Product insights are gifts that keep on giving. They shape our priorities, validate decisions, and light our path. At Highspot, these nuggets of real-world context are helping us deliver the features and value sales enablement pros need.
Our sources range from industry leaders and customers to our very own team. Today’s guest post is from Olivia Long, one of the Account Development Reps at Highspot. Olivia brings a wealth of first-hand perspective to her role and is here to share a portion of it with you. Her topic: how sales enablement has transformed her approach and results.
Highspot’s recent webinar with the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals, (AA-ISP) , “Sales Enablement for Inside Sales,” highlighted several best practices I reference every day. As an inside sales rep for Highspot, I would like to share some additional thoughts on how I put sales enablement processes and technology to use.
Larry Reeves, AA-ISP CEO and host of the webinar, pointed out that sales enablement is a “huge umbrella and getting it right can be significant, as well as getting it wrong”. The key question is: How do we ensure we “get it right?”
There are many perspectives on how to “get it right.” My experience with sales enablement technology, specifically at Highspot, has been life-changing for my work and a prime example of how sales enablement can quickly improve efficiency and performance.
Content Management
As a sales leader prior to Highspot, I struggled to find a central location for marketing content and an easy way to pitch it. Sales and marketing weren’t optimally aligned (not a unique challenge), and most content was e-mailed from one inbox to another. Whenever I needed to send content to a customer, there was no guarantee it would be up-to-date or that performance measurement would be available, let alone accurate. At Highspot, all our sales and marketing content is stored in one central repository, saving me the headache of searching multiple file storage systems and e-mail threads. I’m also able to pitch directly from the Highspot platform, which saves hours each week.
Customer Engagement
During a mid-webinar poll, a question was presented to attendees: “What is your top sales enablement goal for 2017?” The choices were: 1.) More effective customer engagement; 2.) Deeper analytics; 3.) Better content management; and 4.) Improved training and onboarding. The winner by a substantial margin was (1): More effective customer engagement. Not surprising for an audience of inside sales reps. Though at the same time, effective customer engagement is often the result of good content management and analytics that substantiate what content is and isn’t working.
When it comes to more effective customer engagement, my favorite Highspot feature is the real-time notifications I receive when my customers and prospects open an e-mail or view the content I’ve shared. For example, when I send a PowerPoint slide deck, I can see what particular slides my customers and prospects find engaging, how long they’ve viewed each slide, and what content they’ve skipped altogether. This helps me learn what’s important to them and follow up with greater insight, the ultimate result being customer engagement that closes deals. Lacking these capabilities, my ability to prioritize sales content would be much more of a guessing game and less likely to succeed.
Analytics
Another Highspot feature I use daily is analytics. Because Highspot has the ability to track daily activities, such as pitching, I am able to see what content my coworkers are sending out and the engagement they receive from their prospects and customers. If I notice that our new e-book Transform Your Business: Best Practices in Sales Enablement Volume 3, is gaining lots of customer engagement in a coworker’s pitch analytics, then I may begin using this piece of content in my own pitches. This way, I am easily able to identify best practices across our team and embed them in my own sales process. In addition, our marketing team can pivot the data to see what content is most widely used and create or update new content that would generate similar interest.
Summary
Here are the top 5 ways sales enablement is helping me succeed as an inside sales rep:
- A streamlined sales and marketing process. I’m getting more done in less time.
- Easy pitching with real time notifications. This helps me monitor how and when content is reaching my target audience.
- More effective customer engagement. I can follow-up with greater accuracy and clearer perspective than ever before.
- Organized and always up-to-date content. I can quickly take action on customer opportunities with the confidence I’m always working with the latest and greatest.
- Data analytics on my performance & that of my coworkers. This helps us share best practices and quickly modify strategies and tactics.
It’s truly amazing to see how drastically a company can improve their sales and marketing activities by using a sales enablement platform, and I personally can’t believe I worked without one for so long. My ultimate goal as an inside sales representative is to sell efficiently and effectively, and putting the principles of sales enablement to work brings me one step closer to “getting it right.”
Thanks, Olivia. For those interested in learning more about how Highspot can help improve the performance of every team in your sales organization (inside sales very much included), drop us a line. We’re always happy to chat.
