Findings show sales leaders are investing in tech for greater efficiency, productivity, and effectiveness
Outreach, the leading sales execution platform helping revenue organizations create and close more pipeline, introduced the results of its first Quarterly Sales Confidence Index.
Based on a survey of 504 B2B sales leaders in the U.S. and U.K. at the end of September, the index reveals that 85% of respondents expect next quarter’s revenue performance will increase from the previous quarter. Respondents cited the following reasons for their bullish outlook: “introduction of new offerings” to sell, “introduction of new sales technologies”, “change in sales processes”, “customer buying intentions”, and “overall sector performance.”
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Increased Investments in Sales Technology
The 2022 Fall report dove into the top question on sales leaders’ minds – how will our company increase seller productivity in the current down market? Outreach’s Sales Confidence Index revealed 94% of respondents are prioritizing investing in sales technology, sparking a trend that companies will redeploy headcount budgets to technology in order to help increase revenue and forecast accurately.
Outreach also recently discovered in a separate survey that 50% of respondents are actively consolidating or planning to consolidate their tech stack and 73% of leaders agree with the statement “We strongly prioritize choosing sales technology vendors that offer multiple products in an effort to minimize the number of vendors we use.” These findings pose a large opportunity for companies to look toward a strategic platform approach that will solve their challenges across the sales journey from the Sales Development Representative (SDR) to the Account Executive (AE) to the Chief Revenue Officer (CRO).
“In today’s economy a global economic downturn has become a reality, and companies are looking to find ways to create and close pipeline faster,” said Mary Shea, VP, Global Evangelist at Outreach. “Sales leaders are optimistic their sales teams will end the next quarter positively and a guiding force behind this success is a platform approach that helps companies close efficiency gaps and increase revenue. To prepare for what comes next, it will be necessary to equip every member of the GTM team with seller-first technology that has embedded automation and AI to maximize organizational efficiency and effectiveness.”
Continued Digitization of Sales
Organizations across sectors had to digitally transform over the past few years and sales teams were no different. Sales teams were used to in-person meetings with clients and had to quickly adapt to digital selling. Approximately one fifth of respondents to the Sales Confidence Index survey are only meeting customers via video meetings, while more than half of respondents are mostly meeting customers through a video meeting platform with some in-person meetings. Only one percent of respondents are only meeting customers in person.
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Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Programs Positively Impact Retention
Additionally, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion is becoming a more significant factor for Sales teams. In fact, 87% said their organization’s DE&I policies have a positive impact on their sales and customer retention efforts. To help increase diversity in sales, Outreach launched the RISE and RISE UP programs; two leadership training programs created to help grow diverse talent from within. Now available for any company to use, these programs were designed to deliver opportunities and access to rising leaders, wherever their career journeys take them.
The next Outreach Quarterly Sales Confidence Index findings will be revealed in early 2023.
Outreach partnered with Dynata to survey 504 B2B sales leaders in the United States and United Kingdom across industries. 40% of respondents identified as VP of Sales, 27% as director of sales, 24% as sales team leader or manager, 5% as sales administrators, and 4% as individual contributors. The survey was fielded September 19-22, 2022.
