What if you could arm your sales executives with the right resources for each challenge posed by a customer/prospect or competitor? What impact do you think having such a powerful “magic wand” would make on you or your team’s ability to win deals. Conversely, how many deals do you think you might be able to rescue from the dreaded no decision? One element of the formula is bringing the most relevant and impactful expertise, resources and materials to bear just as they are needed. “Surviving in a Buyer’s World” outlines a great solution combining a knowledge management portal with effective sales coaching and leadership to produce a true weapon for your sales team. The impact on sales productivity is potentially significant. We all have seen the e-mails going around asking for a proposal, or competitive pricing information, or a slide. What if it could be accessible in a moments notice at the client site? What if there was a video of the VP of Product Mgmt. giving the pitch? Or a customer giving testimony to a successful deployment? These types of nuggets can be the difference between winning and losing. Why not have your best and brightest available anytime and anywhere? As pointed out in the article, the key to success in such an initiative is to drive organizational commitment to developing and maintaining the arsenal and embedding it’s use in your sales process.
I believe in today’s environment, companies need to extend the tools and resources available to their sales teams further. The negative external pressures on sales productivity may have never been greater and manifests itself in extended cycles and increased no decisions. Tools that assist your sales team to increase there effectiveness and overall productivity should be actively considered as part of the success formula. One such tool is a trigger event service. At it simplest form, it could be setting up google alerts for news or events that signal a sales opportunity at a customer/prospect. There are a number of services (g2, InsideView) that provide a more automated approach and include social networking capabilities to maximize a sales executive’s ability to be in the right place at the right time with a solution.
In conclusion, this is a time for investing in sales rep productivity to stem the tide of a challenging sales environment. These investments will improve sales morale and demonstrate a commitment to their success. Your organization will become much more market and customer focused as other organizations beyond sales take advantage of the intelligence created and deployed.
