B2B Web platform Sales UX Research

Sinclair Broadcasting / Point Sales Tool

Sinclair Broadcasting · 2015–2020 · Lead UX Designer

Reimagined a broken B2B sales experience for a 100–150 person team, from a napkin sketch to a shipped web platform that transformed how local businesses bought digital advertising.

Point Sales Tool

Point was a custom web-based sales platform built for Sinclair Broadcasting's inside sales team. Before it existed, sales reps were leading prospective customers through a vague, unbranded conversation with little to show them. There was no clear picture of what they would actually be buying, no visual proof of the product, and no consistent sales story.

I was brought in to design the product from the ground up. The result was a platform that auto-populated personalized prospect presentations in moments, pulling in each business's vertical, known data, and imagery to generate sample ads, websites, and videos specific to their industry. Customers could immediately see exactly what they were getting. Sales reps had a credible, visual story to tell.

  • Served a sales team of 100–150 reps across Sinclair's broadcast markets
  • Eliminated ambiguity from the sales conversation, so customers saw their product before signing
  • Integrated into Sinclair's local TV station websites, anchoring the experience in brands customers already trusted
  • Transformed perception of the product from unknown to credible, effectively overnight at launch
<2 min Proposal creation time (down from hours)
+7 pts Average close rate increase across sales teams
95% Rep adoption within first 3 months
+15% Client retention year over year

Sales reps relied on PDFs, miscellaneous landing pages, and other ad hoc solutions. Customers struggled to understand the bundled offering. Reps spent hours preparing custom pitches. The sales process was difficult to close because a concise overview of the tools was not available.

We needed a single, interactive tool that simplified the pitch, showed value clearly, and reduced friction in closing deals.

Initial napkin sketch of Point concept

The concept started on a chunk of notepaper. From that sketch came a defined product vision, a research plan, and eventually a platform used by hundreds of sales reps daily.

Research & Discovery

  • Interviewed stakeholders across sales, creative, and development teams.
  • Shadowed sales reps and management during client pitches to map pain points.
  • Spoke with small business owners to uncover needs and decision drivers.
  • Scanned competitors and adjacent industries for inspiration.

Defining Strategy

  • Mapped key journeys: pitching, customizing, and tracking campaigns.
  • Prioritized MVP features: proposal builder, previews, dashboards, and exports.
Early wireframes for the Point platform

Wireframes & Prototypes

  • Sketched early flows and wireframes to explore layout options.
  • Built prototypes to validate navigation with reps.
  • Iterated on user feedback, simplifying steps, clarifying language, and focusing visuals on customer value.
User flow diagram for the Point sales process

Visual Design

  • Developed a clean, modular design system aligned with Sinclair's brand.
  • Designed high-fidelity previews of videos, microsites, advertisements, and dashboards — with industry-specific dynamic content.
  • Created KPI dashboards that made campaign ROI easy to digest.

Implementation & Launch

  • Partnered closely with engineering during build, providing specs and design reviews.
  • Piloted with a small group of sales reps, then expanded company-wide.
  • Led live training sessions, built cheat sheets, and created walkthrough videos.
  • Established feedback loops and prioritized iterative improvements post-launch.

Following the initial launch, I continued evolving Point through targeted enhancements focused on efficiency, training, and customer trust. Each iteration came directly from observing how real users — both sales reps and customers — interacted with the system in practice.

Point customer communications iteration

Customer Communications

I introduced automated follow-up emails for leads that didn't convert right away — personalized, branded messages that reminded them of the offer and linked back to their sales demo. I also redesigned the purchase confirmation email, turning it into a station-branded summary of each customer's full marketing package. These updates strengthened trust, clarified deliverables, and extended the Point experience beyond the tool itself.

Point speaker notes feature

Speaker Notes for Sales Teams

Each screen in the tool included context-specific tips, talking points, and questions to help guide conversations and build confidence. These notes acted as a built-in training layer, giving reps quick access to product facts, cautions, and best practices without leaving the presentation. The result was more consistent messaging, smoother calls, and stronger alignment across the sales team.

Sales Rep Dashboard

I designed a Sales Rep Dashboard that centralized customer data and demo setup. Reps could quickly pull business details, enter key info, and generate a ready-to-use sales demo in Point. The dashboard also included end-of-call interaction tracking, regional pricing, and a lifetime history of all calls and customer activity — cutting prep time dramatically.

Integration with Local TV Station Partners

One of the most impactful enhancements was a deep integration with our partner TV news stations. I built a system that generated custom URLs hosted on Sinclair's local station websites. This allowed sales reps to open calls with "Hi, I'm calling in partnership with KOMO News," immediately establishing credibility and familiarity. Customers were then guided to the trusted station's site, entered a unique 4-digit code, and launched a shared interactive demo of their marketing package — replacing our lesser-known product name with the strength of each local station's brand.

Brand context is a design decision. Launching the sales experience inside trusted local TV station websites changed everything overnight. The product hadn't changed. The context had.

  • Proposal creation time cut from hours to under 2 minutes
  • Close rate increased by an average of 7 percentage points across sales teams
  • 95% of reps onboarded in first 3 months — 100% company-wide adoption within 6 months
  • Client retention improved +15% year over year

Reps reported greater confidence in client sales meetings. Customers said they finally understood what they were buying and felt empowered by the dashboard to see results in real time.

Lessons Learned

  • A polished pitch tool is only half the battle — training & adoption are just as critical.
  • Early prototypes and live shadowing the sales team gave my design process invaluable insights.
  • Building visible, trustworthy previews of customer deliverables boosted buy-in from skeptical SMB owners.

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