Brainshark Enhances Learning and Performance Support in Sales Workflows

Brainshark,delivering SaaS-based sales enablement solutions, has announced new offerings and advancements to improve salescoaching and prospecting effectiveness. These include new peer collaborationand leaderboard capabilities in Brainshark for Coaching, as well as the launch ofa Microsoft Outlook integration.These new capabilities—in concert with Brainshark’s already acclaimed solutions—reflect the company’s continued and comprehensive focus onmeeting sales teams’ needs for training, coaching, and buyer engagement so repscan close more deals faster.

“To improvesales productivity, many organizations take a multi-pronged approach toenablement by focusing on learning and development, coaching, and buyerinteractions,” said Heather Cole, service director for sales enablement strategiesat research and advisory firm SiriusDecisions. “Platforms that are user-friendlyand integrated within the environment where reps work are more likely to beconsistently leveraged, driving better return on technology investments.”

Brainshark for Coaching—new enhancements

Complementing Brainshark solutions for sales onboarding andcontinuous training, Brainshark for Coaching enables managers to prepare repsto capitalize on any sales interaction. The recent winner of a “BestNew Product” Stevie Award, the solution supports anytime, anywhere coaching, somanagers can be confident in reps’ skills and effectiveness in the field. Managersissue challenges through the system—for example, to deliver a presentation,show a demo, or rehearse sales messaging—and reps respond via video. Feedback, configurableratings, and scores help ensure managers and reps are on the same page aboutreps’ performance. Brainshark also provides best-practices guidance—both to managerson how to coach and to reps on how to complete challenges and sell effectively—throughoptionally integrated, award-winning eLearning content from CloudCoachingInternational.

Important new coaching capabilities include:

• Challenge attachments—Allowingmanagers to attach virtually any type of document to assist reps in completingtheir challenges. Reps can view and download the materials from their coachingdashboards on any device, so they can respond to challenges in a more informedway.
• Leaderboards—Providingteam-wide access to sales reps’ challenge responses. Leaderboards encouragefriendly competition, serve as a motivational tool, and enable reps to learnfrom their peers. They can be displayed in two ways: “competitively,” sotop-performing responses appear on top (with all responses stacked according toscore), and “collaboratively,” where scores and rankings are hidden.
• Peer collaboration—Enablingany sales team member to provide real-time feedback—such as tips, keyobservations, and special considerations—on their peers’ challenge responses tomake sure everyone is on point. Management also can see who’s frequentlycollaborating and contributing to team success.

“Effective sales training is obviously critical—but so iswhat happens next. Managers need to continuously prepare their teams by showingthem examples of what ‘great’ looks like and ensuring that their reps canrepeat it. That’s where coaching and collaboration comes in,” said BrainsharkCEO Greg Flynn. “It’s incredibly important to provide visibility into what topperformers do, and make it easy to share experiences and successful approaches.With our new capabilities, sales teams benefit not only from their managers’expertise, but also from their peers’ experiences, skills, and perspectives—soeveryone can perform more effectively.”

New: Microsoft Outlook integration

As sales teams seek to improve efficiency and effectiveness,it’s important they have a cohesive, streamlined experience—with instant accessto the materials they need within the systems they use every day. Butorganizations are struggling—data shows one in threesales reps can’t find the content they need to close more deals, while up to 70 percent of thecontent that marketing creates for sales goes unused.

With Brainshark’s new integration with Microsoft Outlook, repscan instantly find and send sales content within their Outlook emailenvironment—whether on the desktop or the Office 365 web portal. Users can:

• Search for, insert, and email sales content directly fromMicrosoft Outlook—without having to interruptworkflows to navigate multiple systems. Users also can embed and size Brainsharkvideos so they play directly within customer and prospect emails.
• Use multiple filtering and view options to discover the right content.
• Preview content prior to insertion.
• Track interactions to see whenthe email was opened and the level of prospect engagement with the content.

In addition to the coaching capabilities and Outlook integration,Brainshark is also introducing new and enhanced reports and dashboards within theBrainshark Sales Accelerator for Salesforce. The reports contain an updatedapproach to data visualization, trend charts that display changes in keymetrics over time, and specialized views to show reps, managers, and executivesthe data that is most relevant to them.

“The sum total of these new offerings and enhancementsunderscores Brainshark’s role as a sales enablement leader,” Flynn said. “We’recommitted to continual innovation so our customers can make their numbers andmake their sales teams great. With our comprehensive capabilities, companiesevery day are maximizing sales productivity and winning more business.”

About Brainshark

Brainsharkis a leading sales enablement company that helps businesses harness the powerof content to drive sales productivity. With Brainshark, companies can: empowersalespeople with dynamic content that they can create quickly, import easily,and access anywhere; prepare sales teams with on-demand training thataccelerates onboarding and keeps existing reps up to speed and in the know;hone performance with sales coaching that ensures reps make the most of everybuyer interaction; and arm reps with the right content and resources for anyselling situation to better engage buyers and close more deals. In addition,Brainshark analytics enable organizations to track sales-content effectivenessand make smarter decisions that drive results. Thousands of companies—includingmore than half of the Fortune 100—rely on Brainshark to improve salesproductivity and increase the impact of their sales, marketing, and training.Learn more at www.brainshark.com.

References

Brainshark.“Brainsharkfor Coaching Receives a ‘New Product of the Year’ Stevie^® Award in 2016 American Business Awards (SM).” 4 May 2016.
https://www.brainshark.com/company/in-the-news/press-release/5-4-16-pr

Brainshark.“Stateof the Sales Rep: Brainshark Survey Shows 1 in 3 Frequently Can’t Find theSales Materials They Need to Close More Deals.” 29 October 2013.
https://www.brainshark.com/company/in-the-news/press/state-sales-rep-brainshark-survey-shows-1-3-frequently-can%C2%92t-find-sales