One of Chorus’ newest reps, Amanda Jones, ramped 80% faster by leveraging Conversation Intelligence. She was able to go from her first day to a closed-won deal all within 24-days.
I sat down with her to understand how she did it.
The Sales Onboarding Experience #
In today’s new normal, sales reps who join a new company are not only working against the clock to ramp up quickly but also dealing with the unforeseen burden of onboarding remotely. This means no easy way to shadow calls with new colleagues, learn a new sales process, or get much-needed facetime in front of new managers and executive leaders.
The average ramp time for a sales rep is 4.2 months, according to the 2019 SaaS AE Report by The BridgeGroup. That’s an incredible amount of time before the sales rep is customer-ready, and we all know sales reps want to dive in and start adding value immediately.
So what’s the hold-up? Deals take time, and by the time a rep has properly shadowed the average deal cycle from start to finish, they’re well into month two or three (or more, depending on the sales cycle).
A strong onboarding process can help new reps start quota crushing quickly.
Here’s what Amanda had to say about how Conversation Intelligence enhanced her onboarding experience and helped her close her first deal in a matter of weeks.
Typically it takes months before you really experience a full sales cycle, but with Chorus I was able to digest an entire deal from start to finish within minutes.
Onboard Faster with Conversation Intelligence #
Amanda came to Chorus with an eager mindset. “I want to be the best as fast as I can,” she said.
And, through Conversation Intelligence and onboarding, she did it. “I was able to feel fully ramped up and close a deal. All in 24 days.”
Salespeople are a motivated group. All reps are eager to dive in and hit the ground running. But for many, getting to that customer-ready state can be a grueling, time-consuming process.
But with Conversation Intelligence at the ready, it doesn’t have to be.
Conversation Intelligence with Chorus was truly the driving force behind Amanda’s ability to ramp up so quickly. She used the platform to study top-performing reps and get coaching feedback. In her off time, she’d listen to curated playlists of calls by top reps to nail down the best pitches, objection handling techniques, engaging questions, and more.
When she needed to brush up on specific topics, she would use deal trackers.
“Trackers were really powerful to me. For example, I wanted to learn more about a certain competitor. Trackers allowed me to find those powerful calls, real quick, and continue to sharpen that skill set.”
Scorecards were a game-changer that expedited Amanda’s onboarding and rapport building with her manager and team.
“These scorecards helped to keep us aimed at something particular based on our training,” she said. “I could go in and see where someone did it better and then listen to that call. It was also my hub for receiving coaching tips and feedback from my manager.”
To Amanda, the most powerful onboarding accelerator was the ability to experience a full deal cycle, from qualification to close, right off the bat.
“Typically it takes months before you really experience a full sales cycle, but with Chorus I was able to digest an entire deal from start to finish within minutes.”
Record-Breaking Deal by Chorus’ Newest Rep #
As if going from day-one to customer-ready in a matter of weeks wasn’t enough, Amanda used Chorus to completely revamp her skills as a salesperson. She improved her individual sales process around note-taking, active listening, and relationship-building on prospect calls.
“You used to have to put all these notes into a CRM, get up early to do a deal review to figure out all the ways a deal could go wrong,” said Amanda. But with Chorus, you can review a call in detail with accurate recording and transcription, thereby getting rid of your manual notetaking. And Chorus’ AI will proactively flag deal risks so reps and managers know exactly where to hone in.
It’s also helped her improve her active listening skills. Instead of worrying about whether she’s capturing all the key points of the conversation and marking follow-up items, she’s able to laser focus on what the prospect is actually saying. This way, she can more precisely understand what they truly care about.
After each call, she’s able to review the recording, search for key points in the conversation, and comment or tag relevant internal stakeholders to share snippets of the meeting.
“This entire process has taken my preparation time down from an hour to maybe 15minutes,” she said. And it’s empowered internal stakeholders with the ability to hear prospect requests firsthand.
Amanda is a tenured rep, so with her level of experience in strategic sales, I was curious how much credit she gives Chorus for helping her close her first deal versus relying on her skills alone.
Her response: 80%.
“People will always say, ‘Oh it’s just being in the right place at the right time,’ but no. With Chorus I was able to uncover 2-3 additional areas of need that weren’t in the initial BDR discovery handoff notes. Had I not had Chorus to review that initial call and see the added context behind those notes, then those little details would’ve slipped through the cracks, and I wouldn’t have been able to drive value as quickly as I did.”
A data-driven sales motion is a key part of Amanda’s arsenal. She knew her prospect was passionate about data, so in her follow-up demo, she highlighted key data points from their previous call to showcase she understood what the prospect really cared about.
This level of detail was only made possible with Chorus.
“Had I not had that level of insight to tailor my demo, I wouldn’t have been able to hard-close him on the right fit. He was evaluating other competitors too and decided to go with us because of the way I was able to tailor the demo to their needs. That helped build a foundation of trust and understanding that Chorus is going to be a true partner and help achieve their goals.”
Conversation Intelligence Helps you Close Deals Faster #
It’s no secret that adding a layer of data and intelligence to your sales process will help you understand your prospects better and close deals faster.
Data and sales intelligence can also help each arm of your go-to-market org - from sales to customer success to marketing - ramp up and drive value, fast.
Just think how much more powerful your team could be if every rep closed their first deal in 24-days.
Unlock the benefits of Conversation Intelligence with Chorus today, and start seeing an immediate impact tomorrow.
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