Demystifying the Sales Technology Landscape

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The Last Frontier for Technology Transformation

The sales function is one of the last organizations to be hit by the technology wave. While back-end processes like payroll started automating in the 50’s, salespeople were still using a Rolodex and phone. When ERP systems were deployed in the 80’s and 90’s, sales people simply upgraded their Rolodex to a computer with email.

And then, in the last decade, the martech tsunami hit marketing. The Chiefmartec blog has documented the fast-paced changes in marketing. The first landscape they published in 2011 featured 150 companies. The 2016 landscape had over 4,000 vendors!

Navigating the Sales Tech LandscapeIntroduction

The sales technology landscape has exploded in recent years, and it continues to grow very quickly and become harder to navigate. The goal of this brief is to bring some order to the chaos, and provide a framework to make it easier to navigate and choose the right solution for your organization.

There are a variety of ways to tackle a technology landscape. Some aim to cram as many logos as possible into a single graphic. Others create a complex set of groupings and sub categories with often unclear definitions and delineations. This guide strives to be simple. This guide was built for the overworked, strapped-for-time, sales or marketing professional simply trying to make sales and marketing more effective. Whether you work in sales enablement, sales operations, product marketing, sales or another function, we took this simple view: As a buyer, you should attack your technology evaluation from a business challenge point of view. Before you start, have a business challenge you want to solve. With this guide, you can navigate what technology solutions are available to solve that challenge and begin the individual tool evaluation process.

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Sales leaders, are you ready for the sales tech tsunami?

Making Sense of the Sales Tech Landscape

Start navigating the sales tech waters and you’ll soon be neck-deep in a sea of nebulous terms. What the heck is the difference between sales enablement vs sales acceleration vs sales performance? The answer: depends on who is doing the defining. Many vendors in this space also use the same language for different products, so discerning what vendor X does vs. vendor Y can be time consuming, difficult and frustrating. In this framework, we will do our best to avoid nebulous terms and use simple words that make sense, like “gather prospect information” or “decide which prospect to contact.”

Scope of This GuideThe scope of this sales tech landscape focuses on B2B selling and improving sales performance. It does not cover customer relationship management (CRM) or customer service. It also does not cover the martech landscape mentioned above. Although CRM and marketing automation systems (MAS) are critical to the sales tech and martech stack, adoption is relatively high, larger players have emerged, and there is plenty of good information available for those platforms.

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This sales tech framework specifically seeks to make sense of all of the complementary technology that sits around the CRM and MAS.

Sales Tech Framework Introduction

To start, this landscape is divided into 4 basic categories:

1. Sales Process: Involves the activity of selling. It includes all of the activities from gathering information about prospects, to contacting them, to the sales conversations and finally getting a signed contract.

2. People Development: Includes onboarding, training and coaching. The content can range from product to sales skills to leadership and much more.

3. Administrative Support Functions: Activities which aren’t necessarily part of the actual act of selling or people development, but provide critical support for sales force productivity. Examples include forecasting, quota management, compensation, content management and more.

4. Business Intelligence & Analytics: Includes the tools to take all of the data generated for reporting and insights that will ultimately allow you to direct resources to the highest ROI activities, markets and opportunities.

Diving a Little Deeper

1 | Sales ProcessThis is a large category as it spans from the very beginning to the very end of the sales process. However, breaking it up into smaller, logical chunks makes it easier to identify your organization’s pain point and find the right solution.

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Gather InformationEspecially for organizations that do a lot of prospecting, this is a critical and possibly time consuming phase. You may have target industries or companies, but don’t know who you should contact. Or perhaps you know the name of the person, but need more information such as email or phone number to contact the person.

Example Companies:

Key considerations for “Gather Information”

Quality vs quantity – Do you need a few, quality contacts or does your business require large volumes? In general, quantity and quality are a trade-offs and cost goes up with quality.

One-time or ongoing – Are you buying a list for a single campaign, or do you need a tool that provides the ability to gather information on an ongoing basis?

Target buyer – Who is your target buyer? IT department? Sales? Marketing? Vendors often have a strength in one function or another.

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Who to ContactYou want your sales reps prioritizing the highest ROI opportunities, especially if they are swamped with deals and leads. In addition, when you contact someone and how often can directly affect your close rate. There are 4 sub-categories you can break this section into:

1. Lead prioritization – Many companies have too many leads and not the right kind. Tools in this space continue to get smarter, with predictive recommendations on which leads are the hottest, and when you should contact them.

2. Account based selling – One of the more recent “hot topics” in sales. Tools in this space are helpful to sell to large companies with many divisions or companies that must sell to a large buyers family. They allow you to manage the account holistically with tailored content to the account and each individual.

3. Pipeline management - Where should your sales reps spend their precious time? On the deal in proposal stage or on the hot lead that just came in? How do you make sure deals don’t stall somewhere in the pipeline? Pipeline management tools take the guess work out and many use predictive scoring to direct you to the highest probability for return.

4. Account planning – Account planning tools help you organize and prioritize your data associated with an account. This includes stakeholders within the company, account goals, opportunities, strategies and more.

Example Companies:

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Key considerations for “Who to Contact”

Sales approach: If you haven’t changed processes, metrics and strategies to shift to account based selling, those tools probably aren’t right for you yet.

Sales Development Rep (SDR) vs Inside Sales vs Field Sales – Different roles within sales will have different technology needs and don’t expect to solve ev-eryone’s problem with one tool. Account based selling tools for field reps who have a few accounts may be a good fit, but SDRs may need something different.

How You ContactAdmittedly, there is a lot that fits into this sub-category, but it all comes down to a fundamental question: How do I efficiently and effectively communicate with a prospect / lead / opportunity? Tools in this space range from call automation, to calendars, to meeting tools to social selling tools and more. The right tool choice depends on your target and business strategy and often, a portfolio of tools in this space is the right answer.

Examples Companies:

Key considerations for “How You Contact”

Communication needs: For SDRs doing a lot of cold prospecting, a call automa-tion platform may be the right solution. For inside reps, an online meeting tool is a must have.

Sales Development Rep (SDR) vs Inside Sales vs Field Sales – Role should dictate technology needs. For reps that do a high volume of prospecting, call automation, social selling and cross-channel platforms are great. Probably not a great fit for a dedicated account field rep.

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Key considerations for “What You Do to Sell”

Sales content: What content should reps share based on the person’s role, indus-try vertical, sales stage, etc.? Where is the content and how do reps get it in an instant?

Engagement and follow-up: Do reps have a way to know if a prospect engaged with shared content so they can immediately follow-up?

Coaching in the moment: Can you improve your sales conversations, keep reps on message and sell on value? Do you need a virtual coach to help them?

What You Do to SellThe moment of truth has arrived! Your prospect has agreed to talk to your sales rep. Now what? Do they have relevant content to share with your prospect? Can they sell on value vs price? Will they be able to pivot when the sales conversation takes twists and turns? In an ideal scenario, your rep is prepared with the right content, the right message and the knowledge to skillfully handle all those objections coming your way. Your superstar reps can do this in their sleep but what about the other 80%? The tools in this space focus on delivering the right content and speaking points to improve the sales conversations your reps have.

Examples Companies

What You Do to CloseOne of the more frustrating situations in sales is getting to the point where you have real interest, you start the pricing negotiations and then the process drags on with back and forth contract negotiations, price quotes and slow signing of

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the contract. The tools in this space help reps quickly configure quotes and get a signed deal as fast as possible.

Examples Companies

Key considerations for “What You Do to Close”

Complexity of pricing: If there are many configurations and pricing options, hav-ing a tool to help guide your reps may be what you need.

Deal approval process: If your organization has a lot of customization in deals and they require an approval flow, having a tool to help configure and get approval could likely shorten this process of the sales cycle.

2 | People DevelopmentPeople Development is often one of the first areas where companies invest. Onboarding a sales rep is an expensive endeavor. You want your reps selling and hitting quota as quickly as possible. You also need to keep your existing reps skilled and educated in a fast paced marketplace. When done correctly, people development can help achieve more sales and reduce turnover. The core capabilities in this category include:

1. Onboarding: The goal of onboarding is to get new sales rep to quota as fast as possible. This means not just learning your products and market, but also getting sales reps to follow your company’s sales methodologies and processes.

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Key considerations for “People Development”

Frequency of training: Taking sales rep time to train is necessary but it costs mon-ey to take them away from selling. Having a tool to reinforce training in short bursts and on demand can help maximize the ROI of your investment.

Practice makes perfect: Athletes constantly practice to improve and sales people should too. Tools that allow managers to coach frequently, anywhere and any-time can be valuable practice tools.

Engaging training: Newsletter blasts about new product launches and compet-itive moves often don’t get read. Do you have a tool to deliver short, engaging updates that are read and understood by your sales reps?

2. Training: Staying competitive means keeping your reps trained on new products, the competition and more. How do you efficiently AND effectively keep you sales reps well-versed on everything they need to know to succeed?

3. Coaching: In an ideal world, managers could coach one-on-one, face-to-face on a regular basis, but that is almost never the case. These tools help managers virtually coach when they can’t be there in person.

Examples Companies

3 | Administrative Support FunctionsThese tool often focus on efficiency. Where many of the Sales Process tools are about growing top line revenue, many of the administrative support tools are about cutting costs and doing things cheaper and faster.

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The core capabilities in this category include:1. Forecasting: Tools to help you more accurately forecast on a regular basis so your company can more efficiently allocate resources.

2. Quota Management: Tools to help you set, monitor and manage quota, especially when you have a large diversified salesforce.

3. Compensation & Incentives: A close cousin to quota management. Tools to manage compensation elements like commissions, bonus, contests and SPIFFs.

4. Territory Management: These tools help to establish your sales territories and staff them with the right amount and kind of sales rep to grow your revenue.

5. Content Management: You have a lot of sales and marketing content. These tools help you store, manage and find your content. They often come with features like version control and approval flows.

Examples Companies

Key considerations for “Administrative Support”

Complexity of sales force: If you have many different types of sellers, selling a di-verse set of products, then having a tools to set territories and manage quota will save you a substantial amount of overhead.

Sales force size: The more sales reps contributing to forecasting, the more likely a forecasting tool will help your forecasts be more accurate.

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4 | Business Intelligence & AnalyticsAlthough most of the tools in this category aren’t sales-specific technologies, they complement sales tools well because of the data generated. How do you take all that data and get insights out of it? Especially when you have multiple data sources. Oh, and by the way, the divisional GM probably has some pretty specific personal preferences on how the data should be sliced and diced for the quarterly reports. Business Intelligence & Analytic to the rescue…

Examples Companies

Key considerations for “BI & Analytics”

Reporting needs: Most of the tools listed in this guide have basic reporting “out of the box.” Before investing in additional tools, see if the basic reporting meets your needs.

Amount of data: A company that has a number of sales and marketing tools, all producing data, will probably want to explore investing in a business intelligence tool. The ability to pull from different data sources could help unleash new in-sights.

Summary

If there is just one piece of advice you take from this guide it should be to PLAN FIRST! Without a clear idea of the business challenge you are solving you risk wasting a lot of time talking to too many vendors and even purchasing something you don’t need. Know the problem you are solving before engaging vendors. You

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will equip yourself to ask specific questions to the vendors when you do engage with them. When you are ready to choose, choose the one that solves your business challenges. It’s easy to get awed by “bells and whistles” in the evaluation process. If it doesn’t solve one of your identified business challenges, those nice features will likely go unused. Don’t overpay for things you won’t use. Good luck!

Veelo is a cloud-based sales enablement platform which combines tools for onboarding, training, ongoing enablement, and optimization in a single platform to support the full sales rep lifecycle.

Veelo increases sales performance by improving the effectiveness and productivity of individual sales reps. Designed with the sales rep in mind, Veelo combines brain science principles and machine learning algorithms, Veelo delivers the perfect talking points, content and coaching, at just the right time, to increase deal velocity and win rates. Learn more about Veelo at veeloinc.com.