TechBytes with Nishant Mungali, Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at MindTickle

Nishant Mungali
Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer at MindTickle

We recently covered the appointment of sales veteran Cameron Essalat as VP of Sales at MindTickle. Their enterprise customers have very positive things to say on MindTickle helping them fill gaps in their sales productivity. We caught up with Nishant Mungali, MindTickle’s Co-Founder and Chief Product Officer to learn what goes into building a sales enablement powerhouse.

MTS: Would you run us through MindTickle’s data-driven approach to know who, what and how to enable your sales team?
Nishant Mungali: Utilizing MindTickle, sales leaders can ensure that their teams are properly equipped, with the knowledge and skills required to win, in a buyer-driven market. MindTickle provides reports and insights to the sales enablement and sales management teams. The enablement reports focus on overall adoption and engagement of training programs and the effectiveness of the training materials. The sales management reports enable managers to identify knowledge and skill gaps of their reps, for effective coaching. MindTickle is outcome-driven, meaning it’s not just the completion of training or role-play that is important, but also the tracking of performance back to the end-goals of any sales rep.

MTS: What does MindTickle mean by “streamline your sales onboarding by creating structured learning paths that dynamically adapt to your rep’s needs”?
Nishant: The onboarding needs of sales reps are different based on their role, what is expected of them, and how fast they can learn. It is important that sales reps get the time to fully ramp, but if this process can be accelerated, they can contribute to pipeline and revenue quicker. We recommend orchestrating role-based learning paths for the reps. The modules, assessments, and exercises in these courses unlock as they progress and are dynamically assigned based on rules like what date they joined, tenure, and learning performance, so that the reps can come up-to-speed faster by focusing only on what they need next. Traditional LMS (learning management systems) and internal Wikis do not allow for customization and, as a result, can lengthen onboarding time needlessly or make new hires learn information not relevant to their role.

MTS: How does combining sales training investment with coaching and measurement enhance its long-term impact?
Nishant: The training program focuses on developing knowledge in a streamlined and scalable way, but what it doesn’t offer is the personal attention the reps need, so they stay on track and motivated while developing a certain capability. This is exactly where the traditional LMS and classroom training falls short. The training programs, complemented with role-play certification and on-the-job coaching, ensures reps not only learn key information but are tested and certified on the application of that knowledge in specific sales scenarios. The right measurement and tracking ensure that key stakeholders are aware of the readiness of their sales team over time and can track improvement.

MTS: How much more training effectiveness do role-play and gamification engender in enabling sales reps for success?
Nishant: Role-play and gamification have quite a significant impact because they help reps travel the last mile of becoming truly ready for sales execution. We have found that training modules with quizzes and gamification increase engagement and time spent on that module by up to 38%. In addition, a global leading pharma company saw 86% of their reps respond to mobile training notifications, resulting in engagement spikes. Sales reps are inherently competitive – it’s what helps them be successful as reps to begin with – and the ability to track their own progress with training against their colleagues can also be motivating.

MTS: How different is MindTickle’s approach between training B2B vs B2C sales reps?
Nishant: The B2B reps need more in-depth training as they are selling more complex products. B2C reps mostly require mobile-enabled micro-learning to stay up-to-speed. Also, the ramp-up time of B2C reps is much shorter than B2B reps. MindTickle can be used to create both long learning paths with in-depth training and shorter learning paths for micro-learning on mobile. Even during sales coaching, the B2B reps need more practice on selling, which means a lot more focus on command over the message. That’s why different types of role-play scenarios for B2B reps are important. For B2B reps, we recommend field coaching using coaching sessions. For B2C reps, they may experience changing promotions and new products on a regular basis, getting bite-sized updates straight on their mobile device is helpful to keep them engaged and updated.

MTS: Thanks for chatting with us, Nishant.
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