A primer for board members

Technology—used both by businesses and consumers—continues to propel a transformation of the relationship between sellers and buyers. The sales model is evolving as sellers gain efficiencies and access to more granular insights across the buyer’s journey, and buyers take more control of the sales process by tapping the abundance of digital knowledge and offers available at their fingertips.

Board members have a responsibility to ensure that the sales model is constantly being optimized for more efficient revenue gains. In most cases, the necessary sales enablement tools systems are already in place but need to be adjusted or improved.

The board’s goal should be to help the company’s sales professionals become more efficient and effective by prioritizing the most promising opportunities and efficiently nurturing prospects through the sales cycle and into long-term relationships.

How are sales models evolving?

To improve their sales effectiveness, organizations should: 

1. Make the shift from outbound to inbound sales

• Focus on discoverability, SEO and targeting to attract prospects.
• Use marketing automation to nurture buyers through the sales funnel, instead of cold calling or hard-sell tactics.
• Build brand authority to enhance awareness.

2. Be prepared to serve customers through longer sales cycles

• Present more information for buyers, who are doing more research and analysis on their own.
• Be present with relevant content early in the buyer’s journey.

3. Use data-driven sales models to support targeted, cost-effective sales strategies

• Prioritize the most promising leads to focus sales efforts.
• Use AI predictive modeling to identify firmographic, demographic or behavioral signals of buyer readiness and determine the next best action.
• Analyze outcomes of actions to continually refine sales practices for greater success.

4. Be open to ongoing influence from advanced technologies and new ideas

• Develop processes for identifying customer service calls that are lead/upsell opportunities.
• Use AI to assess language used on sales calls and learn from the most successful salespeople’s conversations.
• Exploit customers’ ability to replace solutions quickly and easily with SaaS, cloud and mobile services.

Data drives the action

Customer data

• Use data from social media, third-party and owned databases to develop customer personas based on roles or demographics.
• Focus on solving customer challenges, rather than on a product- or service-centric message.

Sales operations data

• Use systems such as CRM and marketing automation to collect and act on data.
• Support marketing and sales collaboration and accountability.

Third-party data

• Use third-party syndicated data services to learn more about your customers than they’ve shared with you.
• Gain a fuller picture of customer intention via micro- and macro-data on trends and predictions.

What does an evolving sales model look like?

What might a modern sales model look like in the real world? Here are some examples:

• More accurate quotes
  Refine quoting systems and processes to help guide sales partners, such as by connecting quoting system to ERPs so quotes can reflect availability.
• Better customer service
  Optimize routes for field sales so they can more effectively reach and serve customers.
• Greater responsiveness
  Provide real-time inventory visibility for sales team via mobile devices so they can respond immediately to queries and requests for proposals
• More valuable customer data
  Optimize CRM functionality by integrating it with other SaaS applications to provide comprehensive information on prospects and customers.

Sophisticated systems and processes require ongoing tuning

For decades, value creation in sales happened mostly in the physical realm and sales models didn’t change much. Today, however, even product-centric companies can’t create value without the help of sophisticated digital systems and tools. These solutions evolve rapidly, so ongoing fine-tuning is required to maximize their ROI.

• Solutions such as machine learning, IoT, APIs, edge computing and global mobility may all be part of an organization’s modern sales tool kit.
• Keeping technology investments running for optimal ROI requires ongoing review and adjustment of the tech stack so the organization can avoid technical debt.
• Often, maximizing results from technology requires involving a third party that has resources, knowledge and experience in a wide variety of industries and business models.