Building the best sales stack for your sales process entails serious research into the sales support technology vendor landscape. As the industry grows each year (almost doubling every 5 years), understanding this landscape can be a challenge.
Forrester recently released their Vendor Landscape for Sales Enablement Automation software in an effort to map the market and address the above noted challenges.
Today’s article explores the challenge of identifying the right sales enablement software with insights from the Forrester Vendor Landscape: Sales Enablement Automation report..
In an earlier article we explored the threat of a sales stack on the brink of collapse. Many of the challenges facing today’s sales processes are digital, and an effective sales stack needs to address these digital sales challenges. If you’re just starting your sales stack project, you’ll like our blog about building a real sales stack.
Why is Sales Enablement a Focus?
Sales enablement software is a popular sales stack support element because it facilitates the communications element of digital content sales.
Our analysis of what defines a holistic sales stack revealed only 5 essential tools for digital sales effectiveness. You can read more about that through the link but the element worth noting is that sales enablement software ranks 4th out of 5 essential tools.
The Challenge of Identifying Sales Enablement Software?
In the Vendor Landscape: Sales Enablement Automation industry report, Forrester narrowed down a potential list of 57 sales enablement vendors to just 18 that were able to deliver on three or more of the six execution goals.
Forrester explains that vendor selection in the industry is a significant challenge because sales enablement is “an early stage emerging market” with the following characteristics:
- A plethora of potential vendors – Up to 112 vendors may address at least one of their six execution goals;
- Clear market growth – The 18 vendors had an average of 38% YOY revenue growth; and
- Market & marketing confusion – Each vendor uses their own buzzwords to communicate value.
(Source: Forrester, 2016)
We understand and appreciate this confusion at SKURA. One of our top posts for 2015 and 2016 was our ‘what is sales enablement’ article. We found that few can put their finger on an exact definition, and few definitions offered a simple explanation for easy referencing. That’s why we simplified our definition for 2016 into 3 basic components.
Forrester’s Six Execution Goals
We’re happy to say that our SKURA SFX mobile sales enablement solution was among the top 18 used by Forrester in their vendor landscape.
Let’s examine those six goals with examples,
1) Position
To enable sellers to consistently represent the brand’s image in the right context for specific buyers, helping them connect the dots between their needs and your brand’s capabilities.
This is all about digital sales content control mechanisms that integrate the communications of the entire brand. The biggest challenge is sales reps that create their own content and avoid marketing material. An effective sales enablement solution solves both by allowing sellers to create their own content if they choose while pushing marketing approved material with global asset management controls.
2) Locate
Improve the speed, quality, and accuracy of searching for and using appropriate communication resources for the buyer’s decision journey.
We all know the best digital content manager even if it doesn’t come to mind immediately as a digital content manager; Netflix. At SKURA we believe that content management needs to be done like Netflix with the right digital sales material already prepped for a sales presentation the moment a known persona is targeted.
Forrester’s report explains that “showing sellers what to use it better than letting them find it on their own.” 68% of sales reps use five or more different content repositories (Source: CMS Newswire, 2016) and this adds friction to an already stalled digital sales process.
3) Assemble
The capability to compile or assemble tailored pieces that help respond to opportunities. This can include price quotes, proposals, and even tailored content. The objective is an easier, less costly, and less time consuming interaction that allows the sales rep to respond to opportunities more promptly.
Sales reps are sometimes referred to as ‘micro marketers’ for their efforts in tailoring content to each buyer persona like content marketers. We call this content design – an ability to modify various content pieces and assemble tailored communications in real time for adaptive sales success.
4) Engage
Sales reps have the capacity for omni-channel digital sales interactions with innovative digital content distribution that meets or exceeds the expectations of a modern buyer for content consumption and sharing.
It doesn’t matter what device the sales rep uses, it matters what device the buyer is using, and your sales enablement solution needs to reach and delight any buyer on any device with any content. Whether you’re reaching out on social media and creating a custom landing page for your new target, or putting together a proposal in real time with e-Signature capture to close the deal, it all has to work on mobile, offline, online, and around the world.
5) Develop
The capacity to progress a buyer’s decision journey from nurture to close with the appropriate behaviours at each stage. Effective development requires best practice knowledge transfer from one sales rep to the next, and a capability for sales managers to monitor and coach along the way.
At SKURA we believe in data, and our platform includes comprehensive sales analytics software that helps sales managers identify trends and coaching opportunities while empowering sales reps with the knowledge to be proactive when engaging customers. Whether the buyer progresses their own decision journey, or reaches out on day one, the best sales enablement solution turns every sales rep into a trusted concierge.
6) Align
Comprehensive buyer awareness with 360 degree customer views that provide actionable details for enduring customer relevancy across all interactions. This help create clear plans to navigate buyer decision journeys with tailored resources for unique needs.
We call this closed loop marketing, and it’s something we’ve been championing since the beginning. Gaps in data awareness are a common challenge and most are racing into solutions without a plan.
Integrating your enterprise software (like CRM and Sales Enablement) creates single customer views with contextually relevant information where and when it’s needed. The goal for 2016 should be predictive analytics, not hindsight insights.
(Execution Goal Source:Forrester, 2014)
Picking the Right Sales Enablement Solution
Forrester offers six functional areas to assess when selecting your sales enablement vendor in 2016, and three comprehensive steps to ensure you’ve picked the right vendor for your needs. Here’s a link to the report landing page.
You can also check out our 5-step sales stack building checklist.
If you’re looking for sales enablement software, or just need some advice on how to build a complete sales stack, request a demo and let us show you easy it can be to navigate the sales technology market for a holistic sales stack.
