relevant content. Look for a solution that leverages AI to deliver content recommendations based on data.

Increase the impact of your sales collateral with Mindtickle

Sales reps must keep their buyers engaged. But this isn’t always easy, as sales cycles are long and buying groups are increasingly large.

Sales collateral is an important tool sellers can use to deliver relevant information and keep buyers engaged throughout the entire purchase journey.

Many organizations focus on creating a high volume of sales collateral. But often, a large portion of that sales content sits unused.

Instead, focus on creating high quality sales collateral that’s aligned to the purchase journey. In addition, be sure your sales collateral is easy to find and that your sales reps know how to use it to accelerate deals.

Mindtickle’s revenue enablement platform incorporates sales content management, which enables organizations to store and organize all sales collateral in one central location. That means sales reps can easily find the right sales collateral for any selling scenario. AI also recommends sales collateral based on data and past performance.

In addition, Mindtickle allows sellers to see how buyers engage with sales collateral so they can adapt their approach accordingly. Sales leadership can also measure how sales collateral is used and whether it improves sales outcomes.

Simply creating sales collateral isn’t enough. Mindtickle also enables organizations to deliver sales training and sales enablement to ensure sellers know how and when to use the sales collateral that’s available to them.

Sales Content Management in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle’s award-winning sales productivity platform ensures reps are always ready to sell?

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This post was originally published in January 2024 and updated in November 2024. 

Standing Out in CPG Sales: Strategies to Overcome 3 Critical Challenges

Christian Pieper on November 12, 2024

The consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry has a long tradition of sales innovation. Recent market pivots and technological investments are again testing CPG companies.

As a result, smart CPG sales organizations are modernizing their approach to ensure their sellers are prepared for every interaction and gain an edge on less adaptive competition.

Evolution of CPG buyers

Global regulatory complexity

Competition for attention

Let’s examine these three challenges these teams face today and how smart, tailored strategies for sales enablement for CPG can earn them that edge.

Challenge #1: The evolving CPG buyer

Due to new generations making buyer decisions, advances in e-commerce, and behavioral shifts triggered by the Covid response, buyers aren’t making purchasing decisions like they did for the last several decades.

CPG buyers are spending less time with reps, doing more of their research, and entering field interactions with more sophisticated questions and higher expectations.

This has ratcheted the pressure on each sales interaction, making it essential that CPG sales organizations adopt enablement strategies that help their reps get the most out of every minute they have with their buyers.

The old mix of basic initial onboarding, one-size-fits-all training, and periodic informal coaching just isn’t enough to get it done.

Instead, smart CPG sales orgs are shifting toward a just-in-time approach to training that allows reps to rise to the unique occasion of every buyer interaction. With easily queried content libraries and AI sales assistants, reps can find the up-to-date, accurate information they need, right when they need it to answer buyer questions, overcome objections, and more.

Challenge #2: Global regulatory complexity

CPG companies seek expansion into global markets more nimbly than ever in pursuit of every available market. While expanding their total available market, this expansion also carries weight on the cost side of the ledger.

One barrier to expansion that impacts CPG sales is the multiplicity of regulatory environments into which consumer goods are sold. One might argue that the regulatory impact occurs primarily upstream from sales, as CPG sales reps largely know which products they can sell into which territories.

But that neglects the prioritization of compliance that flows from the buyers’ side of the equation.

Buyers want confirmation of product compliance and lean on their account teams to provide that, meaning individual reps frequently need to be fluent in at least one regulatory environment (although often more than one). Reps also must maintain compliance with the regulations concerning the promotion and sales of the products they represent.

Sales enablement for CPG companies can help address this challenge by providing a repeatable, documented process for communicating new regulatory requirements while assessing and certifying their understanding. Critically, advancements in AI are allowing enablement teams to generate and launch updated programs faster than ever before.

Challenge #3: Competition for attention

With an endless stream of new products (both from your company and others) fighting over dwindling shelf space, it can feel like a CPG sales rep’s relationship with a buyer is always at threat.

If they can’t create and maintain a signal that rises above the noise, their critical relationships are at risk of attrition. But when everyone tries to be heard by the same people, how can you make your voice stand out?

Sales enablement platforms help solve this by providing tools that make it easier for CPG reps to share engaging, custom content that speaks to their buyers’ specific questions and needs. Brands are gaining influence with their buyers via easy-to-curate, bespoke Digital Sales Rooms, where they share important updates, answer questions and align around the buyer journey.

These rooms also generate valuable buyer signals that sales and marketing can leverage to tailor their message more effectively to those buyers while informing their general understanding of the voice of the market.

What’s next for sales enablement at CPG companies? 

So yes, CPG sales organizations are facing new obstacles, but partnering with the right Sales Enablement technology can help your CPG reps rise to the challenge. It’s time to modernize and future-proof your approach to sales enablement for CPG. 

Better CPG sales enablement with Mindtickle

See how Mindtickle helps consumer packaged goods companies better prepare their sellers to close every deal. 

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Content Governance: What is it and Why is it Important?

Christian Pieper on November 5, 2024

Content undoubtedly plays an important role in the B2B purchase journey. According to recent research, over half of B2B buyers rely on content to guide their purchase decisions more now than in the past.

But revenue organizations experience content chaos all too often. Sales content is poorly organized in disparate systems, and sellers spend much time looking for what they need. They may also take matters into their own hands and create their own unapproved content.

Content chaos stifles seller productivity and puts your organization at risk. Every revenue organization must have a governance strategy and the right tools to support it.

If you’re unsure what corporate governance is, you’ve come to the right place. In this post, we’ll answer questions like:

  • What is content governance?
  • Why is it important?
  • How can my organization build a content governance framework that calms the content chaos?

What is content governance?

You might find yourself asking, “What is content governance?” You’re certainly not alone.

It describes the framework, processes, and policies for effectively overseeing all aspects of your sales content strategy.

A content governance strategy encompasses everything from creating and maintaining sales content, organizing and dispersing it, and measuring engagement and impact to inform optimizations.

The ultimate goal of a content governance framework is to ensure sellers can access and share high-quality, accurate, approved content that resonates with every buyer, no matter where they are on the purchase journey.

Proper content governance requires the right tools. An excellent sales content management solution is a must.

What are the benefits of content governance?

Content chaos is all too common. A content governance strategy can help calm the chaos.

Let’s look at some of the top benefits of content governance.

Better cross-functional alignment

Today, most go-to-market leaders understand the importance of sales content. But often, there’s confusion about who is responsible for what.

With a content governance framework, there is alignment on roles and responsibilities. Furthermore, everyone uses the same guidelines, allowing consistency across all sales content.

Increased seller productivity

Sellers spend countless hours hunting down the right, most up-to-date content. This time could be better spent engaging with buyers and closing deals.

One key benefit of content governance is that it boosts seller productivity. When sellers can easily find relevant, updated resources, they can spend less time hunting down content and creating their own unapproved assets. Then, they can use that time doing what they do best: selling.

Better buyer experiences

If a seller shares inaccurate content with a buyer, that buyer will likely lose trust in your business. If the buyer receives inconsistent content, it can lead to confusion.

A content governance framework ensures all sales content is accurate and on-brand. That means buyers will always have accurate information and consistent content experiences. This will build their trust and increase their likelihood of making a purchase.

Risk mitigation

If you don’t have a content governance strategy, your sellers are likely using outdated or unapproved sales content. For example, a seller might save a piece of content to their desktop and continue to send that version – even though it’s been updated a few times. Or, they might create and send unapproved content.

This is risky for any organization. If buyers get their hands on outdated or sloppy content, it can cause reputation damage. It’s especially risky for organizations in highly regulated industries like financial services or pharmaceuticals.

With a proper content governance framework, you can be sure your sellers only use approved, on-brand content.

Actionable insights

Often, organizations invest time and resources into developing sales content. But many lack insight into how sales content is used.

With a content governance strategy (and the right tools) you’ll have insight into how buyers and sellers engage with sales content – and how it improves outcomes. These insights can help you optimize your strategy and allocate your resources.

How to get started with content governance

Content governance can help you overcome content chaos for once and for all. But how can you get started?

There is no one-size-fits-all content governance framework that works for every organization. Instead, it looks different at every organization.

However, there are certain steps every organization must take when developing an effective content governance framework.

Create your content governance task force

A single person or team doesn’t own content governance. Instead, it must be a cross-functional effort.

Be sure to gather your content governance task force. Then, work to ensure everyone is aligned on content governance goals, roles, and responsibilities.

Develop workflows and processes.

Once you’ve established your task force, you can work collaboratively to establish workflows and processes to govern content across the entire lifecycle. This includes:

  • Content planning: What content will be created, and who can submit ideas and suggestions for new content?
  • Content creation: Who will be involved in the development of content?
  • Content design: Who is responsible for designing content?
  • Content approval: Who needs to approve content, and what processes will be needed to get these approvals?
  • Content distribution: How content will be shared with sellers and how you’ll ensure they know where to find sales content and how to properly use it.
  • Content measurement: What metrics and tools do you use to measure content, and how often you’ll measure it?
  • Content refreshment: How often will you update sales content, and who will be responsible for these updates?
  • Content sharing: How sellers will share content with buyers. One example is via digital sales rooms.
Digital collaboration rooms

Let data guide you

You can’t develop a content framework based on gut feelings. Instead, sales content analytics and data should guide everything you do.

For example, if you find certain types of sales enablement content are getting high levels of engagement, create more of this content. If you have content sitting around gathering dust, consider eliminating it.

Mindtickle Asset Hub sharing

Provide training and enablement

Each member of your content governance team has certain roles and responsibilities. Be sure to provide training and enablement so they understand what they must do.

In addition, it’s important to provide sellers with training and enablement so they know where to find updated, approved content, how to share it with buyers, and how to most effectively use it to engage prospects and close deals.

Leverage a sales enablement platform

A sales enablement tool is a powerful component of any content governance strategy.

Look for an all-in-one sales enablement platform incorporating a sales content management solution. That way, you can manage the entire lifecycle of sales content – all from one location. In addition, you can deliver training and enablement to ensure sellers know how to find and use the available content.

Kick your content governance into high gear with Mindtickle

In B2B sales, content has never been more important. But often, organizations find themselves overwhelmed by content chaos. This chaos stands in the way of success.

A solid content governance strategy is the remedy for this chaos, and an integrated sales enablement platform can take your strategy to the next level.

With Mindtickle’s sales content management solution, you’ll have a single source of truth for sales content. You can store and organize all content so sellers can easily find relevant, approved, and updated content for any sales scenario. In addition, Mindtickle leverages AI to deliver content suggestions to sellers based on buyer signals and historic performance.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

Of course, it’s important to refresh your existing content consistently. With Mindtickle’s sales content management solution, you can publish updates in real-time. This ensures your reps are only using the latest version of sales content.

Your content governance strategy (and your entire sales content strategy) should be rooted in data. Mindtickle delivers powerful data and analytics that you can use to optimize your strategy for greater impact. For example, organizations can see how (and whether) sellers and buyers engage with sales content and how it impacts sales outcomes. These insights can inform optimization efforts.

Furthermore, Mindtickle allows you to deliver sales and enablement so sellers understand what content is available, where to find it, and how to use it to move deals forward. Mindtickle also equips reps with digital sales rooms, which they can use to share sales content and collaborate with buying committees.

Better Sales Content Management with Mindtickle

Ready to see why winning organizations around the world turn to Mindtickle to enhance their content governance strategies?

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How to Develop a Solid Sales Enablement Content Strategy

Christian Pieper on September 16, 2024

Sales enablement content plays a large (and growing) role in the B2B path to purchase. Recent research found that 55% of B2B buyers rely on content to guide their purchase decisions more now than a year ago. And 62% of buyers engage with three to seven pieces of content before connecting with a sales rep.

of buyers rely on content to guide purchasing decisions
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When sellers have access to the right content at the right time, they can effectively and efficiently engage and nurture more buyers and close more deals.

But not all sales enablement content works. A recent Mindtickle analysis found that on average, 10% of sales content drives 50% of engagement. That means a large portion of sales is underused – or not used at all.

A solid sales enablement content strategy ensures you have the right mix of content that’ll resonate with sellers and buyers alike.

In this post, we’ll share tips and best practices for creating an effective sales enablement strategy that’ll empower your sales teams to confidently take on any deal that comes their way.

What is sales enablement content?

Sales enablement content is a powerful asset for new and veteran sellers alike. When sales reps have the right sales enablement content, they’re better able to attract, engage, and convert buyers.

But what is sales enablement content? Essentially, sales enablement content is any content asset developed to help a sales rep succeed in the field.

Some sales enablement content is developed for internal use. Typically, the goal of this content is to provide education to sellers. For example, some organizations create sales battlecards to help sales reps understand how they stack up against their competitors. Often, these sales battlecards are for internal use only.

Other sales enablement content is for external use. Members of the revenue team can share this sales enablement content with prospects as a way to convey or reinforce information about their products or services. For example, a sales rep might share a case study with a prospect to help them understand how a similar company overcame challenges by using a specific product or service.

Salesforce - Asset Hub

What are some sales enablement content examples?

There are many different types of sales enablement content used by sales teams. Let’s take a closer look at some common sales enablement content examples.

Scripts

Often, sales organizations provide scripts to help sales reps scale their outreach while ensuring they stay on message. The organization may develop call scripts, including those for cold calls and demos. In addition, organizations may equip their sales reps with email templates that they can use as a starting point for their digital outreach.

Competitive battlecards

Per Semrush, 57% of all sales deals are competitive. That number is even higher in certain industries.

Sales battlecards are sales enablement content that helps sales reps understand how their solutions slack up against their competitors. Some sales battlecards compare a company’s offerings to a single competitor. Other sales battlecards compare a company’s solutions to multiple competitors. In addition, some sales battlecards are for internal use only, while others are developed to be shared with prospects.

Enablement collateral

Often, teams create various sales enablement content that sales reps can share with prospects throughout the sales cycle. Those assets might include sales presentations, one-pagers providing an overview of specific product offerings, ebooks, and case studies.

Marketing collateral

Some marketing teams develop assets including ebooks and whitepapers. Typically, these assets are designed to educate prospects on a specific industry issue or challenge; they’re not usually promotional. Ebooks and whitepapers can be great resources to share with prospects to demonstrate thought leadership and bolster trust.

Case studies and testimonials

Case studies are a common type of external sales enablement content. They tell the story of how your solution has helped other companies solve their challenges. Case studies provide social proof, which can be a powerful motivator for buyers. They are especially effective for prospects who are further along in the funnel.

Videos

Videos are a more interactive form of sales enablement content. Videos can be internal. For example, the sales enablement team may create a video series to educate sellers on a new product. Or, videos can be customer-facing. For example, the marketing team may develop a demo video for sales reps to share with prospects.

What is a sales enablement content strategy and why is it important?

All too often, organizations develop content that they think will help sales reps – and then hope for the best. The result is that teams spend valuable time creating these resources, but they end up sitting unused. In addition, new sales enablement content is created on an ad hoc basis.

It’s not surprising that this approach isn’t effective.

Instead, organizations need a sales enablement content strategy. But what is a sales enablement content strategy? And what are some sales enablement strategy examples?

A sales enablement content strategy is the foundation for success with sales enablement content. It ensures all stakeholders (including sales, marketing, sales enablement, customer success, and product – among others) are aligned on the organization’s content initiatives.

A documented sales content strategy spells out:

  • What your goals are for your sales enablement content
  • Who the audience is for your sales enablement content
  • What types of content you’ll create to achieve your goals (including the sales enablement content examples we outlined earlier)
  • How you’ll measure the success (or failure) of your sales enablement content

A solid sales enablement content strategy can help boost seller performance. A great sales enablement strategy helps ensure sellers have the information, knowledge, and resources they need. That means they’re more likely to be successful in the field.

In addition, a sales strategy can help improve the sales process. Today’s buyers do plenty of research before reaching out to a buyer. A sales enablement strategy ensures sellers can share content that adds value and goes beyond the basic information buyers can easily uncover on their own.

How to create a sales enablement content strategy

Creating a great sales enablement content strategy can boost seller performance and improve customer experiences. But creating a sales enablement content strategy can seem overwhelming, especially if you’re used to a more random approach to sales enablement content development.

Creating a sales content strategy doesn’t have to be a daunting process. Here are some proven tips you can use to make the process easier.

Your sales reps are meeting with prospects all day long. Ask them for feedback on what challenges they regularly face in the field. In addition, ask them what types of content they typically use – and what additional types of content they think would be helpful. You may also want to ask them why they don’t use certain sales enablement content assets.

Take inventory of your sales enablement content. If you use a sales content management platform, this should be relatively easy.

Your inventory should include both internal and external content. Make a note of which content is in need of updates – and which should be eliminated completely.

In addition, tap into data to see what content is being used, how often it’s being used, and whether it’s improving outcomes. Your sales content management platform should provide data, analytics, and dashboards that shed light on usage and effectiveness of your existing sales enablement content.

Different sales enablement content is effective at different stages in the buying process. For example, a thought leadership piece like an ebook or a whitepaper is a great asset for prospects early on the purchase journey. A case study, on the other hand, is more likely to resonate further down in the funnel.

Be sure to map your customer journey. Then, identify which existing sales enablement content fits into each stage.

Once you’ve gotten feedback from your sales team, taken an inventory of your existing sales enablement content, and mapped that content to your customer journey, you should have a good idea of where there are gaps.

Once you’ve identified gaps in your sales enablement content, it’s time to create content to fill those gaps. This should be a collaborative effort among teams including sales, marketing, and sales enablement.

In some cases, sales enablement content is distributed through email. Other sales organizations use a service like Google Drive or Dropbox to store and distribute sales enablement content.

These approaches make it difficult for sellers to find the content they need. Furthermore, your sellers are likely using outdated sales enablement content.

A better approach is to store your sales enablement content in a complete revenue productivity platform that incorporates sales enablement content management capabilities. That way, sales reps can easily find the content they’re looking for – any time and from any device. The right sales content management platform also helps ensure sellers are always using the most up-to-date sales enablement content.

Developing great sales enablement content is important, but so too is ensuring your sellers know it exists and how to use it. Be sure to provide sales enablement, training, and coaching so your sellers know how to use the sales enablement content that is available to them effectively.

It’s important to measure the performance of your sales enablement content on a regular basis. That way, you know whether your sales enablement content is helping you achieve your goals.

Ongoing measurement can shed light on opportunities to eliminate content, create new content, and update existing content to improve efficacy.

Developing a sales enablement content strategy isn’t a one-time event. Instead, you should regularly revisit your strategy to ensure it keeps up with the evolving needs and goals of your business.

Sales enablement content best practices

The right sales enablement content strategy can significantly impact sales outcomes. As you develop your strategy and assets, consider these best practices.

Collaborate cross-functionally

Sales enablement content shouldn’t be created in silos. If it is, your marketing team may be wasting their time creating sales enablement content that isn’t used or doesn’t resonate with buyers.

Instead, sales enablement content must be collaborative among key teams, including sales, marketing, and sales enablement. That way, marketing spends its time on content that sellers will actually use, and enablement teams provide the proper support to ensure reps know how to use the content.

Help sellers surface the right content at the right time

Sales reps have a limited amount of time. But often, they spend too much time hunting down content, or even creating their own.

Ensuring sellers can easily surface the right content at the right time is essential. With the right sales content management system, you can organize and tag your content to make it easy for sellers to find what they need. If you leverage artificial intelligence, your sellers can even get content suggestions based on the buyer’s engagement and data about what content has worked in the past.

Share content via digital sales rooms

Often, sales reps share content via email. But this can get complicated when multiple people are on a buying committee—and each cares about different things.

A better way to share content is through a digital sales room,  a portal for buyers and sellers to exchange content and collaborate throughout a deal. A DSR enables sellers to get the right content in front of the right members of the buying committee. In addition, sales reps can track how each person engages with the content they share. That way, sellers can adapt their strategy accordingly.

Measure content engagement and impact

While some sales enablement content will resonate with buyers and help move deals forward, others will fall flat. It’s important to determine which is which.

Be sure to measure whether sellers use content and how (and whether) buyers engage with it. In addition, track how each content asset impacts deal outcomes.

Measure content engagement and impact

While some sales enablement content will resonate with buyers and help move deals forward, others will fall flat. It’s important to determine which is which.

Be sure to measure whether sellers use content and how (and whether) buyers engage with it. In addition, track how each content asset impacts deal outcomes.

The top 10% of orgs update content every

months
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In addition, don’t be afraid to eliminate some content. If it’s not being used, having it doesn’t make sense.

Take your sales enablement content strategy to the next level with Mindtickle

Great sales enablement content helps sellers confidently navigate every deal that comes their way. A solid sales enablement strategy is foundational.

But creating a sales enablement content is just the first step. Sales organizations must also ensure their sellers know what sales enablement content is available, where to find it, and how to use it.

Mindtickle Asset Hub

Mindtickle’s sales enablement content management capabilities allow reps to quickly and easily find the right content for each sales scenario. In addition, sales enablement teams can deliver training and enablement to ensure sales reps know how to use the content that’s available to them. Finally, sales leaders can measure the effectiveness of each sales enablement content asset. They can see whether the asset is being used – and whether it’s improving seller performance and deal outcomes. These insights can help ensure organizations prioritize their time on sales content that’s proven to work.

 

Sales Content Management in Mindtickle

Ready to see how Mindtickle can equip your sellers with the sales content, training, and insights they need to close more deals?

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This post was originally published in December 2023 and was updated in September 2024. 

Mindtickle Named a Leader in the 2024 Forrester Revenue Enablement Wave

Christian Pieper on August 28, 2024

We’re honored to announce that Mindtickle has been recognized as a leader in The Forrester Wave: Revenue Enablement Platforms, Q3 2024. We believe this rating highlights our commitment to evolving the modern revenue org’s approach to enabling their reps to generate, grow, and protect revenue.

What is the Forrester Wave™?

Forrester publishes Wave reports for various software categories, authored by their analysts who work closely with companies making purchasing decisions in these spaces.

This new report is Forrester’s first covering revenue enablement platforms, characterized by a consolidated approach to supporting Sales Readiness and Sales Content management. It lists the 12 most significant vendors in the space, compares their functionality, and describes their offerings for those looking to purchase.

Forrester-Wave-2024

Forrester’s evaluation is important because it represents an authoritative, third-party perspective on a growing list of competitive providers.

Using the Wave, buyers can make more informed decisions that prioritize the functionality and use cases that are most important to them.

We believe being recognized as a Leader in this report validates Mindtickle’s current offering and underscores our innovative outlook as we plan for the future.

Results of the 2024 Forrester Revenue Enablement Wave

Naming Mindtickle as a Leader, report author Eric Zines states, “Mindtickle delivers a full-featured platform backed by a strong innovation roadmap.” He describes our offering, including some important details for those evaluating Mindtickle for revenue enablement.

“Mindtickle delivers a full-featured platform backed by a strong innovation roadmap.”
Eric Zines
Principal Analyst, Forrester

Our key takeaways

As a “full-featured platform,” we received on-par or better scores in every criterion in the report. This reflects our ability to serve a wide array of use cases and meet customers where they are with solutions for onboarding, everboarding, buyer enablement, and more.

Receiving top scores possible in the “Innovation” and “Roadmap” criteria indicates that we have a strong plan for our product and will continue to drive this space forward. Partnering with our customers, we hope to build and validate use cases that will be included in similar future reports.

Forrester also sourced feedback from users of the revenue enablement vendors in the report. According to the Forrester report, Mindtickle’s “reference customers rave about Mindtickle’s dedication to customer success…” We believe that what truly separates vendors from each other is how well they partner with their customers to make them successful, so we couldn’t be prouder to hear this feedback.

Forrester choosing to publish a new Wave report in this category will help solidify the value of a consolidated revenue enablement platform for B2B buyers. Instead of acquiring and paying for numerous point solutions, companies can invest in one platform that meets their needs for readiness, sales content management, Digital Sales Rooms, coaching, and more. Doing so positions them to benefit from cross-platform workflows, including AI capabilities that drive efficiency through a centralized seller experience.

As we continue to lead the charge in revenue enablement, we remain dedicated to evolving our solutions to meet the market’s ever-changing needs.

The Forrester Wave: Revenue Enablement Platforms, Q3 2024

Get the full report for more information on how Mindtickle can help your organization achieve its sales and revenue goals.

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Say Goodbye to Deal Delays: Discover the Power of Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms

Christian Pieper on July 10, 2024

When we talk to buyers and sellers about the buying/selling process, they frequently complain about the same thing: deals take longer than they need to because of friction, confusion, and opacity.

So, if buyers and sellers want the same thing, what’s stopping them from aligning around the objectives of speed, clarity, and transparency?

The truth is that deals are becoming increasingly complicated. There are more competitors to evaluate, more stakeholders to align, and more legal and regulatory requirements to meet. When multiple conversations occur across multiple email threads and different folks join each sales call, information gets siloed, and deals get delayed.

Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms were built to solve this problem and drive alignment between buyers and sellers throughout even the most complex deal cycles. By consolidating all communication, call recordings, collateral, documents, etc., into one persistent, collaborative space, Mindtickle’s deal rooms keep deals on track as both parties push toward their shared objectives.

What makes digital sales rooms so powerful?

You can think of a digital sales room as a dedicated virtual conference room where buyers and sellers can collaborate, find information, and complete their buying and selling tasks.

Without a digital sales room, you can only impact a small portion of the buying process – the time you spend with buyers on calls and any time they spend reading your emails or reviewing collateral you sent over. With a dedicated deal room for the opportunity, buyers have a place to go to research, get answers to their questions, and get other stakeholders up to speed.

By making your digital sales room the easiest place for buyers to get answers about your product and competing products and giving them a place to complete their buying tasks, you can influence a greater portion of the buying decision. You’ll know what content they are looking at, what questions they’re asking, and what needs to happen to push deals forward.

Why are Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms the best option for modern sales orgs?

Unlike other deal room offerings in the market, Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms allow for unlimited collaboration between unlimited participants on both the buying and selling sides. The rooms maintain a static link throughout the entire customer lifecycle, so the same room can be used pre-sale (for deal acceleration) and post-sale (for implementation and customer success) and simply swap ownership from an account executive to a success manager.

Mindtickle’s deal rooms boast best-in-class analytics, including granular engagement data on all room visitors and their content interactions. Even when someone you haven’t already met from a buying organization visits a digital sales room, Mindtickle automatically enriches that contact and writes it to the CRM opportunity record, so you always know who is involved in the deals you’re working.

What makes Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms special is how much sellers love using them. As Mindtickle customer Sirion discovered, their reps took so quickly to making deal rooms that they reached over 50% utilization in new deals within 90 days of launch. This is not a unique case. digital sales rooms are Mindtickle’s most highly adopted product, and they have been shown to drive adoption in other areas of Mindtickle’s comprehensive revenue enablement platform.

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What benefits are Mindtickle’s customers seeing from digital sales rooms?

At a recent Sales Enablement Society event in New York, Mindtickle hosted a session with Digger McElligott, the Vice President of Sales at Paytronix, to discuss Paytronix’s success with Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms. Digger discussed his sales org’s aggressive goal to double their win rates in 2024 and highlighted that they’re getting ⅓ of the way there simply by using digital sales rooms.

Aside from Sirion’s adoption metrics we discussed earlier, they’ve also enjoyed significant gains in buyer engagement. In one deal with a Fortune 100 tech company, they received over 100 visitors from the buying organization to their digital sales room powered by Mindtickle, logging over 1000 hours of total self-service engagement. And because Mindtickle’s deal rooms enriched those contacts and tracked all the engagements, they knew exactly who looked at which pages and slides for how long in every one of those visits.

Once digital sales rooms are enabled, we see a greater than 200% increase in content utilization across our entire customer base. With all the data that content utilization generates, marketers can understand how their message is resonating and take action to optimize their content strategy accordingly.

Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms aren’t just for sales anymore.

While our customers continue to see increases in win rates and buyer engagement, what’s been perhaps the most exciting development is learning about all of the unexpected use cases they are discovering for Mindtickle’s flexible deal rooms:

  • Marketing teams are using them to replace landing pages as more engaging and dynamic lead-generation assets.
  • Enablement teams are setting up rooms for groups of new employees onboarding together. They use the room to build community, work on group projects, and track their progress through onboarding.

  • HR teams use the rooms to recruit new hires, send offers, and track each candidate’s engagement with the hiring materials.

  • Success orgs are setting up customer groups and generating collaborative interaction in shared rooms.

Ultimately, whenever you need a persistent shared space for digital interaction and collaboration, Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms give you exactly that, whether for internal or external audiences.

Best practices for leveraging digital sales rooms

Here are a few tips we’ve compiled to make sure you get the most out of your Mindtickle-powered digital sales rooms:

Mindtickle’s deal rooms leverage a template library to make it simple for sellers to launch new rooms in minutes. Keep the process simple and manageable by making templates for the most common product packages, personas, verticals, etc., so when a seller scores a new opp, they can easily find the right template and get a room out immediately.

With just a click or two, a rep can add a mutual action plan to any digital sales room powered by Mindtickle. Start from a standard template for your sales process and customize it as needed to reflect the buyer’s intended journey. Assign tasks to buyers or sellers, track milestones, and set due dates to ensure deals stay on track. And when they don’t, you’ll know exactly what’s holding it up.

Invite sellers who built rooms that generated the most alignment in key deals to show off their rooms. You’ll incentivize your team to push the envelope in creating engaging, bespoke rooms. You can even create templates based on the best-performing rooms.

Ready to start seeing those increased win rates? Ready to start generating twice as much engagement with your thoughtfully built content? Contact us today to learn more about digital sales rooms powered by Mindtickle. Talk with one of our reps, and they’ll create a room just for you to see it in action.

Digital Sales Rooms in Mindtickle

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How 3 Medical Device Companies Use Mindtickle to Help Their Reps Close More Deals 

Christian Pieper on June 28, 2024

In medical device sales, staying ahead requires more than constant product innovation—it requires a flexible and adaptive approach to enabling your reps to sell your rapidly evolving product line.

Enter Mindtickle, an AI-powered revenue enablement platform transforming how medical device companies support their go-to-market reps.

By making it easy and fast to create engaging training content and serve up-to-date sales collateral to medical device reps, Mindtickle helps health tech and med tech companies stay ahead of the curve and the competition.

Today, we explore how three leading medical device companies have embraced Mindtickle to enhance sales effectiveness and drive more successful outcomes. From streamlining onboarding processes to refining pitch delivery and mastering complex product knowledge, these companies are leveraging Mindtickle to empower their sales teams like never before.

Let’s dive in.

Company #1 – A fast-growing global diagnostics provider

This medtech company has been using Mindtickle for over five years, and during that time, it has more than doubled the size of its go-to-market function.

Before Mindtickle, their sales enablement efforts were manual and analog. They needed a way to make their approach more scalable, data-driven, and mobile-friendly for their on-the-go reps. They chose Mindtickle mainly for its ability to drive onboarding and messaging certification programs for their new reps.

As their team has grown, this company has found the most value in two of Mindtickle’s varied learning modalities: virtual role-play exercises and quick updates. Reps must meet a minimum score threshold on several role-play exercises to meet their certification requirements. These exercises certify their ability to deliver the company’s message in an accurate, customer-friendly way that meets their high standard for regulatory compliance.

Quick updates are bite-sized training content that this company uses to notify its reps quickly of additions to its product lines, new competitor insights, and updates regarding the regulatory environment.

Mindtickle enabled this customer to grow quickly, powered by a scalable and data-driven approach to onboarding quickly and supporting new reps.

Customer #2 – A “MedTech Global Big 100” provider of medical devices and software systems

This customer came to Mindtickle because they were fed up with their inability to track and report progress with their traditional learning management solution. Similarly to the previously discussed customer, they were frustrated that their training was unavailable on-demand via mobile devices in the field.

After signing with Mindtickle, they’ve made all their training and sales collateral available via a dedicated mobile app provided by Mindtickle. They’ve also established a scalable, repeatable reporting system on enablement outcomes via Mindtickle’s Readiness Index. Not only have they transformed their approach to sales enablement, but they’ve been impressed with how surprisingly easy it has been to do so, thanks to Mindtickle’s support team and “impressive SLAs.”

Customer #3 – The medical device division of a Fortune 500 company

This customer approached Mindtickle intending to digitally transform their manual approach to training their sales reps. Specifically, they needed a solution for their trainers to use to deliver training in a more scalable, consistent, and frequent manner, as well as a solution to help enable their team of expert trainers and standardize their approach.

Having no previous formal means of delivering digital enablement, they conducted pilots with Mindtickle and a competing sales readiness solution. Ultimately, they chose Mindtickle because of our support, services, and superior capacity to deliver adaptive, role-specific learning paths.

Since partnering with Mindtickle, this customer has been impressed with how Mindtickle’s varied approaches to learning keep their reps engaged as they build their skills through onboarding and beyond. They’ve found particular value in Mindtickle’s virtual role-play exercises, especially in how they allow them to scale practice and coaching via AI feedback and grading on these exercises, removing the bottleneck of a manager requirement to review all submissions.

Mindtickle manager command center product image

These customers are just a few examples of how medical device companies are using Mindtickle to:

  • Transform their enablement with a scalable and data-driven approach
  • Deliver learning and training on-demand to reps in the field
  • Keep their teams up-to-date with their evolving product lines, market conditions, approved messaging, and compliance information

Want to learn more about how your company can experience the same benefits from a modern, seller-centric approach to revenue enablement? 

Mindtickle for Medical Device Reps

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