Top Sales

Trends of 2016

TABLE OF CONTENTS

02 Introduction

2016 Snap Shot

What Does 2016 Hold for Sales?

03 Meet the Experts

04 16 Sales Trends

05 Digital Transformation

08 Sales Automation

Tool Consolidation

11 Predictive Analytics

14 Death of Traditional Sales Funnels

16 Omnichannel Sales

19 End-to-End Sales Focus

21 Alignment with Customer Success

Happy Customers

23 Alignment with Marketing

Account-Based Sales Development

26 Sales Playbooks

29 Death of Cold Calling

More Sales Creativity

31 Thought Leadership

Sales Leadership

33 Top Sales Tools of 2016

36 Conclusion

About Quote-to-Cash

About Apttus

TABLE OF CONTENTS

2016 in a Snapshot

The Olympics are coming back around and so is the presidential

election. A new generation of Star Wars is upon us and Batman will

take on Superman in an epic battle. Apple is expected to announce

the gen 2 of the Apple watch and Uber is promising driverless

transportation. China is one-upping Uber as they experiment with the

world’s first ever flying cars, virtual reality has now become a reality,

and wearables are rumored to soon give way to embeddables.

But what does 2016 hold for sales?

We dug through e-books, white papers, blogs, and headlines. We

attended conferences, webinars, and sales trainings. We spoke to

experts, authors, executives, and sales leaders. We even asked those

on the ground from top performing account executives, sales

development reps, marketers, customer relationship reps, sales ops,

and even buyers.

We read and heard and learned a ton, just so we could share it with

you. Enjoy!

INTRODUCTION

/02

MEET THE EXPERTS

Nancy Nardin

President & Founder,

Smarter Selling Tools

Greg Kaplan

CRO & Managing

Director, Bluewolf

Chad Burmeister

Author, Sr Director, Global

Sales Development,

RingCentral

Tom Taulli

Writer, Forbes,

Founder

OptionExercise.com

Daniel Barber-Trenbath

Vice President of

Revenue, Node.io

Kamal Ahluwalia

EVP, Sales &

Marketing, Apttus

Ford Williams

Enterprise Account

Executive, ClearSlide

Andrew Leigh

Vice President Marketing

& Alliances, Jitterbit

Mary Beth Gargani

Director of Customer

Success, Apttus

Matt Amundson

Director of Sales

Development,

EverString

Sally Duby

General Manager, The

Bridge Group Inc.

Oceah Clark-Kasperzyk

Director of New Business,

Obility

Scott Kahan

Regional Sales Manager,

Influitive

Deb Calvert

Author & President,

People First Productivity

Solutions

/03

Jim Steele

President, Sales &

CCO, InsideSales.com

“2016 will be the year when sales leaders look to technology not just for executing tactically, but to be a strategic

differentiator. More people will recognize that executing efficiency is table stakes. To win long-term, companies must

strategically deploy technology that provides better outcomes and improvements in performance.”

Nancy Nardin

President & Founder Smarter Selling Tools

/04

1. Digital Transformation

Emphasis on Speed Forces B2B Companies to

Think and Act More like B2C Companies

We are already knee-deep in the era of digital

business, driven by cloud and SaaS models,

connectivity, and smart technology. The world is

moving at a faster pace than ever before, and

businesses must remain adaptive, agile, and

responsive to the shifts in market demands and

customer expectations.

While these may seem like concerns fit for a CIO, by

rule of Trickle Down Techonomics, these steady

changes will begin to have a direct impact on sales,

particularly how reps approach deals, how managers

outline process and strategy, and especially how

customers make buying decisions.

Business is accelerating and so will sales cycles.

Digital business and cloud capabilities have also

dramatically lowered barriers of entry meaning more

companies can compete in the same space than

previously. Expect greater competition over deals.

Knowing your product as well as competition’s key

differentiators will be important.

1. BI / Analytics

2. Cloud

3. Mobile

4. Digitization

5. Infrastructure & Data Center

Gartner’s Top 5

Strategic Tech Trends:

MITSloan Management Review

“Strategy, not technology,

drives Digital Transformation”

http://sloanreview.mit.edu/projects/strategy-drives-digital-transformation/

/05

“The most productive sales teams will be supported by applications with simple, consumer-like user experiences. Any app, from quoting to forecasting, that is perceived as

a chore rather than a choice, will hurt productivity and potentially revenue as well.”

Greg Kaplan CRO & Managing Director

Bluewolf

/06

“If your sales development team isn't equipped with the latest and greatest sales technology in 2016, then you

aren't penetrating your market like you could be. 2016 is the year of the Sales Development Representative!”

Chad Burmeister Author, Senior Director, Global

Sales Development, RingCentral

/07

2. Sales Automation Emphasis on Efficiency Through Tools and Processes

Recent years have seen a huge interest and growth in

marketing and sales automation tools, a trend very

much validated by VC’s checkbooks. There are more

and more sales tools available, all designed to help

make reps more efficient and effective at selling.

Author and influencer Chad Burmeister, at a recent

conference, described it as “Every rep has the

opportunity to wear the Iron man suite to work

everyday and be 3x, 4x, 5x more productive.” Those

who understand the tools at their disposal and

maximize the potential will have a noticeable

advantage against those who don’t.

From a team wide perspective, there simply is no

excuse for mindless and tedious manual work. Hours

can be shaved off prospecting, dialing, emailing, data

input, drawing up sales documents etc. – time better

spent in front of buyers. Leaders need to audit and

Taylorize1 their sales processes, augmenting manual

steps with automation. Look to do so by selecting the

right tools, not necessarily more tools.

3. Tool Consolidation Expected Acquisitions and Bundling of Smaller Tools

These two trends seem almost contradictory. Internally,

teams will look to increase automation and efficiency

with tool use. Externally, there will be an effort to shrink

the number of tools available.

The marketplace is near saturation. There is an

abundance of small, standalone sales tools that can

only solve one pain at a time. As a result, technology

forward sales orgs are noticing their sales tool stacks

are starting to become unwieldy and in some cases the

variety of tools is detracting, rather than enhancing rep

productivity.

Many experts predict that 2016 will see its share of

acquisitions, mergers and bundling of these tools as

they are added as features into existing platforms.

1 Taylorism is a theory of management that analyzes and synthesizes

workflow, improving efficiency

/08

“What to expect for 2016? Well, one is that predictive analytics may finally

make an impact (I know, I know – this always seems to be the next big thing!)

Already InsideSales.com is showing the power of this technology, essentially

using the ‘Amazon.com’ recommendation engine as a clever example. But I

think the real catalyst will be Salesforce, which is pushing hard on predictive

analytics. There is Wave, of course. But Salesforce.com has also been ramping

acquisitions, such as for Relate IQ and MinHash.”

Tom Taulli Writer, Forbes.com

Founder, OptionExercise.com

/09

“In 2016, sales teams will stop wrestling with Excel spreadsheets

for sales forecasting and will start using solutions that make

forecast reports easily accessible right in their CRMs. Predictive

technology will change the way sales teams work by improving

their forecast accuracy and allowing them to roll up their forecasts

in minutes, even in global and matrixed organizations.”

Jim Steele

President, Worldwide Sales & Chief Customer Officer, InsideSales.com

/10

4. Predictive Analytics

Finally Make an Impact Quality Leads Over Quantity Leads

For the past two years, the capabilities of predictive

analytics have been very popular in discussion, but have

yet to make a strong impact in actual practice. Already

gaining decent traction in marketing and finance

departments, predictive engines are expected become a

cornerstone tool in sales stacks.

Predictive analytics go a step deeper than traditional

dashboards, providing actionable data and forecasts.

Companies like InsideSales.com and Salesforce are

already leading the way helping reps identify and capitalize

on higher quality leads. As a result, sales leaders can

focus efforts on the right opportunities, rather than empty

leads, ultimately driving better results. Tools will offer user-

friendly, turnkey analytics solutions that span the sales

cycle from prospecting, lead scoring, dynamic pricing,

customer renewal, upsell and cross-sell opportunities, all

the way through to churn analysis.

Predictive Analytics are a Growing

Priority for Sales Leadership:

58%

Sales organizations plan

to increase their use of

sales analytics from

2015 to 2016.

77% Over the next 12-18

months, smart selling

fueled by predictive

analytics will increase by

Of high performing sales

teams rely on sales

analytics compared

to 16% underperforming

counterparts

57%

2 Source: 2015 State of Sales Report by Salesforce Research

/11

“We live in a world where consumers would rather conduct their own

research online than pick up a phone and have a conversation with a Sales

representative. Sales professionals that previously relied on building initial

rapport over the phone will need to adapt and learn how to utilize current

technologies to open those same doors.”

Chris Ashley Director of Sales,

Kissmetrics

https://www.mikogo.com/2015/12/15/sales-trends-challenges-2016/

/12

“2016 is the year of contextual data. As organizations adopt new methods

to effectively use data to target, prospect, and engage buyers, leaders will

emerge. However, it goes beyond capturing information: sales leaders must

apply strategy to parse through the noise to find relevance. Relevant

information is knowledge. Knowledge is competitive power.”

Daniel Barber-Trenbath Vice President of Revenue,

Node.io

/13

5. Death to Traditional Sales Funnel

Buyer Behavior is Radically Different than in the Past

Most sales teams live by some version of the Spears

Funnel (pictured right) which is a derivative of the 19th

Century St. Elmo Lewis AIDA funnel. More recently,

2004, it was the cornerstone philosophy of Salesforce’s

sales success. Yet, a lot has changed in the decade

since, forcing us to rethink the model.

Sales influencer and blogger, Daniel Barber-Trenbath

writes, “It’s the end of an era;” it’s the end of the old

funnel. “Today’s buyer expects a different approach to

communication, and yet so many sale organizations

continue to leverage a linear conversion model to

forecast results.”

We’ve heard these numbers before:

• By the time customers finally do interact with a

rep, they are already 75 to 95% of the way

done with their transaction.

• According to Forrester, “93% of B2B buyers

prefer to buy online rather than from a rep when

they’ve decided on what to buy.”

4 Predictable Revenue: http://predictablerevenue.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Chart-11-RGB-Outbound-Sales-Funnel.jpg

The world around us is a vast supermarket of options,

information, and intelligence. It’s a buyer’s market and

smart companies understand that people have choices

of who to do business with, and they are transforming

the way they sell and service customers. 2016 calls for

a broader reach in marketing and sales channels in

order to meet customers where they prefer to shop,

and a narrower focus in outbound strategies with

personalized, targeted campaigns.

4

/14

Traditional Sales Funnel

“You’re not going to go very far in modern business without a detailed and

successful omnichannel strategy. We recommend starting with a good sense

of prioritization. Any successful initiative for deploying and expanding these

channels needs to account for three major interrelated issues: automation,

adoption, and agility, working off the same data set but tailoring the user

experience for each channel.”

Kamal Ahluwalia Executive Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Apttus

/15

6. Omnichannel Sales

Productive Partnerships and Multiple Customer

Touchpoints will Grow Your Business

Omnichannel sales and marketing is increasingly

getting the mindshare of executives, strategists, and

decision makers, in firms worldwide. That’s because

buying behavior has changed in recent years.

Customers expect B2C-Tier in all of their sales

interactions, which means how and where you sell

needs to change, as well.

Growing, forward-thinking businesses will invest in a

productive omnichannel program to help connect the

dots between online and in-person experiences,

ensuring brand consistency across all channels, from

mobile to e-commerce to partner sales and self-service

portals.

The omnichannel concept resonates strongly because

of dramatic benefits to be gained in growing revenues

and margins, more effective engagement with

customers across channels, and increased customer

loyalty, and winning over customer segments that buy

more and more often.

of firms are either at an “early

implementation” stage or

“plan to launch in 6-12 months”

omnichannel initiatives. 3

63%

3 Source: The CMO Club Survey: Demystifying Omni-Channel Marketing

/16

“Selling will be moving to a more consensus approach. Sales

reps will have to become used to selling across several

departments to each prospect as technology, systems, and

groups become more integrated.”

Ford Williams Enterprise Account Executive,

Outside Sales, ClearSlide

/17

“Connected sales will be the major trend for 2016 – as companies adopt more

technologies and applications, it becomes even more critical get the integration right.

Sales are won and lost based on the information available to the team. With a

connected sales strategy, sales teams get the right data at the right time from the right

systems to accelerate the customer buying experience and drive more sales.

[…]

Great examples are how to segment the target market for success, allowing reps to

create their own quotes and orders, and providing key information about billing, credit

limits, or order history directly to the rep.”

Andrew Leigh Vice President

Marketing & Alliances, Jitterbit

/18

7. End-to-End Awareness

Technology and Markets Surrounding Your Business are Increasingly Integrated, Your Processes Need to Be as Well

Many of the previous trends – enhanced automation, growth

in omnichannel strategies, digital transformation – are all an

indication of increasing integration. Long gone are the days

where each department sticks within their respective,

confined silos. Every team within an organization needs to

be digitally connected in order to remain competitive and

successful.

This evolution is compelling sales leadership to increase

their awareness of downstream business processes and to

adopt Quote-to-Cash strategies.

Quote-to-Cash, a term that is cropping up more and more,

refers to the set of processes that connect a customer’s

intent to buy and a company’s realization of revenue. It

provides a more holistic approach to the customer

relationship, revenue cycle, and sales process. Despite

common compensation models, deals don’t end when a

quote is signed. Reps also have vested interest in the

contract negotiation and execution, invoicing, distribution

and implementation, renewal, and promotions, as success

or failure in any of these stages post-sign can impact both

active and future deals.

In managing Quote-to-Cash, sales and sales ops

teams can have a true 360-degree understanding of a

deal’s success and optimize every touchpoint with

prospects and customers. In doing so, they have full

visibility into purchased product trends, renewal

opportunities, and high-percentage upsell or cross-

sell possibilities, all improving customer retention,

recurring revenue growth, pipeline forecasting, and

overall numbers close rates.

The Benefit Quote-to-Cash Focused Sales

“[With] the innate ability to link the entire Quote-to-

Cash process together in one system. We will be

able to scale our operation and leverage the benefits

of this great toolset at the same relative cost of our

manual processes that were not scalable…This

solution will optimize our end-to-end sales, support

process and will allow us to keep the focus on the

most important part of our business -- our clients.”

Darra Wray, Senior Vice President Finance, of

Healthwise Incorporated Source: CIOToday.com, Apttus’ Innovation Continues to Propel

the Cloud-based Quote-to-Cash Industry Forward

/19

“The commitments and expectations established during the sales cycle need to be the

criteria that the delivery and customer success teams use to measure overall project

adoption and success. The coordinated knowledge transfer allows the customer

objectives to remain the primary focus throughout the engagement and across all

areas of the organization.

Organizations that consistently demonstrate a connected model of Sales + Solution

Delivery+ Customer Success can achieve better results for their customers

and their business long term.”

Mary Beth Gargani Director of Customer Success,

Apttus

/20

8. Closer Alignment

with Customer Success A Strong Relationship with your Customer Success

Team can Help Generate Sales Success

As business continues to accelerate and divisions

between different departments continue to dissolve,

the closer sales and customers success teams will

begin to work. Of course, smart reps have already

been working closely with their Customer Success

(CS) team, because they are your most valuable asset.

No one understands use cases, pain points, and best

practices better than the CS team. They are on the

ground, speaking and working with the customer on a

regular basis. They hold the keys to renewal

opportunities, and more importantly, the ammo to close

new deals. Work with them to understand your

customer’s processes, learn what success is for them,

ensure you develop messaging that can guide new

customers towards that success, and even understand

what failure looks like (and how to prevent it!).

9. Happy Customers Expected Acquisitions and Bundling of Smaller Tools

As sales teams work closer with their customer

success teams, expect to see a greater focus on

customer satisfaction and retention – and for good

reason too.

For starters, 80% of your revenue comes from existing

customers. It’s also 6-7x more expensive to acquire a

new customer than retain one. Happy customers will

lead to more renewals, greater upsell and cross-sell

opportunities and can help impact future deals as

positive referrals or brand evangelists.

Some companies, for instance Salesforce, believe in

customer satisfaction so much that they’ve altered their

sales compensation model so their reps aren’t paid

when the deal is signed, but when the customer hits

100% implementation. Other companies like Mulesoft

and Apttus have invested in advocacy programs which

reward their customers for engaging with the brand.

/21

“In 2016, I think that we will see the lines between sales development and

demand generation start to blur even further. In some companies, I am even

seeing them act as one function. Sales development is a natural extension of

demand gen, and demand gen is fuel for sales. By having clear alignment

between these two groups, pre-sales becomes one large nurture stream--

everything is connected, from collecting new names, to building those

relationships, to sales outreach, and beyond. With close alignment and

shared responsibilities, this process becomes truly seamless.”

Matt Amundson Director of Sales Development,

EverString

/22

10. Greater Sales &

Marketing Alignment The Line Between Sales Development and Lead Gen

Is Blurring

Sales and marketing like to consider themselves

separate entities. As Marketo writes, “Sales is form

Mars and Marketing is form Venus,” yet what they need

to realize is they both orbit the same sun. 5 The line

between sales and marketing, specifically sales

development and lead gen, is blurring. We are seeing

many strategies that have originated in the marketing

realm – account-based targeting, automation tools,

lead scoring – penetrate the sales world. As sales

cycles shorten and tools make predictive lead scoring

simpler, these two departments will steadily gravitate

towards one another.

5http://www.marketo.com/resources

/marketing-and-sales-alignment/

11. Account-Based SDR New Methods in Lead & Pipeline Generation

Generating qualified leads to pass on to Account

Executives is a constant effort, often with inconsistent

results. Traditionally it’s been approached as a volume

game, the more outreach, the more opportunities. With

increased analytics and lead quality outweighing lead

quantity, sales teams will take a more systematic

approach, focusing resources on companies and

profiles most likely to buy.

Account-Based Sales Development (ABSD), stemming

from the widely popular and proven account-based

marketing, allows sales teams to develop qualified

pipeline by sending relevant, personalized multi-touch

email campaigns to identified target accounts, rather

than mass prospect and outreach.

Within some proactive companies, sales teams are

enabling SDRs, in cases of predefined lead

qualification, to complete the sales cycle themselves. It

increases close rates by striking when the customer is

ready to buy, and preserves AE’s time and efforts for

larger deals.

/23

“The companies that have actual onboarding training and

documented Playbooks with on-going coaching and reinforcement

will ramp reps quicker and retain them longer. There will be more

attention on Ideal Customer Profiles and ensuring your reps have

access to the right data and lists. Otherwise, everyone is

wasting valuable time and money.”

Sally Duby General Manager,

The Bridge Group Inc.

/24

“Bolster new business opportunities by adding an outbound

sales process. We knew it was crucial to develop a scalable,

predictable model centered around establishing thought

leadership and targeting best fit companies.”

Oceah Clark-Kasperzyk Director of New Business,

Obility

/25

12. Sales Playbooks New Methods in Lead & Pipeline Generation

Sales has been traditionally perceived as a game of

skill, where the best flourish and everyone else merely

keeps pace. But too often, managers will have one rep

hitting 150% of quota and many others hovering

around 70%.

As the rest of our world becomes automated and

predictable, sales organizations will work to create

repeatable success within their ranks, specifically with

sales playbooks. These playbooks outline best

practices, tactics for different personas or selling

scenarios, quick reference for competitors, and specific

calls-to-action to move the deal along.

Playbooks are especially useful at the sales

development level which typically has low levels of

sales experience and high rates of turnover.

Sales organizations that deploy playbooks have seen: 6

• 2.5x increase in average deal size

• 3x times more likely to win deals

• 10% shorter sales cycles

/01

Best Ways to Improve Efficiency of Prospecting

• Define common language and process

• Create playbook

– Combines best tactics of whole department

– Update regularly

– 1 for SDRs, 1 for Managers

• Create prospecting plan

– # of unique conversations needed to hit KPIs

– Source of leads (top 5 methods)

– Lead expectation per source per time period

• Creates accountability - onus on SDR

• Aides focus and scheduling

– Create customized content for targets in each

vertical

• Thorough pre-call planning

– Standardized expectations for each meeting

• Standardized debriefing

– Meeting results tied into specific thresholds

for moving to next step in sales process

• Weekly coaching

– Don’t manage to results , manage to behavior

– Enforce consistency of day-to-day activities

that will lead to desired results

Model courtesy of Oceah Clark-Kasperzyk, Director of New Business, Obility 6 Source: Qvidian: Succeed Faster with Sales Playbooks

/26

“People sell to people, and the best reps have the best

conversations. We use tools to have smarter

conversations…Conversation is still King.”

Rob Jeppsen Vice President & General

Manager of Sales, HireVue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-5v8Ezfxpfk/

/27

“The phone is still the most valuable tool you have. We have

labels on all of our phones, ATM. If you want to make

money, pick up the phone.”

Armando Mann Vice President of Sales

& Customer Success, Relate IQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LluUCM_qC4/

/28

13. Death of Cold Calls Too Much Available Info for You to Ever Cold Call

R.I.P. to the oldest tool in the sales repertoire, the

infamous cold call. With all of the social channels,

profiles, information, lead data available, there simply

is no excuse for your first discovery to take place over

the phone. By the time you connect with a prospect,

you should already have a good understanding of who

they are, what they do within their company, their

motivations, and how you can help them.

Don’t mistake this however, for the death of phone

calls. The phone is still a sales developer’s best asset.

Five minutes of connecting on a call is more productive

than fifty emails. All roads lead to the phone, just

ensure that those conversations are quality ones.

14. More Sales Creativity Cut Through Overcrowded Inboxes with Storytelling

One day I saw this subject line waiting for me in my

inbox:

“RE: The bullets whistled past my ears…”

The body of the email then launched into an epic story of

American soldiers charging up Bunker Hill, a pivotal

battle in the Revolutionary War. In two quick paragraphs,

this SDR was able to a capture my attention, recommend

it was time I changed software, and ultimately provide a

compelling reason to respond. It worked, and it worked

very well.

Today’s buyers expect a different approach to

communication so personalization and creativity will be

essential. The average corporate employee receives

upwards of 84 emails a day, and unless you are able to

create a compelling reason to even open, let alone follow

up, your effort will be lost in the shuffle.

In, 2016 you will see a trend towards creative subject

lines and storytelling sales techniques. Fish for

information about your client and use that to make a

connection.

The Cold Hard Truth About Cold Calls

Only 2% of cold calls result in an appointment.

In 2007 it took an average of 3.68 cold call attempts to

reach a prospect. Today it takes 8 attempts.

Source: http://blog.hubspot.com/sales/sales-statistics

/29

“If 2015 was the year of ‘Social Selling’, 2016 will become the year of ‘Surround Selling’.

We are going to see reps begin to realize that tweeting company news and following

prospects on social channels to check the ‘social selling’ box is not enough to make a

difference. Instead reps are going to need to start trusting that current customers are

ready and able to surround buyers with positive influence. Given how much of the

buying process happens when it is either impossible or inappropriate for the rep to be

directly involved, the key to success in 2016 will be having a great network who can

surround the buyer. In many ways this is an extension of relationship selling but instead

of worrying about building the relationship during the sales process, the key is to build a

strong relationship post-sale. I would expect to see investment in enhancing customer's

experience post sale outside of typical product and service interactions in-order to

stimulate more involvement from happy customers in the sales process.”

Scott Kahan Regional Sales Manager,

Influitive

/30

15. Thought Leadership Next Generation of Social Selling, Establish Yourself

as an Influencer in Your Space

Steve Jobs infamously said, “A lot of times, people

don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”

in some ways this still rings true, but in many others,

this is a gross underestimation of your customer, who

in 2016 is very well researched, well informed, and well

prepared by the time they enter your sales cycle.

As previously mentioned, by the time you speak to a

prospect, they are already a majority of the way

through their buying process. It will be increasingly

important to establish yourself as a knowledgeable

source by consistently posting relevant articles and

information on social media, engaging in community

discussions, and if the opportunity presents itself,

speaking at conferences. You’ll gain trust amongst

audiences and provide avenues for leads and

prospects to find you when the he or she is ready to do

research. Thought leadership will help you become

your own marketing department and lead generator.

7 Learn More about Sale s Leadership at http://peoplefirstps.com/stop-

selling-start-leading/

16. Sales Leadership Stop Selling, Start Leading

[Courtesy of Debra Calvert, Author & President,

People First Productivity Solutions] 7

In sales, you need to differentiate yourself from the

pack. You can’t rely on your company’s brand or the

products you represent. You need to stand out on your

own, because buyers expect no less. They have

become very discerning and protective of their time.

Leaders, unlike sellers, have a point of view that is

unique and interesting. They rally people around them

because they show others how their own interests can

be realized if they enlist in the leader’s vision. The 3

keys to selling like a leader are:

1. Create Value – make every conversation valuable

and unique

2. Co-Create Insights – allow buyers to participate in

creating what they want

3. Generate Demand – inspire buyer’s to come to you

/31

“Transforming yourself (or your team) from selling to leading starts

with making a choice to adopt the behaviors demonstrated by

effective leaders. The mindset of a leader stems from

the simple choice to be a leader.”

Deb Calvert Author & President,

People First Productivity Solutions

/32

1. SALES NAVIGATOR

This may seem like an obvious

one, but it really is the best

prospecting tool. Sales

Navigator helps you find the

right prospects, fast. With

LinkedIn’s sophisticated

algorithm, this sales tool gives

you lead recommendations

that are tailored to you. Easily

save leads and follow updates

of your prospects to turn cold

calling into warm

conversations.

Top 10 Sales Tools of 2016

Technology more and more is becoming critical to

our sales success. Of course, it’s important to

remember that more isn’t the answer, but finding

the right tools that will allow you to be more

efficient, effective, and ultimately bring in more

opportunities and closed deals.

As we spoke with sales experts, authors,

executives, and reps, we made a point to ask them

about their sales stacks and their favorite tools.

The following is a list of their the Top 10

recommendations.

2. INSIDESALES

InsideSales.com offers the

industry's leading sales

acceleration platform built on

Neuralytics, a predictive and

prescriptive self-learning

engine that drives revenue

growth by delivering an

optimized experience for

both salesperson and buyer.

The platform fuels sales rep

performance and provides

buyer personalization with

breakthrough innovations in

predictive sales

communications,

engagement tracking,

forecasting, rep motivation

and hiring.

/34

Top 10 Sales Tools of 2016

5. CLEARSLIDE

ClearSlide’s Live Pitch

allows you to engage

customers with power and

agility. Start a presentation in

just one click, without having

to worry about technology

hassles with your customers.

You’ll have a customized link

from which you can

present everything from

presentations, to HD video,

to a live screen share. Your

viewer can join by simply

typing your viewer’s link into

their browser. They’ll never

have to download software

or plugins to view your

presentation.

4. SALESHOOD

SalesHood is the

prescriptive, just in time,

sales learning platform to

elevate sales results. Use

mobile, video, crowdsourcing

and content creation to

increase team productivity

and revenue. Get more

sellers closing more deals in

their first thirty days. Reduce

time it takes sellers to hit

sales quota. Roll out

products efficiently and get

reps consistently on

message in hours. Improve

competitive win-rates in

days. Crowdsource best

practices and get your B and

C sellers to perform like your

A sellers.

3. OUTREACH io

Outreach is the best sales

communication platform that

we've seen. It has the

flexibility for you to build

multiple sales workflows in

the way that best suits your

organization and prospects;

and A/B test those workflows

along with all of their

components: email, tasks

such as LinkedIn InMail, and

other follow-up steps. Sales

reps can see how their

workflows are performing,

and team managers can see

how everyone's workflows

perform. Best-performing

templates and workflows can

become best practices to

elevate the results of the

entire team, which also

makes it really easy to

onboard new reps.

Apttus E-Commerce software

helps you connect the dots

between online and in-person

experiences to ensure total

brand consistency across all

channels. Empower

customers and channels to

buy from you whenever and

wherever they need, and

ensure product, price and

promotional information is

always tailored, secure and

up-to-date. Even if you sell to

businesses, the majority of

your customers want to do

their shopping online. Put

your products in your

customers’ hands—no matter

where or when they are ready

to buy.

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6. APTTUS E-COMMERCE

Top 10 Sales Tools of 2016

9. SLACK

Slack is a free

communication tool that

allows you to organize your

team conversations in open

channels. Make a channel

for a project, a topic, a team,

or anything—everyone has a

transparent view of all that’s

going on. For sensitive

information, create private

channels and invite a few

team members. Not just your

messages, but all your files,

images, PDFs, documents,

and spreadsheets can be

dropped right into Slack and

shared with anyone you

want. Add comments, star

for later reference, and it’s

all completely searchable.

8. TOUTAPP

Tout supports personal

communications by

connecting directly with your

email server. For superior

deliverability Tout integrates

directly into in Gmail,

Outlook or your custom

SMTP. Not only can you

track views, clicks and

replies, you can take action

directly from your Live Feed.

In one-click, make a call,

shoot off an email or view

CRM data all in one place.

Get real-time visibility on

what’s happening with your

emails. Know when

someone views, clicks or

replies to an email.

7. EVERSTRING

With Predictive Demand

Generation, EverString

builds and applies your

unique predictive customer

model to a proprietary

directory of companies to

deliver top-of-funnel net-new

accounts and leads with a

high propensity to buy. Using

fit, intent, and engagement

data, EverString maintains a

directory of over 11 million

B2B companies, capturing

over 20,000 signals and

characteristics for each one.

With this data, EverString

provides a comprehensive

point-of-view on every

account in your entire

addressable market.

10. INFLUITIVE

Your customers love you.

Influitive’s advocate marketing

software helps you discover,

mobilize and recognize them.

Drive referrals, references,

reviews, word of mouth

recommendations, and more.

Accelerate sales with warm

leads referred to you by

happy, engaged customers.

Cultivate references and

product reviews to reach

prospects earlier in the buying

process. Using Influitive, you

can inspire your best

customers to share content on

social media, post genuine

product reviews and ratings,

and create powerful

testimonials and case studies

that will make even the most

skeptical prospects take a

second look at your company.

/35

Conclusion

About Quote-to-Cash

Quote-to-Cash is the vital business process that connects a

customer’s interest in a purchase to the realization of revenue.

It includes creating a quote, responding to RFXs, submitting a

proposal, negotiating and managing a contract, fulfilling

orders, recognizing revenue, ensuring compliance and

tracking payments – all within visible and controlled workflow.

Quote-to-Cash solutions include Configure-Price-Quote

(CPQ), Contract Lifecycle Management (CLM), and Revenue

Management applications.

Quote-to-Cash is the single link between top-line results,

bottom-line results and customer satisfaction. No other

process is as critical for maximizing the value of capturing

revenue in a profitable way as well as meeting the needs of

customer sales requests. This process relies on the collective

intelligence of the enterprise. The impact of accurate quotes,

proposals, contracts and orders make the flow of all data and

processes within an enterprise work smoothly, thus creating

value for enterprises and their customers

About Apttus

Apttus, the category-defining Quote-to-Cash software

company, drives the vital business process between the

buyer’s interest in a purchase and the realization of revenue.

Apttus is delivered on the Salesforce1 Platform, the world’s

most trusted and comprehensive cloud delivery infrastructure.

Applications include Quote-to-Cash Intelligence (Analytics),

Configure Price Quote (CPQ), Renewals, Contract

Management and Revenue Management. Additionally, Apttus’

patent pending X-Author technology enables Microsoft Office

to be a user-interface with full interaction and control between

Salesforce and Microsoft Office. Apttus is based in San

Mateo, California, with additional offices in London, UK,

Bozeman, Montana and Ahmedabad, India. For more

information visit: apttus.com.

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The world around us is rapidly changing. But amongst

all of the predictions, tips, hacks and information, three

common themes continued to resurface:

1. More Technology – There are more and more

available tools, allowing sales organizations to be

more time and cost efficient. It’s also important to

remember to adopt the right tools not necessarily

more tools.

2. A Focus on Repeatable Success – Expect to see

sales leadership invest in training, onboarding and

sales operations. The combination of analytics

increased and automation is changing expectations

for sales performance. Leadership will look to

increase consistency, so B and C sellers can perform

like A sellers.

3. Selling in Context – Buying behavior has

dramatically changed. Sellers need to adjust their

strategies to match. Sales organizations will look to

increase sales channels and to streamline sales

cycles. Individual reps will make themselves more

accessible and use storytelling to convey value.