Getting from Sales Engagement to Sales Execution

Along with that, our sales toolset has been evolving too. One of the biggest changes we’re currently witnessing is an increased emphasis on sales engagement.

In this article, I’d like to talk about implementing sales engagement practices in your sales process, and how Reply can help you do that.

Reactive vs Proactive sales outreach

There’s always been a fundamental issue with a lot of sales reps.

They mostly just sit there, waiting for leads to come around. Once that lead appears, the rep makes an attempt to contact them. If there’s no response, they might follow up once more and that’s it. The lead is left to die off and the rep moves on to the next one, convinced that there’s nothing else they can do.

Thankfully, that is changing now as more sales teams understand the importance of a proactive outreach approach. This means, you don’t just sit around waiting for the leads to pop in - you take action to engage them.

That process typically starts with identifying your market segment and your ideal customer profile (ICP). Based on your ICP, you can then build qualified lists with the contacts for people that match the profile. Once you have a list, you can send the contacts the first email.

This is where sales engagement platforms like Reply come into play, helping you engage with potential customers on a personal level and establish a dialogue across multiple channels.

Why use a sales engagement platform?

But is it necessary to purchase a sales engagement platform? Can’t you do all of that yourself? True, it’s possible to engage with your prospects without a dedicated platform. In practice, however, it’s not that easy as it might seem.

Sales reps have been conditioned to jump on warm leads. They are more likely to prioritize the prospects who are looking to purchase within the next 30 days than the ones who will need another three to six months to make the decision. And it’s quite understandable. But the problem is they might forget to follow up with those low-priority leads when the time comes and, as a result, let them fall off completely.

First of all, sales engagement software can help you make the nurturing and follow-ups process much easier by eliminating any manual work from it.

For example, you take a segment of possible customers and reach out to them with a unique message. Next, you can automatically send them multiple email follow-ups - not bombarding them, but sending light, consistent, warm touches that provide value, e.g.: “People in your team/industry have used our trial account and they've seen these great strong results. If you do this, you'll see an X percent increase in your leads.”

Consistent follow-ups can help you attract more customers. They will notice your persistence but, more importantly, they’ll appreciate your understanding of their business when you refer to specific details.

As a result, we see 60 to 70% of sales conversions happening from the fourth, fifth, sixth, or seventh touch, across all the different kinds of verticals and companies using the platform.

Secondly, every sales team has to build a yearly pipeline. This will allow them to reach out to different prospects, at different stages, in different timelines, throughout the year.

Too many companies have a top-heavy pipeline. January, February, March are full of deals, but then April, May, June, July and onwards are all empty. As the sales rep works through the stages, the opportunities get pushed along from one month to the next.

A sales engagement platform like Reply allows a sales rep to build the pipe throughout the year, constantly supporting it, constantly adding more deals and opportunities, because conversations are taking place directly within the sales engagement platform.

Last but not least, every company needs to know on a manager and VP level what their sales team is doing. Are they being proactive? Are they reaching out and following up with leads?

Sales engagement platforms provide accountability for your sales team. Seeing the metrics and responses to all the sales reps’ daily activities helps you build a clear picture of their performance.

When your reps come in every morning, they will have an inbox full of responses to their campaigns, either “Yes, we're interested, please follow up” or a “No”. What they need to do next is a simple process of elimination.

On top of that, if management sees that one rep has great open and reply rates, they can easily replicate their actions and pass that knowledge on to other reps across the organization.

Setting realistic expectations for sales engagement

However, sales engagement isn’t a magic pill that can instantly bring the results. So it’s important that you set realistic expectations when adopting this tactic.

It is a common misconception that purchasing a tool like ours will allow you to save a ton of money on buying leads, close a ton of business, and become a Fortune 500 company in under 12 months.

That sounds great, but is it realistic?

Sales engagement is a work in progress. No software can be purchased, implemented and ripped out after one month. When an organization purchases a CRM or any other enterprise software suite, they’ll need to use it for several months, most likely a year, before they can see a return on investment or any kind of additional value from it.

Similarly, you have to set realistic expectations as to when you can expect to see any results from your sales engagement platform. In our experience, it sometimes takes five or seven to get a positive response.

It also takes more work to get the expected results than simply adding as many follow-ups as possible to your sequence. The content of your message is essential too. You can’t just send out any random message, or the one copied from a competitor, and expect to see good results.

Also, before you assume that whatever platform you’re using doesn’t work for you, you should ask if you are doing everything right first. That’s why you need to A/B test your messages and measure the results of your campaigns.

From engagement to execution

And there’s more to sales engagement platforms. Once you get to connect with the leads on Reply, you can go one step further and use the same software for sales execution.

Namely, you can not only manage your email outreach and set automatic follow-ups, but also close deals by picking up the phone to call the engaged leads — using the same platform — and still have that all audited and documented within your sales cycle.

As sales reps spend more time within the system, handling the entire sales cycle from A to Z, it's safe to say that such a sales engagement platform has evolved into a sales execution platform.

Conclusion

I come from a background in software sales at Oracle, where the idea of outreach was opening up the Yellow Pages and picking up the phone. Sure, calling is very important. But if I’d had the opportunity to nurture those leads in an email outreach campaign with a sales engagement execution platform, my close rate would have gone up drastically.

That is why I am a strong believer that the biggest need within any sales organization today is to ensure that every sales rep is equipped with a sales execution platform — such as Reply — that will help them not only start the conversation but also nurture it and help them continue building relationships. This capability, to land and expand, is key for any sales organization.