Selecting the right enablement tool for Inside vs field sales
Different industry sectors follow different sales strategies - and hence there is no one-size-fits-all sales enablement strategy either. One of the most critical differences to note for creating a sales strategy is the location of the sales reps - inside sales or field sales. The main differences are summarized in this table:
Because of the above factors, the Sales Enablement requirements of field and inside sales teams are vastly different.
One critical way that training needs of on-field sales representatives can be improved is by using self-paced learning, in the form of pre-loaded training videos, assessments and AI-based roleplays. These allow them to learn in their own time, often outside business hours. The latter is particularly appreciated by field sales representatives, because the AI can partially take on the role of the mentor in war-gaming sales situations.
Sales Enablement for on-field sales representatives also needs to help them communicate better, with both customers and their managers. Where it’s easy for inside sales representatives to simply walk up to their supervisor, for the field representative, it means a long call eating into sales time.
Accessing the CRM to update customer progress, or downloading new collateral or streaming video lessons - all of these are harder for a field sales rep without a good network, as is often the case. Also, getting the most recent updates of sales brochures or FAQs (or even competitor intelligence) is a major problem that inside sales teams do not face compared to those out in the field.
Sales Enablement tools can have a lot of bells and whistles such as analytics, and be desktop-centric for inside sales teams, but these are unaffordable luxuries for the field force. Such tools are seen as improving the convenience of managers, rather than making the sales representatives’ operations easier.
For a sales enablement platform to be effective for field sales forces, it should -
- Be mobile-first and operable in poor network areas;
- Arm the field professional with easy-to-retrieve battlecards that help them answer customer questions on the go;
- Help sales representatives learn about products, competitors and market updates at their own pace;
- Easily spread the ‘tribal knowledge’ in real time.
Nevertheless, there are several features that should be integral to all sales enablement tools, inside or field, such as:
- Being simple to understand with an intuitive UI;
- Updating the latest sales collateral and weed out old ones;
- Making them easy to customize and share with customers;
- Being able to interface seamlessly with CRM and other tools
In certain business segments, the Sales Enablement team is often centrally located, and may not have a complete on-ground picture. There is thus the risk of bias towards implementing tools and platforms that are suitable for inside sales, but not for field sales. Hence, it is necessary that the team spend time and energy shadowing field sales representatives to understand their specific needs before settling upon a platform.
Sharpsell.ai equips sales reps with personalized content to engage with customers and customized presentations to share with customers as per their needs. All the content is accessible through a single source - the sharpsell platform. Companies using Sharpsell.ai have seen an increase in sales productivity with higher number of products sold, higher ticket size, increased visibility on prospecting, reduced content creation cost, reduced time to first sale, reduced costs of training, and uncovering insights on product feedback.
What’s a Rich Text element?
The rich text element allows you to create and format headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, images, and video all in one place instead of having to add and format them individually. Just double-click and easily create content.
Static and dynamic content editing
A rich text element can be used with static or dynamic content. For static content, just drop it into any page and begin editing. For dynamic content, add a rich text field to any collection and then connect a rich text element to that field in the settings panel. Voila!
How to customize formatting for each rich text
Headings, paragraphs, blockquotes, figures, images, and figure captions can all be styled after a class is added to the rich text element using the "When inside of" nested selector system.
zdxfhgfg
- sdnslk,xdv
- SDlknjsdv
- SDvlknj
- sdgdf v
