There’s no denying that technology has changed the way we receive, consume and deliver information. That old scene of office cubicles buried under stacks of a paper is now a thing of the past. With an eye on becoming more efficient and environmentally responsible, many businesses are going “paperless”, trading in traditional paper documents for their digital counterparts.
The paperless movement has touched every industry in some way or another. Take Consumer Packaged Goods, for instance. For decades, the industry has relied on printed coupons delivered via direct mail promotions to push their products and services. But now, manufacturers are moving to digital, location-based offers and promotions as well as contextual coupons delivered via mobile devices.
Even the insurance industry, which “has always been known as the realm of the proverbial paper-pusher,” according to PropertyCasualty360.com writer Laura Mazzuca Toops, is making moves to go paperless. Agencies like Ericson Insurance Advisors, an 85% personal lines firm based in Washington Depot, Connecticut, said their move to go paperless allowed them to begin conducting business worldwide because employees can now work from anywhere.
It’s clear that the shift to digital has revolutionized the way we work, yielding significant cost savings and driving efficiency improvements for businesses across every industry. At the same time, however, this shift introduces new challenges for sales.
Buyer and seller interactions continue to change, thanks to the rapid evolution of mobile devices, which gives us access to multitudes of data from around the world. According to research from Google and CEB published in the white paper, “The Digital Evolution in B2B Marketing,” customers reported being nearly 60 percent through the sales process before engaging a sales rep. They are doing research online or engaging peers via social media to identify and qualify vendors, instead of the salesforce doing the qualifying. These changes have significantly redefined the sales role.
As explained by Scott Gillum in the Forbes article, “The Disappearing Sales Process,” as buyers continue to spend more time becoming informed about the products and services available to them, salespeople must transition from being product pushers to insight providers, adding value to the buyers’ business. Therefore, “relevant content will continue to escalate in value, especially content related to consideration and purchase drivers, and the business application of the product or service,” according to Gillum.
With less control over the buyers’ journey, salespeople need to be able to leverage relevant content when it will be the most impactful. They must be able to assemble a presentation quickly and tailor their pitch at any moment to integrate new elements that are uncovered along the way. Mobile access to content provides a fast way to access the most up-to-date information. Without having to worry about predicting every possible path a conversation may go down, salespeople have smarter interactions with prospects while reducing meeting prep time.
With a mobile sales enablement app like SalesKit, preparing for a sales meeting is as easy as selecting the most relevant slides, video excerpts, data sheets and images directly from an iPad and organizing it into a consolidated presentation. There’s no need to request copies of key documents before a meeting. Content is stored on an easy-to-navigate application, providing an intuitive user-experience that enhances the effectiveness of each and every pitch.
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