With the commencement of the fourth industrial revolution, every business leader has a digital transformation on their minds, and companies are researching which technologies, from artificial intelligence to record-keeping systems, can help them scale and succeed in the long run. A customer's activity on a website, app, or connected device may be tracked in the context of sales as a data point. However, this data is generally hard to access and dispersed. Traditional sales divisions cannot handle and utilize that data due to a lack of knowledge and skills. As a result, money spent on internal resources will be lost, and your competitors will be able to contact customers first. The skills gap in data and other difficulties are addressed through revenue operations, and in large part sales operations.
How does Sales Operations Work?
The phrase "sales operations" encompasses various activities and can have various meanings for various teams and organizations. The earliest prototypes of sales operations dated back to the 1970s and were primarily concerned with data analysis to give sales reps insights and guidance. The goals and roles are much more varied today.
Processes, technology, and data analytics encompass sales operations. Sales operations specialists use these three pillars to develop a strategy that enables your sales team to boost income while lowering operational expenses and streamlining duties to do more work with less effort.
For its "State of Sales" 2022 study, Salesforce, the world's top customer relationship management (CRM) platform, polled close to 6,000 salespeople. They used some of the information to produce a companion piece called "Trends in Sales Ops," which is intended to highlight the function's increasing significance and aid others in understanding its strategic significance.
Salesforce Features That Help Streamline Sales Operations
Leadership, market research, recruiting and training, forecasting, territory planning, and sales operational efficiencies are important tasks that make up the sales force. Sales operations are frequently the silent heroes of the company, taking on the most challenging tasks and problems to support efficient selling, precise forecasting, a solid sales strategy, and in many cases, revenue.
At the same time, as technology develops and the numerous moving parts and individuals involved in the sales process become more interconnected, sales operations across all industries are becoming more complex. More than ever, real-time updates and responses are crucial. According to Salesforce’s data, the vendor who responds first receives 35–50% of the sales!
CRM software can significantly improve a business's capacity to manage sales operations profitably, address issues and spot opportunities more quickly, and ultimately boost sales and revenue. The top sales management CRM in the world, Salesforce, provides crucial features and capabilities that aid businesses in achieving this. Let’s walk through some scenarios.
- When You Need to Integrate (or combine) Systems
Systems and data sets from various sources are included in sales operations, and they all work together to support the sales process. Salesforce can integrate with the existing systems used by the business to streamline processes and provide sales teams with a greater comprehensive view. Sales teams can gain better insights, take more informed actions, and have more opportunities for better decision-making by integrating data sets from systems that collaborate throughout the sales process.
- When You Need Powerful Data-Driven Approaches
Sales teams can view and understand sales data from various sources. Sales representatives and management can reduce attrition by gaining more sophisticated insights, improving forecast accuracy, identifying upsell opportunities, and spotting weak adoption early on. A quicker and more comprehensive view of business developments and significant actions by prospects and customers can strengthen relationships between the sales team and customers. Additionally, since sales representatives now have a thorough understanding of their deals based on data, there is less room for missed or delayed action, which can encourage ownership on the part of sales representatives.
- When You Need Optimization for Your Sales Operations
The unique advantage of Salesforce is that it allows users to keep using their existing systems and programs. Instead, Salesforce integrates with those applications and distribution channels to raise the value they deliver to the company and provide salespeople with the resources they need to be more proactive and make better decisions.
The Goals for an Effective, Efficient Sales Ops Team
Sales operations have a lot to live up to when their main goal is to enable their salespeople to grow rather than tax business. Here are four goals sales operations professionals can concentrate on to maximize their efficiency and that of the sellers they empower:
1. Taking Accountability and Underperformance into Account
The likelihood of management addressing performance difficulties is over 60% in elite sales organizations and 48% in top-performing ones. At all other companies, only 30% of management will confront under-performers.
Sadly, underachievers bring the entire squad down. No, that doesn't imply that we advise you to fire everyone in sight! Instead, sales operations teams help should devote all of their time and resources necessary to employ high achievers, manage low achievers, and impose accountability everywhere.
2. Data Management That Is Beneficial to You
Data that is useful and well-organized is valuable in the digital era. On the other hand, data that is not organized will cost you. Your business requires an effective data management plan to support efficient operations and continued sales success.
3. Reporting and Analytics for Better Business Decisions
Anyone in operations know the challenges of managing something you can't reliably measure. You'll have a great platform to launch continuing reporting and analysis projects once everything is set up properly in your database (right?). These projects will support important business decisions, keep you informed of opportunities, and alert you to potential failure areas.
4. Playing "Pick One" With Prices and Offers
Although certain wounds may heal with time, too much of it will halt a transaction in its tracks. One must pick a flexible or rigid model. Budgets fluctuate, competitors move in, key decision-makers are relocated, and more things happen over time. Sellers are more likely to close those sales if they receive the crucial pricing and information they need to produce and quickly transmit proposals.
Final Reflections
When we reflect on 2023 and the changes in the tech industry, it is clear Sales Operations teams have gotten a bigger voice from the business. In fact, Revenue Operations is the fastest-growing job right now in the US according to LinkedIn. A Salesforce Admin role, Sales Operations or Revenue Operations role, and everything else that is "Salesforce" has grown significantly over the years. Finally, sales operations builds ideal selling environments by utilizing data and insights, technology, strategy, performance, and sustainable development. Sales ops have demonstrated their importance to the success of the over-sales picture for almost five decades.
This was part 3 of a 4-series blog on the State of Sales and Salesforce. If you haven’t read it yet, in part 2, I wrote about how Salesforce leaders pivoted for recovery and growth in 2022; it’s here.
By Anthony Trinh. Anthony is the Founder and Principal Salesforce Consultant at Efforceless.
About Efforceless
Efforceless helps business leaders scale their teams. Founded only by seasoned current and former Shopify employees, we combine Revenue Operations with a polished Salesforce implementation, and as a result, our clients have the smartest Salesforce team working for them at less than the cost of one Salesforce hire. For more information about Efforceless’ Salesforce consulting services and solutions, visit: www.efforceless.com
About Salesforce
Salesforce, the global CRM leader, empowers companies of every size and industry to digitally transform and create a 360° view of their customers. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com