As we move closer into the new year, most sales teams are likely setting the stage for 2025 with sales kickoff meetings, also known as SKOs. Topics that top sales organizations will be covering this year include sales strategies, sales forecasting, methodologies, predictable forecasting, and more. Read on to discover what you should have in your next SKO session.
Sales Execution Tools for New Sales Methodologies
During SKO sessions, many companies roll out new methodologies and processes. Companies pay boatloads of money to provide their teams with proven sales methods and techniques. However, they will usually be left with a 300-page binder or set of static templates that will be quickly forgotten. How can companies get reps to adopt new sales methodologies in their day-to-day workflows?
Translating these strategies from paper to practice in today’s B2B sales landscape is challenging. Sales teams are straying further away from what they’re trained on. They would rather spend time on activities directly impacting their ability to manage and close deals.
Advanced sales execution tools (such as playbooks, scorecards, opportunity plans, etc.) help guide reps through sales strategies and processes. These tools reinforce training and best practice behaviors rather than expecting reps to retain information from training materials. Why are these sales execution tools so necessary? According to an article from G2, 76% of companies experience a 6-20% increase in sales once a sales strategy is implemented. As a result, these tools help companies qualify out of deals sooner, focus more on verifiable outcomes, and reduce sales cycles.
Use Sales Forecast to Gain Accuracy and Revenue Predictability
According to Gartner, only 45% of survey respondents say that sales leaders in their organizations have high confidence in sales forecasting accuracy. With the constantly evolving landscape in B2B sales, relying on methodologies, training programs, and SFA systems often needs to improve in reinforcing value selling behaviors. With the number of decision-makers increasing, enterprise sales organizations need help to empower reps to focus their time on the most likely to close opportunities.
Enterprise sales teams that invest time in opportunity planning are far better equipped to uncover highly qualified sales opportunities that close faster. Opportunity planning will help sales teams find more important strategic deals that close faster to meet their revenue goals.
Sales teams can use tools to unlock data to deliver actionable insights that provide a clear and single view of the buyer landscape that is absolute. A visual strategic selling platform that offers a complete picture of the stakeholders, influencers, buying centers, and business priorities can help reps strategically align sales activities with prospects’ business goals.
By placing the increasingly complex buyer’s journey in a visual context, sales teams gain the clarity they need to identify critical knowledge gaps, potential risks, and common delay indicators. This way, they can take the best next step to increase win ratios and reduce deal slippage. The process of mapping out the most common factors in winning and losing a deal enables reps to think critically about how to approach each deal and how to focus their activities on gaining the highest return on effort.
Dynamic Sales Coaching for More Wins
Faced with ever-increasing revenue goals, more global competition, and higher customer expectations (to name a few things keeping sales leaders awake at night), companies are looking for ways to increase sales efficiency and effectiveness. It’s essential to include sales coaching in your next sales kickoff meeting and focus on what salespeople will do differently and what sales managers should do differently.
In 2025, sales coaching will start coming into the picture more and more. In a recent webinar with sales coaching guru Matt Webb of Mentor Group, he revealed that a 5% shift in performance could yield over 70% more revenue. Sales teams without a defined process are not achieving their full potential because they’re not going further and involving technology to enable the coaching process.
Managers who use sales execution tools can deliver visibility into the most critical areas impacting deal outcomes. Specifically, stakeholders/influencers, understanding what matters to the prospect and how to pitch solutions that align with their goals, and identifying risks or potential barriers to close or stall. Managers can then use these plans to sales coach reps on filling in the gaps that could cause them to waste time, delay sales cycles, and lose.
As we approach 2025, it is time to incorporate this into your sales kickoff meeting for a solid commitment by sales management to formalize sales coaching strategies —and leverage technology to make it happen. According to Forbes, in 74% of leading companies, sales coaching and mentoring are the most important. These statistics speak for themselves.
KAM Enablement for Long-Term Growth
As a B2B company, a significant part of your revenue comes from key accounts. Focusing on key accounts can deliver the highest growth in the least amount of time at the lowest cost. Not just over the long term – but NOW. The long-term growth potential of key accounts can be virtually unlimited.
Companies realize that if they engage in effective and ongoing KAM, they will have win rates DOUBLE that of companies without a formal process in 2025. You could miss substantial growth opportunities because your current approach to managing key accounts needs a critical element. Key accounts are highly complex, so it is crucial to use specialized and scalable technology to optimize the revenue potential of key accounts.
Related Strategic Account Management Resources
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