Power Of Insight Selling and How AI-Powered CRMs Help
This article is based on excerpts from the session- Grow your business today and build relationships for tomorrow presented at Dreamforce 2019.
Premise: Power Imbalance Widen Between Sellers and Buyers
As the world is in the midst of a Fourth Industrial revolution, there is a widening power imbalance between sellers and buyers.
According to Robin Grochol, SVP product management of Sales Cloud, Salesforce, with all the information available on our fingertips, modern-day customers are more aware then before of the products, competition and pricing parameters when making a choice. This leads to a widening power imbalance between sellers and buyers. The expectation of sales teams has never been higher, making Insight-based selling important.
How Insight Selling Can Bridge the Gap and Boost Your Sales
- Uncover new opportunities
- Drive sustained growth
- Future Proof your organization
According to a B2B Buyer’s Survey Report by Demand Gen in 2019, 94 percent of B2B decision-makers look for sales teams that have more insights about their company needs. The data to provide these insights can be on any format from paper to document files in workstations. Insight sales involve, giving individual and teams in the company a real-time view on the information. This empowers them to take action based on the truth.
Use Case: Salesforce Helpw In Insight-based Sales
Salesforce Einstein is a set of AI technologies that allow Salesforce users to use algorithms to analyze data inside the data-rich Salesforce ecosystem. Any challenges like emerging competitors, industry trends, a shift in the market can be absorbed by such tools. For instance, AI-powered CRM can capture can be anything from email, meetings quotes or phone conversation. This information is captured on a real-time basis and analyzed by AI-powered tools to grand Insights.
Let’s see how Einstein, an AI solution works in:
Field Sales: More Power For Reps With Mobile CRMs
A field representative can track his own performance under various parameters using CRMs. For instance, Marcus, a field sales found a drop in the sales volume he receives from Atlanta through his ‘territory performance’ meter.
He can ask Salesforce Einstein to search for open sales opportunities in Atlanta. The AI solution can search the CRM for probable clients and give an appropriate target based on ‘opportunity score’.
Marcus can set his journey based on ‘location intelligence’. Earlier this year, Salesforce added a location-based intelligence into their ecosystem powered by Salesforce Map. Drawing its features, companies can custom make travel app with the help of Salesforce Lightning.
For sellers on the road location intelligence means a smart account visit plan and real time route optimization. Imagine if each of your seller can visit one more account each day. What will that mean to your bottomline? We can enable this at scale, says Robin Grochol, SVP product management of Sale Cloud, Salesforce.
At the end of the journey using location-based intelligence, Marcus personally reaches his client at Atlanta. Once the deal is closed, he can provide an acknowledgement using the CRM solution.
Inside Selling: Scoring Made Easy With Contextual Data
According to Sales Expert Brian Brereton, Inside Sales is the process of selling using the phone or the web without having to travel. Inside Sales is most often used to describe selling where the Inside Sales Representative is proactive, calling on prospects and customers to sell goods and services. Inside sales is the key focus area these days, as per experts.
Inside Sales is growing 300 percent faster than traditional sales. Every week I talk to inside sales leaders around the world and everyone of them tells me that they are expanding their inside sales teams and they investing heavily in technologies to accelrate them, says Stephen Hsu, VP, Product Management for Sales Cloud Engagement Products, Salesforce.
Identify relevant conversations: AI-powered Einstein can come into play during inside sales. It helps focus the attention of sales reps on the right deals and close more business. For instance, during a call with a client, Einstein can capture keynote or relevant conversations. This audio can be converted into text and can be used to analyze let’s say consumers budget constraints or competition in the market.
Data to attract customer: A representative of real estate database firm Zillow was engaging in conversation with a client. During the conversation, she was apprised by the CRM that a growth of 7% was expected in the real estate in the Atlanta area. This can be used as a sales pitch point to encourage customer to purchase a property. Once this works, the rep can use tools like Salesforce CPQ (Configure, price and quote) to quote a complex and configurable quote. Once the deal is closed, the acknowledgement can be generated and emailed.
According to studies, only around 10 percent of salespeople have actively adopted insight-based selling though it has long been identified as the future of sales.
