What is Guided Selling?

In this episode, I am joined by Seth Marrs, Principal Analyst, Sales Operations at Forrester. Seth wrote a blog back in February 2020 which piqued my interest. It starts :

• Dynamic guided selling is a concept that is poised to become a reality in B2B sales organizations
• Integrating sales tools to build an iterative process enables sales teams to win more
• E-commerce guided selling, configure, price and quote (CPQ) systems, customer relationship management (CRM) and AI are the foundation for every customer interaction

Sales tools have traditionally been used to enable administrative efficiencies for sales leaders who can drive adoption. Tools can identify top prospects, reduce admin and provide improved visibility to pipeline reporting. These things all sit at the periphery of what salespeople value most — winning the deal.  

 

Seth breaks down more research he and his team have been conducting to the market and with his clients. 

We break down Guided Selling into its component parts.

Why Sales & Marketing leaders need to be considering this in concert, not in isolation.

What are the challenges faced by Sales & Marketing when looking at who to build in a Guided Selling culture and behaviours.

What opportunity this presents for them.

Why this needs to be top of the agenda today.

Your buyers are buying in a very different way, in order to stay with them, you need to engage with them on their terms, not yours.

Where AI & Automation will support and augment this. 

You can connect or follow Seth on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sethmarrs/ - be sure to mention this podcast when you do.

Seth has also shared more resource below for your consideration :

 

Supercharging Sales with Dynamic Guided Selling: http://bit.ly/2Oq2HuV

AI Can Get You a Date, But Can It Keep Your Buyers From Swiping Left? https://forr.com/2TnzjIH

What If the World Depended on the Accuracy of Your Org’s Data? https://www.siriusdecisions.com/blog/what-if-world-depended-on-data-accuracy?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=cso20&utm_term=covid19&utm_content=sdblog

Are You Managing Your Sales Data or Is It Managing You? https://forr.com/3ghzRYY

Sales Reps as Psychics: Buyers Want You to Know Their Expectations, Even if They Haven’t Told You What They Are https://forr.com/3j9CK0v

Cadence Optimization Is a Sales Rep Prospecting Superpower https://forr.com/30rbTp0

The Best of Both Worlds: Sales Reps Can Finally Get Value From Their Customer Interactions Without Needing to Log Them https://go.forrester.com/blogs/sales-reps-value-from-customer-interactions/

Quoting Is About More Than Just Efficiency — It’s Also A Key Sales Driver https://go.forrester.com/blogs/quoting-is-about-more-than-just-efficiency-its-also-a-key-sales-driver/

I See You! How Technology Increases Customer Transparency and Lifetime Value https://go.forrester.com/blogs/i-see-you-how-technology-increases-customer-transparency-and-lifetime-value/

You’ve Got My Attention — Now What? Providing High-Impact Predictive Content to Increase Sales Velocity https://go.forrester.com/blogs/predictive-content-increases-sales-velocity/