Since the COVID-19 pandemic, we’ve accelerated to a more digital and automated buying process.
With interactions between buyers now taking on a predominantly virtual approach, this has lessened the chance for sales teams to make a positive impact on the buying process. They not only need the correct tools to support this new process, but an even deeper understanding of the customers and their buying journeys – awareness, consideration and conversion.
So, how can we optimise and empower your sales enablement in a digital world?
Alignment:
It begins with a customer-centric approach.
In Account-Based Marketing (ABM), customer centricity is the centre point of everything, including within the hierarchy of your organisation.
By having it built into your organisation, it aligns every member of the organisation on the key accounts, from sales to marketing, ensuring that everyone is doing their part to support the sales team through every step of the buyer journey.
To do this, it’s recommended that you work back from customer needs, to identify where the sales teams need to be supported by other areas of the business.
Tools:
The right toolkit is essential for a sales team in a digital world- but what does it look like now?
Not only does it need to align to the buyer journey, but it must also be effortless in its adoption.
Before developing your sales enablement toolkit, instead carry out an extended buyer journey mapping exercise, by seeing where in the journey different teams can show support and identify the best tools that will achieve that.
Relationships:
However, the ultimate key to selling is building relationships. The centre point of any ABM programme.
In a digital world, human value is critical to the buyer journey. But there may be a number of barriers which could hinder a sales teams’ chances of building those relationships.
To achieve this successfully, begin by automating any repetitive sales tasks. In doing so, it provides the sales team with more time to focus on digging deeper and accelerating the relationships that really make an impact on the buying process.
In conjunction to this, you also need to develop a deeper understanding of the accounts, their needs and objectives, in order to determine how best for sales to approach them.
This can be done by either profiling your sales team, to see if the right salesperson is matched with the buyer, extending beyond professional traits and similarities. You can also dig into other data within your organisation, to see which tactics and approaches have been successful previously. Then research the key buyers, their influencers, objectives and barriers to success.
With these personas you can then develop hyper-focused messaging that the sales team can use to strengthen their credibility with the buyers.
The result? Shortened sales cycles, more win rates and a stronger relationship between you and your most desired accounts.
With all of this though, it is essential to keep in mind that human connections and relationships take time. Even with a strong sales toolkit and an aligned team, in a digital world, the power of listening and just speaking face-to-face with clients is still as important as ever.
To empower your sales enablement team in 2022, then get in contact with AmbitionABM today.
