The Cost of Poor Sales Visibility

The cost of poor sales visibility. Today nearly 80 percent of sales engagements are digital. That means massive troves of data keying in on customer behavior and buying cycles just waiting for a sales team to leverage. The problem is only a very small sliver of this data makes it to the CRM—and even that which is there is typically just sitting. What’s the use of having all this data if you aren’t putting it to use?

According to Gartner, “poor quality data weakens an organization’s competitive standing and undermines critical business objectives.” Bad data also comes at a price, and that price is as much as $15 million in losses annually. If these facts hit close to home, it’s time to ask hard questions — and find real answers.

Start by asking yourself: how much is it costing you, not to know? To be missing out on key data such as:

  • Number of meetings it takes your team to get the decision maker engaged.
  • How many times competitors are mentioned.
  • How many pushes you see when you win vs when you use. 
  • Which marketing campaigns and combination of campaigns are reaching key personas.

If you did have that data, would you operate differently? Would you coach a struggling rep differently? Invest in specific campaigns? Steer your enablement team to provide deeper support for a particular use case? Or update new competitive battlecards? 

The Cost of Missed Deals 

Take a minute and calculate the cost of losing deals you could have won if only you’d had the data to show you how, and when, to turn them into winners. But time ran out, and those winnable deals went by the wayside — primarily due to lack of visibility.

Here’s the deal: manual data input and activity tracking will never give you the confidence you need from your data. It will only muddy your pipeline and limit your organization’s true growth potential. You need control over your data, the kind of control that can only come from automation. 

You need true, action-oriented sales visibility that prevents the loss of winnable deals. That’s what Activity Capture delivers, the single source of the truth across every deal in your organization. Automating activity and engagement data means 10x the database that you can analyze and understand what is really happening in your deals. Where you need to nurture viable deals, ignore dead deals, or turn stalled but save-able opportunities into wins.

If the concept is new to you, Activity Capture is the automated capture of key activities related to each and every deal. That means every email, phone call, every correspondence between your team and your prospects and customers is automatically written to your CRM in real time. (Real-time is key here; not missing deals means striking while the iron is hot.)

What makes activity data so important? It’s the number one indicator of sales outcomes. Activity data shows you what winning reps do that other reps don’t. Which missed actions contribute to a deal going off the rails. A solid Activity Capture solution will automatically sync key sales activity and engagement for your reps, writing this data back to your CRM. 

With automated Activity Capture, not only will you finally remove the manual data entry burden that’s always placed on reps. You’ll get complete visibility into deal health that brings new life to routine sales processes like 1:1s, pipeline reviews, coaching sessions, and forecast meetings. You’ll know it all: exactly which activities your sales team has completed, which steps they missed, and how prospects responded. 

If you already have Activity Capture in place, you’re on the right track. But ask yourself — whose data are you capturing? If it’s just your reps, you’re missing out. Reps don’t win deals alone. In fact, you want a Platform that captures activity from anyone who touches a deal, including SEs, finance, support, and executive sponsors. With this knowledge, you’ll be in the driver’s seat, bringing home more consistent, predictable results. 

Say it with me: no more missed deals. No more shoulda-coulda-woulda. Instead, experience the bounty of increased visibility and better win rates.

The Cost of Wasting Time on the Wrong Deals 

All too often, best intentions lead to wasted efforts and team-wide frustrations. Eager reps head out in their separate directions, using incomplete or incorrectly analyzed data, chasing down deals that don’t have a chance while missing the opportunity to take small but meaningful actions that could nurture other deals across the finish line. It looks like everybody’s working hard, but really it’s chaos.

Stop wasting time on the wrong deals! Make sure the work reps do is 100% lined up with your organization’s proven recipe for how to win deals. And that’s the first step: what does a winning deal look like, specific to your organization? What are the ingredients (measured precisely!) and how long does it take to complete?

The thing is, every sales organization is different. You’ve probably experienced that truth first-hand. What works for one business can have no bearing at all at the next. That’s why it’s important to know what a successful deal or action looks like for your team. If you know that, then you can replicate and scale it. 

InsightSquared automatically collects key data points from across the customer journey. Then, we use machine learning to evaluate activity alongside time, progression, and deal attributes to determine your unique sales cycle inflection points. Machine learning can identify dying deals so you don’t throw good money after bad. It also helps you coach when it matters most (before it’s too late). And because everyone on your team has access to the same, reliable information, there’s a higher level of not just performance, but accountability.

Make sure your CRM data is combined with real-time automation and activity capture so that when the pieces come together, you know the winning formula, and your team stops spinning their wheels. Think about it: more wins, less waste.

The Cost of Wasted Marketing Investments

“Smarketing” is a terrible word but a noble concept. Ideally, your marketing team expertly manages the funnel so that prospects are primed for sales reps and ready to sign on the dotted line. And when sales tosses new customers over to customer success, the transition from happy prospect to satisfied customer is seamless. The customer lifecycle should be coordinated and informed across your business.

Enter real life! Marketing has a mind of its own, isn’t aligned with sales, and CS has a heck of a time explaining how things really work to customers who make it through this minefield. Sound familiar?

You’ve got to make sure marketing targets the right people — generating leads that can go the distance. Otherwise, you’re looking at squandered marketing budgets and a dried-up pipeline.

In order to drive the next level of actionable analytics, you need the big picture. That means insight into the entire customer journey, including the marketing process, sales process, and customer success process. Everything should link together like a sturdy and reliable chain.

With InsightSquared you’ll gather and analyze trusted data collected from all key activities across your entire organization. 

Take collaboration from a buzzword to a reality, and together you’ll reach new heights. Align your complete go-to-market team around a uniform view to maximize results. Rely on our advanced dashboards and analytics to see and report real-time results to the business and adapt cross-functional strategies in time to win business and prevent losses. Our intelligent RevOps dashboards help you turn good data into informed decisions, and are equally helpful for every business unit involved in generating revenue for your company. 

With clear and reliable data, you’ll know if your team is executing effectively throughout every step of the revenue process. Know where and when your sales managers should step in. See ways drive cross-functional engagement precisely when and where the sales teams need support. Get everyone on the same page of a best-selling book.

Keep this in mind: It’s not enough to just have good data. Collecting accurate data is only half the battle. To win, you have to be able to use the data to make the best possible decisions. To take the right action, right on time. Get good data and then use that data to come out on top, year after year.

Automated activity capture can be an instant game-changer. Get the keys to maximizing your ROI in the
Buyer’s Guide to Activity Capture.

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