Understanding mobile applications for sales enablement can be a difficult topic to wrap your head around. With so many definitions floating around, it is hard to pinpoint what using a mobile sales application actually entails.
This week, we take a look at how mobile applications and tablet technology can take your sales enablement solution to the next level. We analyze what it means to use mobile sales enablement, how technology can empower your sales process, and the benefits of taking your sales enablement software mobile.
Empowering Sales with Technology
We live in a society that is addicted to mobile technology. Most of us can’t go an hour, let alone a day without using some sort of mobile technology. Never being any more than 5 feet from us, our mobile devices keep us constantly connected to the outside world.
Like many industries, technology has completely changed the sales process. Technology allows consumers to create a whole new set of expectations for the companies that they do business with. Buyers expect companies to be available anywhere, any time, and on any device around the world (Source: Aberdeen Group, 2014). For many companies and employees, this means being connected outside of work and at all hours.
Instead of cold calling and waiting for leads, technology is helping sales reps enhance face-to-face interactions. Best-in-class performers realize that investing money in sales productivity is a top priority for increasing sales performance. As a result, they use mobile applications for sales enablement to achieve this.
Through tablet technology, mobile sales applications allow sales reps to access marketing materials and other important information pertinent to their sales calls anywhere in the world. Tablets are redefining the sales profession as they offer an unbeatable combination of visibility, utility, and innovation in turn allowing for higher productivity and adoption (Source: Profitable Channels, 2013).
As a matter of fact, on average 3 out of 4 sales reps said that they believe they could close high-end deals with access to better technology (Source: Big Contacts, 2014).
Mobile devices and the innovative technology behind them give sales reps the confidence that they need to succeed. With tools like easy content navigation, intuitive multi-touch interfaces, rich video, and 3D animations, sales reps are now able to engage with customers and deliver sales presentations in ways that were once unimaginable.
Mobile sales enablement applications have become the must-have tool for companies that want to be ahead of their competition as they allow sales reps to manage more opportunities and devote more time to customer interactions.
Digital sales aids have the potential to improve sales effectiveness by creating a more cohesive sales process, and allow both a maximum return on your sales and a reduction in your sales cycle (Source: Profitable Channels, 2013).
Mobile sales enablement also greatly benefits sales and marketing departments as teams waste fewer resources on administrative activities and ineffective content creation.
Interested in learning more about using tablets and mobile sales enablement to improve your sales team? May I suggest our previous post, “How Tablets and mobile sales enablement improve your sales team” written by our guest blogger, Jeffrey Mortensen.
What is Mobile Sales Enablement?
At Skura, we define sales enablement as a cross-functional discipline that links corporate business strategy and goals to tactical execution in the field.
In case you missed our article, ‘what is Sales Enablement? A Sales Enablement Definition for 2015’, you can learn more about our definition here.
In the past, sales reps could enter a sales call with confidence knowing that they had complete control over the decision journey. Today, buyers hold more control over the sales process due to the ever-increasing availability of information.
You’re probably wondering, ‘How do we fix this?’
The answer is mobile sales enablement.
Having a mobile-first platform assists your sales reps in adapting on the fly and in the field to any given number of scenarios. The challenge of an empowered buyer is more easily mitigated when the sales rep can immediately address a concern in person.
This kind of mobility also enhances data-capture and CRM data quality. Sales reps are able to review call details, rather than trying to commit them to memory.
The result is a more consistent decision journey experience, a more conversational sales call approach, and improved real-time buyer insights that rely on data, not anecdotal evidence.
Through the use of digital sales aids and mobile sales apps, you can rebalance the scales of the buyer/seller relationship. The combination of tablets and sales enablement enhances many aspects of the sales process.
Consider these statistics: 60% said that they use their tablets to present to customers, 56% used them to demonstrate their product, 45% used them to track their CRM activities, and 36% used them to customize sales presentations before meeting with customers (Source: TabTimes, 2014).
Why Use Mobile Sales Apps
Have you ever heard the saying “you’re only as strong as your weakest link”?
Well, the same can be said of sales. You’re only as successful as your sales reps, and whether you like it or not, they are the face of your company. They’re engaging with customers and you may have no idea what is being said in these conversations. What went wrong? What went right? Setting your sales reps up for great results from the very beginning will ensure that your goals are being met.
Did you know sales reps reported that 60-70% of B2B content created is never used given that reps find it is irrelevant to the buyer? (Source: Type A Communication).
Through the use of tablets, the sales team always has access to the most up-to-date digital content. This is especially important, as the use of tablets for sales presentations is very popular among sales reps.
While tablets help your sales reps present the right information to your customer, analyzing usage data also gives you insight about your customer and where they stand in the decision journey. Through mobile sales applications, you can see how long the sales rep spent on a call, engagement with certain information, and who participated in the sales presentation. The tablet enables the ability for any new data collected during sales calls to be integrated back to marketing in real time.
Interested in learning more about how to better relate content to your buyer? Our previous post, “How to Tailor Content to Purchase Decision Stages” may shed some light on the subject. Click Here to learn more.
It’s no secret that successful sales depend on strong marketing campaigns. When sales and marketing teams are in sync, companies found that they became 67% better at closing deals (Source, Type A Communication, 2014). Mobile sales enablement contributes to this alignment as it pushes end-of-funnel content consumption to the marketing team.
6 Benefits of Mobile Sales Enablement
Access from anywhere at anytime
Mobile sales enablement is just that, mobile. The benefits of this solution is that the program can be accessed from anywhere, at any time, on any device, and can make use of any digital content asset.
Most importantly, a mobile-first platform doesn’t need internet connection to operate. Every content asset is accessible on the device, and any integrated data is cached until the connection is regained.
Fast and Flexible
A mobile sales enablement solution works as a central “hub” which provides fast and flexible access to all marketing content and CRM data. Marketers, sales reps, and managers can have access to any or all of the inputs and outputs of the system. This integration makes campaign planning and content dissemination a breeze.
Mobile sales applications also help to speed up response time between sales reps and customers. As a matter of fact 65% of sales reps say that they can’t find content to send to buyers (Source: Kapost, 2015). Mobile sales enablement allows for the creation of persona-specific playbooks that are in line with those of the marketing automation system. Sales reps can spend less time searching and more time delivering a decision journey focused experience.
Allows for multi-channel engagement
The buyer is operating several devices, and prefers more mediums than ever before. Compounding the issue, buyers expect a seamless approach that accounts for past interactions. This is the challenge of Omni-channel engagement; somehow being able to progress the decision journey of one buyer in line with past interactions between them and the brand.
Mobile sales enablement ensures that all content can be viewed on any device and it allows for content sharing through any medium. Finally, it enables content utilization tracking that automatically informs the sales rep and the marketing team about the consumption of content via whichever platform the buyer used.
Sales enablement ensures that you can engage on multiple channels and mobile versions of these applications bring it one step further and help to enable Omni-channel experiences.
New to Omni-channel? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. If you want to learn more about the topic I suggest visiting this post we recently composed that provides an Introduction to Omni-Channel Engagement for Effective Digital Sales. Click Here to learn more.
Quick Access to your existing CRM
Integration is a major component of any sales enablement. Every interaction is valuable. Even if the buyer disliked the last sales presentation, that information is valuable for optimizing future interactions.
Further, at any point in the field sales rep could need access to the vast amount of data held in the CRM. This data should be easily accessible in the field where it is most valuable.
Mobile sales enablement makes this possible and ensures that the sales rep is always prepared to engage the buyer.
CRM is a sticky issue for many sales reps. It’s often seen as an administrative detour and is thus avoided by many, but CRM applications hold huge potential when used appropriately. If your CRM isn’t delivering sales results, consider reading this post about How to Leverage CRM for Predictive Sales Enablement. Click Here for more.
Speeding up the training process
There is a 30% turn over of sales reps from one year to the next and it takes, on average, 7 months to get sales reps up to speed through training (Source: LeadLiasion, 2011).
Sales reps must be prepared for the face-to-face interaction with customers, and familiar with the sales and follow-up processes. Mobile sales enablement assists sales reps in preparing with content that reinforces training straight from the mobile device.
More importantly, it gives the sales rep what they need; the right content for the buyer according to their stage of the decision journey.
Do you feel like your sales training might not be working for your reps? We uncover “the two reasons that sales training fails to improve the sales process”, Click Here for more.
Grab the attention of hard to reach buyer’s
Mobile sales enablement enhances sales call preparedness, increases customer engagement during a call, and improves follow-up time (Source: Mutual Mobile, 2012).
Sometimes buyers are hard to reach and they expect you to add value with each engagement. Multi-channel engagement ensures you are always in touch, while data tracking keeps your conversations relevant and CRM integration maintains a single view of the customer so you don’t have to.
Winning More Deals
Best-in-class industry performers understand that when it comes to staying ahead of the game and engaging with their customers, adopting new technology is vital. Mobile sales enablement assists companies become industry leaders when it comes to building strong and lasting relationships between sales reps and their customers.
Before you can even begin to close more deals, you have to understand why deals are failing to close. Making the job of your sales reps easier means that you’ll be able to see better results, and mobile sales enablement can help you achieve this.
A study conducted by CSO Insight in 2012 found that organizations that enabled their sales reps with mobile CRM and social sales tools won 7% more deals than their competitors who did not use digital sales aids (Source: CSO Insights Survey, 2012). A later study in 2015 by the Aberdeen Group found that companies who have strong visibility into the use of their sales content saw 96% greater annual growth in average deal size (Source: Ostrow, P. 2015).
Mobile sales enablement is improving the sales cycle, enhancing decision journey awareness, and becoming more essential with each passing year.
When it comes to making a purchase decision, 95% of buyers choose to make a purchase because that company provided them with more than enough content to help them through each stage of the decision journey (Source: Type A Communication, 2014).
Because of this data, marketing departments can create more tailored content that will better reflect a customers needs, and where they stand in their decision journey.
Looking for more tips to enhance your reps sales performance? May I suggest taking a look at our previous blog, “5 quick tips for sale performance management among reps”, found here.
[RELATED CONTENT] Mobile sales enablement puts the tools and knowledge that your sales reps need in the place they need it most – in the field and in front of the buyer. If you’re new to these concepts, I invite you to read the whitepaper below about how to accelerate your revenue with sales enablement.
Otherwise, if you want to experience what mobile sales enablement feels like, request a demo and let us give you a tour of the future sales rep.
