Viewpoint Accelerates Onboarding, Achieves Over 90% Training Completion with Mindtickle

Simona Galant on April 1, 2019

Business growth is a good thing — unless your sales team lacks the tools necessary to quickly and easily scale alongside it.

This was the challenge Viewpoint faced in 2017

. The global provider of cloud-based software solutions for the construction industry had just created a sales enablement department and found that its incumbent system of multiple siloed tools wasn’t effective enough to streamline sales readiness and enablement programs for the rapidly growing company.

For example, when it came to sales training, Viewpoint had been using a video conferencing tool and sharing recordings via an email blast or SharePoint. This approach lacked any kind of tracking for training and certifications. In addition, there was no clear cadence for enablement communications, and onboarding for new reps was not fast enough – delaying new reps’ contributions to the sales pipeline.

In search of a solution that would unite their sales team’s efforts, Viewpoint evaluated a number of sales enablement and sales readiness platforms before ultimately selecting Mindtickle. Once implemented, the platform was fully launched within three months and rolled out across the Viewpoint sales team. And, just a few months after the initial launch, Viewpoint extended the platform to its channel partners and Professional Services and Support departments.

With a concerted effort underpinned by Mindtickle, Viewpoint has realized its vision to systematize enablement and readiness in a number of ways.

  • By streamlining and consolidating sales enablement and readiness onto a single platform, Viewpoint gained better insight into training and boosted certifications by over 90%.This was driven, in part, by flexible options for ongoing learning via different channels like podcasts.

 

  • Mindtickle has simplified enablement communicationsat Viewpoint as well. Now, the team creates short videos once a week and conducts knowledge assessments through test questions.

 

  • Viewpoint has also accelerated onboarding, which was a key 2018 initiative for the company. Remarkably, Mindtickle helped Viewpoint reduce its new reps’ time to first booked deal from 130 days to 52 — a 60% year-over-year improvement.

“Reps have told us this is the best onboarding experience they’ve had at any company,” says Jake Boenisch, Senior Director of Integrated Learning and Field Enablement at Viewpoint. “I think a lot of credit goes to the Mindtickle platform and having the technology in place to differentiate us from our competitors.”

To learn more about Viewpoint’s success with Mindtickle, read the entire case study here.

TurnKey Vacation Rentals Reimagines Sales Enablement Strategy With Mindtickle and Achieves 40% Top-Line Growth

Simona Galant on March 29, 2019

 

Like many of its clients, TurnKey Vacation Rentals wanted to get away from it all

— that is, get away from its very basic training software. The company found that its incumbent solution had a number of shortcomings, among them:

  • No support for key content types such as SCORM packages
  • Limited analytics functionality to track sales rep performance
  • Difficulty evaluating whether training was working for its geographically dispersed sales team

In short, the solution couldn’t deliver on the functionality TurnKey required to measure, track, and improve their sales performance.

After evaluating other solutions, TurnKey selected Mindtickle’s data-driven sales readiness platform, keeping their growing team in mind. Within 18 months, the platform’s use extended beyond the sales team to include the guest experience team, the customer success team, and the field operations technicians — more than 300 TurnKey employees in all, located all over the country.

“Without Mindtickle, it would be harder for us to make sure that our sales principles are reinforced with such a large remote sales force,” says Brian Steele, Sales Training Manager at TurnKey.

TurnKey’s sales team, in particular, was impressed by Mindtickle’s robust, yet targeted functionality. It enabled the creation and optimization of a training curriculum that reinforced specific skills and strategies reps needed to stay competitive in a complex industry. Additionally, the platform’s video role-play capabilities helped reps evaluate, develop, and refine their sales skills alongside a constantly evolving product. TurnKey’s sales managers also now had a holistic view of individual and group performance, course completion, and certification through Mindtickle’s analytics-driven enablement dashboard.

In particular, TurnKey was impressed by how quickly they saw measurable results. Within 12 months, TurnKey achieved a 40% increase in deal quantity and a 15% improvement in pipeline generation by field. The benefits Turnkey achieved with Mindtickle were immediate as the platform rollout supported the company’s new sales methodology, which contributed to swift process changes in the organization and improved levels of execution.

With a newly established readiness standard now in place for company-wide training, TurnKey reinforces its approach to sales productivity so reps can be more successful in deals, and the entire organization can benefit from a unified strategy.

Read the entire case study to learn more about how TurnKey is using Mindtickle.

Sales Enablement in Real Time: How to Deliver Learning When it Matters

Simona Galant on March 27, 2019

 

In a recent webinar with Mindtickle and SiriusDecisions

,Peter Ostrow, Senior Research Director, Sales Enablement Strategies for SiriusDecisions, and Paulette Greene, Vice President of Professional Services for Mindtickle discussed how high performing organizations are approaching their sales knowledge transfer strategy.

In the webinar, they presented tips and action items on how to build an enablement model that takes into consideration the needs of the sellers, leverages the appropriate selling motion, and is integrated with a top-down sales learning strategy.

When it comes to delivering information and insights to buyers that help them make informed decisions, your sales team is probably your biggest and most valuable resource. Far too often, ad hoc approaches to educating sales reps result in knowledge gaps, and non-systemic learning approaches often don’t resonate and lead to a lack of scalability across the team. As you grow and adapt to changing market conditions, your company’s product messaging can develop and change. Your sellers should have the know-how to mold their approach and message in a systematic, deliberate way. The key to providing useful and ongoing learning opportunities comes down to methodical knowledge transfer.

SiriusDecisions defines knowledge transfer as “the process of enabling sales reps with the knowledge they need to apply during the buying process to accelerate deals in the pipeline and increase overall sales”.  So, how do you go about figuring out the best practices that apply to your specific reps?

Without an emphasis on personalization that addresses the scope of experienced sellers versus those who are just starting out, a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t result in successful sales knowledge transfer. A lack of customization for sales teams can create hurdles when it comes to buy-in and long-term motivation. Additionally, the lack of structure can interfere with collaboration across teams as messaging and knowledge transfer programs become lost in translation.

SiriusDecisions suggests managers tackle this by “promoting rep knowledge retention by demonstrating application, allowing reps to practice applying it, and arming coaches with criteria for feedback and monitoring results.” It’s important to keep your team engaged in consistent learning, and by committing to a sales enablement and readiness program, you can avoid those potential pitfalls.

Here’s the good news: you may actually already set up for success. The webinar goes into the details of SiriusDecisions research which shows that reps believe they should, in fact, spend more time learning. In the recent surveys by SiriusDecisions, findings indicated that reps want to spend more time on personal and professional development – so the buy-in is already there. Sales reps know the importance of fully understanding the products they sell but feel that they often lack resources beyond foundational knowledge. As a sales enablement leader, how do you provide your team with the right sales coaching support?

The truth is that many sales team leaders struggle from something of a “not-it” syndrome. Overwhelmed with making sure their reps are hitting quotas, managers often don’t spend the time to make sure to coach their reps on an ongoing basis. According to SiriusDecisions, 85% of high performing sales managers recognize the value of their reps understanding the company offering and spend time and additional focus on offering reps specific sales coaching and sales training on buyer personas.

Ultimately, your goal as a sales manager is to figure out and provide an approach that is consistent – one that enables your sales team with the knowledge needed to maximize their buyer interaction. If you align the general, required knowledge to specific activities that teach appropriate responses and selling motions, it’ll become much easier for both you and your team to create and ensure actionable and relevant learning outcomes.

According to Peter and Paulette, you can begin implementing changes to your sales productivity initiatives with a few action items. When it comes to sales enablement, start by:

  • Clearly defining knowledge requirements and provide a learning strategy that supports the application of knowledge.
  • Developing tools and job aids specific to learners and managers to reinforce competency attainment.

And when you combine your sales readiness goals with other teams in your organization, make sure to partner with sales enablement early in the process to ensure alignment to rep needs. Try thinking beyond delivering tactics and begin targeting reps with programs in the same way that buyers are targeted.

For a deep-dive into sales enablement in real time, watch the recording of their webinar here.

Should Virtual Classrooms Replace In-Person Events to Keep Valuable Reps in the Field?

Simona Galant on January 10, 2019

With demand on the rise for measurable sales skills training that keeps reps in the field, companies are turning to virtual classroom experiences as a replacement for in-person events. But should they be? Or do the same flaws of the traditional classroom-only approach get exacerbated in a virtual classroom environment?

The issue? Changes in the modern seller profile are creating challenges as teams move towards being desk-less, digital, and distant.

When thinking about virtual selling, how often do you take time to consider the ways in which your team might be struggling with job-specific training? Truth be told, this is something many companies are starting to realize – and address.

According to research from CVI4 out of 5 salespeople aren’t getting the skills training they need – and while some attribute this to budget limitations, the majority blame time-out-of-field constraints. It also makes sense that oftentimes, managers end up choosing training that isn’t very flexible or individually-specialized. So, how are companies thinking of tackling this?

Virtual training gives your team different kinds of opportunities – ones that with their flexibility and timeliness, can actually increase productivity in the long-run. Take custom scheduling for example: when training activities fit into your sales teams routines without disrupting their flow, learning can actually become much more continuous.

Teams benefit and learn on a daily basis with ongoing reinforcement videos, opportunities to review and compare with peers, and revisit key concepts on demand. Coaching becomes more comprehensive too: reviewers and managers have a renewed flexibility to review and provide more detailed feedback on assignments.

But the most impressive finding from CVI research is the fact that virtual training increases sales reps confidence twice as much as traditional classroom training. This is huge if you add to this the typical cost savings gained with virtual training sessions.

Running a successful virtual training program, however, requires a different approach. It is not enough to upload your traditional training content online and share it with everyone. The truly impactful virtual programs follow a framework consisting of:

  1. Identify knowledge and skills gaps
  2. Plan and deploy  personalized programs
  3. Enable practice and feedback
  4. Leverage guided coaching

To learn more about this framework for virtual training and the details behind what make for successful programs, watch the online recording of where Gopkiran Rao, SVP Strategy at Mindtickle, and Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy Officer of Corporate Visions, explore a virtual training approach that breaks free of classroom constraints altogether.

Click here to watch now.

Forbes: 4 Sales Trends That You Need To Know About In 2019

Simona Galant on January 4, 2019

Looking back at the last year, we’ve seen some exciting trends in 2018 – and as we kick off the new year, we’re excited to talk about some of the sales trends that are soon to come.
How is sales technology expected to change and expand? What new technologies should your company be gearing up towards in 2019? How are your key audiences and prospects going to shift and evolve? These questions are just some of the topics covered in the recent article by Forbes.
Recently, Forbes released an article on just this subject, discussing how technology has evolved and became more accessible to businesses and sales teams across niches. In their research, Forbes identified four main trends to watch out for this coming year.
In order to improve productivity and overall sales, Forbes pointed out that it’s important to stay on top of the following trends and implement new technologies and new tactics, such as:

  •      Learning how to sell to Generation Z
  •      Implementing a sales enablement strategy to help your sales team be more productive
  •      Leveraging new technology like AI and machine learning to improve sales and knowledge
  •      Integrating marketing and sales and developing more omni-channel experiences for your audience

To read more about how you can prepare for the upcoming sales evolution in 2019, read on here!

SalesHacker: Sales Training is Only One-Third of What You Need to Be Doing for Sales Enablement

Simona Galant on December 12, 2018

 

In a recent article by SalesHacker, Mindtickle’s Manager of Enablement, Ashley Philipps, discusses what sales training and sales enablement have in common – and how successful sales enablement can get you ahead of the game.

The key takeaway? While sales training is ideally suited for onboarding new hires and getting them up to speed, sales training alone can’t help to move the revenue dial. In the article, she writes, “At the end of the day, sales training in and of itself is only a portion of the overall solution that an organization needs to be adopting.”

Ashley outlines what sales enablement is, as well as what it isn’t, and cites some important statistics from a recent Forrester tech sales report. This discussion brings to light just what exactly you and your organization should expect from a successful sales enablement initiative.

Among the many functionalities and tools sales enablement should deliver are an overview of reps’ competencies and capabilities, as well as rigorous alignment with business goals. Some questions a successful program will help you answer:

  • What do my reps know?
  • How are they talking about the company and the offering?
  • How are they handling objections or concerns?
  • Are they capable of creating an environment conducive to selling?

After reading this article, you’ll be a step closer to equip your team with the skills, behaviors, and knowledge they need to succeed today.

To learn more about the do’s and don’ts of sales enablement, read on here!

CustomerThink: Why Sales Coaching is So Hard and 6 Ways AI is Making it Easier and Better

Simona Galant on December 10, 2018

Creating and maintaining an impactful sales coaching framework in the modern age isn’t as easy as one might think – but with the right mindset and the right tools, it’s not out of reach. In a recent article published by CustomerThink, Mindtickle’s Senior Director of Product Management, Himanshu Bari, discusses what makes today’s sales coaching such a challenge for businesses.

While coaching has always been an important part of the training process, for sellers navigating today’s digital-first buying journey, coaching is now critical to helping reps learn how to control the sales process and win the customer’s confidence.

Himanshu identifies a lack of time, feedback, visibility, personalization, and specialized skills as the most significant obstacles to overcome when implementing coaching efforts.

For many companies, building out a successful and targeted coaching framework can seem daunting or time-consuming – but that’s exactly where there’s room to grow with coaching automation. In the article, Himanshu analyzes the six major things a next-gen, AI-supported approach to sales coaching can help your company accomplish better.

Among them:

  • Enhanced visibility and incentives to influence culture.
  • Team-level remediation recommendations.
  • Machine-assisted reviews and progress reports.

 

For an in-depth look at improving your sales coaching, read on here!

McKinsey Quarterly Report: Why Data Culture Matters

Simona Galant on October 23, 2018

 

Bringing together data talent, tools and decision making is often easier said than done: many a company faces this challenge.

How do you incorporate data into your daily business model and strategy? What about your company culture?

With these questions in mind, the McKinsey report gathers and analyzes some key research that touches on seven fundamental principles that underpin a healthy data culture. In this article, McKinsey provides readers with 7 takeaways from industry leaders that help understand how to tackle the ever-evolving use of data analytics.

Some of the topics  include:

  • C-suite commitment through ongoing informed conversations
  • Drawing a  correlation between data analysis and decision making
  • Striking the appropriate balance between hiring new employees and transforming existing ones

“You develop a data culture by moving beyond specialists and skunkworks, with the goal of achieving deep business engagement, creating employee pull, and cultivating a sense of purpose, so that data can support your operations instead of the other way around.”

In addition to McKinsey’s comprehensive research, Mitsubishi managing executive officer Takehiko Nagumo, Boeing CIO Ted Colbert, and JPMorgan CDO Rob Casper, along with others, also provide thought leadership throughout the article.

Read here!

Why an LMS Alone Can’t Deliver the Enablement That Sales Needs Today

Simona Galant on October 11, 2018

What is a learning management system? It’s not a modern sales enablement solution.

Geared towards company-wide collaboration, a successful learning management (LMS) system delivers a framework for managing virtual learning, and its goal is to make communication easier and increase employee engagement and readiness. While initially boasting an improvement in sales performance, LMSs are no longer up to the task of readying sales with today’s every changing products, markets, and buyer needs.

In other words, when it comes to sales, an LMS solution is simply not enough to help salespeople gain and retain the knowledge and skills they need to sell today. That’s because LMSs…

  • Are complex and lack the flexibility and agility needed to respond to change
  • Lack the ability to correlate learning outcomes with performance outcomes
  • Weren’t designed to deliver a modernized and engaging user experience

The good news is companies’ investment in their LMS is still important and can be improved if used alongside a modern sales enablement solution that addresses those four common pain points.

Let’s unpack a few strategies that a modern learning management system can provide.

Ongoing, dependable enablement

When it comes to sales enablement leaders, it’s common knowledge that learning and retention are at their most effective and impactful when they’re implemented on an ongoing basis. At the end of the day, it’s continuous effort that nurtures skills and adapts easily to the rapidly changing needs of the organization.

With modern enablement, reps get access to any and all information they might need: all at their own convenience. Resources are always available where and when they’re needed.

It’s crucial for reps – especially when in the field – to have access to quick updates about movements in the market, new rollouts, or changes to the product line.

Analytics-driven insight

It’s incredibly important for any modern enablement solution to provide useful insights, based on hard data,  so leaders can ascertain their team’s time to productivity, effectiveness, specific competencies, and overall capabilities.

Because when an enablement solution is based on data, managers can start to understand the impact of sales enablement programs by looking at leading indicators, such as sales pipeline or sales activity metrics.

An engaging user experience

Today, regardless of where your reps are, they’re being bombarded with all kinds of information – both visual and otherwise. Distractions are common – and the effort to keeping your team engaged can become time-consuming in and of itself.

In order to make the material you share with your reps not only accessible but also engaging, you can use a sales enablement solution to create a consumer-level experience that includes mobile access, micro-learning, easy search, and gamification.

With a modern sales enablement solution, one that starts where an LMS ends, reps should be able to:

  1. Access content and training wherever and whenever they need it
  2. Receive short, bite-sized updates that provide the latest market or company news
  3. Practice real-life scenarios
  4. See and understand how their peers – specifically top-performing reps – handle the same scenarios

To learn more about the potential benefits of switching to a modern sales enablement solution, download our eBook today. 

Your Guide to Creating a Sales Onboarding Program that Counts

Simona Galant on October 3, 2018

Helping your team master communication in sales

It’s always an exciting time when a startup is going through a hiring push – new employees are usually a testament to growth. But how should startups approach creating a well-defined, formalized

sales onboarding

program at scale without sacrificing the uniqueness of their product and company culture? One that’s unforgettable? In early growth stage startups, onboarding can often become chaotic and disorganized when it comes to making decisions about procedural and technological investments into human capital management.

Especially, when considering the pressing need to deliver results instantly under high pressure, onboarding often turns into a high-touch, impersonal process on the just the basics. So how do you take your

sales onboarding

program and make it more than just knowing the product overview, basic on-the-job skills, and overall dos and don’ts? With these tips, you can turn your sales onboarding program into an opportunity to give your new hires a unique and personalized experience from their very first day; one that counts.

Clear communication from the start

Given the high level of uncertainty and risk in the early growth stage, it’s important to communicate sales goals and each rep’s sales KPI directly with your sales team from the onset of their onboarding. To thrive in a fast-paced environment, it’s helpful for sales reps to feel comfortable and prepared enough to succeed in order to take responsibility and ownership of the sales process and hit the ground running.

Help them get their feet wet

Regular office visits in the pre-onboarding phase can help kick-start the familiarization process before your reps officially begin their training. This can be a great opportunity to develop a cross-functional understanding of the business across sales, operations, engineering, as well as other teams. Shadowing existing reps also gives new reps an idea of how the company typically approaches potential clients by indirectly experiencing the sales lifecycle themselves.

Know who’s in charge

Since there is typically a handful of people that run the show, getting to know who’s who right from the beginning is extremely important. Create opportunities for new sales reps to work cross-functionally by helping existing projects or sitting in on discussions and team meetings. If possible, you can even let the new hires shadow the founders for a day.

Promote and provide self-learning

While there’s a myriad of information available on-demand online, your new sales reps shouldn’t spend time searching for the right material. Create a shared folder with links and resources for the new reps that sales enablement leaders can contribute content to far in advance of new hire orientation. This way, you can give your new sales reps an opportunity to understand the complexity of business plans, conduct a feasibility analysis, appraise the marketing plan, do the SWOT or even wear the strategy hat for a day.

Consume, consume, consume

Regardless of the growth stage, a startup should have all sorts of material prepared and ready for any incoming sales reps. Product manuals, sales presentations, service handbooks, blogs, website, press coverage, company policies, and procedures – even your Twitter feed – are all instrumental as the best learning sources to help your reps get started. A successful new hire orientation and Onboarding has the potential to promote self-learning and discovery that goes beyond learning about the company – the sooner a new rep stops feeling like a new hire, the more successful they’ll be while ramping up.

At the end of their onboarding process, your new sales reps should come away with knowledge and of the scope of the company useful enough to perhaps even contribute to the new hire onboarding manual themselves in the future.

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