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Sales Intelligence: A Simple Guide For A Sales Leader

As a sales leader, you probably know how hard it is to maintain consistent performance in your sales team, make sure they follow the same winning strategy and keep track of all key deal metrics.

 

Imagine if there was a tool that could help you with all that and bring other amazing benefits like faster onboarding and easier coaching.

 

 

In fact, you don't need to imagine anything anymore. All that is already available on the market under names: sales intelligence tool, revenue intelligence platform, call intelligence software, etc.

 

They may have multiple names, but at their core, these tools all perform one important duty: helping salespeople achieve their targets faster.

 

So let's talk more about sales intelligence and how it can help you boost your team's performance, shall we?

 

What is Sales Intelligence software?

 

Sales Intelligence software uses such technologies as AI and machine learning to collect and process client data to synthesize valuable insights and call analytics.

 

The main purpose of sales intelligence is to help you gather more conversational data based on your calls and evaluate your deal health with the help of key deal metrics. All this eventually adds to salespeople's increased performance and win rates.

 

Sales intelligence tools and platforms use the data collected during and/or after call recordings and can generate insights based on different speech cues where prospect mentions:

 

  • competitors
  • pain points
  • deal size
  • constraints
  • next steps
  • etc.

 

Sales Intelligence vs. call recordings

 

Every sales leader and rep is familiar with the simple concept of call recordings. Many conferencing tools have this feature, which proves to be useful for sales coaching and onboarding.

 

However, as it often happens in larger organizations, call recording reviews, and feedback rounds are not on your priority list. And even if you review them and use them for coaching, it is nearly impossible to keep track of every single recording and evaluate them accordingly.

 

With the help of a sales intelligence tool, you no longer have this problem.

 

The platform will help you organize your recordings into different folders and store them safely in one place.

 

What's more, it will give you real-time insights on a call that you will be able to use while talking to your client.

 

In fact, sales intelligence tools help you automate your entire sales process. They integrate with your preferred CRM, call, and video-conferencing tools to record, transcribe, and analyze your customer conversations and deliver useful insights and revenue forecasts based on conversational data.

 

Additionally, sales intelligence analyzes your deal health to surface all roadblocks before it's too late and the deal is lost. Key metrics include:

 

  • talk-listen ratio
  • action items
  • next steps
  • customer sentiment
  • important keywords from both customer and rep

 

Why do sales leaders and sales teams need a sales intelligence platform?

 

Busy pipelines create a precedent for one thing that all sales leaders dread the most: the revenue gap.

 

It forms when expectations don't match reality and when there's a lack of relevant deal data.

 

There are many additional reasons for missed quota:

 

  • sales reps missed red flags and disqualified the lead
  • roadblocks were ignored
  • the next steps weren't outlined properly
  • sales leaders didn't intervene on time
  • key concerns weren't addressed by both the sales rep and sales leader.

 

When you can spot these complications from the get-go, you can address them early down the road, which has major ramifications for the future of the deal.

 

That's how sales intelligence moves from the stage of "nice-to-have" to "mission-critical."

 

It's imperative to treat sales intelligence tools as your reliable sidekick rather than a monitoring tool that will get you in trouble when you mess up your next demo or discovery call.

 

Its main purpose is to help salespeople spot roadblocks and opportunities at an early stage of the deal and to help them achieve better results faster.

 

Let's dive further into the sales intelligence's capabilities that will help you improve your performance and smooth out your entire sales process.

 

Better customer experience

 

While many prospects might have doubts about their calls being recorded, there's a sure way to put their concerns to rest:

 

  • most sales intelligence tools that record and transcribe your sales conversations are GDPR compliant. And even if the transition isn't completed 100%, all tools are sure to get there one way or another to be able to serve European clients. 

 

As a result, you can safely record your calls and share them with your client to sync on important questions and concerns.

 

Additionally, you can more accurately identify key conversational moments and review them later to develop an actionable plan.

 

What's more, sales intelligence will notify you if you need to improve your client speaking time by asking more questions. It will also allow you to follow a smart agenda on the call to cover all important topics.

 

A more reliable sales qualification

 

We all know that qualifying leads isn't a piece of cake. From BANT to MEDDICC, sales professionals have come up with various lead qualification methodologies over the years to help identify an ideal customer profile. However, implementing them successfully requires thorough preparation.

 

Because many sales methodologies consist of various action items that are hard to follow on a call, sales reps simply don't do it. Instead, they come up with their own questions on the go.

 

If you have your heart set on a particular methodology, sales intelligence will help you implement it with the help of a smart agenda. Simply create one set of questions your reps should ask and include it in the discovery call agenda.

 

This way, you know that your sales team asks potential customers the same set of smart questions.

 

Removing Roadblocks in Real-Time

 

Because a sales intelligence platform can help you surface relevant sales roadblocks in real-time, you can spot important issues and make course corrections together with your sales reps without disrupting the sales cycle.

 

This leads to a healthier pipeline and no time wasted on misqualified leads and opportunities.

 

Reliable Revenue Forecasts

 

One of the latest additions to sales intelligence technology, and one of the more valuable, is its ability to aggregate gathered data to present you with an accurate deal health score and revenue predictions.

 

Based on the pipeline stage, you deal can experience different sets of opportunities and roadblocks:

 

  • Involvement of the Champion and Decision-Maker
  • Last touch
  • Customer speaking time
  • Pain points identified
  • Next meeting scheduled
  • Closed date and deal size identified

 

These metrics help evaluate your deal's health and predict the likelihood of it moving forward in the pipeline.

 

If the deal has a high score in the later stages of the sales cycle, there's a greater chance it will close by the date set by both parties.

 

Higher win rates

 

Together with a better pipeline overview come increased win rates. This makes it possible for sales reps to achieve their monthly targets and business goals, and for the leadership team to avoid a revenue gap. 

 

When a sales platform can give you so many insights into each buyer, it's a lot easier to build a stronger and long-lasting relationship with them. This also means less client churn in the future. 

 

More accurate benchmarking

 

With targets and results being constantly monitored, it's easier to predict what to look forward to in the future. That's why a sales leader can easily base their calculations and target estimation on previous business results. Sales automation helps track every possible achievement over time and predict whether this result can be reached in the future. Thus, more accurate benchmarking.

 

Faster onboarding and effective coaching

 

Onboarding new hires can take quite some time and energy. Especially in a smaller organization where there's no definitive system in place. 

 

With the help of sales intelligence platforms, all call recordings are stored in the system, and every employee can easily access these calls to find out about:

 

  • the product or service they are selling
  • techniques used by their colleagues
  • arguments others use when presenting
  • sales tricks, and so much more.

With this amount of information at your fingertips, there's no need for extensive onboarding program planning as everything that is needed can be found and stored in one place.

 

Additionally, your team receives an unlimited supply of coaching materials that can help them improve their sales techniques and win more deals. 

 

Sales Intelligence: A Sure Way to Supercharge Your Sales

 

Now that you know what a sales intelligence tool can do for your business, you have no other choice but to start your search for the best software on the market. 

 

Luckily for you, you don't need to venture far to find a suitable solution. 

 

Unique has everything any sales leader could ever want:

 

  • Secure and user-friendly platform.
  • Forecasting capabilities with the help of a sophisticated health score.
  • Call recording, transcription, and analytics.
  • Continuous help on calls for salespeople.
  • Useful insights, etc.

 

To find out more about Unique and the wonders it can do for your sales team, read our Product Explainer article and watch a video

 

Or you can reach out to our experts directly:

 

 

Talk to an Expert

 

 

Written by

Hanna Karbowski