5 Sales Technology Trends That Will Grow Your Business
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Sales has always been a data-driven industry, so it’s no surprise that sales teams were some of the earliest adapters of today’s popular technological tools.
The big trend now is that sales technology has matured, as has the way we use it. Sales tech and data-collection is more integrated.
Forward-thinking sales teams are finding more effective ways to apply analytics, and not just to the sales process. In short, now is a great time to manage a sales team.
Here are five sales technology trends for 2015 that you can’t afford to miss.
Ending Data Blind-Spots
You have data pouring in from all directions. In the past, integrating and centralizing data from multiple sources could be a real challenge. At the very least, you likely have data coming from your CRM and marketing automation tools.
If you want to wring maximum value from your analytics and avoid data blind-spots, you need a way to bring all of that data together. You also need to present it to your team in a format they can easily understand.
It’s a big job, but a manageable one if you’ve got the right tools. Today, the tools at your disposal are better than ever.
InsightSquared brings everything together, from per-rep KPIs to pipeline management and sales forecasting. The platform’s “multi-data-source” tech ensures that all of your key data is integrated.
Segment is another popular tool. You send all of your sales data from various sources, and Segment sends back reports to the sales apps of your choice.
Bizible functions similarly, by uniting your disparate streams of sales data into a clear picture of your ROI from all sales and marketing activities.
Using Analytics to Look Forward
If you’re not using predictive analytics, you’re missing out.
Your analytics can tell team members how they performed in the past, and provide insight into how they’ll perform in the future. The concept isn’t new – think weather forecasting or market modeling – but it’s finding new applications, especially in sales and marketing.
With enough data about what has happened in the past, and what actions your team members are currently taking, you can get a strong idea of how a salesperson will perform going forward. Predictive analytics can also be used to forecast your best leads, so your team can focus its efforts more efficiently.
Infer predictively scores leads so your team can prioritize the leads that are most likely to close.
Clari uses predictive analytics to provide better sales forecasting reports.
Improving the Hiring Process
Hiring should not be a guessing game.
Data-driven hiring practices will improve your hit-rate on new employees, and streamline the hiring process. Tracking your hiring channels can help you learn more about where your applicants are coming from, which channels deliver the best results, and where you should focus your efforts in the future.
By scoring your applicants based on pre-determined criteria, you can identify the best candidates. Memory is faulty, even under the best circumstances, and having a tangible, data-based way to compare candidates will improve your hiring process.
Greenhouse is an all-in-one solution for optimizing your recruiting process with data.
Lever is a complete applicant tracking system that makes it easy to involve your team in the hiring process.
The Mobile-First Enterprise
Mobile apps are a great way to increase sales productivity, in a format your team members know well. With the right apps, your team can stay connected to their most important sales tools, no matter where they are. Why not place your sales apps on the devices your people are already using?
Ringio’s mobile app allows salespeople to make calls, add notes, look through your company’s address book, and access voicemails on the go. With Salesforce being one of the first apps on the Apple Watch, sales technology will only get more mobile-friendly.
Investing in Customer Success Technology
Customer success is all about nurturing and retaining the customers you work so hard to gain. Sales doesn’t stop when the deal closes, and customer success technology can help your business increase upsells and decrease churn.
Your CRM is a fine place to start managing customer success, as long as you don’t stop there. Everything, from your on-boarding process to your marketing, plays a role in your customer success formula and keeping track of this data in your CRM can be cumbersome.
Gainsight is a complete customer success platform for tracking your customers’ health and reaching out to customers at scale.
The tools for success are available to any sales manager willing to look for them. Keep an open mind, and be willing to look at any solution that can give your team an edge. If your team is like most in the modern sales environment, then you’re already pretty well-versed in analytics.
The trend now is making actionable analytics more accessible. With mobile apps, predictive analytics, and data-based hiring practices, you can improve your ROI across every aspect of your sales operation.
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