January 23, 2025 • 23 mins
Previously this season, we explored how AI is transforming the world of sales coaching. Today, in this episode, we’re diving a bit deeper into that topic by chatting with two incredible guests from the AI coaching platform, Yoodli.
Varun Puri, Co-Founder of Yoodli, and Ajay Jain, Head of Training and Enablement at Yoodli are here to break down exactly how their platform is revolutionizing the way sales professionals refine their communication skills.
Both bring such great points to the table, like:
- How AI coaching can be a really great “batting cage” for sellers
- Why AI tools like Yoodli are making the idea of practice fun versus it feeling like homework
- And, finally, how AI can take someone from a zero to an 8, but to get from an 8 to a 10? You need a human in the loop.
LINKS:
Varun Puri
Ajay Jain
Yoodli
Matt Sunshine
Practice Coach AI
The Center for Sales Strategy
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Matt Sunshine (00:05):
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a
podcast highlighting tips andinsights aimed at helping sales
organizations realize, and maybeeven exceed, their goals.
Here we chat with thoughtleaders, experts and gurus who
have years of sales experiencefrom a wide range of industries.
I'm your host, matt Sunshine,ceo at the Center for Sales
Strategy, a sales performanceconsulting company.
(00:27):
Previously this season, weexplored how AI is transforming
the world of sales coaching.
Today, in this episode, we'rediving a bit deeper into that
topic by chatting with twoincredible guests from the AI
(00:47):
coaching platform, Yoodli.
Varun Puri, co-founder of Yoodli, and Ajay Jain, head of
training and enablement atYoodli, are here to break down
exactly how their platform isrevolutionizing the way sales
professionals refine theircommunication skills.
Both bring such great points tothe table, like how AI coaching
(01:10):
can be a really great battingcage for sellers, why AI tools
like Yoodli are making the ideaof practice fun versus it
feeling like homework.
And, finally, how AI can takesomeone from a zero to an eight,
but to get from an eight to a10, you still need that human in
the loop.
With that, let's jump into theconversation.
(01:33):
Varun, let's start with you.
Can you share the story behindYoodli?
I mean, what inspired you, yourco-founder.
What inspired you to co-found acompany that's focused on AI
(01:56):
communication coaching?
Varun Puri (01:58):
Yeah, first off, matt, huge thank you for having
me here.
What an honor.
It's awesome to be working withyou and to be on your show and
to be talking about the Yoodlidream my favorite thing to do.
Look, I think the dream issimple.
It's too many smart people inthe world struggle to speak with
confidence and they miss out onopportunities they deserve
(02:20):
because they don't backthemselves.
This is the introvert, thewoman who gets talked over in
corporate America, the immigrant, the non-native English speaker
, the kid in India, a version ofmyself who came to the US,
struggled, trying to fit inpractice in front of a mirror, a
camera, a stopwatch.
Wasn't proud enough to ask afriend to give feedback.
(02:44):
Stopwatch wasn't proud enoughto ask a friend to give feedback
, and I just think we can helpso many people with this idea of
private and judgment-freefeedback.
I don't think AI is necessarilythe solution.
I think the problem's moreexciting.
We think AI can be part of it.
If not AI, we'll find anotherway to come and hit it.
Matt Sunshine (03:04):
Yeah, I love the why, right, I love the purpose.
I love the why behind thecompany.
I think having that why drivesfantastic solutions, but you got
to have that why.
So, for anyone listening tothis that is unfamiliar with
Yoodli, can you give us anoverview of how the platform
works and what makes it uniquein the coaching space?
Varun Puri (03:28):
Yep, I'll try to keep it short.
One-liner is Yoodli's likeGrammarly for speech, when you
think about private real-timeanalytics or the equivalent of
what Duolingo has done tolanguage learning, but in this
case, for speech coaching,Yoodli's like your private
judgment-free mirror.
You can come and practice forany conversation, a crucial
(03:49):
conversation, a podcast likethis, a speech, an interview, a
date and Yoodli will go back andforth with you and then give
you personalized feedback on howyou can improve.
Matt Sunshine (04:01):
Yeah, and I will tell you as someone who has used
the product it's amazing.
It's just, it's so hard.
I find when I describe it Idon't do it justice, like that's
the best.
I just want people to see itand I'm so proud.
At the Center for SalesStrategy, we are partners, we
(04:21):
work together.
We customize the Yoodli toolsfor our sales coaching so that
our clients can take advantageof it.
But tell us, how does Yoodlisupport customization for
organizations so it aligns withtheir unique needs?
Varun Puri (04:41):
Yeah, it's a great question.
You know, I was at Googlebefore this and I realized
Google had a gazillion trainings, new pricing, new packaging.
Well, there's an AE who's beenput on a pip, a sudden new
Android announcement and folkswill be running around trying to
figure out how to get you knowpeople trained up and ready in
the Google methodology.
(05:01):
This might be call them users,not customers, or start with a
smile, or whatever that might be.
Band, medic, med pic everyonehas their own version.
Could be use the rule of threes, pause here, et cetera.
And the idea is look,organizations across the world
have their own way of conductingtrainings.
Let them take Yoodli, make ittheir own.
(05:22):
Same way CSS has around yourbespoke curriculum, your content
, your way of doing things and,ideally, Yoodli is just an
augmentation of the human coach.
It's not nearly as good enoughas a human coach, but it's a
really good batting cage orpractice tool that feels like
it's from the human coach.
Matt Sunshine (05:41):
Right, that's so well said.
It's almost like you know yourproduct really really well.
I bet you've practiced this.
Varun Puri (05:48):
Or I say the same thing so many times.
I'm just becoming more and moreboring.
Matt Sunshine (05:54):
So, AJ, let's come over to you for this one.
From your experience in thetraining and the enablement
world, how does AI contributepersonalizing sales coaching
compared to other traditionalmethods that are out there?
Ajay Jain (06:12):
Yeah, I love this question and, as you know, I've
been in sales for two decadesnow, and I think everyone agrees
that practice and role play areimportant, not just in sales,
even, like you mentioned earlier, whether it's sports, whether
it's music, really anyprofession you want to practice
to get better.
(06:32):
Traditionally, this was done ina room, in front of your peers.
It's incredibly awkward, it'shard to scale, it's not
objective.
Typically, your role playpartner doesn't know how to act
like a buyer or what their painsare.
It may happen on a Fridayafternoon, it might happen once
every three months, the feedbackisn't objective, and so AI
(06:54):
helps solve all of thosechallenges.
It's scalable, it's objective,it can be done on demand and, to
your point of practicing.
With the AI, the buyer knowswhat challenges it's dealing
with.
It knows out of the box thetypes of objections a buyer may
have in that situation, and so,for teams that are already doing
(07:18):
role play, we're able to helpthem scale up and do it in an
objective fashion.
The reality, though, is, sadly,most teams don't even do
in-person role play today, orwhen they do, it might be once
every three months, and you getone shot, and the feedback again
is like kind of hit or miss inmost cases.
(07:39):
I can say this confidentlybecause I've had this
conversation.
I kept count, I think, maybe350 times since I started at
Yidli about six months ago.
Matt Sunshine (07:50):
You know one of the things that I was sharing
with you guys.
Before we turned on themicrophones and started
recording, I was sharing.
I was with a client yesterdaythat's using the product and one
of the experiences from aveteran seller.
I said so what'd you think?
We're having a one-on-oneconversation?
(08:10):
I said so what'd you think?
And he said I don't know, Idon't know, I don't know, I
don't know, I don't know, Idon't.
She said you know what it said.
I only got a two out of five onactive listening and so I just
paused and I was listening.
So she goes, it was right.
She said when I read what Icould do to improve my active
(08:34):
listening, it was 100% right.
And if I'm being honest withmyself, that's an area of my
game I have to improve in.
I mean, that's tremendous.
And you know, had she ever heardthat feedback from a human
coach?
Maybe, possibly, I wouldimagine over the years she did.
(08:56):
But something about it being aone-on-one experience where it
was judgment-free and she wasn'tlooking at that person like, oh
, you're just mad at me becauseI didn't do something right or I
didn't close that other deal.
It just resonated so much more.
And if she can move that from atwo out of five to a four out
of five with practice.
(09:16):
Over time that might meanmillions of dollars of revenue
for that company.
Job well done, so I wanted topass that along to you.
So can you share any data orany insights that highlight the
impact of coaching on improvingsales outcomes or boosting
seller confidence?
(09:36):
Do you have any data that youcan point to?
Ajay Jain (09:40):
So we have Yvonne, do you want to take this?
No, no, no, after you.
Yeah, so we AJ first, and thenVarun, sure.
So we've gotten some great datafrom companies we've been
working with.
One of the great successstories is a company we work
with called USB Payments, and sowithin 30 days of deploying
(10:01):
Yoodli and it's really cool theyuse it to warm up their reps
every morning before they hitthe phones, and then they'll
actually update scenarios realtime with the types of
objections that may be coming upevery week or every month.
What they found is, within 30days, they were able to increase
the number of meetings thatthey were booking by 19%, and
(10:25):
that on its own, soundsinteresting.
That could be like a big,flashy number to throw out there
.
It sounds like a 19%.
Maybe that correlates with a19% improvement in pipeline.
In their case it was actuallyhigher because they took the
step of going one level deeper.
They found that the quality ofmeetings that were booked were
higher than previously, on topof the volume, because these
(10:47):
were now better qualifiedmeetings, folks were staying on
the phone longer, objectionswere being handled better, and
so for them it's a no brainer.
I mean, they saw less than30-day return on investment in
investing in AI coaching.
Matt Sunshine (11:02):
That's amazing, right, and that's absolutely
amazing, varun.
Any other things you want toadd?
Varun Puri (11:07):
I mean, aj has given you the numbers.
We have a bunch of case studies.
I think what I'm most proud ofis I think for the first time
we're making practice fun.
You know we did this rolloutwith Google a large part of
their org, 15,000 plus sellers,and it was 92% plus CSAT.
But more than that, sellerswould come to their leaders and
(11:27):
be like, oh my God, I couldn'tbeat this AI bot.
Oh, can you believe what itsaid to me?
And then they'd share theirrecordings with one another and
to me.
If we can, you know, at a highlevel, get people to get
comfortable recording themselvesand watching themselves and
cringing, that's all thatmatters.
You do that three times.
You're going to get better andI'm really excited that it's not
(11:50):
as uncomfortable and it's alittle bit more fun when you're
doing it with this bot.
Matt Sunshine (12:22):
It is actually kind of fun, especially when,
the first time you do the roleplay, you don't have all the
success that you thought youwould, and then you're like no
way, I'm doing that, I want todo that one.
Some new technology and gettingbetter and better.
What innovations do you seeshaping the future of AI driven
sales coaching?
How does Yudley plan to stayahead of the curve and maybe
even backtrack us and share withus some things that you've
rolled out over the last 60 to90 days?
And then, if there's anythingcoming in the pipeline that you
(12:44):
can share, that'd be great too.
Varun Puri (12:47):
Maybe I can start.
Look, I think, things that havecome up in the last few months.
Our engineering team has justbeen sprinting.
Yoodli now works in most majorlanguages.
You can share your screen andYoodli will be fast enough and
quick enough to say well, matt,your pricing slide number three
says $20.
Why are you quoting me $50?
You can use this for customerservice engineering enablement
(13:10):
as well.
What I'm most excited about isjust this idea of a ubiquitous
practice coach.
So Yoodli lives within your CRM, within your LMS.
Yudli is by your side anytimeyou're speaking.
Right, it's my private coachthat's poking me under the table
, being like Varun shut up, askmore questions right now, or
(13:30):
Varun, you're getting tooexcited.
Just slow down and try tounderstand whether they actually
have a pain point or not.
And the idea here is how do wemake it truly private?
It only takes my voice, sothere's some smart machine
learning involved.
Nobody else knows I'm using it.
Right?
That's the biggest aha withpractice.
No matter how good you are, youlikely practice a bunch, but
(13:51):
you don't want to be known as aguy who does that, and I think
Yoodli enables that.
So a lot of that better avatarsto make the role play seem more
realistic.
You know, you can literallyupload your manager's face and
their voice and Yoodli will goback and forth in their persona.
We got in trouble a few timesdoing this, but I think sellers
enjoy it quite a bit.
Aj, what am I missing?
Ajay Jain (14:12):
Yeah, so I mean that's looking forward.
Looking back, I have workedwith three of the engineers on
this team previously, which wasa big part of the reason Barn
was able to talk me into joiningthe company, because I have the
experience of working with thisbuild team and they move
incredibly fast.
So to me, one of the biggestleaps we've made, just even in
(14:34):
the last month, is addingsupport for multiple languages,
which enables us to work with alot of global organizations.
So that's been super exciting.
And then you know, you've seenit firsthand.
But the ability to freeformtype thoughts into Yoodli and
hit the rephrase button or thegenerate button to me is so cool
.
Like you don't have to be an AIengineer or a prompt engineer
(14:57):
to set this stuff up, and I knowpersonally, for me, when I'm
able to show demos for customersto be able to set something up
within a couple of minutes, it'sjust, it's game changing for me
.
Matt Sunshine (15:09):
Yeah, absolutely All right.
So communication is oftenregarded as a human skill, right
, and that is what it's whatmost people think of the art of
communication.
So how does AI effectivelycoach for nuanced areas like
empathy or tone, or how does ithave that adaptability in a
(15:34):
sales conversation?
Varun Puri (15:36):
I think AI can do that well, but not human level.
Right?
Ai is really really good atgiving you feedback on did you
use a certain kind of framework?
Did you hit talking points?
How did you do on the mechanicsof your speech?
One of the things that I feelstrongly about is something like
your authenticity or yourvulnerability AI will take a
(15:56):
shot at.
For instance, we do a prettygood job saying Varun, you
sounded nervous on this call,but the real essence of closing
a deal or getting someone to beconvinced is the human in the
loop, which is why, matt I mean,we're partnering with coaching
companies such as Osweitz verymuch.
Look, the AI will take you froma zero to an eight.
Our goal is not to make robots,it's not to have everyone sound
(16:20):
the same, but to get from aneight to a 10, you've got to
reinforce it with a human coachand then use AI once again.
It's very much think of us aslike the medical report.
If you're the doctor right, orTurboTax, you can use it on your
own, but hey, if you've got thecomplicated tax stuff, you got
to work with your accountant,the complicated tech stuff.
Matt Sunshine (16:39):
You got to work with your accountant, yeah.
So final question and, aj,maybe you want to hit this one
first and then Verun will comeback to you but for anyone, for
any organization or for anyperson that is considering
integrating AI into their salescoaching strategy, what advice
would you give them to ensurethat they're going to have a
(17:01):
successful adoption, thatthey're going to be able to
really maximize the experienceof this?
What are some of the bestpractices, so to speak, of doing
this the right way?
Ajay Jain (17:14):
No, this is a great question and I've spent a lot of
time thinking about this.
I think it comes down toworkflow, and when I say that,
what I mean and this is why welove partnering with
organizations like Center forSales Strategy is role play.
In a lot of organizations, it'snot already ingrained as part
of their ongoing workflow fortraining and enablement.
(17:35):
It might be part of onboarding.
Like I said earlier, it mightbe part of your sales kickoff,
it might be something that'sdone ad hoc every three months
or something like that.
So the first thing to make iteffective is that you have to
figure out where it fits in toyour existing workflow and make
space for it.
And again, that's why we loveworking with folks like yourself
(17:56):
, because you're coming to anorganization with that workflow
in place.
You're saying you know, here'syour training, maybe here's your
video, maybe you're going totake a quiz.
Now do role play?
This is part of the workflow tomake you a better seller, and
so, for organizations thathaven't been thoughtful about
that, you at least really just atool, and if you haven't
(18:19):
figured out how to incorporateit into the flow of work, it's
just going to be a tool thatsits on the shelf.
Matt Sunshine (18:26):
Yeah, Varun anything for you to add to that?
Varun Puri (18:29):
No, I love that.
Aj said that and that's verymuch our approach.
Right, we don't want to go sell.
You know this snazzy, cool tooland folks buy it, but they're
like, well, why didn't peopleuse it?
At the core, we are fightingbehavior change.
I don't think AI is going tofix behavior change, but it can
be positioned in clever ways toget people to practice.
(18:50):
A really simple example is I didthis actually when we were
landing our first few Googledeals that it's really hard to
convince Google, like supersales team, really really deep
infrastructure when it comes toenablement to use Yoodli.
All I did was I found a bunchof the you know executive
speeches online.
I uploaded it to Yoodli and Isent it to the team and I'm like
, hey, just FYI, this is whatyour team sounds like.
(19:12):
And people are like, oh my God,nobody's ever had the guts to
tell us this.
And oh, shoot, I didn't realizeI did this and I did that.
It'd be really cool.
If you know, I had it fiveyears ago.
In fact, I wish I had it before, like my investor update.
Oh, and you know there are fivepeople on my team.
I think when we can be cleverwith little things like these,
where it's like show, don't tell, and get people to see the
(19:32):
value on their own such thatthey want to spread it, it gets
really exciting.
Matt Sunshine (19:37):
Yeah, I'll chime in on this because we've had
some experience getting somepeople to adapt to it.
And one thing that we've workedhard is, at least in the sales
world, role play are like twodirty four letter words, right,
sales people don't like roleplay, and the reason why they
(19:58):
don't like it is usually it'sbecause when you're not doing
well, your punishment is we'regoing to make you role play.
And the reason why they don'tlike it is usually it's because
when you're not doing well, yourpunishment is we're going to
make you role play.
So that, right, there startsoff as it's what you do.
When you're not good, you roleplay.
And the second thing is manytimes role play is okay.
(20:18):
Today we're going to do roleplay and it's surprise and AJ,
you're not ready for it, butyou're role playing, go right,
and that's not good either.
Like you want to watch me roleplay, being surprised and not
know what I'm doing.
That doesn't sound interestingand you have a not so negative.
(20:39):
You have a negative experiencein people.
One of the reasons why we'vetried to share with people, it's
practice.
We're just going to keeppracticing.
We're going to give you reallygood coaching and really good
feedback, whether that is, witha human or with an AI.
We want you to practice and getfeedback, and I think, aj, you
(21:00):
said it well, it has to be partof that workflow.
This is how we do it here.
We warm up every day before wedo our calls.
We have a warm-up session.
We spend 20 minutes doing a fewof these each.
That is part of the routine.
It works really well, ajAveroon.
Any final thoughts?
Ajay Jain (21:22):
Yeah, I just want to add to your point about the
negative connotation of roleplay.
I love speaking with customers.
I think I'm very comfortablespeaking with customers, but if
you put me in a room with 20 or30 of my peers to role play, I'm
a train wreck.
I get so nervous and it took mea while to pinpoint what it is.
(21:43):
When I'm speaking with acustomer, I'm the expert on my
product.
When I'm in a room with 30 ofmy peers, each of them knows
something about the product thatI don't, and so that is
incredibly, incredibly awkwardand it makes me so nervous.
And that's where I think Yudlireally helps bridge the gap,
(22:03):
because it's private, it'sjudgment-free.
My peers aren't sitting therethinking, oh, he could have said
this, he could have said that.
Matt Sunshine (22:10):
Yeah, love it Varun.
Varun Puri (22:13):
AJ, I get it.
That's why you botched all ofour role.
No, I'm joking.
No, I think the other piece ofrole play that's fun is people
often think of it as just youknow, homework.
How do we change it tosomething that you need just in
time, not just before your salespitch like you're presenting to
your manager tomorrow?
Go role play.
You're advocating for apromotion?
(22:33):
Chat, go role play.
It's just part of what you do.
Matt Sunshine (22:37):
Right, it's just part of what you do.
All right, this has been afantastic discussion.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Thank you for coming on theshow.
I really appreciate it.
I value your partnership and Iknow that people probably want
to connect with you in some formor fashion.
So in the show notes we willhave your LinkedIn.
(22:59):
We'll have so they can connectto you on LinkedIn, and I know
that you're both very responsivepeople, and so I would
encourage anyone that wants moreinformation to reach out to
either one of you on LinkedInand do that, and for everyone
that has joined us today tolisten thank you so much, I
(23:19):
really appreciate it has joinedus today to listen.
Thank you so much, I reallyappreciate it, and we look
forward to seeing you on futureshows and the next episode of
the Improving Sales Performancepodcast.
This has been Improving SalesPerformance.
Thanks for listening.
If you like what you heard,join us every week by clicking
the subscribe button For more onthe topics covered in the show.
(23:42):
Visit our website,thecenterforsalesstrategycom.
There you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
improving your sales performance.
Welcome to Improving Sales Performance, a
podcast highlighting tips andinsights aimed at helping sales
organizations realize, and maybeeven exceed, their goals.
Here we chat with thoughtleaders, experts and gurus who
have years of sales experiencefrom a wide range of industries.
I'm your host, matt Sunshine,ceo at the Center for Sales
Strategy, a sales performanceconsulting company.
(00:27):
Previously this season, weexplored how AI is transforming
the world of sales coaching.
Today, in this episode, we'rediving a bit deeper into that
topic by chatting with twoincredible guests from the AI
(00:47):
coaching platform, Yoodli.
Varun Puri, co-founder of Yoodli, and Ajay Jain, head of
training and enablement atYoodli, are here to break down
exactly how their platform isrevolutionizing the way sales
professionals refine theircommunication skills.
Both bring such great points tothe table, like how AI coaching
(01:10):
can be a really great battingcage for sellers, why AI tools
like Yoodli are making the ideaof practice fun versus it
feeling like homework.
And, finally, how AI can takesomeone from a zero to an eight,
but to get from an eight to a10, you still need that human in
the loop.
With that, let's jump into theconversation.
(01:33):
Varun, let's start with you.
Can you share the story behindYoodli?
I mean, what inspired you, yourco-founder.
What inspired you to co-found acompany that's focused on AI
(01:56):
communication coaching?
Varun Puri (01:58):
Yeah, first off, matt, huge thank you for having
me here.
What an honor.
It's awesome to be working withyou and to be on your show and
to be talking about the Yoodlidream my favorite thing to do.
Look, I think the dream issimple.
It's too many smart people inthe world struggle to speak with
confidence and they miss out onopportunities they deserve
(02:20):
because they don't backthemselves.
This is the introvert, thewoman who gets talked over in
corporate America, the immigrant, the non-native English speaker
, the kid in India, a version ofmyself who came to the US,
struggled, trying to fit inpractice in front of a mirror, a
camera, a stopwatch.
Wasn't proud enough to ask afriend to give feedback.
(02:44):
Stopwatch wasn't proud enoughto ask a friend to give feedback
, and I just think we can helpso many people with this idea of
private and judgment-freefeedback.
I don't think AI is necessarilythe solution.
I think the problem's moreexciting.
We think AI can be part of it.
If not AI, we'll find anotherway to come and hit it.
Matt Sunshine (03:04):
Yeah, I love the why, right, I love the purpose.
I love the why behind thecompany.
I think having that why drivesfantastic solutions, but you got
to have that why.
So, for anyone listening tothis that is unfamiliar with
Yoodli, can you give us anoverview of how the platform
works and what makes it uniquein the coaching space?
Varun Puri (03:28):
Yep, I'll try to keep it short.
One-liner is Yoodli's likeGrammarly for speech, when you
think about private real-timeanalytics or the equivalent of
what Duolingo has done tolanguage learning, but in this
case, for speech coaching,Yoodli's like your private
judgment-free mirror.
You can come and practice forany conversation, a crucial
(03:49):
conversation, a podcast likethis, a speech, an interview, a
date and Yoodli will go back andforth with you and then give
you personalized feedback on howyou can improve.
Matt Sunshine (04:01):
Yeah, and I will tell you as someone who has used
the product it's amazing.
It's just, it's so hard.
I find when I describe it Idon't do it justice, like that's
the best.
I just want people to see itand I'm so proud.
At the Center for SalesStrategy, we are partners, we
(04:21):
work together.
We customize the Yoodli toolsfor our sales coaching so that
our clients can take advantageof it.
But tell us, how does Yoodlisupport customization for
organizations so it aligns withtheir unique needs?
Varun Puri (04:41):
Yeah, it's a great question.
You know, I was at Googlebefore this and I realized
Google had a gazillion trainings, new pricing, new packaging.
Well, there's an AE who's beenput on a pip, a sudden new
Android announcement and folkswill be running around trying to
figure out how to get you knowpeople trained up and ready in
the Google methodology.
(05:01):
This might be call them users,not customers, or start with a
smile, or whatever that might be.
Band, medic, med pic everyonehas their own version.
Could be use the rule of threes, pause here, et cetera.
And the idea is look,organizations across the world
have their own way of conductingtrainings.
Let them take Yoodli, make ittheir own.
(05:22):
Same way CSS has around yourbespoke curriculum, your content
, your way of doing things and,ideally, Yoodli is just an
augmentation of the human coach.
It's not nearly as good enoughas a human coach, but it's a
really good batting cage orpractice tool that feels like
it's from the human coach.
Matt Sunshine (05:41):
Right, that's so well said.
It's almost like you know yourproduct really really well.
I bet you've practiced this.
Varun Puri (05:48):
Or I say the same thing so many times.
I'm just becoming more and moreboring.
Matt Sunshine (05:54):
So, AJ, let's come over to you for this one.
From your experience in thetraining and the enablement
world, how does AI contributepersonalizing sales coaching
compared to other traditionalmethods that are out there?
Ajay Jain (06:12):
Yeah, I love this question and, as you know, I've
been in sales for two decadesnow, and I think everyone agrees
that practice and role play areimportant, not just in sales,
even, like you mentioned earlier, whether it's sports, whether
it's music, really anyprofession you want to practice
to get better.
(06:32):
Traditionally, this was done ina room, in front of your peers.
It's incredibly awkward, it'shard to scale, it's not
objective.
Typically, your role playpartner doesn't know how to act
like a buyer or what their painsare.
It may happen on a Fridayafternoon, it might happen once
every three months, the feedbackisn't objective, and so AI
(06:54):
helps solve all of thosechallenges.
It's scalable, it's objective,it can be done on demand and, to
your point of practicing.
With the AI, the buyer knowswhat challenges it's dealing
with.
It knows out of the box thetypes of objections a buyer may
have in that situation, and so,for teams that are already doing
(07:18):
role play, we're able to helpthem scale up and do it in an
objective fashion.
The reality, though, is, sadly,most teams don't even do
in-person role play today, orwhen they do, it might be once
every three months, and you getone shot, and the feedback again
is like kind of hit or miss inmost cases.
(07:39):
I can say this confidentlybecause I've had this
conversation.
I kept count, I think, maybe350 times since I started at
Yidli about six months ago.
Matt Sunshine (07:50):
You know one of the things that I was sharing
with you guys.
Before we turned on themicrophones and started
recording, I was sharing.
I was with a client yesterdaythat's using the product and one
of the experiences from aveteran seller.
I said so what'd you think?
We're having a one-on-oneconversation?
(08:10):
I said so what'd you think?
And he said I don't know, Idon't know, I don't know, I
don't know, I don't know, Idon't.
She said you know what it said.
I only got a two out of five onactive listening and so I just
paused and I was listening.
So she goes, it was right.
She said when I read what Icould do to improve my active
(08:34):
listening, it was 100% right.
And if I'm being honest withmyself, that's an area of my
game I have to improve in.
I mean, that's tremendous.
And you know, had she ever heardthat feedback from a human
coach?
Maybe, possibly, I wouldimagine over the years she did.
(08:56):
But something about it being aone-on-one experience where it
was judgment-free and she wasn'tlooking at that person like, oh
, you're just mad at me becauseI didn't do something right or I
didn't close that other deal.
It just resonated so much more.
And if she can move that from atwo out of five to a four out
of five with practice.
(09:16):
Over time that might meanmillions of dollars of revenue
for that company.
Job well done, so I wanted topass that along to you.
So can you share any data orany insights that highlight the
impact of coaching on improvingsales outcomes or boosting
seller confidence?
(09:36):
Do you have any data that youcan point to?
Ajay Jain (09:40):
So we have Yvonne, do you want to take this?
No, no, no, after you.
Yeah, so we AJ first, and thenVarun, sure.
So we've gotten some great datafrom companies we've been
working with.
One of the great successstories is a company we work
with called USB Payments, and sowithin 30 days of deploying
(10:01):
Yoodli and it's really cool theyuse it to warm up their reps
every morning before they hitthe phones, and then they'll
actually update scenarios realtime with the types of
objections that may be coming upevery week or every month.
What they found is, within 30days, they were able to increase
the number of meetings thatthey were booking by 19%, and
(10:25):
that on its own, soundsinteresting.
That could be like a big,flashy number to throw out there
.
It sounds like a 19%.
Maybe that correlates with a19% improvement in pipeline.
In their case it was actuallyhigher because they took the
step of going one level deeper.
They found that the quality ofmeetings that were booked were
higher than previously, on topof the volume, because these
(10:47):
were now better qualifiedmeetings, folks were staying on
the phone longer, objectionswere being handled better, and
so for them it's a no brainer.
I mean, they saw less than30-day return on investment in
investing in AI coaching.
Matt Sunshine (11:02):
That's amazing, right, and that's absolutely
amazing, varun.
Any other things you want toadd?
Varun Puri (11:07):
I mean, aj has given you the numbers.
We have a bunch of case studies.
I think what I'm most proud ofis I think for the first time
we're making practice fun.
You know we did this rolloutwith Google a large part of
their org, 15,000 plus sellers,and it was 92% plus CSAT.
But more than that, sellerswould come to their leaders and
(11:27):
be like, oh my God, I couldn'tbeat this AI bot.
Oh, can you believe what itsaid to me?
And then they'd share theirrecordings with one another and
to me.
If we can, you know, at a highlevel, get people to get
comfortable recording themselvesand watching themselves and
cringing, that's all thatmatters.
You do that three times.
You're going to get better andI'm really excited that it's not
(11:50):
as uncomfortable and it's alittle bit more fun when you're
doing it with this bot.
Matt Sunshine (12:22):
It is actually kind of fun, especially when,
the first time you do the roleplay, you don't have all the
success that you thought youwould, and then you're like no
way, I'm doing that, I want todo that one.
Some new technology and gettingbetter and better.
What innovations do you seeshaping the future of AI driven
sales coaching?
How does Yudley plan to stayahead of the curve and maybe
even backtrack us and share withus some things that you've
rolled out over the last 60 to90 days?
And then, if there's anythingcoming in the pipeline that you
(12:44):
can share, that'd be great too.
Varun Puri (12:47):
Maybe I can start.
Look, I think, things that havecome up in the last few months.
Our engineering team has justbeen sprinting.
Yoodli now works in most majorlanguages.
You can share your screen andYoodli will be fast enough and
quick enough to say well, matt,your pricing slide number three
says $20.
Why are you quoting me $50?
You can use this for customerservice engineering enablement
(13:10):
as well.
What I'm most excited about isjust this idea of a ubiquitous
practice coach.
So Yoodli lives within your CRM, within your LMS.
Yudli is by your side anytimeyou're speaking.
Right, it's my private coachthat's poking me under the table
, being like Varun shut up, askmore questions right now, or
(13:30):
Varun, you're getting tooexcited.
Just slow down and try tounderstand whether they actually
have a pain point or not.
And the idea here is how do wemake it truly private?
It only takes my voice, sothere's some smart machine
learning involved.
Nobody else knows I'm using it.
Right?
That's the biggest aha withpractice.
No matter how good you are, youlikely practice a bunch, but
(13:51):
you don't want to be known as aguy who does that, and I think
Yoodli enables that.
So a lot of that better avatarsto make the role play seem more
realistic.
You know, you can literallyupload your manager's face and
their voice and Yoodli will goback and forth in their persona.
We got in trouble a few timesdoing this, but I think sellers
enjoy it quite a bit.
Aj, what am I missing?
Ajay Jain (14:12):
Yeah, so I mean that's looking forward.
Looking back, I have workedwith three of the engineers on
this team previously, which wasa big part of the reason Barn
was able to talk me into joiningthe company, because I have the
experience of working with thisbuild team and they move
incredibly fast.
So to me, one of the biggestleaps we've made, just even in
(14:34):
the last month, is addingsupport for multiple languages,
which enables us to work with alot of global organizations.
So that's been super exciting.
And then you know, you've seenit firsthand.
But the ability to freeformtype thoughts into Yoodli and
hit the rephrase button or thegenerate button to me is so cool
.
Like you don't have to be an AIengineer or a prompt engineer
(14:57):
to set this stuff up, and I knowpersonally, for me, when I'm
able to show demos for customersto be able to set something up
within a couple of minutes, it'sjust, it's game changing for me
.
Matt Sunshine (15:09):
Yeah, absolutely All right.
So communication is oftenregarded as a human skill, right
, and that is what it's whatmost people think of the art of
communication.
So how does AI effectivelycoach for nuanced areas like
empathy or tone, or how does ithave that adaptability in a
(15:34):
sales conversation?
Varun Puri (15:36):
I think AI can do that well, but not human level.
Right?
Ai is really really good atgiving you feedback on did you
use a certain kind of framework?
Did you hit talking points?
How did you do on the mechanicsof your speech?
One of the things that I feelstrongly about is something like
your authenticity or yourvulnerability AI will take a
(15:56):
shot at.
For instance, we do a prettygood job saying Varun, you
sounded nervous on this call,but the real essence of closing
a deal or getting someone to beconvinced is the human in the
loop, which is why, matt I mean,we're partnering with coaching
companies such as Osweitz verymuch.
Look, the AI will take you froma zero to an eight.
Our goal is not to make robots,it's not to have everyone sound
(16:20):
the same, but to get from aneight to a 10, you've got to
reinforce it with a human coachand then use AI once again.
It's very much think of us aslike the medical report.
If you're the doctor right, orTurboTax, you can use it on your
own, but hey, if you've got thecomplicated tax stuff, you got
to work with your accountant,the complicated tech stuff.
Matt Sunshine (16:39):
You got to work with your accountant, yeah.
So final question and, aj,maybe you want to hit this one
first and then Verun will comeback to you but for anyone, for
any organization or for anyperson that is considering
integrating AI into their salescoaching strategy, what advice
would you give them to ensurethat they're going to have a
(17:01):
successful adoption, thatthey're going to be able to
really maximize the experienceof this?
What are some of the bestpractices, so to speak, of doing
this the right way?
Ajay Jain (17:14):
No, this is a great question and I've spent a lot of
time thinking about this.
I think it comes down toworkflow, and when I say that,
what I mean and this is why welove partnering with
organizations like Center forSales Strategy is role play.
In a lot of organizations, it'snot already ingrained as part
of their ongoing workflow fortraining and enablement.
(17:35):
It might be part of onboarding.
Like I said earlier, it mightbe part of your sales kickoff,
it might be something that'sdone ad hoc every three months
or something like that.
So the first thing to make iteffective is that you have to
figure out where it fits in toyour existing workflow and make
space for it.
And again, that's why we loveworking with folks like yourself
(17:56):
, because you're coming to anorganization with that workflow
in place.
You're saying you know, here'syour training, maybe here's your
video, maybe you're going totake a quiz.
Now do role play?
This is part of the workflow tomake you a better seller, and
so, for organizations thathaven't been thoughtful about
that, you at least really just atool, and if you haven't
(18:19):
figured out how to incorporateit into the flow of work, it's
just going to be a tool thatsits on the shelf.
Matt Sunshine (18:26):
Yeah, Varun anything for you to add to that?
Varun Puri (18:29):
No, I love that.
Aj said that and that's verymuch our approach.
Right, we don't want to go sell.
You know this snazzy, cool tooland folks buy it, but they're
like, well, why didn't peopleuse it?
At the core, we are fightingbehavior change.
I don't think AI is going tofix behavior change, but it can
be positioned in clever ways toget people to practice.
(18:50):
A really simple example is I didthis actually when we were
landing our first few Googledeals that it's really hard to
convince Google, like supersales team, really really deep
infrastructure when it comes toenablement to use Yoodli.
All I did was I found a bunchof the you know executive
speeches online.
I uploaded it to Yoodli and Isent it to the team and I'm like
, hey, just FYI, this is whatyour team sounds like.
(19:12):
And people are like, oh my God,nobody's ever had the guts to
tell us this.
And oh, shoot, I didn't realizeI did this and I did that.
It'd be really cool.
If you know, I had it fiveyears ago.
In fact, I wish I had it before, like my investor update.
Oh, and you know there are fivepeople on my team.
I think when we can be cleverwith little things like these,
where it's like show, don't tell, and get people to see the
(19:32):
value on their own such thatthey want to spread it, it gets
really exciting.
Matt Sunshine (19:37):
Yeah, I'll chime in on this because we've had
some experience getting somepeople to adapt to it.
And one thing that we've workedhard is, at least in the sales
world, role play are like twodirty four letter words, right,
sales people don't like roleplay, and the reason why they
(19:58):
don't like it is usually it'sbecause when you're not doing
well, your punishment is we'regoing to make you role play.
And the reason why they don'tlike it is usually it's because
when you're not doing well, yourpunishment is we're going to
make you role play.
So that, right, there startsoff as it's what you do.
When you're not good, you roleplay.
And the second thing is manytimes role play is okay.
(20:18):
Today we're going to do roleplay and it's surprise and AJ,
you're not ready for it, butyou're role playing, go right,
and that's not good either.
Like you want to watch me roleplay, being surprised and not
know what I'm doing.
That doesn't sound interestingand you have a not so negative.
(20:39):
You have a negative experiencein people.
One of the reasons why we'vetried to share with people, it's
practice.
We're just going to keeppracticing.
We're going to give you reallygood coaching and really good
feedback, whether that is, witha human or with an AI.
We want you to practice and getfeedback, and I think, aj, you
(21:00):
said it well, it has to be partof that workflow.
This is how we do it here.
We warm up every day before wedo our calls.
We have a warm-up session.
We spend 20 minutes doing a fewof these each.
That is part of the routine.
It works really well, ajAveroon.
Any final thoughts?
Ajay Jain (21:22):
Yeah, I just want to add to your point about the
negative connotation of roleplay.
I love speaking with customers.
I think I'm very comfortablespeaking with customers, but if
you put me in a room with 20 or30 of my peers to role play, I'm
a train wreck.
I get so nervous and it took mea while to pinpoint what it is.
(21:43):
When I'm speaking with acustomer, I'm the expert on my
product.
When I'm in a room with 30 ofmy peers, each of them knows
something about the product thatI don't, and so that is
incredibly, incredibly awkwardand it makes me so nervous.
And that's where I think Yudlireally helps bridge the gap,
(22:03):
because it's private, it'sjudgment-free.
My peers aren't sitting therethinking, oh, he could have said
this, he could have said that.
Matt Sunshine (22:10):
Yeah, love it Varun.
Varun Puri (22:13):
AJ, I get it.
That's why you botched all ofour role.
No, I'm joking.
No, I think the other piece ofrole play that's fun is people
often think of it as just youknow, homework.
How do we change it tosomething that you need just in
time, not just before your salespitch like you're presenting to
your manager tomorrow?
Go role play.
You're advocating for apromotion?
(22:33):
Chat, go role play.
It's just part of what you do.
Matt Sunshine (22:37):
Right, it's just part of what you do.
All right, this has been afantastic discussion.
Thank you so much for joiningus.
Thank you for coming on theshow.
I really appreciate it.
I value your partnership and Iknow that people probably want
to connect with you in some formor fashion.
So in the show notes we willhave your LinkedIn.
(22:59):
We'll have so they can connectto you on LinkedIn, and I know
that you're both very responsivepeople, and so I would
encourage anyone that wants moreinformation to reach out to
either one of you on LinkedInand do that, and for everyone
that has joined us today tolisten thank you so much, I
(23:19):
really appreciate it has joinedus today to listen.
Thank you so much, I reallyappreciate it, and we look
forward to seeing you on futureshows and the next episode of
the Improving Sales Performancepodcast.
This has been Improving SalesPerformance.
Thanks for listening.
If you like what you heard,join us every week by clicking
the subscribe button For more onthe topics covered in the show.
(23:42):
Visit our website,thecenterforsalesstrategycom.
There you can find helpfulresources and content aimed at
improving your sales performance.
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