SUCCESS STORIES   /  TEKsystems Success Story

TEKsystems Ramps New Sellers 6x Faster

TEKsystems embedded AI roleplay into onboarding and helped new sellers land their first services meeting up to 6x faster, with just one more hour of practice.

TEKsystems Ramps New Sellers 6x Faster
“TEKsystems Gets New Sellers to Their First Deal Faster.” +

Summary

TEKsystems Improves New Seller Onboarding and Performance with AI Roleplay

TEKsystems, a global technology and business services company operating as part of Allegis Group, knew that getting new sellers ready for complex enterprise deals took a long time. For new sellers, reaching a first services meeting was a 36 to 40 month process.

To accelerate time to readiness, TEKsystems embedded Degreed Maestro AI roleplays into sales onboarding. This gave new sellers a safe, judgment-free space to practice various elements of sales conversations before they ever got on a live call. The results from the first pilot cohort were immediate and measurable: 25% of sellers landed a services meeting within six months of joining the company (none had achieved that previously).

COMPANY SNAPSHOT

Company Icon

Industry:

IT Staffing & Technology Services

Headquarters:

Hanover, MD

Company Size:

10,000+ employees; 40,000 contractors

By the Numbers:

25%
of the first pilot cohort landed a services meeting within 6 months (previously: 0%).
6x
shorter new seller ramp to first services meeting.
~1 hour
total AI practice time across 4 Maestro experiences (15 min each).
Challenge

Scaling Sales Readiness Without Burning Out Your Leaders

TEKsystems hires approximately 350 new sales development representatives every year. These sellers often come in with limited experience and then step into the world of complex, global IT services. It’s a steep learning curve.

Getting those sellers ready to have a real conversation with a prospective enterprise customer takes a lot of practice. Historically, that practice came from working with their direct leaders: 1:1 roleplays, pitch reviews, live coaching sessions. But those leaders were managing 15 to 40 direct reports across 100+ locations. Not to mention, the cost of their time was high. There simply weren’t enough hours in the day, and the span of control made it nearly impossible for sales leaders to provide consistent, high-quality coaching for everyone who needed it.

The result was that it took most new sellers 36 to 40 months to reach the milestone that mattered most: landing a first services meeting. In a business where getting to that first qualifying meeting fast means a 60% chance of winning the deal, speed matters enormously.

“What we know as a company is, if we can move that business deal velocity at a particular rate and get to qualifying, we are 60% more likely to win the business and fill the business as required.”
— Chris Harry, Chief Talent & Learning Officer, TEKsystems

Solution

Building Reps Before Reality with Degreed Maestro

TEKsystems wanted to supercharge their sales onboarding, providing more low-stakes practice opportunities to help sellers build confidence faster. Working with Degreed, they embedded Maestro AI role plays into their 20-week sales onboarding program, starting with a first pilot cohort of 22 new sales development reps.

Rather than building one generic roleplay experience, the team designed four focused Maestro experiences, each targeting a discrete skill in the sales process:

  • Elevator pitch: introducing TEKsystems, its services, and its value
  • Handling objections: responding to common customer pushback
  • Discovery questions: asking the open-ended questions that move a conversation forward
  • Full prospect call: putting all four skills together in a complete outreach simulation

Each experience was used for about 15 minutes on average. That made the total practice time approximately one hour per seller across all four experiences. Sellers could run through each Maestro as many times as they needed, on their own schedule.

That psychological safety, and the freedom to stumble, try again, and get better, turned out to be a critical ingredient.

“Overall, we found astonishing feedback. Their confidence grew. They were able to roleplay in a safe environment, and that meant not having a leader or a mentor over your shoulder listening in. But they were able to do the Maestro experiences multiple times over until they felt that they were good enough to then go ahead and approach that call or test out their ability.”
— Stefanie Kuehn, Senior Program Manager, Organizational Development, TEKsystems

Built to Complement, Not Replace, Human Coaching

Maestro was never positioned as a replacement for human mentorship. It was the warm-up. By the time a new seller sat down with a leader for live coaching or a real deal review, they’d already logged their reps. Leaders could skip the fundamentals and get straight to refinement, exactly where their time and expertise created the most value.

“Time is expensive and Maestro was a perfect way to leverage a tool and be able to give our sellers the opportunity to practice before they hit the big stage and speak with our customers.”
— Stefanie Kuehn, Senior Program Manager, Organizational Development, TEKsystems

TEKsystems also connected Maestro’s backend to real customer intelligence from Salesforce, Seismic, and Gong, so practice conversations felt authentic.

“I can create these micro-gyms of skill building that you do that work like anybody who’s an athlete, a musician, or anything. It’s a practice environment that gets you ready for the human connection piece.”
— Chris Harry, Chief Talent & Learning Officer, TEKsystems

Results

Faster Ramp. Bigger Pipeline. Proof That Practice Works.

The first pilot cohort told a clear story. Before Maestro, zero new sellers at TEKsystems had solutioned a services deal within their first six months. In the pilot cohort, 25% did.

Going from three years to under six months for a quarter of the cohort is the kind of signal that makes a business take notice. And because TEKsystems knows that landing a qualifying meeting leads to a 60% close rate, the downstream revenue implications are significant.

“Our ROI on just this group could be a force factor within 12 months from launching this.”
— Chris Harry, Chief Talent & Learning Officer, TEKsystems

Beyond the numbers, sellers described feeling genuinely prepared and confident enough to make that first call without hesitation. In a role where the initial conversation is often a make-or-break moment, that confidence is a competitive edge.

What Comes Next

With the pilot results in hand, TEKsystems is moving quickly. Maestro will now be embedded in all new seller onboarding, reaching all 350 sellers hired annually. From there, the expansion plan is substantial:

  • 500 new recruiters will go through Maestro as part of their talent delivery onboarding.
  • Leadership academies will use Maestro for performance conversations and coaching simulations.
  • Corporate support and accounts payable teams will practice customer service scenarios.

The longer-term vision isn’t just onboarding. TEKsystems is building continuous, day-to-day Maestro practice, or what they call “hyperskilling,” into the flow of work at every level.

“Maestro really speaks for itself. It’s an excellent tool to use. It really has a lot of great potential to get integrated into more than just where our sales development reps are.”
— Stefanie Kuehn, Senior Program Manager, Organizational Development, TEKsystems

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“
The success we’ve had with Degreed is tremendous. This has hands down been the best implemented and utilized technology that we’ve had across the organization.
Stefanie Kuehn Senior Program Manager, Organizational Development, TEKsystems
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