A Guide to Salesforce Opportunity Management RevOps 10 min Effective sales management is a multi-faceted process. At the heart of this crucial function lies sales opportunity management. It is a strategic approach that helps sales teams nurture and capitalize on potential sales prospects. In a competitive marketplace where every lead counts, mastering sales opportunity management is not just an advantage—it’s a necessity. This article looks at the intricacies of sales opportunity management to help you understand it holistically. We will also explore the fundamental concepts associated with it, methodologies, and software solutions. So, let’s know how effective sales opportunity management can drive revenue growth and sustainable business expansion for your organization.  What is a Salesforce Opportunity? An opportunity is a potential business deal when a prospect expresses genuine interest in a product or service. These opportunities represent a critical stage in the sales process, where the likelihood of converting the prospect into a paying customer is much higher.  Opportunities include various factors, like the prospect’s readiness to purchase and their available budget. Identifying and managing these opportunities is critical in sales management. It allows sales teams to nurture relationships effectively and drive revenue growth for the organization. How do Opportunities Differ from Leads? Opportunities and leads represent distinct stages in the sales process. Leads are prospective customers who have shown initial interest in a product or service by providing contact information or expressing interest through inquiries. They are in the early stages of the sales funnel and require further qualification to determine their potential value.  Opportunities are leads thoroughly assessed and have a higher likelihood of conversion. They meet specific criteria, like budget and alignment with the offerings. They are thus ripe for engagement by the sales team. Opportunities are a more advanced stage in the sales process, where focused efforts are directed toward closing a deal. What is Sales Opportunity Management? Sales opportunity management is a structured approach businesses employ to prioritize potential sales opportunities. As a vital component of the sales process, it helps optimize resource allocation and increase revenue. The systematic approach ensures sales teams focus on the most promising leads. It improves their chances of closing deals and achieving their sales targets. To better understand sales opportunity management in practice, let’s consider a software company specializing in customer relationship management (CRM) software. This company has a sales team selling its CRM solution to businesses from various industries. In the early stages of their sales process, they collect leads from sources like website inquiries and trade shows. These leads are diverse, ranging from small startups to established enterprises. Without sales opportunity management, the sales team might treat all these leads equally. They will invest valuable resources into each without clearly understanding their potential. However, sales opportunity management helps in this aspect, as they categorize these leads based on four parameters. These include: Company size Industry Budget Readiness to purchase For example, a lead from a medium-sized company in the software industry with a substantial budget and a pressing need for a CRM system would be a high-potential sales opportunity. In contrast, a lead from a small business in a different sector with limited resources and no immediate need for CRM software would be a lower-potential opportunity. Importance of Sales Opportunity Management Sales opportunity management holds a lot of importance within sales and business development. It plays a pivotal role in driving organizational success for the following reasons. 1. Resource optimization You can allocate your resources more efficiently by identifying and prioritizing sales opportunities. It ensures precious resources work on leads with the highest potential for conversion and reduced wastage. 2. Enhanced sales productivity Sales teams can work more effectively when they clearly understand their prospects’ needs and buying intent. Sales opportunity management equips them with insights that enable tailored sales strategies for shorter sales cycles. 3. Revenue growth Effective management of sales opportunities directly correlates with revenue growth. Focusing on high-potential opportunities helps businesses consistently close deals and boost sales figures. 4. Customer relationship building Sales opportunity management encourages a customer-centric approach. Prioritizing prospects who align closely with the organization’s offerings helps sales teams establish stronger relationships based on trust and value. It fosters customer loyalty and repeat business. 5. Data-driven decision-making The process involves meticulous tracking and analysis of prospect data. The data-driven approach empowers businesses with actionable insights. Sales teams can refine their strategies and adapt to changing market dynamics. 6. Competitive advantage In highly competitive markets, sales opportunity management provides a distinct advantage. It enables businesses to respond swiftly to emerging opportunities and challenges. 7. Long-term sustainability Sales opportunity management contributes to long-term sustainability by fostering a systematic approach to sales. It minimizes ad-hoc decision-making and promotes consistency in achieving sales targets. Steps to Manage Sales Opportunities Here are essential steps to manage sales opportunities successfully. 1. Lead qualification Thoroughly qualify leads to determine their potential value. Assess the prospect’s budget, timeline, decision-making authority, and alignment with your offerings. Based on this evaluation, categorize leads into high, medium, or low-potential opportunities. 2. Centralized database Maintain a centralized and organized database of all sales opportunities. The database should include detailed information about each prospect, including contact details, interactions, preferences, and specific needs. 3. Prioritization Prioritize opportunities based on their potential for conversion and alignment with your business objectives. High-potential prospects should receive immediate attention, while you can nurture lower-potential ones over time. 4. Effective communication Establish consistent communication channels with prospects. Regularly engage with them through personalized interactions. You can also provide them with valuable insights and address their concerns. Tailor your communication to align with the prospect’s stage in the buying process. 5. Sales pipeline management Implement a well-defined sales pipeline that maps a prospect’s stages from initial contact to closing the deal. Continuously monitor and update the progress of each opportunity within the pipeline to ensure everything runs smoothly. 6. Use of sales tools Leverage technology and sales management tools, like Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software, to streamline the management of sales opportunities.

A Guide to Salesforce Opportunity Management RevOps 10 min Revenue intelligence tools empower you to boost revenue growth. The right revenue intelligence tools can help you nurture leads and retain customers with an exceptional experience.  And its critical role in the RevOps process is expanding as the economy progresses on a whirlwind journey.  According to Gartner’s recent report, by 2025: 70% of all B2B seller-buyer interactions will be recorded or analyzed to collect competitive, deal, and market insights using AI, ML, and NLP. 75% of B2B sales companies will switch traditional sales playbooks with AI-based guided-selling solutions. Deploying a revenue operation and intelligence (ROI&I) tool is the best next step for your business. So, let’s find out more about. What is Revenue Intelligence? Revenue Intelligence is a data-backed, AI-driven approach to selling.  It uses AI to track, analyze and forecast revenue so you can adapt to a constantly changing business environment quickly.  But, how does revenue intelligence help you survive and thrive?  It leverages raw data from multiple sources of your revenue functions (including marketing, sales, customer success, and finance). AI transforms this data into powerful insights to accelerate your sales cycles and grow revenue. RO&I tools facilitate the activity data capture from buyer-seller interactions in an increasingly complex selling process. You can easily use this information to coach reps to anticipate buyer needs. Qualitative insights, courtesy of revenue intelligence tools, direct your decision-making with the help of historical and real-time data. How do Revenue Intelligence Platforms Work in B2B Sales? (With Examples) We’ve already seen the overall impact of revenue intelligence in B2B sales. But how exactly does it create this impact? Let’s find out. 1. Integrates Siloed Data For 90% of organizations, data silos are a considerable challenge to business growth. Revenue intelligence solves the siloed data problem by integrating data from multiple sources into a single source of truth. Even better is that RO&I tools can do this continuously, in real-time, so that you can keep data silos at bay regularly. That’s impressive, considering RevOps experts advocate for ongoing data cleaning processes. I have seen a lot of companies try to clean up their data through third-parties as a one-time event. But you can’t approach your data as a one-time action. It’s an ongoing and iterative process. Rosalyn Santa Elena, Founder at The RevOps Collective In the real world, reps use multiple tools with different dashboards. Plus, data comes in from multiple sources in revenue teams—sales, marketing, and customer success.  RO&I tools can gather, clean, match, and enrich revenue information in the CRM and across the tech stack.  You can use this integrated data for informed decision-making, coaching, team alignment, revenue forecasting, and much more. Revenue intelligence ensures that clean data exists in your tech stack (particularly the CRM), which becomes a solid foundation for all your revenue activities. 2. Champions Frictionless Buying Experience A solid data foundation, in turn, ensures you can share information between revenue teams seamlessly. Each team gets complete access to integrated, unified, consistent data about customer touchpoints, interactions, and feedback. Its impact can be seen in a frictionless buying experience.  Source Without access to complete contact data across touchpoints, revenue teams—marketing, sales, and customer service–give and receive ineffective handovers. At each sales funnel stage, buyers may have to share the same information repeatedly, leaving them frustrated. Since revenue intelligence makes data available across the tech stack, it reduces friction between handoffs and aligns teams on each buyer’s journey. 3. Seals Revenue Leaks 95% of CRM users and stakeholders blame data quality issues for seriously impairing their ability to leverage the CRM fully. Revenue intelligence software straighten out the problem through automation. They automate contact data capture, thus, eliminating manual errors by those who enter information in the CRM. In the process, you get complete information on each buying group member’s requirements. This gives you insight into which leads are most likely to convert.  Revenue intelligence collectively ensures there are no blind spots or missed opportunities in the revenue pipeline. For example, without accurate contact details, reps may not have complete information on stakeholders and their needs. As a result, they reach out to the buyer group with incorrect and irrelevant information that doesn’t serve their purpose. RO&I tools can plug these revenue leaks by: Improving multithreading Giving in-depth information on buyers across the pipeline Sending deal alerts for hot opportunities  Guiding sellers with specific deal insights  4. Improves Rep Productivity Imagine a scenario where managers overestimate reps’ abilities to sell. They could assume that reps are enterprise sellers and have a well-equipped skillset.  But the fact is that even the best can get better with continued coaching and mentoring. Instead of using seller data in an interrogation-style deal review, revenue intelligence tools give you the insights to replace the approach with a guidance-style review.  You can guide reps to use the best-selling processes or motions. This not only increases conversion but also accelerates the sales cycle to close more leads faster. Plus, with revenue intelligence, you can track reps’ performance and productivity.  5. Helps Drive Predictable Revenue  As much as 80% of sales organizations miss the mark on revenue forecasting by 25% or more. The primary underlying reason—dirty data.  If you don’t have good data, you can’t forecast. If you can’t forecast, you can’t build a scalable and repeatable sales motion. You don’t know what your pipeline is going to be. Or what money is going to come in. Asia corbett, Senior Revops manager, gtm, bread financial Without an accurate forecast, your teams won’t have any direction for revenue strategies. Using revenue intelligence, you can create quality forecasts to help your team budget, strategize business growth, set long-term goals, and secure funding. Also, given their use of AI, your forecasts are void of bias resulting from less manual intervention. How to Incorporate Revenue Intelligence Tools in Operations? Incorporating revenue intelligence into your daily operations is vital but must not be hard. Here’s an 8-step process to introducing your teams to revenue intelligence tools. 1. Connect with your reps You must first figure out your reps’ needs and pain points. Once you’ve dived deep into their daily operations, you can understand better how to incorporate revenue intelligence tools in their

Why Your Sales Tech Stack Isn’t Delivering Value RevOps 10 min Deriving maximum value from their sales tech stack investments continues to be a frustrating challenge for revenue leaders.  With more than 1200 sales tools in the market spread over 49 categories, how do you select the right tools that can help you drive your revenue strategy? Well, the answer to this question is not a straight-forward one.  Before we get deeper to explore nuances of this question, let’s first understand what a sales tech stack is. What is a Sales Tech Stack? A sales tech stack is a set of software tools and technologies that help optimize the performance of your sales teams. The kind of sales tech stack you choose to invest in can have a significant impact on your revenue engine.  A thoughtfully selected and implemented sales tech stack helps remove bottlenecks from the sales process. By closing the existing gaps, it ultimately helps your reps close more deals. Current Landscape of Sales Tech Stack The current landscape of the sales tech market, as Gartner puts is, is absolute mayhem.  The pandemic forced sellers to move to virtual selling. Buyers quickly adapted to this new reality. 50% of buyers say that working remotely has made the purchasing process easier.  These rapid changes increased the need for technology that can enable sellers to meet the rising demands of the modern buyer. Capturing leads, reaching out to prospects, engaging or communication – all these facets of sales are harder than ever before. The right sales tech stack can help sellers optimize the buyer’s journey and thrive in today’s hyper-competitive sales environment. Let’s look at some of the top trends in the sales tech landscape as of 2022: 1. Narrow list of vendors offering multiple capabilities The biggest trend that was seen in 2021 was vendor consolidation, where large companies were seen evolving their tech stacks to more categories than ever.  The market is fast moving towards a narrow list of vendors that offer a wide portfolio of capabilities. For example, HubSpot emerged as a top player in a total of 7 categories including CRM.  Another example is ZoomInfo’s acquisition of Chorus.ai where a large data provider is now offering conversation intelligence features.  2. CRM continues to emerge as a mature category Well-established companies continue to dominate the CRM space, making this a more mature category in sales tech than others. Most CRMs also offer complimentary sales tools. For example, HubSpot continues to be a leader in the CRM space, and also offers complimentary sales tools such as email tracking and marketing automation. 3. Increase in sales budgets for sales tech investment 97% of commercial leaders plan to increase their sales tech investment for 2022.  And 25% of sales budgets are going towards tools and technologies that support the selling or buying experience. The investment in sales tech is increasing and it looks like it’s only going to increase in times to come.  4. There has been a rise in investment into AI and ML technology in sales tech AI fuelled sales and technology companies have seen more than $5 Billion in investment in 2021. 88% of Chief Sales Officers (CSOs) have already invested in or are considering investing in AI analytics tools and technologies.  Companies that adopt and build on this new technology can have a competitive advantage in their respective market.   Why Is Your Sales Tech Stack Not Delivering? There is clearly not a dearth of sales tools that companies use. 67% of sales teams use between 4 and 10 digital selling tools as part of their sales tech stacks. But 42% of sales teams fail to see a clear ROI on these tools.  The real question then is not how many tools sales teams are using. But how effective are these tools in making sales teams win more deals? Let’s look at some of the top reasons why your sales tech stack is not delivering. 1. Your tools are not built for your sales reps Most conventional sales tools are not built for sales reps. They are geared towards the sales managers and sales ops leaders.  These tools help to audit the sales reps, but do nothing to help them close more deals or make them productive.  Using these tools also lead to time wastage as sales reps have to jump multiple hoops to get their job done, be it entering data into a CRM (17% of daily time), collaborating with their peers or other functions. If your sales tools are making your reps’ lives harder and not helping them sell better, it’s clear why it is not delivering value. 2. You have way too many tools According to SBI’s research, an organization purchases 27 sales tools on an average. And the average number of planned tool purchases stand at 4. This research suggests that organizations’ tool purchases are spontaneous. Most decisions to invest in sales tools might not align with the company’s long-term growth strategy.  Because of a lack of thoughtful evaluation, most tools end up being redundant, unused or simply useless. 3. Your processes are not well-defined Most processes around the purchase and implementation of sales tech are not clearly defined. 60.67% of organizations say that they have a somewhat structured purchase process for sales tools. And only 43.82% of organizations have a clearly defined implementation process.  Having no central stakeholder to create a roadmap for the purchase, implementation and continuous reinforcement of the right processes increases the risk of a lower ROI from sales tech investment.  4. Your tools are underutilized Companies utilize less than 50% of the potential of the sales tools that they buy. Even tools that are critical for day-to-day operations have a low degree of usage. Related Blog: Components of a Modern Sales Tech Stack For example, 74% of respondents in a survey said that Account and Opportunity Management is a critical tool for their day-to-day operations. However, only 45% of companies actually end up utilizing this tool. The inability to leverage tools to their full capacity might be because companies aren’t enabling their reps to use the tool effectively. Or are failing to administer the solution in a way that its

Revenue Operations vs Sales Operations – 6 Key Differences in 2025 RevOps 10 min Imagine two departments in an organization working to increase the company’s revenue. Both affect the bottom line, eliminate departmental silos, and support business strategies and objectives. But both of them have different functions. Confused? So are most companies. The revamp of the customer lifecycle in recent years has seen a host of new revenue-related roles cropping up in organizations. So much so that most companies now struggle to differentiate between revenue operations vs. sales operations.  In this article, we differentiate the two – by definitions, use cases, features, and suitability to an organization. Let’s dive right in! You can also tune into this conversation we had with Lorena Morales, Director of Global Digital Marketing Revenue Operations at JLL, where she aptly differentiates between the two functions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1g_eUwq3Ks What is Revenue Operations (RevOps)? In simple words, RevOps aims to maximize the revenue potential of a company. It’s an integration of marketing, sales, and post-sales functions to provide better end-to-end administration for the management.  A RevOps function is designed to break down the silos between the business departments, including marketing, sales, customer success, customer support, and even finance. It uses cross-department visibility to achieve three shared objectives: identify new revenue opportunities, improve lead conversions, and cover up any revenue leakages.  What is the role of Revenue Operations?   The Revenue Operations or RevOps team aims to increase transparency and communication between all business functions – from lead generation to customer support.  The RevOps function is responsible for managing and analyzing all data points in a customer life cycle. Apart from protecting revenue, a RevOps team also identifies potential customers in the sales pipeline. Another role of the RevOps department includes bringing enablement practices. From employee onboarding to training modules, a RevOps team aims to increase visibility and drive communication by implementing various processes that result in an increase in revenue.  Now let’s have a look at Sales Operations. What is Sales Operations (SalesOps)?  Sales Operations, also known as SalesOps, aims to support sales teams to function more efficiently by providing strategic direction and reducing friction in the process. Sales operations are often referred to as sales, sales support, or business operations. SalesOps use software, engagement techniques, and strategic planning to drive business growth. They promote best practices for sales reps and provide cross departments visibility on any sales data.  In recent times, SalesOps has expanded its role to also provide insights needed by the sales team to ensure optimal and sustainable growth. Source: Forrester Sales Operations Value Model What is the role of Sales Operations? SalesOps have two significant functions –  a. Ensure that the sales department has enough resources to maintain productivity, and  b. Enable accurate data collection to forecast revenue projections.  The structure and daily duties of a sales operations team can vary based on the industry and the size of the company. However, functions like territory planning and sales forecasting are pretty much the bread and butter for most SalesOps teams.  A SalesOps team is also commonly expected to manage sales commission data and implement incentive compensation programs for sales representatives. These individuals will likely monitor the current sales pipeline as well.  It is clear from the above statements, that even though RevOps and SalesOps operate as different entities, they go hand in hand to benefit one another and the overall revenue of the company.  What makes them different then? Let’s find out.  Revenue Operations vs. Sales Operations : The major difference between revenue operations and sales operations is that SalesOps solely focuses on the sales function of a company, whereas RevOps focuses on bringing multiple departments on the same page to ensure business growth. Sales operations, therefore can be seen as a subset of revenue operations. SalesOps are more executional in nature. They take care of day-to-day administrative tasks, including collecting and managing data, tech stack, form submissions, and training. It allows your sales team to focus on approaching leads and closing deals. Revenue operations, on the other hand, take up a more holistic approach involving the entire organization. It acts as a bridge between different departments and tries to increase revenue opportunities by improving communication and aligning them with a common goal.  RevOps focuses on the entire customer journey and seeks to improve the customer experience at every touchpoint including prospecting, sales, onboarding, customer success, and renewal. By focusing on the entire customer journey, RevOps seeks to optimize revenue growth by improving the customer experience at every touchpoint. This approach helps organizations to build long-term relationships with their customers, drive customer loyalty, and ultimately, increase revenue. RevOps function of an organization: 1. Process RevOps facilitates a seamless customer journey from lead generation to cash collection by implementing various well-structured processes, which are imperative for revenue generation. These processes must be reliable and consistent. 2. Technology RevOps teams are also responsible for selecting appropriate tools from the technology stack to ensure the efficient functioning of these processes and aid revenue teams in being productive. 3. Data  Data is a critical aspect of a successful business, and accurate data in systems such as CRM is the foundation of RevOps. The insights derived from this data are vital in driving strategic decisions that aid in the growth and advancement of the business. 4. People The team in charge of managing the systems, processes, and data is the final pillar of RevOps. The size of this team varies based on the organization’s size.  Let’s have a detailed look at the difference between  Revenue Operations vs. Sales Operations in this table: We should also define the differences in team structure for both. It will vary but can we add some crowd-sourced information on that? In terms of team structure, the Sales Ops team is a simple one – they align with sales. Similar to the sales team, they are organized by region, product, or sales channel, depending on the company’s sales strategy. Sales Ops teams can also be at times organized by function, with

5 Reasons for Low Sales Tech Adoption (And How to Fix It) RevOps 10 min With so many tools getting added to sales tech stack, why are adoption rates so abysmal? Get to the root of it in this blog. The sales tech stack is getting taller. The average virtual selling technology stack today has as many as 13 tools! The “shiny object syndrome” is very real. Businesses add sales tools to their tech stacks to treat the symptoms of sales problems. But rarely do they identify the underlying cause of these problems.  Leaders deploy multiple tools to resolve multiple issues. The consequence is The Great Revenue Disconnect – when revenue teams are left to deal with disconnected software with disconnected data that leads to revenue leakage. And reps feel discouraged about adopting new tech.  The result? Companies have wasted $313,000, on average, on sales tools that weren’t fully adopted by reps.  Why haven’t reps warmed up to sales tech despite having so many tools in their basket? Let’s find out in this blog.  What is Sales Tech Used For? Here are a few ways leaders are deploying sales tech: 1. Boost Sales Performance   93% of reps feel that sales tools help build better relationships with buyers. That’s owing to intent and signal-based features that come with most sales software for correctly identifying leads and their needs. 2. Gain Deeper Insights into Prospects   56% of buyers want to communicate with a salesperson five or more times before finalizing a purchase. It means that sales reps need to have more touches per lead. And each interaction should be relevant and personalized if reps want to stay ahead of the competition. 3. Drive Faster Sales   75% of B2B buyers say that the buying cycle has become longer in the last two years. The buying process is more complex and involves virtual selling. Therefore, reps use sales tech to anticipate future needs and leverage multithreading to close deals faster. A byproduct of the process is improved sales productivity. Reasons for Low Sales Tech Adoption (and How to Fix Them) While the benefits of sales tech are noteworthy, sales and RevOps leaders are still facing adoption challenges over the years. We discuss 5 key reasons for low sales tech adoption and how you can fix them. 1. The Problem: Multiple Tools Lead to Mixed Priorities   With so many tools available, selling doesn’t get easier. 86% of sales reps get confused about which tool should be used for which task. For example, if the head of sales asks for a specific report, your customer-facing teams might have to traverse through multiple tabs to get the latest report. Multiple tools trapped in silos only complicate a sales rep’s job, making it difficult to focus on their main task – selling. Adding to the issue, on average, only 28% of sales tools are integrated within organizations, despite the large sales tech stack. The result is disconnected systems between sales and other functions, leading to missed opportunities and revenue leakage from the sales pipeline. It’s no surprise that multiple tools end up stunting growth. As much as 52% of sales leaders report that their CRM costs potential revenue opportunities because the system doesn’t meet their needs. The Fix: Unified Data Solution for Better Visibility Across the GTM Team   A unified data solution automatically captures data – including contact, activity, and intent – which is otherwise spread across multiple tools. Without a unified data platform, reps have to toggle between several apps to dig out insights, miss quotas, and spend more time on training and other non-sales tasks, increasing costs. But with a unified data solution, reps can build the leads pipeline more contextually, close more deals and avoid revenue leakage. 46% of salespersons spend less time looking for information with a one-stop data platform. An added advantage of a unified dashboard is that reps access granular-level insights and consolidated leading indicators for current performance and future potential. They also have complete visibility of stakeholders within a buyer group, which helps them customize each interaction. Multiple sales tools could also cause an information overload. A unified data solution prioritizes speed with real-time insights across the pipeline. 2. The Problem: Reps Aren’t Involved in Sales Tech Purchase   For 76% of companies, poor adoption of sales tools is a top reason they miss sales quota attainment. That’s because most of these tools are purchased based on buyer needs compared to user needs. Generally, leaders (who aren’t involved in day-to-day sales) make the purchase decision for a sales tool. And consequently, vendors tailor the tool to leaders’ or managers’ insights. This also drives leadership-related reporting, analytics, forecasting, and pipeline visibility. Features that make reps’ lives easier – meeting scheduling, buyer behaviour tracking, automatic contact capture – aren’t considered. This disconnect between managers and the frontline is so wide that 42% of managers say it’s clear which tool reps can use for a given task, but only 32% of reps agree. As a result, sales tools don’t mirror how sales reps function. Your team may feel discouraged when they can’t figure out a successful way to make the tools work, resorting to conventional and slower ways. The Fix: Make Sales Tech Work for Reps and Not Vice Versa   Trust goes a long way in managing changes in the sales process. To start with, you can include reps in the sales tech evaluation process by gathering their inputs and understanding their day-to-day tasks. You can use these insights to choose a tool that works for them, not against them. Here’s a comprehensive list of questions you can ask the reps: What challenges do they face in the sales process? What’s inhibiting them from selling better? How much time do they spend on sales versus non-sales tasks? Do they feel stuck in mundane tasks like CRM data entry?  Are they confident in their sales pipeline, including visibility and opportunities? Are they successfully multithreading with buyer groups? If not, what difficulties are they facing? Is the tool sales-centric or marketing-centric? Are they effectively aligned with marketing? How much training would they need to learn the new tool?

MEDDIC vs Challenger: What’s the Difference? RevOps 10 min Hitting targets is one of the topmost goals for any sales rep. Understandably, all sales teams want to perform consistently well and achieve their goals.  But if you’ve seen your teams struggle in the last few years, you’re certainly not alone.  A recent crowdsourced survey by SaaStr shows that only 18% of sales teams hit a 70%+ quota attainment level. Average quota attainment for reps is down 5 points in 2023 from 2021. Quota attainment is also down for 5 out of 7 such teams.  To change the narrative, you’re probably digging into different sales methods that more successful businesses use. Or, you may simply want to level up your sales game as organizational growth becomes stagnant.  The first few methods popping up will undoubtedly be the MEDDIC and Challenger Sale. Both are useful with proven results for different companies. But confusion may persist on MEDDIC vs Challenger Sale and which one’s the best for you.  We’ve put together a quick overview of both methods that could help you make a decision.  Understanding the MEDDIC Academy Sales Method For 71.4% of sales professionals, only 50% or less of their initial leads are a good fit for their ICP. Reps blame poor qualification of potential customers before taking them through the entire sales process for 67% of lost deals.   There’s one method that shines in these situations.  MEDDIC is a B2B sales qualification methodology used to understand the customer at each stage of the buyer journey. The process drives revenue and business growth by qualifying buyers more accurately.  Here’s how the MEDDIC Academy explains what the process stands for: 1. Metrics What is the quantifiable value of your product for the customer?  2. Economic Buyer Who has the final word on the financial decision at the buyer’s end?  3. Decision Criteria What factors or criteria influence the purchase decision?  4. Decision Process How does the buyer reach a decision?  5. Implicate Pain What is a problem serious enough for the buyer to seek an external solution?  6. Champion Who is the stakeholder most invested in onboarding your solution?  MEDDIC places the focus on customer experience instead of selling with the sole objective of making money. It works because 56% of sales leaders consider engaging and paying attention to gain a client’s trust as the best approach.  With the MEDDIC Academy method, you can: Find leads that are the right fit for you Access critical stakeholders in the buyer committee  Build better forecasts  Boost winning rates  Over time, the MEDDIC Academy has included more steps, such as MEDDPICC, where P stands for paper process and C is competition.  Understanding the Challenger Sale Method Today, 32% of B2B buyers use more sources to research and evaluate processes than before. And 31% spend more time on social media to check out vendors and their solutions.  This means customers enter into a sales transaction with preconceived notions about the product. Reps need to develop an experience going beyond features and benefits. Instead, sellers could challenge the buyer and disrupt their current thinking. This is the Challenger Sale Method. You’re a challenge seller if you: Have a unique perspective of the world Understand the customer’s business in and out Create constructive tension using a casual debate Intentionally dispute the customer’s thinking Push the customer to get out of their comfort zone  Here’s what the Challenger Sale process looks like: 1. Warm-up First up, you build credibility with prospects by researching and investigating their pain points, challenges, and needs. Then, you describe these issues to the buyer in a way they agree.  2. Reframe You reframe the problem as a growth opportunity. This switch is made by sharing an insight that the buyer may not have considered before. 3. Rational drowning You back your reframing with quantitative data and the latest statistics. Numbers illustrate the risk of leaving the problem unresolved. It uses rational thinking to appeal to the customer’s emotions.  4. Value proposition Show the buyer possibilities of a better future. Tie their value drivers with your solution’s capabilities (without explicitly introducing the product).  5. Introducing the solution After the building blocks are in place, you can introduce your product. This is when you explain exactly how it solves the buyer’s problem. With Challenger Sale, you deliver insights into an unknown problem or opportunity in the buyer’s business. Your product is uniquely positioned to solve this problem. By encouraging the buyer to consider new opportunities, a Challenger Seller offers alternative ways forward. But they need three essential skills to succeed:  Teach by providing insights on new or better ways to solve the buyer’s problem  Tailor the message to the buyer’s needs Take control of the sale and guide the customer to closure MEDDIC vs Challenger Sale: How Do They Compare? Some sales experts consider MEDDIC as a sales methodology and Challenger Sale as simply an approach. But there’s more to it.  We’ve listed each MEDDIC vs Challenger Sale comparison below.  Despite the long list of MEDDIC vs Challenger Sale differences, both methods have three things in common: 1. Buyer evolution Both methods take into account the evolving buyer. MEDDIC considers the transformation from the individual buyer to a buying committee with multiple members.  Similarly, Challenger Sale knows that buyers are gathering more information online and contacting the seller later during their journey.  2. Buyer’s drivers Both MEDDIC and Challenger Sale identify the buyer’s value and economic drivers for the selling process.  3. Cross-functional alignment  MEDDIC and Challenger Sale need alignment between revenue teams and leadership buy-in. Marketing managers and leaders provide training and resources for all reps.  Challenger vs MEDDIC Academy Process: What’s the Verdict? Here’s a list of things to keep in mind when considering MEDDIC vs Challenger Sale.   MEDDIC Use the MEDDIC Academy sales process to determine if a prospect is the right fit for your company. It helps teams that are struggling to keep up with the existing sales process and want to improve.  MEDDIC can intervene to help you: Sell to the correct buyer Identify the right stakeholders in a complex enterprise B2B buying committee Regardless of so

Migrating your CRM to Salesforce? Don’t Leave Behind Crucial Activity Data! RevOps 10 min Salesforce data migration is a challenging project for most operations leaders. Your CRM system contains critical information about your customers that can help drive positive business outcomes. When you decide to migrate to a new CRM system like Salesforce, you don’t want to lose out on this valuable data from the old system.  But loss of critical activity data during Salesforce data migration is common. This loss directly translates to missed opportunities that already exist in your CRM. In this article, we will explore the challenges related to capture of activity data while migrating your CRM to Salesforce. And how you can avoid this major pitfall with the right data strategy.    Activity Data Loss During Salesforce Data Migration The biggest problem during Salesforce data migration is loss of historical data. This does not include data related to opportunities and accounts in the old CRM. This data loss caters to multiple fields within opportunities. Examples include email exchanges, opportunity contacts, or notes associated with deals. With such crucial activity data missing, revenue teams lose sight of many deals. With the loss of this activity data, revenue leaders miss out on finding answers to critical questions that move the revenue needs. Examples include: How many emails were exchanged? What was the context of those emails? Who were the contacts involved in the deal? What was the role these contacts were playing in the purchase process? What were the pricing related details that came up during conversations? These granular details give a clear view of the sales pipeline to revenue leaders. And armour them with information they can use to coach their reps better and lock in more deals every quarter. This data also provides leading indicators that can act as predictive measures of future performance. Despite best efforts, this revenue data gets lost during Salesforce data migration. There are different data transfer woes operations leaders face when they migrate their CRM to Salesforce. Failure to transfer the data under the right fields. For example, instead of going under the “opportunity” field, it might get fed into the “account” field. The ability to parse the metadata from Gmail to get into Salesforce remains a challenge.  Even if the data gets added to Salesforce, the activity data is mostly of the migration date and not the actual date in which the activity actually took place. This makes the information lose its relevance.  There is a chance of losing a lot of other data from the old CRM while migrating to Salesforce. While most CRMs do offer plugins to transfer activity data into Salesforce, these plugins do not work effectively under all conditions. As a result, they end up being unreliable mediums to capture data.  Most tools also require the contacts to be already in Salesforce for the activity to be captured. When nobody adds the contacts, associated activities automatically get missed out from the new CRM.   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpJxlPnfIoQ&t=2727s 5 Alarming Consequences of Data Loss The consequences of activity data loss during a CRM data migration can have catastrophic effects on your business.  Data loss can cause a direct dent on your revenue engine. Let’s look at some of these alarming consequences: 1. Poor deal reviews Deal reviews form an integral part of closing more sales. It helps sales managers know what’s going on in their pipeline, and devise strategies to pivot wherever necessary to avoid risks.  Data is the fuel that runs successful deal reviews. To conduct effective reviews and 1-1 coaching sessions, sales teams need access to the right data. They also need to be able to use that data to drive intelligence across the revenue engine. But with lost data during migration, sales teams lose access to critical revenue data that can help them close more opportunities during the quarter. And with missing data, organizations fail to create those data-driven strategies that can help devise successful sales strategies.  For example, backing up data in deal reviews during CRM data migration becomes questionable. Without historical data and associated activities getting tracked, sales teams won’t know which stakeholders are a part of the buying committee.  In short, without the right data, deal reviews fail to make sales teams more successful. The results in failed campaigns to drive sales forward, more gaps in the selling process, frustrated sales teams and inability to meet quotas. 2. Inaccurate sales forecasting Sales forecast is a critical element of running a successful revenue operations function. With sales forecasting numbers, revenue leaders are in a better position to carefully align resources towards the right areas.  But less than 50% of sales leaders and sellers have high confidence in their forecasting accuracy. Without the right data at the right place, making accurate sales forecasts becomes very challenging. To be able to make an accurate forecast, revenue leaders need access to historical data to get a visibility of how the sales pipeline is progressing at an organizational level. Bit losing this critical data during a migration project translates into lack of clarity into critical questions like: Which are the deals moving towards closure this quarter? What is the stage different deals are at? Which deals are not likely to close? Longer sales cycles, missed quotas and an unclear picture of deals make predicting accurate sales figures an ambiguous exercise. And relying on human tendencies like guesswork and instinct give rise to ambiguous forecast numbers. Complete and trustworthy data in CRM and other GTM tools is the first step to achieving confidence in sales forecasts. Without this unified data visibility, sales teams fail to focus on the right deals and fall prey to risks that fail to predict the fate of their deals.  3. Surge in operational cost  The loss of data during Salesforce data migration is usually realized when the decision to migrate to Salesforce has already been taken. This puts businesses in panic mode as the possibility of significant data loss hits them in the last few days of the migration.  The second realization that hits organizations is

How a Revenue Intelligence System Eliminates CRM Data Challenges RevOps 10 min In this blog