Sales Strategy

5 Pillars of Digital Sales Transformation (DST)
A successful digital sales transformation requires these five pillars of digital change:

Studies show that sales professionals only spend about 34% of their time actually selling. By automating repetitive laborious administrative tasks at an everyday level, salespeople spend more time doing what they should be doing; building relationships and selling solutions to prospects’ problems.

But, like all new technology-based implementations, there will be some potential obstacles organisations need to address before getting started. Barriers can appear in any of the following areas:

Management: It may be necessary to build demonstrable use cases to persuade executive buy-in from key stakeholders if your budget is on the lighter side

Data: Organisations must ensure they possess robust data to secure a 360-degree view of their customers

People: Sales teams stuck in their ways might find adopting new processes difficult or even fear becoming redundant in their role as AI for sales technology continues to develop
Regular Sales Coaching
Employees are likely to learn something new and immediately forget it. According to research, learners forget approximately 50% of a training within one hour of the training, with this figure increasing to 70% at a mere 24 hours! Within 30 days, the amount forgotten increases to 90%.

When undergoing digital sales transformation, it’s essential to host regular sales coaching sessions with an expert sales coach who understands your sales strategy and business objectives.

Sales coaches act as neutral figures who guide your sales team in applying the processes they have been trained in and ensuring successful reinforcement. As such, we recommend the following structure to reinforce learning, any learning your team must retain to survive the digital sales transformation:

  • Schedule group coaching to debrief the training participants
  • Keep it focused. Each coaching session focuses on one training topic
  • Ask about improvements. Ask questions like “What’s better since the training?”
  • Goal-setting and commitment. Ask what they will change next
  • Schedule the next session
  • Use a Customer-Centric based Selling Approach
  • In a digital-first, self-serving world, you can no longer define your business by the product. Instead, your biggest revenue sustainability option lies in maintaining excellent customer satisfaction and customer retention achieved by using a customer-centric approach.

As such, customer-centricity marks the new shift in data-driven digital sales transformation as you use customer data to develop an experience-led approach to every stage of the buyers’ journey.

1. Increase Productivity

As digital sales transformation focuses on streamlining processes by implementing technology, they make workflows much more efficient. As a result, companies boost productivity at both an organisational and individual level.

For example, research has shown that sales reps spend only about a quarter of their time selling to customers. By automating repetitive tasks, you’ll ensure salespeople are focused on selling.

2. Improve Customer Experiences

Now, more than ever, customers have high expectations for digital experiences. They expect endless choice, low price, and fast delivery. As such, it’s no surprise that Customer Experience is the new battleground for companies trying to differentiate themselves. Considering Gartner reports that more than two-thirds of companies say they compete primarily on customer experience.

One way to use the Digital Sales Transformation to differentiate your brand is to demonstrate how much you value your customers’ privacy in this digital age. For example, you can give customers control over how you collect and use their data – empowering them to decide what you do with their information. Remember, people only do business with people they know, like and trust.

3. Stronger Resource Management

Most companies use hundreds of applications. Digital transformation consolidates information and resources into an easy-to-use suite of tools for business. Rather than dispersing software and databases, it consolidates company resources and reduces overlap.

4. Gain a Competitive Advantage

A successful digital sales transformation ensures you use up-to-date sales techniques and materials, which help be more effective when selling to the modern buyer.

5. Increase Revenue

The fact is that businesses that undergo a digital transformation improve their profitability. Consider these results from the SAP Center for Business Insights and Oxford Economics:

80% of organisations that have completed digital transformation report increased profits
85% say they have increased their market share
Most leaders (on average) expect 23% higher revenue growth than competitors
Also read: It’s Hope, Not Hype: 10 Ways ChatGPT Can Increase Sales

Improve your business!

The world will change, but customer focus remains.
We consult Small and Medium Organisations to create, improve or modify their business  models by transforming the business using digital technologies to create new or modify existing business processes, culture, and customer experiences to meet challenging and changing business and market requirements.

We help unite every department to better focus on customers.

Contact Hasso