Intelligent Demand Generation / eTrigue Corporation

I wasn’t exactly surprised to read that a growing number of companies are recognizing the importance of sales enablement. If sales reps are reporting that “inability to communicate value messages” was their number one inhibitor to achieving quota, and that they have “a knowledge gap” or their company has “too many products to know,” then clearly we’re looking at a situation where Marketing can provide better support to Sales than it does now.

After all, marketing has the knowledge – not just deep knowledge of the company’s products or services, but also – when using a marketing automation system – deep knowledge of the company’s prospects.

This knowledge about each prospect, where they are in the sales cycle, what they did so far on the Web site, how they have responded to emails up until now- this rich history must be communicated to Sales in order for sales reps to be able to have meaningful communication with prospects.

An interesting alternative to communicating marketing knowledge to sales is to directly equip sales with this knowledge, via a sales acceleration system such as eTrigue SalesPro.

A sales acceleration tool assists sales reps in their sales lead management efforts and gives them the power to be more prepared and proactive, making sure each engagement is relevant and timely.

When sales reps have real-time intelligence about prospects, they are empowered to sell more effectively. Tools such as unlimited trackable email, web site activity tracking, email alerts and live tracking give sales reps the information they need to focus on the right prospects, at the right time.

Of course, even with a sales enablement system in place, sales should never be on their own. When communicating with sales reps, B2B buyers already have so much knowledge about the product, that a conversation centered around features is simply useless, and frankly, so is conversation centered around general benefits. The sales rep must be able to communicate compelling value to the specific prospect.

Which means that marketing/sales alignment is still crucial, and marketing (or better yet, the entire organization) must find a way to support sales reps by providing them with key information about the company’s products, so that reps are able to communicate value to prospects and sell more effectively.

What do customers want from the B2B sales process? While it’s tempting to assume that the most pressing concern is price, research from McKinsey & Company tells us this is not necessarily the case.

Instead, B2B customers are looking for the following:

1. Customers want to be contacted just enough, not bombarded.

2. Sales reps should know their products or services intimately and how their offering compares with those of their competitors.

3. Customers need information on exactly how a product or service will make a difference to their businesses.

This means that B2B sales reps must avoid making the following common mistakes:

1. Making too frequent contact. While you don’t want to neglect warm or hot leads, you definitely don’t want to give a cool lead the feeling that you’re harassing them. Use a sales acceleration system for prospect activity tracking and for making sure you only contact the right prospects at the right time.

2. Making too little contact. On the other hand, you don’t want to neglect your leads. Out of sight out of mind is more than a cliche – it’s actually quite true in life and in sales. Again, automating activity tracking can greatly help with the task of knowing which lead to contact and when.

3. Giving generic pitches. This is a common complaint among B2B buyers. There aren’t many things that are more of a turn-off for a buyer than a sales rep who gives them a generic pitch that clearly demonstrates she is not familiar with the specific customer’s pain points. The customer does not care about your product’s features. All they care about is the product’s benefits – for them.

4. Not having all the info. If a prospect asks questions about the product, or how it is different than the competition’s product, you better be able to answer that question. The only way to make sure you are ready for this type of questions is to have a deeply intimate knowledge of your company’s product. You should also be able to clearly explain how it is different than other offerings on the market.