The first meeting by your sales reps with senior buyers is the most critical step in the sales process. Impressing the audience with knowledge of their industry, identifying relevant business challenges, and proving how your solution produced positive financial results for similar companies are all prerequisites to earning the “next step” with buyers. Yet, Forrester Research stated only 22% of sales reps were prepared to have a conversation about these key areas. The result is potentially 80% of qualified sales opportunities are LOST on the first call! The reason why this occurs is simple:
- Reps don’t know HOW or have TIME to find relevant content – A Qvidian survey shows, “83% of salespeople report that they have a hard time finding the content they need…. they usually abandon their search and use outdated content instead.” CSO Insights found “59% of a sales person’s time is NOT spent selling as they are burdened with other activities including hunting for the right sales content.” Rather than search for content knowing it will take hours, reps will choose the standard Corporate Overview or Product Features PowerPoint presentations for first meetings and assume there will be a second meeting.
Leading B2B Companies Enable Sales Reps to Engage Customers in Business Conversations. B2B Sales & Marketing leaders know increasing the qualified sales opportunity pipeline is key to consistent revenue growth. A 5% annual increase in qualified opportunities for a salesforce of 50, 100, 500+ reps at current close rates could be the difference between missing or exceeding annual sales goals. In today’s world of digital transformation of Sales & Marketing processes, leading B2B enterprises are implementing smart digital tools to help sales reps better prepare for early customer meetings and establishing competitive differentiation with senior buyers by:
1. Allowing reps to quickly, and easily find ready to use digital Value Propositions for a specific industry and/or product solution that includes:
- A typical customer example detailing the financial benefits achieved, including ROI and TCO, by reducing costs, increasing revenue, improving margins and more;
- Showing relative business drivers and data assumptions contributing to financial results;
- Displaying results in clear table and graphical views via a web-based digital format;
- Smart option for sales reps to change basic data assumptions in meetings that instantly calculate revised financial results for buyers;
- Relevant industry and product content (videos, research, collateral, case study etc.) by a rep simply “pointing and clicking”
Digital Value Proposition for Manufacturing Example
2. Storing Value Propositions in a secure, encrypted cloud-based repository for approved users to access worldwide on a 7x24x365 basis. User access is based on specific roles to allow Value Propositions to be shared by any number of users or groups based on permissions. Sales adoption is simple and straight-forward as Value Propositions are found and downloaded by checking topics by title, industry, product, country etc. Typical time for a rep finding a relevant Value Proposition is under 2 minutes.
3. Enabling Sales, Marketing or Sales Enablement professionals to update, add or edit Value Proposition content, messaging, displayed tables, graphical output and more to keep current and consistent for all users simultaneously. Eliminates frustrated reps from using outdated content or spending valuable time that can be used for more important call prep purposes.
The B2B buyers process has changed, so B2B sellers must equip their sales reps with digital, easy to adopt, SMART sales presentation tools to win the first sales meeting that drive more qualified sales opportunities. Based on the Forrester study, customers expect reps to present early relevant content that connects economic value to their business. Digital transformation of your sales presentations should start slowly with a core group of reps and expand after achieving early successful results – usually within 30 days. Digital Value Propositions create more time for reps to spend communicating the value your solution delivers to customers and closing deals. Let your competition keep giving one-hour PowerPoint presentations that make the customers yawn.
