Sales Teams everywhere are facing an increasingly complicated set of challenges.
We’re working in an environment unlike anything we’ve seen before. This new landscape is more connected, digital, and competitive than the ones we were used to. The rise of the pandemic in 2020 led to new trends and demands from the sales landscape. This means that every person in the sales team now has new challenges to face.
Our latest whitepaper uncovered a number of problems bringing misalignment to teams. For instance, 75% of Sales Ops say they’re now overwhelmed with new workplace responsibilities. 71% of VPs say they may not be able to adapt their strategies quickly enough. Even Sales managers are struggling, with 80% saying they’re not confident in their team’s ability to meet quotas.
So, how do you resolve the issues your team is facing?
The answer could be in Guided Selling.
Tackling Sales Challenges with Guided Selling
As the sales landscape continues to shift, it’s delivering a new range of sales problems and solutions to the marketplace. Companies need a way to empower their team members at every level within the sales community, and Guided Selling could be the answer.
Combining AI and big data, Guided Selling provides sales teams with helpful insights into how to make sales work. The automated aspects of a Guided Selling solution ensures that everyone from VPs to sales reps have access to:
- Data insights: Tools can gather data from various points in the sales stack, from the CRM to the email inbox, to deliver actionable insights in a single location.
- Supporting signals: AI solutions can help to find correlations and trends in your data, offering better advice on how to make a sale successful.
- Complete visibility: Collection and analysis of complete sales communications data means your sales leaders can see what’s really happening throughout the sales cycle.
Let’s take a closer look at the opportunities available for each part of the sales team. Explore our white paper to understand how to beat sales challenges for any member of your team.
Supporting the Sales Team: CSOs and VPs
Our research discovered that up to 71% of VPs aren’t confident that they can respond to changing environments quickly enough. The issues that hold them back often center around visibility and predictability. VPs don’t have the data they need to remain agile in a changing environment. Through intelligent solutions like Guided Selling, CSOs and VPs can:
- Adapt rapidly: With information on what’s working best to sell right now, it’s easier for leaders to change course without slowing down. Guided Selling allows leaders to test new sales processes in real time and move forward with good results quickly.
- Forecast results: AI analysis of each deal’s complete data means that the platform can pick up on leading indicators that a deal will be won or lost. Having a real understanding of what will be won makes forecasts more reliable.
- Connect with the frontline: Sales VPs and CSOs aren’t always as connected with the front-line as they should be. Guided Selling makes it possible for leaders at the top to see exactly what reps and sales teams are doing to close deals and what’s working best.
Tackling Challenges Faced by Directors and Managers
Challenges faced by sales managers affect the entire workforce. If your managers can’t empower and inspire your employees to deliver their best work, your chances of success dwindle. Fortunately, access to the right information and support through Guided Selling could be the solution. With the right technology, managers can:
- Win more deals: Deals at risk aren’t always obvious to Sales Leaders, but a few deals lost from the committed pipeline can have a big impact on meeting quota. With Guided Selling, managers and supervisors can see deals that are going off track, so they can be saved.
- Manage more effectively: Rather than asking sales reps to report on every detail of each deal, managers and supervisors can easily check the platform to see where things stand, since all data is automatically collected.
- Inspire better outcomes: Most sales managers struggle to find time to coach their teams while handling various other parts of the business. Guided Selling reduces the workload with automation, especially when it comes to reporting.
Support for Sales Operations
Sales Operations professionals need access to tools that help them make the most of their selling strategy. Around 75% of sales ops currently feel that they’re overwhelmed by extra responsibilities at work. As demand on Sales Ops time accelerates, Guided Selling solutions deliver:
- Aligned information: Working with siloed and incomplete data sources can cause Sales Ops to draw the wrong conclusions about what’s moving deals. Guided Selling pulls data from all sales tools to paint a complete picture of what’s happening in the pipeline.
- Better rep productivity: Long ramp-up times and inconsistent onboarding processes have a direct impact on sales productivity and return on investment. Guided Selling helps reps to get up and running faster with training reminders and guidance, reducing ramp time by around 42%.
- Reduced sales cycles: The right tools help Sales Ops to effectively adjust processes and experiment with new ones that might encourage faster sales. With Guided Selling, Sales Ops can see how each effort a rep makes drives results.
Unlocking Opportunities for Sales AEs and Reps
Last, but not least, Guided Selling and new technology can also help to support your AEs and sales reps. These professionals need something to keep them focused on the right factors when they’re working in the changing sales landscape. Around 77% of sales reps currently struggle with finding the time for all of their tasks. With Guided Selling, you can:
- Improve focus: Reps will often rely on their gut instinct when figuring out what to do next in the sales landscape. However, it takes a while to find a strategy that works every time. Guided Selling shows reps exactly what they need to do next to push each deal forward.
- Enhance training: Guided Selling gives reps and AEs in-time reminders of how to execute skills they were trained on right when they need to use them. These contextual reminders provide consistent practice that greatly improves the adoption of new techniques.
- Strengthen data interpretation: Reps have access to plenty of data, but it’s often distributed among different channels, which makes it hard to gather actionable insights. AI tools can give teams more obvious guidance, without asking them to do their own research.
It’s time to adapt
In an age of rapid change for the sales team, the right technology is the key to success.
Guided Selling and AI tools meet the unique needs of each sales team member, helping them to overcome common challenges, and maintain a consistent strategy for success. Now could be the perfect time to start thinking about how you can adapt your strategy with Guided Selling. As a good start learn how top sales teams are already getting ahead with this new tool.