Best Sales Enablement Software in 2025
Closing a deal involves more than just having a top-notch sales rep. For your sales rep to be truly effective, they need immediate access to the right information. This is where the right sales enablement tools and ongoing sales training, such as Gong.io, become crucial. These tools, including AI-powered machine learning technology, provide the necessary information and help streamline processes and enhance productivity, leading to greater success for both the sales and customer success teams. With real-time sales coaching and objection handling, AI-powered tools can also assist in identifying areas for improvement and coaching opportunities for customer success, tech support, and other customer experience teams. These tools provide valuable insights and support in real-time, making them essential for increasing close rates and revenue growth and optimizing revenue operations. How do sales enablement tools help improve sales team performance? Sales enablement tools help sales teams by providing resources, content, and training to enhance their sales process. These tools enable better communication, organization, and efficiency, leading to improved productivity, higher conversion rates, and ultimately increased sales performance. What metrics can be tracked using sales enablement tools to measure success? Metrics tracked using sales enablement tools for success include sales conversion rates, sales cycle length, content engagement, lead response time, and sales rep productivity. Monitoring these metrics helps optimize sales processes, improve customer interactions, and drive revenue growth effectively. With the vast array of tools available, it can be daunting to determine which ones best meet your needs. But don’t worry, we’ve done the heavy lifting for you. Now, all you have to do is select the tool that aligns with your organizational goals and objectives. It’s good to have a suite of sales enablement tools that cover various aspects of your operations, from content management to training and analytics to reporting. Such tools ensure your sales team is well-prepared, well-informed, and capable of performing at its best. Here’s all the information you need to choose the right tool for your goals. This selection will empower your team, streamline your processes, and ultimately drive your success. What is a sales enablement software? To close a successful deal, it’s crucial to ensure that every stage of the sales funnel is seamlessly connected. This involves efficient communication of information and insights at various stages of the process. Sales enablement software is designed to achieve just that. These tools offer valuable insights into the entire sales process, allowing you to make adjustments as the sale progresses. With this, you can centralize all sales-related information, providing all stakeholders and the entire sales team with real-time insights into the progress of various aspects of the sale. These tools tag each piece of sales content with details about its target buyer persona, its use case, its position, and other necessary properties, making it an essential part of sales content management and case studies for delivering relevant information and the right content to the right audience in less time. Additionally, Showpad Content’s advanced AI-powered recommendations engine suggests relevant content for sales reps. It helps them find the most effective content for each specific sales situation and minimizes administrative tasks, allowing them to focus on engaging more effectively with buyers and improving their overall sales performance. Sales enablement software, such as Brainshark, facilitates sales by providing video-based coaching, practice, and assessments to certify reps’ readiness. It also provides automated scores and analysis powered by AI, including an AI Voice Generator for creating training content, allowing for better tracking of each sales team member’s progress and readiness. How to choose the best sales enablement software? You wouldn’t want an inefficient sales team do you? So, they need the right tool to do their jobs right. Good sales enablement tools is crucial for aligning with your organization’s goals and objectives. The choice you make is a critical part of your B2B buying process. Here’s a checklist to consider before selecting a tool, including reviewing best practices for sales engagement: Identify Sales Funnel Gaps: Start by pinpointing the areas where your sales funnel is failing. Are there stages where leads frequently drop off, or are certain sales processes taking longer than they should? By clearly identifying these gaps, you can focus on finding software that addresses these specific pain points, ensuring the tool you choose will effectively enhance your sales process. Prioritize User-Friendliness: Any new tool requires training and onboarding. Choose software with a user-friendly interface and a short adoption period. Overly complex tools with limited customization options can frustrate your team and prolong the onboarding process. Instead, opt for intuitive solutions that offer a straightforward learning curve, enabling your sales reps to quickly become proficient and productive. Additionally, check for available training resources and customer support to facilitate a smoother transition. Focus on Relevant Data and Analytics: Too many metrics can be overwhelming. Begin by drafting your sales enablement strategy to identify the key objectives and metrics. Then, select a tool that offers reporting and analytics aligned with these needs. Look for features such as customizable dashboards, real-time data tracking, and insights that directly relate to your sales goals. The right tool should help you make data-driven decisions without drowning you in unnecessary information. Ensure Scalability for Growth: As your company grows, your sales processes will evolve. Choose a tool that can scale with your company’s growth, ensuring it remains effective as your business expands. Assess whether the software can handle an increasing volume of data, users, and sales activities without compromising performance. Also, consider whether it offers advanced features that can support your future needs, such as AI-driven insights, automation capabilities, and enhanced customization. Seamless Integration with Existing Tech Stack: Seamless integration is essential. A good sales enablement tool should integrate smoothly with your existing tech stack, eliminating the need for manual data import or export. Verify compatibility with your CRM, email marketing platforms, and other essential software. Integration should be straightforward, minimizing disruptions and ensuring a unified workflow across all your tools. Additionally, check for API availability and the ability
Why Key Accounts Need More Than Sales Enablement Software
There is no debate on the need for Sales Enablement for any organization that deals with customers. To establish and maintain any kind of systematic process at scale, a sales enablement software is the cornerstone. It helps manage data, it delivers the analytical insights needed for decision making, and it automates a lot of the tasks that would otherwise take up valuable managerial time. However, for B2B companies that earn a significant part of their revenue from large, complex, global Key Accounts, there is a different set of unique characteristics and challenges that need to be addressed. These large ‘bread and butter’ accounts cannot be handled the same way- and with the same tools- that help manage regular customers. There is a need, therefore, for these B2Bs to look beyond sales enablement software for their Key Account management. They need Key Account Management Technology. It is a highly specialized enabling technology, designed specially keeping in mind the complexities and demands of Key Accounts. The objective with Key Accounts is the same as with regular Accounts- to grow them and optimize revenues from them, but how it is done is fundamentally different. The usual price and offer based solutions won’t do. The way to sustainable growth with key Accounts is by transitioning from Vendor status to Strategic Partner status. That is when the potential for ‘farming’ and mining’ the Account- selling up and across all the possible buying units in the global organization – really gets unlocked. Moreover, the only way to successfully transition from vendor to strategic partner is to identify areas of strategic interest to the Client, align with those, and be able to add and create value to those areas of business that help the client grow. So, the difference really, between sales enablement software and Key Account Management software comes down to the difference between a Sales Manager and a Key Account Manager. Both have the same mandate- to grow revenues- but the client base, the methodology, and the practices to achieve that are fundamentally different. Learn more about how KAM Enablement will help you grow your business in 2017. Download the e-book here.
√ New Year √ New Plan ? New Pain
It is the end of the year, and before we can enjoy the Christmas bonus and stuffed turkey, Key Account Management professionals have the unenviable task of reviewing the past year and creating account plans for 2017. You have probably been doing it every year, so you have a basis or a template, and all you need to do is update that, add projections, etc. But is it that simple? It is not just a sales projection; it is an account plan. We can think of dozens of questions you need to answer while planning for a key account and you can probably add on to the list as well. So where and how do you begin? Before you dig out last year’s account plan formats, the old ppts or excel sheets ask yourself these questions; “How are KAM professionals in competitor organizations and other industries preparing their account plans? Is my old method the best, most efficient way? Is there a way to make account planning easier, or to create a more thorough, robust account plan?” If you have paused to think about these questions, your first step has been in the right direction! Our experience providing KAM technology for IT service industry clients has shown us that they face challenges that are often uniquely different from those faced by other B2B industries. As we examine these challenges, we reflect on how they affect account management and how technology can ease the pain and assist with account planning. Service, an Intangible Product Organizations that have a tangible product can easily demonstrate and communicate the uses and benefits of the product. Therefore they depend primarily on the product quality and back that up or accentuate it with a brand. In contrast, the service industry has an intangible product whose benefits are not as easily demonstrable. Therefore trust or a brand name and depending on relationships and people is what attracts and retains customers. One of the benefits of KAM technology is its ability to calculate the relationships mapping strength of key accounts. Another is the convenience of having a unified view of organizational hierarchy, showing all people related to the key account, in the client’s firm and yours. Making an account plan is easy if you use all the relationship related features offered by technology; use CRM as a base, drag and drop to create a key account’s organizational hierarchy, assign a status to people based on their affinity for your company and services, plan periodic interactions between people from different hierarchical levels and more. The result, #painfreeaccountplanning, and the confidence that it provides metrics on relationship strength and throws up warning indicators as well. This year you can use specialized key account management technology to create a well-articulated account plan, one that converts relationships from hurdles into the backbone and strength of marketing. Interaction between the buyer and seller Research by Rawson, Duncan, and Jones found that customers of service industries judged satisfaction based on cumulative experiences across multiple touchpoints. In other words, each time the customer interacts with you, be it the receptionist at your head office, the automated caller menu and every client service assistant and manager, he or she is judging the experience and consciously or unconsciously rating his or her experience. A product has only one or at best a few touchpoints between the seller and the buyer. On the other hand, providing a service has multiple touchpoints throughout the life cycle of the service contract. Therefore more white space opportunities to delight or disgust the customer! Knowing this, who wouldn’t want to track customer interactions in a systematic and objective way? The solution- use KAM technology to collaborate with internal stakeholders, enumerate mutually agreed expectations and targets, and create a unified action plan. This is your chance to plan systematically and make each touchpoint an opportunity to delight your strategic account management. Make or Buy Conundrum In keeping with the holiday season, imagine you are a manufacturer of chocolates who finds he has the insufficient inventory to meet demand. Would you think of buying a cocoa plantation to increase your raw material supply, or of manufacturing a machine to temper chocolate? Probably not. You are most likely to approach sellers and buy them outright, even if you had to increase production at the cost of lower margins. But what if an IT service provider approached you with software that could better estimate cyclic consumption and enable you to plan production and inventories such that you would not face seasonal crunches? Would you consider it right now, put it off till after the holiday season production rush, wonder if the investment would really pay off or think about whether you could do something similar in-house? If you said yes to either of the last two options, you have just highlighted the challenge of selling services. Services, particularly IT services, are rarely perceived as immediate requirements. Their investment-outcome ratio is endlessly debated and often an in-house, home-grown alternative is chosen. Can you overcome the make or buy conundrum? One way to do this is to sell solutions, not services. KAM technology enables you to systematically catalog client requirements, understand the client’s end goal and align your company’s products and services to offer solutions accordingly. While key account planning this year, you can use technology to create a whitespace analysis and depending on the results, design and offer the right solutions to a key account. Creating new avenues of business from an existing client not only adds to your revenue, but it also makes the client feel valued because you are proactive in helping them meet their end goal. Customized versus Standardized Products tend to have standard specifications. Any variations or customizations are generally made at the request of customers. Hence the cost of customization is relatively easy to calculate and is often passed on to the customer. But when you sell a service as a solution, not a product, you have to customize the service
Where’s the HUMOR in Technology?
In Key Account Management , we have all witnessed the evolution of data management from its manual form to the present day digital avatar. The term ‘digital’ itself encompasses the evolution from spreadsheets and basic sales tracking software to the highly specialized Key Account Management software and solutions we see today. While the power of technology to transform the way we manage and interact with our most valuable customers is well accepted across verticals, choosing the right technology and its scope can still be a challenge for many sales professionals. A good place to start may be to think about the areas of transformation and the potential impact in those areas. Over the years, we have recorded a dizzying array of parameters to consider, and that is not including the unique circumstances of specific industries and organizations. We have distilled the former down to what we call ‘HUMOR’, a starting point to approach the overwhelming challenge of choosing technology that works for you. Harnessing the Hidden Value of Key Accounts Most salespeople would agree that in the twentieth century increasing the top line was synonymous with maximizing the number of customers. Over time new statistics such as customer acquisition costs gained focus and in the twenty-first century, retaining and maximizing the potential of existing customers, particularly of Key Accounts, has become critical to increasing the top line. But we have all faced the drawbacks of departmentalization and specialization that make it difficult for individuals in large companies with multiple products and competing divisions to see the company, or the customer, as a single entity. One way in which key account management tools can help address this lacuna is by creating a comprehensive grid, with the company’s offerings on one axis and customer requirements on the other. Each square in the grid can be analyzed to ascertain whether the company has engaged with the customer for a particular product offering and whether it succeeded in exploiting the customer’s buying potential. Technology can be a great enabler to reveal the untapped potential of Key Accounts. DemandFarm’s Whitespace Analysis tool uses a Key Account’s financial and relationship mapping data to calculate and color code squares in a grid. The colors represent the health of engagements or orders and new business in the pipeline. The analysis reveals white spaces in the grid or unexplored white space opportunities for new business from that account. Targeting white spaces unlocks the hidden value of Key Accounts and maximizes the potential of existing customers. A case in point is a multinational pharmaceutical company whose sales force was grouped into divisions based on therapy. Salespeople from multiple divisions were visiting some of the same hospitals and doctors, yet each division had its own list of Key Accounts. The company implemented KAM technology and white space analysis revealed that several specialist doctors were being targeted by only one or two therapy divisions, although in practice these doctors wrote prescriptions covering a wide range of the company’s products. As a result of the analysis, the company re-engineered its sales focus and was able to achieve significant growth by exploiting the potential of Key Accounts. Unified Vision, Unified Action At some point in our careers, most of us have witnessed or been part of a vision, mission or brand identity exercise and the time, effort and cost associated with it. But often we observe that when it comes to sales, companies are reluctant to invest in KAM technology. When we dig deeper, we find that investments or budget are not the hurdles, it’s the worry that a unified action plan won’t have all the details or will be too rigid that is the hurdle. How does KAM technology work? The software includes all the details by pulling in data from CRM (Customer Relationship Management) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning) systems. Technology is used to aggregate the data, identify gaps, prompt users to fill in these gaps, analyze the data and calculate and display financial and relationship metrics for each Key Account. The result is a unified platform for Analysis, Planning, Tracking and Presentation of everything related to Key Accounts. It results in a single system with a macro view that can be drilled down to micro details. As a user, you can fill in details, make changes and view plans and performance depending on your requirements and access permissions. The CEO might be interested in the Grandstand™ view, the Sales Head in the Account Review, the Key Account Manager in his achievement to target and salespeople in the customer’s organizational hierarchy and contact information. Making your Data work for you Companies create and maintain some form of sales data, whether by using software like Salesforce or an in-house methodology. The financial data are usually recorded using accounting software and shared through spreadsheets. This is a classic case of fragmented data in silos that do not have a common interface. As an Account Manager, you have probably waded through this minefield of data, collecting information from various sources to try and get a complete picture of the account. You have experienced first-hand the time and worry associated with this process. Fail to collect all the relevant data or make a mistake in transcribing it and all your plans go awry. And no matter how you interpret the data, someone is sure to disagree. In all likelihood this thought has crossed your mind more than once; “Stop wasting your Account Manager’s time collating information, analyzing it, generating reports and creating presentations.” We would like to add “Let these activities be done in the most efficient way- using technology.” KAM software is designed to avoid re-entry of data, seamlessly interfacing with a CRM or ERP system and pulling in data from multiple sources. The time saved and the improved quality of information and analysis enable the Account Manager to focus on growing Key Accounts instead. Ongoing Engagement Is Strategic Account Management all about relationships? About the salesperson who grew the account, risking his time
This Thanksgiving, Join Me in Celebrating You
Thanksgiving. The perfect time to take a moment and reflect on the things we are grateful for and celebrate them. This year, we are celebrating the fact that we have so much to be grateful for and so much to celebrate! To all the Sales Visionaries who took the idea of selling to Key Accounts – and turned it into the art and the science that Key Account Management is today. We hope you keep setting the bar higher for us. Thank You. To all the technocrats who kept seeking – and finding- better ways to do things…from sales automation to sales enablement, automation, and now, KAM Tech. We look forward to building the future with you. Thank You. To all our supporters – the team at DemandFarm, Our Partners, Our Vendors – we wouldn’t be here without you. There is no greater joy than to grow with you. Thank You. To all the believers – the early adopters – the Sales Leaders, Key Account Managers, Sales Ops teams – who led the change by asking, ‘can technology transform the way we manage and grow our Key Accounts’? We value the opportunity to serve you. For, to serve you is to celebrate you. Thank you. I hope you have a magical Thanksgiving with the ones you love and cherish.
Interview with Olivier Riviere – Consultant & Head of the KAM Practice at Invalio
Olivier tell us about your journey as a Key Account Management Professional and how do you help companies achieve growth through focusing on their strategic partnership with the key account? In the course of my career, from junior team member to Executive in charge of Key Clients, I have always been involved in the relationship with truly strategic customers across various industries: design and manufacturing, semiconductors, Entreprise Software and B2B Marketing & Communication Services. In addition, and I am grateful for this, my job also always included driving a true co-creation process with strategic customers and initiatives aiming at influencing the whole business ecosystem. When I became a consultant, I have quite naturally put these topics at the core of my activities. With my partners, we help companies of all size, analyze their strategic context, customer portfolio, and organizational dynamic in order to design and implement a KAM/GAM approach in line with their strategy, resources, and culture. I insist on working simultaneously on the KAM system AND the people involved in KAM; their skills, their motivation and how they collaborate and with their Customers. When is the right time for businesses to start looking at their client relationships in the more strategic manner? There are many reasons why companies should run a sharp analysis of the true value of each Customer and drive the engagement with selected Accounts more strategically. In theory, you can start at any time and the sooner, the better. As an example, start-ups operating in a B2B environment could take advantage of using KAM techniques upfront, although very few do it. In reality, for medium-size and large companies, the trigger situation for KAM comes from a combination of internal and external factors. The major internal factor is when the Executive Team realizes that KAM is a powerful instrument to accelerate the execution of the company’s strategy, whatever its specifics. The external factors are related to an evolution of the environment: market concentration, competitive threat, new regulation, or the need for more innovation. The trigger situation can also simply be the request of a few Customers to receive special treatment. All in all, it is the job of the Executive Team to assess when to start KAM, and it is an area where some external help can bring very high value. What are the biggest obstacles you see businesses face toward becoming more oriented toward servicing & acquiring a deeper understanding of their strategic accounts? The biggest obstacle is definitely the culture. Exploring the true value of each customer and categorising them accordingly, developing a deep sense of the real Customer Experience and where it matters to improve it, further developing the network of personal relationships with Key customers, all of this requires teamwork, collaboration, and the capacity to drive a sustained collective effort that cuts across disciplines and organisational boundaries. Most companies and not only large ones have difficulties to do this. When you look at why KAM initiatives fail to deliver on their promise, the lack of attention paid to cultural change is always part of the picture. Another frequent challenge is the lack of depth of the analysis of the Key Account organization and the network of relationship. The superficiality of the analysis prevents the vendor’s team from finding new angles to strengthen the ties with strategic customers. Software is eating the world & account management could not escape! Do you feel there is a need of having specialized platforms or software for strategic account management? The answer is definitely yes. CRM systems are currently not adapted for true KAM.and other tools are required. This being said there are different sort of needs that can be covered with an adequate software application. Account Planning and monitoring of execution Definition and management of the Value Proposition Opportunities & Share of Business Management Relationship & Influence Management Communication and Operations (team portal and customer portal) These 5 themes are quite differentiated although they do overlap. I am not sure that a single platform will be able to cover all these needs at the same level of depth and for all type of companies in the near future, but I do not see this as a big problem. Companies need to assess their needs and explore where they should consider adding one or several KAM specific tools to their existing software stack (or replacing old applications by new ones). Will such tech platforms become ‘a must have’ for account managers and their leadership or do you feel it constitutes ‘a nice to have’ capability? We are in a transition era. Commercially available Software tools for KAM are just emerging. I strongly believe that the trend will accelerate rapidly and that the benefits of such platforms will be increasingly recognized by more and more KAM and IT professionals. As the awareness of such tools, and probably the breadth of the offering, improve, KAM practitioners will have to avoid to reproduce the same deadly mistake as in CRM: namely putting the tool before the people. KAM software tools will bring value only if the KAM methodology and toolset used by a company are adequate and if the KAM teams – all people involved in KAM – are sufficiently skilled. Such needs are not covered by any piece of software but by Skills development through training, on-the-job coaching, and experience sharing and by a true focus on teamwork. What is your one mantra for growing strategic client relationships? Act like an entrepreneur. Be able to think and help others think out of the box and secure support for these new ideas. In addition, don’t be rebuffed by resistance and demonstrate patience. Would you like to share an interesting business book you have recently read and what was the key takeaway for you? I recommend “Give and Take, Why Helping Others drives our Success by Adam Grant”. One of my customer, Head of KAM in a German industrial company, has used this book to open the eyes of his colleagues
Answer the ‘Big, Burning Question’ at Dreamforce 2016
Help us answer our ‘big, burning question’ at Dreamforce 2016 Every year we try and bring our big, burning question of the year to Dreamforce, were practicing professionals not only help us find answers but inspire us to ask ourselves even bigger questions…So, if you follow us on social media, you could not have missed our excitement for the upcoming Dreamforce ‘16. Last year, Dreamforce turned out to be a great source of inspiration – the people, products, and technologies from around the world set us thinking about the endless possibilities of technology to transform. Meeting greats like Rick Welts & Bob Myers a bonus. Dreamforce’15 was great, but I missed Key Account Management. Last year, my team and I were honored to present our company DemandFarm at Dreamforce. As a technology that helps B2B Companies manage and grow Key Accounts from within Salesforce, we found tremendous interest and enthusiasm among the community of Sales and Marketing professionals. People were curious and excited by the question – can technology transform the way you manage and grow your most Strategic Customers? Yet, even as the Key Account Management (KAM) tech space grows, I missed seeing more of it in Dreamforce’15. I wish there had been more talks, stalls, and events around Account Management and how technology can transform KAM as we know it. Making Dreamforce’16 count for Key Account Management There is no denying the value of Key Accounts. But how best to navigate these complex, global Accounts, with their dynamic networks and multiple white space opportunities? How can technology bridge the gap between the art and science of Key Account Management and create more value for all stakeholders? This is the question that’s been pushing us to develop technology that can enable people and institutionalize the key account management processes that drive success with Key Accounts. And, I am hoping that Dreamforce’16 will be a great place to take the question to you – the practicing professionals. After all, Dreamforce is all about the biggest ideas, innovations, and interactions. Let’s make it count for KAM this time round! With that in mind, we are setting up a ‘Dreamforce Dialogs’’ calendar so we can meet professionals like you in person and talk about all things KAM tech. We’d also be happy to take more tough questions about how technology can address KAM challenges. Set up a session with us in our Dreamforce Dialogs calendar if you like to organize things in advance. If there is anything you would like to talk about before then, I would love to hear from you at [email protected]. In the meanwhile, join me on Twitter and LinkedIn to get all the exciting updates about all the KAM stuff that matters before and after Dreamforce’16. PS: We are also curating the best Dreamforce Sessions for you! In the weeks leading up to Dreamforce’16, we are writing about all the sessions, people, and parties to watch out for if you are keen on being a part of the Key Account Management conversation. Add us to your address book so you do not miss out on any of the actions.
The 2016 IDC Report on the Salesforce Economy is out!
It’s official! As an entrepreneur, you tend to go by gut feel a lot. Especially when you are breaking new ground like we are – with technology to manage and grow Key Accounts. It is all about building the solutions you believe in, nurturing the people you think will go the distance, working with partners that can help create value and taking the epic journey into the future just based on intuition. However, on some rare occasions, you get confirmation from a credible, fact-based entity that you are on the right track; that the dream is indeed real; and that the choices you have made are 100% justified. Today is one of those days. Today, we are celebrating the confirmation of something we have all grown with and grown from. Today we are celebrating the success of the Salesforce Economy. Why today? Because we just received word about new research that shows that Salesforce and its ecosystem of customers and partners will create nearly 1.9 million jobs and add $389 billion in GDP impact worldwide over the next five years. Because the research confirms that Cloud computing is slated to grow at more than six times the rate of traditional IT spending from 2015 to 2020. Because Salesforce customers have installed apps from the Salesforce AppExchange more than 4 million times. Also, because DemandFarm is one of the awesome apps on the AppExchange that’s been creating value by transforming the way B2B companies manage and grow their Key Accounts. The Ecosystem that has got our head in the clouds When we set out to build DemandFarm as the preferred technology for B2Bs to manage and grow Key Accounts, our goal was to create unparalleled value for our users. This goal was and is in many ways made possible by being a part of the Salesforce Ecosystem. Being native to Salesforce makes it easy for our customers to deploy and use DemandFarm securely and seamlessly from AppExchange, on the cloud. More importantly, it helps address major pain points for our users – Sales professionals and Sales Ops teams – when it comes to data management and customer-centric insights. Here is how we leveraged being on the Salesforce ecosystem to help solve a major customer problem – the lion’s share of data that goes into DemandFarm is populated automatically from the Salesforce CRM data. That means minimal-to-no data entry for Account Managers – which means more time for real Sales work! Because of everything about the Key Account – including Annual Plans – is in one place in one format in DemandFarm, Sales professionals no longer spend hours just entering, collating or compiling data to generate reports or make Account plans. Because the data and the related intel mined from the data are auto-populated and real-time, Sales Ops teams save hours spent chasing after various stakeholders for customer-related data points, crunching the numbers or other data management tasks. DemandFarm joins the dots across complex Account data, so everything about the Key Account is right there in real-time – customer-centric intel that helps make all the right strategic decisions. A Brave New World As we continue to learn, grow and innovate with Salesforce on this epic journey deeper into the clouds, this seems like a great time to take stock of what we have achieved with DemandFarm. With users across every B2B verticals including manufacturing, automotive, retail, and finance, we are pretty delighted with the response we are getting from leadership and users alike. You can read some of our customer success stories here. This year forward, our renewed focus is on enabling the people (read: all stakeholders) and institutionalizing the processes that drive growth for Key Accounts. What do we mean by that? It is pretty simple – everything that matters to Key Accounts and can be managed, facilitated or enriched with technology, we try and make DemandFarm do it. It is about balancing the art and science of Key Account Management– with all the lightness of being on the Cloud, and the convenience of AppExchange. If you are B2B and if you are on Salesforce, then I would strongly recommend a free trial of DemandFarm to see if Salesforce account planning can transform the way you manage and grow your Key Accounts. This month, it is an all-access pass to every single feature we have, for up to 3 users in your company. Don’t miss it. In the meanwhile, we are going to be in celebration mode along with all our compatriots in the Salesforce Ecosystem, as we make our way together into the future of automation and technology.
Dreamforce 2016 Parties Calendar
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Its Q, not James Bond
“I’ll hazard I can do more damage on my laptop sitting in my pajamas before my first cup of earl grey than you can do in a year in the field.”– Q The Role of technology in marketing has been growing exponentially in the last few years. It started evolving with functions like accounting, inventory management, project management. Then came technologies to automate sales, service and most recently, marketing. There are a lot of great technologies available now, and like you, I have tried some of them in my own marketing strategies. Needless to say, technology, tools, gadgets- all of them exist to improve efficiencies of the user, save time, money.. whatever. But when it comes to using technology for marketing particularly, we have a unique phenomenon. Marketing is an art as much as a science – it’s not like a production line or logistics management. And you can never fully automate the ‘art’ aspect of marketing- that still needs a really competent human- i.e. Marketing or Account Manager to lead the effort intelligently. The Key account management tool exists to enhance all of the inherent skills of the Marketer and enable victory. Let’s illustrate this with a really simple example. I bought a fantastic e-mail marketing tool once and thought it would do wonders. But, without a great subject line (headline) that makes sense to the recipient and without really great, relevant content, the email tool is useless. In fact, it could be detrimental and annoy my prospects. In developing DemandFarm over the last 3 years, I set out to make a James Bond-like the tool that solves everything effortlessly and wins the confidence of the most difficult customers. But recently while watching a James Bond film, it dawned upon me that DemandFarm is ‘Q’, not James Bond. For the uninitiated, Q is the nerdy genius providing Bond with all his gadgets. In reality, the user of my product (Key Account Manager) is James Bond. I was trying to make DemandFarm a James Bond. It is imperative for Bond to have a Q at his side. Think for a second, what makes James Bond exceptional?The swag, the license to kill or the awesome gadgets that get him out of every near-death situation he gets himself into? All the tools Bond owns come from Q – the Jetpack, laser shooting Omega Seamaster Professional watch, every gun, every bullet in that gun and the Aston Martin. Bond is incomplete without the modified Aston Martin built by Q. The car is a veritable tank, providing the bond with a companion he can count upon every time. It’s Q’s gadgets that make the man on her majesty’s secret service a living weapon. So for every James Bond of a Key Account Manager out there, dial ‘demandfarm.com’ for your very own Q.