8 Steps of Sales Opportunity Planning
Sales opportunity planning is a complex process that entails following several steps and requires a comprehensive guide. It’s built around a multi-step sales cycle with several stages that include research, qualification, and strategy development. All these stages are aligned to meet the common goal of realizing the full potential of a prospective sales opportunity. The success and future of any sales organization hinge on the cohesive planning and execution of each step, that is collectively known as sales opportunity management. The best and most effective sales opportunity plans are created and aligned around creating value for the buyer. It also enables managers and sales teams strategize, plan, execute, and monitor a multistage sales process. Compared to managing a sales pipeline where metrics like revenue and margin take center stage, opportunity planning is a more complex process that is planned and executed around the customer. To understand the different facets and layers of this strategy, let’s look at the 8 steps of sales opportunity planning. 8 Steps of Sales Opportunity Planning Step 1: Identifying the Opportunity The journey starts with identifying the sales opportunity that is nothing else but a qualified sales lead. By meeting the necessary criteria, this lead presents the opportunity for business potential. You need to ask yourself some pertinent questions in order to identify valuable sales opportunities, such as: Are your existing customers seeking existing services or products that your competitors are not able to provide? Are there any new services or products that you can provide and gain market traction? Are there any customers that you may have not considered that are now available to you? This process plays an important role in qualifying leads and sifting opportunities from dead ends. After identifying a set of opportunities, you can rank them on the basis of cost, potential benefit and complexity to implement. Tools such as organizational charts and product roadmaps can play an important role in prospecting and lead generation. They help you to decode the prospect’s organizational structure and identify key decision-makers and stakeholders. In fact, product roadmaps are a great asset for sales teams to understand a product’s future capabilities and how they can match with the prospect’s needs. Learn More: How to do Opportunity Management in Salesforce CRM Step 2: Understanding the Prospect’s Needs The buyer is the kingpin of the planning sales opportunities and the success of any plan hinges on understanding the prospect’s needs. Sellers must invest all time and energy into this crucial stage by meticulously researching the prospect’s pain points and goals. One way to identify opportunities for value creation is by conducting thorough customer discovery interviews. To gain a clear view of available opportunities, you must document the history with your customer and add possible future ones to the list. Sales teams must invest in tools such as customer strategy maps to align their objectives and initiatives match with capabilities of the solution they are offering. These maps are a repository of the culture of customer organizations, their goals and possible challenges. With this vital information, your sales force can identify potential areas where you can provide value that boosts the customer’s plans. Learn More: What are White Space Opportunities? Step 3: Building the Sales Team The next step in sales opportunity planning is to assess your organization for the business capabilities required to go after the opportunity. This crucial stage involves assembling a cross-functional sales team with the right skills and expertise. Roles and responsibilities must be clearly defined within the team and equally important is to ensure clear communication and collaboration among team members. Apart from tracking the activities of your sales team, keep your ear close to the ground to gain insights from other team members. Innovative ideas and solutions may come from their personal insights into potential value for the buyer. A valuable or crucial tip may change the game and help sales teams close a sale, or resolve a difficult issue. Step 4: Crafting the Value Proposition Once you have a clear understanding of the buyer’s needs and your team is in place, you can focus on crafting your solution and building the value case. At this stage, it’s important to create a compelling value proposition that is tailored to the prospect and addresses the prospect’s specific needs and pain points. Another aspect of crafting the value proposition is showcasing the unique selling points and benefits. Ideally, each component of your proposition should be linked to the value it provides for the buyer. These points will help you appeal to the buyer’s needs and create effective value messaging. Another important point to consider at this stage is how you compare with the competition from the buyer’s perspective. Understanding the buyer’s view of your competition will help you create a value proposition that highlights your strengths. Moreover, this value proposition can also cater to buyers that are not serviced well by your competition. Your value proposition can appeal to those needs the buyers that the competition does not service. Step 5: Creating a Customized Sales Strategy We have crossed the half-way mark of the sales opportunity plan and now is the time to develop a detailed sales plan, including timelines and milestones. You need to know the buyer’s buying process and match it to your sales process to create a customized sales strategy. It’s important to gather all valuable insights your team can contribute to formulating a winning sales strategy. Based on their success with customers, sales winners are likely propose winning ideas and also alert you about what does not work. By incorporating insights and inputs, you can create a customized sales strategy to meet specific goals and objectives. Formulating a sales strategy also entails anticipating objections and challenges and preparing response strategies for each. The final action plan must map out the steps you need to take during the entire process to close the sale. Step 6: Presenting the Solution Strategies Planning a winning strategy is one thing but presenting a
What is Customer Centricity and Why it isn’t the destination?
Customer-centric companies are 60% more profitable than companies that aren’t. And, this isn’t just a fleeting initiative, it’s a never-ending journey that has a set of philosophies and practices. What does customer-centricity truly mean? In a digital-first world, where personalization and understanding of customer needs are paramount, customer centricity is about providing personalized, connected customer experiences across all channels — before, during, and after every transaction. Gartner defines customer centricity as: “the ability of people in an organization to understand customers’ situations, perceptions, and expectations. Customer centricity demands that the customer is the focal point of all decisions related to delivering products, services and experiences to create customer satisfaction, loyalty and advocacy.” The core concept is to provide a great and meaningful customer experience at each touchpoint along the customer journey. It entails putting consumers’ needs, preferences, and satisfaction first and foremost. The essence of this strategy lies in recognizing that content and loyal customers are the linchpin to business success, fostering repeat purchases, recommendations, and positive word-of-mouth. Customer Centricity: A Never-Ending Journey, not a Destination Customer centricity is neither a one-time accomplishment nor a destination that a company can get at and then abandon. Instead, it is a journey that demands continuous effort, adaptation, and a relentless pursuit of exceeding customer expectations. It’s about recognizing that the customer is the heartbeat of any organization and ensuring that this recognition is embedded in the very DNA of our organizational culture, guiding every action, decision, and strategy. That is why it is important to understand the journey and what would help you along the path. 5 Key considerations for the Customer Centricity journey: 1. Changing Customer Expectations Customer expectations are continually evolving. What delights customers today might become the norm tomorrow. Businesses must adapt to these changing expectations to remain customer-centric. 73% of customers now expect companies to understand their unique needs and expectations. 2. Competitive Landscape The business environment is highly competitive, and companies must continuously innovate to stay ahead. Innovate continuously to differentiate from competitors in a saturated market. 3. Technological Advancements Technology is constantly evolving, and new customer experience management tools emerge that can enhance the customer experience.. Companies need to stay updated and leverage these technologies to better serve their customers. Treat technology not only as a tool, but as an ally in your journey towards enhanced customer centricity. 4. Data and Insights Customer data and insights provide valuable information for decision-making. Continuously collect, analyze, and implement customer data and insights to refine strategies. 5. Organizational Change Implementing a customer-centric approach often involves changing the organization’s culture, processes, and mindset. Ensure the transformation to a customer-centric approach is continuous and consistently reinforced. The 8 pillars of a customer-centric approach 1. Understanding Customer Needs: Deeply comprehend customer pain points and expectations to inform strategic decision-making. 2. Personalization: Enhance customer experiences and connections by tailoring products, services, and communications to their preferences. 3. Continuous Improvement: Commit to perpetual refinement and innovation of offerings and experiences, guided by feedback and data-driven insights. 4. Empowerment of Frontline Employees: Enable customer-facing personnel to make customer-beneficial decisions, minimizing bureaucratic impediments. 5. Employee Engagement: Ensure employees are not only engaged but also understand and are empowered to enhance customer experiences. 6. Long-term Relationships: Focus on cultivating and maintaining a community of loyal customers. 7. Transparency and Trust: Build trust through transparent communications regarding policies, pricing, and product information. 8. Feedback Loop: Establish a system to continuously gather, analyze, and implement customer feedback and insights. Try to make the process easy for the clients and leverage technologies; you implement a QR code to gather feedback and use a QR code generator to get one quickly. Customer centricity is a mindset, a set of practices that demand continuous effort, and an unwavering commitment to meeting the ever-changing expectations of customers. It is a perpetual journey that successful businesses embark upon, ensuring they not only meet customer expectations but exceed them, fostering loyalty and achieving sustainable growth in the process. Check out my fireside chat with Maria Dominguez – PM Global Account Management, DHL, and Russ Sharer – CSO, Brooks Group, for an unfiltered conversation around Cultivating Customer-Centric Culture. View the recording below:
Commanding the Digital Sales Battlefield: The Strategy You Need Now
Yes, sales, as we knew it, is history! Old-school selling approaches are going out the window. The Rolodex, the cold calls, the scripts practiced in front of the mirror – are all fast fading into the background. Welcome to the digital age of sales! Sounds intimidating? We’re here to ease some of that anxiety about going digital – needing to dominate the online landscape. Because diving head-first into the digital sales ocean isn’t just about chasing the latest technology; it’s about genuinely understanding your customer. With so much talk about technology and going digital, it’s easy to think that the revolution is just a technological one. But it’s equally about an evolution in mindset – a shift from transactional interactions to building meaningful relationships. As Julie Lentz, Head of Industry Retail Sales, Google puts it: “Selling is a science, and an art. Data is the IQ and knowing what to do with it, or understanding the humans that make decisions based on that data is EQ.” – (Snippets from episode #11 of The Shift podcast) The tools have changed, but the core remains the same. Remember the excitement of sealing your first deal or the satisfaction of a handshake signaling a closed sale? That essence is still here, just packaged differently. Today, sales strategy is like navigating a vibrant digital landscape. There are opportunities at every corner, beckoning you to explore. Digital-First Sales: What’s the Big Idea? As the digital age evolves, customers will continue to evolve from passive recipients to active participants. They seek more than sales pitches; they desire solutions, strategies, and partners to co-create value. It’s less about ‘selling software’ and more about demonstrating how it can transform operations and yield ROI. Customers want tailored strategies that address their unique challenges, market positioning and growth objectives. This is not a small minority. According to Salesforce, almost 3 out of 4 customers expect this. While efficiency might push you toward operationalizing sales, relying heavily on data and established patterns can overlook nuances of key accounts. Key accounts demand rich, durable exchanges, beyond surface-level pitches. Every interaction, request for proposal (RFP), feedback, and even subtle pauses during sales calls – all reveal a company’s needs. Here, technology steps in as an enabler. Acting as an accelerator, it helps sales personnel swiftly gain insights. This empowers them to be more strategic, build relationships and align stakeholders effectively. “Organizations have had to leverage technology to keep up with demand and manage operations. Technology brought value to processes, business operations, and intelligence. Clients who embraced technology quickly saw the benefits.” – Julie Lentz, Head of Industry Retail Sales, Google (Snippets from episode #11 of The Shift podcast) Sales in the digital era is about crafting partnerships. While technology’s benefits are vital, it’s equally important to focus on genuine insights and let human touch drive partnerships. The goal is to deliver solutions that resonate with customers and elevate the partnership. Data: Your North Star If there are questions or doubts about how to keep pace and remain competitive, the answer lies in data. Think of data like your GPS on this journey, guiding you through the maze of decision-making. A study by Salesforce revealed that salespeople who use CRM software are 40% more likely to close deals. Having relevant information and data at your fingertips puts you several steps ahead of those still playing the guessing game. Based on a LinkedIn report almost half of all businesses that focus on social selling achieve their sales targets. And, close to 80% of companies relying on social selling do much better than those who don’t prioritize it. It’s not merely about posting content; it’s strategic engagement, similar to choosing the right networking events in the pre-digital era. It’s not just about having the data. It’s about having the right data and leveraging it to tailor your pitches, understand market trends, and anticipate client needs before they even express them. “Data is a tool that should save time and help sellers develop insights faster. Data should enable sellers to shine as insightful individuals. It should free sellers to be more strategic in developing relationships and in stakeholder alignment.” – Julie Lentz, Head of Industry Retail Sales, Google (Snippets from episode #11 of The Shift podcast) Put Customers Front and Center Let’s consider an executive summit. Every detail – from the agenda to the keynote topics – is carefully chosen to resonate with the concerns, and appeal to the aspirations of the attendees. Your sales strategy should mirror this meticulous planning. You must recognize that your client isn’t just another name on a spreadsheet – they are the main event! Each proposal, solution and presentation must feel as if it was exclusively crafted for them. You must speak directly to their challenges and ambitions. There are statistics to back this up. Forbes reported that customer-centric companies enjoy a profitability rate 60% higher than their counterparts. That’s not just a small margin; that’s a game-changer! It has also been well-cited that a genuine focus on customer experience can skyrocket retention by a minimum of 25%. These aren’t mere numbers; they’re clear indicators of the immense power of a customer-first approach. Make use of your research, customer insights and industry knowledge to make every client feel special. Every single interaction and touch point should reflect your intention at creating partnerships aimed at mutual growth. Ensuring your clients are in the lead is not just a smart strategy – it’s the foundation for lasting partnerships and sustainable business success. Tech It Up! In the world of B2B sales, where securing deals could mean navigating through layers of decision-makers and procurement systems, technology isn’t just an option – it’s your competitive edge. The days when sales decks were manually updated and leads tracked in bulky files are long gone. Today, businesses are employing advanced Sales Engagement Platforms to automate and optimize every step. Predictive Analytics have become the go-to for market trends forecasts and client needs prediction. Digital evolution isn’t
Maximizing Customer Retention: The Role of Key Account Management in Customer Success Management
In the business world, customer success management is no longer an afterthought; it’s a necessity. Consensus across research confirms: retaining existing customers costs 5 to 25 times less than acquiring new ones. But businesses are realizing that it goes beyond keeping customers satisfied; it’s about truly understanding their needs and delivering value at every touchpoint. The rise of the digital era has changed the rules of the game. Complex products, multifaceted needs, and fierce competition have become the norm. In this context, a one-size-fits-all approach no longer works. Success lies in a tailored, strategic approach to customer success management. One that leverages Key Account Management (KAM) principles to retain customers and transform them into brand advocates. KAM principles encompass fostering robust relationships, tailoring solutions, maintaining consistent communication, prioritizing the long term, and constantly reviewing and adapting strategies. This journey requires a keen understanding of your customers, insightful data, and a commitment to going the extra mile. And it’s a journey that pays off in spades. Read More: What is Customer Centricity and Why it isn’t the destination? The Changing Role of Customer Success Managers / CSMs in a Technological World “This season is an opportunity for the CSM to shine.” (From episode #9 of The Shift podcast). In today’s ever-competitive business environment, customers expect consistent value and support. Customer Success Managers (CSMs) play an indispensable role in ensuring this. But their role goes beyond just implementation or ensuring customer satisfaction or customer retention. The changes? Multi-faceted roles – serving as advocates, advisors and educators. Guide customers through complex technical platforms and maximize value Ensure smooth adoption of products or services CSMs are often tasked with understanding intricate technical platforms and ensuring that customers can effectively utilize them. The platforms they deal with can vary from sophisticated data analytics tools to advanced customer relationship management systems. However, despite technological challenges, CSMs are the ones who ensure that these tools deliver value to customers. Learn More: Best Customer Segmentation Strategies for Customer Success Teams Strategies for Sales Growth with Existing Customers: Avoiding Pitfalls Organizations often fall into common traps when trying to drive sales growth with existing customers. Sherrod Patching, VP – Customer Success, GitLab, highlights a typical pitfall: an overemphasis on feature-function discussions. She says, “… it’s easy to just pivot to feature function. (But) ensure you understand how these features and functions that they’re so excited about are going to lead them to business outcomes and ensure they’re on the right path.” (Snippets from episode #9 of The Shift podcast). Particularly for products with high release cycles, it’s not about turning on features for the sake of it. It’s about highlighting those that bring customers closer to desired outcomes, like faster development times or increased efficiencies. Other common mistakes to avoid: Overlooking customer segmentation: Different customers have unique needs. 73% of customers expect companies to understand and 62% expect companies to anticipate these needs. Ignoring customer segmentation can hinder the ability to engage effectively and tailor offerings. Neglecting relationship building: Building trust and rapport with customers is essential. It’s not just about the bottom line; it’s about fostering long-term relationships. These relationships can bring on upselling and cross-selling opportunities. A McKinsey study reported that upselling and cross-selling can increase marketing ROI by nearly 30% and overall sales by approximately 20%. While results could vary by business, sector and service, the bottom line is sales performance can increase even with existing clients. Ignoring customer feedback: Failing to act on customer feedback means missing opportunities to delight customers by improving current offerings and developing new, relevant ones. Shockingly, just over 20% of B2B companies consistently measure and act on insights from customer experience. By sidestepping these mistakes, organizations can build lasting relationships, optimize sales growth strategies and drive long-term success. Emerging Trends in Customer Success Management Several trends are reshaping how customer success management is viewed. One significant trend is Account-Based Marketing (ABM). This targeted approach allows customer success teams to tailor their efforts and resources towards those customers that are most likely to succeed. Another emerging trend is the growing emphasis on social selling. By leveraging social media, customer success teams can connect with potential customers, build relationships, and promote their offerings. There is a noticeable shift towards proactive engagement. Rather than waiting for customers to reach out, customer success managers actively engage them, offering content, support and offers tailored to their needs. Customer education and empowerment are also gaining traction. Customer success teams are investing heavily in webinars, tutorials and other resources that help customers fully understand the features of offerings. This focus on education allows customers to get the most out of the product or service. Lastly, customer journey mapping is a crucial tool for customer success teams. By understanding the customer’s entire journey, from the first contract and through the relationship, customer success teams can identify opportunities to improve the customer experience. “This seamless experience for the customer, that’s shared with the customer, that’s documented in systems, that then carries through, becomes a continuation of a single journey.” (Snippets from episode #9 of The Shift podcast). These trends highlight the increasing complexity of customer success management and the need for innovative strategies to meet customer needs and drive continuous improvements. Addressing Challenges in Account Planning and Governance Organizations frequently struggle with account planning and governance – a crucial process that requires strategic plans for customer account management. Challenges often arise due to misalignment among teams, lack of customer insights, poor communication, focus on short-term goals and inadequate resources. Masterclass by Forrester Principal Analyst Anthony McPartlin: Why companies fail with key account management? There is a need for a cohesive approach to account planning. Account planning by the Sales team and success planning by the Customer Success team needs to be aligned. Many organizations treat these as separate processes, resulting in siloed approaches. However, ensuring that account plans and success plans operate in tandem is vital. “But those two need to go hand in hand. What you want
Streamlining the Sales Experience in Digital Key Account Management
In traditional sales operations, we have primarily focused on maintaining a healthy sales funnel, achieving high average win rates, and maintaining deal sizes. However, over the past decade, the selling process has undergone a complete transformation. We have transitioned to cloud-based and software selling models, shifting our focus to the customer’s product experience. In this context, Revenue Operations (RevOps) has emerged as a pivotal strategy that aims to align sales, marketing, and customer success throughout the customer journey. The goal is to break down traditional silos and establish a more consistent approach to enhancing the customer experience. The seamless integration of digital tools into the sales process has resulted in a more efficient and effective sales experience for both buyers and sellers. Digital transformation has opened up new possibilities for businesses, enabling them to deliver a seamless sales experience by streamlining processes, providing real-time data, and offering actionable insights. The RevOps team also collects, shares, and utilizes data to gain actionable insights that help teams make data-backed decisions. “Contrary to popular opinion, Revenue Operations is not a fancy term for Sales Operations. We need to take a more expansive view of RevOps as a whole. There are a lot more people involved in the revenue generation activity such as the customer subscription manager, and renewal manager to ensure that the customer adopts the product and is seamlessly engaged. RevOps includes everything from marketing operations to sales operations to customer success operations that are part of a larger ecosystem that works with the aim of providing a unique and engaging customer experience.”- Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales & Data Operations, Philips (Snippets from episode #8 of the Shift podcast) Sales teams can bank on AI-powered tools and data analytics to gain insights into their key accounts, identify new opportunities, and make more informed strategic decisions. The integration of digital tools and platforms has also created a more agile and adaptable approach to key account management, enabling swift adaptation to evolving market conditions, consumer expectations, and technological advancements. Benefits of Integrating Digital Tools into Sales Gain insights into key accounts Identify fresh opportunities Deliver a seamless sales experience Create an agile approach to Key Account Management According to Gartner, by 2025, 75% of the highest-growth companies in the world will implement the RevOps model. Moving forward, data will play a pivotal role in the success of any revenue operations strategy. By collecting, harnessing, and utilizing data, RevOps aims to foster even better synergy between marketing, sales, and success teams, ultimately leading to improved customer experiences. Sales Automation with AI to Optimize Customer Experience With the growing influence of RevOps and data-backed analytics, traditional strategies for one-off purchases are becoming redundant. Companies now focus on the entire customer journey and enhanced customer engagement to drive recurring revenues. The emphasis is on leveraging technological innovations, including artificial intelligence (AI), to automate workflows and achieve higher efficiencies. According to cross-functional research by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) technology can automate over 30% of sales and sales operations tasks. The most popular sales automation tools that harness AI include virtual assistants, chatbots, email, and appointment automation. Revolutionizing Sales with RevOps Align sales, marketing & customer success across the customer journey Break outdated siloed structures Enhance customer experience with consistency Leverage data to make strategic decisions From a skillset perspective, different teams that make RevOps need to be more curious and understand dependencies or processes that are dependent on them. They must possess a broader comprehension of the customer lifecycle and identify ways to eliminate friction from the customer experience. “We focus so much on the book or the process, we forget that these processes are there for a purpose which is to ease the way our customer or salesperson experiences the entire process. There’s a need for digital technology to automate non-value-added manual tasks and develop a level of transparency and seamlessness in the way the sales team or customer experiences our delivery.” – Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales & Data Operations, Philips (Snippets from episode #8 of the Shift podcast) Customer Adoption and Long-term Value Creation To boost revenue, cultivating long-term engagement with customers is essential. Achieving this requires consistent reminders of your product’s value and sustained value creation. The responsibility falls on the customer success manager to showcase the product’s features and benefits and how they add value to the customer. Customer value creation is integral to any business strategy and is increasingly driven by data-enabled insights and AI-powered tools. The adoption of digital tools allows you to comprehend evolving consumer needs and tailor your offerings accordingly. Depending on customer needs, systems must constantly evolve while ensuring the structures remain modular and scalable. Institutionalizing systems must be planned out in such a way that just a few tweaks can accommodate new features without having to make fundamental architectural shifts. The consumer and market constantly commands changes, and when that happens you must be ready with the right structures, technology, and solution architecture. Adopting a digital-first mindset is the initial step in streamlining the customer experience. “It’s not even a matter of choice anymore and the assumption that digital transformation is a choice is a joke. If digital transformation is implemented by a company and it doesn’t fundamentally change the job content of the people involved in that process, then we are doing it all wrong.” – Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales & Data Operations, Philips (Snippets from episode #8 of the Shift podcast) The Future is Digital Information and the power of data can be the deciding factors for the success of Rev Ops and your consumer engagement strategy. If Rev Ops is the machine, data is the fuel that keeps it running. If you can’t track customer data, manage assets, or use this information for future sales, you’ll miss out on opportunities. “RevOps is a relay race and not a 100-meter dash and the most efficient way of implementing this is through digital transformation and data,” – Prasad Varahabhatla, Senior Director, Sales
Breaking boundaries: ABM in Digital Era
The B2B landscape is undergoing a dynamic transformation, propelled by the forces of digitization, technological breakthroughs, and evolving workstyles. This multifaceted shift is reshaping the business landscape, fostering unprecedented growth and diversification. Account-based marketing or ABM is one such strategy that is aligned with account-based sales to target high-value accounts with personalized and targeted campaigns. The thought behind account-based marketing is to shift focus from volume-based lead generation programs to high-value and key accounts that are treated as individual markets. The guiding principles of ABM are the development of relationship strategies, account-specific messaging, and complete alignment between marketing and sales. ABM’s targeted activities go beyond the traditional practices of generic marketing and result in relationship acceleration where your team focuses on engaging and delighting high-value accounts. Groundbreaking technology such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics are proving to be vital tools to implement ABM even as multichannel and omnichannel strategies are providing a more seamless customer experience. Importance of personalized and targeted marketing strategies The cornerstone of ABM is a customized approach that uses personalized and targeted marketing strategies to create a seamless marketing experience. Data is collected from different sources and analyzed to identify patterns to effectively target best-fit, high-value accounts. These data insights also help marketers to clearly understand the specific requirements of their target accounts and nurture relationships with better engagement. Through a personalized and targeted approach, ABM aligns your solutions to the account’s business needs and creates competitive positioning. Personalized marketing strategies have the potential to shift a targeted account from disinterest to engagement and awareness of your solutions. Targeted campaigns can also help you differentiate your offerings and position your company as the preferred provider of solutions for your high-value accounts. “In the current digital landscape, we are overwhelmed with information and advertising. Account-based marketing narrows it down to a level at which we get customized messages that specifically address our needs as professionals, the roles that we play, and the personas we have.” – Tejas Arur, Business Communication & Customer Engagement Strategist, Axtria Inc (Snippets from episode #10 of the Shift podcast) Tune in to the episode 10 of the Shift podcast, Dr. Karthik Nagendra, CMO at Demand Farm, interviews Tejas Arur, Business Communication & Customer Engagement Strategist at Axtria Inc., about the key principles and strategies behind account-based marketing in a digital age. Personalized and targeted marketing strategies also help contextualize your message to the state of the account and this proves to be far more effective than the ‘spray and pray’ approach. Role of Data Analytics and AI in Account-based Marketing AI and data analytics are transforming ABM by boosting personalization and creating meaningful communication. AI-enabled systems that align with your account’s needs also provide transparency which is crucial for the successful implementation of your strategies. Let’s look at how AI and data analytics are optimizing account-based marketing: 1. Account Profiling Profiling and defining customers is the starting point of any ABM program. The power of AI helps you deep dive into the internet and multiple databases to extract information for accurate customer profiling. This helps in the efficient allocation of your key resources to nurture key accounts and build lasting and fruitful relationships. 2. Creating Personalized Content Understanding your accounts and their specific needs and pain points can help you customize your offerings and provide bespoke solutions. With clear account profiles, ABM can customize content that appeals to your high-value accounts. AI can also help you segment data mined from CRM and marketing automation platforms to create hyper-individualized experiences. 3. Automating repetitive tasks ABM includes certain tasks like data management, campaign monitoring, and customer outreach that are significant but repetitive and tedious. You can leverage AI tools to automate these repetitive tasks and create more bandwidth for your team to focus on more strategic tasks to improve the overall campaign performance. 4. Data Analytics & Reporting Data is the new currency and everywhere we go, we create data points that can be used by ABM to create bespoke experiences that suit the account’s needs specifically. AI-enabled tools help you demolish data silos by merging data from disparate sources. “Data analytics help us analyze behavior as well as segment and micro-segment and personalize content. Engagement analytics help us perform AB testing to know what kind of messaging to have, the value proposition, and product and services that we need to position,” – Tejas Arur, Business Communication & Customer Engagement Strategist, Axtria Inc (Snippets from episode #10 of the Shift podcast) AI also adds a new dimension to ABM by elevating simple reporting and descriptive analytics to predictive analytics. This helps you to tweak your recommendations in real-time and ensure your audience is not hassled by irrelevant offers. Synchronization between Account-based Marketing and Account-based Selling A comprehensive approach to ABM is built on the basis of complete synergy between marketing and sales. To ensure an engaging and personalized experience for your key accounts, you have to ensure that marketing and sales are on the same page. ABM can be successfully implemented only when roles and responsibilities are clearly assigned to the sales and marketing teams. They must work together on allocating resources for each account and ensuring that there’s a smooth transition between marketing and sales activities. The success of your account-based selling strategy largely depends on recognizing marketing as a part of the revenue team. Marketing can create customized marketing plans to create targeted campaigns for your high-value accounts. Both marketing and sales must work together at every step including reviewing the account plan and building successful campaigns. “Sales teams and marketing assets are means to create an experience for the customer. Marketing and sales are not opposites; sales bring in outcomes that lead to instant gratification. Marketing takes longer, it’s more empirical and the messaging creates a brand, a personality, and an image for the organization. There needs to be complete sync between the two.”- Tejas Arur, Business Communication & Customer Engagement Strategist, Axtria Inc (Snippets from episode #10
How AI is transforming Relationship Intelligence in Sales Today
How AI is transforming Relationship Intelligence in Sales Today At the core of any sales deal are several relationships, between the customers and salespeople and also between team members of the sales team. These relationships are built and developed over time and transform into crucial assets. This intricate web of relationships results in a ton of tribal knowledge that includes your supporters and detractors, their hierarchies, opportunities won or lost and champions etc. Relationship intelligence (RI) documents, consolidates and maps this tribal knowledge into algorithms and meaningful insights. Importance of relationship intelligence for sales success Relationship intelligence actively involves mining valuable relationship data to generate actionable insights that drive sales. This intelligence is built upon the meaningful interactions that occur between your business and its customers, encompassing data sourced from various touch-points such as phone conversations, emails, and in-person meetings. These interactions serve as the foundation for constructing relationship graphs, forming the crucial building blocks of relationship intelligence. Through the analysis of your company’s relationship data, relationship intelligence provides essential information concerning customer relationships, ensuring personalized and relevant conversations with each customer. By identifying champions and detractors, this knowledge empowers salespeople with the information needed to prioritize accounts and continually enhance relationships. Moreover, relationship intelligence uncovers the relationships within your team members’ networks, leading to the discovery of additional business growth opportunities. AI’s impact on relationship intelligence Even as the sales function has evolved with the proliferation of CRMs to manage customer relationships, artificial intelligence (AI) technology is ushering in a new wave of relationship intelligence in sales. The contextual insights provided by AI-powered tools are helping sales professionals identify opportunities, interact better with customers and forge stronger relationships to drive sales. Take Ai Logo Maker sites for instance, it’s a fast and convenient site to create a logo that truly connects to the right audiences. By leveraging communication data to unravel new opportunities, AI tools are enabling relationship intelligence to manage relationships better and improve conversions leading to higher revenue. Let’s look at how AI is transforming relationship intelligence and creating more opportunities for sales: Enhancing Data Collection and Analysis Relationship intelligence automates the time-consuming task of data collection by centralizing disparate customer databases and capturing the complete lifecycle of a customer. AI tools use data from your inbox and calendar and save valuable time by eliminating data entry and automating the creation and updating of customer contact and company profiles. This process replaces manual data entry and retrieval, enabling your salespeople to focus on higher-value activities and building relationships. Artificial intelligence utilizes AI algorithms to analyze customer interactions and behaviors. Such tools empower your team to search transcript metadata for keywords and phrases to unearth customer needs. Sales personnel can also leverage advanced analytics such as frequency maps and topic clusters to detect significant customer trends. AI tools such as Ask AI provide real-time insights by sourcing the right data about customers that enables you to create customized content and move faster. Achieving Personalization at Scale Empowered by AI-driven insights, sales personnel gain a 360-degree view of the customer’s requirements. This helps them personalize their interactions and nurture trust and loyalty towards their brand. Relationship intelligence helps sales teams to focus on managing expectations, providing clarity and finally choosing strategies that lead to customer satisfaction and higher conversions. Artificial intelligence also provides recurring intelligent reminders to maintain key relationships and establish long-lasting connections. Handling massive volumes of data and leads can result in a serious case of decision fatigue for sales reps. Guided by AI tools, relationship intelligence can considerably reduce this load by automating target account selection and lead prioritization. Sales productivity can increase manifold with your team focused on pursuing high-quality leads, while the follow-up is done by machines. AI tools can update sales managers about relationship status across accounts and also provide real-time insights about prospects. This information enables precise predictions about client behavior and helps you close more deals. AI also enables accurate predictions by providing a real-time picture of transactions to help sales executives decide whether to advance or park deals. The one-size-fits-all strategy rarely works for customers with diverse needs and demands. AI tools enable the creation of customized campaigns and pitches based on customer data. They can also help you establish seamless communication with high-priority customers. Based on their preferences and past behavior, AI tools can suggest the ideal time to make an offer via call or email, when to send an email or interact on social media platforms. Utilizing Intelligent Sales Assistants AI tools provide crucial support to and sales personnel and help them maximize their output and expedite crucial tasks. Chatbots such as ChatGPT generate responses on the basis of an extensive training dataset. With the unique ability to interpret inputs, chatbots are proving to be efficient research assistants. They offer a faster and smarter way to find options instead of spending hours on search engines. Moreover, AI-powered virtual assistants provide insights to help you formulate new sales strategies. While you will still need to validate the results, virtual sales assistants will save a lot of your time and effort by answering all your questions. AI tools maintain a systematic record of communication, appointments, and other basic sales activities relieving salespeople of tedious and time-consuming tasks. Artificial intelligence manages and automates tasks varying from scheduling appointments to assessing your sales team’s pipeline. This gives you and your team bandwidth to focus on building long-term customer relationships and high-value activities. Integrating a video translator can improve your global outreach, making it easier to communicate with clients in different languages. By using this AI tool, sales teams can deliver personalized presentations to a diverse audience, ensuring clear communication with their prospects. Artificial intelligence can mine datasets from multiple sources and get back with prioritized leads. The logic, speed and standardization that AI brings to the process can’t be matched by human effort. Armed with a list of high-quality leads, your sales team can focus on converting them and you can even create
Quality over Quantity: How Focusing on a Select Few Accounts Can Drive Greater Success in Digital Key Account Management
Quality over Quantity: How Focusing on a Select Few Accounts Can Drive Greater Success in Digital Key Account Management As digital Key Account Management grows in relevance, many organizations find themselves confounded by the question of whether obtaining new customers is more important than retaining existing key clients. While there is merit in acquiring multiple accounts to meet higher revenue targets, less is usually more if you aim to drive greater and lasting success. A winning strategy is built around being selective and choosing quality over quantity. Not all your client accounts are equal and an integral part of strategic account management is identifying accounts that show the potential to grow in size and importance. To stay on track, your team needs to regularly review key accounts to understand the time, resources, and manpower they require and recalibrate strategy. Focusing on a select few accounts is also good for your organization as it leads to long-term growth, higher revenue, and improved brand reputation. Digital Account Management Masterclass by Pawanjeet Singh – AVP & Head of Sales at DemandFarm The Pitfalls of Quantity-focused Account Management Many businesses fixate on acquiring new accounts, driven by the belief that more accounts lead to increased earnings. But if you’re obsessed only with numbers, you could be missing the trees for the woods. Quantity-focused account management may work in the short term but usually falters as a long-term strategy. On the contrary, quality accounts offer bigger opportunities to generate revenue for your company. Accounts with high growth potential could also turn into your biggest and most valued partners. Challenges and Limitations of Managing a Large Number of Accounts When you’re focused on quantity, you’re constantly vying to get as many accounts as possible, without giving much thought to quality. This could mean a waste of time, energy, and resources on following up on prospects that will do little good for your brand. Another downside of focusing on a large number of accounts is the reduced efficiency of your KAM managers. If a majority of your accounts are classified as strategic, you run the risk of spreading your resources too thin. A compromise in resources usually impacts the quality of your team’s output and is likely to leave your clients dissatisfied and even disgruntled. Dilution of Resources and Attention Strategic account management works when the engagement with each account is consistent and meets a high benchmark of quality. KAM managers are required to pay close attention to the needs of each account and allocate enough time and resources to manage them well. However, when you focus on quantity, you end up burdening your account managers with more clients than they can handle. This often leads to a lack of attention and personalization that can hamper your relationship with key clients. Lack of Personalization and Tailored Strategies Even as you classify and tag your accounts in different categories, it’s important to remember that you are dealing with people. They include buyers, managers, and senior decision-makers. Understanding each person in this equation is essential to meet the account’s goals and requirements. As a part of the KAM strategy, you need to be nuanced and develop customized solutions to provide greater value. A large number of KAM accounts may come in the way of this tailored approach that is essential to building enduring partnerships. Potential Loss of Focus on High-Value Accounts You may start client engagement with great enthusiasm, but the burden of multiple accounts is likely to bog you down and lead to inconsistencies. High-value accounts require a focused approach and any loss of focus can result in strained relationships. An important relationship built over time can crumble due to a scattered approach and this could mean not just loss of revenue but can seriously dampen your reputation and image. The Benefits of Quality-focused Account Management By choosing quality-focused account management, you invest in long-term relationships resulting in consistent growth for your clients as well as your organization. With a focus on quality over quantity, your efforts will be concentrated on accounts with the highest lifetime value. You will also build a stronger team that invests their effort and energy in cultivating relationships that help your company’s bottom line. Enhanced Customer Relationships and Trust When you prioritize quality, you are actually prioritizing the needs of the customer. This approach leads to enhanced trust in customer relationships and raises client satisfaction. Once your key clients feel valued, you can be assured of their loyalty and reliance. With a quality-centric approach, your clients turn into your brand advocates and endorse your services in the public domain. These clients are likely to share their positive experiences with their friends and colleagues and recommend your brand. Deeper Understanding of Customer Needs and Objectives Understanding your customers is crucial at all stages of strategic account management. AI tools can efficiently drive customer profiling and facilitate a deeper understanding of prospects. Data is analyzed from sources like CRM systems, website interactions, and social media to arrive at a deeper understanding of your customers, needs and goals. These insights also help you visualize the customer’s pain points, preferences, and buying behaviors. Customized Solutions and Value-added Services With precise customer profiling, your team can create personalized strategies that appeal to your select audience. A quality-focused approach also supports innovation as it motivates you to constantly push the envelope and come up with creative solutions. This mindset gives you a competitive edge and sets you apart from your rivals. AI-powered tools can help you mine data connected to customer interactions and past purchases. Based on insights derived from this data, AI can customize solutions and create value-added services for your select accounts. Increased Revenue Potential and Long-term Partnership Opportunities Focusing on quality in digital Key Account Management leads to better ROI from your strategies, as your efforts and resources are aligned towards finding and retaining your most promising accounts. This is also the best way to know your audience better and deliver more targeted Key
Automate to Accelerate: Streamlining Sales Processes for Greater Efficiency and Productivity
Automate to Accelerate: Streamlining Sales Processes for Greater Efficiency and Productivity Automation of standard and routine tasks is one of the biggest trends that is shaping the modern business landscape. Top companies and organizations are keenly embracing automation to drive cost efficiency and improved sales. Automation in the sales realm is proving to be particularly useful as it helps streamline several processes resulting in higher productivity and efficiency. Several new-age tools are being adopted to eliminate or reduce the time spent on tedious or administrative tasks and free up bandwidth for sales reps to focus on revenue-generating tasks. A cross-functional research conducted by the McKinsey Global Institute (MGI) reports that technology can automate almost a third of sales and sales operations tasks. For instance, messages shared by salespeople at different junctures of the customer journey can be automated. This simple automated task gives them more time to nurture leads to close more deals and consolidate existing customer relationships. Understanding Sales Automation To fully understand the application and benefits of sales automation, let us first understand what it entails. Sales automation is the process of leveraging software and digital tools to automate a wide range of sales processes from email marketing, to lead generation and sales forecasting. The most widely used tools for sales automation leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and include chatbots, virtual assistants, email, and appointment automation. For example, a gym sales CRM can help streamline tasks like membership management, client follow-ups, and appointment scheduling, improving overall operational efficiency. These cutting-edge tools are invaluable resources for sales reps and help them finalize more deals while establishing stronger relationships with customers. Sales automation tools can also be merged with customer relationship management (CRM) systems to provide smarter insights into the requirements of your buyers. By understanding your audience, their needs, habits, and pain points, you can customize and fine-tune your sales strategy and customize your campaigns to funnel leads through the customer’s journey. Lead Generation and Management Leads are generated in large volumes at the beginning of the sales process. Sifting through this ocean of data can be tiring and time-consuming. It’s also challenging for your sales reps to gauge a lead’s actual interest in your product or service. Thanks to sales automation tools, you can now prioritize leads, channel your team’s energy, and focus on the most valuable ones. By leveraging artificial intelligence, sales automation tools can simplify several tasks such as lead generation and lead scoring, and achieve maximum conversions and higher efficiency. During the prospecting stage, sales automation tools provide information about leads to sales reps and help them create a great first impression. Your sales team spends a lot of time and energy in qualifying leads and remains uncertain about conversion. They can now rely on automation of the lead prioritization process to qualify leads faster. Sales automation tools can ensure that prospects are right for your business before you start contacting them. This process is a boon, especially for organizations that face the challenge of longer sales cycles and low conversion rates. Sales reps depend on lead scoring to know the status of the lead in the sales process. By leveraging lead scoring they can decide if the lead is sales ready, a warm lead, or a cold lead. A sales tracking software can automate this process and help you identify people who are most likely to buy from your business. Instead of servicing every customer, your team can concentrate on interacting with warm leads and ensuring their conversion. They can also tap into automated lead enrichment tools to mine customer information from different data sources. This arms your sales reps with a comprehensive profile of prospects to nurture their relationship with them. Streamlining Sales Funnel and Pipeline Management It’s the aim of every business to maximize leads in their sales pipeline, as more leads result in more conversions and higher profits. However, managing leads and converting them requires more sophisticated tools than spreadsheets and email. With the help of sales automation tools, a large volume of leads can be managed in the sales funnel. AI-powered sales automation tools mine customer data and contact details and streamline regular communication apart from making product recommendations to customers. You can also utilize these tools to standardize and refine the sales workflow over time. Sales automation provides a holistic picture of your sales pipeline and aids in the identification of promising leads and opportunities. They also give you an overview of where the prospects are placed in the buying cycle and help you strategize successful conversions. Sales Reporting and Analytics Automation tools are also favored for their analytics and reporting capabilities. In order to stay on top of your KPIs and sales metrics you need access to in-depth analytics. These tools are a great asset as they are capable of automatically generating reports for stakeholders and managers. Sales leaders are increasingly counting on sales automation to spot opportunities and make data-driven business decisions. Automation is more relevant than ever as it helps in generating consistent data and processes for your entire team. With the help of automation, you can avoid discrepancies and duplications that might hamper your sales processes. By reducing the scope for human error, you can guarantee the accuracy of your data and findings. Integrating CRM and Sales Automation In these times dominated by digital innovations, optimizing the customer experience and staying ahead of the competition requires us to actively integrate our systems and create scalable synergies. By adopting Salesforce integration, we can bring together CRM systems and sales automation and streamline these processes. AI tools used in sales automation play an important role in understanding customers creating a deeper understanding of prospects. Data from various sources such as CRM systems, website interactions, and social media is analyzed to create customer profiles that are a big asset for sales reps. This is just one example of salesforce integration, and sales automation features are included in many CRM systems. Integrating these two integral platforms can go a long
The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint: Your Path to Key Account Success
Powering Progress: The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint Plan for Key Account Excellence The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint: Your Path to Key Account Success Your Guide to Key Account Management Excellence. Learn how the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint powers progress, fostering sustainable business growth. In the world of B2B sales, success is all about relationships. The most important of these relationships is with your key accounts. That is the customers who have the potential to generate the most revenue for your business. By building and managing long-term relationships with your key accounts, you can create a foundation for sustainable growth. The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint is a time-bound, comprehensive approach to Key Account Management. It breaks down your first 90 days into three phases: The 30-day phase: You actively engage in learning and comprehending the intricacies of your key accounts. During this period, you diligently gather essential information about their businesses, goals, and challenges, establishing a strong foundation for your future interactions. The 60-day phase: The focus shifts towards building robust relationships and delivering exceptional value. To achieve this, you strategically devise and execute plans tailored to meet the specific needs of each key account, aiming not only to meet but also exceed their expectations. The 90-day phase: Your efforts are geared towards cementing and solidifying these newly formed relationships. It is crucial to continue delivering value consistently, ensuring that your key accounts remain content and satisfied. This stage sets the groundwork for long-term success and opens the doors to further growth and opportunities. Through sustained dedication and customer-centricity, you position yourself as a trusted partner for your key accounts, fostering enduring relationships that propel mutual prosperity. Understanding the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint The 30-60-90-Day Blueprint is your trusted roadmap in Key Account Management, guiding your journey with strategic precision. This game plan operates on understanding, delivering value, and building strong relationships, gradually leading to long-term success. By breaking down KAM into manageable stages, it eliminates guesswork and empowers you with a clear vision, focusing your efforts on specific goals while optimizing resource utilization. As a catalyst for progress, each stage builds upon the previous, ensuring continuous growth. With a keen understanding of your key accounts, you can effectively cater to their needs, consistently deliver value, and forge powerful strategic relationships. Follow the proven path of the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint to unlock the full potential of your key accounts, driving increased revenue, heightened customer satisfaction, and strengthened relationships. The First 30 Days: Building a Strong Foundation The first 30 days of the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint are all about getting to know your key accounts. Knowledge is power, and in this phase, the spotlight is on in-depth research and analysis. Gather information about their businesses, their goals, their challenges, and their expectations. This information will help you understand your key accounts’ needs and how best you can meet them. You’ll also start to build relationships with your key accounts. This means communicating with them regularly and listening to their needs. It also means being responsive to their requests and going the extra mile to help them succeed. Through effective communication, you understand the nuances of your clients’ needs – giving you an edge in offering them precisely what they need. With a solid understanding and clear objectives, you can craft an actionable plan. This roadmap outlines the steps you’ll take to meet and exceed your clients’ expectations, making the first stride towards a mutually beneficial relationship. By the end of the first 30 days, you’ll have a solid understanding of your key accounts and their needs. You’ll also have started to build strong relationships with them. This will put you in a great position to deliver value and achieve mutually beneficial results. The Next 60 Days: Driving Growth and Value The second stage of the blueprint, spanning the next 60 days, moves the lens from understanding to action. With deep insight into your key accounts’ needs and goals, you’re well-positioned to deliver value and drive growth. The first step in this next phase is developing a customized account strategy. This plan, tailored to your key account’s needs, will outline how you will enhance engagement, identify growth avenues, and drive account expansion. Your strategy must be flexible, allowing for modifications based on evolving needs and market dynamics. An important aspect of this phase involves exploring opportunities for upselling and cross-selling. By aligning these opportunities with your clients’ needs, you could find additional revenue streams, while simultaneously providing more value to your clients. Collaboration is essential during this phase. Cross-functional teams within your organization can provide unique insights and skills. This ensures a holistic approach to Key Account Management. By pooling resources and harnessing internal expertise, you create a synergy that amplifies the value delivered to your key accounts. Project monitoring should not be ignored. Regularly assess your strategy’s effectiveness, identify potential gaps and adjust as required. This cyclical process helps you stay in sync with your key accounts’ expectations. You can thus ensure that your efforts are on the right track. By the end of the second phase, you’ll have implemented targeted strategies, driven significant growth, and created tangible value for your key accounts. This places you in a strong position to solidify your relationships and lay the foundation for long-term success. The Final 90 Days: Solidifying Success and Expanding Relationships The final phase of the 30-60-90-Day Blueprint is about consolidating your success and laying the groundwork for future growth. It’s in this phase that your efforts bear fruit. You will concentrate on cementing the relationships you’ve built and continuously delivering value to your key accounts. Your primary task is to deliver on promises made and meet client expectations. The emphasis is on maintaining the high bar of performance you’ve set. But you also need to be consistent in the quality of service you provide. Your ability to meet and surpass expectations will bolster your clients’ confidence in your partnership, and drive their loyalty and satisfaction. However, it doesn’t stop there. This final phase calls for the provision of continuous value-added solutions. This involves
