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6 AI for Customer Success Use Cases

Top 5 Trends That Will Impact Sales Operations in 2025 RevOps 10 min Sales operations has become one of the fastest growing functions over the last few years. According to LinkedIn’s State of Sales Operations 2021 Report, the number of sales operations professionals increased by 38% around the world between 2018 and 2020. What’s the reason behind this growth? Bradley Gray, Director of Business Development at Enterprise Holdings attributes two reasons for the growth in this role. There has been a significant increase in the amount of data that gets generated within organizations. The proliferation of data is creating a need for sales operations to generate contextualised insights for sales teams to succeed.   RELATED RESOURCE : SALES OPERATIONS TRENDS FOR 2025   A well run sales operations function enables businesses to operate efficiently with data-driven decisions, and also identify gaps that exist in the sales process, and help fill them up through analytical insights.  In short, a great sales operations function can help an organization unlock massive productivity gains.  To make the most out of your sales operations function, it is important to be aware of the trends that will shape in 2025 (and beyond). Let’s take a look. 1. Multithreading Will Be a Key Sales Tactic The world is in the midst of a great reshuffle for talent. The turnover among corporate director-level-and above, that constitutes the majority of B2B buyers, increased by 31% in 2021. With key people in the B2B buying committee quitting jobs so often, many deals fall apart because reps fail to develop strong relationships with more than one buyer. And with an average of 6.8 decision makers in every B2B purchase, not having strong relationships with all of the key players within the buying committee can be a big risk. When a key stakeholder leaves the organization, reps are forced to start from scratch, causing 80% of them to lose deals. Having just one primary contact for an account, or single-threading, thus increases the chances of missing out on deals. This is where adopting multithreading as a sales practice becomes extremely crucial. Multithreading is when reps form relationships with multiple stakeholders on the buying committee of an account.  This way, even if the primary stakeholder quits the organization, reps can capitalize on the relationships they have with the rest of the stakeholders within that account. Multithreading increases the chances of closing a deal by 16%. Successful sales teams in 2025 will master multithreading by gathering champions, influencers and decision-makers, and engaging with them on a regular basis. 2. An Increase in Regulations Will Impact Tech Stack Decisions There has been an increase in the number of regulations across the globe around protection of consumer information and data privacy.  Non-compliance of these regulations can be a huge cost. Organizations lose an average of $4 million in revenue due to a single non-compliance event.  To prevent such events from taking place, sales and revenue leaders must narrow down on their tech investments from a compliance-first lens. With the world increasingly moving towards a cookie-less world, highly compliant first-party data will become key in helping sales teams make data-driven decisions. First-party data is the information that is handed off with consent from a user to a company. This can be from sources like email, calendar, Zoom or other tools that buyers use.  For example, organizations can use their own first-party data to drive contextual insights that can help them make their sales operations function more efficient, while staying compliant with GDPR regulations.  Forward thinking leaders will realize this and take control of their first-party data in 2025, and use it to make powerful data-driven decisions.  Technologies like artificial intelligence can help enrich CRM with first-party buyer and seller interaction data. Nektar has built an advanced data capture solution that intelligently connects first-party data to the CRM and enriches it for sales teams. 3. AI Based Guided Selling Will Help Sellers Win More Deals B2B sales is getting increasingly complex, with buyers getting bombarded with information across channels, and sellers tackling multiple tasks and responsibilities while chasing their quota. AI based guided selling is helping sellers navigate this complex selling environment by helping them improve their sales execution through a data-driven approach.  Along with increasing productivity, AI based guided selling helps identify patterns that lead to more intelligent business decision making, ultimately helping in revenue generation. The pandemic exposed cracks in many organization’s sales processes. Knowing that sales process discipline must be improved to increase the chances of closing new deals, sales leaders are investigating new data-driven, AI-based guided selling functions for improving sales execution. Tad Travis, VP, Gartner AI-based guided selling offers prescriptive as well as predictive insights to sellers to close more deals.  From a prescriptive lens, it recommends the next best actions for sales reps and managers to undertake within the sales process. As an example, organizations can use AI to improve their playbook compliance within teams for consistent selling.  From a predictive lens, it offers insights that help identify lead indicators to make the sales process more efficient.  For example, by having insights on the activity data of sales reps, sales managers can define which deals are real and which need to be eliminated from the pipeline. With such functionalities, sales teams can decide on what to do next to move a relationship, deal or quote forward on the basis of analytics (rather than relying on instinct to make decisions). 2025 will see organizations add AI based guided selling solutions to their tech stack. 4. Training in Consultative Sales Will Take Priority Today’s B2B buyers prefer to conduct their own research before they speak with sales reps.  According to research, most buyers engage with more than 13 pieces of content before connecting with a seller.  Forrester’s research found that buyers went to all forums for information in 2021 – from webinars and online events to learn about the category and competitors, to speaking with peers and industry experts to have their questions answered. These changes in buyer preferences have raised the bar for sales. Understanding the buyer’s intent and offering them personalized solutions

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Revenue Leader Caroline Holt on Putting Together the Best Sales Tech Stack

Revenue Leader Caroline Holt on Putting Together the Best Sales Tech Stack RevOps Sales Techstack 10 min Extracting value from a sales tech stack continues to be a frustrating challenge for revenue leaders. Budget freezes across the board have forced revenue leaders to be more mindful of the tools they add to their tech stack. But it can be a daunting project to undertake with the market being so crowded with tools across multiple categories.How can revenue leaders select the best tools for their tech stack? How can they derive value from this steep investment? And how can they make their sales teams more productive? We sat down with Caroline Holt, VP Revenue Training & Enablement at Bonterra, to unpack some of these nuances around creating the best sales tech stack. Caroline shares some brilliant insights on how revenue leaders can create the best sales tech stack. And make the process more efficient and effective. If you’re short on time, here is a quick summary of the conversation.   If you enjoy our discussion, check out more episodes of our podcast. You can follow on iTunes, Spotify, YouTube or grab the RSS feed in your player of choice. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of the episode. The Sales Tech Landscape Has Exploded & Disrupted Sales   Abhijeet: Caroline, thanks for coming on the show. Caroline: Thank you so much for having me. Abhijeet: You’ve been in the sales tech industry for quite some time. How have you seen it change over the last few years? Caroline: Well, it has not only transformed. But it has exploded, right? Technology has disrupted sales. I think the buying process in some cases has not changed over the last 20 years, but the way we sell and the way that the buyer wants to purchase has changed. So when I think about my role as a BDR early on, I was calling, I was faxing, I was emailing. But I could get to someone typically. And I think in some cases the proliferation of things like cadence tools that allow people to drop somebody into a constant flow of information has actually hindered our ability to get to people that we want, who might actually need what we need to do. So to the overarching question of how technology has changed, I think in some ways it’s changed in a really incredible way. Because I am an efficiency geek. I like removing friction from the sales process. But I think that sometimes we actually get in our own way because of how we purchase technology. I think of the tech stack in terms of where your business is and what you need to be successful. And I think that’s actually the biggest challenge right now. The first thing that I would say is that when you think about technology, it’s a great solution if you have a really good process to start with. And people to manage the automation, ongoing configuration, updates, maintenance, and so on. CarolineHolt VP, Revenue Training and Enablement Technology is going to be great at a foundational level. So the first thing you need is a way to engage with people, whether that is your regular old telephone and email, or whether that is some sort of a dialer tool where you’re capturing that information. And then you need some place for that information to live. So you need some sort of CRM to be able to capture that information, figure out who you’ve been talking to, what that’s been like, if you’re opening opportunities, what that opportunity looks like. Then you need to figure out what’s actually happening in those calls.  And then that you can analyze a lot of that data over time in terms of what people are saying in aggregate. So our whole roadmap should be focused on it. It  provides just a really powerful level of insight. But I think for a lot of organizations, they don’t ever optimize those parts of the tech stack, and then they start adding new stuff. They either haven’t gotten it right the first time, or they think that that’s table stakes.  That foundational piece, particularly the architecture around the CRM, if that stuff isn’t right, none of the other tech is really that helpful because you wind up buying stuff and building stuff that doesn’t really help that whole flow from who are we talking to, what are we talking to them about, what’s happening with those deals to closing those deals. Caroline Holt VP, Revenue Training and Enablement So that’s a really simplistic way of thinking about sales technology. But I would say that most organizations need to start with those fundamental pieces and then start thinking about, okay, once we know, now we need to figure out who those prospects are. So what sort of technology is gonna help us identify who those folks are. So how you build that stuff over time becomes really powerful. And then what you do with that data and analytics becomes really powerful over time. But sometimes people invest really quickly in a lot of technologies, but they never really optimize them for performance. So the other part is just thinking about having what you can actually bite off in terms of tech investments in any given year to be able to do the right thing for your business.  Where is Sales Tech Heading Towards?   Abhijeet: If you don the hat of a sales leader who’s going to spend a hundred dollars this year across the technology stack, how should they go about their investment approach? Where should those a hundred dollars be allocated?  Caroline: So I would say that like everything in enablement or any of the back office operations, it’s where are your problems? So if the business should be investing based on what technology is going to actually help them be more effective, where they’re less effective than they could be today. So

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10 Best Revenue Operations Software for 2025

10 Best Revenue Operations Software for 2025 RevOps 10 min Achieving revenue goals is challenging, irrespective of the size of your sales operations. Your sales team can face numerous challenges, including managing complex sales processes, streamlining data, and aligning sales, marketing, and customer success efforts. Fortunately, revenue operations software simplifies how businesses optimize their sales performance. Revenue operations software empowers sales teams to bridge the gap between strategy and execution. Leveraging automation and advanced analytics allows these tools to provide a streamlined approach to manage sales operations and drive revenue growth. Tune in to our exclusive podcast – The Revenue Lounge, specially curated for Revenue Operations Professionals. Here’s a latest episode: Ep #1: Hubspot Customer Retention With RevOps ft. Sid Kumar This article looks at the top 10 revenue operations software solutions leading in 2025. Let’s uncover the best solutions and understand how they can position your sales team for success. 10 Best Revenue Operations Software Here are the ten best revenue operations software to consider for your business in 2025: 1. Nektar 2. Gong 3. Groove 4. HubSpot Operation Hub 5. Aviso 6. Kluster 7. Fullcast 8. Breadcrumbs 9. InsightSquared Analytics 10. Chorus What is Revenue Operations? Revenue operations or RevOps is an end-to-end operating model that helps organizations run their business in an interconnected way across GTM functions like sales, marketing and customer success. A tight alignment of the GTM model enables organizations to drive predictable revenue.  The role of RevOps is to drive visibility, accountability and transparency across the entire revenue funnel, improve efficiency across a unified revenue process, and unlock potential for revenue growth. RevOps connects teams, processes and people that have been otherwise functioning in silos. It also aligns them to work towards common revenue goals. Overview of 10 Best Revenue Operations Software   1. Nektar Nektar is an AI for revenue operations that drives funnel efficiency by plugging your CRM data holes/gaps and discovers hidden revenue from your customer interaction data. The software provides a unified contact and activity capture solution that ensures CRM data integrity and hygiene, resulting in a clear picture of revenue intelligence. Nektar offers a robust data capture and intelligence layer purpose-built for revenue operations. It enables sales teams to capture and consolidate critical data from various sources. Sales teams can get a comprehensive and holistic understanding of the pipeline. With Nektar, there are no more scattered information and data silos. You get a centralized platform that empowers your team to make data-driven decisions. Key features: Actionable pipeline visibility in real-time Accurate and comprehensive CRM data and reporting Enriched contact data for account-based selling Enhanced ROI for your sales tech stack 2. Gong Gong’s revenue operations software allows RevOps leaders to capture activity data from every touchpoint and unlock superhuman forecasting abilities. Gong’s RevOps platform leverages artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze customer interactions across sales and customer success. It provides invaluable insights into deals, pipelines, and team performance. Gong is your partner in breaking down barriers and aligning your sales, marketing, and customer success operations. Harnessing the power of Gong’s RevOps software will help your team seamlessly collaborate and work in tandem. It will drive revenue growth and customer satisfaction. Key features: Clean activity data Pipeline visibility Deal risk warnings Closed-lost analysis 3. Groove Groove is a revenue intelligence and operations software that offers complete transparency. It provides advanced activity capture capabilities for reps, managers, and operations teams. With Groove, organizations can rely on real-time Salesforce reporting and collaborate on account lists. Furthermore, the platform offers insights into the entire buying committee and allows to conduct interactive pipeline reviews. Groove enables organizations to capture and track critical sales interactions in real time through its advanced activity capture technology. It allows reps, managers, and ops teams to stay up-to-date on the progress of deals. Sales teams can also quickly generate comprehensive reports within Salesforce to get insights into sales performance. Key features: Advanced activity capture Auto contact capture Opportunity and pipeline management 4. HubSpot Operations Hub HubSpot Operations Hub allows your entire team to stay aligned with a clean and connected source of truth for customer data. It enables your business to adapt seamlessly to the ever-changing needs of your customers. With Operations Hub, organizations can sync data across various systems, ensuring customer information is up-to-date and accessible in one centralized location.  Operations Hub helps maintain data integrity and eliminates inconsistencies by cleaning and curating customer data. The platform offers other tools, including programmable automation, data sync, and data quality tools.  Key features: Data sync Data quality automation Data quality command center (BETA) 5. Aviso Aviso is a conversational intelligence software that provides revenue leaders with a clear path to plan and key deal actions to accelerate success. It enables sales operations and planning teams to track progress and course correct. With Aviso’s AI-powered capabilities, revenue leaders gain valuable insights that help them confidently navigate their portfolios. Leveraging advanced algorithms, Aviso provides a predictive view of revenue. It allows leaders to anticipate potential outcomes and make informed decisions.  Key features: Advanced view of sales metrics filtered by product/team Advanced briefing for forecast calls Human and AI combination to close deals faster 6. Kluster Kluster is a revenue operations software that enables businesses to build repeatable processes. They can also scale their sales funnel and deliver reports on time, every time. With Kluster, organizations can optimize their revenue operations for consistent and predictable success. Leveraging Kluster’s intuitive tools and workflows allows organizations to establish standardized and efficient sales processes. It ensures every deal follows a consistent path. There are maximized chances of success and minimized errors or missed opportunities. Organizations can also track and analyze key metrics throughout the sales funnel, from lead generation to closing deals.  Key features: Build repeatable process Scale your funnel Deliver reports on time every time 7. Fullcast Fullcast is a revenue operations software that enables businesses to improve RevOps efficiency. Organizations can create territory, quota, and capacity plans without relying on complex spreadsheets. Operations teams can painlessly align their activities with the strategy and eliminate hours of manual effort. With Fullcast’s intuitive interface and

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Top 5 Trends That Will Impact Sales Operations in 2025

Top 5 Trends That Will Impact Sales Operations in 2025 RevOps 10 min The sales operations function went through dynamic changes this past year. Economic uncertainties in 2023 killed the “growth at all costs” model.  In 2025, budgets will be tighter, talent scarce and selling more challenging. All these challenges make one thing clear –  Delighting customers at every turn is what matters.  If we walk backwards from this larger goal, it requires a maniacal focus on the customer. What do customers really need? How can they be assisted? How can they be helped with making confident purchase decisions without seeming pushy? To achieve this, sales teams have to meet customers where they are, at the right time. And act as their trusted advisors.  Having complete visibility into the customer journey from lead to cash (to renewal and expansion) is critical to survive what lies ahead. The new mantra for sales operations in 2025 will be to “build a seamless customer journey.” This article will cover the top sales operations trends that 2025 can expect. It’s vastly different from the trends we saw last year. Which is a testament to the fact how fast things are changing in the B2B sales world. What is Sales Operations or SalesOps? Sales Operations refers to the function, role, activities or processes within a sales organization that help sales reps sell faster and better. This department is responsible for reducing frictions within the sales process. It enables reps to achieve higher win rates in a predictable and repeatable manner. The sales operations function strategizes on ways that can help sales reps focus on tasks that contribute to revenue. This includes implementing sales training, investing in tools and technology that eliminate roadblocks in selling, or creating processes that optimize the sales process for all reps. The ultimate goal of a sales operations function is to create a sales engine that runs smoothly. The sales operations function has a direct impact on business revenue. This department continues to be a strategic component of an organization’s structure. Top Trends To Expect in Sales Operations in 2025 B2B sales has been evolving at a rapidly fast pace, making traditional processes of operations obsolete. Some of the biggest challenges facing sales operations today include: 72% of B2B buyers demand a rep-free experience. 47% sellers say their sales tech stack does not boost their productivity or improves results. Close to half of operations professionals say that processes within their companies are only moderately data-driven or not data-driven at all.  The confidence of operations professionals dipped over the last two years. As companies hold back on investments because of the downturn, sales leaders will have to devise new ways to survive and sustain in 2024. This puts sales operations in a unique position to help organizations navigate these new challenges.  By embracing innovation and pivoting at the right time, sales operations leaders can provide some much needed relief in the tough months that await. They can do this by staying on top of these trends that demand attention: 1. Reduce Technology Overwhelm Among Sellers 2023 was the year of AI. The space of sales technology was already an exhausted field, and artificial intelligence tools just got added to the mix in 2023.  But too many tools also cause overwhelm among salespeople.  As high as 49% of sellers feel overwhelmed by the tech they are required to use for their jobs. This reduces the likelihood to attain quota by 43%. More tools in the tech stack add the burden of deployment, management and adoption. The goal for sales leaders is to evaluate what they have, consolidate wherever they can and optimize their tech stacks to improve productivity and execution across every role. Bloated tech stacks can also create many problems in disguise and add to a lot of hidden costs such as cost of integrating, tool fatigue, cost of siloed data and much more.  Which is why 2025 will be the year of tech stack consolidation.  Tech stack consolidation is the process of reducing the number of tools in a company’s tech stack by merging functionalities into lesser and more exhaustive platforms. The goal of consolidation is not to knock down all of the investments in point solutions that already exist. It demands a structured approach in analyzing which tools offer real value for sales teams. And eliminate tools that don’t add any merit to their day to day workflows. Sales leaders will have to do a cross-functional exercise to identify what their top use cases are for sales operations. And lay down a complete technology roadmap against these use cases.  Teams that use tech stack that enable the full sales motion, from creating pipeline to closing deals are more likely to meet their revenue goals. A lean and fully capable sales tech stack is a reality as companies look to consolidate vendors while retaining the features and capability of their previous array of point solutions.  If you are also looking to consolidate your sales tech stack in 2025, here’s an evaluation framework to get started on. 2. Strategic Multithreading Will Become a Competitive Differentiator B2B buying has changed drastically over the last few years. Relying on decade old strategies to close deals do not appeal to the modern buyer. Especially when buying is no longer a linear process or a one person event. From an average of 6.8 decision makers in every B2B purchase, the number has now gone up to 14. And most of these contacts never make it to the CRM. As they can be from other departments within the company calling the shots in the background. This is where strategic multithreading comes into the picture. Knowing exactly how many people are involved in a deal and having complete visibility into their needs, aspirations and expectations are vital for sales people to know.  This kind of relationship intelligence enables reps to form relationships with multiple stakeholders on the buying committee of an account. And they have to do it in a strategic manner. Having access to the list of contacts that might be influencing a deal will be a saviour for sales

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Tech Stack Consolidation for Revenue Teams: Streamlining Efficiency and Productivity in 2025

Tech Stack Consolidation for Revenue Teams: Streamlining Efficiency and Productivity in 2025 Sales Sales Tech Stack The entire customer journey, from lead to opportunity to revenue to retention is riddled with complexities.  Buyers are well-informed about a product and its competitors way before they even book a demo.  Sales cycles are longer with multiple stakeholders influencing the buying decisions at each stage of the customer journey.  Customer churn is at an all time high. To successfully close deals and generate revenue, GTM teams today need to be hyper fluent with customer pain points. And be able to offer tailored solutions to them at their time of need.  This is why revenue teams need technologies at their disposal. Which can help them act on insights that can enhance the customer experience. And lock in more revenue every quarter. While investing in these tools is table stakes to achieve revenue targets, the concept of “the more the merrier ” does not work here.  While it might be tempting to solve a problem with the shiniest new software out there, organizations are realizing that this can actually drain the productivity of their teams and lead to a myriad of inefficiencies. Ep #11: Components of a Modern Sales Tech Stack Bloated tech stacks can create many problems in disguise and add to a lot of hidden costs such as cost of integrating, tool fatigue, cost of siloed data and much more. Which is why 2024 is the year of tech stack consolidation. 62% of businesses are trying to cut down the number of tools they use and trim the excess fat from their tech stacks. In this blog, we will explore what revenue tech stack consolidation means. And how you can go about approaching it. Before we get into what tech stack consolidation means, let’s take a quick look at what led us here.  More Tools Don’t Mean More Revenue A whopping number of tools are being added to the modern revenue technology stack. SaaS organizations use an average of 130 applications! But only 53% of users say their technology aids productivity and positively impacts results.  According to another survey, 57% of marketing leaders, who had over 20 tools in their tech stack, strongly doubted if they’d reach their ROI goals.  It’s clear that the promise of efficiency gains and higher productivity that these tools claim for GTM teams are often not met. Instead, it leads to enormous amounts of tech debt for businesses.  And an ever increasing stack of tools only adds to the complexity of daily operations, causing revenue to leak across various points along the customer journey.  Here are some of the ways too many tools lead to loss of revenue opportunities: A web of fragmented tools adds to complexity in day to day operations. Tools are siloed in multiple systems which makes it difficult to track data, draw insights from it or keep it consistent and secure. No unified view of data leading to misalignment among GTM teams Overwhelmed employees who spend nearly 70% of their time on painstaking administrative tasks such as updating spreadsheets, adding prospects to CRM and augmenting data. These damaging effects of too many tools have increased the need for a leaner tech stack. Revenue leaders are taking a critical look at their existing tech stacks. And figuring out how to trim the fat without losing out on any core functionality. This is what we call tech stack consolidation. What is Tech Stack Consolidation? Tech stack consolidation is the process of reducing the number of tools in a company’s tech stack by merging functionalities into lesser and more exhaustive platforms. The goal of consolidation is not to knock down all of the investments in point solutions that already exist. It demands a structured approach in analyzing which tools offer real value for GTM teams. And eliminate tools that don’t add any merit to their day to day workflows. More tools in the tech stack add the burden of deployment, management and adoption. The goal for revenue leaders is to evaluate what they have, consolidate wherever they can and optimize their tech stacks to improve productivity and execution across every role. Consolidated technology seems to be the recipe for winning teams as per this survey by Sales Hacker. Teams that use tech stack that enable the full sales motion, from creating pipeline to closing deals are more likely to meet their revenue goals. A lean and fully capable sales tech stack is a reality as companies look to consolidate vendors while retaining the features and capability of their previous array of point solutions.  With the need for efficiency and productivity rising, let’s discuss an evaluation framework that can help you consolidate your tech stack. Evaluation Framework for Tech Stack Consolidation Too many tools add a lot of costs to a business. These costs go beyond the price on the invoice.  Poorly implemented and managed tech can lead to a lot of soft costs which arise from frustration in using the tools, poor adoption, implementation and maintenance and other issues that eat up the precious time of revenue teams.   Making changes to a tech stack is a delicate affair and needs to be handled with caution. It’s important to have all the necessary information at the very beginning to make informed decisions.  Here is a step by step evaluation framework to consider for a tech stack consolidation.  Step 1 – Identify your biggest challenges along the customer journey As a first step, inspect where your problems lie. Ask yourself: How can you boost productivity and efficiency at every stage of the customer journey with your existing tech stack? Are your marketing, sales and customer success teams meeting their targets? Do they have the right tools at their disposal? If not, what can make them more productive? Do you have clear visibility into the deals in your pipeline? If not, why? Identify where frictions exist in your customer journey. Is it at the very beginning of the funnel when a lead enters your CRM?  Is it when an opportunity needs to be handed over to customer

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9 Best Account Based Marketing Tools for 2025

9 Best Account Based Marketing Tools for 2025 Marketing RevOps The rapid growth of Account Based Marketing (ABM) tools proves a couple of things. One, you can’t please everyone – not in today’s competitive B2B market.   And two, you better focus on the markets that really matter. But running multi-channel ABM campaigns at scale is no joke.  That said, the latest ABM tools make the job a lot easier.  They turn you into a master strategist with real-time insights at your fingertips. Let’s look at the top ABM tools that you can consider in 2025. What is ABM? Account Based Marketing or ABM flips the traditional marketing funnel on its head. In it, marketing and sales work together from the get-go to: Identify high-value accounts that fit ICP criteria, Engage them with personalized content   Find key decision makers Lead them to closure Stay engaged to tap future opportunities ABM is not about one-and-done selling.  Rather it drives customer lifetime value. And there have been some incredible success stories here. 9 ABM Tools for 2025 1. 6 Sense Revenue AI 6Sense allows marketing teams to identify high-value accounts, predict their buyer journey based on account activity and engage them with the right messaging across touch points. Features: Updates contact lists automatically with additional information Segments users into cohorts based on specific behavior patterns Can track user activity across channels and attribute to the respective account. Pricing:  Varies based on the number of users, use case, etc. 2. Demandbase Demandbase comes with a comprehensive suite of features built around the Account-Based Experience concept.  It has three modules – ABX Cloud (ABM), Advertising Cloud (campaign management), and Data Cloud (integration support) Features: Provides account-level insights for campaign execution and orchestration Supports multiple ad formats allowing global reach Easy integration Pricing:  Varies based on the use case, number of users, etc. 3. Terminus Terminus offers full-funnel ABM capabilities including account management, execution, and reporting. It is designed for multi-channel campaigns and offers easy scalability. Has its own built-in database. Features: In-depth segmentation options including buyer intent Supports campaigns across multiple channels Pricing:  Varies based on the number of users and features needed 4. RollWorks RollWorks is a good fit for marketers who rely primarily on paid ads for lead generation. Features: Provides useful targeting recommendations based on historical campaign data Maps account to key decision-makers and present their contact information Provides contextual client information such as organizational changes, mergers, acquisitions, etc Pricing:  The Starter plan is $975/mo. For information on their other plans, contact customer support.  5. Triblio If personalization is a priority for you, Triblio could be the perfect solution.  Its USP is predictive orchestration which automates segmentation and targeting for higher personalization. Features: Visual campaign builder with drag-and-drop functionality Calculates conversion probability based on user intent and account activity Pricing:  Varies based on the number of features, use case, etc. 6. Vainu This is a sales intelligence tool that lets you find high-value accounts from its extensive global database. Vainu speeds up list building and provides contextual information on target accounts. Features Creates targeted contact lists based on ICPs and filters chosen Updates new contacts automatically Provides a single view of contacts stored across tools Pricing:  Free trial Team plan: EUR 4200/yr Business plan: EUR 9900/yr Global plan: EUR 12000/yr Custom Enterprise plan 7. Apollo.io Apollo offers prospecting, campaign orchestration, and sales engagement capabilities.  It lets you push personalized messages to target contacts and optimize your revenue strategy as you go along. Features: Lead database of 250m people and companies Engagement Suite for creating personalized marketing sequences based on ICPs Intelligence Suite with tracking, analytics, and targeting capabilities Pricing: Basic: $49/mo Professional: $99/mo Custom enterprise plans Free plan with limited features 8. Uberflip Uberflip is a content creation, curation, and distribution platform that helps marketers deliver relevant messaging. Features: Aggregates and serves personalized content based on intent data Built-in analytics for measuring content performance and strategy planning Pricing:  Varies based on the number of users and features 9. Alyce Alyce is an AI-powered gifting platform with ABM as a key use case.  It provides personalized gifting options for marketers to engage, convert and retain customers.  It offers gift tracking, budgeting, and reporting capabilities. Features: Comes with CRM integration and inventory management features Built-in analytics for monitoring spend, conversion, and ROI So How Exactly Does ABM Work? In ABM campaigns, marketers think of buyers not as individuals but as companies.  They work with sales to identify target businesses, nurture contacts (in buying teams), and engage key decision-makers. Both teams will work together to create personalized messaging for each key prospect to drive purchase intent.  This can include unique sales pitches aimed at dramatically increasing the odds of conversion. ABM may involve a lot of research and coordination but the returns (deal size) are well worth it. What are the Big Challenges of ABM? ABM comes with its own set of challenges. Let’s look at some of the big ones: 1. Poor sales and marketing alignment Sales and marketing alignment is crucial for succeeding at ABM. The challenges are many: Both have different KPIs and processes Incomplete or inaccurate lead data Reporting issues These problems can be mitigated by: Integrating workflows so that both teams can function effectively   Syncing campaign management and reporting 2. Flawed key account mapping Many ABM practitioners fail to find the right contacts which affects campaign performance.  The solution? Put buyer behavior in context with their organizational structure and business goals.  Caveat: you have to be looking at the right data points. 3. No clarity on attribution metrics Finding the right attribution metrics is another problem B2B teams struggle with.  Firstly, the raw customer/activity data may be unstructured as the number of channels increases. Then there are multiple buyers with different needs. For these reasons, aligning marketing and sales attribution for ABM is hard. The right ABM tools can make things much easier though. 4. Lack of scalability ABM is high-touch marketing.  It requires relevant messaging at scale – a tall order if you have a large audience.  The solution: create a base template of

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CRM Data Cleansing: How to Keep CRM data Pristine

CRM Data Cleansing: How to Keep CRM data Pristine CRM On average, in a B2B company, the volume of prospect and customer data doubles every 12-18 months.  This massive influx comes with a significant risk of errors, duplicates, outdated records, and other inconsistencies creeping into your CRM. The longer this dirty data sits in your CRM, the worse the outcomes of your CRM would get much like a snowball rolling downhill. What can you do?  Implement robust CRM data cleansing practices. These practices include conducting regular CRM data audits, using CRM data validation techniques, and leveraging automated tools to keep your data clean and credible.  Ep #12: Driving Revenue With Clean CRM Data ft. Jacki Leahy In this article, we will learn all about CRM data cleansing and how automation and AI ease the process of data cleansing.  Let’s get started with the basics.  What is CRM Data Cleansing? Imagine you are going on a trip and need to pack your stuff. Will you be able to do it in a messy room full of stuff scattered everywhere? You’d spend ages just trying to find your things, let alone packing them efficiently. But when everything is neatly organized, you can do all the packing in a fraction of the time. Well, CRM data cleansing is similar. It’s all about taking that chaotic, messy data and transforming them into well-organized and accurate datasets.  In a nutshell, CRM data cleansing is the process of identifying and fixing inaccurate or incomplete data in your CRM database. It involves detecting and eliminating duplicate, outdated, or irrelevant data, ensuring that the CRM database remains accurate and up to date informing smarter and reliable business decisions. How Poor CRM Data Hygiene Affects Your Revenue For great results, you need to be careful of what you feed your CRM system. Or else, it becomes a classic case of “garbage in, garbage out.” You cannot expect great results from CRM insights if the source of the data in it is unreliable.  Data lies at the heart of gaining visibility on where to make improvements, drive focus on leading indicators and fix the revenue funnel before it breaks. If the data in the CRM in itself is plagued, you cannot expect insights from it that drive revenue.  In fact, it is quite the opposite. In a recent survey, 44% of respondents estimated their company loses over 10% of annual revenue due to poor data quality. Such data inefficiencies are causing revenues to leak through your funnel in myriad ways.  Some of them include: 1. High employee turnover CRM users aka your employees are reaching a saturation point. 64% of them say they would consider leaving their current role if organizations don’t invest resources in a CRM data quality plan. In a world where talent is scarce, employees leaving would mean so much more time and resources gone in hiring more people, onboarding them and keeping them engaged. 2. Poor sales forecasting The quality of your sales forecast has a direct impact on your revenue. A poor sales forecast is a result of bad data fed into your systems that fail to predict how much revenue will be closed quarter after quarter. The result is wasted resources on avenues that lead to no result. 3. Poor ROI from tech stack Revenue leaders invest in different tools as a part of their tech stack, CRM being one of them. But all these tech stacks can only deliver ROI when they have the right data to work with. Without quality data, these tech stacks will just remain as shiny objects that eat up budgets without delivering any meaningful value to revenue.  4. Poor targeting Picking up all contacts from a CRM and running a uniform campaign for all is passe. Today’s customers want hyper-personalized messaging, which requires marketing teams access to high-quality data that tell them more about their contacts than simple name and email ids.  CRM data tells marketing teams who to target for their campaigns. It fails to address the “why.”  Bad data aggravates this problem by sending wrong messages to the wrong customers for solutions they might not even be looking for, thus putting the reputation of a brand on the brink of damage. Advantages of CRM Data Cleansing  Leverage the power of a clean CRM to drive business growth in the following ways:  1. Effective prospect communication Clean data ensures you reach the right people with the right message at the right time. By having accurate contact details, preferences, and purchase history, you can personalize your follow-ups, build effective marketing campaigns, and provide exceptional customer service. 2. Improved productivity Outdated or incorrect data leads to wasted time and effort. We are not the only ones saying this, a report by Mckinsey says that employees spend 9.3 hours a week simply searching for the data they need.  By keeping your CRM clean, you avoid redundant tasks, such as contacting the same leads multiple times or dealing with undeliverable emails. It streamlines your processes, increases efficiency, and allows your team to focus on what matters most—building valuable customer relationships. https://youtu.be/-Zi6T1Ny9jI 3. Improved conversion rates 78% of businesses say that the data they collect helps them increase customer acquisitions and lead conversions. Reliable CRM data enables your sales team to target the most promising leads and opportunities. By eliminating duplicates, outdated leads, or invalid contacts, businesses optimize their sales efforts, increase conversion rates, and close deals more effectively. 4. Cost savings Maintaining clean data prevents unnecessary expenses. By avoiding mailing or marketing to incorrect or inactive contacts, you save on time and costs. Additionally, you reduce the risk of penalties associated with non-compliance, such as sending messages to individuals who have opted out.  Here’s something to cement our claim, data quality issues can cost a lot of revenue around 1/5th of the sales to be precise. 5. Better customer segmentation  Clean CRM data allows you to segment your customer base effectively. By organizing and categorizing customers based on accurate data points like demographics, purchase history, and preferences, you can create targeted marketing campaigns and personalized

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Your CRM Contact Data is the Key to Drive Sales Efficiency. Here’s How.

Your CRM Contact Data is the Key to Drive Sales Efficiency. Here’s How. Sales Activity Capture Driving sales efficiency remains the ultimate goal for most businesses. Going after the right deals, building long-lasting relationships with multiple buyers in an account is key. This evolving landscape demands sales teams to be agile, strategic, and, most importantly, armed with the right data.  And at the heart of this data-driven revolution lies B2B contact data – a crucial element in the arsenal of sales teams striving for success. Having access to contact data can open several doors for sales teams.  Organizations already have a wealth of contact data. Unfortunately, they are trapped across various applications and tools in siloed Go-to-market (GTM) systems. Think of crucial data trapped in phone calls, emails, meetings, calendars and countless other tools that your reps use.  The CRM, intended as the central hub for this information, often becomes a repository of incomplete, inaccurate, or rapidly decaying data. Manual updates are sporadic, and the consequence is a compromised ability to engage effectively with prospects. The result? Critical data about prospects and buyers never make it to the CRM. And your sales team ends up targeting the wrong people and chasing the wrong deals. That’s the opposite of efficiency.  Merely having a vast pool of contact information is not enough. Tracking the dynamic relationship between sales teams and prospects is table stakes. Every interaction – phone calls, demos, emails, and notes – needs to be meticulously recorded. And shared in a unified manner for sales and marketing teams to be on a common page.  Enter AI-led Contact Data Automation The solution lies in automating contact data capture into CRMs and deploying Artificial Intelligence (AI) for real-time actionable insights. This not only streamlines the process but also ensures that the data is consistently accurate. AI provides a unified, comprehensive view of prospects, enabling sales teams to deliver an exceptional buyer experience at every stage of the journey. Benefits of AI-led Contact Data Automation Introducing AI-led automation into your contact data strategy can yield several benefits across the buyer’s journey. Let’s look at the top ones: 1. Clean, Complete, and Up-to-Date CRM Data AI can automate the process of collecting, cleaning, and updating contact data, ensuring that your CRM is always equipped with accurate and current information. This improves the reliability of your data and allows for more effective communication with leads and customers. 2. Automated Manual Tasks AI can take care of time-consuming tasks like data entry, freeing up valuable time for your sales team. This allows them to focus on more important tasks, such as building relationships with leads and closing deals. 3. Actionable Insights AI can analyze contact data and provide actionable insights about leads and buyer behavior. This can help sales teams understand their target audience better, tailor their sales strategies, and improve the effectiveness of their campaigns. 4. Predictive Analytics AI can use historical data to anticipate future trends and behaviors. This allows sales teams to stay ahead of the competition by identifying potential opportunities and risks in advance. 5. Unified View of Deals and Activities AI can provide both sales and marketing teams with a unified view of data, allowing for better collaboration and alignment. This ensures that both teams are working with consistent and accurate data, leading to more effective campaigns and sales strategies. Use Cases for Sales Efficiency From the first point of contact to nurturing long-term customer relationships. AI-led contact data automation can address various gaps in the sales process. And real-time insights into deal status and buyer behavior can become the foundation for driving sales efficiency. Let’s look at some of our top use cases that contact automation can drive for sales: 1. Contact-Level Engagement Insights for Effective Multithreading Pushing deals from creation to closed-won requires strategically engaging every member of the buying committee. Quite often, sales leaders do not have visibility into who their sales reps are engaging in every deal. They rely on a download from the deal owners during the pipeline review calls. But almost always, most deal owners simply talk about champion and/or economic buyer engagement. It’s rare to discuss buying committee coverage, which can have 10-30 members involved if we consider enterprise deals. What makes this worse is that the opportunities in CRM would also only show 2-4 contacts. Sales leaders and managers continue to be in the dark. They don’t know what they don’t know. By automating contact data capture, sales leaders instantly get visibility into buying committees. Combining this with good Salesforce reporting, they can gain visibility into the depth and breadth of engagement with each member of the buying committee. Such insights enable sales leaders to guide deal owners to execute more effectively. While this is the age of AI, the truth remains that people buy from people, especially in high-touch B2B sales. This mandates reliable visibility into the strength of buyer-seller, or rather buying committee-seller relationships. Each buying committee member is like a door. All doors lead to the same destination, in this case, that destination is ‘closed-won’. But the path to closed-won can vary behind the door. Some doors can open long paths, some short. So every door must be opened because you never know which door has a shorter and quicker path to achieving a closed-won deal. 2. Sales-Marketing Harmony for Account-Based GTM If you’re a sales leader or an operations leader planning an account-based GTM strategy, ask your marketing counterparts if they have unprecedented access to clean and complete contact data. There’s a very high chance that their response will be ‘limited’. And don’t be surprised or offended if they blame your sales reps for not adding contacts to the CRM. Your marketing teams are forced to rely on third-party data vendors for contact data, when in reality, there’s an abundance of those in your sales reps inboxes and calendars. The result? Irrelevant marketing campaigns due to poor audience targeting. This is where sales reps start blaming the marketing team for poor air-cover.

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Top 7 Salesforce Automation Tools in 2025

What is Salesforce Tech Debt? And How Can You Reduce it? RevOps 10 min Managing sales processes and customer relationships has always been tedious. Fortunately, for many of us, Salesforce and its automation tools have come as a savior. These solutions streamline and automate sales tasks and help focus on building meaningful relationships with customers.  However, with the rapidly evolving landscape of sales and technology, finding the right Salesforce automation tools that align with your business needs can take time and effort. To make it easier for you, we have compiled a list of the seven most promising Salesforce automation tools you need to consider in 2023.  What’s your goal? Enhance lead generation? Optimize sales pipelines? Improve customer interactions? We’ve got you covered with a curated list of cutting-edge solutions that are sure to drive your sales success.  So, let’s dive in and discover the tools that will empower your team to thrive and achieve your sales goals. 7 Best Salesforce Automation Tools Here are the seven best Salesforce automation solutions you should consider for your business: 1. Nektar Nektar is a leading Salesforce automation tool with advanced contact automation capabilities. It helps sales teams unlock a whole new level of efficiency and sales productivity. Nektar can generate 8 times more buyer contacts through automated contact management. It ensures no potential lead slips through the cracks—no more missed opportunities. Get a steady stream of qualified prospects that are worth your attention. If you are looking to ramp up your Account-Based Marketing (ABM) campaigns, Nektar has got you covered. The tool enables you to supercharge your ABM efforts by automating personalized outreach. It ensures your message reaches the right decision-makers at the right time. Nektar doesn’t just automate tasks but provides invaluable relationship intelligence. Tracking and analyzing buyer interactions allows you to gain insights into customer behavior. The newfound intelligence empowers you to tailor your sales strategies and build stronger, more meaningful relationships with your prospects. Multithreading every opportunity also becomes a breeze with Nektar. It facilitates seamless collaboration and communication across your sales team and ensures every critical touchpoint gets noticed. Stay on top of every interaction and nurture every opportunity with precision and agility. Key features: Gain detailed contact lists for every Account in your CRM Segment Account contacts and Opportunity Contact Roles (OCR) based on their affinity and involvement Automatically create the buying committee map for advanced intelligence  Get auto-updated contact details with job titles and phone numbers 2. Veloxy Veloxy is another leading Salesforce automation tool that seamlessly extends the power of Salesforce to your favorite inbox and mobile devices. The platform revolutionizes the way you capture leads and update records through intuitive features and seamless integration. Veloxy effortlessly integrates with your preferred inbox or your smartphone. The integration ensures automatic lead capturing and updating of records in Salesforce. It saves valuable time and eliminates the hassle of data entry. Furthermore, understanding customer engagement is essential for effective lead prioritization. Veloxy takes care of this by automatically tracking your customers’ email engagement. Insights into open rates for emails and click-through rates help you prioritize leads based on their level of engagement. Key features: Automatic analysis and prioritization based on buyer intent for leads and contacts Optimized field sales routes for more stop-ins and meetings Automated capturing and updates of contact information from your inbox 3. ZoomInfo ZoomInfo creates a single source of truth for your organization. With its seamless integration and comprehensive data-driven solutions, ZoomInfo enhances the Salesforce experience for your sales teams. ZoomInfo works seamlessly with Salesforce. It ensures a flawless integration that makes life easier for your teams. Native applications and ongoing lead enrichment allow ZoomInfo to empower your organization to maintain a reliable Salesforce ecosystem. From lead enrichment to ongoing data updates, ZoomInfo equips your Salesforce ecosystem with the latest and most relevant information. ZoomInfo streamlines Salesforce and provides comprehensive data-driven solutions. With accurate and up-to-date information readily available, your teams can focus their energy on productive sales activities. Key features: Build and save targeted contact lists and account details 200+ data point filters, including employee, company, and geographic location Continuously enrich Salesforce data by getting rid of discrepancies 4. Qualtrics Qualtrics, a Salesforce automation tool, seamlessly brings advanced customer feedback analytics into the Salesforce platform. It allows you to unlock invaluable customer insights and take decisive action to close more deals. With Qualtrics, you can elevate your customer experience game and drive success, all within a single, integrated platform. Qualtrics can embed advanced customer feedback analytics directly in Salesforce. The integration enables you to surface deep customer insights without switching between platforms. The power of Qualtrics’ analytics capabilities within Salesforce helps you comprehensively understand your customers and their preferences. Furthermore, Qualtrics empowers you to automate feedback requests within Salesforce. It lets you capture customer sentiment at crucial milestones throughout the sales cycle. Automating feedback requests based on account milestones helps you gain insights into customer behavior and satisfaction levels at every stage. Key features: Get new leads in Salesforce from your Qualtrics surveys  Set up email triggers with surveys to send when a specified object’s Flow conditions are met Map information from your Qualtrics survey into Salesforce records 5. LevelEleven LevelEleven is an advanced Salesforce automation tool that specializes in sales performance management. With its focus on gamification and coaching, LevelEleven helps organizations reinforce successful behaviors to drive motivation and achieve sales excellence. With personalized scorecards and intelligent goal management, LevelEleven directly brings a comprehensive sales performance solution into Salesforce. Incorporating game-like elements into the sales process allows LevelEleven to create an engaging and motivating environment for sales teams. Personalized scorecards enable individuals to track their progress, see their performance metrics, and compete against their goals or other team members. With intelligent goal management tools, LevelEleven enables organizations to set and track sales targets. It ensures alignment with business objectives. Real-time visibility into goal progress allows sales teams to stay focused and make data-driven decisions. The streamlined goal management process drives accountability and fosters a results-oriented sales culture.

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Top 15 Guided Selling Tools for 2025

What is Salesforce Tech Debt? And How Can You Reduce it? RevOps 10 min Imagine that you are planning to build a new house but are unsure where to start. You have a basic idea of what you want but are not an expert in home construction or design. In such a situation, you would need a skilled architect who understands your needs, preferences, and budget and then guides you through designing your dream home. The architect would help you make informed decisions about your new home’s design, materials, and features. Similarly, a guided selling tool uses customer data and sales expertise to help customers navigate the purchasing process and make informed decisions. It can provide personalized recommendations based on the customer’s needs and preferences, answer questions, and offer advice to help them choose the right product or service. What is Guided Selling? Guided selling is a strategy involving a structured approach to lead potential customers through the sales process. It is the process of analyzing current sales, historical sales, and customer data to help sales reps provide tailored product recommendations to customers and increase the likelihood of conversion.  Let’s say you are shopping for a new laptop. You visit a website that offers guided selling, and you’re prompted to answer a series of questions. The questions might include things like: What will you primarily use the laptop for? Do you need a large screen or a lightweight design? How important is battery life to you? What is your budget? Based on your responses, the website would then recommend a few different laptops that meet your needs. It might provide detailed information about each laptop, such as the processor, RAM, and storage capacity, as well as customer reviews and ratings. The website might offer additional guidance, such as recommending accessories or providing information on warranties and support. Throughout the process, the focus is on helping you make an informed decision based on your unique needs and preferences. Guided selling can be particularly effective for complex or high-value products or services where customers may require more personalized guidance and support to make informed purchasing decisions. By providing a more consultative sales approach, guided selling also helps to establish long-term customer relationships. How Does Guided Selling Work in B2B SaaS In B2B SaaS, guided selling typically involves a sales representative or a customer success manager who guides the customer. The process usually begins with the customer expressing their needs and goals and the guide using that information to suggest relevant products or services. The guide may use various tools, such as a software demo, to help the customer understand the features and benefits of each option. In addition, guided selling often involves providing educational resources to the customer to help them better understand the product or service and how it can help them achieve their goals. This may include case studies, white papers, or other content that provides valuable insights into the benefits and use cases of the product. Let’s have a look at the guided selling process in detail: The Process of Guided Selling Tools The guided selling process is a customer-centric approach to sales that involves guiding potential customers through the buying process by providing personalized recommendations, advice, and support. The following are the general steps involved in a typical guided selling process: 1. Gathering customer information The first step of the process involves collecting data on the customer’s needs, preferences, budget, and any other relevant information that can help the sales process. 2. Identifying customer pain points In this stage, the sales team uses the information gathered in the previous stage to identify the customer’s pain points or areas of concern.This is typically done through a series of questions or a needs assessment. 3. Providing product recommendations Based on the customer information and pain points identified, the sales team provides recommendations on the products or services that best meet the customer’s needs. 4. Presenting solutions At this stage, the sales team presents the recommended products or services to the customer and explains how they address the customer’s pain points. The sales representative provides information about the recommended products or services, including their features, benefits, and pricing. 5. Handling objections If the customer has any objections or concerns, the sales team addresses them and provides additional information or alternative solutions as needed.  6. Closing the sale Once the customer is satisfied with the recommended product or service, the sales team closes the sale by facilitating the purchase process. 7. Follow-up and customer support After the sale is complete, the sales team provides follow-up support to ensure the customer is satisfied with their purchase and offers any additional assistance or support as needed. Examples of Guided Selling Tools in Businesses Here are some examples of techniques of guided selling tools:  1. Automate sales playbook To ensure consistent performance, sales playbooks should be automated. Guided selling relies on a solid foundation of methodologies, blueprints, and plays that facilitate the sales process. It’s important to choose a solution that simplifies the playbook for sellers, allowing them to follow the plan and consistently advance deals easily. 2. Identify specific needs In some situations, customers may need a clearer idea of what they are looking for when they visit your website. In such cases, a brief questionnaire can be used to determine and guide their specific requirements. For instance, if you run an online clothing store, you could ask customers questions about their preferred fit and fabric to steer them toward products that best match their preferences. This approach can increase the likelihood of a purchase by helping customers make informed decisions based on their needs. 3. Real-time response For a guided selling software to be effective, it needs to be adaptable and flexible, able to react to changing circumstances in real time. At a fundamental level, ensuring that sales representatives remain attentive to communication and other sales activities can reduce the time it takes to close deals and result in higher revenue velocity.