In your experience working with Australian enterprises, what are the top priorities of local sales organisations and the biggest challenges they’re facing?

The top three challenges sales organisations I work with typically face are how to: 1/ integrate disparate sources of information, so reps spend more time selling; 2/ improve collaboration across departments; and 3/ provide real-time visibility of sales information to the CEO and executive team. 

To address the first issue, companies recognise they need to step away from bespoke, built-on-the-fly apps, which have created a situation where sales reps have to manually generate paperwork and even physically walk to other internal departments to close a deal with their customers. The easiest part of a salesperson’s job should be getting customer information into core business systems and generating contracts to finalise deals, but instead many have to spend hours manually hunting for information and liaising with multiple groups internally to make a sale happen. The most profitable sales practice is a situation where a rep can click on opportunity and hit on a button to generate a contract, get the necessary approvals, and quickly get a contract across to their customer in a matter of minutes, not hours. 

Reps should have the flexibility to access and enter information about prospects and existing clients, wherever they are - in the office or on the go. That requires all information to be consolidated on a single customer relationship management (CRM) platform - like Salesforce® - so unifying disparate information sources is definitely a key focus for sales organisations in Australia right now. 

CRM is also emerging as a core business platform for local companies because having a single source of truth supports real-time collaboration among departments, which is essential for driving a differentiated customer experience. In addition, CRM gives CEOs and executive teams the information they need on-demand. This is essential in today’s competitive business environment, where strategic decisions can’t be taken after waiting three or four days for an executive assistant to consolidate and print out an overview of information residing in different systems. Moreover, CEOs and executive teams are rarely in the office these days, so they need mobile capabilities to access the information they need wherever they are.  

How has the selling process changed in recent years?

When I started as a sales rep 10+ years ago, all my boss cared about was getting a customer to sign up, and then it was time to move onto the next one. It was a real ‘turn-and-burn’ sales model. However, companies have come to realise that it requires a 3x investment, or more,  to secure a new customer - versus selling to an existing client - so now there is much more of a focus on building long-term relationships with customers. 

Social, too, has had a profound impact on the selling process. Customers are more empowered. In fact, there are examples of companies, even here in Australia, that have gone out of business or lost significant market share because they haven’t cared enough about what their customers were saying about them online. 

The emergence of social has also had important implications for sales reps. Basically, if you’re not social, you’re not selling as effectively as you could be. For example, when I was researching on Twitter for a meeting with a CEO recently, I discovered that he - and the CIO - were both very active in the church and with philanthropic activities. As a result, I tweaked our presentation and took a different approach with the clients. You could see on their faces the difference it made and how our approach contrasted with the approach of our competitors.  

What are the implications of mobile applications for sales effectiveness?

Traditionally, sales reps have depended on a notepad and/or a binder to capture information. Especially now, when we might be seeing four or five clients back-to-back on the road, it’s just not an effective way of working. Information gets lost because either it doesn’t make sense by the time you get back to the office, or you fail to enter something into the company system that you’ve scribbled in your notes. In fact, in the midst of a frantic day, it’s likely you’ve missed writing down something important in the first place. 

That’s why the emergence of mobile CRM apps have really changed the game for Australian sales teams. Being able to access customer information and add to it in real-time is an amazing sales tool. Plus, it gives your managers immediate access into what you’re doing, which cuts down on the amount of time you need to spend debriefing with them afterward - especially following a long road trip!

What will be the key areas of focus for sales organisations in Australia over the coming 12-18 months and which technologies do you expect will drive those business objectives?

The two key areas of focus I see in the coming year or two are: 1/ getting all sales reps across and organisation to share the same message with prospects and customers; and 2/ making social a critical tool in the sales toolkit. 

To address the first issue, companies are seeking to consolidate content into a central repository, like Salesforce Chatter®, and then condition their reps to reference that repository for the tools they need, like standardised company presentations. 

In terms of social, there’s no doubt that customers really appreciate it when you’re proactive about knowing them as individuals - and social is ideal for that. Aside from the example about the CEO I mentioned before, we just signed a sizeable deal with a client we reached out to because we’d seen he’d moved to a new company with the intention of revamping their customer information strategy. When the client asked how we’d known to proactively reach out to him and I explained that we’d tracked him on social, he loved that we were already interested in and informed about his business. 

From the initial deal, there’s now the potential for incremental - and higher value - business going forward. That’s the power of social. At the end of the day, customers feel engaged when they are known as people, not transactions.

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