Brainshark for Sales Enablement: Features + Use Cases

Brainshark — a platform known for its sale enablement capabilities — is migrating its content and services over to Bigtincan. But what does the platform have to offer?

In our comprehensive review, we’ll give you everything you should know about Brainshark, including what it is, how it works, what use cases are best loved among its client base, its pros and cons, and another option for folks looking for a scalable sales training and implementation solution. 

What Is Brainshark?

Brainshark is a sales enablement platform that aims to help brands create content for onboarding and sales training. Even so, for almost 20 years, many industries have tapped into Brainshark’s services — from insurance to healthcare to tech and financial services — to improve communication and education.

However, the platform’s content and services are set to transition to Bigtincan.com as Brainshark was acquired by the company in 2021. The platform’s migration to Bigtincan promises to enhance the customer’s experience. 

How does Brainshark work?

Brainshark works by providing companies of all shapes and sizes with a platform for enablement. For example, the brand prides itself on a “simpler path to success” with data-driven solutions. 

Who uses Brainshark?

Brainshark has more than 1,100 clients from a plethora of industries, from pharmaceutical to manufacturing to software and technology. For example, some of Brainshark’s most well-known customers include companies like: 

• PTC, Inc.
• Colonial Life
• Riverbed Technology
• Frontier
• Abbott
• J.G. Wentworth

Top Brainshark Solutions and Use Cases

The client base of Brainshark is diverse and unique, spanning a multitude of different industries. That being said, its solutions and use cases are just as versatile. Here are the top use cases and solutions Brainshark has to offer.

Onboarding and training

One of the most popular solutions Brainshark offers is its onboarding and training capabilities. Companies can tap into this platform to leverage formal courses and mandatory training for onboarding new employees. It also provides new hires with learning resources to beat the forgetting curve. 

Reps can train any time, anywhere with the Brainshark Mobile App. Plus, when mandatory training is complete and the requirements are met, new reps will receive the appropriate certifications and badges. 

Brainshark’s unique readiness scorecards (more on that below!) can also provide insight into how the new hires are acclimating. 

Coaching and practice

Brainshark is especially known for its intelligent coaching and practice opportunities. For example, the platform leverages AI-driven scoring and coaching feedback for improvement. It also provides both video- and text-based coaching assessments for folks to hone in and sharpen their skills. 

This coaching and practice is meant to empower reps and boost their confidence so that it translates to higher win rates. 

Readiness scorecards

As alluded to above, Brainshark’s readiness scorecards are one of its “claims to fame.” Using AI scoring, these scorecards help enablement leaders better visualize their team’s progress overall. This way, managers can see exactly how their employees compare to their coworkers. 

Its readiness scorecards also help company leaders pinpoint and address skill gaps before they affect a rep’s performance. They can easily see and track progress across teams to quickly see trends, like the top scorers. 

Thanks to Brainshark’s integration capabilities, leaders can track their team’s progress alongside key performance indicators (KPIs) to best motivate team members to improve. 

Content authoring 

Companies can also use Brainshark to make their own learning content. Its content authoring capabilities allows brands to make sure their information and messaging is not only up-to-date, but also interactive and engaging. 

Ideating and creating better sales learning content is much easier via a platform like Brainshark. These materials can be created, updated, and accessed from anywhere, making collaboration a breeze. This includes presentations that can be made using its intuitive platform without any external resources. 

Best Brainshark Advantages 

With regard to its impressive use cases and features, it’s no surprise that Brainshark offers some notable advantages for its clients. Here are a couple of the best advantages when it comes to using this sales enablement platform.

Beautifully designed interface

One of the pros of Brainshark that seems to come up again and again is its intuitive interface. Folks who routinely use this platform say that its interface is very user-friendly for most people and they’re able to successfully complete tasks without much hassle. 

The majority of users say it doesn’t take much technical knowledge to figure out how to create stunning, engaging content and presentations with Brainshark. 

Robust, comprehensive options for content creation

In a similar vein, folks who use Brainshark in particular love its content creation abilities. There’s a plethora of special features and ways to personalize content to best address individual needs. Users say they’ve been able to streamline and optimize their internal content creation processes thanks to Brainshark’s robust and comprehensive options for content creation.

Integration capabilities 

Another advantage to using Brainshark is its integration capabilities. Folks can easily integrate other platforms or tools with Brainshark to upload existing content into their software. Users say this helps them save time and otherwise optimize their team workflow. In fact, overall productivity is boosted when teams are able to leverage their existing processes or tools with Brainshark.

Disadvantages to Using Brainshark

Most Brainshark reviews from customers are positive, although there are a few limitations worth keeping in mind. Here are just a few disadvantages to using Brainshark that folks should think about when considering this platform.

Brainshark has a steeper learning curve. 

Knowing how to navigate and use Brainshark can take some time, according to some users. Specifically, folks who use Brainshark have expressed that the learning curve for the platform is steep which can make it difficult to use and navigate the platform. However, this doesn’t have to be a dealbreaker as long as users are dedicated to learning how to use the software efficiently. 

There are occasional playback issues.

Other users have reported some occasional video playback issues as well — even with smaller file sizes. Unfortunately, this can affect the overall viewing experience and is a cause of frustration for some. 

There’s not as many options for personalization.

Brainshark also doesn’t offer as many options for customization. Again, even though it’s not necessarily a deal breaker, folks who use this platform have expressed wanting more personalization options in Brainshark. For example, reviews of the platform mention wanting more ability to edit videos and add section headers to better streamline and optimize presentations.

Yoodli as a Brainshark Alternative

If you’re looking for an alternative to Brainshark for one reason or another, Yoodli is a great option. This online AI sales coach offers users realistic roleplays within a user-friendly, easy-to-navigate platform.

When it comes to simulated sales conversations, there’s no better option than Yoodli’s sales roleplays. Brands like Dale Carnegie, Korn Ferry, and Google have already used Yoodli to increase seller attainment and decrease ramp.

Similar to Brainshark’s readiness scorecards, Yoodli also scores reps’ performance and provides actionable feedback based on their practice in sales roleplays. That way, reps can practice whatever they need to work on, from new skills to sales methodologies in familiar and realistic sales environments, like customer discovery or cold calls. 

The conversational banter they’ll experience during these roleplays closely resembles that of an  actual person as Yoodli assumes a variety of customer personas. The back-and-forth you’ll hear from your reps and their AI-generated clients will sound like any other typical conversation. 

Plus, Yoodli provides admin customization capabilities for sales enablement leaders to take advantage of. Brands can essentially make Yoodli their own by adapting it to their own company methodology. That way, organizations can leverage Yoodli for their own use cases, from manager training to pitch coaching and more. The platform’s enterprise-grade privacy is also a big plus, which includes SOC 2 Type 2, GDPR, and more.

Just take a look at the results of this recent case study from Google Cloud. The results speak for themselves. Google was able to train and certify more than 15,000 sales reps across the organization and the results were a success. In fact, Google ended up expanding its use of Yoodli to other enablement programs, too. 

The best part is, you can get started with Yoodli for free at https://yoodli.ai/.

The Bottom Line

Brainshark is known for its sales enablement capabilities and for good reason. There’s no doubt it’ll continue to provide its services to its client base once it officially transitions to Bigtincan. However, for brands looking for another enablement solution (especially when it comes to at-scale sales training and implementation) Yoodli could be an even better fit. 

Sources

• Brainshark: “Training,” “Coaching,” “Scorecards,” “Content Authoring.” 
• TrustRadius: “Brainshark.”