Low ROI on Sales Technologies

Annually, more than $5 billion is invested in sales technology start-ups. On average, sales organizations spend $4,797 a year per quota-carrying rep. That said, more and more money is spent each subsequent year on sales technologies and enablement, and it’s not likely to slow down anytime soon. Yet, despite this investment, few organizations feel that their CRM system and sales enablement technologies deliver on expectations.

In our work with hundreds of organizations, we find that the majority of the time, poor ROI on sales technologies is caused by failure to recognize three key points:

• CRM (and technology overall) is not a silver bullet
• Enabling technologies are only as good as the processes and procedures they enable
• Sales technology and its use must be trained, measured, inspected, and reinforced

To improve ROI on sales technologies, organizations must start with what they are trying to do, what they are trying to enable, and how they are trying to enable it. To do that, start with six key questions:

1. What is your vision and strategy for sales and how does technology support it?
2. For a new tool, what are you specifically trying to solve for?
3. Is the sales organization using the tools/technologies you have now? If not, why not?
4. Are your current selling processes defined, documented, and acted upon by the sales teams? Where are the breakdowns or inefficiencies?
5. What specific processes are you trying to enable or automate or make more efficient with a new tool?
6. Do you have a group in the sales organization that can pilot a new tool to see if the benefits outweigh the effort?

We work with clients to help them establish a vision and business case for their use of sales technology. This guides the development of core capabilities, processes, and definitions that are consistent across businesses, geographies, and roles.

Then, we address the “people” success factors including stakeholder engagement, skills development, and supporting organizational structure for technology adoption. When appropriate, we partner with CRM and sales enablement technology integrators to address “process” consistency and capture key requirements.

Finally, we help set the framework for continued organizational support and reinforcement by sales managers to drive user adoption.

Our clients consistently experience substantial improvements in adoption and ROI from sales technologies, which translates to better enablement and better results.