Cien announced the availability of its Hidden Revenue Assessment report which analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of sales reps to determine which qualitative factors are limiting their success. Cien ingests data from Salesforce Enterprise to “reveal the factors that are preventing their teams from achieving their numbers.”
Cien Head of Marketing Damien Acheson noted that firms such as Gong and Chorus are more prescriptive while Cien is diagnostic, helping managers identify skill gaps and determining where reps add or destroy value during deal flow.
Presented as individual scorecards, Cien employs over 100 AI models to identify issues in sales enablement, training, and onboarding. Cien does not believe in cloning the best sales reps as reps have different strengths and weaknesses. Instead, reps are assessed for value-add across the pipeline, helping determine where reps need coaching, which reps are creating value, and which reps are benefiting from a rich set of leads but not adding significant value to them.
Furthermore, their models indicate that addressing weaknesses is the best method for improving sales outcomes and reaching quota. If a rep is weak at any of the key sales skills, he or she is unlikely to reach quota. As reps are only as successful as their weakest skills, it is better to identify gaps and coach accordingly. Cien holds that the best path to driving revenue growth is focusing on mid-level success reps as they are the ones with the greatest opportunity to improve their performance.
“When it comes to managing sales teams, it’s important to understand that no sales rep is created equal, and no opportunity is created equal,” contends Cien CEO Rob Käll. “To date, Cien’s Hidden Revenue Assessments have uncovered between 20-40% worth of lost revenue due to gaps in selling skills.”
“Cien’s AI models search for correlations between reps’ skills and attributes and their impact on the final value of opportunities. This is the basis for a set of patented algorithms called the Cien Value Chain. Cien determines the relative value of each lead as it enters your CRM and tracks its value at the end of the sales cycle. The Cien Value Chain measures the value-added at each stage of the opportunity and the skills and attributes that drive incremental value.“
Cien FAQ
The Hidden Revenue Assessment is available as a free report to technology companies with at least ten sales reps and a minimum of one year of Salesforce data. It provides an assessment of a few sample reps across work ethic, product knowledge, engagement ability, and closing ability. The Hidden Revenue Assessment also evaluates CRM data quality to provide a level of confidence in the assessment. Firms that have deployed Sales Engagement Platforms such as Outreach and SalesLoft often have complete data as they automatically gather activity data and sync it with their CRM.
The Hidden Revenue Assessment includes a 30-minute walkthrough.
The Cien app, available for $49 per month per rep, provides mentor prescriptions that help prioritize coaching. While flagging weaknesses can be demotivating, Cien inverts the model and calculates the revenue opportunity available to reps who focus on developing their skills. Being told that you are weak at prospect engagement is unlikely to motivate a rep. Being told that focusing on prospect engagement can retire $200,000 worth of quota is much more likely to motivate the rep to focus on his or her weak-link skills.
The Cien app provides data on all of the reps and covers a broader set of skills. The app also provides dynamic data indicating how the reps are performing over time.
Cien is Privacy Shield certified and does not gather Personally Identifiable Information beyond rep names. Cien received a $3.5 million seed round in June.