5 Signs You Need Sales Experience Analysis
Written by Jonnie Anderson, Marketing Manager at Primary Intelligence
In a recent study, 36% of buyers said that a losing vendor could’ve won the deal by making a change in during the buying process.
Most often, buyers described missteps in the sales experience as the reason for lost business – even above price or product features. However, according to a study by Gartner1, sellers will often blame their losses on pricing and feature issues, or claim it as an accident and credit their wins to their own heroics. This disconnect between why sellers think they lose and what really causes losses according to buyers – the sales experience – is where deals go wrong.
Sales experience analysis allows you to uncover weak spots in your sales process that only your buyers can see so that you can take actionable steps to repair, optimize, and perfect your sales experience from first touch to close.
But how do you know if you need sales experience analysis?
Here are 5 signs you need sales experience analysis:
- You’re not sure why you are winning.
While winning is always good, not understanding the full reasons why you win can lead to missed opportunities. If you don’t understand what you are doing well, it’s hard to train and replicate those positive practices into other teams or sales reps. Sales experience analysis helps you to understand what is working within your current sales process so that you can keep implementing those strategies and expand on them. These insights also give you the ability to better attribute wins and uncover the most direct path to winning more deals. - Your revenue is down.
As sales leaders, we want to see our MOM and YOY revenue reports climbing higher and higher, but unfortunately, this is not always a reality. If your revenue is down or keeps dipping unpredictably, sales experience analysis can help highlight sales team behaviors that are leading to losses or customer churn. Sales experience analysis gives you an unbiased view into why each rep is losing deals and helps you identify trends in losses specific to deal type, buyer persona, deal size, or product. It pinpoints where you are most likely to win and lose so that you can better predict pipeline and revenue and take steps to ensure that deals close. - You keep losing to specific competitors.
In an ever-changing market, it can be hard to know how to keep up with your competitors. It may seem like new competitors are popping up daily, and your sales reps are struggling with the confidence to speak against competitor claims. Sales reps often do not have the information or technical knowledge when it comes to competitors and may not be able to demonstrate the value of your solution strongly enough when your buyer is making a comparison. With sales experience analysis, you can get a first-hand view into how your buyers truly perceive your competitors and understand how to better demonstrate your value when buyers are considering competitors during sales calls. See rep-level insights when certain competitors are included in a buyer’s evaluation to see how an individual performs and identify opportunities for improvement. - Your sales reps are discouraged or unmotivated.
Sales is hard. Your reps get told “no” over and over, but have to keep persisting. It’s easy for reps to become discouraged or unmotivated when they keep losing. Luckily, sales experience analysis will give your reps the relevant insights they need to win more deals. Because these insights come directly from your buyers, they are invaluable and applicable to your front-line sales rep, and sales leaders and coaches can utilize it to personalize training and empower individuals. Businesses must win on the individual sales rep level in order to win as a company. It feels good to win more deals – and by giving your reps their specific formula to winning more through first hand buyer insights, you’ll eliminate discouragement and apathy. - It’s never your sales rep’s fault.
As we mentioned above, a sales rep seldom attributes losses to something within their control. Sales experience analysis allows you to discover the true impact the sales rep had on the deal outcome through first-hand buyer feedback. These insights can help you personalize coaching and help reps internalize feedback for increased win rates. When buyer feedback backs up coaching, your rep will be more likely to listen. Sales experience analysis eliminates the defensiveness felt by reps during sales training as all insights are directly applicable – from their specific buyers and their specific deals!
If any of these situations apply to your business, sales experience analysis can help. Your buyers will tell you what it takes to win more deals. Through sales experience analysis, you’ll know what things your reps can do to increase win rates and revenue.
For more information on sales experience analysis and how it can help takes the guesswork out of why you win and lose, schedule a call with our team.
