Revenue intelligence can give your team critical insights, prioritize sales decisions, and help you close deals faster. When used right, revenue intelligence will help make your business more money. However, even the best tool in the world won’t serve your purposes if you fail to use it. Your business must learn to identify and overcome common revenue intelligence challenges.
Define Clear Objectives and Goals
Before you look at any data, you have to clarify your goal. Are you looking to better monitor your sales teams’ performance? Ensure that you will meet your forecasting goals? Develop an engagement score that can prioritize marketing efforts and call time?
Your goals must align with your overall business objectives. For example, can you use revenue intelligence to expand the pipeline? Build more leads? Evaluate the success of various sales methodologies?
You also have to communicate these goals to your entire team. Early and frequent communication ensures there are no unanswered questions about what you hope to get out of your revenue intelligence.
Invest in the Right Tools and Technologies
The right tools and technology can make a massive difference in your success. Consider the various technological components you need to make the most of revenue intelligence:
- Artificial intelligence that is configured to work with your business accounts
- Machine learning that understands your specific needs
- A robust CRM, like Salesforce
- Data security to ensure that only selected members of your team have access to sensitive data
At Next Quarter, we understand the importance of helping your business get the right tech. We understand the challenges and opportunities the right revenue intelligence platform could provide. Next Quarter operates within Salesforce, the industry-leading CRM. This integration means your business doesn’t have to purchase completely new technology or work in multiple systems where data integrity can be lost. Instead, focus on building on what you already know and use.
Build a Strong Team
It is best to consider building a strong revenue team from two perspectives. First, you need staff dedicated to analyzing data and giving your sales team the best information possible. These team members must understand how to read data and summarize it. They must have excellent communication skills and a strong analytical mindset. And they must also know how to use data to make appropriate strategic and tactical decisions.
You also need to ensure that your sales team understands the importance of revenue intelligence. Gone are the days when a salesperson’s best chance to gain a lead was a meeting at the local chamber. Revenue intelligence has no value if your sales team isn’t willing to incorporate the data into their sales efforts.
Develop a Data-Driven Culture
A salesperson’s intuition is important. However, intuition and action informed by data are far, far superior. As such, you must ensure that your entire organization understands how to read data and make decisions. A data-driven culture starts with you. As a manager, you must stress the importance of incorporating data into your approach. From there, your charge will be to ensure that your entire team uses revenue intelligence, not dismisses it as noise.
Monitor and Measure Success
As the old expression says, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t change it.” Revenue intelligence can only create value for your business if you understand where that data is important. This means your business must develop the tools to determine your success. You must then monitor that data and determine the next steps if the data demands that you change your approach or advertising. Finally, you must ensure you communicate data to all parties who need it. Regular communication—when the data is positive and negative—can serve as an impetus for change.
Embrace Change
Consider the various changes that appropriate revenue intelligence requires:
- Altering priority of account pursuits based on opportunity score
- Using different sales methodologies based on recommendations from AI
- Updating sales forecasts based on the current status of accounts, deals, and your sales pipeline
- Understanding a salesperson’s success depends on multiple factors, such as contact rate and lead generation
Embracing this change is not easy. It requires major revisions to existing workflows and processes. It may mean your sales team learns to completely reorient their approach to customers, sales, and relationship-building.
However, this organizational change is necessary. Appropriate implementation of a revenue intelligence strategy will give your business a major advantage over your competition. Your entire team must be willing to embrace this change.
Partner With Next Quarter
The challenges facing the implementation of revenue intelligence in your business are real. You’ll need strong allies with ample experience to help you integrate revenue intelligence. At Next Quarter, our tool provides you with the latest revenue intelligence. It is also meant to ensure you can overcome these common implementation challenges.
Ready to take the next steps? Reach out to us today to learn more about how we can help you implement the latest revenue intelligence data.
