SalesTech, MarTech, and OurTech … aligning tools and talent for optimum sales success

Service industries pride themselves on the quality of their human capital. When a business’ currency is ￡human-being hours, there can be nothing more important than ensuring those hours are sales worthy. In a world of technological advancement though, there is a drive to reduce those human hours through the deployment of digital alternatives. After all, digital technology is what the service industry has been waiting for to enable them to complete activities more reliably, in less time, and at a lower cost, just like manufacturing before it. Right?

Yes, to a certain extent. The outsourcing/BPO sector has been in a race to develop strategies to leverage the benefits of technological advancement, whilst protecting their traditional revenue streams. Few have achieved an approach capable of giving them significant competitive edge, although some are standing out more than others. The ones making great-er leaps forward towards development of automation and the collective expertise in digitization of customer journeys are, quite rightly, making the most noise about their successes. Even so, the highly effective use of artificial intelligence remains limited in customer-facing environments and our people can set aside any fears that we replace their brains with machines….for now at least. However, whilst the ‘(wo)manchine’ may be a technological step too far for even the most progressive sales team today, there are real benefits to integrating the capabilities of our people with the latest advancements in tech solutions to optimise our customer service and sales successes and many already are.

If we accept that the use of complementary tools is where it’s at, it is advisable to develop our strategic plans to incorporate both human talent management objectives along with investment in technological tools that are closely aligned to our needs. For a human-being to conquer Everest, they must physically put one foot in front of the other until they summit. Even though the vast majority of us can put one foot in front of the other (some of us can even do so quite quickly!), our strategy of reaching the top will be more achievable if we find ‘talent’ that ticks other important boxes like fitness and experience. We can complement their physical attributes with technological tools that optimise their chance of success and minimize the risk of failure.

In the same way that we still need humans to conquer Everest, we will no doubt continue to need them to support the sales process of non-commodity goods and services for some considerable time yet. The only robots we see at durhamlane are sales celebrations ‘a-la-Crouch’! That said, we have long since recognized the benefit of complementary sales and marketing technologies to optimise the effectiveness of our people in creating demand, converting leads and closing sales. This blog aims to highlight the benefit of these technologies and how they can be adopted to support business growth.

Martech solutions are targeted to support lead generation through enhancing traffic to our brand and achieving high levels of penetration amongst our target audience. Martech is effectively a blend of traditional and contemporary marketing activities with technological tools which enhance the likelihood of success. They’re the crampons on the climber’s feet, giving him/her a strong foothold on the mountain. Salestech solutions improve organizational effectiveness, helping to share knowledge and enabling better connectivity. They are the rope between the climbers, helping one to support another while keeping both anchored to a fixed point.

Few businesses in the outsourcing sector are operating in an analog world anymore. To some extent, we are all utilising tools and technologies that enhance our business success already. Most of us have a CRM, are adopting social-selling as a component of our sales process, and our brands are benefitting from advances in SEO tactics. However, in the same way a climber must make sure the rope he chooses can hold his weight, businesses must make sure the rope is long enough to enable scalability and connectivity. Tying a knot to connect two ropes is always fraught with issues!  As with any investment, we should properly consider our problem statements before we buy a solution.

There is a world full of potential martech and salestech tools available (approximately 8000 according to chiefmartech.com) and their use isn’t restricted by borders or language or even IT infrastructure. Cost is no longer prohibitive and use cases are easily accessible and help to inform potential buyers of both the pros and cons of each product.  

Source: chiefmartec.com 

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In selecting the right tools for our businesses, we must start with our individual business needs, both current and future; and we must put our customers at the heart of our decisions. For example, if our customers rely heavily on the expertise and knowledge of our sales representatives and a key element of success relates to building trust between them; replacing the sales rep with a digital knowledgebase to enable customers to answer their own questions probably isn’t the right solution for long-term growth. Enhancing the sales process with a knowledgebase as an ‘added value’ tool though would demonstrate a progressive attitude and always-on and informative collateral.

Before jumping in and investing in one solution, we should also take time to ensure connected capabilities and uniform/streamlined reporting functionality. Martech and salestech solutions can focus too much on quantity, at the expense of quality; and, as above, can support productivity but at the risk of reducing personalization. There’s no doubt that marketing reach is far greater using tech solutions, but if our bellies aren’t big enough to eat all of the cakes we make, then we’ve wasted a lot of money on ingredients and soured an experience that should have been sweet! Reputation is everything. Before we focus too heavily on productivity and efficiency, we must test our ability to build trust and relationships with the connections we make. 

Tech is the answer, but every business must determine their own question. durhamlane has years of experience aligning martech and salestech solutions to optimise the sales cycle. Our Clients benefit from our talented people and the complementary sales stack we have invested heavily in to support them. We pride ourselves on being a true extension of our clients’ brands, living and breathing their core values and culture to enable us to drive their business growth.

We’d be delighted to show you exactly how we do this. For a personal demo, email me at [email protected]. Also, for all those forward thinking CRO’s & CCO’s out there, who are interested in sharing their success story, I would like to hear from you, as we are currently building our interviewee line up for the forthcoming series of ‘Tea with Lee’, drop me an email to find out more.