Leveraging AI for Better Sales Conversation Training & Coaching

Sales Conversation Coaching: How Does It Relate to Communication? 

You may think it’s difficult to keep sales conversation training fresh and move coaching beyond guesswork. After all, countless experts keep referring to the same skills and advice to improve sales pitches. In the following section, you will learn how the best AI-based technology can convert even the most subtle conversation variables into actionable data to enhance your sales team’s collective and individual performance. 

But first, notice that some of the most common advice to enhance sales conversations — and therefore impact training and coaching programs — relate to communication. The information below is a part of the sales conversations improvement tips from the UK Data and Marketing Association and ones on which you may often train your field force: 

1. Build confidence skills so they can qualify their customers accurately

As any sales trainer knows, the first step to successfully selling a product or service is to qualify buyers, which requires a high level of confidence from each rep. If a prospect is not ideal or even interested in purchasing, they can end up wasting their customer’s time, which is never good when they’re trying to build a relationship. 

Your sales reps can develop confidence by making a comprehensive list of questions and asking them directly to understand the buyer’s intent from early on in the conversation. It is always best not to make assumptions and instead, sharpen their senses to guide the chat towards the desired next action. Showing self-assured body language, whether in-person or virtual, will be a great asset in this particular part of the process, and this could be all part of confidence training.

2. Develop skills to create relationships beyond the sales conversation

Your reps can learn to apply strategies from the best sales conversation training while the pitch takes place. But they must also pay attention to the following phases of the purchasing journey to establish a genuine relationship. 

Potential customers must feel confident and trust your sales reps can deliver value. To develop that trust and establish credibility, rapport is crucial. Good connection requires your field force to have an open mind, listen carefully, and show genuine interest in the other party’s needs, all of which are essential connection skills.

3. Practice empathetic listening

The most effective sales interactions involve a fluid dialogue rather than a unilateral presentation. Listening is an essential element of these exchanges. 

Your sales team must train to keep an open mind, stay curious, and ask about their prospects’ unique challenges and needs so they can understand them better and offer a solution. Listening with empathy will allow your field force to establish an authentic relationship which will create the foundation for their pitches and hopefully an engaging response from the customer.

Related: Can Digital Technologies Make Us Better Humans?

4. Exercise emotional intelligence

More than 70% of buyers say they are highly influenced by sellers who demonstrate what is possible or how to solve a problem with their product or service. But, believe it or not, this is also the second most significant challenge for salespeople, with 89% claiming that it was difficult for them.

This can be just one of the many components of emotional intelligence your sales conversation training should exercise. Knowing how your reps communicate and encouraging them to be in the prospect’s shoes will always help them have a more compelling pitch and improve sales conversation training with the resulting data. 

When they truly understand each prospect’s issues and struggles, demonstrate empathy, and acknowledge the obstacles they face, they will be able to build trust by positioning the offer correctly and with confidence.

It is now evident that effective sales conversations involve more than a casual chat and provide a way to explore the customer’s concerns, fears, and desires. Sales conversation training and coaching should aim to develop specific communication skills that are crucial to understanding the prospect’s needs, as well as the outcomes they are endeavoring to achieve. 

Although these skills may seem simple to teach, they have historically been difficult to measure, much less to scale. As a sales manager or coach, you may assume that your entire team needs training around these topics, but how can you measure progress in these areas? Read on to learn.

Can You Measure Communication? The Answer is Yes; with science-backed AI

After learning these tips to enrich sales conversation training, it is possible you’re wondering how you can get accurate data from human interactions to design effective programs for your sales teams.

In order to create an objective, efficient way to measure sales communication, the latest technology combines data analytics, computer science, and a vast database of professional communication benchmarks.

Several academic studies measured content for years, and industry leaders built a modern solution with the power of this existing research. Artificial intelligence (AI) analyzes and tracks content objectively and automatically by combining these studies with a natural language processing system (converting human language to understandable computer code). 

Modern algorithms can evaluate the content, such as sales conversations videos, on several core communication metrics. Based on the interaction’s intended purpose and audience, you’ll be able to use the most pertinent variables, aiding your evaluation and training programs to reach your specific communication objectives.

Measuring What to Say, How You Say It, and What Your Audience Thinks

Four main components make up each human interaction. The first three are directly related to your sales representative’s performance. The last one covers your audiences’ response, their perceptions of their impact based on their behaviors:

• Content
• Visual delivery
• Vocal delivery
• Audience perception 

Every sales conversation training must cover and care about each of them to ensure your team members’ message lands precisely as you intended. With the help of technology, you can measure these components over a number of factors to identify how effective their interactions are.

You must consider more than just the content. Measuring both vocal and visual delivery is equally, if not more, important. The most modern platforms in the industry can assist you in achieving this goal by leveraging a combination of automated voice processing, facial expression analysis, machine learning algorithms, assessments by communication experts and real-world audience response:

• A comprehensive voice analysis program allows you to analyze vocal characteristics such as changes in pitch or rate. 
• Software for measuring micro-facial expressions, such as smiling and eye contact, analyzes facial movements and patterns. 
• Supervised machine learning algorithms measure other delivery skills- such as the use of fillers. 
• Specialized features will let you detect and track subtle communication events and other intangible, yet critical, aspects, such as empathy, passion, and authenticity.

These algorithms were built from responses from real audiences and experts over numerous years. A diverse and demographically representative group of highly skilled communication professionals and audiences served as the participants. The resultant AI takes the context of the event into account and the viewer, and cultural norms around the world.

Quantified combines the latest in data statistics, computer science, and human expertise with a vast database of professional communication benchmarks. Founded on decades of technological advancements and research Quantified’s measurement methodology is revolutionizing the way sales conversation training and coaching takes place. 

As a result, people no longer have to attend generic workshops, worry about whether coaches are competent, or spend months putting together focus groups. Instead, they can learn from accurately measured behavioral changes using efficient, completely objective communication analyses built on AI.

Organizations face an increasing number of sales demands, which means objectivity, efficiency and scalability are crucial. As a sales leader, you will feel less pressure and prepare best-in-class communicators with the best platform. The team at Quantified is delighted to help you achieve outstanding results in measuring communication, and we look forward to having our methodology become a crucial part of your company and your team. Better conversations. Better outcomes. Request a demo now.