Top Performing Sales Teams Use 3X More Sales Acceleration Technology

High performing inside sales teams are also high tech. Want proof? Look no further than Salesforce’s recent State of Sales report. According to the report, which surveyed over 2,300 global sales leaders, “High-performing sales teams use nearly 3x more sales tech than underperforming teams, freeing them from process-heavy tasks and giving them more time to actually sell.”

There are many different ways to use technology to bolster your sales team. Here’s a breakdown of some of the categories of sales acceleration technology that top performing sales teams are leveraging to gain a competitive advantage.

Analytics

Sales analytics not only give managers more visibility into reps’ activities, but also enable them to view the outcome of those activities in real time. Perhaps best of all, sales analytics can help reps make smarter predictions. Not surprisingly, sales analytics are being used in much greater frequency by high performing sales teams. With the right reports and dashboards, a capable sales manager could easily transform a mediocre sales team into a great one. Predictive analytics in particular are set to see triple-digit growth across B2B and B2C sales teams over the next 12-18 months.

Current Usage:

• High Performers: 57%
• Underperformers: 16%

Prospecting Tools

Prospecting tools can help reps dial more leads, connect with more reps and gain vital intelligence about prospective accounts. Another powerful tool that high performing sales teams are using is Local Presence. Local Presence enables sales reps to ensure that a local phone number shows up in their prospects’ caller ID. This can enable reps to connect with up to 400% more prospects. And more conversations with prospects provides your reps with more opportunities to close deals and generate revenue.

Current Usage:

• High Performers: 49%
• Underperformers: 15%

Activity Management

What are activities in Salesforce? Things like calls calls, emails, meetings and any other activities that you define in your Salesforce org. It’s important to manage these activities in order to make sure that reps are putting in the necessary effort to hit their numbers. Measuring your team’s dials and emails, for example can help you notice trends. As an example, say your three top performing reps are making at least 25% more dials than your laggard reps. You could then provide your underperforming reps with coaching (and dialing technology) that could enable them to dial more reps. This alone could make the difference between missing or crushing quota.

Current Usage:

• High Performers: 66%
• Underperformers: 27%

Targeted Sales Content

The same content that your marketers create to generate leads can often be used to help sales reps close deals. However, sales reps don’t always know which content can be used contextually to help move deals forward. In fact, reps often don’t even know what content is available. To help reps leverage content, there are several sales acceleration solutions that can help enable sales reps by making content suggestions or giving reps insight into which content is helping to influence deals.

Current Usage:

• High Performers: 49%
• Underperformers: 15%

Want some help finding which types of sales acceleration technology are right for your company? Our Sales Acceleration Buyer’s Guide is packed with checklists that will help you discover which functionality can help your team grow revenue.