Onboarding sales reps is painful — both in terms of the cost and delay in achieving return on training investment. And the cost of talent acquisition, talent management, and talent development isn’t cheap. Companies often spend upwards of $5,000 in training programs, shadowing tenured sales employees’ daily activities, and inefficiencies that are natural to a new sales person. The delay in achieving comparable performance to those tenured sales people will usually exceed one full year.
In the meantime, these new sales reps feel the pinch of management expectations, dips in compensation, and lack of confidence as they work to absorb the skills and knowledge necessary to be a top performer.
Research in Intent Data Can Help
- Intent data reflects buyer behavior today which allows new sales people to react to pending deals immediately. Rather than spend 100% of their time pure cold-calling to build a waterfall forecast, deals naturally seat themselves in the funnel based which leads to earlier success.
- Sales reps can master the skill set of a particular point in the funnel (ex. vendor comparisons) and build other funnel skill sets in logical order.
- Best-in-Class intent data reflects not only the company showing intent but also the location and persona-based contacts which reduces wasted cold-calling time (a particular drag on a new salesperson’s time).
- Intent data is an insightful means of determining quota potential of a territory. Rather than company headquarters or population censuses or other methods that do not reflect analytical rigor, intent-based territory definitions mean quotas are attainable as evidenced by actual behavior or potential buyers.
- Content support is easier to master by a new sales rep when it is indexed through intent. The sales rep simply chooses those content pieces that match the intent scores of the account they are calling on.
Beyond Landing a Deal
Aberdeen research shows that, overall, average employee tenure sits between 3-5 year timeframe for Best-in-Class companies, and 5-7 years for All Others.
But these numbers are changing with the shift in workforce demographics. Millennials are now the largest generation in the U.S. labor force, and according to the 2016 Deloitte Millennial Survey, many millennial already have one foot out the door — 25% intend to leave their current job within a year and 44% within two years. But why?
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Forbes lists out the top four reasons why sales reps quit, one of which being “They don’t understand that data and insights are their secret weapons.” Well, intent data is the secret weapon that leads to more wins in the sales pipeline. Prospective buyers emit signals of their purchase intent, and new sales reps utilizing these signals are able to engage buyers at the exact moment of purchase intent. Inevitably, these sales reps are hitting their quotas, exceeding management expectations, and acquiring the confidence and knowledge of a top-performer faster than previously possible.
The correlation is clear: Utilizing intent data derives meaningful insights into key market trends, demystifying buyer intent. And as a result, it eases onboarding of your sales reps, enables them to close more deals, be more engaged, and stick it out for the long-haul.
Do you know which specific companies are currently in-market to buy your product?
Wouldn’t it be easier to sell to them if you already knew who they were, what they thought of you, and what they thought of your competitors?
Good news – It is now possible to know this, with up to 91% accuracy. Check out Aberdeen’s comprehensive report Demystifying B2B Purchase Intent Data to learn more.