Video Challenges for Sales Teams: Uncover the Possibilities

May 8, 2019 | Employee Training, Most Recent, Video

Video Challenges for Sales Teams

When an organization rolls out a new product, it can take a while for the sales team to get on board. Even if they’re excited about the product itself, learning another set of features, benefits, and messaging can feel like just another thing they don’t have time for.

So, what can you do to increase speed to competency and drive excitement for a new product?

Recently, Unboxed partnered with a pharmaceutical organization rolling out a new product at a nation-wide launch. They’d been working hard for months to build marketing collateral and training to support the sales team, and they were looking to do something special to increase excitement and sustain learning beyond the launch event. They needed a creative way to prove that the sales team could execute what they’d learned in the intensive in-person and online training.

Together, we landed on what we called a “Show What You Know” video challenge. The goal was to engage the sales team’s naturally competitive drive by giving them a chance to show what they knew in a public setting—and get rewarded for it.

Here’s how it would work:

1. Learners would record a video of themselves demonstrating the training techniques they learned during training.

2. Learners would upload their best pitch to the training portal (LMS).

3. Training leaders would review each video, selecting the best pitches to share live on the portal, and sharing feedback with those that need improvement.

4. Learners would earn coins and accolades from peers and leaders.

Prior to rolling out “Show What You Know”, we created a dedicated space for the challenge inside the learning portal and even released a hype video to explain the video challenge.

Upon implementation, we saw high rates of engagement from the start, but the results were what was most surprising. The training team found that no one, not even the top performers on the sales team, was able to execute on all of the required messaging they’d learned in training. These results uncovered gaps in the training and gave leaders an opportunity to directly address those gaps, provide more practice sessions, and continue moving the team toward excellence.

As a bonus, we spliced together highlights from the best-uploaded videos to emphasize key skill areas. We bookended the videos with a skills overview, giving learners several examples of what good looks like so they could continue to practice. The challenge was a great success.

We gathered a few key takeaways from “Show What You Know”  that you may be able to apply to your own program:

• Learners may know less than they think they do. Going into the challenge, most learners reported being confident with the new product info they had learned in training. The video challenge revealed what we know to be true: that knowledge acquisition is entirely different than practical application.

• Learners love learning from their peers. After the challenge, releasing the spliced videos allowed learners to see several examples of how they could implement key skills and build a more natural approach to their sales pitch. Because these examples were from their peers, they felt authentic, relevant, and timely.

• Sustainment is key. Be strategic about when to roll out a post-training challenge. Gather your initial results, and continue to refine as you go in order to have the most impact.

Have questions about your own sustainment plan?

Need a sustainment strategy that will allow your team to identify learning gaps? Contact Unboxed today for a strategy that works for your learners.

Is Product Recommendation Software Right for You?

Apr 2, 2019 | Most Recent, Sales Enablement

Product Recommendation Software

 

Forbes reports that 57% of sales reps missed their quota last year. While that statistic is alarming, the critical question that managers need to ask is why. Why aren’t reps knocking every single sale out of the park? Sales can be an area of high turnover, so maybe they’re not all up to speed, they’re struggling with product positioning, or they aren’t strong at interpreting and identifying the needs of a customer. Sales managers want their reps to hit more home runs – and product recommendation software is a big bat.

If you don’t have great selling aids, it’s time to consider what benefits come with the use of a guided selling tool. It enables new sales reps to get up to speed more quickly, helps reps keep their messaging consistent, and ultimately leads to the right recommendation for your customers. Think of your best salesperson. A guided selling tool basically lets you clone that person and have them in the sales conversation with all of your reps.

Product Recommendation Software, like all tools, is designed to help you achieve what would otherwise be much harder without the assistance – so much so that we’ve seen close rates increase by 40% when product recommendation software has been used.

 

So, What is Product Recommendation Software?

Before considering what to look for, it’s important that you understand exactly what product recommendation software is. In short, it’s a software application that enables reps to deliver excellent sales experiences and recommendations through a conditional, needs-based assessment. With this software’s help, reps are better able to guide customers and generate trust and confidence.

Benefits of guided selling:

  • Onboards reps faster
  • Increases sales productivity
  • Engages buyers with an interactive buying experience
  • Delivers an accurate and highly-personalized buyer experience with real-time leave behinds
  • Replicates and automates what works for top performers

Product recommendation is an art that enables the asking of intelligent questions and then uses customer response to drive recommendations and guided up-sell and cross-sell opportunities. Isn’t that what any customer and sales rep would want?

 

9 Essential Considerations

Now that you see the problem and understand a potential solution, you’re on to something. Here are some considerations for you before adding product recommendation to your toolbox:

 

WHY YOU MIGHT WANT IT WHY YOU MIGHT NOT

SHORTEN TRAINING TIME

Product Recommendation Software allows your reps to get up to speed more quickly because they have a tool to help them and because that tool doubles as a training aid.

INCONSISTENT MESSAGING

If you have a brand-new team still looking to establish itself and figure out what works, you’re messaging might not be consistent enough, yet.

ACCURATE PRODUCT RECOMMENDATIONS

If your reps are using a tool that has the correct information, they’re far less likely to make a wrong recommendation.

DON’T KNOW WHAT WORKS

If you haven’t figured out your “special sauce” yet, it’s difficult to scale what works. It helps to figure out sells within your organization as a foundation before incorporating this software.

BUYER-LED JOURNEY

Potential buyers can interact with the tool and feel ownership of the process – leading them to feel less “sold to” and reducing the chances of an incorrect recommendation.

LACK OF INFRASTRUCTURE

Perhaps you don’t have the infrastructure to capitalize on the rich data insights Product Recommendation Software can provide. If you can’t harness the full functionality of the tool, it might not be worth it for your organization.

CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

Product Recommendation Software has the ability to delight customers by providing an interactive experience and better recommendations.

REDUCE FOLLOW-UP TIME

You can send follow-up communications immediately either during or after a meeting to keep the pipeline moving and keep your reps selling.

ENGAGE MORE PROSPECTS

With shorter, more precise sales meetings, your reps are more available.

 

Does This Sound Like Something That’s Right for You

We’re not talking about a CRM or refresher training. We’re talking about focusing on your customers, their experience, their trust, and ultimately – their purchase.

If you’re looking for a sales aid that’s consistent, up-to-date, personalized, digital, mobile, and has shown consistent results like 60% increase in YOY sales and 40% increase in rep productivity, then using product recommendation software could be a solution for your company.

Give your customers exactly what they want at the right price—without second-guessing your product recommendations or quotes.

The 3 Most Impactful Sales Enablement Trends for 2019

Nov 29, 2018 | Most Recent, Sales Enablement

The sales enablement sector experienced unprecedented growth in 2018. More organizations than ever before leveraged technology to provide sales reps the content, data, and tools they need to engage buyers at every stage of the sales cycle.

As a testament to that growth, most sales organizations now have dedicated sales enablement teams, or have plans in the works to create one soon. Clearly, sales organizations have come to appreciate the value that sales enablement solutions can offer, particularly in decreasing the length of the sales cycle and increasing pipeline opportunities.

But as fast as the industry is changing, there’s still room to refine and create new solutions that solve common problems and help sales reps reach their full potential.

So, what will the top sales enablement trends be for 2019? Here’s our take.

1. Emphasis on learning and coaching

Based on a comprehensive survey done by Quark software, Sales Learning and Coaching Platforms is one of “the top two investment priorities [of sales organizations] over the next 12 months.” This may come as a surprise to others, but it wasn’t a surprise to us here at Unboxed.

In our 10+ years working with sales organizations, we’ve seen across the board that training is the most overlooked part of sales enablement. What good is having the right content and tools if you’re presentation misses the mark or you haven’t learned to effectively communicate with your prospect and ask for the sale?

As one of our top sales enablement trends in 2019, we demand and expect deeper integration of learning and coaching tools into existing sales enablement platforms. Inadequate or ineffective training leads to increased turnover, slower ramp time, and fewer sales, and your organization can’t afford to ignore the data any longer. Gryphon Sales Intelligence describes it this way:

“According to a recent survey, 84% of all sales training is lost after 90 days. This is majorly due to the lack of information retention among sales personnel. This highlights the need for refresher training from time to time along with effective sales training.”

 

2019 sales enablement trends - learning and coaching

If your organization doesn’t have a strategy for ongoing sustainment and continuous learning, you’re falling behind the curve. Look for a solution that integrates with your other sales enablement tools, ideally a one-stop shop with seamless access to training that gets pushed out over time and can be completed on-the-go.
And don’t stop there. For sales teams to reach their full potential, your solution must also give sales leaders and managers the ability to easily and consistently coach their teams to success.

2. Seamless access to important content—finally!

Sales reps lose up to 26 hours a month just searching for, editing, and managing content. Although sales content and asset management platforms have made it easier to organize marketing content and collateral, sales reps still struggle.

Most sale reps says they store content in 3-6 different locations, sometimes even up to 10. Many of those locations aren’t accessible to the marketing team for quality control and easily become outdated, and so the story goes.

 

2019 sales enablement trends - content management

Since this problem is still so prevalent, sales enablement software must reimagine the solution in 2019. Adding yet another location to stash the content won’t cut it, but creating a hub that helps you seamlessly organize and integrate content from a variety of sources will. Expect to see solutions that bring together content from disjointed platforms into one centralized location.

Let’s give reps back those 312 hours in 2019.

3. New ways to leverage artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence has the potential to make a huge impact on sales teams, which is why it’s on our list of sales enablement trends to watch in 2019. Early adopter sales organizations are already reaping the benefits:

  • Sales reps save significant time through automated prospecting assistance.
  • Analyzing and prioritizing leads is easier than ever before.
  • AI-powered customer service guides buyers to the right solution more quickly.

The time savings are inarguable, but the rise of AI has other effects as well. AI increases the value of human skills that can’t be replicated by a machine. Skills like influence, empathy, and ability to gain trust.

 

2019 sales enablement trends - artificial intelligence

But what if you could use AI to help reps hone those critical human skills? In 2019, we’re introducing AI-powered roleplay that analyzes facial expressions to provide insight into the real emotional responses of an audience. We’re incredibly excited about the potential of this tool and thrilled with the early results we’ve seen from test cases. Sign up here to be included in our big announcement in Q1.

What sales enablement trends will you watch in 2019?

How will your sales enablement strategies evolve in the coming year? We’d love to hear your thoughts!

Leave us a comment below or contact us to see how can support your sales enablement goals.

5 Sales Enablement Trends You Should Watch in 2018

Jan 5, 2018 | Sales Enablement

As we enter 2018, sales enablement remains a misunderstood sector (what is sales enablement, anyway?), which makes it difficult to predict what the next big sales enablement trends will be.

And with more products available each year, the definition of sales enablement is likely to remain fuzzy for the foreseeable future. Just check out Nancy Nardin’s epic graphic of the 2017 sales enablement landscape to grasp the current extent of the space.

With all that technology available, you may be tempted to think getting customers to say, “Yes!” will be easier than ever. But the fact is, increased competition, evolving buyer expectations, and the need to hear “Yes!” from not one, but 6.8 buyers, the sales process continues to grow more complex.

No wonder 77% of organizations now rely on some form of sales enablement to assist reps in meeting—and hopefully exceeding—quota.

2018 Sales Enablement Trends

But, what’s next? What hot sales enablement trends should you be watching in 2018?

We’ve listened to our clients, analyzed their pain points, and asked which sales enablement trends they’re eyeballing. Overall, we’re seeing sales enablement branch beyond content to address sales efficiency.

Here we go.

sales enablement trends - one-stop technology#1: One-Stop Technology

For a sales rep, there’s a golden moment when, after experiencing a well-crafted, personalized presentation, your wowed customer is ready to sign. What’s more anticlimactic than explaining that you’ll need to go back to the office, export the file, re-key it in the order entry platform, then email them later―dampening their enthusiasm and possibly jeopardizing the sale?

It’s embarrassing.

Sales teams have been feeling the pain for years. It’s inefficient, frustrating, and time-consuming to muddle through multiple log-ins to collect the data and content needed to build a personalized sales presentation.

So we’re listing one-stop technology as the number one sales enablement trend in 2018. This year, we’ll finally start to see more sales enablement tools serve multiple purposes and address multiple stages of the buying journey.

These new, modern sales enablement tools will streamline functions and data, becoming a one-stop shop that benefits reps, customers, and managers. Needs analysis, presentation-building, customer-facing sales tools, CRM, training, customer communication, and analytics come together in one powerful solution. And all of these functions communicate with pricing, product databases, and location―further enhancing the platform.

With a one-stop solution, reps can analyze customer challenges, suggest the ideal solution, create a quote and then―with the tap of a button―place the order to close the deal. All from the convenience of a tablet!

sales enablement trends - personalized buying journeys#2: Highly Personalized Buyer’s Journeys

Personalization enhances loyalty, drives conversion rates, and grows revenue. Monetate says that 79% of organizations exceeding revenue goals have a documented personalization strategy.

Historically, it’s been difficult (and really expensive) to unite all the specific customer data needed – demographics, engagement with marketing content, answers to needs-based questions, etc. – from multiple legacy systems to create a personalized buying journey.

Off-the-shelf platforms can’t manage such a complex feat. But adaptable sales enablement solutions will begin to make this easier in 2018. As solution providers and IT departments continue to move into the cloud, expose APIs, and build integration points, flexible and customizable tools that can adapt to your infrastructure will be something we see more of in 2018.

Also, personalizing your buyer’s journey is one of the best ways your organization can create a competitive advantage. Our clients tell us that sales reps love delivering custom presentations because they’re unique, impressing customers. One client even shared, “I like that it’s interactive, so customers don’t play on their phones while we’re talking.”

“I like that it’s interactive, so customers don’t play on their phones while we’re talking.”

sales enablement trends - manager enablement via data#3: Manager Enablement Via Data

Sales enablement trend #3 is all about data and how sales leaders can use this data to their advantage.

A collateral benefit of improved data integration is what we call “manager enablement.” More data gives managers a huge advantage in coaching reps to perform better based on real-time results.

Sales manager dashboards are not a novel idea. But increased reporting insights are going to revolutionize how managers measure and manage data including productivity, pipeline analysis, understanding the buyer’s journey, forecasting, and marketing insights that maximize sales performance.

As one example, by aggregating data on the most highly recommended and popular products—in addition to the rarely recommended ones—reps and managers can discern:

  • which sales tactics are most effective
  • what content has maximum impact
  • which solutions reps should be recommending
  • which methods convert best
  • what point in the sales pipeline customers are most likely to drop out

Using this data, managers will have a roadmap to coach reps and suggest training and strategies to maximize conversions as they adapt to new buyer behaviors and expectations. The results: more accurate forecasting and revenue target attainment.

sales enablement trends - automation and artificial intelligence#4: Automation and Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Automation and AI are revolutionizing sales enablement, and we believe it will be one of the hottest sales trends to watch in the coming years. However, let’s make something crystal clear: AI won’t replace sales reps any time soon, and certainly not in 2018.

AI can’t achieve quota on its own. It can, however, make reps more productive and efficient with their time, shifting the human role in the sales journey.

What AI does best is provide data, insights, and information in an accessible way. What humans do best is make meaningful connections to other humans that result in depth and understanding of needs. AI is critical in decreasing the amount of time consumed by administrative tasks, freeing up more time for reps to do what they do best: sell.

Reps devote as little as 22% of their time to selling, yet spend at least 50% of it on administrative tasks. Done right, the goal of automation/AI is to decrease reps’ administrative task load, freeing up time to build solid client relationships mid-funnel.

With more time to focus on selling, reps come in at the dynamic moment when customers are informed but seeking guidance in making their best decision.

sales enablement trends - continued focus on digital sales tools#5: Continued Focus on Being Digital

Does your organization have a Digital Transformation or Innovation team? If it doesn’t―it will soon. To keep moving forward, companies large and small will be required to adapt to more modern ways of doing things.

While digital and mobile technology have been sales trends for years, many organizations are just now launching mobile apps. As mobile technology expands, Digital Transformation and Innovation Teams help organizations navigate issues around aging IT structures and the challenges enterprise mobile device management (MDM) brings.

While these teams help companies go digital and cater to their unique requirements, most organizations don’t have the in-house expertise or IT capacity to go it alone. The challenge is twofold: how to equip teams with mobile tech―and then manage it.

The movement from on-premise servers and aging IT infrastructure to cloud-based, on-demand, BYOD, digitally transformed companies is well under way and will continue in 2018. But this year, we’ll start to see organizations rely more heavily on trusted partners with proven experience to guide their transformation and help them think through challenges like MDM, security, data integration, accessibility, etc.

Identifying a partner who’s already been there, done that, and understands that change (including the pain of the change and how to make it easier) is critical.

What Sales Enablement Trends Will You Watch in 2018?

Sales enablement is rapidly changing. But hopefully the sales enablement trends we’ve listed above will help you focus on what you can do this year to improve the efficiency of your sales team.

Which of the sales enablement trends we’ve identified will you watch, or even implement this year? What’s missing from our list?

Share below or give us a call and let us know how we can help you achieve your goals—we’d love to talk sales enablement with you!

7 Sales Enablement Best Practices to Increase Adoption Rates

Oct 30, 2017 | Sales Enablement

55% of sales executives plan to invest in sales enablement tools, but they don’t always have a plan to roll out the solution and get reps to embrace it. 51.5% of organizations lack a formal sales enablement vision, according to a study from CSO Insights.

This lack of a vision and planning shows. Poor adoption of sales technology is a struggle that’s real. Take software like CRMs, for example. Failure rates are around 50%—but have been reported as high as 70%.

There is good news. Failure to launch is preventable. Before you roll out a new sales tool, follow these 7 sales enablement best practices to ensure success.

Sales enablement best practices

1. Align on Business Outcomes

Sales enablement tools can impact more than just your sales force. Marketing will need to be in the loop. Product will need to be in the loop. So will IT, Legal, L&D, etc.

Identify and involve cross-department stakeholder and decision makers from the get-go. Getting in sync upfront reduces the risk of getting critical feedback too late in the process and creating rework.

Align on both short-term and long-term goals. Focusing on immediate pains or needs only will ultimately lead to a temporary, band-aid solution.

2. Know Your Users

End users come in many forms and include your sales team, sales leadership, and executives. Knowing what each group wants to see and how they want to see it makes a big difference for utilization.

Reps may need tools to help them facilitate sales meetings. But executives won’t necessarily need that. Instead, they’d want a fast, easy way to get to sales results and trend reports.

Make users part of the discovery process and test bench. This will help you best understand how to integrate new technology into their daily workflow. Getting real end users to test the tool will also help you diagnose and mitigate potential barriers to usage early.

3. Keep It Simple

Great tools work for you, not the other way around. Resist the temptation to over-engineer. Feature-bloat is a top killer of usage. Too many bells and whistles get in the way and then the tool never gets used.

Keep it simple applies to implementation, too. Don’t roll out a new tool to the entire sales organization at once. That’s too disruptive a change. Start small with a pilot program. Participants will then become the champions and evangelists who naturally build your user base and adoption rates.

4. Don’t Undermine Reps

Reps are smart, capable people. Interactive educational content and demos (and similar functionality) need to be integrated carefully.

The best sales enablement tools provide the right information at the right time in the sales process to build credibility. They should never undermine the salesperson’s expertise.

5. Prepare for Change

Do internal marketing for the tool. This helps generate excitement. It also keeps people informed of progress, which helps them feel “in the know” and part of the process. Reps don’t want to feel like a tool is being forced on them.

Training will be critical, too. Be very clear about how the technology aligns with your sales methodology, and the ways it will enhance it. Providing contextual examples of how to  use the tool will help teams adapt their workflow and daily activities more smoothly.

6. Set Reps Up for Success

Set usage expectations early and clearly and make sure managers and reps have an accountability plan in place.

Reinforce “what great looks like” by having successful early adopters share best practices.

Share and celebrate wins team- and organization-wide. This will help others stay focused and motivated.

Be ready to address tech issues. When something goes wrong with technology, sales teams don’t have much patience. Having a rapid-response help desk and technology support strategy will eliminate obstacles that may prevent sales teams from embracing the tool.

7. Measure & Iterate

Collecting data is good. Connecting the dots with reports that drive insights around sales results is best.

Also collect feedback from users. Learn from version 1.0 of your sales enablement tool and use those lessons to inform how to add to the tool and scale it.

Quick Recap

Successfully launching a new sales enablement tool isn’t a matter of releasing it into the wild and hoping for the best. It comes down to good planning, and recognizing and embracing these sales enablement best practices to drive adoption:

  • Don’t start unless you know what everyone needs and you can tie those needs to a sales goal.
  • Great tools work for your reps, not the other way around.
  • Define success early, measure often, and iterate quickly.

Sales Enablement Best Practices At Work

This hard work pays off. For example, when Comcast added a guided selling tool to their sales toolkit, they followed these sales enablement best practices.

They started with a thorough discovery process and ultimately used feedback from the field to iterate on the tool post-launch. The result? The tool contributed to a 60% increase in YOY sales and a 40% increase in rep productivity. #winning

We believe sales enablement is not just a tool-it’s a smart mix of training and technology that helps your sales team win. Want to learn more? Give us a shout!