The only B2B sales acceleration guide you’ll ever need [including 7 deal acceleration tactics to try today]
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Originally posted on: https://www.usergems.com/blog/b2b-sales-acceleration
Use these proven B2B sales acceleration strategies to streamline your sales processes and grow revenue.
Wondering if investing in sales acceleration strategies is worth your time?
The short answer: absolutely.
Sales acceleration helps you create a streamlined, optimized sales workflow that saves reps’ time and boosts their confidence. It also moves prospects through the sales pipeline faster, allowing you to close more deals and grow revenue.
In this piece, we cover everything you need to know about sales acceleration, including why you need to prioritize it, impactful tactics to try, and a list of must-have tools your team needs.
What is sales acceleration?
Sales acceleration refers to optimizing your sales processes using strategies, tactics, and tools that move prospects seamlessly through your pipeline.
The aim is simple: to remove inefficiencies in your sales process so that you can offer prospects a smooth and personalized experience, boost team efficiency, and generate more revenue.
Why does sales acceleration matter?
First and foremost, sales acceleration helps you to grow revenue and streamline your sales process. But it also comes with a variety of other benefits, like making it easier to hit sales goals, reducing pipeline anxiety, and building better customer relationships.
1. It helps you to hit sales goals and revenue targets
A well-defined sales workflow paired with sales acceleration tools helps optimize each step in the process, improving your team’s efficiency and productivity. In turn, this helps you grow sales and meet your goals.
2. Streamlined workflows reduce pipeline anxiety
A clearly defined sales process boosts reps’ confidence in taking prospects through the different stages of the funnel. What’s more, using a proven sales strategy, reps are able to close more deals, reducing pipeline anxiety.
Naturally, this improves their commitment to the work — motivating them to enjoy their jobs instead of leaving them feeling frustrated as they try to reach their sales quotas.
3. It builds better customer relationships
Defined processes and well-trained, confident reps show prospects your team has a solid understanding of the problems prospects face and how your product or service can solve them.
Using the right sales acceleration software, you can also automate a number of processes to free up reps’ time, making them more accessible to prospects.
Altogether, this improves the prospect’s experience — from the first time they’re contacted by your team to the moment they become your customers. And as an added bonus, offering a seamless experience also increases your odds of closing more deals.
B2B sales acceleration strategies
Now that you understand how important sales acceleration is and what it can do for you, it’s time to figure out how to apply it to your business. We spoke with a ton of industry experts to find out which sales acceleration tactics will get you the most bang for your buck.
1. Educate your sales team about what your product does
Without a thorough understanding of how your product helps its target users, reps will always be inefficient at making a case for your tool in front of prospects.
The key, however, is in training your reps on how your product benefits prospects and helps solve their specific problems.
“If your sales team is only selling products, they will be limited in the number of opportunities they can close,” observes Neutypechic’s Co-Founder, Patricia Jones. However:
It’s why Jones recommends training the sales team to understand how the product they’re selling helps its customers. By doing so, you empower reps to take a value-first approach instead of employing product-first sales tactics that aren’t as effective in closing deals.
2. Leverage sales multithreading
Sales multithreading involves nurturing multiple contacts from one target account instead of just focusing on one (single threading).
But why bother? Because multithreading helps:
- Shorten the sales cycle
- Increase deals success rates
- Close deals faster
Most of all, multithreading minimizes the risk associated with only speaking to a single contact. For example, if they were to resign from the company you’re targeting, you would have to start all over again.
Our internal data confirms the benefits of sales multithreading. Single-thread deals have a 5% win rate. In contrast, multithread deals or deals where you’re in contact with up to five people at a target account have up to a 30% win rate. That’s a staggering 6x improvement!
Source: 4 pipeline generation playbooks|UserGems
Plus, let’s not forget that decision-makers rarely ever make decisions alone. Becc Holland, CEO & Founder of Flip the Script, talked about this in a UserGems webinar.
Holland shared, “I wouldn’t view the decision-maker as the decision-maker. The decision-maker is the final person for sign-off. But they’re supported or detracted by everyone around them. A good decision-maker listens to their team. They don’t make decisions in a silo. So, you need to think of everyone on the sales call as having equal weight. And win them all on your side.”
So the question now is: How can you start using multithreading to boost sales? Blaise Bevilacqua, the Enterprise Account Executive at UserGems has the answer for you:
Bevilacqua explains this with an example: “Stuck in SLIP (security, legal, infosec, procurement) and notice your CFO has a mutual connection with the prospect’s Chief Legal Officer? Bring your executives into the fold and have relationships help un-stick deals that are BoFu.”
3. Have contextual conversations using good prospect notes
There’s nothing that impresses prospects more than reps who have done their homework. For instance, a rep who remembers the struggles a prospect shared in early email communications.
By keeping tabs on prospect data — from their demographic detail to their work experience — reps can lead meaningful conversations with prospects.
However, manually maintaining notes on all these details only adds more work to a rep’s plate. The solution? UserGems Meeting Assistant.
It does the research legwork for you, adding all contact information to your CRM. Plus, it emails you these details daily and gives you a heads-up about whether an account has been contacted by anyone from your team in the past.
Bevilacqua uses the Meeting Assistant for these two use cases: “I use the daily digest email every day as a helpful guide to conversations. It lets me know if a.) the contact has had any relationship with meeting UserGems in the past, b.) maps out who else they’ve met with and how many times.”
Derek Wang, UserGems’ Sales Manager, also uses the Meeting Assistant to nurture leads and speed up the sale process. In Wang’s words:
- “[Meeting Assistant gets] me ready for who I’m meeting with. When I know exactly who I’m meeting with, I am able to send relevant content. And connect on LinkedIn beforehand with personalized notes. Often times I single-thread individual prospects to get additional discovery and give more tailored content.
- [It adds] more stakeholders to my opps. I always know who has been involved in the deal at a high level. So I can refer back to specific people. Also, UserGems lets me know if champions leave mid-funnel so I can prevent deal risk.”
4. Empower your team with sales scripts
Sales scripts are performance guides sharing proven sales tactics and strategies that reps can refer to during their interactions with prospects.
These help you with B2B sales acceleration by training teams to use tactics that have been helping their managers and peers achieve great results. Adding sales scripts to a rep’s to-read pile isn’t enough, though. Instead, use the show, don’t tell strategy to help SDRs understand how the script will help them.
For example, give reps access to call recordings of their peers using the sales script to successfully move leads down the funnel. Or, take calls in front of your reps to show them exactly how to put the script to work.
If nothing else, give your reps a list of questions to ask prospects so they can better identify pain points and guide leads through more productive conversations.
Caroline Pegram, Senior Account Executive at UserGems, shares one question that all reps should ask on their prospect calls: “what makes NOW a good time to look at ________?”
“I get answers ranging from ‘my CMO told me to look into this since he missed an Inmail from a customer who moved’ to ‘I’m building my budget and determining which tools we want next year’ to ‘we missed our pipeline goal by 20% last quarter and need new channels.’”.
“The reason this question is so valuable is that now you’re going to take the conversation with the three people above in completely different directions,” explains Pegram.
“In one, you’re going to grow their understanding so that they understand the scope of the problem — also big multithreading opportunity here. With the second one, you’re going to spend more time educating them on where your product is positioned in the market and get really granular about it. The last one is the easiest to tie to impact so you can work with them to move quickly to start building the pipeline for their next month/quarter.”
5. Use templates to help reps personalize their interactions
No matter which prospecting strategy you use to close deals, personalization is essential to its success.
“For high-value accounts, one of the best ways to stand out is by creating a personalized sales room for the prospect. The digital sales room is a personalized landing page that includes everything the prospect needs to know about your solution, from your demo videos to case studies to pricing,” notes Alex Kracov, the CEO and Co-Founder of Dock.
One heads-up, though: personalization can be time-consuming, which may slow down your pipeline. But it’s nothing that customizable templates can’t help solve.
Kracov points out:
6. Center your sales process around reaching out to alumni prospects
One of the best ways to beat pipeline anxiety and accelerate your sales is to target warm leads.
An easy way to do so? Track customer job changes to reach out to alumni customers who have already used your product and can (hopefully) vouch for it at their new company.
What’s also worth mentioning here is not only can these alumni customers speak in favor of your product with their new decision-makers, but it’s also likely that they’re looking to invest in new tools for their new role.
UserGems’ pipeline generation software data confirms new executives spend 70% of their budget within the first 100 days.
Meaning: by using this strategy, you’re not only reaching out to warm leads, but you’re also connecting with them at the right time.
However, doing it manually is very time-consuming. Instead, automate tracking job changes, so your reps have more time to focus on closing deals.
Cobalt’s Director of Business Development, Ryan Murray, who is also a UserGems customer, agrees, “For us, the customer-job-change trigger use case was a no-brainer. Trying to track this otherwise would have been a manual and difficult process on LinkedIn. And we would have things slip through the cracks.”
So they started using UserGems to track job changes to accelerate their sales. The result? 12x the ROI in only a year of using our pipeline generation software.
7. Use the right tools to streamline and accelerate your sales process
Using the right tools speeds up your processes, helping you close more deals effectively. They also improve your team’s productivity — motivating everyone to hit their sales goals, which, in turn, helps you bring in more revenue.
For example, using pipeline generation software such as UserGems gives you an opportunity to use key prospect intelligence insights, such as their job changes, to build a qualified pipeline.
Similarly, a tool like Cabal will show you whether the prospects you’re targeting are connected with folks in your leadership.
Blaise Bevilacqua, UserGems’ Enterprise Account Executive who uses this tool, shares, “[Cabal] ingests your CRM’s deal board and maps your leadership/investor’s network to any connection within the target account.”
“It’s low commitment from a social capital standpoint if there’s a genuine connection. A message to a decision maker from a friend that looks like, ‘Hey Jane, have ya’ll checked out UserGems yet? It’s found money. LMK if you want an intro. Pretty close to their team.’ is way more impactful than cold outreach.”
Based on this, it’s easy to see how sales acceleration tools help teams improve their productivity, personalize sales, and reduce pipeline anxiety.
The 3 most important types of sales acceleration software
B2B sales acceleration tools help you save time, personalize outreach, and have more meaningful conversations with prospects.
But not all sales acceleration tools are created equal. Here are some of the best ones on the market to help get you started on the right foot.
1. Sales intelligence tools
Sales intelligence tools collect prospect data to give you insider information, like which accounts to target to drive more sales. For example, sales intelligence tools may surface contact data for businesses searching for tools like yours.
The information that you gain from B2B intelligence software like Cabal helps you target warm leads. It also assists you in personalizing your interactions with prospects.
2. Sales pipeline generation software
Pipeline generation tools help you beat pipeline anxiety by giving you a list of warm accounts to target.
UserGems, for example, tracks customer job changes so you can target alumni customers (who’ve already used your tool and hopefully love it). By accelerating your pipeline with warm leads, pipeline generation software helps you close more deals, meet your sales quotas, and hit revenue goals.
3. Customer relationship management (CRM) software
CRM software keeps your prospects’ information in one place — automatically updating it while providing a handful of features that help you close more deals.
For instance, CRM platforms will often give you a lead score to:
- Determine how relevant a lead is to your business
- Help with sales forecasting
- Show you which stage each deal is in
You can also do this using separate lead-scoring software.
How to pick the best sales acceleration tools for your team
The best sales acceleration software not only solves your specific sales problems but also seamlessly integrates into your workflow. As a result, adoption rates are high, driving positive results.
The first step to selecting the right sales acceleration tool is to identify the sales problems you want to solve. Look at your analytics to review where the sales process slackens, and performance is poor. And talk to your team about where they could use help.
For example, if a sales manager is looking to improve the quality of the leads in their pipeline, then they should consider adopting pipeline generation software.
With your sales problems identified, search for tools that can help. Research the best tools to solve your specific problems and tap into your network for referrals.
As your list of potential sales acceleration tools to invest in comes together, review its:
- Ease of use
Ease of use is crucial for tool adoption. The idea is simple: pick a tool that doesn’t change your team’s day-to-day significantly, and that doesn’t require extensive training to use.
- Pricing
Don’t just review the tools’ current pricing to see whether it falls within your budget. Instead, study its long-term pricing so you know if you’ll still be able to afford it as your team expands.
- Integrations
This helps you evaluate how well the tool will integrate into your workflow. Essentially, integration ensures the tool you’re looking to invest in pulls data into another tool.
For example, it’s critical for a sales tool to seamlessly integrate with your CRM, which is the hub of all your contact information. As the tools integrate, reps will be able to see the data from the new tool directly in the CRM, improving their productivity.
UserGems, for instance, integrates with Salesforce to show the alumni customers it tracks in your CRM. This way, you can see new accounts to target straight in your CRM — no additional admin work is required.
- Customer support and documentation
A proactive customer support team helps answer questions that you may have as you evaluate, integrate, and adopt the new tool. Similarly, comprehensive documentation provides you with resources that make the tool adoption process even easier.
In short, answer these questions as you select the best sales acceleration software:
How does the tool help solve our sales problem?
How much onboarding and training does the tool require?
How well does the tool integrate with our workflow?
Can we afford this tool now and as we grow?
Does the tool offer resources for us to make its adoption easy?
Ready to improve your sales acceleration?
There’s a lot that goes into optimizing your sales process and choosing the right tools to grow revenue.
To begin today, though, review your sales process to identify its shortcomings. Look for steps that need immediate improvement. And talk to your team to understand where they need the most help.
Then choose and implement the sales acceleration strategies that’ll help you deliver the most impact.
Don’t forget, you’ll also want to invest in the best sales acceleration tools to solve your specific struggles. If you’re looking to build a healthy sales pipeline, for example, we recommend UserGems 