Sales intelligence should deliver data on the right target contacts at the right target accounts at the right time and with the right contact information.
In 2018, most B2B sales teams are firmly convinced about the legacy of contact data and how they can impact sales outcomes. Marketing and sales intelligence can certainly help close more deals faster by finding, connecting, and selling to your target buyer with the right message at the right time. Yet, there is a perennial gap between the expectations and sales outcomes. Leading sales tech company, DiscoverOrg believes that [Real People + Real Data] delivers ‘Faster Revenue Growth’.
To better understand how sales intelligence is evolving from a modern B2B perspective and how to achieve faster revenue growth from your sales, we spoke to DiscoverOrg’s Chief Growth Officer and top #WomeninTech influencer, Katie Bullard.
Tell us about your journey in the sales intelligence business?
I actually had my first job in this industry back in 2008 with D&B Hoover’s, where I was the President’s Chief of Staff and Leader of Customer Insights. I spent almost three years with Hoover’s before heading into the enterprise software world. Five years later, I was reintroduced to a completely transformed sales intelligence space in 2016 when I joined DiscoverOrg.
How do you define Sales Intelligence from modern sales POV?
In its simplest form, sales intelligence is accurate and actionable information on your target buyers that makes effective sales and marketing easier and accelerates revenue growth. It is NOT just the contact data or account data. Great sales intelligence encompasses fit (do they look like the right buyer?), intent (are they indicating an intent to buy?), and opportunity (are there favorable conditions for them to buy?) data on accounts and contacts.
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Where does Contact Data fit into a Sales Intelligence?
Contact data – like verified email addresses and direct dial phone numbers – is just one component of sales intelligence, but it is an incredibly critical piece.
If you have the greatest insights on the intent of your buyer but no way to engage with them directly, you’re going to be very frustrated. Unfortunately, we hear from a lot of sales teams that they are fed “qualified” leads from marketing with a name and title, but then have to spend excessive amounts of time trying to find the right contact data.
Sales intelligence should deliver data on the right target contacts at the right target accounts at the right time and with the right contact information.
Why are B2B teams yet to find the ‘right’ tool to sell to target buyers with greater effectiveness? How does DiscoverOrg help overcome these challenge?
A lot of B2B teams do recognize how important sales intelligence tools are; there’s a reason we have almost 5,000 customers and have been on the Inc. 5000 list seven straight years! But you’re right, there are many more out there that don’t really understand how to distinguish traditional static list providers from sales intelligence platforms – or even the newer predictive solutions from sales intelligence. The salestech and martech landscapes are so fragmented today, it’s no wonder that’s a challenge!
For companies used to buying lists that go old as soon as they purchase them, when they discover they can use DiscoverOrg to feed, in real-time, a constantly refreshed and accurate list of contacts directly into their CRM and marketing automation platforms, along with deep account insights and intent signals, the difference is crystal clear.
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On the other end of the spectrum, many teams that have invested in black-box predictive solutions have been burned, and they now are looking for “practical” predictive solutions that allow them to decide how to rank their prospects, feed those priority lists directly into engagement programs, and have the contact information to actually reach them effectively. DiscoverOrg helps solves that challenge as well.
How do you stay on top of the evolution and disruptions that you’ve seen in sales intelligence over the years?
Every day, our team comes in knowing that there are new disruptive entrants and new selling and marketing paradigms, and we just simply have to work harder and deliver on what our customers truly need better than anyone else – that is, delivering the highest quality data on the planet. That “work harder than you ever thought possible” mantra is lived and breathed by everyone and inspired directly by the incredible work ethic and success of our CEO and co-founder, Henry Schuck.
How “intelligent” do you find the sales intelligence available in the marketplace today?
The vast majority of platforms that claim to be sales intelligence don’t actually bring together account and contact data with deep intent and opportunity data in a way that allows sales and marketing teams to take action on the data. We recognize that just having contact data isn’t enough to drive growth today.
Has DiscoverOrg’s approach to sales intelligence changed over the years? If so, how?
Way before my time here, our co-founders Henry Schuck and Kirk Brown recognized there was a real market need for highly accurate, deep insights for sales team selling into the IT market. They also recognized that the only way to deliver on that accuracy guarantee was to have real people validating the data that went into our platform.
When everyone else was giddy over web scraping technologies, they had the insight to know that wasn’t going to be enough to deliver what sales and marketing teams needed. Over time, our tools and processes to validate and keep data accurate and fresh have changed, but our team of researchers right here in Vancouver, Washington continues to be a tremendous differentiator for our quality.
Not only that, but our data coverage has expanded exponentially beyond the IT market; today, we cover all major buying centers within an organization with the same level of depth and accuracy as we did in IT 10 years ago.
How important is for modern B2B teams to inculcate a culture of Sales Coaching and Training?
We conducted a research study last year that uncovered the differences between the world’s fastest-growing companies and their slow-growth peers, and one of the key characteristics that consistently distinguished high-growth companies was their focus on sales coaching and training. They put 2X the amount of time into it than everyone else, and it clearly pays off.
How do you predict sales intelligence will continue to evolve?
I think you’re going to continue to see sales and marketing teams demand more from their data. Simply having lots of data isn’t good enough anymore – teams need the right data fed directly to them at the right time so that they can immediately do something with it. As sales intelligence platforms continue to enhance their functionality in this area, organizations will be able to even more directly tie these solutions to their overall growth acceleration.
Please tag a SalesTech Star whose answers you would like to read —
I’d recommend reaching out to Amit Bendov, CEO of Gong.io.
Thank you, Katie, for chatting with us on sales intelligence.
