How a Sales Enablement Platform Can Help You Tackle Your Biggest Chemical Sales Challenges
The chemical industry plays a fundamental role in modern society, powering a whole host of products and services—from building materials to pharmaceuticals to agriculture supplies – to name a few. It’s hard to imagine an industry more embedded in our daily lives.
But chemical sales is no easy feat. Reps face many challenges daily, including a crowded marketplace, shifting consumer preferences, a complex regulatory landscape, and long sales cycles.
Increasingly, chemical organizations are turning to sales enablement strategies and tools to help their sellers overcome these common challenges and close more deals. In this post, we’ll explore the obstacles chemical sales teams face and how the right sales enablement platform can equip sellers with the skills, tools, and resources they need to overcome those challenges and come out on top.
What are the biggest pain points for chemical sales reps?
The life of a chemical sales rep isn’t easy. In fact, these sellers often face a variety of challenges daily.
The sales process has evolved from demand creation to demand fulfillment. Today, customers come to the table more informed than ever and have specific requirements. Chemical reps must be agile and ready to shift their approach to meet customers’ expectations.
Reps must understand their products inside and out. But product offerings, compliance requirements, and customer expectations are always evolving. Once-and-done sales training doesn’t adequately prepare these sellers to retain knowledge and keep pace with change.
Sales content plays an important role in specialty chemical sales. Yet, sellers often struggle to find up-to-date, compliant sales content to use with their prospects.
If sellers share irrelevant content, buyers will disengage. Furthermore, outdated, non-compliant content can tarnish trust and lead to regulatory action.
The chemicals marketplace is very competitive. At the same time, consumers’ preferences related to chemicals are always evolving. For example, we’re seeing increased demand for clean or sustainable products. Reps must be able to articulate how their solutions are different from the competition.
Relationships have always been important in chemical sales. But building those relationships can be challenging when all interactions are digital. Reps need the right tools to engage buyers and earn their trust.
Reps are increasingly tasked with administrative roles like price control, which reduces the time they can spend on core selling activities.
Reps depend on the right technology to do their jobs. But often, they’re expected to use a wide range of disjointed tools.
How can a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle help improve chemical sales?
A sales enablement program powered by the right tools can help any chemical organization overcome its top challenges and achieve its sales goals.
Adding disparate point solutions to your tech stack isn’t the right answer. Instead, consider swapping these disjointed solutions for an all-in-one sales enablement like Mindtickle. That way, sellers have everything they need to grow their skills and knowledge and deliver engaging, personalized buyer experiences from one platform.
Consistent sales onboarding
The sooner your new chemicals sales reps can get up to speed, the sooner they can contribute to revenue growth. A sales enablement platform like Mindtickle makes creating and delivering a consistent onboarding experience easy for all reps. That way, your sellers are ready to hit the ground running – faster.
Tailored, ongoing learning – anytime, anywhere
Chemical sales training can’t be a one-time event. After all, Gartner research found that sellers forget 70% of information within a week of sales training. Ongoing training and reinforcement ensure learning sticks.
Furthermore, change is constant in specialty chemical sales. Ongoing training and enablement help sellers adapt quickly to market changes and maintain up-to-date product knowledge.
With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can build and deliver interactive learning experiences that engage reps and help them master the skills and knowledge they need to be successful, like:
- Technical expertise
- Objection handling
- Regulatory compliance
Training shouldn’t be one-size-fits-all. With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, leaders can identify each seller’s strengths and weaknesses. Then, they can deliver tailored training and enablement to help sellers improve their weaker skills. In addition, rich analytics and insights help sales leaders understand how training and enablement are impacting skill mastery and sales performance. They can use these insights to adapt their approach.
Many reps spend significant time away from their desks. With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, sellers can access training and enablement anywhere, from any device.
Certification and data-driven sales coaching
Completing training doesn’t guarantee success. Reps need additional support to take on any deal confidently.
With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, you can leverage sales certifications to ensure sellers are ready for the field. In addition, you can access data to identify sellers’ lagging skills and deliver personalized sales coaching to help close gaps and improve performance.
Real-time feedback and coaching
Manager-led sales coaching can significantly impact performance. However, traditional sales coaching practices are labor-intensive and difficult to scale.
Sales enablement platforms like Mindtickle allow sellers to get real-time feedback and coaching without waiting for a sales manager.
With Mindtickle, sellers can get immediate feedback anytime they complete a sales call or submit a role-play. With AI role-plays, they can practice their skills with an adaptive AI bot and get feedback. Reps can use this feedback to improve skills and behaviors before entering the field.
Tools for tailored buyer experiences
Reps must work to build strong, lasting relationships with prospects. But it’s not always easy. Today’s chemical buyers are well-informed and come to the table with lofty expectations.
A modern sales enablement platform equips sellers with the tools they need to deliver outstanding experiences tailored to each buyer’s needs and preferences, wherever they are on the purchase journey.
For example, sales content management tools make it easy for sellers to find content that resonates with every buyer. Reps can also get AI-powered, data-based content recommendations.
In addition, chemical sales reps can leverage digital sales rooms to centralize all activity in one spot. In a digital sales room, all buying and selling group members can share content, ask questions, and collaborate throughout the sales cycle. Sellers can also access analytics to determine how their buyers are (or aren’t) engaging in the digital sales room. They can use these insights to adapt their approach and deliver more relevant buying experiences.
AI tools to streamline and automate mundane tasks
Chemical sales reps, like all sales reps, find themselves increasingly distracted with repetitive administrative tasks. Often, that means they don’t spend enough time on core sales activities.
Mindtickle Copilot is an AI productivity assistant that streamlines time-consuming tasks so reps can spend more time selling. For example, a rep can ask Copilot a question raised by one of their prospects. Copilot can provide an answer, along with supporting content. That means the seller can return to the buyer with an accurate answer, and the deal can progress faster.
Copilot can also help reps prepare for sales calls. For example, a sales rep can ask Copilot which competitors a prospect brought up on their most recent call and what action items they agreed to. Then, the seller can get prepared to conquer the next sales call without reviewing call recordings or notes.
Data to drive optimizations
Ongoing measurement is key to any sales enablement strategy. With a sales enablement platform like Mindtickle, every team member has the insights they need to make better decisions.
For example, chemical sales reps can understand how (and whether) their prospects engage with sales content. They can use these insights to decide what steps to take next, and AI can even suggest the next best action.
On the other hand, sales enablement leaders can see how chemical sales reps engage with training and enablement and how this engagement impacts performance. They can use these insights to optimize their programs to better support their chemical sales reps.
With a sales enablement platform, revenue leaders can measure sales performance and how deals progress along the sales cycle. They can use these insights to fuel data-based optimizations to processes and procedures.
Benefits of a sales enablement platform for chemical sales reps
More and more chemical sales companies are investing in sales enablement strategies and platforms. It’s easy to see why.
Finding the right sales enablement platform can significantly impact how your sellers engage with buyers and close deals.
Better alignment among customer-facing teams
Many teams deliver great buyer experiences – including sales, marketing, sales enablement, and customer success – among others. But often, these teams work in silos. The result? Disjointed experiences that send prospective customers packing.
A sales enablement platform serves as a central hub for all customer-facing teams. All teams understand the organization’s goals and their role in achieving them. This alignment results in seamless buyer experiences across the entire sales cycle.
Confident chemical sales reps who consistently crush their goals
Chemical sales reps need the right skills, tools, and resources to be ready for any deal. For example, chemical sales reps need ongoing training on product offerings, competition, and compliance requirements. And they need the right content to engage every buyer, wherever they are in the sales cycle.
A sales enablement platform ensures sellers have everything they need – all in one place. Then, they’ll be ready to conquer any deal that comes their way confidently.
More time for selling
Recent research found that sales reps spend less than 30% of their time on core selling activities. That’s simply not enough.
Reps spend less than
With a sales enablement platform, your sellers have a single place to access training, tools, content, and resources. That means they can spend less time searching for what they need and more time engaging buyers.
In addition, the AI features of revenue enablement platforms like Mindtickle enable sellers to streamline and automate mundane tasks like finding content and drafting emails. Again, this frees up chemical sales reps’ time to engage more with prospects.
Shorter sales cycles
Chemical sales cycles tend to be lengthy. This is especially true for chemical sales companies that sell to large businesses with many locations.
However, when sellers have the right tools and information readily available via a sales enablement platform, friction in the sales cycle is reduced.
For example, just-in-time enablement allows sellers to get real-time answers to buyers’ questions – without waiting on a subject matter expert. That means sellers can get back to their buyers sooner, and deals can accelerate.
In addition, sales enablement platforms can leverage AI to recommend content for specific sales scenarios. That means sellers can use proven content to accelerate deal cycles rather than spending time guessing what will work.
Better buyer experiences
Today’s chemical buyers expect great products and services. But they also expect outstanding customer experiences. If their expectations aren’t met, they’ll look elsewhere.
A sales enablement platform equips chemical sales reps with the skills, content, and tools they need to deliver tailored experiences to every prospect. Buyers with excellent experiences are likelier to become loyal customers who stick around long-term. They’re also more likely to refer your business to others.
Higher rep retention rates
Retaining good reps is a challenge for just about any industry. When your turnover rates are high, you must sink time into filling vacant roles and onboarding new sellers – only to turn around and do it all over again.
The right sales enablement platform can make your chemical sales reps feel supported from their first day on the job. When sellers feel supported and have opportunities for learning and development, they’re more likely to stay with your company long-term.
Start conquering chemical sales with Mindtickle
Now, more than ever, chemical sales companies must ensure their sellers have what it takes to outpace the competition in the face of increasing challenges. A solid sales enablement strategy – powered by the right platform–is necessary.
But not all sales enablement platforms are built for the needs of modern chemical sales teams. Mindtickle is.
Mindtickle is an award-winning revenue enablement platform that can elevate the performance of your entire chemical sales team
Better Chemical Sales with Mindtickle
Ready to overcome your biggest chemical sales challenges? See how a sales enablement platform can help your team close more deals, faster.
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