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    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

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    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

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    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

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    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

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    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

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    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

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    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

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    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

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  • Planning & Analysis
    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Is Your Sales Dashboard Showing you the Right Metrics?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Why do I need a Compensation Plan Designer?

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    7 Step Guide to Building a Profitable Sales Territory Plan (with Examples)

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    Introduction to Sales Operations

    US Tech Market Forecast Shows a Best-Case 5% Drop in 2020

    Forecasting in a Time of Uncertainty: Tech Markets

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    It’s Time to Re-prioritize Accounts and Re-balance Routes to Market

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

    Deal Optimization – Key to Survival

  • Sales Compensation
    • All
    • ICM Tools
    • Incentive Travel
    • Plan Design

    Sales VP Compensation – Sales Plan or Executive Plan?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    What is the Difference Between a Commission and a Bonus?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    How much of our sales team should we include in our President’s Club?

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

    Sales Compensation Plan Templates

  • Excellence
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    New Sales Leader? Avoid these 3 Common Mistakes

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    A Guide to OKRs for the Sales Ops Leader

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    4 Keys to Successful Sales Management Meetings

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Sales Math: The Impact of Discounting

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Revenue Operations Holds the Key to Unlocking Growth in 2022

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    Sales Math – Pipeline Principles

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

    What’s The Purpose Of A Pipeline Review?

  • Enablement
    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    The 21 Buying Methodologies

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    What’s Your Ideal Customer Profile

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    The 5 Levels of Relationship in Sales

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    What’s The Difference Between Sales Enablement And School?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Training Reinforcement: Is it Back to Business as Usual?

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Give your Sales People what they need!

    Which Sales Methodology?

    Which Sales Methodology?

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    The Rise of Virtual Selling and the Implications for Sales Enablement

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

    A Sales Enablement Conundrum: Who’s Coaching the Coach?

  • Technology
    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Data Science and Sales Operations: Driving Greater Predictability Together in Uncertain Times

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    Does the size of our company determine which SPM platforms we should evaluate?

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    The Boom In Sales Technology

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Setting your 2021 CRM Enhancement Priorities

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    Do You Really Need Sales Automation?

    How the New AI – Authentic Intelligence – Can Improve Sales Productivity

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    Use Tableau to Track the Virus Through Actionable Data

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

    “You Are Doing Everything Wrong!”

  • Performance
    What to Measure in Sales?

    What to Measure in Sales?

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    The Pipeline and Forecast are Different

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    Ignite Your Sales Performance at the Intersection of Purpose and Passion

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    How Sales Reps Are Hitting Quotas Without Hitting the Streets

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    Buying Is About People, Why Isn’t Selling?

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    The secret to High Performing Sales Teams – Analytics

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    Variable Compensation and the Gig Economy

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    On Measuring Sales Performance

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

    “Look At Our Dashboards”

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Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth

Martha Mathers by Martha Mathers
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Building a B2B SalesTech Stack for Growth
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Commercial leaders have been introducing sales technology for years in an effort to boost seller productivity and efficiency. However, with the pandemic accelerating Sales’ digital transformation, vendors have accelerated the pace of introducing new sales tools and technologies, creating a complex landscape for sales leaders to navigate. Specifically, Smart Selling Tools cites that $1.5B was invested in sales software companies in just the first months of 2021, and from 2020 to late 2021, the number of sales software solutions available to B2B sales organizations increased from 976 to nearly 1200.

With this sustained activity and innovation, SBI often takes questions centered on where and how salestech is deployed most impactfully, partnering with clients to address the following types of questions –and many more: 

  • In which tools should we invest to improve commercial outcomes?
  • Is our company ready to revamp our processes and the tools that support them? 
  • How effectively are we using the tools we have? How well do they integrate with new tools we are introducing?
  • How do we improve our change management / enablement processes?

Whether you are just getting started on your salestech roadmap or are critically evaluating the tools you have in place as you prepare for 2022, SBI suggests three key actions:

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Step One: Isolate the tools with the greatest potential to impact your organization’s selling effectiveness.

Like many complex questions, the answer to what we should have in our SalesTech stack is “it depends.” Your sales environment is unique. Sales software solutions are designed to solve specific problems, so it’s important to first consider the defining characteristics of your sales environment.

Here are a few examples:

  • What kind of a sales model do you have? Do you have a high-velocity sales model that is more transactional in nature, or do you have a more complex sales process that involves multiple decision-makers and longer decision cycles?
  • What are you selling? Do you have products that need to be configured with multiple SKUs, or does the product complexity require a subject matter expert or sales engineer to translate technical specifications into customer value? 
  • How many sellers do you have? Has your team grown to the point where it’s difficult to optimize territory assignments and administer sales compensation programs using spreadsheets? 
  • What coverage models do you use? Are your sellers in the field? Do you have key account salespeople? What about pre-sales or sales engineers?

These are not the only dependencies but aligning internal stakeholders around the answers to these questions can go a long way in laying the foundations for your roadmap.

Step Two: Identify which stages of the sales process are most problematic for your team(s)

Technology can fall into one of five stages of the sales process, sales management, or talent / enablement tools. The next step in building out a viable roadmap begins with identifying the stages where your team struggles the most today. As two examples: 

  • If your sellers need help prioritizing their sales time, then you’ll want to focus on “prioritize” solutions that help identify purchase intent or other signals. These solutions include things like lead/list-building, social selling, purchase intent, and lead engagement platforms.
  • On the other-hand, if you’re experiencing low close rates, you might want to focus on “earn” solutions that help quantify value or that cater to specific buyer personas. These would include things like value-selling & ROI, and account & opportunity management solutions.

Based on the unique characteristics of a sales function and its top pain points, we help commercial teams prioritize and phase the introduction of new salestech, using our SalesTech Stack Builder as a starting point. SBI has aligned more than 40 categories of sales tools / tech to these stages, categorizing each in terms of its impact on the sales process and/or sales management.

SBI SalesTech Stack Builder

Step Three: Identify practical sequencing for SalesTech implementation

Once you’ve identified the tools with the greatest potential for your organization, you also need to sequence them appropriately. 

We’ve grouped technologies into three likely stages of implementation starting with technologies we consider to be table-stakes–those that enable foundational activities, initial automation, and digital connections with customers–to those that drive efficiency and effectiveness with automated processes and rich data. Grouping technologies into a recommended order of adoption is not a precise process without a thorough SalesTech roadmap. However, these groupings can serve as general guidelines as you seek to understand what your tech roadmap might look like.

SBI’s new SalesTech Stack Builder takes client input to four key questions and then displays top tools to consider at each stage in the sales funnel, with suggested phasing. Using the SalesTech Stack Builder will allow you to:

  • Frame how you think about your team’s SalesTech needs 
  • Compare your current tech stack to what we typically see at peer organizations
  • Identify and sequence the introduction of new technologies that could enhance your team’s performance
  • Stimulate a conversation within your organization to define a Sales technology strategy

Of course, building a SalesTech strategy and subsequent tech stack roadmap is complicated. SBI’s Commercial Tech Practice advisors can help ensure the right technologies are implemented at the right time and for the right reasons. To receive your starter SalesTech Stack and learn more about SBI’s SalesTech Roadmap visioning, audit, and planning capabilities, schedule a call with one of our commercial tech experts today.

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Martha Mathers

Martha Mathers

Martha Mathers joined SBI in 2021 as Head of Research, where she oversees all research activities and manages a team of researchers, content creators, and data analysts. SBI’s research capability focuses on sourcing innovative revenue growth approaches, synthesizing emergent trends in the marketplace, and assembling world-class benchmarking capabilities. Prior to SBI, Martha held leadership roles within the Vista Equity Partners portfolio, leading product marketing, customer marketing, and content marketing engagements with Vista’s portfolio of market-leading software and technology companies and helping lead portfolio company Granicus to a successful exit through her leadership of Product Marketing and Demand Generation. Martha also spent 10 years at CEB and then Gartner as a Managing Vice President, leading and delivering on Gartner’s strategy for its products serving F500 and Global 1000 CMOs with particular focus on marketing strategy and organizational design, content marketing, demand generation and sales enablement, product marketing, and B2B customer behavior and insights.

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