Here’s What It Will Take to Modernize Your Sales Process And Improve Win Rates

The modern sales process is rooted in digital interaction and balanced with in-person meetings. The pandemic flipped traditional sales strategies on their heads, and leaders across industries learned that sales could be a digitally-driven process.

McKinsey & Company reported that roughly two-thirds of buyers in 2021 opted for remote human interactions or digital self-service sales models. McKinsey also predicted that hybrid would be the most prevalent sales strategy by 2024. Companies are anticipating higher sales rates from the transition to digital sales strategies, but many are falling short. According to research from Bain & Company, virtual sales execution is still a puzzle. While executives and frontline salespeople anticipate increased win rates (by 82% and 62%, respectively) from virtual selling, the actual reported win rate is much lower—only 48%. The numbers for the anticipated increase and actual increase in revenue per sales rep were similar.

Companies are looking to cash in on the benefits of virtual selling, but they are missing the mark due to ineffective sales enablement processes. Digital discovery and in-person interaction sit at the top of the sales funnel in terms of essential processes. Sales enablement, however, is a critical feature in the middle and the end of the sales cycle because it enables the rep to be more effective in the moments when it matters most.

Most companies are beyond the initial modernization of the sales process. They have already gone digital. But they haven’t done it well. The sales tech stacks they built out of necessity during the pandemic, just to get by, are not sufficient for sustaining this new standard of hybrid sales. To truly modernize, companies must optimize the sales process by leveraging sales enablement technology that improves rep effectiveness, distributes carefully crafted sales journeys, and manages robust libraries of sales plays.

Deploy teams to customers more rapidly.

The benefits of a hybrid, digitally-driven sales strategy are numerous, but first and foremost, it reduces the time it takes to prepare sales reps for work in the field. When sales enablement is supported and sustained by digital processes, ramp time is reduced, and team members can more easily access essential enablement resources no matter their location. At its core, sales enablement is, of course, a learning process. Corporate learning strategies must be supported by technology that serves the learner first and foremost and then provides data for managers and leaders as a secondary benefit.

To deploy sales teams to customers more rapidly, companies must reduce rep ramp time by creating short, effective, interactive training and connecting that training to sales initiatives. With the right tech stack, this is easily attained. A digital LMS platform achieves this goal. The ExpertusONE LMS, for example, offers a Salesforce LMS app that streamlines the connection between learning and sales and makes training altogether more actionable for sales personnel. Content is managed from a single location, and clear onboarding and training pathways can be created and then implemented within the LMS. When these essential systems are combined, sales personnel can be trained more effectively and then swiftly deployed to meet with prospects and customers.

Manage people more effectively to cut costs and boost wins.

Bain & Company identified a critical shift in corporate approaches to sales. While, traditionally, sales personnel and product specialists operated as a team in the process of selling, digital selling transformed this. Product specialists were pulled in on a case-by-case basis, which reduced costs and yielded a more flexible sales process. But if sales teams are not relying on or working as closely with their product specialist partners, how can they speak to the product at an expert level while remaining agile during the sales process?

Training is the obvious answer. With digital sales enablement strategies in place, sales personnel can call upon a wealth of resources related to product functionality, specs, and use cases. With digital sales enablement technology, like LMS software, all of this content is readily available and easily distributed to the salesperson.

Creating an agile sales enablement strategy through a digital LMS reduces costs (especially time-related costs) and increases efficiency. When the sales team is equipped with essential product information and has it at their fingertips, they can win the trust of prospects and customers and nudge them along the sales process by answering critical questions. This enables companies to manage their people more effectively and do more with less by optimizing each team member’s function and reducing overlap.

Provide a library of sales plays.

A digital LMS platform can be used to manage a library of clearly defined, thoroughly researched sales plays (or even playbooks) to equip the sales team to operate more effectively. This information goes beyond product-specific training and into more in-depth training resources like demographic information, industry insights, or even specific details about the customer or region. For most enterprise-sized teams, sales personnel may be assigned to different areas or even different suites of product offerings, which will require companies to create, manage, and distribute large libraries of information.

For these large libraries of sales content to be effective, companies must ensure that they are engaging and interactive. With our enterprise LMS, training managers can add quizzes, polls, videos, and audio content to training courses to ensure maximum engagement and information retention.

Customize sales training and playbook recommendations.

Perhaps the most important way that companies can use tech to improve sales enablement (and sales outcomes) is personalization. As companies look to rapidly train and equip their sales teams, personalization through the power of artificial intelligence and machine learning will become an essential process. With an AI-enabled digital LMS, companies can ensure that their sales team members get access to the training resources and sales information that is relevant to their role.

A lack of personalized, or customized, sales enablement resources may be the reason that companies are finding their virtual sales strategies fail to meet expectations. If sales teams are operating more independently and spending less time face-to-face with customers, their need for accessible and relevant resources only increases. By creating personalized sales training programs and initiatives, companies can ensure that their sales teams have access to information that is essential for each person.

Make coaching an ongoing, integrated process.

Sales coaching was a process steamrolled by pandemic-era changes. Where sales coaching was a part of daily or weekly sales processes, it became more difficult to manage in a virtual space. Unorganized and disjointed tech stacks only furthered this problem. Companies need coaching tools that enable sales managers to connect with their teams in multiple environments—online, in-person, synchronously, and asynchronously—on a regular basis. Choosing a sales enablement technology that offers integrated video conferencing is essential for building coaching sessions into the regular cadence of sales training work.

If companies want to effectively modernize their sales enablement processes, they must begin first with the tech stack. To boost hybrid sales effectiveness, equip teams, and increase win rates, the foundation must first be set. Look for a digital training platform that combines next-generation learning technology (like interactive elements) with sales-critical functions like Salesforce integration or synchronous coaching through a live meetings system. A digital LMS platform is a great place to start.