Richard Brock

The Sales Manager’s Relevance Lens to Recorded Calls . . .

The Who, Why, and How of selecting key conversations and the Relevant parts of each to listen to.

The Math Problem:  if the average sales manager has 8 direct reports and the average rep records 25 hours of conversations per week, the manager is looking at 200 hours of recorded phone calls – per week.  Today, mangers often listen to sample calls blindly. On average, less than 1% of recorded calls are reviewed by Sales Managers because they don’t find it to be a productive use of their time.

Why?

Because they don’t have a Relevance Lens to focus their listening.  

Typically, Sales Managers focus just on calls about deals that are forecasted to close – which gives them good “peace of mind”. But what about all the other deals?

Sales Managers can make a bigger impact on revenues if they ONLY LISTEN TO: 

Selected minutes of calls that are qualified to close but not forecasted (based upon the info in the CRM), and

Where the Sales Manager can positively influence the outcome

Here’s the solution to the proposed math problem:

CRM reports will list the potential upside deals to monitor.

SalesTalk’s Interaction Insights will give Managers a concise overview of all calls pertaining to those opportunities, including: all instances of recorded calls, the number of times key topics were discussed, the last time a deal topic (Talking Point) was discussed, and the total time spent on each topic – for every call. 

The Story-So-Far gives the Sales Manager a clear, simple, and comprehensive view of everything that has been sent to, read by, said to, or said by the prospect.  The Story-So-Far is really a visual Call Map of recorded calls, allowing Managers to quickly see and focus on just the parts of the call that are most important to them. 

Sales Managers can simply click on the link to the recorded call shown in the Story-So-Far to start listening to the call – and use the “Begins” Time of each topic to go straight to the parts of recorded call that matter.

After listening to the key parts of the call, Sales Managers can quickly and easily make suggestions to their Sales Reps by simply clicking on the MundayMorning™ Deal Review. All suggestions and notes given by the Manager appear right in the Story-So-Far for immediate follow up by the Rep. 

Let us show you how SalesTalk can fully leverage your current technology stack to drive incremental revenue for your sales team.

The Epic Battle of Man Versus “their Machine”

Using the AI in “your Machine” to create the Relevance Advantage . . .

Much has been written about how the Internet has replaced the Sales Rep as the broker of information . . . that the buyer is 70% through their “buyer’s journey” before they will speak with anyone.

Before they will take the first call, the prospect has “worn out” Google (“their Machine”) finding all the products that might solve their problem.  Reps should assume that the prospect knows the competing products better than you do but if they take your call, then your company made the cut.

All true . . .

Since on average only one in eight prospects will answer your phone call, reps can’t prepare as they would if they knew they would be speaking to the prospect. So how can sales reps be sure they monetize the few and precious opportunities to talk to a prospect, especially not knowing which one on their call list will answer?

SalesTalk’s AI Generated TalkTraks™ uses the AI in “your Machine” (everything known about the prospect from your CRM and other data sources like ZoomInfo) to create and maintain a RELEVANT conversation with the prospect throughout the dialogue.

SalesTalk’s What2Say™ will generate a personalized Opening Statement based on prospect persona as well as a dynamic Call Guide of what should be discussed next:

  • In the sequence you should discuss relevant points
  • Based upon what is learned from the prospect.

Our Story-So-Far chronicles every interaction with a prospect, tracking the actual time and sequence that the prospect spent discussing different topics on the call, as well as the time spent looking at your videos or emails sent. 

Isn’t the actual time a prospect spent discussing a topic the best measure of their interest? Isn’t time spent the ultimate measure of Relevance?    I think most would agree that the only way to keep a prospect on the phone, is to stay relevant to their needs and engage their interest.

Can you see how using the AI in “your Machine” creates the Relevance Advantage over the Google research your prospect has done before they take your call?

Story So Far


Our Story So Far page shows the SEQUENCE of the discussion points during the call – providing the Sales Manager with the actual call flow and the actual time spent on each topic – to ensure the rep is following the proper sales sequences . . . .  a powerful coaching tool.  

The other key component of the Story So Far is the “begins” tab, which shows WHEN on the call the key point was discussed. 

This feature allows the user to quickly go the specific part of the recorded call they want to hear, saving significant time and frustration.  

This maximizes the value of your call recording solution by dramatically increasing the use of the recordings, because reps and managers can now easily select the short segments of interest to them. 

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Interactions Insights and Analytics


In this video, we will review how our Interactions Insights feature takes the information captured during a sales call and documents all instances within the call a key Point was discussed, and the duration of the time spent on each Point.  Duration is a key indicator of what is most important to the prospect.

 Let’s review a recent prospect call. Our Interactions page shows us the following in descending order, based on the duration of each Discussion Point:

  • Time of and duration of the call                                                                                         
  • All captured Discussion Points 

You will also see a Targeted Time Value given to several of the Discussion Points. These values represent the average time top reps usually spend covering these topics, and can be easily modified to more accurately reflect different sales roles – such as a new business rep vs an installed based rep, for example. 

We then calculate the actual time spent on each point and compare it to the targeted time, represented as a percentage. This is a great, easy-to-read report for Sales Managers to see where reps are spending their time on sales calls and how that compares to best practices.

Not all Discussion Points have Targeted Times associated with them for several reasons.  For instance, not all prospects would be interested in a particular feature. 

Since these topics may not be discussed on every call, giving them a targeted time may not be appropriate. What is appropriate (and helpful), is knowing which features were discussed . . . .  and for how long.

Our Interactions Insights provides sales pros with unparalleled views into the anatomy of a sales call, helping both reps and managers to easily and accurately review how, and where, they should be spending their time with the prospect to ensure the highest levels of sales success.

Introduction to TalkTagging


SalesTalk’s latest feature, TalkTagging, helps sales teams review and manage their sales conversations more quickly and effectively,  .  . and is immediately ready to go right out of the box. 

TalkTagging creates call maps of everything that is discussed in recorded phone calls or meetings, captures the sequence within the call a key Point was discussed, and the duration of the time spent on each Point – which is a key indicator of what is most important to the prospect.

Our Meeting Mapper includes the standard processes in a sales cycle for your team to use “as is”, or easily customize them by simply clicking on the “pencil” icon, to make the changes that are most relevant to them.

  • the green flag icon signifies that this Discussion Point has recently been added, allowing reps to easily see what’s new

To start TalkTagging, simply click this button to begin actual time tracking. As the rep begins the different phases of the call, they simply click on the topic being discussed. 

After the call, reps can easily update the status of the deal by clicking the CRM Updates section. All updates will be automatically synced back to the CRM, saving the reps significant time and improving the accuracy of the CRM. 

Our next video will cover our Interaction Insights & Analytics which help sales reps and managers to easily review call recordings for forecast validation and coaching against best practices. 

Thank you for your interest in SalesTalk!