Enterprise 2.0

You are currently browsing articles tagged Enterprise 2.0.

Ignite More Sales with Sales Intelligence

November 22, 2011 in Prospecting, Sales 2.0, Sales Intelligence by Koka Sexton | 7 comments

Any sales reps worth their salt does their homework before contacting a lead. The following best practices can pave the way for highly effective conversations with prospective buyers.

InsideView Ignite Your Sales Revenue with Sales Intelligence

Ignite Smarter Conversations
Once a contact becomes a qualified lead or opportunity, sales needs to know who to reach and how, and what to say to get their attention. It’s no longer just who you know that will make business deals happen, but what you know about who you know, tightly synched with when and where you should know it. After all, according to IDC, IT buyers indicate that ~54% of sales reps are unprepared for their initial customer meetings.

To prep for the meeting, your reps can tap into sales intelligence to pinpoint what’s top of mind for the contact and immediately establish rapport on the call. With access to multiple data sources in a single place, your sales reps will spend less time on research, yet will be more effective on the phone.

A study by CSO Insights shows that even when using CRM:

  • It takes sales reps an average of 4 voice mails or emails to get that first, pivotal appointment with a prospect
  • They often have to wait 3 to 4 days for a response
  • 60% of sales reps waste the equivalent of 6 selling weeks a year just trying to get customers on the phone.

Combined, traditional business information services and social media can help create the best prospect intelligence, enabling sales professionals to sort through potential deals and dealmakers. With insight into companies (for example, M&A activity, new leadership, and major initiatives), contacts (title, email, and phone number), and social profile information or people insights (“I see we have friends in common,” or “We went to the same school,” or “You recently tweeted about X”), your sales reps can start the conversation off right.

The sales reps that take advantage of the intelligence to be found in the online conversation are reaping the rewards. In a study of sales reps within 2,000 companies, the reps that turned to sales intelligence ended up with higher win rates.

How ‘smart’ are the conversations you have with prospects?

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

8 Million Sales Triggers Delivered

October 12, 2011 in Sales Intelligence by Koka Sexton | 3 comments

Summer of Sales Intelligence: InsideView Sees Huge Gains in Customers and Major CRM Platforms, Delivers 8 Million Sales Triggers in Recent Quarter

Ten times more companies started using intelligence to sell better in 2011′s Q3 than any other quarter. That’s according to the latest numbers from InsideView, the leading provider of sales intelligence for the enterprise. The company also revealed it delivered more than 8 million unique new opportunity sales triggers to its customers during the same period.

Intelligence Over Data: Quality and Quantity in Harmony
InsideView’s sales intelligence provides something data simply can’t: a competitive advantage. Anyone can provide a current title, phone number or email address on a lead. Only InsideView can provide this basic information, but more. For example, a business event — like an acquisition or merger — that warrants sales outreach, or news event like a product launch, that matters to the ongoing sales conversation.

“While other companies are betting their business on providing more and more data, we’re finding accelerating demand for higher quality sales intelligence, not just more data,” said Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView. “Sales intelligence is the combination of not only business data, but social context, how you’re connected to a lead or prospect, valuable news insight, and real-time triggers that inform you when to take action. In fact, we’re delivering 35 million unique news trigger events to our users a year to help them sell better and generate more revenue.”

Independent research firm Aberdeen Research has found that InsideView’s style of sales intelligence increases several key areas for sales success, including sales quota attainment, customer retention and overall revenue growth.

“We have seen that, in 2010, the best-in-class organizations outperformed by achieving 28% revenue growth compared to just 3% for others — and intelligence is a key reason for this,” said Peter Ostrow of Aberdeen Research.

Big Growth and Launch of CRM+
InsideView’s own growth saw almost 10,000 new professionals using its free product, and over 250 enterprises signing on to its award-winning paid version, since July. In August, the company launched CRM+, which brought its intelligence technology to a broader business sector including marketing, service, human resources and more.

“InsideView gives businesses sales intelligence and information that will aid sales operations with helping develop and maintain leads and clients,” noted TechCrunch in coverage of InsideView’s CRM+ launch. “CRM+ now brings social data to all CRM users (marketing, operations, customer service, etc.), not just sales.”

InsideView was also the only provider of sales intelligence included in August’s Gartner Magic Quadrant for Social CRM.

Success On All CRM Solutions
InsideView’s leadership continues across all major CRM platforms:

  • Salesforce.com: InsideView continues to be the all-time most popular sales app on the salesforce.com AppExchange.
  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM: In July, the company was selected as a 2011 Microsoft Dynamics Marketplace Solution Excellence Partner of the Year.
  • SAP: Earlier in the summer, InsideView gained the prestigious “Powered by SAP NetWeaver®” certification status.
  • SugarCRM: In June, InsideView and SugarCRM combined forces to bring InsideView standard and out-of-the-box.
  • Oracle CRM OnDemand: InsideView is part of the Inner Circle program.
  • NetSuite: Collaboration through the Preferred Partner Program.

To learn more about InsideView, please visit www.insideview.com.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

Hit Your Number Faster with Sales Intelligence

September 6, 2011 in Sales Intelligence, Social CRM by Koka Sexton | 9 comments

One of the best messages from Dreamforce was the realization from 45,000 attendees that data is good but it is not enough to move the revenue needle. The comments from current customers and new businesses that stopped by the booth validated that cold calling is dead and without a very targeted message with relevant information from both traditional sources and social media, a sales rep’s chances of getting contact and creating new opportunities is very slim.

With the announcement that Jigsaw and D&B are being combined to create Data.com, our customers are echoing our response that this is just further validation that data is a commodity and without a layer of intelligence to help sales, marketing and support identify the right people to contact, you may as just use last years Yellow Pages.

 Where’s the value-add? D&B and Salesforce are pitching this idea as a marriage between two classes of data: Salesforce contacts and D&B business. (For “Salesforce contacts,” read “Jigsaw.”) But Jigsaw data already associates contacts with their companies, and already contains (by Salesforce’s own estimate) over 4 million crowd-sourced corporate profiles. Of course, this calls into question the authenticity (and accuracy) of those profiles versus D&B’s professional research.

Keeping the entire company on the same page with prospects and customers is something that CRM can help with but it’s not the answer. There are so many things changing with companies on a daily, weekly and monthly basis that it’s impossible for anyone or any company to keep up with all the changes in leadership, news and events. This is why we believe that sales intelligence is the answer.

Adding a layer of intelligence to your sales process will dramatically increase sales productivity and increase your opportunity win rates. Does social media answer all the needs of every sales organization? No. But it adds an additional layer that gives sales people an edge when identifying new prospects and making that first phone call less awkward. Even marketing automation companies like Marketo see the value in leveraging social media for sales.

10 additional Articles on Data vs. Intelligence

Tags: , , , , , , , ,

CRM+ When Regular CRM is No Longer Enough

August 30, 2011 in Notifications, Product Updates, Sales 2.0, Sales Intelligence by Koka Sexton | 2 comments

Adds Intelligence to the Social Enterprise with Launch of CRM+

Beyond Data: InsideView Brings Intelligence to Marketing, Sales, Service, and Operations

https://img.skitch.com/20110825-texpb84x12ap34wd9ic1r3nn6t.jpg

By going beyond mere business data to provide complete customer intelligence, Our latest product CRM+ revolutionizes the way all CRM end users – from sales, marketing and service, to operations and partner channels – know their contacts and prospects, build trust, execute productive one-to-one relationships and, ultimately, drive more revenue. With today’s launch, we set a new standard in bringing holistic and social intelligence to the fingertips of all B2B CRM users.

“We have seen that, in 2010, the best-in-class organizations outperformed by achieving 28% revenue growth compared to just 3% for others – and intelligence is a key reason for this.” – Aberdeen Group

“What made 100,000+ sales people more productive is now available to service, marketing, operations and partner channels: the intelligence needed for meaningful one-to-one relationships.,” said Umberto Milletti, CEO of InsideView. “For example, just as sales has used intelligence to increase conversion rates, marketing uses contact intelligence to hone their campaigns, account management uses current news to time renewal offers, and professionals such as business development use intelligence to open new relationships.”

“Overwhelming ‘big’ data falls short in providing the intelligence needed for one-to-one business in marketing, service, sales and operations. For example, it’s a no-brainer to have current contact information on a prospect, but what about a holistic view of how you’re connected through former reference customers? Or a news article showing the company just made an acquisition? What about their latest tweets? It’s time for forward-looking intelligence in CRM to correct the ‘rear-view mirror’ approach currently provided by data companies,” said Umberto Milletti, CEO and founder of InsideView.

What made 100,000+ sales people more productive is now available to service, marketing, operations and partner channels” Umberto Milletti

CRM+ is for any company looking to empower all external-facing employees with real-time intelligence on prospects and customers, suppliers and partners. InsideView’s CRM+ provides just that to ensure all users are looking at the same information, improve KPI, and create more meaningful one-to-one relationships. InsideView CRM+ does this within workers’ process flow within their existing CRM platform.

Independent research firm Aberdeen Group has already shown the benefits of InsideView’s intelligence on sales results: At least a 10 percent increase in top-line revenue and more than 10 percent increase in quota attainment, to name a few. When intelligence is applied to additional areas – such as marketing and customer service – the impact is even greater.

“Providing intelligence to not just sales but to other parts of the organization including marketing, customer service, and operations makes a big difference in terms of overall organizational performance,” said Peter Ostrow of Aberdeen Research. “We have seen that, in 2010, the best-in-class organizations outperformed by achieving 28% revenue growth compared to just 3% for others – and intelligence is a key reason for this.”

“As companies continue to embrace social CRM, they need intelligence – not data – to manage the rapidly changing landscape of customer relationships,” Milletti added. “We are excited to launch this next big step in providing this meaningful, actionable and results-driving intelligence to the entire social enterprise.”

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Social Selling Gets a New Face

August 3, 2011 in Social Selling by Koka Sexton | No comments

It was a busy month and I’m catching up on some announcements. After the announcement of our prize at Dreamforce, a major announcement with our partner SugarCRM, a new product release with some amazing enhancements, I had some other social projects to work on. One of those projects was a redesign of Social Selling University. SSU was created early this year with a focus in social selling for the enterprise. After a great series of webinars and speaking events, it was clear to everyone that Social Selling University was something we needed to invest more resources into. That started with a better looking website.

New Social Selling University Website

Social Selling Enterprise Sales

Social Selling by definition is the use of sales 2.0 tools to identify and engage prospects to create new opportunities and drive revenue. The biggest obstacles I encounter when talking to sales teams is that even though they are familiar with social media on a personal level, they don’t know where to start when it comes to applying these tools to their professional life.

Social Selling University is broken into 4 main parts that are designed to offer education and resources to sales people that want to know more about leveraging social media for sales.

The amount of content is growing and we are just about to roll out our next series of webinars featuring sales experts and training on ways to make the most out of Twitter, LinkedIn and other social tools that can get you more connected with your prospects.

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

« Older entries § Newer entries »