How Turnitin Increased Average Deal Size by 15%

The advancement of AI makes academic integrity and assessment solutions leader Turnitin all the more essential. To reach students and educators worldwide, it uses Highspot to: 

• Redesign training delivery
• Enable reps to evolve their skills 
• Build a strategy for long-term skill development

Creating a standardized skill development program

As AI reshaped the education landscape, Turnitin made plans to adapt. It needed to transition beyond product-first conversations and standardize high-quality execution. To achieve this, reps needed a formal education, one that built core skills and drove consistent execution.

“There’s no structured framework or formal education track to become a world-class seller,” began Anthony Doyle, director of sales enablement at Turnitin.

Turnitin saw an opportunity to change that. It aimed to create a training program that taught problem-first selling skills, so reps could lead with the real risks facing the education space and, over the course of each deal, help buyers understand exactly why Turnitin’s solutions are essential. This shift was crucial, but it could only happen if the team had the infrastructure to develop skills at scale.

“As enablers, we have to fill the void,” added Doyle.

To build an education system that evolved reps from product-first to problem-first sellers, Turnitin partnered with Highspot.

Establishing a foundation for skill development

With Highspot, Turnitin built a comprehensive training program and a custom Skills & Competencies model to support it. The new curriculum formalized how reps learned and practiced. As reps progressed through it, the team began to see real results.

“We took the sales process and fit a ten-point competency framework, with five skills underneath each, to it,” explained Doyle. “It’s a path to becoming a world-class seller. We also found a link to say: ‘When people are voluntarily consuming training, it has a positive impact on their outcomes.’”

The competency framework is doing its job. Rep confidence has increased by 25%, with highly engaged reps growing average deal size by 15%. Turnitin’s team has created something rare: a formal education program that provides a clear path to sales mastery and equips reps to meaningfully improve business outcomes.

“If a seller goes through the sales competency framework and becomes excellent, I can say to them: ‘You can sell in any market, anywhere,'” continued Doyle.

Building an AI-powered coaching motion

With a sales education program in place, Turnitin is taking the next step. Using Highspot’s E3 Agentic, it is building a new motion, one that is beginning to scale deal-level skill development and empower sales managers to coach consistently.

As Turnitin hones its deal-level coaching strategy, it’s building on an already strong foundation. Through its comprehensive training program, Turnitin ensures reps consistently employ problem-centric selling. Sellers are mastering skills quickly and consistently and, as a result, are winning more, winning bigger, and closing faster. With custom Skills & Competencies standardizing rep execution, Turnitin has driven a 10% reduction in sales cycle time.