It's 2021. We're living in an ever-connected digital world where detailed information on prospects is increasingly easy to access.
It's no longer a trend to deliver a personalized, relevant experience to prospects and clients - it's very much expected.
You probably haven't missed the hype around Sales Intelligence. The aggregation of customer and sales data has been necessary for sales teams to deliver these personalized experiences, and demonstrating knowledge in your interactions with prospects can increase your chances of winning a deal.
On its own, Sales Intelligence gives you visibility over the "what" and the "who", but beyond that, you're left to your own devices to make sense of mountains of data.
The data is great, but it takes time to comb through it all. In addition, humans are prone to bias. It's impossible to be completely objective when analyzing data mountains and often, takeaways are driven by opinion.
Yes, this intelligence helps sales teams prospect the right businesses and provides insights into your sales process. You can understand these buying signals, you can measure intent, but the data doesn't really tell you how to win a deal, or why you've won deals in the past.
Sure, it can help you identify the right people to talk to and provide you with some leverage over your competitors when you start the conversation, but what impact does it have on continually driving results?
Coupled with the fact that the majority of sales teams have gone remote - businesses are losing even more visibility than ever over performance. In a time of economic shock where driving consistent revenue is vital for every company, understanding the why and how has never been so critical.
Enter, Revenue Intelligence.
More recently, Revenue Intelligence has been a trend that companies have been exploring to help win deals. A study by Forrester found that "companies using revenue intelligence tools are more than twice as likely to significantly exceed revenue goals."
But understanding what it is and how you can ensure it has a positive impact on your business are two very different things.
In short, Revenue Intelligence is the "why" and "how" of your sales data that we were talking about. It's the single source of truth that shines a light on the reality of your sales performance. If you expect to survive and thrive in today's sales environment, managers need to learn how and why deals progress.
With Revenue Intelligence, sales leaders can empower organizations with comprehensive, transparent data that is driven by facts - not opinion.
The 3 Key Pillars to Revenue Intelligence
- Customer Intelligence
The process of collecting and analyzing data from customer conversations found from any source and turning them into actionable insight is customer intelligence.
With customer intelligence, we understand our customers better. We understand their needs and wants by listening to them. Not just physically listening to them, but really understanding what they’re saying.
It’s not just about looking at what was said. Context is important.
Revenue Intelligence flags key signals that may be important in the wider context of the buying decision. Mentioning next steps, handling objections and understanding decision-making criteria. These are the eureka moments that you can use as you move deals forward.
If you’re raising topics that prospects regularly bring up, you’re having relevant conversations. If you’re having relevant conversations, you’re helping to deliver a personalized experience throughout the sales process. This allows you to create a better customer experience.
Improved customer experience equals increased customer retention. This crucially increases conversion rates and growing financial success.
A study by Forbes finds “64% of companies rate customer experience as the best tactic for improving customer lifetime value.”
- Conversation Analytics
Conversation analytics is the process of understanding the wider context of conversations through data analysis.
In sales, it’s crucial to know what constitutes a strong conversation or a challenging conversation. You want to spend your time driving forward deals that are likely to convert, and taking deals that are unlikely to progress off your plate.
Revenue Intelligence allows you to cut through what was said. In a typical one-hour conversation, over 6,000 words are said. If you’re lucky, you’ll be able to recall a handful.
Conversation Analytics eradicates the need to spend time note-taking and allows you to build a rapport. The transcription of interactions provides a searchable record of every conversation.
This data puts conversations into categories that can be analyzed for insights. Grouping all calls where a prospect mentions a competitor or tracking “wow” moments, and understanding specific objections can now be done easily and reps can tailor these categories depending on specific requirements.
3. Team and Deal Insights
With Revenue Intelligence, you can quickly view deals that are at risk and your team can create a strategy to keep accounts moving.
Team Insights is a reporting suite on your teams, covering conversational activity, engagement statistics, themes and coaching areas. This highlights areas of strength within your organization as well as providing a useful framework showing areas where improvement is needed.
Deal Insights is a pipeline forecast showing which deals have which activity associated to them, and identifying any risks associated with a deal. Deal insights are a useful barometer for any sales team to identify the interactions that help progress deals and turn prospects into customers.
The benefits of revenue intelligence:
- Capture every interaction for full visibility
Records, transcribe and save all conversations. Understand where your sales efforts are being focused and where improvement is needed in an instant.
- Detailed analytics helps you understand the "why" and "how"
Uncovers trends across hundreds of conversations, something that it would be impossible for a human to do at scale. This can be done with customizable dashboards and automated reporting.
- Machine learning removes bias and reports reality
Meeting forecasts is critical for any sales leader to stay successful in the role. Even in this data-heavy environment, teams are too reliant on human input for assessing funnel quality. Revenue intelligence platforms like Jiminny help you leverage your existing data to prepare you for the boardroom. Of course, the top line is just the beginning. A strong Revenue Intelligence platform allows you to understand the reasoning behind your results. Machine learning can deliver a projection based on historical trends with likely ranges of outcomes for each.
- Instant analytics for fast-moving companies
Revenue intelligence becomes your single source of truth for your sales team. Gone are the days where you need to aggregate large quantities of data and empowers sales leaders to make data-driven decisions without wasting valuable time collecting the numbers.
- Automation improves productivity
Sales reps can now focus on tasks that are important, and less on data entry and reporting. Revenue intelligence platforms enable a two-way sync between your CRM and the platforms themselves. Our research shows that our clients' sales reps using Revenue Intelligence see an increase in meetings booked by over 50%.
- Data transcends sales to fuel growth for the whole organization
It's not just sales teams that can benefit from revenue intelligence. The voice of your customer, understanding their wants and needs and the triggers that led them to purchasing your product or service is incredibly valuable for marketing and customer success teams. This data can be easily shared between teams, encouraging collaboration and unifying your organization based on the reality of your customers' needs.
- Data-sharing creates a coaching culture
Understand what ‘successful’ is in your organization, share winning moments, and understand losses more deeply. If you want to grow your business you need to understand the reasons why it's performing a certain way in order to improve it. Revenue intelligence platforms help you understand the way your deals are won or lost; understand how it drives your growth and; how these factors impact sales over time. This data is transparent across the whole organization and allows people to see first-hand where they can make improvements without the need for micro-management.
Summary
In summary, Sales Intelligence is great at providing data. It’s helpful to know who your customers are and what’s happening. Revenue Intelligence goes one step further.
Knowing how and why you win or lose is the way you guarantee business success. Revenue Intelligence automates this process to help drive growth within your organization.
Join the other sales professionals today that are using Revenue Intelligence software to get transparency and accurate data that understands your customers better.
You can book a demo with one of our team here.
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