the

of B2B SellingVisual Strategies from 5 Sales Leaders

Introduction

There is a real “Art” to establishing true B2B sales leadership. The sales process continues to

get more complex and competitive, and requires striking just the right balance of discipline

and process with relationship selling, alignment with the buyer’s journey and strategic

management of accounts. In this eBook, we feature five progressive sales leaders who discovered a visual approach to account planning, collaboration, sales process and deal

execution that maps out what reps need to do each step of the way to successfully expand key

accounts, gain a competitive edge and increase win rates.

Learn about the sales transformation stories of these leading B2B companies:

the

of B2B Selling

Relying on a paper-based sales process left SAS with a crystal clear rearview mirror, using past performance as a baseline for strategic sales and key account planning. But it also left our sales team blind to the future, and as one of the largest business intelligence and analytics companies in the world, we face the difficult challenge of selling to a broad range of executives across 16 verticals.

When we discovered Revegy, we were excited to find a tool designed specifically for account planning and that would integrate seamlessly into our CRM platform.

Revegy provides our reps with a powerful. view that maps out key relationships, strategies, initiatives, and opportunities within an organization. This

has changed the way we sell, and helps us measure how customers define value from their perspective, driving co-creation and joint ownership between SAS and the client on the business issues that matter most to them. This new visual mapping approach uncovered untapped opportunities within our largest accounts and gave us a guide for selling long-term, measurable value across the organization. The results have been outstanding:

• Added $20M in pipeline with just two initial pilot programs alone

• Identified $1M in opportunities in two days with account planning technology

• Decreased late-stage deal losses

• Increased deal velocity and

penetration of SAS solutions within key accounts

• Improved forecast accuracy, allowing for more strategic resource allocation

Using visual tools to map out an account plan, we can quickly and easily identify the key players in each account, see any gaps in our relationships and take action to fill those gaps and ensure relationship management is an integral piece of every sales rep’s day. We have also been able to step into our customers’ shoes, using Revegy’s planning and analysis tools to better understand how our customers define and measure value – and ultimately, up our game to provide support in terms that are important to them.

“ Implementing the Revegy Account Planning tools has been a critical component in our ability to align closely with our most strategic customers, and develop strategies that grow our revenue potential in these accounts while delivering greater value to their businesses.”

NICK LISI Vice President, Americas

PROFILE: One of the largest global business intelligence and analytics companies that has experienced over 37 years of continuous growth.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: • Deeper relationships and alignment

with key accounts

• Move beyond IT organizations to penetrate lines of business within key accounts

• Uncover and understand customer strategies

• Deliver and measure value in terms of importance to customer

STRATEGIC ACCOUNT PLANNING DRIVES $20 MILLION INCREASE IN PIPELINE

SAS INSTITUTE

As Informatica grew through eight

acquisitions over just a couple

of years, our solution portfolio

and mix of sales teams became

exponentially more complex.

We needed a standardized,

repeatable sales process with

common tools and language that

would help coordinate the efforts

of the extended team effectively.

We made a big investment

in training our sales force on

a new outcome-based sales

methodology and wanted to

ensure that reps wouldn’t

abandon what they had learned

or veer away from the new

proven process. We discovered

a unique sales planning and deal

execution technology that visually

mapped out opportunities for

reps by illustrating stakeholder

influence, evaluation processes,

competitive landscape, potential

risks and more. This powerful

view was integrated into our

Salesforce CRM and immediately

delivered more value to the reps,

resulting in increased adoption.

Instead of just giving reps

sales playbooks driven mostly

by content, they now had a

visual roadmap of their deals

and a step-by-step process for

aligning their sales activities with

verifiable outcomes to ensure they were progressing through

the deal based on the prospects’

willingness to engage at each

stage. We launched these new

tools as part of our “Project Right

Size” initiative during global sales

kickoff, and began seeing direct

impact to our pipeline

and forecast:

• Improved sales forecast

accuracy and predictability

• Increased win/conversion rates

• Grew average deal size and

selling price

• Improved manager coaching

time and effectiveness

• Increased engaged selling time

Today, over 900 reps use the

tools and we have 90% process

adoption of our sales methodology.

Revegy provides a 360° view

including who has awareness of

our products, mapping solutions

to business needs, identifying

where the budget lives and where

we have friends or foes. These

insights help our cross-functional

sales teams understand what

needs to be done to win a deal or

grow an account.

“ Many new hires continually tell us these are the best, simplest, and most integrated/automated set of sales tools and processes they have EVER seen, bar none. And, they come from companies such as IBM, SAP, CA and Oracle.”

JULIE RHODES

Director of Sales Performance

PROFILE: Industry leader in data integration, Big Data and cloud solutions to over 1,000 companies, including Fortune 100 companies in a variety of

industries.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: • Standardize sales process and tools

for fast-growing sales team

• Increase adoption of sales methodology

• Meet rising quota by increasing win rates

• Drive consistent, efficient sales

coaching

VISUAL MAPS DELIVER INCREASED WIN RATES, CONVERSION RATES AND DEAL SIZE

INFORMATICA

JDA

With a wide array of products in

our powerful suite of supply chain

and retail planning solutions, we

have a more complex sales model

than most. We struggled previously

to provide a coordinated sales and

account management effort to

prospects and customers who were

often dealing with multiple JDA

technology and service offerings,

all managed by separate internal

organizations. In addition, we only

had a 3 – 6 month predictable revenue forecast for our existing

customer accounts.

We realized that our

transactional, one-size-fits-all approach to managing

accounts and opportunities was

preventing us from delivering

strategic value and becoming an

essential advisor to our clients.

As part of a company-wide sales

transformation initiative, we

combined our license sales and

consulting sales organizations

into a single organization

and realigned our account

engagement model based on

global, regional, named and net

new logo accounts. Each segment

is now aligned to a specific team of JDA resources who

are focused on catering to the

particular needs of a prospect or

account, delivering more relevant,

specialized value.

To support this, we adopted

strategic sales planning and

deal execution technology from

Revegy, which gave our teams

a powerful, visual platform that

illustrates key relationships we

need to develop and nurture,

how to be strategic in our sales

approach and how to deliver the

right information to the right

buyer persona at the right time

in the evaluation process. This

next-generation approach to sales

force automaton quickly made an

impact, including:

• Customers calling to ask about

solutions, rather than reps

chasing accounts

• A simplified sales process while accelerating the buying cycle

• More consistent customer

value and experience through

partner channels

• Improved efficiency and effectiveness of the license and

sales service organizations

Collaborative planning is now

an ongoing effort with our sales

teams, and this has enabled us to

successfully anticipate customer

needs which delivers greater value.

We have also achieved a more

predictable and accelerated buying

experience; in fact, we now have

customers call us to ask about

solutions versus us chasing deals.

“ We must be essential to our customers! One of the ways to drive this is to employ and institutionalize a proactive and persistent account engagement program.”

QUIQUE RODRIGUEZ EVP and Chief Sales Officer

PROFILE: A leading provider of end-to-end, integrated retail and supply chain planning and execution solutions for more than 4,000 customers worldwide.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: • Drive customer loyalty, resulting in

retention, renewal and additional revenue opportunities

• Grow revenue through better customer insight and alignment

• Drive deeper account penetration and sustainable business alignment

• Increase revenue predictability and extending the forecast horizon

COLLABORATIVE ACCOUNT PLANNING YIELDS PREDICTABLE, ACCELERATED BUYING CYCLES

ORTEC

Ortec was on a mission to

transform its sales culture

into a dynamic, process and

results-driven environment that

included close collaboration with

customers throughout the sales

process. We adopted a new sales

process but, recognizing that

reps often struggle with adopting

standard SFA and CRM tools, we

sought out a more interactive way

of automating the new process.

We evaluated several sales

playbook offerings but liked how

Revegy’s visual sales planning

tools provided more than just

content …they provided an

illustrated view that guided reps

through developing buy-in plans

at every stage of a deal. These

opportunity planning and deal

execution tools from Revegy

resulted in:

• Improved management

visibility into deals throughout

the sales process

• Increased customer

collaboration to improve

stakeholder buy-in

• A better perspective on buyer

behavior to drive coaching

opportunities

• Improved use of tailored

content and sales tools

throughout the sales process

Sales reps and managers are now

able to better understand where

they are in a deal and how they

align with the buyer’s process.

Increased visibility into how all

deals were tracking enabled us

to more proactively address any

potential risks, focus efforts on

what the buyer needs to make

progress and develop buy-in

plans for key stakeholders. These

perspectives also enabled the

Ortec teams to develop close

plans that were presented directly

to the customer to involve them

in defining accurate timelines, and essentially developing co-creators

in the deal.

“ By visually mapping out the deal stakeholders and ORTEC’s solutions to our prospect’s buying requirements, ORTEC was able to increase their close rates and gain better insight into the health of our pipeline.”

JEFF WILSON President

PROFILE: One of the world’s leading

supply chain companies with over 1,750

customers.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: • Unify the sales team with a

consistent process and common

language

• Enable the sales management team

to better evaluate and coach rep

performance

• Give ORTEC a true view of where

they were in active deals to drive

forecast accuracy

RELATIONSHIP MAPS AND PLAYBOOKS DRIVE CO-CREATION AND AIRTIGHT CLOSE PLANS

NPI

NPI’s consultants and

analysts have a very proactive,

collaborative and results-oriented

approach to working with our

customers. Our CEO’s vision was

to mirror this successful approach

in the sales organization. We

embarked on a “sales excellence”

initiative to drive improvements

in effectiveness and efficiency.

We knew we needed a sales

process to achieve consistency

in sales execution, and to help

us gain a better perspective on

where we were in a deal so that

we could improve forecasting and

sales results.

We adopted a visual approach

to opportunity planning and deal

execution, which yielded great

results:

• Increased probability of

forecasted revenue to close

• Gained unparalleled insight

into a prospect’s organization

and key players

• Improved effectiveness of deal

reviews and quarterly business

reviews

• Provided management better

visibility into all opportunities

and any areas of vulnerability

Revegy’s visual tools enabled us

to automate our sales process

beyond data from a CRM to get

a clearer picture of each deal.

The visual playbooks walk our

sales reps through what the

right next steps are to advance

an opportunity and highlight the

best sales content and tools to

leverage to meet the prospect’s

needs. Visual relationship maps

provide clarity into the specific business issues that decision

makers are most concerned about

and more effectively position

NPI solutions to help achieve the

customer’s business objectives.

The forecast health check tool

has helped us improve forecast

accuracy and our coaching

support for stalled or at risk deals.

“ When you’re not following a process, you’re not consistently asking the right questions and then you’re surprised when deals don’t go your way. With Revegy if you do what you’re supposed to do, deals close. Period.”

DEREK REED Regional Sales Director

PROFILE: A spend management consulting firm providing advisory services that has helped clients optimize billions of dollars.

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES: • More thorough and consistent

adoption of a sales process

• Deeper visibility into opportunities and improved forecast accuracy

• Visually depict the client’s organizational stakeholders and their influence on purchase decisions

• Revamp coaching efforts to hold sales reps accountable with minimal interference in workflow

SALES EXCELLENCE INITIATIVE PAINTS A CRYSTAL CLEAR PICTURE OF SALES FORECAST

Revegy is the leader in visual sales planning and deal execution tools. We serve some of

the greatest B2B, sales organizations in the world – big and small. Here are some other notable clients.

Seeing is believing.Schedule a virtual demo to see visual selling in action.

SALES PLANNING AND EXECUTION TOOLS THAT HELP YOU SEE HOW

TO WIN MORE DEALS AND GROW CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIPS.

the

of B2B Selling

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