Co-bots not Robots: The Future of Sales
There is a new generation of sales team top performers – and they are unlikely to be the same people who smashed their targets pre-COVID. Without the face to face meetings, conferences and networking events, many sales people have found the last 18 months incredibly challenging. From the difficulty of reaching out to prospects to having to pitch via a screen, the familiar ways of interacting have vanished.
Yet, there are a growing number of digitally savvy sales experts relishing the new opportunities. Not only are homeworking prospects and customers now a captive audience, but digital tools provide an amazing depth of pre-sales information that can transform the entire engagement process.
With back-to-back calls throughout the day, these digital top performers are unlocking and closing more opportunities than ever.
Information Driven Sales
Deep, accurate and immediate digital information is transforming the end to end sales cycle. It is enabling individuals to create in-depth insight about prospects and gain far more confidence in the best approach to each sales opportunity.
In depth information is also allowing companies to qualify out prospects more quickly and helping to close deals more cost effectively. The explosion in data – and a commitment to using that data effectively – is creating high performing sales forces.
Bringing CRM to Life
The value of information to improve the sales process has been the driving force behind CRM for decades. But sales people view updating the CRM as a chore – and a tool for tracking and managing their performance rather than adding value. That attitude has to change, fast – and that is where gamification can be transformational.
From points systems to leaderboards, gamifying behavioural change adds value to even the least exciting tasks. Making it fun and competitive works – especially for a driven group of sales people and activities become habit forming.
This also enables managers to take a personal approach to coaching and guide people in the right direction. Identifying the specific steps taken by the top performers provides a best practice model that can be shared across the business. In addition, it can highlight those potentially making bad deals just to hit targets and the medium performers who are doing ok, despite failing to take the same steps as the top tier.
Achieving Immediate ROI
Even more valuable, combining this data with deep learning AI will identify sales patterns that humans simply can never see. It can provide far more accurate predictions of likely deal closure or the actions that have worked on similar deals in the past – insight that salespeople can use to prioritise the best opportunities, take the right actions at the right times, and increase revenue and commission.
Individuals who embrace digital tools, the sales co-bots, are now topping the rankings. And companies that actively embrace and embed these new, successful behaviours across the business will move the dial and create a sales team that can gain and sustain a winning edge over the competition.
