MarketStar Blog

When it’s time to let the world know what you’ve been working on, there are no end of strategies to consider for success. However, no matter what your product is, there are certain universal truths that you can apply to your SaaS marketing campaign, regardless of channel or audience. 

Introduction 

A 2019 report by LinkedIn states that soft skills training (honing creativity, persuasion, analytical reasoning, collaboration, and adaptability) forms one of the top seven focus areas for employers.1 In building soft skills, one of the most useful and popular tools is role-playing, which finds application in diverse fields ranging from the educational to the corporate environment. 

Role-playing allows a learner to assume the role or tasks of a job by practicing or simulating real working conditions. The primary objectives of role-playing are to learn, improve, or build upon the skills or competencies necessary for a specific position or outcome. In the sales context, the trainee practices the role that he or she is expected to perform (such as initiating a sales conversation or closing a sale) with one or more “customers," played by a more experienced peer, manager, or, at times, even a professional actor.  

Such role-plays are often conducted with an entire group of sales reps who observe each individual role-play. The role-plays can either be scripted for a sales rep, containing appropriate cues to steer the conversation, or the conversation can be improvised for each scenario. The idea is to simulate real-life sales situations as a way to resolve them. 

In the corporate scenario, role-playing for sales training leads to several desirable individual and organizational learning outcomes. 

Partner sales enablement, also referred to variously as channel sales enablement, reseller enablement or sales enablement channel management, involves providing channel partners with the necessary training, tools and resources to successfully sell vendor products and maximize revenue. For vendors, this function is crucial because of the changing nature of the sales process, wherein buyers are taking more control of their purchase journey and demanding higher quality inputs from their interactions with the sales team. Leveraging the partner channel helps meet customer needs better in this environment. 

Finding success with the partner channel isn’t as simple as just contracting them to sell your products, though. It requires strategic planning, engagement and support to get partners to sell your products as best as they can. Getting the maximum leverage out of a sales enablement effort requires smart strategy and meticulous planning in order to align business processes with the technological advantages provided by an enablement platform. 

Here are 8 steps to keep in mind while laying out a partner enablement roadmap and strategy: 

It is estimated that in 2017, over 1.66 billion people worldwide bought goods online. In the US alone, e-retail sales amounted to 2.3 trillion dollars, which according to experts, is projected to grow to 4.48 trillion USD by 2021.¹ Online shopping is no longer the fragile bubble it was in the 1990s. It is a thriving industry that has become a way of life for most of us.

Besides allowing enterprises to maximize their operational efficiency, the Internet of Things also opens up a whole new world of interfaces across which enterprises can connect with their customers. The shift embodied by the IoT isn’t merely an opening up of new channels of marketing. Rather, it fundamentally restructures the entire relationship chain between the enterprise, its products and its customers.

Customer success has evolved from a SaaS-focused initiative into a critical business strategy across industries. Initially adopted to reduce churn and drive product adoption, it has now become a key revenue driver. According to one of our earlier reports, 72% of technology companies already have a customer success strategy in place¹.

Key Takeaways

Sales is vital to a company’s survival and growth. 

One of the great things about selling in the digital age is business intelligence. Organizations are drowning in data generated by CRM systems, ERP platforms, online marketing, customer support, and a host of other sources. Thanks to data analytics, we know more about our customers, target markets, and SMB sales opportunities than ever before. Additional assistance from predictive analytics also helps sales teams be more productive and maximize their success more effectively than they could through their efforts alone.

In the world of B2B sales there are different types of distribution partners, and each one plays a distinct role in reaching and servicing customers. Value-added resellers, for example, are high-touch partners that sell goods and services as part of a complete solution. At the other end of the spectrum are direct market resellers (DMRs), distributors that sell directly to businesses online or via telephone orders. DMRs maintain catalogs of goods to sell through online storefronts or by taking phone orders. DMRs can be an important part of any vendor’s value chain if you know how to provide the right support.

With customer experience (CX) becoming a key differentiator for businesses, the role of the contact center is evolving rapidly. Emerging technologies and shifting consumer behaviors are reshaping how organizations provide customer support and engagement.