When it comes to sales technology and training, there’s a massive gap between top performing teams and their under-performing peers.
That’s according to our second annual State of Sales report, which reveals how winning teams are successfully getting to grips with mobile selling and analytics – to minimise admin, and spend more time doing what they do best.
The hallmarks of superb selling: mobile technology
It’s simple. When you can sell anywhere, you can sell faster.
Here in the UK, 69% of sales teams that can access data from anywhere – and 59% of those that can sell from anywhere – agree this level of mobility is a major benefit.
What’s more the highest performing teams worldwide are over three times more likely than underperformers to rate their mobile sales capabilities as outstanding or very good.
The hallmarks of superb selling: analytics technology
It’s not just mobile sales solutions that are helping today’s leading sales teams achieve new levels of productivity. Top performers are also over twice as likely to rate their analytics abilities as ‘very good’ or better.
If top performers are readily embracing analytics, it seems in no small part because they’re seeing clear benefits in a host of key areas. Well over two-thirds of sales professionals say using analytics has:
- Improved consistency of experience across channels
- Improved sales velocity
- Improved close rates
- Improved time spent per lead
The hallmarks of superb selling: effective training
Give a man a fishing rod, and he’ll probably look a little bemused. But give a man a fishing rod and offer to teach him how to use it, and you’ll be well on your way to your first catch.
Today’s top sales teams aren’t just the ones equipping their people with smarter selling tools and processes – they’re the ones driving adoption of smarter selling practices, with high quality training programmes.
88% of high performers rate their training processes/effectiveness as outstanding or very good. Only 33% of underperformers do the same.
Who’s already getting it right…
Virgin Media was the first provider of all four broadband, TV, mobile phone, and home phone services in the UK. And it’s continuing to blaze a trail today – in the way it sells.
The company uses Salesforce to empower its mobile sales people, who account for over half its sales team. As Christopher Coleman, Head of Multi-Channel Sales and Development, explains:
“One of the most important things for us when we chose Salesforce was that the technology was mobile. Everything that we’ve got available to us on the consoles and desktops in the contact centre is also available on the Salesforce1 app.”
By joining up the dots in each prospect’s journey – from website, to store or contact centre – and recording every sales interaction, Virgin Media has also unlocked a new world of data-driven insight.
Wave Analytics now helps Virgin Media better understand its customers and prospects, providing a deeper understanding of behaviour and sales channel performance.
As Coleman confirms: “We always knew where a prospect started their journey and where they completed it, but had limited visibility of what happened in between. Now we can see the whole journey in detail and can make smarter decisions on which parts of the journey to optimise.”
Get up-to-speed. Read the full report.
Inefficient processes are still a big challenge for many sales teams, here in the UK, and across the world. But leading teams are tackling them head on, and using the two ‘t’s – technology and training – to boost productivity and efficiency, opening up a gulf between themselves and their lower performing peers.
Download our full report to discover much more about the State of Sales, right now – including the new #1 Sales KPI, and why it’s driving sales, service and marketing organisations to pull together like never before.
