Continued from Part I
Salesloft CEO Kyle Porter suggested that the answer to overwhelmed sales reps is not more technology and data but better-designed tools and workflows that address the “Revenue Performance Gap.” Salesloft’s Modern Revenue Workspace offers
- “Proper insights at the right time
- The ability to take action
- The ability to communicate
- The coachable moment”
Instead of a series of tools, Salesloft is positioning itself as one of Gartner’s “alpha platforms” that broadly ties together sales workflows and channels. Gartner noted a set of attributes of these platforms:
– “Alpha Platforms are hyper-aggressive vendors who are broadening capabilities at a breakneck speed.
– It’s not just M&A, some companies will evolve into alpha platforms by building capabilities. This is totally doable, they just have to be able to work fast.
– Alpha platforms aren’t necessarily buying competitors in the same category – they are buying into adjacent categories.”
Gartner Analysts Craig Rosenberg and Dan Gottlieb, “Sales Tech Mayhem: 39 Observations From a Scorching Hot Tech Market,” Garter Blog (July 28, 2021)
“It’s a time to tell a new story about sales and provide you with a complete, digital go-to-market solutions your sellers and sales teams need,” said Porter.
According to Salesloft Chief Product Officer Ellie Fields, this advanced sales platform is “built for sellers.” It reduces workflow friction, allowing reps to “take faster action” and prioritize their time. The platform also serves as a centralized engagement hub with the “most critical tools for digital selling,” including email, phone, SMS, meetings, social, etc.
The Modern Revenue Workspace deploys data and AI within the workflow, delivering insights such as the most engaged prospects, deals at risk, and “trends that improve outcomes.”
The Salesloft platform acts as a hub for digital selling, driving alignment across the revenue team. Along with Deals, Conversations, and Cadences, the platform synchronizes data with a system of record (Salesforce, MS Dynamics, or HubSpot) and supports sales intelligence and workflows with over 115 ecosystem partners.
The new release is based on a set of advanced objectives:
- Take Action Anywhere – Communications channels are available throughout the platform. For example, reps can call, email, book a meeting, or send an SMS message within the Deals view. Digital communications are then captured and analyzed, helping identify “the most engaged prospects, stalled but winnable deals, and trends that help revenue teams adjust course to improve performance.”
- Know What Changed in Your Deal – Reports identify which opportunities were updated, how long the deal is in the current stage, and whether the close date or amount changed. For example, progression indicators are now displayed in Pipeline Review and Deals reports.
- Enterprise Ready Conversations – Salesloft continues to enhance its communications channels with support for Microsoft Teams, native Zoom and WebEx support, improved transcription, and governance enhancements. The native Zoom support is more reliable than the previous bot tool. Salesloft also added Consent to Record for MS Teams and will be adding it for other platforms and its dialer. They also added English language recording announcements with additional language announcements in development.
The enhanced Conversations transcription engine offers “improved accuracy, searchability, and filtering” that helps managers and sellers “easily identify buyer and market trends and coaching opportunities to set more meetings, build more pipeline, speed deal cycles, and improve the chances of winning more deals.”
A new Conversations Summary is delivered to inboxes. - Unify Communications across Channels – Conversations in Activity Feed provide updates on important meetings.
- Understand Outcomes across the Platform – Outcomes in Step Analytics identify which steps are working, helping improve Cadences.
- Insights Anywhere – A Meetings panel on the home page summarizes pending meetings to assist with call prep.
- Automate No-Show Workflows – New cadence workflows help reps reschedule missed meetings. A “partial show” workflow also provides the call hyperlink and summary to those who missed a meeting.
At a high level, the goal is to remove friction in the sales process by reducing the need to jump from app to app. Instead, reps can engage with shareholders and obtain insights from anywhere in Salesloft.
Future items include SHAKEN/STIRRED registration, native Google Meeting support, and Salesforce Event field logging.
