How to Leverage AI Sales Coaching and Training to Supercharge Team Performance and Revenue Growth 

Helen Waite on August 16, 2024

Every sales leader knows training and coaching are keys to sales success. With the right training and coaching, sellers can hone their sales skills to engage buyers and close deals.

But sales training and coaching must be relevant to be effective. In other words, sales training and coaching must be personalized to the needs of each seller.

Delivering personalized training and coaching can seem impossible, especially as your team grows. That’s where AI sales coaching and training come in.

If you’re not sure what AI sales coaching and training is, you’ve come to the right place. In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about AI sales coaching and training, including:

  • What AI sales coaching and training is
  • How it works
  • Why it’s beneficial to sales reps
  • Why a growing number of revenue organizations are embracing AI sales coaching and training to boost sales performance
  • The importance of choosing the right AI sales coaching tool

What is AI sales coaching and training?

AI isn’t exactly a new concept. But in the past few years, we’ve seen rapid adoption of AI in both the personal and professional realm. The world of sales is no exception. A recent survey found that only 24% of revenue organizations aren’t using AI sales tools.

A recent survey found that only

aren't using AI sales tools
0 %

So, what is AI sales coaching and training?

AI sales coaching and training involves leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to create and deliver personalized coaching and training at scale. When revenue organizations strategically use AI in their sales coaching and training, sellers can master the skills they need to succeed. That means they’ll close more deals, and revenue will grow.

How does AI coaching and training work?

We’ve defined what AI coaching and training is. But how exactly does AI coaching and training work?

Innovative revenue organizations leverage AI in several ways to deliver effective sales coaching and training at scale. Let’s take a closer look.

Data analysis

Data is foundational for artificial intelligence. Fortunately, most organizations have access to plenty of data. But compiling and making sense of that data is another story.

AI compiles data from various sources, including call recordings, reports, and customer interactions – among others. Then, it analyzes the data to provide insights to inform coaching and training.

For example, AI sales training software can help sales leaders pinpoint the strengths and weaknesses of each of their sellers. AI can also provide recommended steps for closing skill gaps.

Sales managers can also use a tool like Mindtickle Copilot to find answers to questions like “Which region is struggling with objection handling?” or “Which managers are coaching their reps the most?”

Copilot - Just in Time Enablement (2)

Personalized training and enablement

No two sales reps are the same, yet organizations often provide all sellers with the same training and enablement.

With AI sales training software, organizations can deliver tailored training and learning paths based on each rep’s strengths and weaknesses. That way, each rep can access relevant resources to build lagging skills.

In addition, sales reps can ask questions without having to wait for a response from a subject matter expert. AI analyzes existing content to provide an answer and can share additional resources for the sales rep to learn more.

Speedy learning content creation

Any sales enablement professional knows that launching an impactful program can take time. But with AI sales training, you don’t need to start from scratch.

An AI sales enablement tool like Mindtickle Copilot enables teams to quickly and easily create practice and reinforcement modules that help sellers retain and apply knowledge in the field.

Real-time sales coaching

When done well, sales coaching can greatly impact sales productivity and performance. However, traditional sales coaching techniques are labor intensive, and sales reps must wait for their manager.

Interactive, engaging practice opportunities

Some sales coaching tools like Mindtickle also feature interactive, AI-powered role-plays. Sales reps can practice their pitch on a realistic AI bot. The rep gets feedback throughout the experience, which they can use to hone their skills before money is on the line.

Data-driven content recommendations

Most sales reps have ample content available. However, they often spend too much time searching for the right content for the right scenario and base their decisions on hunches or gut feelings.

AI can recommend the most relevant and impactful content based on data, including past performance and customer activity. A sales training tool like Mindtickle Copilot can also draft contextual emails that sales reps can send about the content.

Ongoing measurement

Ongoing measurement is key to understanding the impact of sales training and coaching – and identifying areas for improvement. AI sales training software enables organizations to track and analyze the right metrics. This helps organizations understand the impact of their sales coaching and training and make data-based optimizations.

How does AI sales coaching and training benefit sales reps?

Today, many revenue organizations are starting to embrace AI sales coaching and training. According to a recent survey, some of the top use cases include:

  • Analyzing call recordings
  • Empowering sales reps to get answers to customer questions in the flow of work
  • Serving up recommendations for training
  • Suggesting content for sales reps to use
  • Gaining insight on seller performance

It’s easy to understand why organizations adopt AI sales coaching and training, as it delivers many powerful benefits for sales reps.

Sales reps only have so many hours in the day. With AI sales coaching and training, they no longer have to waste their time on generic training and coaching. Instead, sellers can easily access tailored training and coaching opportunities.

With AI, organizations can better understand the skills and behaviors key to success in each role. Then, AI can deliver personalized training and coaching that helps each sales rep build the right skills.

Sales reps need opportunities to practice the skills they’ve learned. With AI, sales reps can engage in interactive role-plays and get instant feedback. That way, they can hone their pitch before money is on the line.

Sales reps want feedback, but often, their managers are too busy to provide it. With AI sales coaching, sales reps get real-time feedback. AI can analyze sales calls to identify opportunities for improvement. Sellers can then incorporate this feedback to improve the outcome of a deal.

Questions can arise at any time of day. With AI, sales reps can get the answers they need when needed. There’s no need to wait around for a subject matter expert.

Sales reps spend far too much time searching for the right content for the scenario. With AI, sales reps can get content recommendations that are proven to be effective in similar scenarios.

Salesforce research found that sales reps spend less than 30% of their time actually selling. AI automates and streamlines many time-consuming tasks, leaving sales reps with more time to engage with buyers and guide them to the finish line.

How can Mindtickle Copilot improve your sales training and coaching programs?

Ongoing sales training and coaching are key to ensuring your reps are always ready to conquer any deal. With AI sales coaching software, you can deliver effective training and coaching programs tailored to each seller’s unique needs.

Getting started with AI sales coaching and training can feel overwhelming. But with Mindtickle Copilot, it doesn’t have to be.

Mindtickle enables sales leaders to quickly make sense of data and gain insights to make better decisions. For example, sales managers can quickly understand the strengths and weaknesses of each of their sales reps. Then, AI can create personalized learning paths to empower each sales rep to strengthen their weaker skills.

With Mindtickle Copilot, enablement teams can quickly and easily create enablement experiences that help sellers retain knowledge and build skills. For example, you can ask Mindtickle Copilot to create an assessment that tests whether or not sellers have retained what they’ve learned in a training module.

Mindtickle’s platform also empowers sales reps to access on-demand coaching. AI provides a score for each recorded role-play or sales call and tailored feedback for improvement. There’s no need to wait around for manager feedback.

Mindtickle also allows sales reps to engage in interactive role-plays with an AI bot, where AI delivers feedback throughout the role-play experience. These realistic scenarios prepare sales reps for real-life experiences.

Mindtickle Copilot also makes it easy for sellers to prepare for any prospect interaction. For example, a sales rep can use Mindtickle Copilot to ask what objections a prospect brought up in their last call. Then, AI can surface the right content to address those objections. Mindtickle Copilot can even draft a contextual email for a seller to send to the prospect when sharing the content, which saves time.

Finally, Mindtickle Copilot can help you track and analyze the right data to understand how your AI sales coaching and training is impacting outcomes – and where there are opportunities for optimization.

AI Sales Coaching in Mindtickle

Ready to see firsthand how Mindtickle can empower your business to deliver sales training and coaching that supercharges sales performance?

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The 8 Essential Features Your Sales Enablement Tool Should Have 

Helen Waite on August 13, 2024

According to Forrester, more than half of sales reps miss their quota. That’s not very good news, considering new sales revenue streams are an organization’s bread and butter.

According to Forrester

of reps miss their quotas
+ 0 %

So, the question is, how can we empower our sales teams to reach their sales quotas successfully?

The simple answer: introduce sales enablement tools.

With sales enablement tools, you can train your sales reps to effectively target new customers, tackle difficult negotiations, close more deals, and increase your company’s bottom line.

Once you’ve read this article, you’ll have learned about:

  • The advantages that the right sales enablement tool can give your company
  • The essential features to look out for in sales enablement tools — and why
  • The top five sales enablement tools
  • Our helpful recommendations

Why are sales enablement tools important for your business?

The most powerful feature of sales enablement tools is their ability to centralize knowledge between the sales and marketing departments.

This has a butterfly effect, increasing revenue, boosting quota attainment, and solidifying brand identity across the company.

When sales and marketing departments have centralized access to content, insights, and approaches, it impacts sales revenue through streamlined processes, provides successful strategies, and shapes sellers with winning behaviors and skills.

With sales enablement tools, your business can:

  • Align sales and marketing teams with clear goals, tasks, and knowledge sharing. This is important, as many teams need additional resources to execute enablement tasks properly.
  • Learn winning attitudes and skills from top-performing sellers and transform those behaviors into skills for other sellers to learn and replicate.
    Optimize material for better win rates with content insights.
  • Accelerate the onboarding ramp process for new hires. In turn, this sets up new hires for success.
  • Keep sellers updated on new strategies, product launches, and market approaches.
  • Track KPIs and goals. Companies with clear sales KPIs are more likely to reach their sales quotas.

The benefits that sales enablement tools bring to your team

Modern sales enablement solutions make all of your sales processes simpler, more measurable, and more actionable.

1. Centralize access to content

Sales enablement tools help reps understand what content is available and how to use it in their sales interactions.

With half of all customer engagement coming from only 10% of a company’s content, reps need to quickly find relevant sales material to nurture leads, follow up with prospects, and convince important decision-makers of the value of your products.

But Forrester found that “not having the right content” is one of the biggest challenges for sales teams. Sellers reported that finding content and information is a significant productivity obstacle, affecting their daily work.

With a sales enablement tool, your enablement team can tag content to categorize it based on buyer persona, stage in the sales funnel, customer outcome, or the stakeholder it’s most relevant to. This includes:

  • Case studies
  • Whitepapers
  • Sales playbooks
  • Competitor comparisons
  • Microlearning modules
  • Training call recordings

Then, your reps can search for key content terms and easily find relevant sales enablement content. This system equips sellers with the knowledge and content they need to progress conversations with prospects, helping them improve their win rates and close more deals.

2. Increase collaboration between sales and marketing

LinkedIn found that 85% of survey respondents believe that better marketing and sales alignment would provide major business growth. Unfortunately, sales and marketing teams often fall into silos with little communication between them.

Sales enablement improves alignment between these teams and gives better visibility into the effectiveness of their processes. Marketers can see how sellers use marketing content in their sales conversations and get measurable data on how different content types impact the sales process.

Additionally, sellers can see what content the marketing team has produced and get updates about new case studies or product sheets they can use in their nurturing flows.

Both teams can see which messaging, content, and campaigns are working so they can collaborate to improve overall sales performance.

3. Improve visibility into team performance

Sales enablement gives sellers access to content, resources, and training materials to help them build the necessary skills and knowledge.

Sales leaders can see their reps’ performance data alongside insights into their content usage and training completion.

This helps managers understand how the content, resources, and training provided affect the sales team’s performance.

With access to data on how training content and exercises affect team performance, managers gain insights into providing a data-informed and personalized approach to sales coaching programs for each team member.

8 features you need in your sales enablement tool

Organizations in the market for a sales enablement tool should look for the following key features:

  1. Insights and analytics
  2. Onboarding management
  3. Gamification
  4. Automated workflows
  5. Program management
  6. Content management
  7. Integrations
  8. Governance

1. Insights and analytics to optimize sales efforts

Most organizations spend a great deal of time, money, and resources training their sales teams. But without a way to measure those efforts, it’s hard to understand what’s working and what parts of the training process need improvement.

With sales enablement tools, you get detailed analytics and insights into what works, what doesn’t, and how to improve.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

With data and insights from your sales enablement platform, you can make data-driven decisions to improve sales initiatives or develop a specific skill in individual reps.

For example, managers can benchmark a sales rep’s performance in a key area, like closing. After training sessions and 1:1 coaching designed to improve closing skills, the manager tracks the close rate and other closing-related KPIs to see how the rep’s performance changes. The manager can adjust the training program accordingly based on those measurable results.

Also, sales enablement tools show how much time and money it costs to train each sales representative. If costs are higher than managers would like them to be, they can take steps to reduce inefficiencies and improve productivity.

2. Onboarding management and accelerating ramp time

Sales enablement tools help onboard new sales hires with the knowledge and training they need to succeed in their roles.

During the sales onboarding process, it can be a challenge to keep reps engaged, track their readiness, and provide them with easy access to forms, manuals, and other onboarding materials.

 

However, using sales enablement tools for onboarding helps teams to:

  • Improve learning and testing through automated training paths that get reps ramped up faster.
  • Ensure better communication by keeping reps constantly updated and thoroughly engaged, leading to higher productivity and fewer turnover costs.
  • Enhance coaching by leveraging the tools and content that empower reps and managers to identify and address any areas — like knowledge and skills — requiring improvement.

3. Gamification to motivate sales reps

It’s not easy to keep sales representatives engaged during sales onboarding and continuous training.

That’s where gamification comes in.

Through gamification, organizations can turn routine tasks into enjoyable activities that motivate and incentivize sales reps to develop their skills.

 

Through gamification, managers encourage friendly competition, break learning into bite-sized segments, offer relevant games and quizzes, and introduce real-life scenarios.

Gamification can also add a social element to onboarding and training and promote open communication among sales representatives.

Gamification can be used by new reps during the onboarding process and by seasoned reps who need to consistently build upon their skills and experience. It can assist with continuous training and skill fine-tuning, all in a fun environment.

4. Automated workflows to streamline sales strategies

Collaboration and accountability are common struggles for organizations. Automated workflows make it easy to collaborate and hold all the right people accountable.

For example, automated workflows can create a seamless feedback loop between managers and sales reps. Here, audio or video recordings submitted by sales reps are sent automatically to sales managers who can offer qualitative and quantitative feedback. This removes manual reminders and a continual back and forth, streamlining the learning process.

Automated workflows help managers and sales representatives tackle tasks instantly and through a centralized process that tracks progress.

5. Program management to reach strategic goals

Program management helps sales teams reach their targets through strategic initiatives, such as voice of the customer programs or sales onboarding programs.

These initiatives include multiple connected projects, with a project manager overseeing the team members who are focused on different projects.

These projects are bigger than the individual sellers working on their deals. Instead, they involve different teams, such as leadership for strategic direction, marketing for content creation, and IT for technical implementation.

If your sales enablement tool doesn’t have a program management feature, it’s difficult to manage and execute these strategic initiatives, which can negatively impact your sales enablement efforts.

But with a program management feature, program managers can ease some of the stress they face by creating and structuring programs, adding and managing collaborators, creating and publishing relevant content, and automating communication.

6. Content management and centralized resources

Throughout the sales cycle, sales representatives depend on a variety of content to increase buyer engagement and understanding.

The challenge with all of this content is that it must be well-organized so that it can be easily located and fully utilized.

A content management feature makes it simple for sellers to access sales material quickly. By having a simple and accessible content management system, you empower sellers to utilize the correct content at the right time within the sales journey.

Asset-Hub-DSR

Additionally, enabling multiple people to collaborate in the content authoring process, whether in PowerPoint, PDF, or video, empowers teams to bring shared experiences and best practices into play.

An effective sales enablement tool helps your team track content usage and gives insights into the content with the highest engagement rate and how to properly use and introduce content resources.

7. Integrations to facilitate organizational planning

As sales enablement practices evolve within organizations, new tools are purchased. This can overload users with numerous platforms and multiple logins.

The solution for consolidating disparate tools is to integrate them with a sales enablement tool.

A sales enablement tool that offers integrations helps organizations keep their communication, calendaring, CRM, reporting and business intelligence, content management, and other tools all in one place.

Integrations allow sales representatives to spend less time digging through multiple platforms and more time doing what matters: selling and improving their skills.

8. Governance to organize tasks and data insights

Sales enablement programs have a lot of moving parts. Therefore, you’ll need to operate under complete confidence that your organization is using its resources efficiently and securely at scale.

Platform governance allows you to set up different access levels across multiple user roles and locations.

This helps you simplify coaching workflows and roll-up reports based on organizational hierarchy and define custom roles for those who need special access.

The 5 best sales enablement tools to improve revenue

Tech marketplace and review site G2 lists over 140 tools in the sales enablement category. So, if you’re looking for sales enablement software, you have plenty of options.

We’ve picked five top-rated tools to help you find the best one for your sales team.

A powerful and comprehensive sales enablement tool

Mindtickle’s platform increases sales rep revenue by 64%. This is because Mindtickle’s strong combination of sales enablement features with advanced insights continuously works to improve seller and content performance.

Mindtickle’s Revenue Enablement Platform provides tools and processes to help sellers increase their knowledge, enhance performance, and go into every customer conversation ready to succeed.

One of the biggest challenges of traditional sales enablement is that reps quickly forget their sales training, so they cannot make the best use of the content and resources available to them.

Mindtickle helps reps build and maintain their knowledge and skills through gamification, reinforced training, continuous skill assessments, and coaching exercises.

Our platform combines sales enablement, content management, conversation intelligence, sales training, and manager-led coaching. It provides continuous training, content, and enablement to ensure that sellers remember — and use — the knowledge and skills they’ve learned in their training and coaching sessions to move sales conversations forward.

We make sales enablement best practices an ongoing part of the sales process rather than a siloed additional tool or exercise that sellers only think about a few times a year.

Notable Mindtickle features:

  • Centralizes content management and provides content insights to personalize materials to mimic winning strategic approaches
  • Records phone calls and interactions and, using AI, provides feedback on tone, sales opportunities, and future insights
  • Identifies winning behaviors from sales reps across the company to propose skill development and training
  • Analyzes real-world data to suggest relevant training and role-plays to improve the sales approach
  • Centralizes the sales stack with CRM integrations and APIs
  • Creates an ideal rep profile to track KPIs and training progress
    Includes a mobile app for sellers to always be prepared — even on the go

Pricing
Schedule a demo to see Mindtickle in action and learn about current pricing.

Mindtickle G2 rating: 4.7

To break down marketing and sales silos

HubSpot is best known for its CRM and inbound marketing platform, but it also offers a Sales Hub to help companies already using its marketing tools break down the silos between their sales and marketing departments by getting everyone on the same platform.

HubSpot Sales Hub is primarily an easy-to-use CRM that gives sellers and their managers greater visibility into their deal pipeline and task list.

However, its free plan includes content management to give sellers easy access to sales content. Enterprise customers can use sales management playbooks such as battle cards and call scripts to enable sellers better to close deals.

While the most robust sales enablement features aren’t available to all customers, HubSpot integrates with more than 148 other sales enablement tools so that it may work well in combination with other instruments in your tech stack. Additionally, HubSpot has a vast library of training content and certifications to help sellers master best practices and essential skills.

Notable HubSpot Sales Hub features:

  • Email templates that can be personalized to prepare your team for success
  • Email tracking to keep up to date on lead health and opportunities
  • Document management and content tracking that can be directly sent through email inboxes
  • Automated sales workflows to keep sellers on top of tasks
  • Phone calls logged in your CRM
    Conversation intelligence to find opportunities for improvement in phone calls

Pricing
HubSpot offers multiple pricing tiers, ranging from $0 to $150 per sales seat per month. The higher the tier, the more robust the features.

HubSpot Sales Hub G2 rating: 4.4

For personalized and engaging content materials

Seismic is one of the leading dedicated sales enablement platforms. Its standalone platform provides a centralized hub where sellers can access the content and resources they need to engage with their prospects.

It recommends content and training at the time when they’re most relevant to your sellers. For example, when a prospect moves from a sales-qualified lead to an opportunity, it shows content and resources relevant to that stage of the buyer journey.

As a dedicated sales enablement platform, it’s a better choice for sales enablement teams than a tool that’s a CRM with enablement functionality added on. It has a great reputation and established customer base in the finance industry — particularly for wealth management, asset management, and banking organizations — which makes it a trustworthy option for companies operating in those spaces.

Notable Seismic features:

  • Offers resource personalization with advanced content management
  • Provides learning and onboarding courses to train new hires
    Integrates with almost all platforms
  • Connects and logs prospects through social media, email, and phone

Pricing
Pricing information is not available. Businesses must contact Seismic to access pricing information.

Seismic G2 rating: 4.7

For sales enablement with strong CRM features

Salesforce is one of the best-known sales tools available. There are split opinions in the sales world: some companies love it, and others find it has a steep learning curve and is difficult to implement for their business.

Like HubSpot, Salesforce is a CRM first, with additional features and functionality built on top. 

If your company already uses Salesforce for its CRM, then its sales enablement add-on may be the simplest option for your team. However, it probably isn’t worth switching to Salesforce just for its sales enablement tool.

Notable Salesforce features:

  • Forecasts pipelines with the help of KPI management and logged interactions
  • Manages accounts through logged communication history and internal notes
  • Uses process workflows to automate business processes and save time
  • Mobile app for ease of use outside the office

Pricing
Salesforce offers multiple pricing editions, ranging from $25 to $330 per user per month. The Salesforce sales enablement tool is a paid add-on for its Sales Cloud product.

Salesforce G2 rating: 4.4

To understand prospect health and upsell approaches

Showpad is a revenue enablement platform that helps sellers prepare for each sales conversation and gives them the resources to ensure each call or sales interaction makes a positive impact on the customer.

It combines training and coaching functionality with content management, ensuring sellers have access to the content they need. Its platform is split into two parts: Content and Coach.

Each is an essential part of sales enablement, but the two parts of the platform are priced separately. This means companies need to pay twice to benefit from the full sales enablement functionality they can get from other tools.

Notable Showpad features:

  • Tracks content ROI and enforces brand compliance in content creation
  • Lets users identify upsell and cross-selling opportunities as well as in-deal coaching
  • Share information through brand microsite for prospects to share content with their internal stakeholders
  • Gauges and tracks prospect interest to understand next steps

Pricing
Showpad offers multiple pricing tiers. However, they do not publish pricing information.

Showpad Content G2 rating: 4.6

The tool you choose needs to support your team’s growth for ongoing success

The best sales enablement tool will be the one that your team will find the easiest to adopt in their everyday tasks and responsibilities.

It’s important to keep in mind your company’s growth as you choose your sales enablement tool. You want to be sure that it’ll continuously grow and adapt to your business needs, market changes, and new product releases.

This support comes with insights and data that continuously update with each interaction and sales training that prepares your sales team for success through engaging and motivating material and courses.

Mindtickle can help support your team with its comprehensive sales enablement platform that provides direction and new skills to your sales team.

Learn more about Mindtickle’s sales enablement tool, or play around with our demo and take a peek into how we continuously help companies reach their revenue and growth goals.

Find the sales enablement tool that works for you

Talk to our team about your challenges and we'll show you how Mindtickle can scale and grow your sales enablement efforts so your team is hitting quota every quarter. 

Get a Demo

Sales enablement tool FAQs

What is sales enablement software?

Sales enablement software provides a centralized place for the training, resources, and data needed to help salespeople sell more effectively.

Sales enablement software:

  • Helps sales reps easily access training materials, product documentation, and other content (no matter where it is stored)
  • Records key sales metrics, so managers can identify opportunities to improve certain skills through coaching
  • Tracks reps’ progress against development goals
  • Improves visibility and alignment between sales and marketing teams
  • Enables micro-learning and virtual training to teach and reinforce key skills

At its core, a sales enablement tool does much more than just support a more efficient and effective sales team. With the proper tool, all types of organizations can boost their sales processes to enhance every step of the sales journey. And, what’s more, the right tool supports sales teams by providing them with the content and information they need to successfully engage with customers the first time and every time.

What are the benefits of a sales enablement tool?

A sales enablement tool significantly benefits sales reps, sales enablement professionals, and sales leaders.

With the right sales enablement tool, sales reps can easily find the training, information, tools, and content they need to prepare for any sales scenario—all in one location. That means sales reps spend less time searching for materials and more time engaging buyers and closing deals.

Integrated sales enablement software provides enablement teams with a one-stop shop for creating, delivering, and measuring enablement programs. Sales enablement teams can quickly and easily build and deploy learning programs and paths tailored to the needs of each sales rep. Then, they can measure the impact of those programs and optimize accordingly.

Sales enablement software also allows sales managers to track reps’ progress. Sales managers get insight into a sales rep’s strengths and weaknesses, which empowers them to deliver targeted, effective sales coaching that closes skill gaps.

What are the best sales enablement tools?

The best sales enablement tools that have the most impact on your company are:

  • Mindtickle
  • HubSpot Sales Hub
  • Seismic
  • Salesforce
  • Showpad

For a full list of all the sales enablement tools and features, read our guide.

What are the essential features of a sales enablement tool?

The features that your sales enablement tool should have are:

  • Integrations
  • Content management
  • Program management
  • Automated workflows
  • Gamification
  • Governance
  • Onboarding management
  • Insights and analytics

How much should I spend on sales enablement tools?

Every company’s budget is different, as are their definitions of success. To understand how much you should be spending on sales enablement tools, you need to understand how the ROI of sales enablement can be measured. This will give you a better understanding of the benefits a sales enablement tool will have on your company.

Now with all of this knowledge, you’ll be empowered to make an educated choice on the best sales enablement tool for your team.

Sales Enablement in Action

Connect with our team to learn more about how Mindtickle helps you prove the ROI of your sales enablement efforts. 

Request a Demo

This was originally published in May 2022, updated in December 2022, November 2023, and again in August 2024. 

6 Ways To Increase Sales Acceleration

Helen Waite on August 6, 2024

Whoever coined the saying “time is money” probably worked in sales. When sellers are more productive, they can close more deals faster.

Of course, it’s not all about speed. Sales reps must strike the right balance between speed and quality of customer interactions.

That’s why sales acceleration makes so much sense.

In this post, we’ll explore how sales acceleration can help you grow revenue – and six key ways you can increase sales acceleration at your organization.

What is sales acceleration?

Let’s define sales acceleration and explore its implications for your company and your customers.

Sales acceleration is the process of improving your approaches and strategies to move prospects through the sales funnel more efficiently.

Sales acceleration is a classic win-win scenario. For your company, it means more deals and fewer resources expended. For your customers, it means less wasted time and a better overall experience.

Does sales acceleration help grow revenue?

While we’re on the topic of old adages, we should address another one: What happened to “slow and steady wins the race”?

That’s not the case when it comes to sales acceleration. Sure, you don’t want your reps to rush through sales discovery calls or other customer interactions, but one of the best ways to grow revenue is to take your time and use it more effectively. Sales acceleration allows you to identify better and take advantage of existing revenue opportunities.

For example, say you use one sales acceleration strategy: lead qualification. When you qualify leads before contacting them, you save time on people who are likely to buy and get better results from the same amount of resource expenditure. This leads to more revenue because you’re focused on leads that show proven interest or receptiveness.

And the faster, the better. Lead qualification success is reduced 10x when reps wait longer than five minutes to respond to a form fill or inquiry. At anything over 10 minutes, that decrease in success jumps to 400%.

Lead qualification is reduced

when reps wait more than 5 minutes to respond to a form fill
0 x

The same idea applies to all sales acceleration tools and strategies. The time, resources, and leads are out there; sales acceleration improves revenue by cutting waste and putting your focus in the right places.

6 tips to increase sales acceleration

Ready to accelerate sales? Here are just a few tips to get you started:

#1: Use the right tools

Sales acceleration tools help your reps know what to say, show or send, giving them the visibility necessary to determine which deals need particular attention. For example, the best sales acceleration software allows you to keep track of details such as:

  • Whether prospects are mentioning your competitors
  • Whether deals are multi-threaded
  • What messaging is used on calls, and whether this aligns with your most up-to-date recommendations

Based on this information, sales acceleration tools can surface the best training solutions and identify top revenue-driving content, helping move deals forward. This could include building digital sales rooms to set up a mutual action plan.

#2: Improve your sales onboarding and training

To accelerate sales, you need to build out your onboarding and training materials with processes that clearly connect to real-world scenarios. One of the best ways to do this is to deploy sales plays with all necessary information — including everything a rep needs to say, show and do — to sell a new product or build relationships with particular personas.

To make these trainings even more effective, consider using clips from recorded calls or top practice sessions — and don’t forget to make this content available on-demand in a training or onboarding library. 

#3: Get more from your notes

Instead of having reps waste valuable time — and potentially distract themselves — by taking notes on calls, use sales acceleration tools to automate notetaking, transcribe communications and gather voice-of-market insights.

This doesn’t just make it easier to learn from every interaction and identify areas for improvement; it also helps you uncover trends that enable reps to choose the right messaging at the right time. They’ll have what they need to use revenue-driving content to win more deals.

#4: Foster better deal collaboration and coaching

To accelerate sales, perform accurate revenue forecasting and more, you need clear communication across multiple roles and departments. Fostering this collaboration requires smoothly sharing the most important content.

For example, have your Business Development Representatives (BDRs) share call snippets with reps and reps share call snippets with Sales Engineers (SEs) and Customer Success Managers (CSMs) to make hand-offs simpler and more effective. You should also empower managers with a coaching workflow based on real data from multiple sources. This enables them to see how healthy their team’s deals and calls are — plus, they can make actionable plans to coach at key intervals.

#5: Consolidate everything

From data and background information to training material and sales enablement content, reps can juggle a lot when navigating a single call or communication. Give them access to everything they need, but don’t overwhelm them with unnecessary or poorly organized information. Instead, provide a more streamlined user experience to reduce clicks and save time. This makes reps more agile and better able to respond in unfamiliar scenarios, but it also speeds up prospect communication and makes your sales funnel faster and simpler.

#6: Adjust your sales acceleration strategy regularly

A sales acceleration strategy depends heavily on best practices, up-to-date messaging, new sales enablement materials, and even the latest version of your sales acceleration software. That means there are a variety of changes that can impact your strategy.

For example, you should track whether sales processes and methodologies are adopted. This can change everything from return on investment (ROI) to sales performance and revenue, so it has a big impact on sales acceleration. 

Say you use MEDDPICC — a sales qualification methodology that stands for:

  • Metrics
  • Economic buyer
  • Decision criteria
  • Decision process
  • Paper process
  • Implicate the pain
  • Champion
  • Competition 

To ensure you get the most out of every MEDDPICC idea or approach, you should have a MEDDPICC score based on how much information you can provide. You would also have a playbook with best practices and practical guidance, plus training, daily sales report (DSR) templates, and a Mutual Action Plan developed with this methodology in mind. 

Benefits of implementing a sales acceleration strategy

Once you’ve implemented all the right tips and your sales acceleration approach is well underway, you could start seeing benefits around every corner. For example:

  • Filled quotas: With a solid sales acceleration solution at your reps’ fingertips, more of them can achieve their quotas faster. That means more deals won, more experience with different persona types, and more revenue.
  • Better wins: Bigger, better, faster wins are possible using the right sales acceleration tools. You’re connecting dots to streamline experiences, improving the deals, not just the processes that build them.
  • Smoother hand-offs: A completed deal is a product of multiple teams and departments. Sales acceleration makes it smoother and quicker to communicate key points and create better internal and external experiences.
  • Reduced churn: Grow your customer base and reduce churn simultaneously. It’s all possible thanks to better processes and more prepared reps.
  • Scalable sales motion: Make your sales motion repeatable and scalable with best practices, training, and other sales acceleration solutions. 
  • Adoption: Accelerating sales allows you to more easily adapt your sales process and methodology to a “win every stage” approach. This also means improving your stage-to-stage conversions.

Types of sales acceleration tools

There are various tools in the market to help with sales acceleration. Let’s take a closer look at some of the common types of sales acceleration tools.

#1 Prospecting tools

Prospecting is foundational to the sales process. After all, if you can’t find the right prospects, you won’t have anyone to sell to. Prospecting tools allow you to find and contact prospects who are a good fit for your product or service more effectively.

#2 Lead scoring tools

Sellers only have so many hours in the day. You want them to spend their time with prospects most likely to convert. Lead scoring tools help revenue teams identify which leads are the most valuable.

#3 Contact management tools

Contact management tools help revenue teams keep track of details for their current and prospective customers.

#4 Activity tracking tools

Each deal has several moving pieces. Activity tracking tools enable sellers to keep track of all their interactions with prospects.

#5 Revenue enablement tools

Sellers need the right tools, training, and resources to be effective and efficient. An integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle provides sales teams targeted training, personalized coaching, and real-time insights. Our integration of conversation intelligence and ability to set and track challenging yet achievable goals ensures a complete approach to driving sales success.

#6 Sales dialers

Sales reps spend a large portion of their time making calls. While these calls are necessary, manually typing in hundreds of numbers is tedious and time-consuming. Sales dialers are a sales acceleration tool that automates outbound calling.

#7 Sales engagement tools

Modern B2B sellers expect tailored communication and experiences throughout the purchase journey. However, meeting these expectations and effectively engaging buyers is time-consuming.

Sales engagement tools automate communication with prospects. With the right tools, sellers can deliver personalized, targeted outreach at scale.

#8 Sales forecasting tools

Accurate forecasting is important. The right sales acceleration tools empower teams to create more accurate forecasts. In addition, these tools can flag at-risk deals so sales managers can step in to provide guidance and coaching to improve the deal’s outcome.

Start accelerating sales today

A sales acceleration solution may sound like a significant shift, but it doesn’t have to be. All you need is a platform that can integrate your processes and data.

Mindtickle is more than sales acceleration software — it’s a single home for all your sales enablement, training, coaching, and enablement content and solutions. You can even share sales data with other teams to improve collaboration and further support the customer experience.

Start Accelerating Sales Today

Set up time to see how Mindtickle combines enablement, training, coaching, content, and conversation intelligence to help reps win deals faster.

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This post was originally published in May 2023, updated in December 2023, and again in August 2024. 

Data-Driven Sales Coaching: How to Use Data to Drive Coaching Conversations

Helen Waite on July 18, 2024

As a revenue leader, you’re likely well aware of the potential impact of great sales coaching on team performance. In fact, the power of sales coaching is proven. A recent analysis found that top sellers receive significantly more sales coaching than average.

But generic, one-size-fits-all sales coaching doesn’t work. Furthermore, while deal coaching may improve the outcome of a single deal, it won’t have much of an impact on a rep’s long-term behaviors and sales performance.

Instead, sales managers must deliver tailored skill coaching that addresses the strengths and weaknesses of each of their sales reps. But first, they must have the right data to understand what those strengths and weaknesses are.

In this post, we’ll explore why your current approach to sales coaching isn’t working – and why data-driven sales coaching is the answer.

Why coaching conversations must change

Having conversations about performance can be hard, especially if a rep isn’t doing well. It can be especially difficult to call out areas for improvement when you don’t have the specifics to back it up. Relying on data makes these conversations easier.

For sales managers, being able to track and analyze seller performance all in one place using revenue enablement software provides concrete insight into every time you say “you’re doing a great job” or “there’s room for improvement.” Your feedback is rooted in actual performance metrics, rather than running the risk of being considered your opinion rather than fact.

Data also helps us to identify the exact ways each seller can improve. Perhaps one rep is weaker in their competitor knowledge while another may need more support when it comes to operating sales technology. By digging into the data, an effective sales coach can identify opportunities for improvement and, in turn, maximize each rep’s performance.

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What a data-driven approach looks like

In order to adopt a data-driven coaching approach, you should have a clear understanding of the key metrics you should be looking at. These will help you gauge the overall success of your sales force, but really allow you to dig into individual performance to fuel more impactful coaching conversations.

Below we’ve highlighted some key criteria you’ll want to evaluate—and how you can gather the data.

Product knowledge: Assess and certify sellers on their product knowledge with quizzes using different formats. You can create a proficiency threshold score for reps to show they’re knowledgeable experts on your product, which you can test through multiple-choice quizzes, checklists, and written tests.

Reps can also be assigned role-plays to see if they can demo the product, describe what it does and accurately express the value of the product. If you’re using sales readiness technology, all of this can be easily reviewed and scored through artificial intelligence (AI).

Selling behavior: Evaluate how articulate and enthusiastic a rep is on a call, voicemail or presentation as well as the tone. You can also keep track of how many filler words are used. This will gauge their overall confidence in selling your solution.

Selling skills: By tracking sellers’ progress in real-time, sales coaches can get data insights on each rep’s ability to demo, use a sales methodology (e.g. MEDDPIC) on a call, challenge competition, handle objection questions, and evaluate whether or not the correct terms are used to describe the product.

Message consistency: AI-powered keyword analysis is a great way for sales coaches to get better insight into individual competencies and needs based on live interactions during the selling process. When you analyze sales calls (and leave the hard work to AI), you can uncover key problems in deals that didn’t close and start training on common questions you’re finding reps are being asked in the field.

Technology skills: How well do your reps use sales tools? Assess sellers on their knowledge (and correct use) of sales stack tools like Outreach, Ring, Zoom, and Salesforce to see how effectively they’re being put into action.

Using a revenue enablement platform, reps can actually record themselves using the tools, which can then be evaluated and scored. This will give sales coaches visibility into any challenges with tech on the team.

Your new approach to coaching starts now

On top of using data to coach reps, this data-driven approach also empowers you to establish a “profile of excellence” on your sales team. This helps sales managers to identify their best performers and replicate their skillset amongst other reps through training and coaching.

While it certainly makes it easier to track and report on these metrics with revenue enablement technology in place, it’s not impossible to do without. However you gather the data, it’s important to start bringing it into coaching conversations in order to pinpoint areas for improvement, provide more specific feedback, and ultimately empower you as a sales coach to help your team succeed.

Start delivering effective, data-driven coaching at scale with Mindtickle

The impact of sales coaching can’t be denied. However, in order to be effective, sales coaching must be tailored to the needs of each sales rep.

With Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform, you can start delivering data-driven coaching that’ll improve reps’ behaviors and grow sales performance.

With Mindtickle, you can easily understand deal risk and buyer engagement. Then, you can use those insights to provide coaching to improve the outcome of deals.

Mindtickle also empowers you to go beyond deal coaching to deliver skill coaching that improves long-term results. With Mindtickle, you can understand how reps are performing in the field and what their strengths and weaknesses are. Then, you can use this intel to deliver coaching to improve lagging skills and long-term behaviors and performance.

Of course, delivering coaching and hoping for the best isn’t an effective approach. With Mindtickle, revenue leaders can actually understand the impact of their coaching efforts. Then, they can optimize their approach for even better results.

This post was originally published in June 2021 and updated in July 2024.

Data Driven Sales Coaching with Mindtickle

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What is Sales Training? 

Helen Waite on July 9, 2024

Hiring strong sales reps with the right mix of skills and experience is important. But sales training is key to ensuring all sales reps (even your top performers) are properly equipped to close more deals, faster.

In fact, sales training is an essential component of any winning sales enablement strategy. When it’s done well, training can have a big impact on sales outcomes.

But what exactly is it?

In this guide, we’ll explore everything you need to know about sales training, including:

  • What it is and why it matters
  • How it can benefit your revenue organization
  • How you can build and deliver the best program
  • Key pitfalls to avoid when building your  program

Sales training: What it is and why it matters

First things first, what exactly is sales training?

Sales training ensures your sellers have the knowledge, skills, and competencies they need to be ready for every step of the sales journey – from prospecting to closing the deal.

Going beyond sales onboarding

At most organizations, the training journey starts with onboarding. Sales onboarding is an important way to get new reps up to speed with your organization, products, and goals – as well as their role in achieving those goals. It makes sense why organizations invest in sales onboarding. When it’s effective, onboarding can greatly impact key business outcomes.

But all too often, it ends at onboarding. Per an analysis of Mindtickle users, onboarding took 21-22 days in 2023, compared to 58 days the year prior. 

Days it took to onboard sellers

in 2022
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in 2023
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However, sales training shouldn’t stop at onboarding. Why? There are a few important reasons.

For starters, sellers are thrown a lot of information during sales onboarding. Even if you’ve built a great, engaging sales onboarding program, new reps are going to forget some of what they’ve learned. In fact, they’re going to forget most of it. Per Gartner, sellers forget 70% of the information they learn within just one week of training. Ongoing training (what we at Mindtickle refer to as “everboarding”) ensures learning sticks – and that sales reps are actually applying what they’ve learned to drive sales.

In addition, it’s important to remember that change is the only constant – both in life and in sales. Products, markets, competitors, and priorities are constantly changing. All reps – from the newest to the most seasoned – need ongoing training to ensure they’re up to speed on these changes and ready for whatever comes at them in the field.

The key benefits of sales training

There are many benefits of sales training. Here are two of the most important.

1. It positively impacts sales growth

Today, many sales leaders buy into the 80/20 rule, which is the outdated notion that 80% of sales will be driven by 20% of your reps. That means the vast majority of your reps will miss their sales quotas quarter after quarter.

But there’s a way to make sure all your sellers are meeting and beating their quotas.

With a strong program, you can create an entire team of sellers that are equipped to close deals and meet quota. Of course, when more sellers are closing more deals, that’s going to lead to more revenue growth.

2. It improves seller engagement and retention

When a great rep decides to leave, it’s costly to your company. For starters, you’re losing revenue the rep would have generated. Plus, you have to factor in the costs of recruiting, hiring, and training a new rep to replace them. It adds up! In fact, according to research from DePaul University, it costs nearly $115,000 to replace a sales rep.

Cost of replacing a sales rep
$ 0

Either way, the message is clear: when you find great reps, it’s important to do what you can to retain them.

Research tells us you can lose upwards of 60% of your entire workforce within four years if your sales reps don’t feel like they’re learning and growing at your organization. Providing ongoing sales training is a great way to engage your sales reps and give them opportunities to learn and grow. This will boost job satisfaction, which will increase retention. Higher retention will save you the headache and costs of filling vacant roles – or the pressure of meeting your sales goals with a leaner team.

Six tips for more effective sales training

The potential benefits are clear. However, claiming to deliver training isn’t enough to see the benefits. In fact, according to ES Research, between 85% and 90% of training has no lasting impact.

What is it that sets great training apart from the rest?

Here are six tips to improve the effectiveness of your program.

Tip #1: Don’t stop at onboarding

We’ve said it before, but it’s worth repeating: training should extend beyond sales onboarding.

Sellers forget the vast majority of what they learned during onboarding. What’s more, products, markets, and selling landscapes are constantly changing and evolving.

Ongoing training is a key component to ensuring all of your reps are ready to sell. Training should be delivered regularly for maximum impact. According to a Heinz Marketing and Mindtickle report, among respondents who hit 75% or more of their quota, 90% participate in monthly training.

Tip #2: Define excellence

Sales training aims to create more, great sellers. But first, you have to determine what a great seller looks like.

Chances are, you have an ideal customer profile (ICP), which outlines what a good fit customer looks like for your business. But it’s just as important to define your ideal rep profile (IRP), which is the skills and competencies a seller needs to succeed in your organization.

Ideal rep profile competencies

Then, you can plan courses and programs that map to each key area. That way, you can be sure your training is helping sellers boost the skills and competencies they need.

Tip #3: Make it personal

Imagine you have two sellers in the same room. One is a veteran seller, and has been with your company for a few years. The other is a recent college grad with big potential – but only a year of sales experience. Does delivering the same training to those two sales reps make sense?

Absolutely not. The newer seller likely needs more training on being a great seller. But if you deliver that same training to the veteran seller, they’ll get bored and disengaged.

Of course, there will be certain training all sellers need to complete. But as a general rule, it shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, sales leaders must work to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each seller. The best way to do this is to measure each rep against your ideal rep profile. By doing so, you’ll see where they’re shining and where there are gaps. Then, personalized training can be delivered to each rep to close gaps – and improve sales performance.

Tip #4: Reinforce training

It’s disappointing, but it’s true: sellers will quickly forget what they learned in training. If you want that learning to stick (who doesn’t?), you’ve got to reinforce it.

Be sure to incorporate reinforcement exercises into your strategy. For example, after a training session, assign your sellers a quiz. If they earn a low score, assign them bite-sized video modules reinforcing the concepts presented during the training session.

It’s a best practice to house all  materials within a single sales training platform. That way, reps have a one-stop-shop for everything they need.

Tip #5: Mix up the format

The phrase “sales training” might conjure images of an instructor standing at the front of a room filled with sales reps. Sure, real-time training sessions – in-person or via video – are an important part of it. However, it also makes sense to incorporate other types of training.

For example, you might assign bite–sized training modules for sales reps to complete on their own time. You might also assign a quiz to test knowledge. Another idea is to assign role-plays to allow reps to practice their new skills and get feedback from either their manager or peers (or both).

Again, it’s important to ensure all training material is housed within a single platform so reps can easily find what they need.

Tip #6: Measure the impact

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. And without regular measurement, it’s impossible to determine what (if any) impact your training has on reps’ performance.

Many organizations measure completion rates. While this is important, it doesn’t tell the whole story. A seller may fly through their assigned training but fail to perform when interacting with buyers.

As such, it’s key to measure how your training impacts key business outcomes, such as quota attainment and win rates. In addition, be sure to continuously measure your reps against your ideal rep profile. That way, you can understand how training is positively impacting skills and in-field behaviors.

Sales training vs. sales coaching: What is the difference?

Training and coaching are key components of a sales enablement strategy. Often, these phrases are used interchangeably. Training and coaching are two pieces of the same puzzle, but they’re not the same.

At each organization, there are a certain set of skills and competencies a seller needs to be successful throughout the sales cycle. Training is focused on delivering knowledge to help reps learn those skills and competencies.  Classes and modules can be focused on any number of things, including (but not limited to):

  • Product knowledge
  • Sales methodology
  • Ideal customer profiles
  • Pitch delivery
  • Objection handling
  • Use of tools, including CRM

Sales coaching is aimed at improving sales performance. However, the delivery methods and tactics are different. The goal of sales coaching is to improve sales performance through strategies including:

  • Relationship-building
  • Knowing and analyzing what’s happening in the field
  • Delivering individualized plans to improve deal outcomes and build key skills for each sales rep

When it’s done well, sales coaching can extend the impact of training and have a big impact on sales results. In fact, effective sales coaching can boost win rates by as much as 29%. 

What exactly does sales coaching look like?

The most effective managers work closely with each sales rep to understand their unique strengths and weaknesses. In addition, they leverage meeting intelligence to see firsthand how reps are performing in the field. Armed with these insights, sales managers can deliver sales coaching that helps reps capitalize on strengths and improve weaker skills and competencies.

Often, sales coaching is limited to deal coaching. In other words, a rep and manager regularly review in-flight deals and determine how to move them forward. However, it’s also important to provide skills coaching. Skill coaching drives long-term behavior change and helps reps hone the skills they need to close deals.

Training and coaching shouldn’t be viewed as an either/or choice. Instead, both are key to ensuring reps are ready to move deals through the funnel and eventually close them.

Sales training mistakes to avoid

Many organizations invest time and resources into developing sales training programs. However, the harsh reality is that these programs often fail.

If you’re looking to increase the effectiveness of training at your organization, be sure to avoid these four common sales training mistakes.

Mistake #1: Taking a “one and done” approach 

It’s not realistic to deliver training one time and expect the entire team to retain what they learned and apply it in the field. Instead, it’s important to deliver training on an ongoing basis and provide reinforcement exercises and practice opportunities.

Average companies

Winning companies

role-plays a year
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Role-plays are one popular way to allow sales reps to practice their new skills, and they’re correlated with sales success. A recent analysis found that the average company has sellers complete 13 role-plays in a year. However, top companies have sellers do an average of 80 role-plays per year.

Mistake #2: Requiring every seller to complete every training

It’s not effective to create a generic sales training that requires every member of the revenue team to complete. If a sales training is focused on a skill a seller has already mastered, they’ll be disengaged. Plus, they’ll be wasting time that could be better spent engaging with buyers and closing deals.

Instead, measure each sellers’ mastery of the skills and behaviors that matter most. Then, assign relevant training that helps each seller strengthen their weaker skills.

Mistake #3: Only measuring success with completion metrics

Ongoing measurement is a key component of any sales training program. However, many organizations focus on completion metrics. In other words, they measure what percentage of sales reps complete a specific training.

Revenue organizations must go beyond completion metrics to understand the actual impact. Be sure to track sales training completion and how it is (or isn’t) impacting sales productivity.

Mistake #4: Depending on an outdated LMS to power your sales training program

A learning management system (LMS) can be a great solution for more general training, such as that that HR and IT teams deliver. However, an LMS isn’t built for the unique needs of the sales team.

A better approach is to invest in an integrated revenue enablement solution that incorporates all the key elements of revenue enablement, including sales training, sales coaching, sales content, and conversation intelligence. That way, sellers can access everything they need in one location. This is great news, as Salesforce research found that 66% of sales reps are overwhelmed with the number of tools they’re expected to use.

Salesforce research found that

of reps are overwhelmed with sales tools
0 %

Furthermore, an integrated revenue enablement platform allows enablement teams to create and deploy personalized programs that meet the needs of every seller – at scale. Enablement teams can also holistically measure the impact of all their initiatives on sales productivity and performance.

Supercharge your sales training program with Mindtickle’s integrated revenue enablement platform

Hiring experienced sellers is one piece of the puzzle. But even the most seasoned sales reps need ongoing training to ensure they’re ready to conquer any deal.

Generic sales training simply won’t do. Instead, revenue enablement teams must work to define what excellence looks like – and then deliver personalized sales training and sales enablement to ensure every seller has what it takes to succeed.

Today, some revenue organizations continue to leverage a learning management system (LMS) to deliver sales training. However, a growing portion are trading in their LMS for an integrated revenue enablement platform.

With an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle, revenue organizations can power their entire revenue enablement program – including sales training – all from one central location. That means revenue enablement leaders can build, deliver, and measure the impact of sales training and sales enablement initiatives – all in one platform. Furthermore, sellers can easily access the sales training, coaching, content, conversation insights, and other information and resources they need to close more deals, faster.

Sales training in Mindtickle

Ready to see why top revenue organizations are trading their LMS for Mindtickle?

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This post was originally published in November 2022 and updated in July 2024. 

Revenue Enablement vs Revenue Operations: What’s the Difference?

Helen Waite on June 26, 2024

Revenue leaders are always looking for strategies to boost the bottom line. Two practices they often turn to are revenue enablement and revenue operations.

Perhaps you’re unsure what the difference is between revenue enablement and revenue operations. Or maybe you’re weighing revenue enablement vs revenue operations to determine which practice will help you grow revenue.

Spoiler alert: you need both.

Combining revenue enablement and revenue operations is the most effective way to boost business results.

In this post, we’ll explore how revenue enablement and revenue operations differ, how they’re similar, and why you need both practices to drive revenue growth.

Revenue operations vs revenue enablement: How are they different?

Let’s start at the beginning, by defining both revenue enablement and revenue operations.

You’re likely familiar with sales enablement and sales operations. You can think of revenue enablement and revenue operations as the next iteration of these two practices.

What is revenue enablement?

Revenue enablement is the next generation of sales enablement. It is a practice focused on equipping all customer-facing roles—including sales, marketing, customer success, and customer service—with the tools, training, information, and resources they need to deliver outstanding, connected experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.

When revenue teams are equipped to deliver great experiences, the business is better positioned to win new customers and retain existing ones.

What is revenue operations?

Revenue operations (also known as revenue ops or RevOps) is focused on empowering revenue organizations to be as productive as possible. Revenue operations teams achieve this goal by streamlining processes, improving data visibility, and aligning go-to-market teams. They work behind the scenes to ensure an organization’s revenue generation machine runs on all cylinders.

What’s the difference between revenue operations and enablement?

There are many similarities between revenue operations and revenue enablement. For starters, both teams aim to increase revenue teams’ effectiveness and efficiency.

But the ways revenue enablement and revenue ops teams achieve their goals is different.
Revenue enablement vs revenue operations: How they achieve their goals
Revenue enablement teams develop tools and resources to ensure customer-facing teams have what they need to engage with customers across the lifecycle. Some examples of revenue enablement tools and resources include:

Revenue enablement aligns all customer-facing teams. That way, customers have seamless experiences across their entire relationship with an organization. Great experiences increase sales, customer satisfaction, and customer retention.

Revenue operations teams work to optimize the revenue generation process. Successfully generating revenue involves dozens of moving pieces, and revenue ops teams work to ensure the process is as efficient as possible.

Revenue operations teams achieve their goals in several ways, including:

  • Optimizing the sales process
  • Ensuring sales data is accurate and that the right people have access to the right data and analytics
  • Implementing and managing new sales tools
  • Analyzing revenue metrics

Revenue enablement vs revenue operations: Who is responsible?

Another key difference between revenue enablement vs revenue operations is who is responsible. Revenue enablement is typically owned by a revenue enablement team. Revenue operations, on the other hand, is owned by a revenue operations team. Typically, each of these teams reports up to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or other revenue leader.

Both revenue enablement and revenue ops teams must collaborate with key teams throughout the organization, including sales and marketing.

Revenue enablement vs revenue operations: How do they measure success?
Revenue enablement and revenue operations both aim to increase productivity. As such, both practices measure success with many of the same KPIs, including

  • Win rates
  • Customer acquisition cost
  • Customer lifetime value

Revenue enablement teams track certain additional KPIs. For example, they track KPIs related to how customers and sales reps engage with sales content and how that content impacts sales outcomes. Revenue enablement teams also track adoption and consumption metrics, such as what portion of the sales team completes an assigned training.

What tools do they use?

Revenue enablement and revenue operations teams require the right tools for success. One key tool used by both is a revenue enablement platform.

Revenue enablement teams use revenue enablement software to create and deliver personalized enablement to help each member of the revenue team build the skills necessary for success. They can also use a revenue enablement platform to measure the impact of their programs so they can optimize them properly.

Revenue operations teams use an integrated revenue enablement platform to consolidate the tech stack and drive sales productivity.

Revenue enablement Revenue operations
Goal Increase the effectiveness and efficiency of customer-facing teams Increase the productivity of revenue organizations
How they achieve their goal Equip customer-facing roles with the tools, resources, training, and data they need to engage customers throughout the customer lifecycle Streamline processes, improve data visibility, and align go-to-market teams
Audience All customer-facing teams, including
  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer Success</li
    • Customer Service
 All customer-facing teams, including
  • Sales
  • Marketing
  • Customer Success</li
    • Customer Service
Responsible party Typically, a revenue enablement team Typically, a revenue operations team
Who they report to Chief revenue officer or other revenue leader Chief revenue officer or other revenue leader
Examples of tools Point revenue enablement tools or an integrated revenue enablement platform Revenue enablement platform
How the team uses a revenue enablement platform Build, deliver, and measure enablement programs and initiatives that empower customer-facing teams to master the skills necessary for success Streamline the tech stack and boost sales productivity
Examples of KPIs
  • Sales productivity
  • Sales cycle length
  • Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
  • Win/loss rate
  • Quota attainment
  • Customer retention
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • Revenue growth
  • Sales content engagement
  • Sales training engagement
  • Customer acquistion cost
  • Sales cycle length
  • Win/loss rate
  • Customer lifetime value (CLV)
  • Customer churn
  • Annual recurring revenue (ARR)
  • Sales pipeline conversion rate

What are the roles and responsibilities of revenue operations and enablement?

Now that we’re aligned on the key differences between revenue enablement and revenue operations let’s examine the roles and responsibilities of each team more closely.
Revenue operations roles and responsibilities

Who owns revenue operations?

As we mentioned earlier, revenue operations are typically the responsibility of a dedicated revenue operations team. The team most often reports to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or another revenue leader.

The makeup of a revenue operations team varies from company to company. However, some examples of RevOps roles include:

  • RevOps manager
  • VP of RevOps
  • RevOps specialist

While the RevOps team leads the revenue operations charge, they must collaborate closely with other key teams including sales and marketing. This helps ensure alignment and that RevOps initiatives align with the overall revenue strategy.

The roles and responsibilities of the revenue operations team vary. However, some examples of revenue operations responsibilities include:

  • Collaborating on sales forecasts
  • Optimizing the sales process
  • Ensuring sales data is complete and accurate and that all members of the revenue team have access to the right data
  • Contributing to revenue strategies
  • Collaborating with other teams to ensure initiatives are aligned with business goals
  • Implementing and administering technology for use by the revenue team, such as a revenue enablement platform
  • Regularly analyzing revenue metrics to identify opportunities for optimizations

Revenue enablement roles and responsibilities

Who owns revenue enablement?

Increasingly, revenue enablement is owned by a dedicated revenue enablement team. Mindtickle research found that 84% of organizations invest in a dedicated enablement team. The revenue enablement team typically falls under the purview of a CRO or another revenue leader.

of orgs invest in sales enablement
0 %

Some examples of revenue enablement roles include:

  • Revenue enablement manager
  • VP of revenue enablement
  • Revenue enablement specialist

Effective revenue enablement is a team sport. Revenue enablement teams must regularly collaborate with teams including sales, marketing, and customer success to ensure everyone is aligned and working toward the same goals.

The responsibilities of the revenue enablement team vary. However, some examples of revenue enablement responsibilities include:

  • In collaboration with other teams, defining the necessary skills and behaviors for each customer-facing role
  • Developing onboarding and ongoing learning programs to ensure each revenue team member can build the skills necessary for success
  • Collaborating with marketing and sales to develop sales content for team members to use throughout the sales cycle – as well as training and enablement on how to best use content
  • Developing a coaching strategy to ensure managers have the tools, data, and resources to deliver coaching that improves business results
  • Regularly measuring the impact of revenue enablement initiatives to make data-based optimizations

Combining the power of revenue operations and revenue enablement to grow revenue

Revenue enablement and revenue operations are both impactful practices. But when considering revenue enablement vs revenue operations, which is the better option for your business?

The truth is, you need both. Revenue operations and revenue enablement are both critical to revenue growth. While revenue enablement ensures teams have the right tools and resources to engage customers, revenue operations work to optimize the process of generating revenue.

When you combine revenue operations with revenue enablement, you’ll experience a whole host of benefits, including:

Many teams play a role in revenue generation. Yet often, these teams work in silos. Revenue enablement and revenue operations help align key teams, including sales, marketing, and custo

Revenue enablement ensures sellers master the skills and behaviors needed to close more deals. Revenue operations ensure processes are streamlined so sellers encounter less friction in the sales cycle and can move more deals to the finish line.

Research from Salesforce found that sales reps spend less than 30% of their time selling. Most of the time is spent on laborious tasks like searching for content or logging activities. Revenue enablement makes it easier for sales reps to find everything they need quickly. Revenue operations, on the other hand, ensure processes are as efficient as possible. Both revenue operations and revenue enablement ensure sales reps can spend less time on administrative work and more time actually selling. That means sales reps can shorten the sales cycle and close more deals faster.

B2B customers have high expectations – no matter where they are in the customer lifecycle. Revenue enablement and operations equip revenue teams with the right tools, technology, processes, and information to meet customers’ expectations. When customers’ expectations are met consistently, their satisfaction grows.

When B2B customers are satisfied, they’re more likely to stick around long-term. In addition, satisfied customers are more likely to be open to future cross-sales and up-sells. This increases their lifetime value.

Revenue operations and enablement are critical to revenue growth. When customer-facing teams have the right tools, resources, data, and processes in place, they’re better equipped to close new business and retain existing customers, leading to revenue growth.

The winning combination for driving revenue growth

It’s not a matter of revenue enablement vs revenue operations. Instead, revenue enablement and operations are necessary for a winning revenue strategy.

While revenue enablement ensures customer-facing teams have the right tools, information, and resources, revenue operations ensure that growing revenue is as seamless as possible.

Both revenue enablement and operations teams depend on the right tools to power their strategies and programs. An integrated revenue enablement platform is one essential tool.

Revenue Enablement in Mindtickle

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

Helen Waite on June 24, 2024

There’s a lot of digital noise out there – the average person gets 121 emails a day.

For sales reps, standing out in someone’s inbox or a cold call can be a tall task. Effective sales engagement can make a rep stand out, but it takes a strong foundation to give reps the training and tools they need to do it well.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales engagement is, why it’s important, and how sales engagement differs from sales enablement. We’ll also explore steps you can take to create a plan that empowers your sales reps to build relationships, foster trust, and close more deals.

What is sales engagement?

Sales leaders recognize the need for effective sales engagement. Recent research from Gartner found that 90% of sales leaders plan to invest in “technologies and methodologies to help their sellers engage effectively with prospects and customers.”

Gartner research found that

of sales leaders plan to invest in technologies to help sellers engage prospects
0 %

But what is sales engagement?

The term refers to all interactions a sales rep has with their buyers. This includes:

  • Email interactions
  • Phone calls
  • Interactions on social media
  • Face-to-face interactions

Why is sales engagement important?

Now, we’re in alignment about what sales engagement is. But why does it matter?

Great products and services are still important. That will never change. But the experiences a buyer has with your brand also have a big impact on whether they choose your solution – or opt for another.

A sales rep who effectively engages with a buyer is more likely to earn their trust – and ultimately, their business. After all, people want to do business with people they like and trust. Of course, when sellers close more deals, your business’ revenue grows.

On the flip side, if a seller struggles to engage buyers, they’re more likely to lose deals. Over time, this will have a negative impact on your bottom line.

Sales engagement vs sales enablement: How are they different?

These two terms are often used interchangeably. Though they’re certainly related, they’re not the same thing.

As we’ve already covered, sales engagement is focused on the interactions a sales rep has with their prospective buyers. As a general rule, better sales engagement leads to better sales outcomes.

On the other hand, sales enablement is focused on providing sales teams with the tools, training, information, content, and support they need to close more deals. Every seller needs a certain set of tools and competencies to be successful in the field, and sales enablement is focused on ensuring sellers master those skills and competencies.

There is often overlap between the two. For example, a sales enablement team may develop a training module on more effective email communication. Or, they may provide the sales team with email templates for sellers to use in their interactions. These are both examples of sales enablement. However, the goal of these initiatives is to improve sales engagement.

Sales engagement Sales enablement
What is it? Interactions and communication sellers have with prospects throughout the purchase journey Equipping sales reps with the training, tools, content, and information they need to be successful in the field.
What is the focus? Buyers Sellers
What is the goal? Building trust and fostering relationships with prospects Ensuring sales reps have the skills and competencies needed to close more deals
What are the key components? Calls, emails, face-to-face interactions, sales engagement platform Sales coaching, sales content, sales enablement platform
KPIs Win rate, quota attainment, time to close Completion rates, ramp time, productivity

How to create a sales engagement plan

Leaving your sellers to their own devices usually isn’t the best approach. Instead, it’s best practice to develop a plan first.

What is a sales engagement plan?

Think of your plan as a documented outreach roadmap for your sales team. It’s a framework that outlines how and when sellers should engage with buyers. It should also cover how sales reps can leverage the technology that’s available to them to improve sales engagement.

A sales engagement plan isn’t based on what sales leadership thinks will work. Instead, it’s based on what’s proven to work for that particular organization.

Your plan must be flexible. For example, if a prospect is largely sharing negative feedback during interactions, it’s probably best to back off, rather than proceed with the next outreach effort.

Tips for developing an effective sales engagement plan

What does a winning plan look like? There’s no easy answer. The right plan is the one that works best for your business.

However, there are certain steps you can take to help ensure you create an effective one.

Before developing a plan, it’s important to take a step back to define who it is your sellers are engaging with on a daily basis. You should define who these prospects are, what titles they hold, and what their key challenges and pain points are (among other things). You may already have this information documented in ideal customer profiles (IDPs) or buyer personas.

At many organizations, marketing teams spend time creating content to support sales engagement. For example, a marketing team might develop email campaigns tailored to specific industries. Or, they might develop social media content that sales reps can post on their own social media channels. Those are just a couple examples.

But all too often, marketing content is created in a vacuum – without input from the sales team. That’s a big mistake.

Instead, marketing and sales teams must be aligned on content creation. A great way to do this is to schedule a recurring meeting between the two teams.

During these meetings, sales teams can provide feedback to marketing teams on their challenges in the field. Then, marketing teams can create content that addresses those challenges.

When marketing and sales teams are aligned, sales reps are more likely to have the content they need to increase sales engagement and ultimately, close more deals.

There are many stages of the sales journey – from prospecting to closing the deal. It’s important to define what this journey looks like for your customers. Your sales team can provide great insight on this topic.

Once you’ve defined the customer journey, you can create a plan to effectively engage prospects every step of the way.

After you’ve documented the customer journey, it’s time to determine the key touchpoints a sales rep will have throughout the journey. This might include:

  • Marketing emails
  • Emails from the sales rep
  • Phone calls
  • Voicemails
  • Engagement on social media

This will provide reps with a framework they can use to understand what step to take when.

How many customer touchpoints should there be? Again, there’s no easy answer. It depends on a number of factors including industry and how engaged the buyer is.

The right content can help your sales reps effectively engage with buyers. Sales and marketing teams should take an inventory of existing content and determine where there may be gaps. Then, these teams can work together to develop content to engage buyers throughout the purchase journey.

The best place to store completed sales content is in a sales content management solution. That way, sellers can always find the latest versions of any content they need – all in one place. In addition, organizations can track how both buyers and sellers are engaging with this content – and how (or whether) it’s impacting sales outcomes.

It’s important to remember that buyers are more informed than ever before. Often, they’ve done plenty of research on their own.

As such, generic, one-size-fits all outreach, communication, and campaigns aren’t effective. Instead, it’s important to develop targeted, personalized campaigns that address the challenges and pain points of each prospect.

You can’t simply develop your sales engagement plan – and then never think about it again. Instead, it’s important to monitor and measure the success of your sales engagement plan on an ongoing basis.

Make it a priority to examine your sales engagement and sales enablement dashboards and analytics on a regular basis. In addition, ask for feedback from your sales team. Your top sellers have great insight into what’s working and what isn’t. Then, use the insights you uncover to make impactful changes to your sales engagement plan.

How to choose a sales engagement platform for your business

The right technology is essential to a successful strategy. After all, sellers need the right tools to effectively engage with buyers.

Increasingly, sales teams are leveraging B2B sales engagement software to improve sales engagement at scale. In fact, research from Gartner tells us that 87% of sales teams use a sales engagement platform.

According to Gartner

of sales teams use a sales engagement platform
0 %

Not all tools are the same, though. It’s important to find the right sales engagement platform for your organization. The right platform will have robust features and functionality that automate and optimize sales engagement and improve your organization’s outcomes.

A solution can also help ensure sellers are ready to engage with buyers throughout the sales cycle.

Revenue enablement platforms like Mindtickle equips sellers with the training and content they need to engage sellers throughout every stage of the sales journey effectively. In addition, a revenue productivity platform with conversation intelligence helps sales managers understand how sales reps engage with buyers on calls. These insights can shed light on opportunities for additional coaching to improve sales engagement.

Finally, strong revenue productivity solution provides robust analytics that help sales leaders understand how buyers and sellers are engaging throughout the sales cycle. Sales leaders can use these insights to optimize their sales engagement plan and ensure their sellers have what it takes to effectively engage with any buyer.

Taking the next steps toward better sales engagement

A well-crafted sales engagement plan is essential for standing out in today’s crowded digital landscape. Sales reps can build meaningful connections and close more deals by personalizing outreach, maintaining consistent follow-ups, and leveraging data.

Investing in the right sales engagement platform, such as Mindtickle, can significantly enhance your team’s ability to engage effectively with prospects and customers, ultimately driving revenue growth. 

Sales Enablement in Mindtickle

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

What is Revenue Enablement?

Helen Waite on June 17, 2024

As a revenue leader, you’re likely quite familiar with the concept of sales enablement. You’re probably already investing in sales enablement teams, technology, and programs to improve sales engagement and performance.

But increasingly, winning organizations are shifting to the next iteration of enablement: revenue enablement.

Why the shift?

Modern B2B customers expect great experiences, whether they’re engaging with a sales rep for the first time or seeking advice from a trusted customer success manager. Revenue enablement ensures all customer-facing roles—including sales, marketing, customer success, and support—are aligned and have the right tools, data, and resources to deliver outstanding, connected experiences across the entire customer journey.

Ready to learn more about revenue enablement, how it can positively impact business outcomes, and how to get started with revenue enablement? Read on as we explore everything you need to know about revenue enablement.

What is revenue enablement?

First things first: what is revenue enablement?

Revenue enablement is an expansion of sales enablement. It is a practice focused on ensuring all customer-facing roles—including sales, marketing, and customer success (among others)—have the right tools, resources, processes, and data to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer lifecycle.

Today’s B2B buyers expect seamless experiences wherever they are on their journey. Revenue enablement ensures alignment across the entire customer journey, allowing for connected experiences that delight customers. Doug Bushée, Senior Director analyst at Gartner, says revenue enablement “provides buyers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”

"[Revenue enablement] provides buyers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”
Doug Bushée
Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Revenue enablement vs. sales enablement: How are they different?

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are related concepts, but there are some key differences between them.

Sales enablement refers to the strategies, processes, and technologies that support and empower sales teams to sell more effectively. This includes activities such as providing sales training and coaching, developing sales collateral and tools, and ensuring that sales teams have access to the right information and resources to close deals.

Revenue enablement, on the other hand, encompasses a broader range of activities that go beyond just supporting sales teams. It involves aligning all customer-facing functions of an organization, such as:

    • Marketing

    • Sales

    • Customer Success

    • Support

This includes optimizing the entire customer journey, from lead generation and nurturing to post-sales support and renewal. Revenue enablement aims to drive revenue growth by maximizing the lifetime value of customers.

In summary, sales enablement is focused on supporting and empowering the sales function specifically, while revenue enablement is focused on aligning all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal. (Find out where your revenue enablement IQ stacks up here.) 

Revenue enablement Sales enablement
Purpose Ensure all customer-facing teams have the tools, resources, processes and information to engage customers throughout the customer lifecycle Ensure sales teams have the tools, information, content, and resources to engage with buyers and close more deals.
Goal Consistent, streamlined customer experiences Improved sales performance
Primary audience All customer-facing roles, including Sales, Marketing, Pre-sales engineers , Customer Success, and Customer Support Sales
Examples of KPIs Revenue growth, customer retention, customer satisfaction, customer lifetime value, cross-sales, upsells, and referrals New rep ramp time, quota attainment, average deal size, sales cycle length, conversion rates, and cost per customer
Primary responsible party Revenue enablement team Sales enablement team
Who team reports to Chief Revenue Officer Chief Sales Officer

Why should you implement revenue enablement?

Today’s business-to-business (B2B) customer expects more from their buying experience. They want relationships, experiences, and understanding, not sales-driven transactions. In fact, Salesforce research indicates that 66% of customers expect companies to respond to their unique needs.

of customers expect companies to respond to their unique needs
0 %

When sales enablement and revenue operations (RevOps) work hand in hand, organizations are poised to:

1. Increase revenue

By aligning all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal, you can help optimize the entire customer journey, resulting in increased revenue generation.

2. Improve customer experience

You can ensure that customers receive a consistent, high-quality experience throughout their entire journey with an organization, from initial engagement to post-sales support.

3. Better alignment and collaboration

Promote better alignment and collaboration between different customer-facing functions, such as marketing, sales, customer success, and support, improving efficiency and effectiveness.

4. Increase customer lifetime value

By optimizing the customer journey and ensuring a positive customer experience, you can help increase customer loyalty and retention, leading to higher customer lifetime value.

5. Better data and insights

 Get a have a holistic view of the customer journey, which can lead to better data and insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs.

Overall, revenue enablement can help organizations drive revenue growth, improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, and increase operational efficiency and effectiveness.

How can revenue enablement help your sales team?

Taking this approach can help your sales team by doing the following:

1. Better aligning with other customer-facing functions

Revenue enablement aligns all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal, ensuring that sales teams work collaboratively with marketing, customer success, and support teams. This alignment ensures a consistent customer experience throughout the entire customer journey, which can help sales teams close deals more effectively.

2. Improving lead generation and nurturing

 Revenue enablement helps organizations develop a more comprehensive understanding of their target market and buyer personas. This knowledge can help sales teams generate higher-quality leads and nurture them more effectively, resulting in a higher conversion rate.

3. Enhancing sales enablement

Revenue enablement helps organizations develop more comprehensive sales enablement strategies that go beyond just providing training and collateral to sales teams. It ensures that sales teams have access to the right information and resources at every stage of the customer journey, enabling them to sell more effectively.

4. Better data and insights

Revenue enablement requires organizations to have a holistic view of the customer journey, which can lead to better data and insights into customer behavior, preferences, and needs. Sales teams can use this information to tailor their sales approach and messaging, resulting in higher win rates.

5. Increasing customer lifetime value

By optimizing the customer journey and ensuring a positive customer experience, revenue enablement can help increase customer loyalty and retention, leading to higher customer lifetime value. Sales teams can benefit from this by having a larger pool of loyal customers to upsell and cross-sell to.

Overall, revenue enablement can help sales teams sell more effectively by providing them with the right information, resources, and support to close deals, and by ensuring that they work collaboratively with other customer-facing functions to provide a consistent, high-quality customer experience.

What are some examples of revenue enablement tools?

Revenue enablement tools are software solutions that help businesses increase revenue by improving their sales and marketing processes. Some examples include:

CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software

A CRM system helps businesses manage their customer interactions and sales pipelines, enabling them to track leads, forecast revenue, and automate sales workflows.

Marketing automation software

Marketing automation software helps businesses automate their marketing processes, such as email campaigns, social media management, and lead scoring.

Sales enablement software

Sales enablement solutions provide sales teams with the tools and content, such as sales collateral, training materials, and analytics, they need to engage with prospects and close deals.

Content management software

Sales content management software allows businesses to organize and manage their marketing and sales content, such as product information, marketing collateral, sales decks, competitive battlecards, pricing sheets, and case studies.

Sales forecasting software

Sales forecasting software uses data analysis and machine learning algorithms to predict future sales trends, enabling businesses to make more informed decisions about their sales and marketing strategies.

mt-platform-forecasting-screen

Customer analytics software

 Customer analytics software gives businesses insights into their customer behavior and preferences, enabling them to tailor their sales and marketing strategies to better meet customer needs.

Best practices for getting started with revenue enablement

As you’re building up your revenue enablement strategy, here are key things to keep in mind:

  • Establish key business objectives for revenue enablement, such as overall revenue growth and individual seller productivity metrics
  • Decide whether to consolidate technology and data under one revenue productivity platform versus integrating point solution products, or some version of each
  • Determine a cadence for discussing and analyzing revenue enablement initiatives – prioritize and stick to it
  • Hold front-line management, marketing, sales enablement, and ops accountable to overall business goals
  • Create a cadence around org readiness to be discussed alongside forecasting and pipeline reviews

Ready to take the next step?

To pivot toward a revenue enablement-focused approach, organizations should take the following steps:

  1. Align around a common revenue goal: The first step is to align all customer-facing functions around a common revenue goal. This involves setting clear revenue targets and ensuring that all customer-facing teams understand how their activities contribute to those targets.
  2. Develop a comprehensive understanding of the customer journey: To optimize the customer journey, organizations need to develop a comprehensive understanding of their customers and their buying journey. This includes understanding their pain points, preferences, and needs at each stage of the journey.
  3. Implement a technology stack: Revenue enablement requires a technology stack that supports the entire customer journey, from lead generation and nurturing to post-sales support and renewal. This includes marketing automation, customer relationship management (CRM), and customer success platforms.
  4. Develop a sales enablement strategy: Revenue enablement goes beyond just sales enablement. However, it’s still essential to develop a sales enablement strategy that ensures that sales teams have the right information, resources, and support to sell effectively.
  5. Measure and optimize performance: To ensure efforts are effective, organizations need to measure performance regularly and optimize their approach based on data and insights. This includes tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as revenue growth, customer lifetime value, and customer satisfaction.

Implementing revenue enablement is an ongoing process that requires continuous refinement and improvement. By taking these steps, organizations can create a customer-centric revenue growth engine that optimizes the entire customer journey and drives business success.

Ready to learn more about how Mindtickle can make this a reality at your organization?

Revenue Enablement in Mindtickle

Connect with our team so we can learn more about your revenue enablement challenges and discuss how Mindtickle can help. 

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This post was originally published in April 2023, updated in November 2023, and again in June 2024.

Revenue Enablement vs. Sales Enablement: What’s Right for You?

Helen Waite on June 13, 2024

Revenue leaders always look for strategies and tactics to boost sales performance and revenue growth. Sales enablement is one particularly popular strategy.

In fact, 84% of organizations invest in sales enablement.

But sales reps aren’t the only ones responsible for revenue growth. As such, many revenue organizations are extending the impact of their enablement efforts by investing in revenue enablement teams and tools.

You may be wondering which is the right choice for improving performance at your organization: revenue enablement vs sales enablement. If so, you’ve come to the right place.

In this post, we’ll examine revenue enablement and sales enablement in depth. We’ll explore how these practices are similar and different and which approach best fits your organization.

Sales enablement vs. revenue enablement: What’s the difference?

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are two terms that are often used. It’s easy to assume they are synonymous.

That’s not the case.

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are certainly related. Although the two practices share many key similarities, they also have significant differences.

What is sales enablement?

Chances are, you’re familiar with the concept of sales enablement. It’s a practice that equips sales reps with the tools, training, and information they need to be effective and efficient. Some such tools and information include:

The goal of sales enablement is to improve sales performance. With the right sales enablement strategy and tools, sales reps can close more deals faster.

What is revenue enablement?

Now we’re clear on what sales enablement is. But what is revenue enablement?

Think of revenue enablement as the next iteration of sales enablement. It’s a practice that leverages many of the same programs and tactics as sales enablement – including ongoing learning, content, and coaching. However, there are some significant differences between sales and revenue enablement practices.

How goals and audiences differ

The goals and audience of sales enablement and revenue enablement are different. Sales enablement focuses solely on ensuring sales teams have what they need to engage buyers and close deals. On the other hand, revenue enablement aims to equip all customer-facing roles with the tools, information, and resources they need to engage customers – wherever they are in the customer lifecycle. In addition to the sales team, revenue enablement often supports:

  • Marketing teams
  • Customer success teams
  • Customer support teams

How each practice measures success

Sales enablement and revenue enablement are measured differently.

Some sales enablement teams track adoption and completion metrics. In other words, they track metrics to understand what portion of sales reps are completing sales enablement activities.

While completion metrics are important, the best sales enablement teams understand it’s more important to track how their sales enablement programs and initiatives impact sales outcomes.

Sales enablement teams track KPIs, including new rep ramp time, quota attainment, and average deal size. The right sales enablement analytics software makes it easy to keep a constant pulse on the metrics that matter most.

manufacturing-powerful-analytics

Revenue enablement teams also track adoption and completion metrics. They also gauge the sales impact of their programs by tracking KPIs like quota attainment, conversion rates, and average deal size. However, revenue enablement teams also track how their efforts are impacting the business’ long-term relationships with customers and revenue generation with metrics like:

  • Customer retention rates
  • Customer satisfaction
  • Customer lifetime value
  • Customer referrals
  • Cross-sales and upsells
  • Revenue growth

Revenue enablement vs. sales enablement: Who owns each function

Another key difference between sales and revenue enablement is who is responsible for it. Increasingly sales enablement is led by a dedicated sales enablement team. This team often reports up to the chief sales officer (CSO) or other sales leader. Revenue enablement, on the other hand, is led by a revenue enablement team. Typically, this team reports up to the chief revenue officer (CRO) or other revenue leader.

Sales enablement vs revenue enablement: What’s the difference?

Sales enablement Revenue enablement
Goal Equip sales teams with the tools, training, and resources they need to be effective and efficient in their roles Ensure all customer-facing teams have the tools, training, and resources they need to deliver engaging experiences throughout the customer lifecycle
Audience Sales All customer-facing roles, including Sales, Marketing, Customer Success and Customer Support
Responsible party Sales enablement manager or sales enablement team Revenue enablement manager or revenue enablement team
Who team reports to Chief sales officer or other sales leader Chief revenue officer or other revenue leader
Examples of tactics Sales onboarding, ongoing training, sales content, sales coaching, and conversation intelligence Onboarding, ongoing training, content, revenue intelligence, and customer feedback solicitation
Examples of KPIs New rep ramp time, quota attainment, average deal size, and conversion rates All of the same as sales enablement, plus others including customer retention rates, customer satisfaction, CLV, cross-sales and upsells, and revenue growth
Tools of the trade Multiple sales enablement tools or an integrated sales enablement platform Multiple revenue enablement tools or an integrated revenue enablement platform

How does revenue enablement work?

Revenue enablement empowers organizations to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey. But how exactly does revenue enablement work?

Mapping the customer journey

First, key teams must come together to map the customer journey. In other words, organizations must define the path their customers take, incorporating everything from initial contact to ongoing, post-sale engagement.

Building enablement programs for all customer-facing roles

Then, organizations can build revenue enablement programs. These programs ensure each customer-facing team has the tools and resources to deliver outstanding, connected experiences throughout the customer journey.

Revenue enablement can’t be one-size-fits-all. Instead, programs and initiatives must be customized to the needs of specific teams and team members.

Measuring the impact of revenue enablement

Finally, revenue enablement teams must measure the impact of their strategies and programs. Consistent measurement helps them understand what’s working and where there is room for improvement. Teams can leverage these insights to optimize the revenue enablement program.

Finding the right sales enablement tools

The right revenue enablement software is key to any revenue enablement program. With an integrated revenue enablement platform, teams can build and deliver personalized enablement programs and initiatives to all customer-facing roles. In addition, revenue enablement teams can use the revenue enablement platform to measure impact. These insights can help revenue enablement teams optimize their programs and initiatives for maximum impact.

Who owns revenue enablement?

Sales enablement is often managed by a dedicated sales enablement team. But who owns revenue enablement?

Increasingly, revenue enablement is also led by a dedicated revenue enablement function or team. The revenue enablement team is typically led by a revenue enablement manager.

However, effective revenue enablement isn’t the sole responsibility of just one person or team. Instead, it requires the close collaboration of key teams, including:

Each team brings a unique perspective and is responsible for different holistic revenue enablement strategy elements.

For example, the marketing team may be tasked with developing an email campaign to increase engagement and product feature adoption among existing customers. However, they need insight into which types of content are useful for new customers.

Why revenue enablement is the right approach for your business

So, which approach is right for your business: sales enablement vs revenue enablement?

Customer experience drives behavior

Increasingly, B2B buyer behavior is driven by their experiences with a business. They choose businesses (and whether or not to stick with those businesses) based on their interactions across the customer journey. Research tells us that eight in 10 customers say experience is as important as a company’s products or services.

of customers says experience is important as products or services
0 %

Sales teams are key in delivering great experiences and providing trusted advice that helps B2B customers make informed purchase decisions. So it’s no wonder why so many organizations invest in sales enablement to ensure sales teams have the right tools, resources, and information to engage buyers and close more deals.

Customer experience is a team sport

But sales reps aren’t the only employees interacting with customers and prospects. Many other teams—including marketing, customer success, and customer care—play an important role in engaging customers across the entire lifecycle. It’s critical to ensure all customer-facing teams are prepared to deliver outstanding, seamless experiences, whether a customer is making initial contact or seeking help after they’ve purchased a solution.

Consider a business that focuses solely on enabling the sales team. Sure, prospects have excellent, personalized experiences during the sales cycle. But after they purchase a solution, their experiences as a customer fail to meet their expectations. As a result, they’re likely to churn.

Now, consider a business that invests in revenue enablement. The customer has a consistent experience every step – from their initial interactions with the business to their ongoing engagement with their assigned customer success manager. This happy customer is likelier to renew, purchase additional solutions, and refer your business to others.

Revenue enablement is key to delivering outstanding, consistent customer experiences
A holistic revenue enablement practice ensures that all customer-facing teams are equipped to interact effectively and efficiently with buyers.

As Doug Bushée, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, put it, “[Revenue enablement] provides buyers and sellers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”

“[Revenue enablement] provides buyers and sellers with a seamless and more effortless experience.”
Doug Bushée
Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Enabling your entire revenue team will boost customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue generation. Revenue enablement is a more effective, holistic strategy for growing revenue long-term.

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

A winning revenue enablement program requires the right technology.

Some organizations purchase point solutions that address a different sales or revenue enablement element. For example, they use different tools to address sales content management, training, and coaching. Or, organizations use a sales enablement platform for their sales team – but use entirely different platforms to train and enable other customer-facing roles.

This approach often leads to bloated tech stacks. A recent report found that 63% of sales leaders say their current tech stacks include 10 or more tools.

of sales leaders say their current tech stacks have 10+ tools
0 %

However, simply having a tool doesn’t mean it’s being used. The same report found a trend where the number of tools in the tech stack often exceeds the number of tools that are actively used daily.

Today, leading revenue organizations are streamlining their tech stacks (and equipping all customer-facing roles for success) by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform.

Mindtickle is an award-winning, integrated revenue enablement platform that ensures all your customer-facing teams have what they need to be ready for any customer interaction. The best revenue enablement teams use Mindtickle to create and deliver winning enablement programs – and then measure their impact on revenue performance. In addition, revenue-generating teams – including sales, marketing, and customer success – turn to Mindtickle to access the tools, training, and resources they need to engage with customers throughout the customer lifecycle effectively.

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

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What is a Revenue Enablement Platform? (+8 Must-Have Features of Any Solution)

Helen Waite on June 5, 2024

Every profession has certain “tools of the trade.” A carpenter needs a hammer and nails. A nurse requires a thermometer and a stethoscope.

Revenue teams also need certain tools to do their jobs well. A revenue enablement platform is one such tool.

The right platform empowers organizations to create a team of top performers that consistently crush quotas.

But what is a revenue enablement platform, and what are the must-have features of such a platform?

In this guide, we’ll set the foundation by discussing a revenue enablement platform and how the right platform can boost your revenue team’s performance. We’ll also explore the key features to look for when deciding which platform fits your team and share some of the best platforms in the market today.

What is a revenue enablement platform?

Perhaps you’ve heard the term “revenue enablement platform” before, but you’re not exactly sure what it is. Or maybe you have a better idea of what a revenue platform is. Regardless of where you are on your revenue enablement journey, we’ve got you covered.

Revenue enablement, defined

To explain a revenue enablement platform, let’s first define revenue enablement.

Today, most organizations are familiar with sales enablement. A recent report found that 84% of organizations are investing in it. Sales enablement equips sales teams with the tools, training, information, and content they need to deliver engaging buying experiences and close more deals. Many organizations use a sales enablement tool (or tools) to power their programs and initiatives.

Think of revenue enablement as the next iteration of sales enablement. While sales enablement focuses on supporting the sales team, revenue enablement takes things a step further, ensuring all customer-facing functions are aligned around the customer journey and have what they need to deliver outstanding experiences.

Revenue enablement platforms, defined

A revenue enablement platform is an essential component of any revenue enablement strategy. An integrated revenue enablement tool centralizes everything related to revenue enablement, serving as a single source of truth for the entire revenue team.

Enablement teams use a revenue enablement tool to create and deliver programs, initiatives, and content and measure their impact. Customer-facing roles leverage revenue enablement solutions to access the tools, training, content, and information they need to engage with customers effectively – no matter where they are on the purchase journey.

We’ll look closer at a revenue enablement platform’s key features later.

How a revenue enablement platform can boost your business results

Organizations that adopt an integrated platform experience several benefits. Let’s look at a few that rise to the top.

Better sales content management

Modern B2B buyers depend on content to make informed purchase decisions. Many marketing teams invest significant time and resources into developing content, but sales reps often struggle to find relevant, up-to-date content.

An integrated revenue enablement platform simplifies content management, allowing reps to spend less time searching for content and more time engaging with prospects. With a platform, all content is housed in a single, searchable location. Some solutions offer AI capabilities that suggest content proven to work in similar sales scenarios. This helps sellers more effectively leverage content to engage buyers.

Personalized training and coaching for reps

A one-size-fits-all approach to sales training and coaching is ineffective. Instead, organizations must deliver personalized training and coaching that addresses each rep’s needs.

With the right revenue enablement platform, organizations can pinpoint which skills each rep has perfected and which they need to continue to practice. Then, organizations can deliver customized training and coaching that addresses their needs – without bogging them down with unnecessary, irrelevant training.

Streamlined analytics and reporting

Ongoing measurement is key to determining whether revenue enablement initiatives positively impact the metrics that matter most to revenue teams.

Some revenue organizations use multiple point solutions that each address a specific component of revenue enablement. For example, an organization may use a content management system to house and organize content, and another solution to create and deliver sales training. These point systems include analytics, but it can be challenging to cobble them together to determine overall impact.

An integrated platform streamlines sales enablement analytics and reporting into a single platform. Organizations can get a holistic picture of how revenue enablement efforts are helping sales reps sharpen skills, engage buyers, and close more deals.

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Better alignment of customer-facing teams

All too often, marketing, enablement, and customer-facing teams work in silos. However, when these teams are aligned, it improves business results. Research tells us that when sales and marketing teams work in coordination, businesses can see 27% faster profit growth.

Businesses can see

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A revenue enablement platform can significantly improve alignment by providing these key teams with a single source of truth for everything related to revenue enablement.

More accurate sales forecasting

An integrated platform equips organizations with revenue intelligence, which analyzes data across customer interactions. With these insights, sales leaders can more accurately predict outcomes and provide the right support to help sales reps close winnable deals.

Salesforce - Revenue Intelligence

Improved revenue operations

Revenue teams depend on the right tools to do their jobs. But adding a ton of tools can create chaos for revenue teams.

An integrated platform allows revenue operations teams to streamline the tech stack – while still ensuring sales reps have what they need to be productive and effective.

8 Must-have features of a revenue enablement platform

The right revenue enablement platform can greatly impact the effectiveness of your enablement program and the performance of your entire revenue org. Perhaps you’ve heard the message loud and clear and have begun shopping for a platform for your organization.

Many vendors offer solutions that promise to boost the effectiveness and efficiency of your revenue team. Weighing your options can be confusing, especially when you’re not sure what features and functionality are most important.

Each platform incorporates unique features and functionality. It is important to find the option that works best for your organization.

That said, certain must-have features should be incorporated into every revenue enablement platform. Let’s explore eight.

#1 Sales content management

According to Salesforce research, sales reps spend a mere 28% of their time selling. The rest is spent on meetings and admin work, including hunting down the right sales content.

Furthermore, while your marketing team may spend a lot of time creating content, there’s a good chance a lot of that content is sitting unused. That could be because sales reps don’t know it exists, don’t know how to use it, or find it irrelevant.

Any revenue enablement solution you’re considering should incorporate content management capabilities. That way, sales reps can easily surface content that’ll resonate with any prospect – no matter where they are in the purchase journey. Keep an eye out for a solution that incorporates AI. That way, your sales reps can get suggestions for content based on a prospect’s behavior and how content has performed in similar scenarios.

Your chosen platform should also feature robust analytics that helps you understand how content is (or isn’t) being used and how it is (or isn’t) impacting sales outcomes. That way, you can invest more in effective content and eliminate assets that aren’t working.

#2 Sales onboarding

Sales onboarding helps new reps get up to speed with your company, its goals, and their role in achieving those goals. Be sure your chosen platform incorporates features that allow you to develop and deliver sales onboarding programs that get your sellers ready to hit the ground running.

#3 Continuous learning

Learning shouldn’t stop after onboarding. Instead, revenue teams need continuous learning to ensure they’re always ready to deliver engaging customer experiences. Your revenue enablement software should incorporate features and functionality that allow you to deliver engaging, ongoing learning that helps revenue team members stay fresh.

Ongoing learning shouldn’t be “one-size-fits-all.” With the right revenue enablement platform, you can assess the strengths and weaknesses of each revenue team member. Then, you can deliver personalized learning opportunities that address the needs of each sales rep, without bogging them down with irrelevant training.

#4 Engaging reinforcement and practice opportunities

Research from Gartner found that B2B sales reps forget 70% of what they learn within a week of training. 

B2B sales reps forget

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For example, leading revenue enablement platforms allow you to build virtual role-plays. Sellers can record themselves giving a practice pitch, and they get instant, AI-powered feedback for improvement. They can also submit their role-plays for their manager and peers’ feedback.

#5 Sales coaching

It’s no secret that sales coaching improves performance. According to the 2024 State of Revenue Productivity Report, top-performing sales reps receive more coaching than their lower-performing peers.

While the importance of sales coaching is clear, it can be difficult to deliver effective coaching at scale.

Revenue enablement platforms incorporate revenue intelligence, which helps sales managers understand where there are risks. That way, the manager can provide deal coaching to help improve the deal’s outcome.

In addition, a platform provides managers with robust data that sheds light on where sales reps excel and where they need improvement. The best platforms also offer conversation intelligence capabilities which help managers understand how sales reps are performing on calls. With these insights, sales managers can provide personalized skills coaching that improves reps’ behaviors and long-term performance.

#6 Sales call recording and analysis

A sales rep may complete all assigned training and enablement activities. But that doesn’t mean they’re applying what they’ve learned.

However, sales managers can’t sit on every sales call to identify a rep’s strengths and weaknesses.

Winning revenue enablement incorporates conversation intelligence capabilities, which record and analyze reps’ calls. Each call is scored, and reps receive real-time feedback for improvement. Reps can use this feedback to improve their approach. In addition, sales managers can look for trends to see where additional skill coaching may be needed.

#7 Revenue intelligence

Accurate sales forecasting fuels better decision-making about key factors like goals, budgeting, and prospecting. But often, sales leaders aren’t confident in their forecasts. According to the Chief Revenue Officer + Sales Leader Outlook Report, 34% of organizations say inaccurate forecasts and limited predictability in the business are some of their top pain points.

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The best revenue enablement platforms feature revenue intelligence capabilities, which allow revenue leaders to predict outcomes more accurately. Revenue intelligence also flags at-risk deals so teams can take action to improve outcomes.

#8 Robust data, analytics, and dashboards

When it comes to revenue enablement, ongoing measurement is key. Regular measurement allows you to see what’s working and identify areas for improvement.

Your revenue enablement platform should make it easy to surface insights that matter most to your business. In addition, look for a platform that uses AI to analyze reports so you can get the answers you need. Your chosen platform may also use AI to suggest actions to take based on your data.

The best revenue enablement platforms

When researching revenue enablement platforms, you may wonder which one is best. There’s no simple answer. The best solution incorporates features and functionality that meet your revenue organization’s needs and goals.

That said, the following are some of the most popular tools on the market today.

Mindtickle

Mindtickle is an award-winning, integrated revenue enablement platform used by top revenue organizations across the globe.

Winning revenue organizations depend on Mindtickle to streamline revenue operations and improve sales results. With Mindtickle, enablement professionals can quickly and easily develop and deliver engaging, effective training and enablement programs that ensure revenue teams are always ready to sell. Enablement professionals can also use Mindtickle to measure the impact of their programs and initiatives on sales performance.

Mindtickle also offers a user-friendly experience to sales reps. Sellers can easily find the training, enablement, and content they need to deliver engaging experiences and close deals.

With Mindtickle, revenue leaders always have easy access to the data and analytics that matter most. Sales managers can understand reps’ skill development and how they’re performing in the field. These insights help them deliver personalized coaching that improves reps’ long-term performance. Sales leaders can also access revenue intelligence, which fuels more accurate sales forecasting, pipeline, and deal confidence.

Seismic

Seismic is an enablement, training, and coaching tool that sales and marketing teams use. Sales reps turn to Seismic to access content, tools, and insights to engage prospects and convert them to customers.

Allego

Allego is a revenue enablement platform that provides sales teams with knowledge and content to move deals forward. Allego also provides actionable insights that revenue teams can use to maximize the potential of each sales rep.

Highspot

Highspot is a software company offering a revenue enablement solution that promises to improve sales performance. Highspot equips revenue teams with the tools, information, and content needed to improve behavior and close more deals, faster.

Take your revenue enablement to the next level with Mindtickle

Modern revenue teams face more challenges than ever before. It’s no wonder why so many sales reps fail to meet their sales quotas.

Today, many organizations are investing in revenue enablement teams and programs to ensure the entire revenue team is aligned and ready to deliver outstanding experiences throughout the customer journey.

The right revenue enablement tools are key to success. But not all revenue enablement solutions are the same. It’s important to find the option that best fits your organization’s needs.

While some organizations opt to invest in multiple point solutions, a growing number are streamlining their tech stacks by investing in an integrated revenue enablement platform like Mindtickle.

With Mindtickle, your entire revenue team has easy access to the tools, information, and content they need to effectively engage with buyers and close more deals – all in one platform.

Revenue Enablement with Mindtickle

Give your entire revenue team access to the tools, information, and content they need to effectively engage with buyers and close more deals – all in one platform.

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