The Transaction

Empowering The Agile, Tech-Enabled Salesforce with Mary Shea - The Transaction - Ep #6

Apr 18, 2024

Former Principal Analyst at Forrester, Mary Shea, discusses the future of B2B sales organizations, signal-based selling, and the importance of investing in sales training and enablement. She emphasizes the need for vendors with a comprehensive support system and the focus on extracting meaningful insights from data for improved buyer-seller interactions.

50:31

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Episode guests

Mary Shea

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Episode notes

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Quick takeaways

Investing in sales training and enablement is vital for high-performing sales teams.

Look beyond point solutions to vendors with comprehensive support for efficient tech stacks.

Deep dives

Importance of Consolidating Sales Tech Stack

Consolidating and streamlining the sales tech stack is crucial for efficiency. By focusing on vendors with multiple integrated products and a unified data set, businesses can make informed decisions and avoid double-paying for similar functionalities, like call coaching. Understanding each vendor's capabilities before auditing the tech stack ensures investments align with the company's needs.

Introduction

4min

Revolutionizing Sales Organizations with Technology Integration

17min

Evolution of Sales Specialization

5min

Reshaping Tech Sales Process for Success

7min

Evolving Sales Technology Landscape with AI Integration

12min

Exploring Signal-Based Selling and Customer Insights in Sales Technology

5min

To help you wrap your head around the rapidly evolving technological landscape as a revenue leader, we have a very special guest today. Mary Shea is the former Principal Analyst at Forrester and is currently advising and coaching multiple high-growth companies. Mary joins Hosts Craig Rosenberg and Matt Amundson to discuss the technology-enabled future of B2B sales organizations, which stages of the funnel should be automated first, and understanding “Signal-based Selling.”

Also, Craig relishes getting a great compliment and Matt is put on the hot seat for one of his takes on B2B sales.

Takeaways:

Investing in sales training and enablement is vital, both internally and via third parties. This focus on upskilling is critical during times of change, especially as enablement professionals are among the first to be let go when budgets are tight. Consistent investment in enablement is key to maintaining a high-performing sales team.
Look beyond point solutions to vendors who offer comprehensive support for the sales cycle. Try to work with vendors who possess an exciting vision for the future, particularly those who incorporate embedded and generative AI into their offerings, allowing for a more consolidated and efficient tech stack.
Focus on insights over mere data to improve buyer-seller interactions. It’s much more important to extract meaningful insights from data, than just collect data for its own sake. The term 'Signal-based Selling' highlights the need for sales and marketing professionals to focus on actionable insights that drive meaningful engagements with prospects and customers.

Chapters:

00:00 - Craig is called a “Living Legend”
01:23 - Introducing special guest Mary Shea
03:30 - The Agile, Tech-Enabled Salesforce
10:51 - Are Smaller Sales Teams the Future?
13:12 - Can You Scale Back on SDRs & Sell More?
17:41 - How Sales Leaders should Think about Automation Today
21:19 - Is Greater Specialization in Sales the Solution?
29:18 - The Emerging SE Tech Stack
34:05 - Embracing Gen AI in the Enterprise
44:51 - Understanding Signal-Based Selling

Quote of the Show:

“If I’m a revenue leader … I need to think about technology as another arrow in my quiver.” - Mary Shea

Sponsor:

Ringmaster Conversational Marketing - The Transaction is sponsored and produced by Ringmaster, on a mission to create connections through Branded podcasts. Learn more at https://ringmaster.com/

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