WHY SALES VPS ARE TURNING TO DIGITAL

LISTENING TO ACCELERATE SALES

A White Paper, by LiveHive

All the cool VP’s are doing it.

THIS IS THE ERA OF DIGITAL LISTENINGIn today’s online and social world, the power has shifted from seller to buyer. Only 47% of information used during a customer’s purchase decision comes from the supplier. There’s a vast wealth of knowledge and data that’s often just a couple clicks away – from websites and social networking platforms to mobile applications. With the ability to educate themselves about products or services before engaging with sales, consumers wield more power than ever in the selling process.

This decline in face-to-face selling has led to a rise in screen-to-screen interaction. For sales reps, there’s now a need to not only communicate through digital content, but also to understand the impact of the materials they share. It’s a new era, and successful sales reps require new tools to keep up with it.

Sales organizations, therefore, must find new methods to determine how much a prospect knows, how interested or engaged they are, and where they are in the buying process. And all of it must happen in real-time. If businesses can’t find a way to recognize these buying signals and adapt their selling processes accordingly, they risk losing their competitive edge and becoming obsolete.

WHAT CUSTOMER BEHAVIORS TELL YOUThis new layer of complexity in today’s sales cycle also presents an incredible opportunity. In the same way that consumers can discover more about potential products and services, so, too, can sales reps dive deeper into understanding customer behaviors and interactions. Access to data has become a two-way street.

With emerging real-time sales analytics, sales representatives now have more visibility than ever to understand a prospect’s specific needs and interests, and to engage with them more effectively. To improve their sales timing, organizations are already leveraging dynamic digital listening to:

• Capture a prospect’s every engagement with any sales content – not just email• See exactly how much time prospect’s spend on each page of a document – even after download• Leverage engagement analytics that reveal a prospect’s true interest level • Receive profile information for recipients of forwarded emails or content

Digital listening at this kind of depth helps reps piece together a customer context that shows what a customer already knows or wants to know, in real-time. By seeing how many times a prospect opens and views an email or document, a salesperson can measure how engaged a prospect is, and where they are in the process of making a purchase. With page-by-page engagement metrics, reps can spotparticular points of interest. And by seeing the profile information for a recipient of a forwarded email or document, a salesperson can quickly identify the key decision makers involved in the process.

A White Paper, by LiveHive

This ‘insight-selling’ approach combined with advanced sales engagement tools provides sales teams with instant and actionable intelligence. Now reps can reach out to the right prospects, at their precise moment of interest, with a message that is truly unique and personalized.

GETTING TO ‘NO’ IS AS IMPORTANT AS GETTING TO ‘YES’One thing every sales engagement tool has in common is efficiency. Advanced sales engagement solutions can automatically rank top prospects according to the level and frequency of engagement. With deeper insights into prospect behaviors, salespeople can now focus their attention where it matters most. By quickly determining whether a buyer is qualified or unqualified, planning to move forward in the process or has hit a wall, reps can direct their sales efforts at only the most engaged prospects.

Conversely, by quickly spotting the prospects that aren’t engaged, salespeople also eliminate wasted time spent chasing nonviable prospects. Getting to a ‘no’ is just as important as getting to a ‘yes’ in a fast-paced sales environment.

TRACKING DIGITAL CONTENT INTERACTIONS PRODUCES FASTER SALES CYCLESSales reps who respond to prospects within 30 minutes of an email or document being viewed increase their chance of doing business with that prospect up to 50%. By capturing views, opens

A White Paper, by LiveHive

and downloads in real-time, sales acceleration technologies have become crucial to creating a faster sales cycle, from start to finish. This benefit is more comprehensive sales prospecting, and the ability to identify and solve customer problems more quickly.

Using tools that capture real-time sales insights, reps can instantly see whether a prospect is opening their emails right away or after a certain amount of time. They can instantly see if, and when, a prospect is opening the attachments they are sending. And if a prospect forwards any piece of digital content, reps can instantly identify to whom and receive their contact information, helping them target decision-makers in the buying process.

THE TAKEAWAY: EVERY SALES REP SHOULD OWN A SET OF POWER TOOLSLiveHive is the most comprehensive sales engagement platform in the industry, offering sales reps unrivaled tools for capturing deeply insightful sales analytics. Using this power toolkit, sales reps can close more deals, faster and more cost-effectively.

A White Paper, by LiveHive

WITH LIVEHIVE YOU CAN...

DISCOVER TOP PROSPECTS FASTER

LiveHive informs sales reps of which prospects are most engaged with their digital content by sending instant alerts to their Gmail or Outlook inboxes. Reps will receive Top Prospect Ranking Lists whenever there’s a significant change in engagement levels, which eliminates time wasted on unqualified leads and helps prioritize their sales efforts.

This combination of in-depth insights, delivered at unprecedented speeds, makes for a competitive edge that’s hard to beat.

PINPOINT CUSTOMER PROBLEMS AND POINTS OF INTEREST

With LiveHive, sales reps receive analytics on every interaction with their digital content from the moment they hit send. They can see exactly when a document was viewed or opened, from where, and even after download, can see how much time a prospect spent on each page of a proposal. This helps reps pinpoint their prospect’s interests, and the problems they’re trying to solve, providing the insights needed to create personalized, deal-closing follow-ups.

Sales reps will also receive the location and contact information for anyone who gets forwarded theirproposal. This can help track where a prospect is in the buying process. If a proposal starts to moveup the ladder, and lands on the desk of a big-time decision-maker, reps will know when, and who to contact, to close the deal.

IDENTIFY NEW INFLUENCERS AND DECISION-MAKERS

A White Paper, by LiveHive

CREATE A SEAMLESS FLOW OF INSIGHTS AND INFORMATION

Sales acceleration tools shouldn’t add work to a sales rep’s day-to-day. Manual data-entry, switching between systems – these things are part of the past. LiveHive works within a sales rep’s existing everyday work tools, including email, CRM and cloud storage. Reps can track engagement right from Gmail or Outlook, attach any kind of document from multiple cloud storage spaces, and access every engagement metric through Salesforce with auto-synced analytics. Even Salesforce email templates are accessible right from your inbox.

DO EVERYTHING FROM YOUR MOBILE DEVICE

Salespeople must have the ability to capture opportunities from anywhere, at anytime. This requires a mobile experience that’s easy to digest and just as powerful as a desktop. LiveHive’s mobile platform allows reps to present sales proposals right from their smartphones and tablets, email any kind of document without having to upload, and receive every engagement analytic in real-time.

The name of the game hasn’t changed. But the path to get to a sale has – and there’s no going back. Salespeople need to climb aboard the digital freight train now, and equip themselves with the latest sales tools the industry has to offer. It may be their only chance to adapt before they become out-dated. To learn more about LiveHive, visit livehive.com

CONCLUSION