Today, digital transformation continues to accumulate a lot of attention. As digital sales transformation has moved from a nice-to-have to a need-to-have, more deals than ever are being lost to a commitment to the status quo than to competitors. Digital transformation is more than just a fancy way to describe moving digital assets to the cloud. The Enterprisers Project defines it as a process to integrate all areas of business in a way that results in fundamental change regarding how it operates and provides value to customers.
While the process will be different for every organization, there are shared goals, no matter which industry a company operates in. Whether this transformation is impacting internal operations or customer-facing divisions, all parts of the organization are now involved in transformation, which must happen sooner or later. After all, the buyer experience is on the line.
Where are you on your sales transformation journey?
Regardless of size and industry, most companies understand the urgency of enabling sellers with tools to elevate buyer engagement. In the last five years, spending on sales enablement technology has increased by 69 percent.
I know what you’re thinking. Act now or risk being left behind. While an entire sales transformation can seem daunting, the good news is, it doesn’t have to be. Most companies today are at the beginning of their sales transformation experience and taking small, incremental steps toward major results. The most crucial step is assessing where you are today and where you want to be both short and long term.
Why take this first step now?
Sellers who aren’t digitally-enabled will fall behind; data and content will be outdated and as a result, sales presentations and marketing assets will be irrelevant. Modern buyers require modern sellers, which sparks the question, is your sales force prepared to sell to this new breed of buyer?
At Mediafly, we call modern sellers Evolved Sellers. With the right tools, these consultative sellers are inspiring, influential, interactive and insightful. Moving away from legacy selling behaviors and toward digital transformation improves the effectiveness of your sales team and empowers sellers to hold more impactful sales conversations. Embracing this change not only replaces the existing tools in your toolbox, but also helps change the conversation to focus on the value of your solution in the context of what the buyer actually needs. Here is a brief synopsis of what each stage of digital transformation looks like:
3 Stages of Digital Sales Transformation
Stage 1: Static Selling – This is where most companies are today.
- Sales presentations consisting of inflexible PowerPoint slides and paper sell sheets, which are impersonal and lack engagement
- Sellers waste time searching and customizing content in different places
- Marketers struggle to distribute, track and update content and lack insight on how it performs in sales meetings
- Sellers rely on overwhelming spreadsheets to show and communicate data to prospects
- Sales training is traditional, classroom-style and easily forgotten
Stage 2: Enabled Selling – This stage brings notable improvements to the sales process.
- Content management technology improves reps’ ability to find sales collateral and allows marketers to better manage and distribute it
- Technology and content usage is measured as sales reps grow
- Content revisions are easily made, managed and distributed to ensure compliance
- Sales readiness is improved with digital training (LMS) and certifications
- The move from a tactical product and service pitch to a challenge-centric approach tailored to the buyer continues to grow across the organization
- Sales rep effectiveness improves with an emphasis on learning how to articulate the total value of the solution to buyers
Stage 3: Evolved Selling – In this stage sellers are most effective and fully supported with a sophisticated sales enablement program.
- Customized mobile sales apps create a cultivated presentation experience that is highly tailored and interactive
- Interactive sales tools including ROI and RCO calculators prove the seller’s business value to each unique buyer
- Marketing understands how, when, what and how much content is used by sellers and prospects
- Sophisticated digital learning ensures sellers to have the right skills to elevate interactions with prospects and can easily track, coach and improve individual performance
- AI/ML-powered CRM integrations reduce data entry time for sellers and recommend the next best action
- Sales reps create a buying experience that is drastically different from the competition, communicating their total value and increasing it.
You can’t prove what you can’t measure. Wherever you are on your sales transformation journey, processes and tools can be put in place to keep up with the competition and exceed your business goals.
A version of this post originally published here.
