ROI, or return on investment, is the key to modern business growth. Over the decades, building on and measuring ROI has evolved massively. This is primarily thanks to the steady emergence of sales intelligence and advanced data analytics. That considered, how you can use sales intel tools to help boost ROI?
Let’s look at proven ways to trim the fat and streamline genuine value from your sales approach.
Provide Quality Insight for Sales Representatives
Before considering the tools you should use for the best sales insights, you need to focus on your team. What do they need to provide your company - and your customers - with the best possible value? When discussing sales ROI, we first need to consider the sales rep’s place.
Training and attitude are vital for sales professionals to obtain quality insight from sales intelligence. Training is, of course, provided at the start of onboarding. However, it is crucial to consider the essential facets of this training for sustainable value.
Sales reps need to know how to manage pipelines, how to negotiate and close, and - of course - how to communicate. They also require intensive knowledge of your products, brand, and journey. Beyond this, they also need to know how to tap into customer needs. This is where sales intel comes in handy.
However, to put all of this into practice, sales reps need support in creating valuable insight. For many, this will be raw customer data - such as browsing behavior online or buying histories. The best sales professionals will then combine valuable insight with soft skills. These include knowing how to approach customers, using persuasive language, and many more.
Ultimately, before charging into throwing sales reps into sales intel programs, intensive training is a must. Beyond this, sales reps also need to develop a progressive attitude. They must be willing to grow and expand beyond initial onboarding. Therefore, they can always be reading to chat with you about the current state of ROI.
What’s more, sales reps adopting this attitude will be ready to feedback to you. While you may implement the sales intel tools, your reps should let you know what they need to succeed. Those empowered enough in the role will be open and thorough with you - how can you support them?
Your role is to set up your sales team so that they are excited to strive for quality insight and provide value. After this, you’ll need to consider the tools at your disposal.
Utilize the Digital World to Empower Your Sales Reps
Beyond your team's initial onboarding and empowerment, setting up the best digital tools is a must. They can only do so much without access to suites and programs that provide reps with insight.
At the core of every valuable sales intel tool will be a thorough analysis of the customer experience. Your intelligence should pull data from a wide variety of disparate online sources. Your reps should also be able to fine-tune these reports with a plethora of relevant parameters.
Offering your reps the ability to refine their available data will be immensely empowering. No sales teams want to look at walls of raw data without some way to refine it. Therefore, not only should you implement data tools that pull from more comprehensive sources, said tools should be incredibly flexible.
Further, it’s a good idea to empower your teams through collaboration. If you are in the process of digitalizing your workforce, everyone must work from the same page. Your entire crew must know how your funnels work from front-end to back-end. This is crucial to ensuring greater accountability, as well as personal empowerment.
Sales reps who are disconnected from marketing analysts, for example, may not perform at their best. By breaking down barriers and presenting sales intel and data collaboration platforms all can work from, clear communication follows. This methodology will help your workforce to respect each others’ roles a little better. It also ensures that your disparate members can better account for how their work affects others.
Ultimately, you can empower your sales teams with clarity and opportunity for knowledge growth. This leads to tighter performance, and your ROI only increases - providing your reps’ attitudes, and accountabilities are in check.
Implementing and Sustaining Change with Sales Intelligence
Embracing sales intel is always likely to be an intensive process. No matter the size of your business, rolling out an intelligence plan will take careful time and measurement. Therefore, you need to ensure your reps and agents are taken into account each step of the way.
First and foremost, this requires close training and the opportunity for feedback. Your sales reps need to work with precision, not passion alone, to increase your ROI. Therefore, to onboard your team successfully, you need to be clear, present, and above all, human. Even the most adept agents will need to reach out for help, and the most successful will do so.
The gradual rollout of digital change will be hugely sustainable in the long run - for ROI and employee morale. While it may seem appropriate to launch an entire sales intel plan in one fell swoop, consider your reps’ needs. Confusion, combined with overconfidence, can lead to poor performance.
Therefore, gradual improvements are ideal when implementing sustainable sales intel and new systems. Above all, you should touch base with your staff - ask for feedback - and show appreciation at every step.
Drivers of ROI
Sales reps are some of the hardest-working professionals in your business. They are the face of your brand and are the main drivers of ROI. Therefore, it’s essential to respect their needs and support them in various ways.
Users of Fundz know that data is constantly growing and is detrimental to growth. Sales intelligence will help you break through lakes of information, but consider your sales reps’ needs on route.
SOURCES USED
https://www.closeriq.com/blog/2018/03/change-management-in-sales-organizations/
https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/boosting-your-sales-roi
https://www.salesflags.com/blog/sales-platforms-sales-intelligence
Topic: Sales Intelligence
