The average buyer is now more informed than ever before, requiring sales personnel to be better prepared to influence buying decisions effectively.
Unfortunately, traditional sales training methods no longer serve the modern workforce. This is mainly because typical learning initiatives are single-event efforts that must be retained and sufficiently rehearsed. Without continuous active learning, subjects have difficulty converting what they've been taught into successful sales conversations. Additionally, sales teams are more likely to be remote, and their managers are spread too thin to coach them regularly. As a result, continuous training is not being conducted with regularity. Yet it is an essential component of skills prep for companies to compete and win in today's market.
To respond to this growing need, the team at Practis developed a patented conversation simulator that provides learners with a way to practice conversing with customers. Their unique mobile training platform offers companies of any size the ability to deploy personalized training across the entire organization with measurable and immediate results. This exciting technology has been proven to dramatically increase the skill sets of underperforming reps and transform the productivity of whole sales teams.
As Co-founder & CEO Edward Kerr explained...
"We saw an opportunity to deploy learning when and where it's needed by simply capturing the best practices of top-performing salespeople and packaging those talks tracks and techniques into bite-sized conversational roleplays that could be internalized via repetition. It seems obvious. And it is. But no one had ever done it this way before."
Most companies already know how they want their customer conversations to be conducted. But getting dispersed teams on a unified message takes a lot of work. Practis has devised a way to do it efficiently and at scale.
Kerr describes their invention as a professional language learning platform. But instead of learning Spanish or French, they're learning the "language" of their company.
"Entering a new industry or joining a new company can have a steep learning curve. It can take quite a while to become skilled at conveying all that new information with assurance and confidence. Unfortunately, most new hires are pushed out into the field without foundational fluency in the new language of their company. They end up practicing on customers and failing repeatedly until, hopefully, finding their voice. We wanted to give them a way to achieve fluency within our application without all the pressure of doing it in front of a customer."
Practis helps companies establish a single repository of the most commonly recurring conversational exchanges their people have daily with customers. These sales conversations cover a broad range of topics, such as value propositions, competitive differentiation, cost-benefit analyses, overcoming objections, pricing & promotions, product knowledge, closing tactics, etc.
Such documented exchanges represent the distillation of the most influential aspects of conducting a sale. These scenarios are then easily packaged and disseminated to learners on iOS, Android, or tablet, where learners can internalize the messaging via interactive roleplay. For companies who don't have scripts or don't know exactly what they want their employees to say, Practis crowdsources the methods of their top performers to help them craft the most impactful company messaging.
The content is then made available to learners as a ready resource in the palm of their hand, which conveniently integrates into their workday.
As Kerr says, "All we're doing is basically giving them the answers to the test within a learning mechanism that allows them to articulate it repeatedly until they make it their own. I think of it as a batting cage where you can perfect your swing or maybe an interactive mirror where you can privately practice and then quickly see and hear what the customer will see and hear."
Each learner on the platform receives immediate feedback via AI-generated scoring. Eventually, the learners are challenged to conduct the conversation on video without the aid of the script and must reach a minimum threshold score to complete the micro-learning module. Their video is then presented to their supervisor in a mobile app feed for quick and easy review.
Sales managers receive comprehensive reports on their team's progress, ensuring team transparency and accountability.
As a result, Practis boosts sales by closing the ever-present performance gap between the best salespeople and those in the bottom quartiles, generating measurable ROI in no time.
In a recent case study, Practis helped a company increase its sales conversions on an automated payment plan from 19.6% to 64% in just 30 days (resulting in $13MM in incremental revenue over the subsequent seven months).
Sales leaders recognize the skill set disparities within their teams, and sales professionals are acutely aware of when their words fail. Both sides want to improve, but without the right tools, their efforts are often in vain, leading to frustration, sales reluctance, and eventual employee turnover.
According to Kerr, "There's a big difference between understanding something conceptually and being able to confidently articulate it. Practis aims to close that gap by helping people internalize what to say when."
Practis provides a psychologically safe place for people to practice independently without being put on the spot in front of their colleagues or prospective clients.
Companies have long sought a solution that could train their people effectively in real-time and at scale, immediately impact performance, and directly correlate with driving revenue.
That's now possible...with Practis.
To learn more about the innovative Practis sales conversation simulator, visit gopractis.com.
