There was a time when you could only approach prospects unsolicited (cold). A time when you depended entirely on your own charisma and charm during the first contact moment. A time when that largely determined whether they wanted to engage with your solution.
Of course it wasn't quite that simple, but very simply put it was. Today it is different. Prospects in the B2B marketplace, meanwhile, expect a personalized sales experience from the first moment of contact. They expect you to already know a lot about them, what they do and what they need. Often you even need to know more about them than they themselves know. This brings a completely new approach to prospect engagement. Starting with gathering as much information as possible about your customers.
Collecting data
Today, customer data and information are the starting point for any B2B business relationship. The more you know about a prospect before making the initial approach, the more likely a deal will be struck.
But that alone is not enough to achieve a successful deal. A salesperson must have easy access to useful tools and content to take a prospect through their sales funnel. This brings us to the next topic, sales engagement.
Sales Engagement
A growing number of companies are using intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) as part of their sales engagement strategy. This completely personalizes and continuously improves the sales experience from the customer's perspective. This includes the complete customer experience, from the first contact moment to closing a deal and beyond, ultimately resulting in increased sales.
A ResearchScape survey found that the use of sales enablement tools is increasing, with about 57% of enterprise organizations using some sort of AI platform solution.
And 30% of those not using a sales enablement tool said the lack of automation in their sales process resulted in slow response times. This ultimately resulted in lost deals purely due to not consistently following up with prospects. So it is hugely important for sales teams to be able to move quickly to stay ahead of the competition. Automating sales engagement using a tool is thus crucial in the sales process.
Artificial intelligence
AI and machine learning technologies are critical to today's sales cycle. It creates a smooth and easy user experience for the seller. In addition, it provides an overview of relevant marketing content, sales presentations and corporate messages.
This means salespeople are equipped with the most up-to-date and relevant content. This allows them to use the most appropriate content at every stage of the customer journey to "warm up" potential customers.
Communicate with impact
Technological sales tools are essential to increase efficiency and, more importantly, help your salespeople to meaningful engage in communication with prospects, yielding more successful deals. Armed with the right content and tools, and by using ABM and automation, these companies will significantly increase their competitive advantage.
Want to learn more about which tools are perfect for this? Or would you like more information about getting warmed up leads instead of cold leads? Then please contact us via our Calltraders Bot at the bottom right.
