Guided Selling Benefits Your Entire Revenue Team. Here’s How.

Today’s sales companies are struggling with competing in a new landscape, transformed by unexpected changes to buyer behavior and the economy. Since the pandemic hit in 2020, sales teams have to build longer pipeline portfolios, close deals faster, and compete in an increasingly difficult marketplace.

The issues that the global pandemic ignited were already present in the sales landscape. Forrester has shared that 40% of B2B sales leaders seek more dynamic ways to engage buyers, with many planning on investing in AI-enabled tools by 2021. Additionally, Gartner said that 60% of sales teams would be using data to drive sales strategy by 2025.

After COVID, the demand for these new strategies has gone from due diligence about digital transformation to a demand for right now.

What is Guided Selling?

The shifting sales landscape brings with it a demand for a more data-focused strategy for sales. Guided Selling promises to be the solution that companies need, helping sales teams to get absolute visibility of their pipeline and sales activity. With guided selling, companies can combine AI and comprehensive sales data to understand better which strategies actually work best for teams and where their deals stand.

More importantly, the AI-powered contextual notifications of Guided Selling mean that sales teams can get instant suggestions on how to progress sales successfully. Guided Selling delivers:

• Actionable signals: AI analytics and automated tools can deliver insights into the best next steps to take with each deal, from the sales team’s own playbook or AI suggestions.
• AI data crunch: AI analytics help find correlations and patterns between actions and results, showing which activities are most effective.
• Data capture: The integration of email, CRM, and other crucial tools in the sales stack ensure that Sales Leaders can get a complete view of all deals in the pipeline and all sales activity.

Right now, most sales organizations are dealing with misaligned problems across the sales team and an equally disconnected array of tools to deal with them. They need a solution that can help unify the sales team with a common approach.

Guided Selling benefits for CSOs and VPs

Today’s Sales Leaders lack the insights they need to guide their organizations through a changing marketplace. Around 71% of VPs say that they’re less than entirely confident in their ability to adapt their strategy to changing conditions fast enough. For these leaders, Guided Selling addresses problems like:

• Forecasting issues: Forecasts help VPs strategize and use resources correctly. However, forecasts are only reliable when based on complete data, like that which Guided Selling provides.
• Disconnect with the front line: Sales VPs have poor visibility of sales strategies’ execution and how plans are playing out on the front lines.
• Adaptability issues: Companies need to be able to adapt rapidly to the current transformative landscape. Guided selling brings more agility and versatility to the sales team. Leaders can measure and change strategies easily using contextual AI signals.

Guided Selling benefits for Sales Managers and Directors

Sales Managers are responsible for ensuring that reps are prepared to meet the challenges that lie ahead. However, they have less time than ever to guide teams to wins, and 80% of managers aren’t fully convinced of their team’s ability to close deals. Guided selling tackles problems like:

• Deals at risk: Sales managers need to dive deep into every opportunity because deals at risk are invisible to the naked eye and play a significant role in team quota. Guided selling surfaces deals at risk before they’re lost.
• Improving rep performance: Managers are burdened with huge numbers of tasks and enforcing sales processes. They have little time to coach their team. However, digital coaching through Guided Selling allows them to automate training and guidance for reps.
• Reporting and micromanaging: Reps need to report verbally to their Sales Manager on every deal change, which consumes a lot of valuable time. Guided Selling gives Sales Managers the chance to access greater visibility into every deal change without reporting.

Guided Selling benefits for Sales Operations

Sales Operations need tools that offer direct access to the sales strategy to adapt to the situation in real-time. 75% of Sales Ops have new responsibilities at work and feel their responsibilities will only continue to expand. Guided Selling addresses problems like:

• Longer sales cycles: Without access to the right tools, it’s tough to reliably alter sales processes and experiment with new ones to sell faster. With Guided Selling’s interactive notifications, Sales Ops can influence the actions that reps take throughout the sales cycle.
• Rep productivity: Inconsistent onboarding processes and long ramp time can often harm rep productivity. Guided Selling gets reps up and running faster with training reminders sent right when they’re needed. This cuts ramp-up time by around 42%.
• Siloed information: Working with incomplete and siloed data sources causes issues with reports and forecasts. Automatically captured data from all communication channels gives Sales Ops a better view of activity and sales results.

Guided Selling benefits for AEs and sales reps

Finally, AEs and sales reps need focused direction and plenty of reminders to keep them effective as things change in the current landscape. Around 77% of reps say that they struggle to find time for all of their daily tasks. Guided Selling deals with issues like:

• Lack of focus for deals: Reps generally rely heavily on gut instinct to guide their choices with each deal. However, sticking to an informed strategy is essential right now. Guided Selling shows reps precisely what they should be doing next.
• Training doesn’t stick: Sales reps need practice and reminders on the right strategies to use. Guided Selling helps reps retain the information they collect by reinforcing training with ongoing reminders of best practices.
• Difficulty interpreting data: Although reps have access to a lot of sales data from various channels, without AI, they struggle to interpret and identify signals correctly. AI means that AEs and sales reps get more actionable, concrete insights out of their sales data.

Ultimately, Guided Selling meets every member of the sales team’s individual needs, centralizes the sales strategy, and brings the reality of the go-to-market plan into a single environment for everyone involved. This means companies have the alignment they need to thrive.