It’s no secret that organizations are spending substantially more on technology than two years prior.
But did you know that sales enablement technology usage is also up 567%?
For teams trying to land coveted enterprise deals, having the right tech at your disposal can make a huge difference to your success.
So how does one maximize their tech stack to successfully land the enterprise client? That’s exactly what we’re going to cover in this article.
What is the perfect tech stack for sales teams going after the enterprise?
As much as we all wish there were a one size fits all answer to this question, the reality is there is no such thing.
But when evaluating sales tech, it helps to act proactively rather than reactively. For example, anticipate which business challenges you may face in the months, quarters and years ahead and then determine whether there is a tool you can onboard before you begin to feel the pain.
It also helps to identify what goals your team is trying to accomplish.
When evaluating business goals tied to your sales and marketing tech stack, you could ask the following questions:
- Will this tech improve our efficiency?
- Will this stack help to increase our effectiveness?
- Will we be able to generate actionable insights with this tool?
- How will this tool help to create alignment between teams?
In a nutshell, it helps to have a framework to use when evaluating potential tech to add to your stack, rather than chasing the next shiny tool on the market without direction.
4 critical components of a tech stack to land the enterprise
Yes, we said there’s no one-size-fits-all answer to the ideal tech stack. But there are four software categories that really should make your stack no matter what.
Customer relationship management (CRM)
CRMs are a central source of truth that helps manage your organization's data and relationships with customers and prospective customers and improve business relationships.
Having a CRM system in place is crucial for any team trying to land enterprise clients, as they create a system of record for the conversations and follow ups you have with prospects and customers.
Without this central source of truth, it will be difficult to effectively implement any additional tools.
Marketing automation platform
If you have a marketing team, chances are you are using (or should be using) marketing automation.
Marketing automation tech is incredibly useful for scaling front-end marketing efforts (1:many) and enables marketers to plan, coordinate, and measure their marketing campaigns.
With marketing automation, teams can automate their marketing efforts across various channels from website to social media, email, and more.
Generally speaking, the marketing lifecycle should revolve around generating qualified leads, nurturing those leads, and turning them over to sales qualified leads (SQLs) for your sales team to close.
Rep productivity tools
You might not think that rep productivity tools are directly tied to revenue, however, with more people working remotely than ever, it’s important to operate as efficiently as possible.
For example, there are a number of tools that will increase efficiency and productivity by allowing reps to focus on needle-moving tasks, rather than mundane ones, like::
- Notetakers
- Call recording or conversational intelligence software
- Calendar or meeting booking software
- Social listening and research
At the end of the day, happy reps are productive reps, and productive reps are out there closing deals, not stuck in admin or data-entry marathons.
Sales engagement platform
To unlock the full potential of the rest of your investment in tech, a sales engagement platform is essential.
Using a sales engagement platform like Outreach enables teams to:
- Improve efficiency by automating prospect outreach and follow ups to ensure a prospect never falls through the cracks
- Increase rep effectiveness by allowing reps to focus 100% on selling instead of on data entry and other repetitive tasks
- Generate actionable insights by obtaining detailed visibility into your accounts and sales activity data to accelerate your revenue goals
- Create alignment between sales and marketing teams and help inform further messaging with Buyer Sentiment Analysis
In short, Outreach is a tool that enables teams to accomplish all of that and more which is more important than ever when it comes to successfully landing the enterprise.
Maximize your tech stack to land the enterprise
Now that you understand what makes up a successful tech stack for landing enterprise clients, let’s take a look at how to get the most out of your tech stack.
Step 1: Start with your data
Remember that you can have all of the tools in the world but without the right data which guides how to use those tools, you won’t get very far.
For example, you may want to define your addressable market within an enterprise segment and clearly define your ideal customer profile (ICP)and which contacts at those companies to pursue.
Step 2: Consider how the various tools you employ can seamlessly work together
Not every piece of tech will integrate perfectly, but each should at least integrate with your sales process. That's why when evaluating tech, it helps to start with your process.
While it is important that your data integrates with the platforms you already have, it's less important to have an integration just for integration’s sake without a clear process.
Step 3: Empower rep usage
What is the point in tech if reps aren’t using it, right?
Continuously evaluate whether certain tech is still needed and providing value will help make sure you don’t burn your budget on tech that is no longer being used.
When rolling out a new piece of tech to your team, we recommend that you get your enablement team involved to help ensure reps are trained to adopt and use any new tools.
Sales leaders can improve change management efforts by encouraging potential users to be part of the evaluation, rollout, and then championing it across the team.
Just don't forget to collect user feedback— at the end of the day, they are the ones who will be actively using the tech.
Continuing the dialogue
Hopefully, by now, you have a better understanding of how the right tech stack helps you to land new enterprise deals, key questions to ask when evaluating new tech, and how to get the most out of your existing tech stack.
Recently, we hosted a roundtable discussion on this very topic. Outreach leader Scott Barker was joined by Tyler Lessard, Chief Video Strategist at Vidyard, Kate Athmer, VP of Growth at Bombora, and Alex Miller, Director of Rev Ops at Sendoso.
