With over 500 salestech solutions distinctly making up the B2B Sales/salestech space today, it is pretty easy for sales leaders and sales teams to be influenced by every new tool or feature and race ahead to adopt what they think are the most innovative ones.
Here are a few facts that can help Sales leaders and technology sales teams identify what sales tool to use, implement and integrate with an existing martech or other stack with the aim of extracting the most value out of the whole salestech investment and process.
1- Try to Pay Attention to Sales Technology Providers That Have Been Funded!
While being funded does not necessarily signal that a company is successful, what it does indicate is that the technology or product road map (or plan) that is being worked on is worth pumping investments into!
In the recent past,
- Sales enablement tool – Showpad raised $70 million in a recent Series D funding to drive global expansion plans;
- Sales engagement platform Outreach raised $114M in Series E funding, to help develop their capabilities,
- Sales engagement platform SalesLoft, secured $70 million in Series D funding to help fuel business growth
There are several more sales technologies and salestech companies that have garnered investments to drive their growth and expansion plans.
As a key takeaway; when it comes to the adoption of sales technologies, what that signifies is that it might make sense to try and make a list of tools/providers that have been funded in the recent past, if only to understand the future product road map and plans the company has.
That does in no way mean that it is advisable to disregard what other salestech providers or tech startups can offer in terms of capabilities! The fundamental remains the same – assess where the challenges lie and what you need your salestech stack to do for you before making a choice when it comes to implementation!
Read More: A Few Good Business Intelligence Tools To Consider, To Help Boost Decision-Making
2- Your SalesTech Stack Shouldn’t Be Chosen to Automate Everything in Sales! Because Having a Human Connection is More Important Than Ever.
A study from LinkedIn had indicated that 73% of sales professionals are using technology to close more deals while 97% said that sales technology is either important or very important to closing deals.
Sophisticated sales technologies allows sales teams across the hierarchy to automate mundane tasks with the aim of boosting overall team efficiency. This is where sales leaders need to draw the line by not identifying or implementing sales tech that automates everything in the sales process.
While it is important to focus on strengthening your sales strategy as a first step before choosing a sales tech stack, while choosing sales technologies – a proactive effort to not choose tools that automate every cadence or prospecting effort and outreach is also just as crucial.
Maintaining a strong human connection is extremely crucial for both marketing and sales – and with the adoption of too many tools, this can sometimes easily get diluted.
Need more tips on humanizing the sales process? Catch this conversation where Maria Tribble of Pathfactory shares some tips!
Also Read: How Do You Realize The Full Value Of Your SalesTech?
3- Consolidation Has been the Name of the Game in Martech and SalesTech, Consolidate the Adoption of your SalesTech Stack too!
It helps to consolidate your sales tech stack based on your key processes, key challenges, key goals and biggest gaps in the system, and remember, there will always be gaps in the system!
However, using multiple tools that perform one function as opposed to having a consolidated salestech stack that can allow you to have a lean adoption of technologies is a choice every sales teams has in front of them.
Picking the latter might make more sense, when it comes to unifying your data and coordinating with multiple team members or teams. While doing so, avoiding overlaps between tools that provide the same functionalities is also very crucial to ensure better use of the technologies at hand!
4- Identify the Insights you Want or Need Most to Drive Sales Goals
Every sales tool functions differently. Before adopting any salestech, it makes sense to first identify your sales strategy and end goal as discussed above.
It also makes sense to identify the top insights you want to extract from a particular set of technologies so that you can make a more optimized list of available sales technologies – those that can help you extract those very insights, data, behavioral triggers, and more, while keeping them in one central place.
Do you have the right sales tools to be uber efficient at sales? Tell us more about your salestech stack and how you adopted it, and why!
Also, if you’re looking for more sales insights and tips, have a quick listen to this episode of the SalesStar podcast!