B2B buyer expectations are higher than ever, and how they want to interact with sellers is changing.
Enablement teams are under pressure to ensure sellers are always ready to deliver outstanding experiences and provide value throughout the sales cycle.
Alkami Technologies, a digital baking solutions provider for financial institutions in the U.S., understands these challenges well. The team at Alkami had built a large repository of content for sellers to use throughout the sales cycle. However sellers struggled to leverage this content to engage buyers effectively. That all changed when they started using digital sales rooms.
At this year’s Sales Enablement Summit in Austin, Stephanie Massey, Senior Sales Enablement Manager at Alkami Technology, joined Teri Long, VP of Revenue Enablement at Mindtickle, to discuss how Alkami has leveraged Digital Sales Rooms from Mindtickle to deliver personalized, engaging experiences that enable sellers to close more deals.
Connecting with buyers – digitally
Alkami invests significant time and resources into developing content for sellers to use in any sales scenario. But they didn’t want sellers spending their time hunting down the right content. “We needed a place for sellers to have access and discoverability into all of that content,” said Massey. “Mindtickle provided that.”
Alkami’s sales teams have the content they need to engage with buyers. But today, many buyers don’t want to engage with sellers. In fact, according to the Gartner B2B Marketing Report, 75% of B2B buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience.
According to Gartner Research,
Today, Alkami uses digital sales rooms to meet their customers where they are. Digital sales rooms enable buyers to share the right sales content at the right time and engage with sellers throughout the sales cycle – without needing in-person visits.
Delivering personalized, on-brand experiences
The team at Alkami understood the need to transition to digital experiences. However, they also knew one-size-fits-all experiences wouldn’t cut it. Digital experiences need to be personalized to each customer and reflect the branding and culture of both the buying and selling organizations.
Digital sales rooms from Mindtickle enable the Alkami team to easily develop and deliver tailored digital experiences that resonate with each buyer. Alkami provides sellers with pre-built templates focused on specific industries or challenges. Sellers can then customize those templates with the company’s branding.
Of course, digital sales rooms aren’t static. Instead, they evolve throughout the sales cycle as sales reps better understand a prospect’s needs and challenges. For example, reps can look for buying signals, find key, relevant content, and then add and share that content with prospects through the digital sales room.
These personalized experiences go a long way for Alkami’s sales team. “Our sellers need to build relationships with buyers,” Massey explained. “We have massive deals, and some can span across two years. It’s such a long journey, and buyers really value that personalization and feeling like reps are really speaking to their unique needs.”
Engaging large buying committees
It’s no secret that the number of people involved in a B2B purchase decision is growing. Recent research shows that every deal has between 11 and 22 unique decision-makers.
Alkami has seen even larger buying committees, with 20 to 26 unique digital sales room visitors for every deal. With deals this complex, it can be challenging to manage content and communication effectively. Massey says it’s easy for things to get “lost in a sea of emails.”
Digital sales rooms provide Alkami sales reps with a centralized location for managing content and interactions across the buying committee. “With digital sales rooms, teams can not only see content, but also engage with each other,” said Massey. “Everything is centralized so you’re not having to sort through all the clutter.”
In addition, digital sales rooms provide insights into how prospects are engaging. Sellers can use these insights to determine the best way to follow up to move deals forward.
Increasing buy-in and seller adoption
Change is hard for everyone. The team at Alkami knew they’d have to have a plan in place to gain buy-in and adoption of digital sales rooms. Simply telling sellers to start using digital sales rooms “because I said so” wouldn’t be an effective approach.
Instead, the enablement team worked to understand the pain points of sellers – specifically related to finding and sharing content and collaborating with large buying committees. Then, they focused on conveying how Mindtickle’s digital sales rooms would help sellers overcome these challenges to close more deals.
Alkami’s Chief Revenue Officer was a big champion of this initiative, which was key to gaining seller buy-in. “We’re a digital-first company. We need a digital-first experience for our prospects,” said Massey.
Massey’s team knew a one-off training wouldn’t be enough to get the entire sales team on board and ready to use digital sales rooms. After all, 70% of what reps learn is lost within the first 24 hours. Furthermore, the team recognizes that sellers all learn differently. That’s why the team created various learning and reinforcement formats to get sellers up to speed.
Alkami has also tapped into the power of recognition and friendly competition to increase adoption. The enablement team recognizes top performers in their bi-weekly digest and during all-hands meetings. “We share how many rooms they’ve created and how many room visitors they’ve had,” said Massey. “Now that they know how to use the digital sales rooms, the key is to make sure they keep caring.”
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