Top Sales
Trends of 2016
TABLE OF CONTENTS
02 Introduction
2016 Snap Shot
What Does 2016 Hold for Sales?
03 Meet the Experts
04 16 Sales Trends
05 Digital Transformation
08 Sales Automation
Tool Consolidation
11 Predictive Analytics
14 Death of Traditional Sales Funnels
16 Omnichannel Sales
19 End-to-End Sales Focus
21 Alignment with Customer Success
Happy Customers
23 Alignment with Marketing
Account-Based Sales Development
26 Sales Playbooks
29 Death of Cold Calling
More Sales Creativity
31 Thought Leadership
Sales Leadership
33 Top Sales Tools of 2016
36 Conclusion
About Quote-to-Cash
About Apttus
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2016 in a Snapshot
The Olympics are coming back around and so is the presidential
election. A new generation of Star Wars is upon us and Batman will
take on Superman in an epic battle. Apple is expected to announce
the gen 2 of the Apple watch and Uber is promising driverless
transportation. China is one-upping Uber as they experiment with the
world’s first ever flying cars, virtual reality has now become a reality,
and wearables are rumored to soon give way to embeddables.
But what does 2016 hold for sales?
We dug through e-books, white papers, blogs, and headlines. We
attended conferences, webinars, and sales trainings. We spoke to
experts, authors, executives, and sales leaders. We even asked those
on the ground from top performing account executives, sales
development reps, marketers, customer relationship reps, sales ops,
and even buyers.
We read and heard and learned a ton, just so we could share it with
you. Enjoy!
INTRODUCTION
/02
MEET THE EXPERTS
Nancy Nardin
President & Founder,
Smarter Selling Tools
Greg Kaplan
CRO & Managing
Director, Bluewolf
Chad Burmeister
Author, Sr Director, Global
Sales Development,
RingCentral
Tom Taulli
Writer, Forbes,
Founder
OptionExercise.com
Daniel Barber-Trenbath
Vice President of
Revenue, Node.io
Kamal Ahluwalia
EVP, Sales &
Marketing, Apttus
Ford Williams
Enterprise Account
Executive, ClearSlide
Andrew Leigh
Vice President Marketing
& Alliances, Jitterbit
Mary Beth Gargani
Director of Customer
Success, Apttus
Matt Amundson
Director of Sales
Development,
EverString
Sally Duby
General Manager, The
Bridge Group Inc.
Oceah Clark-Kasperzyk
Director of New Business,
Obility
Scott Kahan
Regional Sales Manager,
Influitive
Deb Calvert
Author & President,
People First Productivity
Solutions
/03
Jim Steele
President, Sales &
CCO, InsideSales.com
“2016 will be the year when sales leaders look to technology not just for executing tactically, but to be a strategic
differentiator. More people will recognize that executing efficiency is table stakes. To win long-term, companies must
strategically deploy technology that provides better outcomes and improvements in performance.”
Nancy Nardin
President & Founder Smarter Selling Tools
/04
1. Digital Transformation
Emphasis on Speed Forces B2B Companies to
Think and Act More like B2C Companies
We are already knee-deep in the era of digital
business, driven by cloud and SaaS models,
connectivity, and smart technology. The world is
moving at a faster pace than ever before, and
businesses must remain adaptive, agile, and
responsive to the shifts in market demands and
customer expectations.
While these may seem like concerns fit for a CIO, by
rule of Trickle Down Techonomics, these steady
changes will begin to have a direct impact on sales,
particularly how reps approach deals, how managers
outline process and strategy, and especially how
customers make buying decisions.
Business is accelerating and so will sales cycles.
Digital business and cloud capabilities have also
dramatically lowered barriers of entry meaning more
companies can compete in the same space than
previously. Expect greater competition over deals.
Knowing your product as well as competition’s key
differentiators will be important.
1. BI / Analytics
2. Cloud
3. Mobile
4. Digitization
5. Infrastructure & Data Center
Gartner’s Top 5
Strategic Tech Trends:
MITSloan Management Review
“Strategy, not technology,
drives Digital Transformation”
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/strategy-drives-digital-transformation/
/05
“The most productive sales teams will be supported by applications with simple, consumer-like user experiences. Any app, from quoting to forecasting, that is perceived as
a chore rather than a choice, will hurt productivity and potentially revenue as well.”
Greg Kaplan CRO & Managing Director
Bluewolf
/06
“If your sales development team isn't equipped with the latest and greatest sales technology in 2016, then you
aren't penetrating your market like you could be. 2016 is the year of the Sales Development Representative!”
Chad Burmeister Author, Senior Director, Global
Sales Development, RingCentral
/07
2. Sales Automation Emphasis on Efficiency Through Tools and Processes
Recent years have seen a huge interest and growth in
marketing and sales automation tools, a trend very
much validated by VC’s checkbooks. There are more
and more sales tools available, all designed to help
make reps more efficient and effective at selling.
Author and influencer Chad Burmeister, at a recent
conference, described it as “Every rep has the
opportunity to wear the Iron man suite to work
everyday and be 3x, 4x, 5x more productive.” Those
who understand the tools at their disposal and
maximize the potential will have a noticeable
advantage against those who don’t.
From a team wide perspective, there simply is no
excuse for mindless and tedious manual work. Hours
can be shaved off prospecting, dialing, emailing, data
input, drawing up sales documents etc. – time better
spent in front of buyers. Leaders need to audit and
Taylorize1 their sales processes, augmenting manual
steps with automation. Look to do so by selecting the
right tools, not necessarily more tools.
3. Tool Consolidation Expected Acquisitions and Bundling of Smaller Tools
These two trends seem almost contradictory. Internally,
teams will look to increase automation and efficiency
with tool use. Externally, there will be an effort to shrink
the number of tools available.
The marketplace is near saturation. There is an
abundance of small, standalone sales tools that can
only solve one pain at a time. As a result, technology
forward sales orgs are noticing their sales tool stacks
are starting to become unwieldy and in some cases the
variety of tools is detracting, rather than enhancing rep
productivity.
Many experts predict that 2016 will see its share of
acquisitions, mergers and bundling of these tools as
they are added as features into existing platforms.
1 Taylorism is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes
workflow, improving efficiency
/08
“What to expect for 2016? Well, one is that predictive analytics may finally
make an impact (I know, I know – this always seems to be the next big thing!)
Already InsideSales.com is showing the power of this technology, essentially
using the ‘Amazon.com’ recommendation engine as a clever example. But I
think the real catalyst will be Salesforce, which is pushing hard on predictive
analytics. There is Wave, of course. But Salesforce.com has also been ramping
acquisitions, such as for Relate IQ and MinHash.”
Tom Taulli Writer, Forbes.com
Founder, OptionExercise.com
/09
“In 2016, sales teams will stop wrestling with Excel spreadsheets
for sales forecasting and will start using solutions that make
forecast reports easily accessible right in their CRMs. Predictive
technology will change the way sales teams work by improving
their forecast accuracy and allowing them to roll up their forecasts
in minutes, even in global and matrixed organizations.”
Jim Steele
President, Worldwide Sales & Chief Customer Officer, InsideSales.com
/10
4. Predictive Analytics
Finally Make an Impact Quality Leads Over Quantity Leads
For the past two years, the capabilities of predictive
analytics have been very popular in discussion, but have
yet to make a strong impact in actual practice. Already
gaining decent traction in marketing and finance
departments, predictive engines are expected become a
cornerstone tool in sales stacks.
Predictive analytics go a step deeper than traditional
dashboards, providing actionable data and forecasts.
Companies like InsideSales.com and Salesforce are
already leading the way helping reps identify and capitalize
on higher quality leads. As a result, sales leaders can
focus efforts on the right opportunities, rather than empty
leads, ultimately driving better results. Tools will offer user-
friendly, turnkey analytics solutions that span the sales
cycle from prospecting, lead scoring, dynamic pricing,
customer renewal, upsell and cross-sell opportunities, all
the way through to churn analysis.
Predictive Analytics are a Growing
Priority for Sales Leadership:
58%
Sales organizations plan
to increase their use of
sales analytics from
2015 to 2016.
77% Over the next 12-18
months, smart selling
fueled by predictive
analytics will increase by
Of high performing sales
teams rely on sales
analytics compared
to 16% underperforming
counterparts
57%
2 Source: 2015 State of Sales Report by Salesforce Research
/11
“We live in a world where consumers would rather conduct their own
research online than pick up a phone and have a conversation with a Sales
representative. Sales professionals that previously relied on building initial
rapport over the phone will need to adapt and learn how to utilize current
technologies to open those same doors.”
Chris Ashley Director of Sales,
Kissmetrics
https://www.mikogo.com/2015/12/15/sales-trends-challenges-2016/
/12
“2016 is the year of contextual data. As organizations adopt new methods
to effectively use data to target, prospect, and engage buyers, leaders will
emerge. However, it goes beyond capturing information: sales leaders must
apply strategy to parse through the noise to find relevance. Relevant
information is knowledge. Knowledge is competitive power.”
Daniel Barber-Trenbath Vice President of Revenue,
Node.io
/13
5. Death to Traditional Sales Funnel
Buyer Behavior is Radically Different than in the Past
Most sales teams live by some version of the Spears
Funnel (pictured right) which is a derivative of the 19th
Century St. Elmo Lewis AIDA funnel. More recently,
2004, it was the cornerstone philosophy of Salesforce’s
sales success. Yet, a lot has changed in the decade
since, forcing us to rethink the model.
Sales influencer and blogger, Daniel Barber-Trenbath
writes, “It’s the end of an era;” it’s the end of the old
funnel. “Today’s buyer expects a different approach to
communication, and yet so many sale organizations
continue to leverage a linear conversion model to
forecast results.”
We’ve heard these numbers before:
• By the time customers finally do interact with a
rep, they are already 75 to 95% of the way
done with their transaction.
• According to Forrester, “93% of B2B buyers
prefer to buy online rather than from a rep when
they’ve decided on what to buy.”
4 Predictable Revenue: http://predictablerevenue.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Chart-11-RGB-Outbound-Sales-Funnel.jpg
The world around us is a vast supermarket of options,
information, and intelligence. It’s a buyer’s market and
smart companies understand that people have choices
of who to do business with, and they are transforming
the way they sell and service customers. 2016 calls for
a broader reach in marketing and sales channels in
order to meet customers where they prefer to shop,
and a narrower focus in outbound strategies with
personalized, targeted campaigns.
4
/14
Traditional Sales Funnel
“You’re not going to go very far in modern business without a detailed and
successful omnichannel strategy. We recommend starting with a good sense
of prioritization. Any successful initiative for deploying and expanding these
channels needs to account for three major interrelated issues: automation,
adoption, and agility, working off the same data set but tailoring the user
experience for each channel.”
Kamal Ahluwalia Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Apttus
/15
6. Omnichannel Sales
Productive Partnerships and Multiple Customer
Touchpoints will Grow Your Business
Omnichannel sales and marketing is increasingly
getting the mindshare of executives, strategists, and
decision makers, in firms worldwide. That’s because
buying behavior has changed in recent years.
Customers expect B2C-Tier in all of their sales
interactions, which means how and where you sell
needs to change, as well.
Growing, forward-thinking businesses will invest in a
productive omnichannel program to help connect the
dots between online and in-person experiences,
ensuring brand consistency across all channels, from
mobile to e-commerce to partner sales and self-service
portals.
The omnichannel concept resonates strongly because
of dramatic benefits to be gained in growing revenues
and margins, more effective engagement with
customers across channels, and increased customer
loyalty, and winning over customer segments that buy
more and more often.
of firms are either at an “early
implementation” stage or
“plan to launch in 6-12 months”
omnichannel initiatives. 3
63%
3 Source: The CMO Club Survey: Demystifying Omni-Channel Marketing
/16
“Selling will be moving to a more consensus approach. Sales
reps will have to become used to selling across several
departments to each prospect as technology, systems, and
groups become more integrated.”
Ford Williams Enterprise Account Executive,
Outside Sales, ClearSlide
/17
“Connected sales will be the major trend for 2016 – as companies adopt more
technologies and applications, it becomes even more critical get the integration right.
Sales are won and lost based on the information available to the team. With a
connected sales strategy, sales teams get the right data at the right time from the right
systems to accelerate the customer buying experience and drive more sales.
[…]
Great examples are how to segment the target market for success, allowing reps to
create their own quotes and orders, and providing key information about billing, credit
limits, or order history directly to the rep.”
Andrew Leigh Vice President
Marketing & Alliances, Jitterbit
/18
7. End-to-End Awareness
Technology and Markets Surrounding Your Business are Increasingly Integrated, Your Processes Need to Be as Well
Many of the previous trends – enhanced automation, growth
in omnichannel strategies, digital transformation – are all an
indication of increasing integration. Long gone are the days
where each department sticks within their respective,
confined silos. Every team within an organization needs to
be digitally connected in order to remain competitive and
successful.
This evolution is compelling sales leadership to increase
their awareness of downstream business processes and to
adopt Quote-to-Cash strategies.
Quote-to-Cash, a term that is cropping up more and more,
refers to the set of processes that connect a customer’s
intent to buy and a company’s realization of revenue. It
provides a more holistic approach to the customer
relationship, revenue cycle, and sales process. Despite
common compensation models, deals don’t end when a
quote is signed. Reps also have vested interest in the
contract negotiation and execution, invoicing, distribution
and implementation, renewal, and promotions, as success
or failure in any of these stages post-sign can impact both
active and future deals.
In managing Quote-to-Cash, sales and sales ops
teams can have a true 360-degree understanding of a
deal’s success and optimize every touchpoint with
prospects and customers. In doing so, they have full
visibility into purchased product trends, renewal
opportunities, and high-percentage upsell or cross-
sell possibilities, all improving customer retention,
recurring revenue growth, pipeline forecasting, and
overall numbers close rates.
The Benefit Quote-to-Cash Focused Sales
“[With] the innate ability to link the entire Quote-to-
Cash process together in one system. We will be
able to scale our operation and leverage the benefits
of this great toolset at the same relative cost of our
manual processes that were not scalable…This
solution will optimize our end-to-end sales, support
process and will allow us to keep the focus on the
most important part of our business -- our clients.”
Darra Wray, Senior Vice President Finance, of
Healthwise Incorporated Source: CIOToday.com, Apttus’ Innovation Continues to Propel
the Cloud-based Quote-to-Cash Industry Forward
/19
“The commitments and expectations established during the sales cycle need to be the
criteria that the delivery and customer success teams use to measure overall project
adoption and success. The coordinated knowledge transfer allows the customer
objectives to remain the primary focus throughout the engagement and across all
areas of the organization.
Organizations that consistently demonstrate a connected model of Sales + Solution
Delivery+ Customer Success can achieve better results for their customers
and their business long term.”
Mary Beth Gargani Director of Customer Success,
Apttus
/20
8. Closer Alignment
with Customer Success A Strong Relationship with your Customer Success
Team can Help Generate Sales Success
As business continues to accelerate and divisions
between different departments continue to dissolve,
the closer sales and customers success teams will
begin to work. Of course, smart reps have already
been working closely with their Customer Success
(CS) team, because they are your most valuable asset.
No one understands use cases, pain points, and best
practices better than the CS team. They are on the
ground, speaking and working with the customer on a
regular basis. They hold the keys to renewal
opportunities, and more importantly, the ammo to close
new deals. Work with them to understand your
customer’s processes, learn what success is for them,
ensure you develop messaging that can guide new
customers towards that success, and even understand
what failure looks like (and how to prevent it!).
9. Happy Customers Expected Acquisitions and Bundling of Smaller Tools
As sales teams work closer with their customer
success teams, expect to see a greater focus on
customer satisfaction and retention – and for good
reason too.
For starters, 80% of your revenue comes from existing
customers. It’s also 6-7x more expensive to acquire a
new customer than retain one. Happy customers will
lead to more renewals, greater upsell and cross-sell
opportunities and can help impact future deals as
positive referrals or brand evangelists.
Some companies, for instance Salesforce, believe in
customer satisfaction so much that they’ve altered their
sales compensation model so their reps aren’t paid
when the deal is signed, but when the customer hits
100% implementation. Other companies like Mulesoft
and Apttus have invested in advocacy programs which
reward their customers for engaging with the brand.
/21
“In 2016, I think that we will see the lines between sales development and
demand generation start to blur even further. In some companies, I am even
seeing them act as one function. Sales development is a natural extension of
demand gen, and demand gen is fuel for sales. By having clear alignment
between these two groups, pre-sales becomes one large nurture stream--
everything is connected, from collecting new names, to building those
relationships, to sales outreach, and beyond. With close alignment and
shared responsibilities, this process becomes truly seamless.”
Matt Amundson Director of Sales Development,
EverString
/22
10. Greater Sales &
Marketing Alignment The Line Between Sales Development and Lead Gen
Is Blurring
Sales and marketing like to consider themselves
separate entities. As Marketo writes, “Sales is form
Mars and Marketing is form Venus,” yet what they need
to realize is they both orbit the same sun. 5 The line
between sales and marketing, specifically sales
development and lead gen, is blurring. We are seeing
many strategies that have originated in the marketing
realm – account-based targeting, automation tools,
lead scoring – penetrate the sales world. As sales
cycles shorten and tools make predictive lead scoring
simpler, these two departments will steadily gravitate
towards one another.
5http://www.marketo.com/resources
/marketing-and-sales-alignment/
11. Account-Based SDR New Methods in Lead & Pipeline Generation
Generating qualified leads to pass on to Account
Executives is a constant effort, often with inconsistent
results. Traditionally it’s been approached as a volume
game, the more outreach, the more opportunities. With
increased analytics and lead quality outweighing lead
quantity, sales teams will take a more systematic
approach, focusing resources on companies and
profiles most likely to buy.
Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD), stemming
from the widely popular and proven account-based
marketing, allows sales teams to develop qualified
pipeline by sending relevant, personalized multi-touch
email campaigns to identified target accounts, rather
than mass prospect and outreach.
Within some proactive companies, sales teams are
enabling SDRs, in cases of predefined lead
qualification, to complete the sales cycle themselves. It
increases close rates by striking when the customer is
ready to buy, and preserves AE’s time and efforts for
larger deals.
/23
“The companies that have actual onboarding training and
documented Playbooks with on-going coaching and reinforcement
will ramp reps quicker and retain them longer. There will be more
attention on Ideal Customer Profiles and ensuring your reps have
access to the right data and lists. Otherwise, everyone is
wasting valuable time and money.”
Sally Duby General Manager,
The Bridge Group Inc.
/24
“Bolster new business opportunities by adding an outbound
sales process. We knew it was crucial to develop a scalable,
predictable model centered around establishing thought
leadership and targeting best fit companies.”
Oceah Clark-Kasperzyk Director of New Business,
Obility
/25
12. Sales Playbooks New Methods in Lead & Pipeline Generation
Sales has been traditionally perceived as a game of
skill, where the best flourish and everyone else merely
keeps pace. But too often, managers will have one rep
hitting 150% of quota and many others hovering
around 70%.
As the rest of our world becomes automated and
predictable, sales organizations will work to create
repeatable success within their ranks, specifically with
sales playbooks. These playbooks outline best
practices, tactics for different personas or selling
scenarios, quick reference for competitors, and specific
calls-to-action to move the deal along.
Playbooks are especially useful at the sales
development level which typically has low levels of
sales experience and high rates of turnover.
Sales organizations that deploy playbooks have seen: 6
• 2.5x increase in average deal size
• 3x times more likely to win deals
• 10% shorter sales cycles
/01
Best Ways to Improve Efficiency of Prospecting
• Define common language and process
• Create playbook
– Combines best tactics of whole department
– Update regularly
– 1 for SDRs, 1 for Managers
• Create prospecting plan
– # of unique conversations needed to hit KPIs
– Source of leads (top 5 methods)
– Lead expectation per source per time period
• Creates accountability - onus on SDR
• Aides focus and scheduling
– Create customized content for targets in each
vertical
• Thorough pre-call planning
– Standardized expectations for each meeting
• Standardized debriefing
– Meeting results tied into specific thresholds
for moving to next step in sales process
• Weekly coaching
– Don’t manage to results , manage to behavior
– Enforce consistency of day-to-day activities
that will lead to desired results
Model courtesy of Oceah Clark-Kasperzyk, Director of New Business, Obility 6 Source: Qvidian: Succeed Faster with Sales Playbooks
/26
“People sell to people, and the best reps have the best
conversations. We use tools to have smarter
conversations…Conversation is still King.”
Rob Jeppsen Vice President & General
Manager of Sales, HireVue
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5v8Ezfxpfk/
/27
“The phone is still the most valuable tool you have. We have
labels on all of our phones, ATM. If you want to make
money, pick up the phone.”
Armando Mann Vice President of Sales
& Customer Success, Relate IQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LluUCM_qC4/
/28
13. Death of Cold Calls Too Much Available Info for You to Ever Cold Call
R.I.P. to the oldest tool in the sales repertoire, the
infamous cold call. With all of the social channels,
profiles, information, lead data available, there simply
is no excuse for your first discovery to take place over
the phone. By the time you connect with a prospect,
you should already have a good understanding of who
they are, what they do within their company, their
motivations, and how you can help them.
Don’t mistake this however, for the death of phone
calls. The phone is still a sales developer’s best asset.
Five minutes of connecting on a call is more productive
than fifty emails. All roads lead to the phone, just
ensure that those conversations are quality ones.
14. More Sales Creativity Cut Through Overcrowded Inboxes with Storytelling
One day I saw this subject line waiting for me in my
inbox:
“RE: The bullets whistled past my ears…”
The body of the email then launched into an epic story of
American soldiers charging up Bunker Hill, a pivotal
battle in the Revolutionary War. In two quick paragraphs,
this SDR was able to a capture my attention, recommend
it was time I changed software, and ultimately provide a
compelling reason to respond. It worked, and it worked
very well.
Today’s buyers expect a different approach to
communication so personalization and creativity will be
essential. The average corporate employee receives
upwards of 84 emails a day, and unless you are able to
create a compelling reason to even open, let alone follow
up, your effort will be lost in the shuffle.
In, 2016 you will see a trend towards creative subject
lines and storytelling sales techniques. Fish for
information about your client and use that to make a
connection.
The Cold Hard Truth About Cold Calls
Only 2% of cold calls result in an appointment.
In 2007 it took an average of 3.68 cold call attempts to
reach a prospect. Today it takes 8 attempts.
Source: http://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-statistics
/29
“If 2015 was the year of ‘Social Selling’, 2016 will become the year of ‘Surround Selling’.
We are going to see reps begin to realize that tweeting company news and following
prospects on social channels to check the ‘social selling’ box is not enough to make a
difference. Instead reps are going to need to start trusting that current customers are
ready and able to surround buyers with positive influence. Given how much of the
buying process happens when it is either impossible or inappropriate for the rep to be
directly involved, the key to success in 2016 will be having a great network who can
surround the buyer. In many ways this is an extension of relationship selling but instead
of worrying about building the relationship during the sales process, the key is to build a
strong relationship post-sale. I would expect to see investment in enhancing customer's
experience post sale outside of typical product and service interactions in-order to
stimulate more involvement from happy customers in the sales process.”
Scott Kahan Regional Sales Manager,
Influitive
/30
15. Thought Leadership Next Generation of Social Selling, Establish Yourself
as an Influencer in Your Space
Steve Jobs infamously said, “A lot of times, people
don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
in some ways this still rings true, but in many others,
this is a gross underestimation of your customer, who
in 2016 is very well researched, well informed, and well
prepared by the time they enter your sales cycle.
As previously mentioned, by the time you speak to a
prospect, they are already a majority of the way
through their buying process. It will be increasingly
important to establish yourself as a knowledgeable
source by consistently posting relevant articles and
information on social media, engaging in community
discussions, and if the opportunity presents itself,
speaking at conferences. You’ll gain trust amongst
audiences and provide avenues for leads and
prospects to find you when the he or she is ready to do
research. Thought leadership will help you become
your own marketing department and lead generator.
7 Learn More about Sale s Leadership at http://peoplefirstps.com/stop-
selling-start-leading/
16. Sales Leadership Stop Selling, Start Leading
[Courtesy of Debra Calvert, Author & President,
People First Productivity Solutions] 7
In sales, you need to differentiate yourself from the
pack. You can’t rely on your company’s brand or the
products you represent. You need to stand out on your
own, because buyers expect no less. They have
become very discerning and protective of their time.
Leaders, unlike sellers, have a point of view that is
unique and interesting. They rally people around them
because they show others how their own interests can
be realized if they enlist in the leader’s vision. The 3
keys to selling like a leader are:
1. Create Value – make every conversation valuable
and unique
2. Co-Create Insights – allow buyers to participate in
creating what they want
3. Generate Demand – inspire buyer’s to come to you
/31
“Transforming yourself (or your team) from selling to leading starts
with making a choice to adopt the behaviors demonstrated by
effective leaders. The mindset of a leader stems from
the simple choice to be a leader.”
Deb Calvert Author & President,
People First Productivity Solutions
/32
1. SALES NAVIGATOR
This may seem like an obvious
one, but it really is the best
prospecting tool. Sales
Navigator helps you find the
right prospects, fast. With
LinkedIn’s sophisticated
algorithm, this sales tool gives
you lead recommendations
that are tailored to you. Easily
save leads and follow updates
of your prospects to turn cold
calling into warm
conversations.
Top 10 Sales Tools of 2016
Technology more and more is becoming critical to
our sales success. Of course, it’s important to
remember that more isn’t the answer, but finding
the right tools that will allow you to be more
efficient, effective, and ultimately bring in more
opportunities and closed deals.
As we spoke with sales experts, authors,
executives, and reps, we made a point to ask them
about their sales stacks and their favorite tools.
The following is a list of their the Top 10
recommendations.
2. INSIDESALES
InsideSales.com offers the
industry's leading sales
acceleration platform built on
Neuralytics, a predictive and
prescriptive self-learning
engine that drives revenue
growth by delivering an
optimized experience for
both salesperson and buyer.
The platform fuels sales rep
performance and provides
buyer personalization with
breakthrough innovations in
predictive sales
communications,
engagement tracking,
forecasting, rep motivation
and hiring.
/34
Top 10 Sales Tools of 2016
5. CLEARSLIDE
ClearSlide’s Live Pitch
allows you to engage
customers with power and
agility. Start a presentation in
just one click, without having
to worry about technology
hassles with your customers.
You’ll have a customized link
from which you can
present everything from
presentations, to HD video,
to a live screen share. Your
viewer can join by simply
typing your viewer’s link into
their browser. They’ll never
have to download software
or plugins to view your
presentation.
4. SALESHOOD
SalesHood is the
prescriptive, just in time,
sales learning platform to
elevate sales results. Use
mobile, video, crowdsourcing
and content creation to
increase team productivity
and revenue. Get more
sellers closing more deals in
their first thirty days. Reduce
time it takes sellers to hit
sales quota. Roll out
products efficiently and get
reps consistently on
message in hours. Improve
competitive win-rates in
days. Crowdsource best
practices and get your B and
C sellers to perform like your
A sellers.
3. OUTREACH io
Outreach is the best sales
communication platform that
we've seen. It has the
flexibility for you to build
multiple sales workflows in
the way that best suits your
organization and prospects;
and A/B test those workflows
along with all of their
components: email, tasks
such as LinkedIn InMail, and
other follow-up steps. Sales
reps can see how their
workflows are performing,
and team managers can see
how everyone's workflows
perform. Best-performing
templates and workflows can
become best practices to
elevate the results of the
entire team, which also
makes it really easy to
onboard new reps.
Apttus E-Commerce software
helps you connect the dots
between online and in-person
experiences to ensure total
brand consistency across all
channels. Empower
customers and channels to
buy from you whenever and
wherever they need, and
ensure product, price and
promotional information is
always tailored, secure and
up-to-date. Even if you sell to
businesses, the majority of
your customers want to do
their shopping online. Put
your products in your
customers’ hands—no matter
where or when they are ready
to buy.
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6. APTTUS E-COMMERCE
Top 10 Sales Tools of 2016
9. SLACK
Slack is a free
communication tool that
allows you to organize your
team conversations in open
channels. Make a channel
for a project, a topic, a team,
or anything—everyone has a
transparent view of all that’s
going on. For sensitive
information, create private
channels and invite a few
team members. Not just your
messages, but all your files,
images, PDFs, documents,
and spreadsheets can be
dropped right into Slack and
shared with anyone you
want. Add comments, star
for later reference, and it’s
all completely searchable.
8. TOUTAPP
Tout supports personal
communications by
connecting directly with your
email server. For superior
deliverability Tout integrates
directly into in Gmail,
Outlook or your custom
SMTP. Not only can you
track views, clicks and
replies, you can take action
directly from your Live Feed.
In one-click, make a call,
shoot off an email or view
CRM data all in one place.
Get real-time visibility on
what’s happening with your
emails. Know when
someone views, clicks or
replies to an email.
7. EVERSTRING
With Predictive Demand
Generation, EverString
builds and applies your
unique predictive customer
model to a proprietary
directory of companies to
deliver top-of-funnel net-new
accounts and leads with a
high propensity to buy. Using
fit, intent, and engagement
data, EverString maintains a
directory of over 11 million
B2B companies, capturing
over 20,000 signals and
characteristics for each one.
With this data, EverString
provides a comprehensive
point-of-view on every
account in your entire
addressable market.
10. INFLUITIVE
Your customers love you.
Influitive’s advocate marketing
software helps you discover,
mobilize and recognize them.
Drive referrals, references,
reviews, word of mouth
recommendations, and more.
Accelerate sales with warm
leads referred to you by
happy, engaged customers.
Cultivate references and
product reviews to reach
prospects earlier in the buying
process. Using Influitive, you
can inspire your best
customers to share content on
social media, post genuine
product reviews and ratings,
and create powerful
testimonials and case studies
that will make even the most
skeptical prospects take a
second look at your company.
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Conclusion
About Quote-to-Cash
Quote-to-Cash is the vital business process that connects a
customer’s interest in a purchase to the realization of revenue.
It includes creating a quote, responding to RFXs, submitting a
proposal, negotiating and managing a contract, fulfilling
orders, recognizing revenue, ensuring compliance and
tracking payments – all within visible and controlled workflow.
Quote-to-Cash solutions include Configure-Price-Quote
(CPQ), Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), and Revenue
Management applications.
Quote-to-Cash is the single link between top-line results,
bottom-line results and customer satisfaction. No other
process is as critical for maximizing the value of capturing
revenue in a profitable way as well as meeting the needs of
customer sales requests. This process relies on the collective
intelligence of the enterprise. The impact of accurate quotes,
proposals, contracts and orders make the flow of all data and
processes within an enterprise work smoothly, thus creating
value for enterprises and their customers
About Apttus
Apttus, the category-defining Quote-to-Cash software
company, drives the vital business process between the
buyer’s interest in a purchase and the realization of revenue.
Apttus is delivered on the Salesforce1 Platform, the world’s
most trusted and comprehensive cloud delivery infrastructure.
Applications include Quote-to-Cash Intelligence (Analytics),
Configure Price Quote (CPQ), Renewals, Contract
Management and Revenue Management. Additionally, Apttus’
patent pending X-Author technology enables Microsoft Office
to be a user-interface with full interaction and control between
Salesforce and Microsoft Office. Apttus is based in San
Mateo, California, with additional offices in London, UK,
Bozeman, Montana and Ahmedabad, India. For more
information visit: apttus.com.
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The world around us is rapidly changing. But amongst
all of the predictions, tips, hacks and information, three
common themes continued to resurface:
1. More Technology – There are more and more
available tools, allowing sales organizations to be
more time and cost efficient. It’s also important to
remember to adopt the right tools not necessarily
more tools.
2. A Focus on Repeatable Success – Expect to see
sales leadership invest in training, onboarding and
sales operations. The combination of analytics
increased and automation is changing expectations
for sales performance. Leadership will look to
increase consistency, so B and C sellers can perform
like A sellers.
3. Selling in Context – Buying behavior has
dramatically changed. Sellers need to adjust their
strategies to match. Sales organizations will look to
increase sales channels and to streamline sales
cycles. Individual reps will make themselves more
accessible and use storytelling to convey value.
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