Over the last few years, there has been an unbelievable expansion in tech. Continued investment from venture capital and private equity, open-source code, infrastructure gains, and APIs have all created a âCheesecake factory menuâ of options in your software solutions.
Take MarTech as an example – in 2016 there were nearly 4,000 MarTech solutions in the market. Flash forward to today, and there are nearly 10,000 solutions available. Thatâs 10x the number of products available today as there were 8 short years ago, back in the âgood old daysâ of 2014.
More recently weâve started to see a very similar trend in sales tech and its many categories and sub-categories.
Donât believe me? Google âHow to build a sales tech stackâ and proceed to scroll through articles such as âBuilding the ultimate sales stack: 31 tools you should knowâ
There are now 1,078 sales tech solutions bucketed into 5 groups including 45 different categories. Spoiler – you donât need 31 of them, but you do need some of them.
With all of those choices and functionality comes a chaos of decision-making. What technology is available? What software do I actually need? Where can I leverage a solution to have the biggest impact for my sales team?
Simple answer, in order: A lot, some, it depends.
Complex answer: You need a framework for evaluating your sales tech stack.
Iâve built many sales tech stacks from the ground up, and over the years Iâve used a framework for evaluating and prioritizing solutions. In this post, Iâm going to walk through the 7 steps of that framework to help you purchase the right tools for your company.
A Sales tech stack is a configuration of sales technologies leveraged to help your organization achieve its revenue goals.
Step 1 requires that you know, at least directionally, your organization’s revenue goals., Start there.
Following a revenue operations approach requires that you align your entire sales process to the buyerâs journey, which therefore requires you to align your sales tech stack to the buyerâs journey.
Mapping a buyerâs journey can sound intimidating, but itâs a powerful and enlightening exercise to lean into. You can start with something as simple as a google sheet, however, I recommend LucidChart as a starting point.Â
This is a wildly oversimplified example of mapping a buyerâs journey, but itâs important to visualize to give you context for the exercise. Do not buy software that does not align to your business process, and do not create business processes that do not align to your buyerâs journey.
Once itâs complete, take a step through the journey and highlight sections red where a part of your business process is not being supported. An example of this in the flow chart above is Lead Routingâan incredibly important business process that my tech stack does not currently empower. This is a gap that can easily be filled with a tool like LeanData.
Do your research and make a shortlist of products that can fill the gaps youâve identified above. This isnât a full evaluationâthis is just a shortlist to eliminate outliers and get to a narrow set of potential solutions to put through a full review. Limit this to no more than 3 optionsâ there are 1,078 sales tech solutions, you donât have the time to look at all of them.
Key questions to resolve here
This is a great time to reach out to colleagues in the space to see what tools they are using, get referrals, and leverage 3rd party research firms like Gartner or Forester.
Shortlist the 3 vendors, make those demo requests. Hopefully, you wonât have to wait too long, although no promises unless youâre evaluating Revenue.io đ
Itâs full evaluation time, but before you sit down and take demos you need to put together an agile business requirements document to track and compare the reviewed products. I prefer a simple spreadsheet here so I can evaluate the tools head to head.
Beyond the requirements of fulfilling the business process, there are additional key variables to keep in mind.
All of your sales tech purchases are working towards one goal: drive more revenue for your business. Prove it. The question you have to answer here is âif we purchase this tool, and it performs exactly as expected, what will be the revenue impact on our businessâ
Work with your vendor here, but hold them accountable. ROI calculations are easily inflated by slight overestimations, but an accurate one can help you make a decision, roadmap your implementation and prioritize your onboarding. It will also set an expectation by which you can measure the impact of the tool for future renewal terms.
Congratulations, youâve gone through the entire framework and narrowed it down to the final vendor. Itâs time to buy the tool. Negotiate final discounts, agreements, and layout and agree upon an implementation plan.
An important note hereâdiscounts are great but donât count on them for year 2. If you found a product you love, opt for a multi-year term to lock in a greater discount that wonât be removed at the end of the initial 1-year term.
Choosing the right technology for your organization can be the difference between empowering your team to drive more revenue or bogging them down with tools that donât support them. Follow these 7 steps, and youâll be well on your way to helping your team unlock exponential growth.Â