What is a Sales Engagement Platform? Let’s Debunk Some Myths

Every sales team has that legendary sales rep. You know, the rep that supposedly closed a million-dollar deal over takeout Chinese food. Like that legendary rep, there are probably other parts of selling that make you wonder where the truth lies. Don’t worry, there is plenty of truth behind the need for a sales engagement platform.

What is a Sales Engagement Platform?

Sales engagement software is uniquely positioned to drive organizational success, particularly for teams closing deals through a combination of pipeline generation, account-based strategies, and opportunity management.

According to G2, “Sales Engagement software streamlines the sales process through integrations with sales communication channels and tools, management of sales messaging and materials, and automation of tasks, messages, and workflows.“ 

How is Sales Engagement Software Different from Sales Enablement?

Sales enablement is the ongoing process of providing sales teams with the content management tools, guidance, and training they need to sell effectively. It’s giving sales reps a way to scale their efforts while staying hyper-focused on their buyer’s journey.

Sales engagement platforms focus on sales efficiency with automation, prescribed workflows, and comprehensive deal management.

By improving both efficiency and effectiveness, these two tools help sales organizations optimize processes throughout the customer journey.

How Does Sales Engagement Work With Marketing Automation and Your CRM?

These three tools are the foundation of the sales tech stack that will help you increase revenue. They’re important for both sales and marketing teams, but each provide different value.

Marketing automation creates demand and captures inbound leads through mass marketing, or one-to-many communication. It is primarily used by marketing teams, not sales reps. Learn more.

Customer relationship management software (CRM) is the system of record. It stores and organizes your customer contact information and records the interactions. It is a tool that sales leaders rely on, but often is an obstacle for sellers. Learn more.

A sales engagement platform, like Salesloft, is one place for the entire revenue team to work deals from first contact to close. It translates data from both the CRM and marketing automation into prioritized sales workflows to drive consistency across all sales reps.

6 Myths About Sales Engagement

Just like the closed deal over Chinese take out, you can’t believe everything you hear. Here’s what you need to know about the technology that can help you make the best selling decisions to close bigger deals, increase your win rate, and accelerate your deal cycle. 

Myth #1: It’s Only for Prospecting

According to Forrester, sales engagement is “solutions that help sales, marketing, and post-sales personnel understand and manage their omnichannel touchpoints across the buying cycle.” That definition debunks the myth, but let’s dig in a little. 

Omnichannel touchpoints indicate sellers are using more channels than just email. In fact, data shows a 4.7x increase in prospect engagement when multiple channels are used in outbound communications.

Truth:

Sales engagement includes calling, email automation, social media (especially LinkedIn), and more – ideally all in one platform. 

Across the buying cycle indicates sales engagement helps with more than just outreach and follow-up. 

Truth:

Sales engagement includes pipeline and opportunity management, forecasting, coaching tools, deal intelligence, and more.

Myth #2: It’s Only for Sales Development Reps (SDRs)

If sales engagement includes everything from prospecting to deal management, then it benefits the entire revenue team. So, everyone should use it. In fact, you’ll likely see increased productivity and engagement across the board.

• Sales Managers coach more effectively with meeting recording and transcription. They can keep all their best calls in a library to onboard and train reps faster by replicating the success of top-performers. Intuitive forecasting with automatic roll-up simplifies an otherwise painful process.
• Account Executives (AEs) gain confidence with custom sales journeys (including email templates) and automation tailored to buyer role, influence level, and deal stage. Manage sales pipeline throughout the full sales cycle with opportunity scoring, account health models, and automatic activity logging.
• Sales Operations (or Rev Ops) can gather and analyze KPIs for a more accurate view of revenue team performance using advanced analytics and request prioritization. 

Truth:

A comprehensive sales engagement platform makes the entire sales team more productive, reduces costs and risks, and simplifies playbooks.

Myth #3: A Sales Engagement Platform Is Just a Glorified CRM

A sales engagement platform works hand-in-hand with your CRM to increase functionality, customer retention, and revenue. Bi-directional sync eliminates manual data entry for salespeople and enables comprehensive dashboards and reporting, giving executives the insight they need.

For your sales process to be in peak form, both of these sales technology tools are essential, so be sure to check integrations when making a purchase. If you’re a Salesforce user — or think you will be in the future — select a sales engagement tool with plenty of custom fields and support for custom objects.

Truth:

A sales engagement platform maximizes your CRM data by gathering critical insights and makes them actionable.

Myth #4: This Tool Can’t Be Used On-the-Go

The days of sales professionals sitting at their desks in an office are long gone. Teams are now dispersed in remote and hybrid work environments. You would never choose a CRM without a mobile app, so why choose a sales engagement platform that doesn’t offer on-the-go access?

Messenger and dialer capabilities are arguably more important than CRM data when sellers are working outside the office. Plus, quick notification is vital in closing a deal, so integration with a messaging app like Slack can ensure a message is delivered when key triggers occur. 

Truth:

Sales engagement data is accessible via mobile and messaging apps.

Myth #5: It’s is Only Used By U.S. Sellers

Sales teams from Asia Pacific to Europe are embracing sales engagement technology at a rapid rate. Global customer support infrastructure offers help when your teams need it – and in their language. With sales engagement, give international sales teams everything they need to close deals: a global-ready dialer, compliance and privacy guidelines for selling in various markets, international currency support, and in-country data centers.  

Truth:

Sales engagement is one of the top sales trends in Europe.

Myth #6: You Can’t Trust Artificial Intelligence (AI) as Part of the Sales Process

You can trust AI – as long as you can see all the contributing data. It’s much less trustworthy when AI is a mysterious black box. Or when the AI provider has not shared their AI code of ethics.

Don’t avoid AI – just choose your provider wisely. The real-time metrics available within a sales engagement platform are powerful. The more a sales engagement platform can do, the more customer interactions that are available for models, the better the insights you will receive. Customer engagement and interactions, analyzed conversations, and opportunity details are just some of the data that power machine learning to help sales teams prescriptively identify the next best actions.

AI should solve real problems for sellers, but it shouldn’t replace them.

Truth:

AI is a must have for sales engagement as long as it is ethical, explainable, and valuable.

Salesloft is the Only Complete Sales Engagement Platform

Salesloft is used by some of the world’s largest companies to prospect, manage pipeline, forecast, improve the seller experience, and close more deals. Don’t let myths stop you from increasing revenue with Salesloft. With 150+ integrations, including bi-directional sync with Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Hubspot, Salesloft creates efficiency and replicates success for your sales team.

In The Forrester Wave™: Sales Engagement Platforms, Q3 2022, Salesloft received the highest possible score in 26 out of 30 criteria, more than any other vendor evaluated, and was top-ranked in the Current Offering and Strategy categories. 

Find out how to make every seller your best seller with Salesloft.