Practicing Your Sales With AI? Upselling? And More!

On this week in sales we’ll be looking at; AI on video calls, revenue operation platforms, answering your questions and much more! SALES NEWS: ZoomInfo Expands Global Operations in London ZoomInfo (NASDAQ: ZI), a global leader in modern go-to-market software, data, and intelligence, today announced it has expanded its global operations in London and named Simon McDougall as its first Chief Compliance Officer. “In Q3 2021, the international business at ZoomInfo grew over 80% year over year while our investment in our data assets outside of North America also nearly doubled throughout the year. We’re now in an even better position to build on our momentum there,” said ZoomInfo Founder and CEO Henry Schuck. https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/ZOOMINFO-TECHNOLOGIES-INC-107772705/news/ZoomInfo-Expands-Global-Operations-in-London-37586238/ Zoom's venture fund invests in conversational AI platform Second Nature, announced a $12.5 million round of investment to build out their conversational artificial intelligence service. Second Nature's platform uses conversational AI to coach a salesperson and improve selling skills as well as product knowledge. A salesperson in training runs through a simulated sales call with Jenny serving as the customer. The video conversation is recorded and each trainee gets a score on his or her performance with advice on how to improve various elements of the pitch. The Second Nature training platform combines sales training and product marketing education in one place. https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-was-my-pitch-jenny-zooms-venture-fund-invests-in-conversational-ai-platform/ Sales Embraces the Experience Economy “Physical retail is going to get more experiential,” says Cate Trotter, head of trends at retail consultancy Insider Trends Trotter sees e-commerce becoming more experiential. “Across the board, there are all these ways that retailers can entertain customers, educate them, tell their stories better. The number of consumers using experiential technology is still relatively small. In the United States, only 1 percent of consumers own VR/AR units, For example, Home Depot offers an AR feature on product detail pages for home decor, furniture, and seasonal decorations; consumers can tap it to see the furnishings in their homes with 3-D augmented reality. Home Depot has seen conversion rates two to three times higher for customers who use the app compared to those who don’t. https://www.destinationcrm.com/Articles/Editorial/Magazine-Features/Sales-Embraces-the-Experience-Economy-150987.aspx JPMorgan just raised salaries again JPMorgan has upped the ante again for junior bankers. The investment bank is raising its starting salary for analysts to $110,000, after lifting it to $100,000 last year, reports Bloomberg, citing anonymous sources. The increases are being applied internationally, as well as to second- and third-year analysts, associates and employees in the bank’s markets unit. The move follows a similar one by Citigroup earlier this month and underscores budding costs for banks as they compete harder for entry-level workers.