New Survey: B2B Companies Value Sales Conversations Over Processes, Yet Invest Otherwise

Data Underscores How Sales Messaging Can Be More Valuable Than Technology, Tools or Processes in Helping Organizations Achieve More Profitable Growth

Corporate Visions, Inc., a leading marketing and sales messaging, content, and skills training company, announced the results of a new survey focused on marketing and sales messages and tools. The survey, which polled more than 430 business-to-business (B2B) marketing and sales executives globally, uncovered that although companies invest the most time and budget on sales process-related activities, respondents instead identified messaging and sales conversations as being the most important factor for driving more profitable, closed deals.

Tim Riesterer, chief strategy and marketing officer at Corporate Visions, commented: “The results reveal a striking contradiction between what companies believe will drive the greatest value and where they are investing most of their time and money. While it’s important that salespeople know where to show up and how to structure an opportunity, it’s clear in this survey that companies know that what is more important is actually what they say when they get there.”

Survey Results

Investment Priorities

The largest number of respondents (34 percent) ranked the sales process (making sure salespeople know what to do and how to do it when it comes to managing accounts and opportunities) as the area their company spends the most time and budget on, followed by:

• ​Product training (reps are taught to know their solutions’ capabilities and features in a way that makes them an expert source) – 27 percent
• ​Messaging and field conversations (ensuring reps know what to say and how to say it to differentiate and articulate value) – 26 percent
• ​Automation technology (giving sellers the latest and greatest automation and selling-related technologies and tools) – 13 percent

Perceived Impact

The majority of respondents (61 percent) selected reps’ ability to deliver a distinct point of view that uniquely positions their solutions as the most important factor for successfully driving deals to a profitable close, followed by:

• ​Having a great sales process in place and having it consistently followed – 19 percent
• ​Equipping reps with the best enabling technology and tools to increase productivity – 9 percent
• ​Making sure reps know the ins and outs of their entire product portfolio – 11 percent

When given two choices and asked to select the one that had the most impact on moving a prospect to action and closing profitable deals, the vast majority of respondents chose the non-technology or tools-related option. Responses were as follows:

• ​Understanding the key metrics executive decision-makers use to run their business (94 percent) versus contract applications (6 percent)
• ​Linking your prospect’s business initiatives to your business value (93 percent) versus RFP response tools (7 percent)
• ​Sharing market insights (86 percent) versus gamification tools (14 percent)
• ​Managing the tension in your sales negotiations to help you secure more value (89 percent) versus email automation tools (11 percent)
• ​Contrasting a prospect’s status quo with a change scenario (82 percent) versus CRM systems (18 percent)
• ​Sharing a distinct point of view (68 percent) versus top-notch ROI tools (32 percent)

Tim Riesterer added: “For the remaining results, respondents indicated it was what salespeople say – not what they do or the tool used – that is most impactful. This data further underscores the need for companies to focus on developing more effective messaging and training their salespeople to deliver those messages in a way that differentiates them and their solutions.”