Things have changed and Revenue and Sales leaders must navigate a new world where technology is rapidly evolving, consumer demands are in constant flux, and teams are expected to do more with less. The sales tools and processes of the past are no longer reaping the benefits they once did and smart leaders are paying close attention to advanced technologies, cutting-edge tools, and new strategies to hit their targets and grow revenue for their companies.
This is where RevOps technology is filling the void and playing an ever-increasing role. In part IV of our RevOps Revolution series, we are going to look at the 6 core components you need to help you implement a successful Revenue Operations technology strategy.
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1. Centralized Customer Data
Bringing all your key customer data into one central repository is crucial to enable you to access the right information at the right time for your revenue teams. However, this may be matured gradually over time due to the complexity of bringing this data together into a data lake/business intelligence platform. Your starting point could be the CRM database initially. This is a never-ending project and will always iterate. Build a maturity plan and iterate as you move forward.
2. Digital Process Automation
A recent report by CSO Insights found that salespeople only spend 35.9% of their time actually selling, with the rest of their workday taken up by other tasks. We all know automation is the promised land when it comes to saving time and maximizing productivity and the latest research from McKinsey has shown that nearly half of all time-consuming and repetitive tasks could be automated. When it comes to your sales teams this includes:
- Customer follow-ups
- Demo scheduling
- Performance feedback
- Onboarding emails
- Customer Content Reviews
New technologies make manual, time-consuming tasks a thing of the past so your team can focus on selling.
3. Actionable Insights
In the past, Sales teams held systems of record, but the latest technologies allow for systems of intelligence. One such area is the use of intelligent data to uncover the leads most likely to convert, based on deal conversion probability. This means Sales Reps can spend more time selling to higher-quality leads. And it’s not just your workforce that should be aligned! These tools integrate with marketing and CX data to create a single source of truth for your ideal lead and customer profiles.
4. Customer Engagement
If we think of the building blocks before this component, we now have a basis to present the right information, just-in-time, to inform our customer-facing teams of recommended next steps with a prospect who is engaging with us about buying a specific product, for example. We can access valuable insights/trends for customers that have bought the same product and what worked for them at this stage of the process in the past. These sales enablement features are incredibly valuable as they ‘learn’ best behaviors, to ensure your customer engagement teams have the best chance of success.
5. Revenue Intelligence
We talked about actionable insights earlier, which impact the Sales team directly. Now, when we talk about Revenue Intelligence, it is about informing the Revenue/Sales leaders within the business about their best next steps. Powerful AI-backed solutions make sales modeling and analytics a breeze, and take advantage of machine learning to identify trends, simulate possible outcomes based on different strategies/approaches, enabling your leaders to see the wood for the trees.
6. Revenue Performance
This key component is all about driving the right behaviors within your revenue teams. Consider implementing an incentive compensation plan that impacts all contributors to your revenue numbers – albeit with different objectives for each key area – to enable you to achieve a holistic goal. Assess and provide feedback on customer/prospect interactions to continually improve. Model out short-term incentives to achieve buy-in and reach quicker short-term goals. This is where the never-ending rubber hits the road in terms of driving your revenue teams forward.
Connecting the Dots
It goes without saying that the pandemic changed how many people work. A resilient, connected, workforce that can weather and even thrive in volatile times is no longer an ideal, but a necessity. But connecting previously siloed teams and antiqued processes is no small task – and that’s where new technologies come in. With the right tools, you can connect teams and create a revenue-generating, united workforce that optimizes every prospect and customer interaction. Make your entire workforce a revenue generator – not just your sales team.
Upgrading your tech stack reaps rewards in several ways. Streamlining processes also reduces burnout and staff turnover. Without increasing headcount, your teams can do more so that with the right tools, ROI becomes evident from day one. The Revenue Workforce. Connected.