Sales Technology in 2015: The New Stack – Free Webinar
Sales technology is the most effective investment sales organizations are making, according to TOPO’s Sales Benchmarking program. In fact, 37% of sales leaders name technology as their most effective investment. Even so, many sales organizations are struggling with the huge number of technology options, as well as the perennial problem of driving successful adoption among sales reps. At this free, live webinar, TOPO Founder, Scott Albro, will discuss what’s driving the boom in sales technology, key market trends, and best practices for adopting sales technology. He’ll share specific examples of how high growth companies are using sales technology as a key enabler of revenue growth.
You can sign up for the Sales Technology in 2015 webinar here.
Here’s a quick preview of the key drivers, trends, and tips for driving successful technology adoption in your sales organization.
Sales Technology Drivers
There are a number of drivers that are converging to create a perfect storm of sorts in the sales technology market. At a high level, these drivers can be grouped into three categories: changing buyer behavior; the modernization of sales; and the emergence of cloud computing models. For example, buyer value digital experiences over in-person ones. While marketing has fully embraced this change, most sales organizations are just beginning to think about how they can deliver digital selling experiences. Similarly, sales organizations are moving to technology-dependent inside sales models. In fact, the number of inside sales reps is in the process of growing 1.8x, while field sales is shrinking by over 65%.
Sales Technology Trends
The aforementioned drivers are creating a number of interesting dynamics and trends in the sales technology market. First and foremost, software is eating sales, just as it is numerous other business functions and industries. There are many examples of software taking over traditional sales activities from prioritizing which accounts to target to executing contracts. While software is eating sales, we strongly believe that sales is not dying. In fact, software will primarily complement good sales people, making them more productive. Sales people with “uniquely human skills” will be just fine in this world. Second, we are about to witness a proliferation of sales technology vendors. It’s not quite as overwhelming as what we’ve witnessed in the marketing technology world, but the similarities are striking.
Sales Technology Adoption
Most sales organizations struggle to adopt sales technology. Poor ROI, low adoption rates, and lack of commitment are classic reasons for failed sales technology projects. There are a number of best practices that sales can use to improve the odds of success. First, sales leadership must determine where to focus its technology investments. Mapping technology to key points in the sales process and the experience sales delivers to buyers is a great place to start. Second, sales must have a framework for evaluating different sales technology vendors. Third, companies must commit to training and enabling sales reps on new technologies in order to drive adoption with frontline reps.
That’s a small preview of what we’ll discuss Sales Technology in 2015: The New Stack on April 22. Join us to learn about the data, trends, and best practices behind of the world’s fastest growing technology markets.
Sales Technology in 2015: The New Stack
Date: April 22, 2015
Time: 11:00 AM Pacific
About the author: Scott Albro is the CEO and founder of TOPO. TOPO is a research and advisory firm that helps sales and marketing grow faster. We do this by identifying the patterns, plays, and behaviors that drive exceptional revenue growth. It’s this data that helps our clients (some of the world’s fastest growing companies) enable their sales teams to drive more leads, higher conversion rates, larger average deal sizes, shorter sales cycles, and lower churn rates. The result? Our clients grow 2X faster than the competition.