How Flexential Uses Video Coaching to Transform Sales Readiness for Customer-Facing Teams

In the highly competitive IT infrastructure market, Flexential’s sales team needs to be prepared to articulate the company’s value for its sophisticated and robust product line.  Previously, Flexential relied on a traditional LMS for training, but had no way of knowing if the reps were able to demonstrate mastery of key messages and material they learned.

David Castor, Senior Learning Manager for Flexential’s sales enablement team, said the need for insight into sales readiness led him and his team to seek a solution that could better engage all of their customer-facing employees; from sales solution engineers to customer success managers.  And when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Flexential had the platform to shift all their in-person, onboarding and training to remote learning and coaching.

David and the sales enablement team created a three-part certification course for their Cloud and Managed Services (CMS) solution. The first two parts focus on cloud basics, market overview and product knowledge and positioning, with knowledge checks after each course for validation.

The final part of the certification is a video coaching activity for reps to demonstrate their knowledge and skills with a role play scenario. As David points out, “this is tougher than a standard quiz because the reps get in front of the camera, and physically present our value proposition as if they were in presenting to a customer. The video challenge is the real test for the certification.”

Each manager selects the best video example from their teams for promotion to the leaderboard to capture best practices and foster peer learning among the reps. For inspiration, and some fun competition, the leaderboard submissions are turned into a course for the entire sales organization to vote on the top three, with the winners receiving cash prizes.

With in-person training events now fully remote due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Flexential uses video coaching activities to replace live role play presentations.  Coaching challenges include whiteboard presentations that help managers validate and measure how new hires have mastered the information learned from boot camp.

Flexential does not depend solely on sales reps to achieve their revenue goals; solution engineers provide critical technical guidance to prospects and customer success managers help clients achieve their business goals throughout the customer journey.  For this reason, Flexential uses Brainshark to train and coach all their customer-facing teams with tailored coaching challenges and content specific to their job roles.

Video coaching will continue to be a pivotal aspect of Flexential’s enablement program, with plans to roll out challenges on a team-by-team basis to address gaps in knowledge or skills.  Their advice to other Brainshark customers; be specific, make sure the challenge is relevant and be mindful of how long the activity will take.