The lifeblood of any organisation is the ability for it to sell and generate revenue. Of course retaining customers is as important as acquiring customers. Whether your sales staff are hunters or farmers you’re trying to drive average order values, lead generation, conversion rates and customer retention rates.

How can you turn your B players into A players? How can you recruit more effectively and efficiently? How can you turn sales calls into podcasts?

In this short guide, we are going to talk about three ways in which you can re-imagine sales training and enable better coaching of your teams.

Step 1 – Hire Sales Professionals Using Audio Profiles

Instead of back and forth email, use voice notes in one-to-one chat to attract and engage candidates in your talent funnel. Your hiring committee can play back audio profiles to accelerate decision making. There is no need for your hiring team to waste time scheduling telephone interviews. Voice makes your hiring process more personable for both you and your candidate.

Step 2 – Coach your Sales Team using Voice Notes

You can’t use Slack and email when you’re driving your car, it’s simply impossible and against the law. There is a lot of dead time spent in cars so how do we turn this dead time into productive time? Connected cars with Bluetooth allow you to voice message colleagues.

There is the sales forecast in the CRM but actually getting a sales rep to speak out their sales forecast is more believable and more credible. Again, voice messaging conversations can be done one to one or one to many with the whole organisation.

Management wants to avoid the Chinese whispers in business where he said she said they said. Voice messaging in your salesforce gets to the customer truth and make better decisions. Conversational analytics overlaid with CRM and financial data allows you to make better decisions.

Future leaders can be identified and bad news can be delivered early and authentically. Don’t get me wrong, the CRM is a useful tool for the modern salesforce and email is not going away. However, listening to the voice of a salesperson and how their day has gone well, management can support and encourage just in time.

Step 3 – Magnify your Sales Staff with Podcasting

People buy from people. We’ve heard this time and time again but what if you took your best sales staff and turn them into podcast presenters interviewing your customers and your prospects.

Cold calling is hard and requesting a meeting often leads to rejection. But when you turn the table and you ask a prospect to be invited to a podcast more conversations happen.

Getting your top sales people with their personalities hosting podcasts is a brilliant way to establish a personal connection with your client but also a wider audience. Furthermore, junior members of the sales team can listen to these podcasts. Perhaps one day once they’re trained up and have achieved the appropriate results they too can start their own podcast?

You can get your very own Sound Branch branded voice site for your organisation here:

http://soundbranch.com/sign-up-business

PS On your voice site you can hire using voice notes and audio profiles, send voice messages for internal communications and create podcasts with no editing needed.

PPS Artificial intelligence on the platform saves time with life transcription to reduce administration and sentiment analysis to understand the emotions in teams. Artificial intelligence such as live transcription reduces administration time. Sentiment analysis AI allows you to see your the emotions in your teams.

Author Bio

Sean Gilligan is a UK based entrepreneur and author of the book “Flexible”. Sean for the last 15 years has run Webanywhere in Chicago, Leeds and Katowice Poland. Sean is number 67 in the Worldwide Listing of Corporate Learning Movers & Shakers 2018. Sean is a bootstrapper and has not taken on outside capital to grow Webanywhere in 3 countries and has recently founded Ventures Anywhere his start up arm which includes Sound Branch.

Voice Tech Podcast recently published their 21st episode, which features our CEO’s podcast on nanocasting.

In this episode, Sean introduces the concept of nanocasting, and explains how it can be used for public broadcasting, team status updates, recruiting new staff, and more.

Sean also explains how audio is unique in providing the perfect combination of authenticity of message and auditability of content, thanks to the combination of speech to text and search technologies.

Sound Branch is a feature rich application that could well be the Twitter for voice that so many have been predicting, and this episode will help deepen your understanding of this emerging form of communication.

The more effort you put into publishing the better the results. Now one way to do this is through good preparation and thinking about what you’re going to say. Other ways of improving what you publish are to sub-edit and rewrite.

But if we ignore the content for one moment and we think about new technologies such as live transcription, this allows curators to output richer experiences in less time.

What if every text message you sent had audio. How about every email being emotional with sound? What would it be like if you can listen to people on Twitter instead of simply reading out posts?

Podtexting uses the latest live transcription artificial intelligence for bloggers, journalists and editors to speak their thoughts and have this automatically turned into text on the fly.

So instead of a post being merely text or just the audio, your audience can receive both. Now given the fact that we only remember 10% of what we read and we retain 50% of what we hear and see, this will lead to more memorable experiences.

You might say why bother with this approach, is it not confusing? The reality is lots of people around the world struggle to read and quite simply people have a preferred method of contact.

Some people prefer to scan read and others prefer to listen. Quite often how they consume content depends on circumstances and environment. For example, if they’re on a quiet train coach they might prefer to read whilst driving the car listening is best. In other settings, people will want to do both.

This is not just about your readership and your listeners, there are wider connotations to this dual play multichannel approach. Often when we say multichannel we mean we send an email and then perhaps a podcast link at different points in time. With podtexting simultaneously the audio and text are posted leading to more consumer choice or double threaded experiences.

On an e-commerce shopping site for example if a user both listens and reads they are more likely to memorise information and will be more likely to convert. This has massive connotations to the way we build websites and we think about how people consume content. Imagine browsing a website on your smart TV with your voice and reading the text whilst listening.

And finally there is a twist. Not only can you post content with both audio and text at the same time you can also match the content with a sentiment. Using artificial intelligence, emojis can be added to your posts based on emotion. Now an unhappy face automatically posted to content on an e-commerce site might actually not help your conversion rate. But think about product reviews, not only seeing the text from the consumers with a voice and there are emoji based on their satisfaction.

The more data we have about peoples’ thoughts, intents and emotions will lead to smarter decisions for broadcasters and consumers. Independent of the type of content and the use cases, a new approach to content syndication which includes Just in time podtexting is a game changer. For the entertainment industry and for online, as a whole.

Below is a podtext posted on Twitter as a Twitter card:

And Mrs May is not going down without a fight and will give everything that she’s got https://t.co/fK8Ir8jhpK

— Newsanywhere (@newsanywhere) December 12, 2018

You can learn more about podtexting at SoundBranch.com. Sign up for your free account.

Author Bio

Sean Gilligan is a UK based entrepreneur and author of the book “Flexible”. Sean for the last 15 years has run Webanywhere in Chicago, Leeds and Katowice Poland. Sean is number 67 in the Worldwide Listing of Corporate Learning Movers & Shakers 2018. Sean is a bootstrapper and has not taken on outside capital to grow Webanywhere in 3 countries and has recently founded Ventures Anywhere his start up arm which includes Sound Branch.

Some people struggle with reading and writing. Other people simply want to save time with frictionless ways of recording and documenting information.

Here we take a look at some of the best voice notes apps on the market.

Sound Branch (Android, iOS, Windows, Mac, Web, Alexa, Google Assistant)

Sound Branch is a multi-modal voice notes platform available on the web, on mobile apps and via Alexa and Google Assistant. All voice notes are transcribed to text allowing powerful voice search.

Record your voice on the web and mobile to create flash briefings. For example, you can say Alexa ask Sound Branch to play my Inbox. Or you can say OK Google play my timeline.

One cool feature in Sound Branch is sentiment analysis which allows for the detection of emotions in conversations. You can then filter by the emojis which are happy, sad or indifferent.

As the best voice notes app, Sound Branch is focussed on short form voice bites of duration of 10 to 20 seconds. It forces people to think more before they speak. Short form messages allow powerful voice search. You can, therefore, search people’s thoughts rather than simply search web pages.

Otter.ai (Android, iOS)

Backed by the initial investor in Google, Professor Chilton, a Canadian who now works at Stamford University. Otter can detect different peoples’ voices for transcriptions and is great for recording meetings. Transcribed minutes can be complemented with Live Photos.

Apple Voice Memo on iOS

Without transcriptions the preinstalled Voice Mel app allows you to record audio. Once you have the audio, this can then be shared on iCloud, Dropbox, email etc

Google Docs

You can also do speech to text in google. If you are writing, this can be a quicker way of getting your thoughts down. You can still correct with your keyboard but for 1st draft collections, this is really fast. Obviously, you need to ensure you have a microphone on your computers.

Now that you’ve found the best voice notes app for your team, it’s time to get the most out of it. Here are some resources to help:

• Check out soundbran.ch for Sound Branch key features
• Visit this video channel to see demos of the product and hear from customers how Sound Branch helps them build winning teams
• Follow Sound Branch on Twitter (@soundbranch)
• Sign up to create an account at SoundBranch.com

If you have any questions about the best voice notes apps or need more information to help you choose the most suitable app for your needs please feel free to contact us.

Sound Branch is making its way onto more voice-enabled devices. After its success with Amazon Alexa, they released a Google Assistant Action today.

The app will keep adding new commands to both Amazon Alexa and Google Assistant to enhance communication for its users.

Here’s how to use Sound Branch with your Google Assistant:

Step 1

Just type Sound Branch on the Google Assistant app.

You will be asked to link your Sound Branch account to Google. Tap ‘Yes’ and it’ll prompt you to type your Sound Branch login details.

Your Sound Branch account is now linked to Google!

Step 2

Now, you can use the four main Sound Branch commands to listen to your voice messages and voice notes.

Just say OK Google,

• Ask Sound Branch to play inbox, or
• Ask Sound Branch to play timeline, or
• Ask Sound Branch to search “X”, or
• Talk to Sound Branch

Step 3

Google Assistant will reply and ask you which clips you’d like it to play for you.

If you have any questions on how to use Sound Branch with your Google Assistant please do not hesitate to contact us at hello@soundbran.ch

Town Hall speeches and emails to staff are common places for the CEO of an organisation. Some bosses actually create videos and share them with staff, but how about your own company’s flash briefing played via Alexa on the Amazon Echo or via Google Home?

In order to publish audio, you need a voice content management system before you can start to deliver broadcast messages. The science of creating a podcast is quite technical and therefore provides a barrier to entry.

Now playing audio from simply the CEO is one thing but playing audio from employees, management and customers is something else. What if you played the customer testimonials of that month on your company’s flash briefing? Perhaps it’s a manager been giving special praise for work. Yes, the CEO can broadcast the latest strategic updates against the plan but getting this stories from other parts of the business told makes a truly engaging internal company podcast.

Audio brings the message to life and easily beats email. What I’m not saying is to replace the bulk email messages sent top to bottom within an organisation. Nor am I saying that printed letters or handwritten messages don’t work. What is true is that the voice conveys emotion and the tone of the message helps for better understanding.

One reason why podcasting can be complicated is the need to edit the audio which is a technical task. If you remove the need to edit audio just in time podcasting becomes possible and therefore time to delivery is decreased and non-technical people can get involved. This is where Sound Branch comes in as a voice content management system that allows you to deliver compelling audio experiences to your employees and other stakeholders.

On Sound Branch, all voice notes are recorded in 10 to 20 seconds. This, therefore, means the margin of error of getting the audio wrong or simple mistakes can be eliminated.  Instead of editing audio you simply re-record the snippet in question until you get it right. The small snippets of audio piece together which means that you think about what you say a little bit more and therefore the quality of the audio goes up.

So in reality what does this mean?  It means that the CEO of a global organisation can enter the office at 7 a.m., think of an important message that he’s got to get out to the entire business, record this on his smartphone device or through his desktop PC on a web browser and instantaneously can be played via Alexa on the Amazon Echo or via Google Home devices and other smart speakers.

Now if your organisation does not have smart speakers at the workplace all the content is available via the web or mobile apps. All employees and staff need to do is to download the Sound Branch app from the Apple App Store or Google Play or simply visit soundbranch.com. Better still, all the audio is transcribed and therefore is searchable with elastic search.  On Google, you search people’s web pages and on Sound Branch you search people’s thoughts. Searching people’s thoughts and the ability to recall important messages about your business and play them back is a different way to communicate internally.

Instead of the old agenda for a board meeting where there is an A4 print out of the meeting agenda, perhaps, the chairman will simply play the voice notes. Listening to these voice notes is a lot more compelling for the board than simply reading from an A4 piece of paper.  Understanding the numbers in the business is important when reviewing the financial performance and sales figures within an organisation. This can be enhanced by commentary and overlaying the voice notes with the financial data can vastly improve decision making.

In the consumer world, podcasting is rapidly growing as on-demand entertainment and education becomes mainstream. The opportunity is for internal podcasting to enhance internal communications within large organisations.  In many big businesses, managers read out the latest figures and KPI’s to their departments and their teams. Sometimes, Chinese whispers ensue and the message is not clear. Internal podcasting can give clarity of message, authenticity and breathe life into messages which are sometimes misconstrued or misunderstood. Making it easy for anyone and everyone to contribute to your companies flash briefing offers a new refreshing way to communicate.

How easy do you find it to recall a conversation? Personally, I can remember quite clearly what I said over a two week period but overtime as human beings we forget. This is the forgetting curve.

In any job within a business having the correct information to hand in a timely fashion can help improve business decision making and competency on the job. This is why I am excited by the recent launch of the Sound Branch Skill for Amazon Alexa and the Google Action for Google Home devices.

How often have you asked Alexa a question to hear the reply “Sorry I don’t know that.” Therein lies the opportunity. Sound Branch allows you to search voice notes with your voice. A combination of elastic search and short form – 10 to 20 second voice data means you can instantly recall and playback important conversations from the past.

For example, you might want to search a private conversation between yourself and a colleague. Or perhaps you have a group discussion in your team and you want to remember who said what. This is all possible because audio clips are short in length and all the audio is transcribed to text with 96% accuracy. This level of accuracy is equal to that of human beings, which means voice search is now a reality.

Now imagine something as boring as the car manual and trying to figure out how to change the oil. Instead of linking to the page in the printed manual, how about voice searching with the Alexa Skill?

Classically in business, they talk about the 30, 60, 90 day plan. What if you could recall all your conversations and play them back from 30, 60 and 90 days. Would this make you more effective in your job? Would this mean you would be less susceptible to forgetting stuff? The ultra organised will say of course not. However listening not only to your own voice but that of other people’s and playing this back several times leads to greater understanding. You might have written something down but got the meaning wrong and therefore misinterpreted the information. The ability to instantly play back and repeat a conversation gives clarity, accountability and greater ownership. Overall it means the task in hand is more likely to get completed whilst keeping all parties happy along the way.

Does voice search mean miscommunication will be eliminated? Not at all but it does give us a greater chance of understanding each other and getting along better. All of this leads to a conducive workforce, a happy workforce and a more productive team. As we all know happy and productive teams tend to win more often!

So a final thought, instead of the printed meeting agenda, you could play back your teams conversations. Your meeting would run smoother as people would not have to think about what they had said, they could simply listen. By reducing the load on your brains, you can utilize them on the more important issues of what next and what is the decision.

Whether it’s staff internally or external candidates involved in your recruitment processes audio profiles bring skills and experiences to life.

Internal staff can create their credentials so your distributed workforce can understand who everyone is.

External candidates credentials can be better articulated with audio profiles and testimonials.

Candidates’ CVs are brought to life with audio profiles and verbal references can sought by companies by listening to audio reviews.

Businesses and the public sector are not allowed to use FRS or GMRS types of two-way radios without a licence. Applying for a business radio permit from OFCOM and filling out paperwork can be a long process. It is also quite expensive, given that there are cheaper or even free and better alternatives. These will not only boost communication in your business, but they will also have more features such as saving all conversations in one place.

Two-Way Radio Cost

Furthermore, two-way radios can be costly with prices ranging from $115 to over $500 for each device. If you are a big business you’ll probably need more than twenty radios. This means the cost of the devices in addition to the cost of the licence can be pricey as your business grows.

The Modern Solution

Modern team communication apps like Sound Branch are replacing the retiring two-way radios. One of the main benefits of using such apps is that they are extremely flexible allowing you to store all communications in one place and access them from any device including PCs, smartphones, tablets, smart speakers and smart watches. No matter what device your employees use they can communicate with co-workers and management from anywhere at any time.

This, of course, makes business operations stronger and more efficient. For example, if you are a logistics company your drivers can send a voice message to inform management about the delivery of goods or a problem they may have.

When the driver sends the voice message on Sound Branch all people (e.g managers) who are in the group receive the message immediately and can respond to the driver with more instructions. It doesn’t matter what device your drivers use – messages can be sent and accessed from any device, as long as you have a Sound Branch account.

Extra Team Communication Features

Two-way radios were a great solution in the past when smartphone devices didn’t exist. More and more businesses are replacing this way of communication with team communication apps which have more capabilities.

For instance, with Sound Branch, you can create private groups of teams. All voice notes are saved on the cloud. If something goes wrong with a delivery, for example, you can review what has been said on Sound Branch. This way, you’ll find solutions to communication issues.

What is even more exciting is that Sound Branch transcribes voice messages automatically. This means that if management is busy in a meeting and cannot listen to an important voice message, they can simply read it as a text message. What is more convenient than this!

Two-Way Radio Range Limits

As you probably know, two-way radios usually have a range limit of up to 30 miles. Most radios have lower limits but even 30 miles are not enough for efficient communication.

Modern communication apps like Sound Branch don’t have any range limits. As they use internet to send messages your employees can be in New Zealand and communicate instantly with other colleagues in New York or London.

Two-Way Radios vs Sound Branch

Here’s why Sound Branch is the best alternative to traditional push-to-talk two-way radios:

Sound Branch also offers more features such as history and voice transcription. It’s a VoiceFirst app and uses the latest technology available in the market.

Learn how Sound Branch can help your business by signing up for a free account. Also, request a free demo by emailing hello@soundbran.ch

Sound Branch is a voice notes app. This is an overview of how Webanywhere uses Sound Branch for internal communication, on-boarding and recruitment. Webanywhere has a branded voice site but also branded mobile apps for iOS and Android.