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SafetySkills is a team that specializes in competency-based and engaging online safety training for enterprise organizations. They use Ambition to power their BDR and AE sales teams. They measure sales activities, conduct pipeline checkins, and use gamification tactics from contests to leaderboards to run an efficient, productive sales force. Here is a look into how sales manager Justine Edwards uses Ambition in her day-to-day:
What's your winning sales tech stack?
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Aircall
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Salesforce
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ZoomInfo
How do you start your day as a manager in Ambition?
As a manager I am using the leaderboard to check activity metrics to see where the team is at.
What do the reps do?
BDRs are always checking their dashboards to see their weekly progress towards targets. It’s more common for them to use Ambition than Salesforce for this, as it’s easier to see clearly where they’re at.
They love checking their rank compared to others, and often make a push to get ahead of others!
What's your contest mix?
Contests are a huge motivator for our team so we try to keep a good mix of the types and lengths of competitions we have running with at least 1 contest running at any given time.
We have quarterly contests that are a pretty big deal, the last few weeks are often particularly engaging when the competitions are close. Reps start reaching out to their managers to see how many opps are pending for the others in the running for 1st place.
Reps have the opportunity to leave early on Friday if they have hit activity and outcome goals for the week.
In the office we used to do themed days, like harry potter or the olympics. We would have lunch catered, dress up for the eme, and just really push the activity and energy that day.
Since being remote we are trying to come up with new competition ideas. We recently did an outdoor, socially distanced event to just get the team together. We’re going to brainstorm with the team for what’s next, what would be motivating as a prize, how long of a competition and what metrics, etc.
We like including the team on these decisions because we feel it increases buy-in and we know we are incentivising them in a way that works.
How do you coach the team?
With a large team it's hard to constantly be available to answer questions, so we created daily coaching hours at 10 am and 2pm. We alternate who is hosting those hours between our execs, managers, and team leads so that there is always someone available twice a day ready to immediately answer questions.
The coaching tool in Ambition, particularly the recurring check-ins, have been a helpful way for reps to answer questions about how they’re doing and give a quick update to leadership. Reps complete a check-in weekly, with updates on their pipeline.
The team also splits into groups each month for peer call reviews. Each rep shares one call they want feedback on, and groups of typically 3-4 people meet ready to share feedback on what they feel went well and what they could change for next time. While the feedback on the call is great, I think the best part has been the team-building and critical thinking on how to differently approach the various situations. They’re learning from not only their own call feedback, but the advice they are giving and hearing given to others as well.
How do you make sure the team is moving forward and improving?
Making data based decisions has been a big focus this year. One example is we ran an analysis to see when our reps typically have the most connected calls. We look at this as a team and per individual, because it can sometimes vary, but we found that across the board Monday mornings are a great call time. Yet we had traditionally held our weekly team meeting every Monday at 9am, which interfered with calls occurring obviously. So we switched our meeting to the afternoons, in order to give them access to those highly productive hours.
Learn More about SafetySkills here.
