AI-Powered Sales Roleplays: Revolutionizing Reinforcement Strategies

All right, well, thank you so much for that lovely introduction. As they said, my name is Lisa Ellis and I'm head of product at Sandler. And today I have a wonderful partner here with me with Varun, CEO at Yoodly. And today we want to talk about AI powered sales role plays and how this is going to revolutionize reinforcement strategies that actually work. And so as we jump into this today, I want to think about one big question here. And so the big question I have is, why do elite performers in every field train relentlessly except in sales? So, Varun, I'm going to throw this over to you and maybe you can tell me a little bit about how did you start Yoodli and how can it address this big challenge?

Yeah, it's a super question. I wish I had the answer. We all looking for it. I have some hypotheses and it's ironic, right? Ronaldo practices and LeBron James, no matter how good he is, is going to practice to hone that muscle, no matter what. For some reason, I think it's a cultural norm in sales where we don't practice as much. And I think it's got several reasons. One is I don't have time. And I think I'm already pretty good, right? I'm a seller, I can talk pretty well, I'm closing deals. Why do I need to practice? Especially when I have 15 minutes before the call? I think the second is it is so awkward. There is nothing more uncomfortable than asking a manager, a friend, a spouse to role play with you, to record you, to go through the hassle of coordinating and scheduling that. And then third, it is super cringy, right? If there's one thing I dislike more than asking somebody to evaluate me, it's to watch myself back on camera. Like, oh my God, I haven't shaved, I have this pimple. I the sound of my voice. And I think all of that coupled makes it very rare for salespeople to want to practice. And I think today's practice environments are very challenging, right? They don't scale, they aren't private, they kind of pushed on you, etc. Super quickly. Vision mission behind Yoodli is I'm Varun. I grew up in India. I came to the US for college, worked at Google. Google right after, where I was running special projects for Sergey Brin, one of the founders. And I realized that so many smart people in the world struggle to speak with confidence. I think it's extremely unfair that there are billions of kids back home in India who deserve the Sergey job. More than me or women who get talked over in corporate America or engineers who don't get the promotion because they may not back themselves while speaking. The vision behind Yoodly is how do we do to speaking what Grammarly has done to writing or duolingo to language learning? Provide people, not just sellers, but everyone, a private, real time and judgment free practice environment. Your private mirror that gives you meaningful feedback without anybody else knowing.

I think that's so compelling and that's one of the reasons why we were really excited when we discovered your product and decided to go in on this partnership with you. So I want to come back to why this is so hard in sales because I think you hit on a couple of things that are really important. So you know, when we think about practice and this is something that Sandler did revolutionize and this is what we were doing differently way before everyone else was talking not only about we have great content, we have wonderful training programs. We can come into your sales kickoff and get everybody energized about new ways of working. But we're going to stick with you. We want you to come back week after week through our president's club model, through our sales mastery program to get that opportunity to practice. And so Sandler has a long history of building professional learning communities. And our most successful implementations and our most successful clients are those that have adopted role play as part of their culture. But to your point, there's a lot of challenge with doing this. So, you know, I've been relearning how to golf recently and it, it comes back to, you know, I go to, I sign up for a clinic, I've got a pro there, they show me how to do the shot. I and I go off and I try and practice, but they're walking around talking to everybody else, giving them little pointers and I have to wait for them to get to me before they can tell me the angle of my shoulders is just a little bit off or I need to open my club head a little bit more to do exactly what they did. But I can go into the X golf down the road from my house and go into their swing suite and they've got cameras looking at me from every angle, giving me that analysis on every single swing. And this is what sales managers have struggled with with training. They've invested in the training, but the skills don't stick because you don't have that structured practice and reinforcement. Managers really struggle with that time for consistent coaching. Gartner has been putting out research for years showing that more time Spent coaching leads to better results. And yet managers still struggle to find that time. And there really isn't any hard data to look at who's improving and who needs help at a very granular skill level. And so this is what I was so excited when we saw you, Lee, and started talking about the partnership we could offer together. I think that, you know, what you shared in terms of that, that private experience is really powerful. Do you want to expand on that just a little bit?

Yep, totally. You know, I, I talked about the vision behind Yoodly, which is anyone who's practicing for a speech, an interview, a crucial conversation, a sales pitch, a CS renewal should have an opportunity to hone their skills in a private judgment free space while getting feedback using the incredible Sandler methodology. And at udli, we are trying to build this concept of AI role plays or role plays as a service. Right? Role plays for manager training, for crucial conversations, for CS renewal, for pitch accreditation, for sales takeoff. We are doing role plays all the time and we are already seeing a lot of really fun traction. So Google, Adobe Salesforce, Sandler Databricks, some of the largest companies in the world are already using Yoodly to train their entire salesforce. You know, maybe I can share my screen and show you the tool in action. Lisa, I am no Sandler seller, so I will try my best not to embarrass you.

You know what, I think that's probably the best thing for us to do is jump in here and let's, let's show it. So, vroom. Let's see your sales skills.

Okay. Awesome. Lisa, do you want to give folks a heads up on what the upfront contract is before I botch it?

Sure. So one of the core Sandler techniques. If you guys have ever been through a Sandler training, we're known for our upfront contract. It's a really great way to start and take control of the meeting from beginning while getting buy in and building trust with your prospect. So with that, I will let you run with this room. Go for it.

Perfect. So I'm here. I've got to practice my role play. I could practice it in any language. I could share my screen. There's a bunch more to it. In this case, I'm practicing the Sandler upfront contract. I've got to set an agenda. At the start. I'm having this call with Agnes Potts from ufc. I'm not great, so I'm pretty nervous. I'm a first time rep. Let's see how it goes. Lisa, just give me a thumbs up if you can hear audio on the other end.

Okay.

Well.

Hello there.

Looking forward to our discussion today?

I mean, Lisa, Sorry, Agnes, I'm just so excited for our discussion. I'm a first time rep. I saw you clicked on our talk to sales button. I mean, we can just help you with all of your problems. What's most top of mind for you today to make the most of this meeting.

Thanks for having me today. I should mention right up front that I only have 45 minutes for our discussion, not the full hour we originally planned. I'd appreciate it if you could set a clear agenda for our time together.

One second. I mean, Agnes, I was under the impression we have a full hour. Like this is my first deal. I was going to hit quota. I have a full script prepared. Like I don't know how we're going to manage this and this is not fair and like my manager will be upset. Obviously I did that for dramatic effect. This is not how Sandler coaches people. In fact, this is not how anyone should do a sales pitch. But the idea is I have a near realistic role play. Yoodly understands my context, goes back and forth with me and practicing this mini module or E workout for an upfront contract. And then within seconds, Allah Grammarly I get instant feedback on how I did. So I've got a transcript with how I did. Lisa is my manager, my mentor, my friend, someone I trust. I'm going to send her. Is it Lisa Ellis? There we go. And say Lisa, oh my God, how can I improve?

Ah, so nervous.

Yeah. But the gist is within seconds I've got feedback on my tone, pitch, intonation, body language. I talk too much, I talk too fast. I'm way out of the charts in this pitch. But more importantly, how have I done relative to Sandler's unique methodology? Maybe Lisa, do you want to talk through that?

Yeah. So I have to tell you, Varun, we can help you with that sales pitch if you want some advice there. But so you can see here we have a. There's two big elements of our onfront contract. You hit all the four elements of it which are seeing the meeting's purpose, confirming the time elements, outlining the agenda and confirming the outcome you're looking for. So you can see the feedback here is really pointed, exactly what you should be doing based off of what he actually did or didn't do and then the permission to say no. This is another big part of Sandler is we teach that you should invite your prospect to decline the interaction. And so that's Another part of this. So this is a compound goal and that's one of the things we love about the yoodlee system is the ability to create meaningful feedback based off of our proven methodology and what we know works in terms of driving better sales conversations. So, Varun, thank you so much for doing that. I'm going to go ahead and take share back here for a second so I can share what I see on my side because you just shared that.

With me and Lisa's as Lisa's pulling that up.

Right.

I got feedback in private. Nobody knows I've used the tool. I can practice as many times as I want. And then, you know, my manager, in this case Lisa, my sales leader, can customize it based on specific things they want their apps to work on.

Lisa, back to you.

You can put this in here and drop a little comment. I'd recommend slowing down and start by asking a few critical questions. So that might be some advice I give back to Varun. It's going to pop up in here. I can also come in and see these in depth insights so I can see them as a manager, coach, friend. I can come in here and see what the system suggested to him and they continue to support and add feedback. If I wanted to show him. What should you actually say when the prospect comes back and says, you know what, I only have 45 minutes, I could go in and practice this and then send it back to him of here's what I would do, here's how I would respond. So that's one of the really cool things about the platform.

So I'm going to stop my share again and come back to our slides here in just a sec. Get my screens aligned.

So Varun, one of the things I'm curious about, as you've been talking with some of your customers and thinking about this, what are some of the big results and the success stories that you're starting to see from your customer base?

Yeah, and you know, maybe Lisa, I'll defer to you on the exact numbers, but themes of what we are learning today are one. For the first time, a learner actually wants to engage with practice. Right. This isn't me doing a quiz, watching a passive video, maybe even, you know, literally sitting on the toilet and be like, okay, I'm letting the video go for 20 minutes and now I'm done. So people want to engage with this as end learners. Second, the versatility has been really helpful, which is I'm introduced to this platform when I have Pitch accreditation for Sales Kickoff as an example but my God, I'm going to prepare for like, stand up tomorrow and deal review. And as a manager, I'm going to use this to practice as well. And that's been awesome. And then the third piece is, you know, I've talked a lot about the enterprise, but organically, as folks have been introduced to Yoodli, they've said, oh, like, you know, my daughter's applying for a job and she needs help with interviewing stuff. And well, we've got this executive keynote as well and we need to help folks with that. And it's organically been spreading through word of mouth, which is, you know, also how we met you, which has been really, really exciting.

And I love that interview story. We actually had part of our beta group with one of our franchisees. Their son was working on interviews and he's like, can I get a license for my son so we can practice? And so the versatility of this platform is amazing. But I do want to talk about some of the results that we're starting to see here. Now, Sandler has a proven track record of moving the needle big time on sales performance results. We already know that our stuff works with higher win rates, better conversions, reduced sales cycle time. But to your point, this solution together is pulling people into engage and really wanting to practice having that safe space. So that role play you just did, if you wanted to say, oh gosh, nobody should ever see that as an end user, you don't have to share that with your manager. As your manager, I couldn't see that unless you chose to share it with me, which I think provides a lot of psychological safety. That has been historically very hard when you're setting up those professional learning communities and role plays that we've done typically with our clients at Sandler. The other thing is the operational efficiency. For a long time, Sandler offered a silver certification. This is now our expert certification. And the big validation to earn that certification was a role play, demonstrating that you could do the Sandler pain funnel, you could do our closing techniques, run an effective upfront contract, but we would be doing that together in person. We would train leaders and managers and our facilitators would run off a rubric. Now, we can leverage this system to do this at scale for large enterprises. And this means data driven coaching, faster ramp times for new hires, really great benefits. And so all of this together, I just want to say that we have a ton of potential here. So if you want to get started with this, you want to think about it, you can add this to existing Sandler training programs, you can deploy this as a standalone solution. You could also work with Sandler and Yuli to customize this for your sales motion. Because that's one of the things that I think is so powerful. Not only do we have the Sandler stuff in here, but but we bring your products, your services, your buyer Personas into the experience so that you're not just getting trained on Sandler, but in your real world environments.

So with that, I'll. I think Gerhard and Joe may have some questions for us.

Before. Super quickly, everyone, maybe we won't share this with you, but the way Lisa and I practice for this was on. Yoodly pointed out, you know, all kinds of issues with our speech yesterday. So hopefully you've seen us improve. If not, you know, you're on the wrong platform.

Yeah.

I'd like to hear from Lisa how you help salespeople learn the upfront contract.

Yeah, absolutely. So the upfront contract, typically what we do, Sandler's engagement will vary by organization. Sometimes large enterprises are looking at getting their teams up to speed quickly. We might deploy one of our E learning solutions supported with the AI roleplay. So we'll explain what this is, go over the concepts and then immediately in the next thing you're going to go in and practice this with your AI Persona or avatar in the YOUDLI platform as part of that learning experience. So you're not only seeing it modeled and understand the why behind it, but, but you're getting to see how effective it can be right away. We do this through our instructor led training programs. It's a best practice for that. But now we take some of that pressure off by also having this safe space to do this after the session. Because when we do this in our instructor led sessions, we actually don't ask the participants to try the upfront contract first. What's happening is we ask them to play their prospect and our facilitators are the ones who do the upfront contract. So we'll still continue to do that. That's the best practice. Anytime you're showing somebody a new skill, you want to model it first, but then you want to give them the opportunity to have that safe practice, try it out and get better. I can tell. Oh yeah, go ahead, give me the words. Oh, the upfront contract. Gotcha. Excuse me, Sorry. That terrible flu that's going around. I'm sorry to hear them. No, that's all right. It's little kids definitely bring all that stuff home. But so an upfront contract start with, you know, hey, Gerhard, we've got 25 minutes today to cover the Sandler AI roleplay solution. Does that time still work for you?

Yeah, absolutely.

Great. Is there anything else that you want to talk about on the call today?

Well, I want to know whether I can get a good group price because we have two that salespeople that needs training.

Absolutely. I'm excited to talk about some of our scaled options for you. So we'll definitely get to that on the call today. If at any point we're having this conversation, if this doesn't feel like it's a good fit for you, can you commit to just letting me know that and we can part ways and sprints?

Absolutely.

Awesome. Now, at the end of the call today, here's what amazing looks like in my mind. You'll have a better understanding of what our capabilities are, how this addresses your needs for your large sales population. And, and we agree to some next steps, probably some introductions to your technology team as well as some of your sales leaders. Does that sound like a good next step after the call today?

Yes, it does.

Great. Let's get started. So that is what a real upfront contract would look like.

Thank you. And the reason I wanted to put you on the spot is to make a really important point. So many sales trainers, they claim that they can elevate the customer conversation and every salesperson wants conversation mastery. But what you have just demonstrated is that it takes a different skill to structure a conversation. And a good sales conversation is like a shirt that you button. If the first button is wrong, all the other buttons are wrong. And the first button should always be the upfront contract.

Absolutely. I love that analogy. So Gerhard, you are truly a Sandler expert there.

And I want to share one more thing. The favorite quote from David Sandler that gives everybody pause to think. It's not the feelings that influence the action, it's the actions that influence the feelings. And that is really he, he once said that the selling is like a Broadway play directed by a psychiatrist. And Sandler offers more psychological insight in human interaction, in conversation, in relation to yourself and with other people. And that's why I'm so excited that you could share your insights. And not only that, but invite a tech genius who can allow people to practice their skills and feel their way into new action.

Absolutely. And I think that's, you know, we, we looked at a lot of providers out there and what we love about the Yoodly platform is that it, it analyzes all of that wonderful back and forth. Their avatars really make that conversation Feel real so that it. It mimics that real life vibe. So I have to say that that's wonderful. And the reason why I was able to do such a strong upfront contract with you just now has because I have practiced that about 50 times in the Yoodly platform as we've been getting this stood up. And my scores have improved over time. So I just. I did that on a demo the other day, and I got my highest score ever and I got so excited. So wonderful. It's like.

Yeah, it's like, Joe, he can speak to that because as an. You need to rehearse your lines. And I remember reading about Jack Lemmon. He was a brilliant actor. He demonstrated once on how to pronounce a sentence like, 14 different times in 14 different ways. Joe.

Tell me about your most difficult line in all the movies that you have been in and how you prepared yourself.

Well, before I even do that, can I share a Jack Lemmon story?

Sure.

Okay. So my uncle was an actor, and he was in the movie the Apartment with Jack Lemmon, which won The Oscar in 1960, I believe, 59 or 60. And I remember my uncle telling me, he said, you know, when you work with Jack and you're rehearsing your scenes, he likes to do it. Like you just said, so many different ways, so many different inflections just so that he can work the muscle, so that now when we go to shoot it, he's so open that he can go anywhere with whatever happens organically. So I just thought that was. You mentioned Jack Lemmon, and. And that's how Jack Lemmon would work with a lot of his actors. So it was kind of. Kind of cool. But in regards to.

A line or that. I had.

A really difficult time, there's been a couple of spots, and here's why they were difficult for me. One, I was working opposite Arnold Schwarzenegger in the Batman movie, and the other, I was working opposite Sylvester stallone in Rocky 5. And why the. Why these were so difficult? I don't know necessarily if it was hard lines, but here are two iconic figures that I can't even believe I'm working opposite. And with Arnold Schwarzenegger, just the mere fact of coming onto the set and. And meeting him. Well, even Stallone, they're both bigger than life. So it's almost like you really have to. I think when it comes to difficult lines, you really have to have a process and a protocol to settle yourself down. Because the moment as a performer, if we start thinking hard about the lines and. And you could just feel your, your body. Just for instance, Lisa, when, when Gerhard asked you, let me hear the upfront contract, I'm sure you went like this a little bit. Okay, here we go. I did this 50 times. I sure hope this goes well because we're on the air. So with the actor, we know immediately when that happens of just how to really bring down that whole energy that we have so that we can now start thinking clearly. So whenever we, we. We're on set and maybe if it's the actor or when I did the show, er and I was playing a doctor and I had all this medical stuff, I just really have to slow my brain down so that it can think clearly. And that's where I run into trouble from playing a doctor or something like that. When you have all that medical jargon and as the actor, you really have to slow down and just trust in your process. Does that answer.

Do you think that Varun's tool and technology could help actors perform better?

Oh, absolutely, absolutely. I think it's a, I think you have a fine, A fine interface of. They, they both complement each other. Where you have that, that work that you know, people can see. And then like with acting and even with selling and with presenting, it's. It's really an emotional, like what is moving you emotionally. And I think when we, when we get to that and, and Varon, just by seeing what your process does, I think it'd be great for actors. I really love that.

No, I mean, thank you, thank you for saying that super quickly. Obviously I want, I want to focus on, on the sales aspect. We actually working with several folks in the theater, voice coaching, speech coaching world who are using it for this exact use case. A really interesting one actually has been medical schools and you know, folks in the pharma industry using this to simulate doctor patient interactions. How do you help doctors with really difficult end of life conversations? You know, maybe, maybe that's a different talk, but would love to, you know, maybe, maybe talk more about what we're doing on the Sandler side and see how we can help them as well.

I think that to tie it back to Sandler, I've got the full circle here because one of the big things we teach as part of our communication block is bonding and rapport is that it's more than just what you say it, is how you say it. Because you know, Gerhard, you made that good point. If you have the structure and that's great, you know what to say, you know what order to say it in. But how you say it. That tonality, your pacing, your pitch, your body language. This system not only gets the words, how you're structuring it, but it's looking at that pacing. It's looking at your pitch. Do you make eye contact? Are you centered in your screen for virtual sales calls? All of that comes together in this really powerful feedback.