Why Digital Sales Transformation Is Not Optional

By Carson Conant | June 11, 2019

DigitalTransBlog-image1-r1-750x664 Act now or risk being left behind. Today, more deals are being lost to a commitment to the status quo than to competitors. Moving towards digital sales transformation is non-negotiable if you wish to remain competitive and ultimately, to stay alive. It’s like merging onto a highway in a horse-drawn carriage. Not only do you risk being left behind, you risk being run over.

Take the recent news of Apple iTunes shutting down, as more nimble and scalable streaming services envelop the changing consumer space. While buyers pace inside the confines of a box searching for solutions to their problems, sellers have a unique opportunity to use the right tools to carve out a door for them. Using sales enablement technology, sellers can guide buyers out of the box and in small but impactful steps, help them move toward a more measurable, scalable, and digital way of conducting (and keeping) business.

Where are you on your sales transformation journey?

Regardless of size and industry, most companies understand the urgency of enabling sellers with tools that elevate buyer engagement. In the last five years, spending on sales enablement technology has increased by 69% (6Connex).

DigitalTransBlog-image2-750x664 It doesn’t happen overnight. While we can quickly shift, change, or revise our sales strategy, total sales transformation is a process. And understandably, it can seem daunting. The good news is, it doesn’t have to be. Although most companies today are at the very beginning of the sales transformation journey, small, incremental steps can result in major gains. The most important step is assessing where you are today and where you want to be both short and long term. Take this first step now. Why? Because sellers who aren’t digitally-enabled will fall behind; data and content will be outdated, and as a result, sales presentations and marketing assets will be irrelevant. Modern buyers require modern sellers. Is your sales force prepared to sell to this new breed of buyer?

At Mediafly, we call modern sellers Evolved Sellers. Enabled by the right tools, these consultative sellers are inspiring, influential, interactive, and insightful. Moving away from legacy selling behaviors toward digital transformation improves the effectiveness of your sales team and empowers them to meet the buyer where they are for more impactful sales conversations. Embracing this change not only replaces the existing tools in your toolbox (e.g. traditional, product-focused demos, paper-based content, and generic PowerPoint decks), it helps you change the conversation to focus on the value of your solution in the context of what the buyer actually needs. Here is a snapshot of what each stage of digital transformation looks like:

3 Stages of Digital Sales Transformation

Stage 1: Static Selling

This is where most companies are today.

  • Sales presentations consisting of inflexible PowerPoint slides and paper sell sheets are impersonal and lack engagement
  • Sellers waste time better spent selling when they have to search for content in different places and customize it for each sales interaction
  • Marketers struggle to distribute, track and update content and lack insight into how it performs in sales meetings
  • Sellers rely on complicated and overwhelming spreadsheets to show and communicate data to prospects
  • Sales training is traditional, classroom-style and easily forgotten
Stage 2: Enabled Selling

This stage brings notable improvements to the sales process.

  • Content Management technology centralizes and improves reps’ ability to find sales collateral and allows marketers to better manage and distribute it
  • Technology and content usage is measured and adoption by sales reps grows
  • Content revisions are easily made, managed, and distributed to ensure compliance
  • Sales readiness is improved with digital training (LMS) and certifications
  • The move from a tactical product and services pitch to a challenge-centric approach tailored to the buyer begins and continues to grow consistently across the organization
  • Sales rep effectiveness improves with an emphasis on learning how to articulate the total value of the solution to buyers
Stage 3: Evolved Selling™

During this stage, sellers are most effective and fully supported with a sophisticated sales enablement platform.

  • Customized mobile sales apps create a sophisticated presentation experience that is highly tailored, interactive and engaging for buyers
  • Interactive sales tools including ROI and TCO calculators prove the seller’s business value to each unique buyer
  • Marketing understands how, when, what, and how much content is used by sellers and prospects and uses the insight to inform the content roadmap
  • Sophisticated digital learning ensures sellers have the right skills to elevate interactions with prospects and can easily track, coach, and improve individual performance
  • AI/ML powered CRM integration reduces data entry time for sellers and recommends the next best action
  • Sales reps create a buying experience that is dramatically different from the competition, communicating their total value and ultimately, increasing it

It helps to ask these questions when assessing where you are on your sales transformation journey:

DigitalTransBlog-image3-750x664

You can’t improve what you can’t measure. Wherever you are on your sales transformation journey, we can help you put processes and tools in place to keep up with the competition and exceed your business goals. Contact us for a free customized assessment.

___________

Additional resources related to the Sales Transformation Journey:

A Sales Leader’s All-Inclusive Guide to Sales Enablement
Embarking on a Digital Sales Transformation Journey

Carson Conant founded Mediafly in 2006 and has led the growth of its enterprise solutions that are being used by some of the world’s largest and most admired companies. Under his leadership, Mediafly has been named on the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies for eight years consecutively, in addition to being named Crain’s ‘Best Places to Work’ for four years consecutively. 

Comments are closed.

Related blogs