What is Sales Collateral and How Does it Help Reps Close More Deals?

Christian Pieper on January 25, 2024

Any organization aiming to grow revenue must make sales engagement a priority. When buyers are engaged, they’re more likely to advance through the sales funnel – and make a purchase.

In order to engage buyers, sales reps must deliver the right information at the right time.

The right sales collateral is essential.

In this post, we’ll explore what sales collateral is, why it’s important, and what the different types are. We’ll also share some tips and best practices for creating more effective sales content that’ll help your reps close more deals.

What is sales collateral and why is it important?

First things first: what is sales collateral?

It’s any type of asset that enables sales reps to engage prospects and guide them through the sales funnel. It takes many forms, which we’ll explore in detail a little later on.

Print

Digital

Internal

External

Print vs. digital sales collateral

Today, some organizations continue to use printed sales assets. However, the vast majority of sales organizations are transitioning to digital collateral. This is especially true in today’s world, when many sales are conducted without a buyer and seller ever meeting face-to-face.

A best practice is to leverage a sales content management solution to centralize your digital collateral.

Internal vs. external sales collateral

Some sales collateral is used externally. In other words, this collateral is shared with customers and prospects. Some examples include case studies and data sheets.

Other collateral is for internal use only. This collateral (often referred to as sales enablement collateral) is developed only for use by the sales team. Some examples of internal collateral include sales playbooks and sales battlecards.

The importance of sales collateral

Now, we’re clear on what sales collateral is. But why is it important?

Sales collateral drives sales effectiveness and sales efficiency. When it’s done well, it engages buyers with the right information at the right time in the right format. Outstanding collateral can accelerate the sales cycle, which means sales reps can close deals faster. When reps can close more deals, your revenue will grow.

What are the different types of sales collateral?

There are many different types of sales and marketing collateral. Each type is especially effective in certain parts of the purchase journey. For example, a case study may be impactful for a prospect who is close to making a decision – but first wants to get a better idea of how other businesses have leveraged a similar solution to achieve their goals. However, the same case study may not resonate with prospects who are higher up in the funnel and just starting to research their options.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the different stages of the sales journey – and some of the best collateral for each stage.

Sales and marketing collateral for the awareness stage

During the awareness stage, prospective customers are aware that they have a challenge (or multiple challenges), and they’ve started to look for solutions to address it. B2B collateral is an important tool that helps ensure prospects become aware of your company and its solutions.

The purpose of collateral at this stage is to make your brand known – and demonstrate that your business is a thought leader. Some common types of collateral that resonate during the awareness stage include:

Blogs are a great way to demonstrate your thought leadership during the awareness phase.

Videos can convey key information in a format that’s easy to digest.

Enables prospects to see what’s new at your organization.

These are a great way to quickly convey a lot of information in an easy-to-digest format.

Regularly posting on key social media channels can increase prospects’ awareness of your brand.

Sales and marketing collateral for the consideration stage

During the consideration stage, prospects start weighing their options. They know about your organization and may have some knowledge about your products and services. But they’re not ready to sign on the dotted line just yet.

Collateral can help sellers build relationships and deliver value during the consideration phase with assets including:

These can be an effective way to present a large amount of information.

eBooks and guides are popular ways to add value during the consideration stage.

Conducting surveys – and then summarizing your findings in a research report – is a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

Webinars are an interactive way to share a variety of information and data with prospects.

At this stage, sellers should be sure to use B2B sales content that is industry-specific and speaks to the buyer’s specific challenges.

Sales and marketing collateral for the decision-making stage

At this stage, prospects are getting ready to buy. They’re likely considering your business – as well as a few competitors. The right collateral can build their confidence about your solution being the best option. Collateral that’s effective during the decision-making stage includes:

You can put together fact sheets to concisely convey key product information.

Tells the story of how a company has leveraged your solution to solve their challenges.

These customer quotes give prospects an idea of what it’s like to work with your company.

Provides prospects with concise feedback from your current customers.

Tools like ROI calculators can help prospects understand what they can expect from investing in your products or services.

Demos enable buyers to see your solution in action.

Sales and marketing collateral for retention stage

After you’ve closed a deal, the goal is to keep that customer around long-term. After all, retaining an existing customer is a whole lot easier (and less expensive) than acquiring a new one.

This can be a great way to share best practices to ensure customers are getting the most value from your solution.

Let customers know what’s new with your product and how it benefits them.

Newsletters are a great way to share what’s new at your company. They can also include links to other resources that’ll build customers’ knowledge and ensure they’re getting the most from your solutions.

You can engage customers by sending automated emails when they complete certain activities.

How do you create sales collateral for your business?

The right sales collateral can help you grow revenue. But creating collateral for the sake of creating collateral isn’t effective. After all, research suggests that up to 70% of B2B sales collateral sits unused.

Asking key questions for sales content development

It’s important to create collateral that resonates with buyers throughout the purchase journey – and is proven to move deals forward. It’s also imperative to ensure sellers know where to find the collateral they need – as well as how to use it.

So, how can you start creating more effective collateral for your team? The first, foundational step is to answer these five questions:

Question #1: Who is your customer?

Before developing any type of asset, you must have a clear understanding of who you are talking to. Today, many sales organizations develop buyer personas. Buyer personas are detailed descriptions of fictitious prospects who are a good fit for your organization’s products or services.

Question #2: What are your customers’ pain points?

Generic B2B sales content isn’t effective. Instead, it must speak to a customer’s specific pain points.

When developing your buyer personas, it’s important to understand their challenges. That way, you can develop sales content that specifically addresses those pain points.

Question #3: How can prospects trust your solution?

To close deals, you must articulate why your solution is the best option for solving your customers’ challenges.

Of course, it’s important to establish your brand messaging. However, incorporating the voices of your existing customers into your sales content can be a powerful way to earn prospects’ trust.

A recent Gartner study found that “third-party interactions, such as reading customer references or reviews and consulting directly with third-party experts, are better suited to provide customers with value affirmation.”

Question #4: What types of content will help in the buyer journey?

You know who your customers are and you understand their pain points. You also understand how your solution is ideal to address those pain points. Next, you have to determine what types of content are right for delivering your message throughout the purchase journey.

There’s no right answer here. As we discussed earlier, different types of sales collateral resonate with buyers at different points in the purchase journey. It’s important to determine the right mix of sales assets, measure regularly, and optimize accordingly.

Question #5: How can you retain your existing customers?

Often, sales content is focused on acquiring new customers. However, it’s also important to develop collateral that aids in customer retention.

It’s important to ask yourself what you need to keep your customers around long-term. Then, develop the right content to engage them.

You can use the answers to these key questions to develop the right sales collateral.

Streamlining  management

You’ve answered the key questions above and used the answers to develop sales collateral. What now?

It’s important to ensure your sellers know how to find and use your newly created sales content.

At some sales organizations, collateral is stored in multiple repositories or distributed by email. This makes it difficult for sellers to find the sales assets they need in a specific situation. In addition, it’s common for sellers to use outdated content.

A best practice is to store and organize your sales collateral in a single platform. Many revenue enablement solutions include content management functionality so you can store all content in one place. That way, sales reps can easily find the best content for any selling scenario.

In addition, sales enablement teams must provide training to ensure sellers know when and how to use the sales collateral that’s available to them.

Measuring and optimizing 

Sometimes, organizations develop a piece of sales collateral, upload it to a repository, and then never think about it again. This isn’t an effective approach.

Instead, it’s important to consistently measure usage of sales collateral. In other words, how often are sellers using a specific piece of sales collateral? And how are buyers engaging with it?

It’s also important to measure how (or whether) sales collateral is impacting sales outcomes. That way, you can understand which collateral has the biggest impact – and focus your efforts on those assets.

Increase the impact of your sales collateral with Mindtickle

Sales collateral – when it’s done well – can be a powerful tool for engaging buyers throughout the sales cycle. When sales reps are able to engage a buyer, they’re more likely to close a deal.

But generic collateral won’t cut it. Instead, organizations must equip sellers with content that resonates with buyers and is proven to improve sales outcomes. In addition, organizations must ensure this sales content is easy to find and that sales reps know how to use it.

Mindtickle’s revenue productivity platform incorporates sales content management, which enables organizations to centralize their collateral. That means sales reps can easily find the right sales content for any selling scenario. In addition, sales leadership can easily measure how collateral is being used and whether it’s improving sales outcomes.

Of course, it’s important to ensure sellers know how to use sales collateral. Mindtickle also enables organizations to deliver sales training and sales enablement to ensure sellers know how and when to use the sales assets that are available to them.

Sales Content Management in Mindtickle

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How Digital Sales Rooms Help Reps Win More Deals

Christian Pieper on January 25, 2024

On average, there are 27 interactions in the buyer journey before a decision is reached. These interactions range from phone conversations to email chains to instant messaging. Each step is an instance where information can be misplaced or forgotten, and sales momentum lost.

# of interactions in the buyer journey before a decision is made
0

The good news is that this type of back-and-forth communication can be replaced with a digital sales room — a single and permanent location for potential buyers to find all your sales information instantly.

Digital sales rooms (DSRs) give prospects a personalized buying journey with content that is tailored to their business needs and goals. As well, they help sales reps understand which content leads to closed deals and improved close rates.

What you’ll learn:

  • How digital sales rooms streamline the buying journey
  • Why empowering buyers can improve your close rates
  • How to create compelling buying experiences using DSRs

What are digital sales rooms and how do they work?

Digital sales rooms work through a client-seller portal. Here, sales reps create a DSR or virtual sales platform, which essentially serves as a resource and storage location for all the content a buyer needs to make an informed purchase decision.

Similar to a showroom, digital sales rooms are created specifically for each customer, where they can view product demos, have their questions answered, and keep track of all the conversations and information they have with your reps. Depending on the needs of the buyer, content can include product proposals, testimonies, order forms, or service proposals. Once the portal is created, buyers are given access through a unique link.

Digital sales rooms are also connected to sales enablement platforms. This is an added benefit for sales reps, as they can gather insights on how prospects interact with content and where further content needs to be included for future negotiations.

Asset-Hub-DSR

Digital sales rooms empower your buyers

Digital sales rooms improve close rates by empowering buyers with all the information they need to confidently finalize a purchase. Thanks to the personalized sales cycles and customized content management DSRs offer, Gartner predicts that by 2026, 30% of B2B sales cycles will be managed through their use.

Digital sales rooms improve the digital sales experience by:

  • Offering a platform to answer any questions or concerns with instant two-way communication
  • Improving engagement with customers through an interactive portal
  • Improving understanding of buyer behavior and the buyer journey by capturing data on client interactions and patterns
  • Providing access to the newest product features and offerings
  • Building relationships, providing content to address questions, and helping clients feel supported and valued
Amount of time during the sales cycle spent with a rep
0 %

These days, only 17% of the B2B buying cycle is spent with a sales rep. With digital sales rooms, buyers can drive the sales cycle but the content they interact with is still controlled and delivered by sellers.

How to create compelling custom buying experiences using DSRs

If you’re thinking about introducing a DSR into your selling process, follow these tips to close more deals.

Personalize the digital sales room experience to your buyer

Your digital sales room should help your prospect through their buyer journey, aiding in their research without overwhelming them with irrelevant content.

Upload content that is meaningful and relevant to your buyer. For example, if your prospect is at the start of their journey, they’ll be interested in content that explains product features and articles on comparisons with competitors. However, if they’re closer to signing off on the purchase, content for next steps, like payment options and implementation processes, will be more relevant.

To know which content to include, ask yourself:

  • What are your prospects searching for on the internet?
  • At what stage are they in their buyer journey?
  • What solutions does your product provide for their business?
  • What roadblocks are preventing them from buying?
  • Do they need to share this content with other stakeholders?

To drive high buyer engagement, Include content that has already proved itself based on data from your sales enablement platform or past experience.

Where possible, personalize the content to include the prospect’s name, position, and company. So content is being received in the most persuasive way possible, you can even use terminology that is specific to their industry.

Have support accessible at all times

If your buyer doesn’t find the information they need immediately, you risk them getting frustrated and looking for answers elsewhere, potentially with a competitor.

In your digital sales room, it’s a good practice to include a support channel that is accessible at all times. Or, have an in-room chat option to ask and answer any buyer questions in a centralized platform where no information will be lost.

Make your content unique with purposeful interaction

Your content needs to meet your buyer at their stage of the journey. Answer the questions they have at that stage and guide them through the digital sales experience to the next. But that certainly doesn’t mean that your content should be monotonous.

On the contrary, your potential buyers should feel curious to learn about your product through content that is interactive and engaging.

You want prospects to remember your content, and that means forgoing long Word documents and instead leaning into videos, infographics, product demos, slide shows, and fun visual documents.

Always make the next steps clear

Guide the buyer down the sales funnel with clear next steps and actions. Not only does this direct prospects to the final closure, but it also gives insight into prospective roadblocks in the process and indicates where content is missing. Some things to keep in mind:

  • Create and embed customized CTAs into each content piece to drive the buyer through their learning journey.
  • Create a checklist or an action plan built from past successful seller experiences outlining what the next steps or content to consume should be.

With clear next steps, you make sure that the buyer is staying on track and making progress toward their final purchase.

Keep the content on brand to elevate purchase desire

You want buyers to feel the brand throughout the buying process so that they establish a connection with your product. Here are things to keep in mind:

  • Deliver your brand’s value and purpose to your buyer with every content interaction
  • Customize your digital sales rooms to reinforce the look and feel of your company
  • Position your content as an enhancement of your business values and tone

By keeping your content on brand, you avoid creating false expectations. Instead, your content clearly communicates the benefits and objectives the product can fulfill.

Include a product demo

Product demos give users an opportunity to see firsthand the benefits your product or service can provide.

Access to demos helps prospects fully understand the features and product capabilities as well as allowing them to imagine the time they can save and the problems they can solve by using your product.

With demos available, sellers can directly question the prospect’s particular needs and show them how to solve their problems.

Your DSR is only as good as your sales content

When you’ve got a great potential buyer visiting your digital sales room, the real driver is the content you provide.

Use insights from past sales processes to deliver the most impactful content to your buyers at each stage of the buyer journey. This will enhance the buyer experience and simplify the selling process. The sales materials should educate the buyer without hard selling the product or service. The idea is to help the buyer become empowered in their purchase decision.

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This post was originally published in October 2022, was updated in August 2023, and again in January 2024. 

Sirion: Modernizing and Accelerating Sales with Digital Sales Rooms

Christian Pieper on December 11, 2023

Sirion, a global leader in enterprise Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM) software, is demonstrating how proper alignment between revenue and enablement leaders, in combination with the right technology, can unlock new opportunities for deal acceleration and revenue growth.

In a case study session at Gartner’s 2023 CSO and Sales Leader Conference in Las Vegas, Gordon Thompson, Sirion’s EVP of Presales and Business Strategy, and Nick Salas, Senior. Director of Global Enablement, discussed how arming their team with Digital Sales Rooms, powered by Mindtickle, is transforming how their team sells and how their buyers engage with their offerings.

Aligning to the buyer journey

According to Gartner, 64% of buyers see no differentiation in vendor digital experiences.** But Sirion wasn’t going to settle for blending in with the crowd.

Sirion decided to add Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms (DSRs) to their revenue tech stack because they saw the promise of how these persistent, collaborative spaces could help buyers and sellers align around the goals, needs, and tasks of their customers’ buying journey.

“We wanted to stand out from the crowd by providing more self-service information and more engaging experiences for our buyers and Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms have helped us do exactly that.”
Gordon Thompson headshot
Gordon Thompson
EVP, Pre-Sales and Business Strategy

Their buying groups are commonly quite large, sophisticated, and detail-driven, and Sirion’s revenue and enablement leaders hoped that DSRs would help their buyers navigate the sometimes complicated evaluation process.

Sirion buying groups

Digital Sales Rooms

  • Large groups of evaluators
  • Sophisticated and experienced
  • Careful and detail-driven
  • Many steps and milestones
  • Unlimited collaborators
  • Engaging content experiences
  • Granular engagement tracking
  • Mutual action plans & task management

Earning seller buy-in and adoption

In part because they recognized the potential of DSR tech to transform the relationship between their sellers and buyers, they were planning to invest significantly in helping their sales team understand how to leverage this new capability. However, Sirion was pleasantly surprised at the speed with which their sellers and buyers took to this new collaborative model.

"Within three months of launching Digital Sales Rooms, we were seeing rooms being built for over 50% of new opportunities, and our sellers were letting us know how easy they were to use and how much they were helping."
Nick Salas headshot
Nick Salas
Sr. Dir. Global Enablement, Sirion

Accelerating complex deals

Gordon and Nick shared a powerful example of the impact Digital Sales Rooms have on deals at Sirion.

The Buyer

Digital Sales Rooms results

  • Fortune 100 tech company
  • Large, undefined buying group
  • Stakeholders from various business units and departments
  • Visited by over 100 participants of the buyer group
  • Earned over 1000 hours of self-service engagement with Sirion content

After Sirion’s reps closed this critical deal, the buying group reached out to comment on their experience with the Digital Sales Room specifically.

"They came to us asking us what tech we were using for the deal room because they saw how much easier it made it for them to navigate their own buying process. We told them to talk to Mindtickle."
Nick Salas headshot
Nick Salas
Sr. Dir. Global Enablement

See DSRs in action

Learn more about how Mindtickle’s Digital Sales Rooms can help you transform your buyer experience and accelerate your most critical deals.

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**Gartner, 4 Steps for CSOs to Improve the Digital Buying Experience, 22 September 2022. GARTNER is a registered trademark and service mark of Gartner, Inc. and/or its affiliates in the U.S. and internationally and is used herein with permission. All rights reserved.**

Mindtickle Named a Leader in The Forrester Wave(™): Sales Readiness Solutions, Q4 2023

Christian Pieper on October 4, 2023

Earlier today, Forrester, one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world, released its 2023 Wave for Sales Readiness, evaluating the 11 most significant sales readiness solutions providers. Mindtickle was named a leader in the Sales Readiness Solutions, Q4 2023 Wave, with the top score in the Strategy category.

About the Forrester Wave(™): Sales Readiness Solutions, Q4 2023

Forrester releases Wave reports on a variety of technology categories that are considered essential guides for organizations that are evaluating and purchasing technology. The Forrester Wave reports contain a graphical representation of Forrester’s call on a market and is plotted using a detailed spreadsheet with exposed scores, weightings, and comments.

For the 2023 Sales Readiness Wave, Forrester evaluated the 11 most significant sales readiness solution providers. Sales readiness vendors, as defined by Forrester, deliver “advanced capabilities and integrations that empower enablement teams to correlate sales results data with learning program information to determine which efforts have a real business impact”.

“Mindtickle offers superior end-user experience, coaching support, and analytics.”
Forrester green logo
Forrester Research
Forrester Wave(™): Sales Readiness Solutions, Q4 2023

 

Results of the Wave

Mindtickle was named a leader in the Sales Readiness Wave. According to the report, “Mindtickle has a robust feature set that exceeds expectations in standard readiness functionality and adds unique functionality that provides best-in-class visibility to measure the effectiveness of seller learning programs.”

Mindtickle’s road to a Sales Readiness Wave leader

As cited by the report, “Mindtickle has been in the sales readiness space since 2011 and has built a reputation for providing a strong sales readiness platform with customers’ continuous innovation. It has recently added sales content management capabilities and DSR functionality to augment its readiness platform, and has dedicated significant resources to achieving parity within the sales content market.”

Mindtickle has been delivering readiness solutions to leading organizations for over a decade and has invested heavily in adding key capabilities to the platform arming enablement and operations leaders with the ability to transform the performance of their go-to-market teams.

In recent years, Mindtickle has launched conversation intelligence and content management in the platform, completely revamped its coaching offerings, acquired the leading Digital Sales Rooms provider, and introduced a suite of generative AI capabilities.

As part of the Readiness Wave, Forrester also evaluates vendors’ innovation, strategy, and roadmap. Mindtickle achieved the highest scores in the Strategy category, noting, “The company will have to execute on its broad roadmap, but it has a long history of meeting development goals.”

If you want to learn more about how Mindtickle can elevate readiness and enablement at your organization, reach out for a tailored demo and discussion with our readiness experts today.

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7 Takeaways from the 2023 Forrester B2B Summit

Christian Pieper on June 15, 2023

Last week’s Forrester B2B Summit in Austin, Texas brought together revenue leaders, Forrester analysts, and rev-tech vendors to share their insights and strategies for revenue excellence. From discussions on sales competencies to aligning sales and marketing, the sessions offered valuable takeaways for businesses looking to thrive in the dynamic B2B landscape.

In this blog post, we’ll share key highlights and actionable tips from the sessions we attended and led as well as conversations we had throughout the event. You can also check out a mini photo gallery of some of our team at the event. 

This post is for anyone who didn’t attend the Summit and wants to know our biggest learnings or for those who joined us in Austin and need a recap to reference as you start thinking about how to bring these learnings to your own revenue organization. 

The booth troop!

Packed house

80s theme night

Another great session

One of the essential ingredients for sales success is having a clear understanding of your sales competencies. Before seeking a vendor or investing in tools, it’s crucial to evaluate and define your sales capabilities. By identifying your strengths, weaknesses, and areas for improvement, you can make informed decisions that align with your specific needs.

Measuring the success of your revenue enablement programs can be challenging, especially as they evolve over time. While initial indicators like adoption or consumption can be helpful, it’s essential to go beyond surface-level metrics. Gathering feedback on program quality and data on actual impact can provide valuable insights for continuous improvement. Measure how your programs are impacting field behaviors and how those behaviors are contributing to core revenue outcomes.

Revenue leaders and managers recognize the value of training coaches to be effective mentors. However, finding the time for sales coaching is often a challenge. To maximize impact, it’s crucial to prioritize coaching and invest in the development of your sales coaches. By equipping them with the necessary skills and tools, you empower them to guide and support your revenue generators effectively.

Forrester’s Phyllis Davidson and Peter Ostrow taught us how to avoid “sales content purgatory,” where reps have access to tons of content but can’t find what they need or figure out how to use it. This aligns with what we found in our 2023 State of Sales Productivity Report. The vast majority of content engagement comes from a small percentage of the content to which reps have access. To stay out of “purgatory” focus on quality over quantity. Prioritize high-value content and make derivatives of that content that apply to specific audiences, personas, and selling scenarios.

Continuing the motif of “quality over quantity,” Forrester’s Amy Bills and Jennifer Bullock applied this to the creation of customer case studies. Instead of producing a case study with every available customer, focus on creating a few high-quality stories that address common customer questions and concerns. Furthermore, involving the sales organization in the creation process ensures that case studies align with their specific sales motions. Remember, having case studies alone isn’t the solution; enabling sellers to effectively utilize them is key.

In a standing-room-only session, Kathleen Pierce proposed a shift toward mapping content to buyer questions as an effective structure for sales content. By aligning content with specific buyer questions, it becomes easier for reps to search for and find relevant content for the selling situations they encounter. It also maximizes content’s impact on buyer decisions. Work with your field teams to understand key questions and friction points, and implement a question-answer framework within your sales content management system.

Pierce and Anne Slough explored the challenges and potential of Digital Sales Rooms. While DSRs have promising benefits, widespread adoption struggles remain. Mutual action plans, real-time insights, and buyer collaboration are key value drivers for DSRs. Sales leaders should assign DSRs to solve problems such as substandard buying experiences, inefficient sales processes, and longer buying cycles. Communication of GDPR compliance and mapping DSRs to selling and buying processes are crucial for success.

Making these learnings a reality at your selling org

The Forrester B2B Summit delivered valuable insights and actionable strategies for businesses aiming to enhance their sales performance. Keep these takeaways in mind as you’re building out your revenue productivity strategy for the rest of the year.  

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Video: 3 Tips for Optimizing Your Tech Stack

Christian Pieper on February 22, 2023

In this video, Christian Pieper, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Mindtickle, talks about your tech stack and how to make it a finely tuned machine. He outlines how organizations should approach optimizing their tech stack by building its strength rather than simply trimming it down for the sake of it. Christian then shares why it’s important to carefully consider how each tool works with one another, prioritizing solutions, and ensuring each tool fits into sellers’ current workflows.

Key highlights

  • Make the right cuts but don’t sacrifice too much. Everyone is under pressure to get the most out of their tech investments and for many, that means making significant cuts. However, sales productivity tools don’t end up on the cutting room floor just for the sake of shedding tools.
  • Keep them connected. Point solutions do some things very well, but they are often in isolation. Ensure your tools are integrated and working in cohesion with one another, otherwise, you’ll struggle to get the adoption, usage, and results you want.
  • Don’t disrupt seller workflows. Look at where sellers currently spend their time. Whether it’s Salesforce, email, or another engagement tool, make sure the tools are meeting sellers where they are and helping push deals forward.

In case you’d like to read these tips rather than watch the video, we’ve included the transcription below.

Video transcription

Hello, I’m Christian and I’m with the Product Marketing team at Mindtickle. I’m here to share with you three essential insights for optimizing your sales tech stack, right? This is a big priority for lots of organizations, probably for yours. We wanna make sure that you get the results that you’re looking for.

So number one, don’t just slim your tech stack, tone it. We hear this all the time: “We need to trim our tech stack. Make it smaller and simpler so we have less friction for our sellers.” And that’s super important. But think about it this way. You could take all the tech away and give them the simplest solution, but it wouldn’t get the outcomes that you’re looking for.

Make sure you aren’t sacrificing important capabilities in the process of simplifying your tech offering for your, for your sellers, right? Think about it from a fitness perspective. Yes, you want to trim. I know I do, but you also want to build strength or you’re not going to get the health outcomes that you’re looking for. You’re just gonna become small, weak, and shriveled, and we do not want that for your tech stack.

Number two, continuing with the anatomy metaphor. Look for solutions that have connective tissue. It doesn’t matter how strong a muscle is, right? If it’s not connected to other muscles and muscle groups by tendons and ligaments, you won’t be able to do anything with that.

It’s the same thing for your tech stack. You can look for point solutions, things that do one thing really well, but if they’re isolated, if they don’t share data and information and functionality and workflows with the rest of your solutions, then you just have really strong things working in isolation, and you’re going to struggle to get the results that you want for your sellers.

In fact, in the most recent, now, tech on sales enablement and automation, Forrester recommends a litmus test for point, solutions: Do they integrate seamlessly with everything else you’re using? If not, you might be better off looking for solutions that integrate better or are part of a native platform of comprehensive readiness tools. Otherwise, you may end up with something much less than a best-in-breed approach. Solutions that may work well on their own, but don’t cooperate to get the outcomes you want.

Number three, prioritize just-in-time solutions delivered in the natural flow of work. You need to understand how your sellers are behaving because while you can change it over time and you should try to optimize their behavior, you’ll get better results quicker from your tech investment if you find solutions that meet them where they are now and expand the efficacy of their natural sales motions, right?

So where are they spending their time? In the CRM? In engagement platforms? In enablement tools? In sales, content management libraries? Where are they spending their time now? And how can you find additional solutions that expand the value in their access to the information that they need within that natural flow?

So as you’re bringing something on, ask yourself: does this meet our sellers where they’re working? Does this integrate with email? Does it integrate with the CRM in the way that we need it to? If you focus on that, then you’re going to be giving sellers the power that they need, right when they need it, right where they are to drive real deals forward in the field.

And that’s really what you want. Those are our three tips for optimizing your sales tech stack, and I hope they help you out on your readiness journey.

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