The days of old-school communications have passed. In their stead, we have new modern sales communications that are data-driven, personalized, relevant, omnichannel, sequenced, and fully optimized for today’s sophisticated buyer. The following are the seven major business pain points solved by sales engagement:
Business Pain Point #1: Not Optimizing for the Modern Buyer
Selling to buyers the way they like to be sold to is not a novel concept, yet with all the channels in existence today, it’s not as simple as it sounds. From new forms of communication (hello, texting) to generation gaps between baby boomers and millennials (and welcome, gen Z), there are more selling factors than ever before. Then there are factors like the role of the person you’re trying to reach. For example, a sales professional or executive might respond better to mobile-based messaging because they live on their phones and are never at their computers. This might be a text or short LinkedIn message. At the same time, an operations or IT professional might work out of two screens and prefer only screen-based communications like longer emails or value-driven content like e-books or whitepapers. Throw in the fact that traditional channels are more saturated than ever before, and you have a recipe for poor performance if you’re not optimizing your sales process for the modern buyer.
Business Pain Point #2: Lack of Revenue Efficiency
As we alluded to at the beginning of the book, Sales organizations are under unprecedented pressure. Quotas are the highest they’ve ever been. Resources are at their leanest. So how can you achieve success within a modern Sales org? By achieving peak Revenue Efficiency—that is, getting the maximum return for the minimal amount of resources invested. Revenue Efficiency isn’t an abstract term; it’s a practical (and achievable) goal for every Sales and Marketing leader. But with so many variables and levers, how and where do you start to ensure your team maximizes results with the minimum resource expenditure? Revenue Efficiency encompasses the following:
- How to evaluate your org structure to support better Sales and Marketing alignment
- How to leverage joint attribution to create an efficient, collaborative environment
- How to bypass vanity metrics in favor of low-funnel, revenue oriented analysis
- Finding the right bridge technology to boost efficiency and streamline workflows
Sales Engagement is a powerful ally in the quest for Revenue Efficiency. Sales Engagement offers traditional metrics like volume of sales activities, but it doesn’t stop there. Sales Engagement offers true revenue attribution, meaning it shows not just sales activity but also whether that activity resulted in revenue. This killer differentiator means predictable revenue goes from a pipe dream to a pipeline reality.
Business Pain Point #3: The Manual Nature of Sales and Why Reps Have So Little Time to Sell
We’ve all read the statistic, from CSO Insights, about how sellers spend only 36% of their time selling. Burdensome administrative tasks and sales technology that can be described only as user-unfriendly are some of the main culprits behind this lack of meaningful activity. Sales Engagement empowers a rep to do more activity in less time, thanks to capabilities like automated email follow-up (a transformative time-saver within itself) and automated meeting reschedules. Sales Engagement means if it doesn’t require specialized strategic work, a rep is not wasting valuable time on it. This new category of technology also empowers reps to work smarter, not harder, with blueprints for success like winning email templates and sales scripts so there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. As an added benefit, a good Sales Engagement Platform (SEP) is actually created with the end user in mind, which should make for an even better buying experience for your next potential customer.
Business Pain Point #4: Lack of Consistent, Repeatable Data-driven Processes
Most sales leaders want to build a reliable machine. They want to know with reasonable certainty that if they put X amount of raw materials in one side of the machine, Y will come out the other side. In a modern sales environment, the only way to do that is to create consistent, repeatable processes and playbooks. There’s a defined set of playbooks that are used consistently for handling inbound leads, doing outbound prospecting, closing new business, and managing relationships with current customers.
Business Pain Point #5: Improving New Hire Time to Value
Improving new sales rep ramp time, even by a small fraction, can be a major game changer. In an enterprise Sales org, new rep ramp times are typically months. It can be even half a year or longer! Imagine if all your reps could hit quotas even just one month earlier. That would be significant boost in revenue for your business. This is just another area where optimization comes into play. In order to optimize new rep ramp, you need a repeatable, scalable data-driven process that can be easily replicated. Get your whole team hitting quota, and hitting it sooner, without any extra admin or effort from their managers and execs. That’s the goal, and that’s what’s possible.
Business Pain Point #6: Lack of Data to Drive Business Decisions
In the modern era of sales, gut is just not good enough anymore. Your competitors are using machine-learning, natural language-programming, powered data to make informed decisions. So when the board or the boss asks about this quarter’s numbers, don’t be the one leaving it to chance. Data and tech have arrived. There are no excuses anymore, but there are things that have your back. Data that tell a story without bias. People can talk the talk, but numbers walk the walk, and they’ll save your job one day. Never make an informed, strictly gut decision in your sales process again.
Business Pain Point #7: Tech Stack Troubles
Why dial number by number when you can use software that’ll save you time? Why email from your inbox when there’s software that can track and measure response rates, set up multivariable tests for subject lines and copy, and allow you to share best practices across the team? Why not be centralized? Why not allow reps to automate menial tasks that take away from selling time? The money you spend on sales software will be returned to you in spades when productivity, efficiency, and effectiveness are through the roof. It’s one of the few functions in a company where this is so insanely important. We are in the dawn of a new day. The sales tech stack has arrived. CRM, phone, and e-mail are no longer enough. The days of the Sales Engagement Platform are here. Don’t get stuck in the dark ages.
This article is excerpted from “The New Rules of Sales Engagement” by Manny Medina, Max Atschuler and Mark Kosoglow of Outreach, providers of a sales engagement platform.
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