At their Rainmaker 2019 conference, SalesLoft announced a doubling of their ecosystem, mobile functionality, a rebuilt analytics engine, and a hot leads feature. The show attracted 1,300 attendees to hear 164 speakers.
“We’re in the middle of
SalesLoft’s purpose is to “to activate the authentic seller in all of us” and elevate the sales profession by offering “world-class experiences.” The firm operates under a quintet of values that inform its hiring and operations:
SalesLoft Operating Principles.
These principles led to SalesLoft being named the top-midsized employer in Atlanta for the second year in a row. “We embrace the transformative power of technology innovation for our customers, but we believe in people first,” said Porter. “Our founding purpose is to create an environment where others can come to learn more, do more, and become more. Team members are encouraged to take their talents and skills and apply them to serve others and find fulfillment. We show love to our people so they can share that sentiment with our customers.”
SalesLoft’s sales engagement platform is designed to support evolving buying behavior. B2B buyers are swamped by messaging and “super busy,” yet need to solve complex problems. Buyers are looking for an “engaging, authentic experience” that understands buyer needs and solves their problems. However, sellers are inefficient and operate with broken processes. SalesLoft is looking to address process failures by centralizing sales workflows and encouraging best practices. Objectives include elevating the sales profession through community, encouraging diversity amongst its staff and event speakers (54% of whom were women or minorities at Rainmaker), and transparency in its policies and outcomes.
Porter described his future vision of sales where “every single seller has a digital assistant by their side” along with a “sales coaching network” which is a “giant distributed network of sales activity.” Sales reps are supported by a digital assistant which delivers broad data and context-specific insights based on seller, stage, and customer to help reps “connect authentically with the buyer.”
Porter contends that “you can’t take the human out of the equation” but you can make it “easier to distribute a world-class experience to your customer.”
“[It’s time to] elevate the profession of sales to focus on delivering customers world-class experiences. With that, you can maximize revenue. A sales experience must be authentic, engaging, relevant, human, one-to-one and, most importantly, it understands buyers’ needs and solves their problems.”
SalesLoft CEO Kyle Porter
Sales reps have long suffered from a bad reputation, being forced to take ethical shortcuts to meet managerial demands. SalesLoft is looking to lead by example. According to Porter, when “we do right,” SalesLoft customers are able to hire, innovate, and invent new things.
SalesLoft’s other goal is to improve the efficiency and efficacy of sales teams. A SalesLoft study found a 22% increase in opportunities created when comparing the 90-day windows before and after implementing their platform. To back up their research, they commissioned a Forrester study of their customers which found a
- 2.5X improvement in response rates
- 20% lift in conversion and productivity
- Doubling of the funnel
- 13% increase in renewals
- 329% ROI
“Many people say we’re in a state of digital transformation,” said SalesLoft CMO Sydney Sloan. “For sales, we’re entering a revolution of how we engage customers.”
Buyers are looking for partners that work with them to identify and resolve issues. “Today’s successful seller has to be a problem solver and you do that by asking great questions and collectively solving the problem with and for your customer,” said Sloan. “It doesn’t matter if the product goes 10 miles an hour or 50 miles an hour, it’s the people I want to work with in partnership and, at the end of the day, it’s the people I want to work with. I’ll pick a company because of the relationship. The product still has to solve my problems but if two things are equal, I’ll go with the partnership.”
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