Sales Enablement Vendor

Evaluation Guide

Bigtincan Hub Sales Enablement

Automation Platform

INTRODUCTION
Implementing an enterprise content-centric sales enablement platform is one of best ways sales
operations, sales management and marketing can work together to empower the sales team to
sell more and be more productive. Sales enablement platforms can address a variety of critical
success and productivity issues:
• Only 55.8% of reps achieve quota -- CSO Insights
• 65% of reps say they can’t find content to send to prospects -- Kapost
• Sales reps spend 13 hours per week creating custom sales collateral -- EMI Industry
Intelligence Report
• Sales reps spend only 37% of their time selling -- CSO Insights
• A whopping 65% of content is unused by sales -- SiriusDecisions
• Finally, 87% of training content is forgotten within 30 days -- Corporate Executive Board

Taking the first steps in selecting a sales enablement

How and where do you begin the purchasing process? Evaluating and selecting from the
seemingly unending array of sales enablement vendors can be time and resource intensive.
Many vendors talk the talk about how their tools can help drive sales success, but for every
successful implementation, there are instances when these tools just don't deliver on their
promise.
Whether through poor adoption rates, lack of critical
features or poor user experience, knowing what to look
for in a vendor is the first step to avoiding failure and to
finding the right sales enablement solution to for your
organizational needs.
This guide is a first step in helping organizations
evaluate and select the right software solution to meet
your sales enablement solution needs.
It’s important to have confidence in the sales
enablement solution you’ve selected, and for that to
happen, you’ll want to ask the right questions. We’ve
outlined 10 critical questions you should ask any sales enablement vendor you’re considering.
Getting answers to these questions will help ensure that you not only empower teams through
the selling process, but also achieve satisfaction through timely implementation, broad adoption,
and sustained use of the solution.
Input for this Guide was provided by a focused team of experts – including vendors, customers
and industry analysts – who offered their extensive experience in helping organizations large and
small find the right sales enablement solution, at the right price, and ensure a successful vendor
selection process.

TOP 10 QUESTIONS TO ASK YOUR SALES ENABLEMENT VENDOR TO

GET THE BEST POSSIBLE RESULTS
1. “What kind of adoption rates do your customers experience?”
Why Ask? - Another way to think about this question is “why are sales SaaS solutions rarely as
effective as you hoped they would be?” Often, it’s because of poor user adoption. Getting
sales people to use a new software solution can be extremely challenging, particularly when
learning a new UI and concept paradigm often enforced by individual software vendors.

Answer - Vendors shouldn’t just tell you about the features of their product. Instead they
should explain how their technology uses common paradigms that all sales people understand
and how it will promote greater adoption. For example, UI concepts from common tools like
iTunes, Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube and others, will demonstrate a familiar interface and
adoption-centric design. Our experience shows that sales people can take familiar concepts
and use them as a spring board for rapid, long-term adoption.

Ask to See - Customer reference and reviews that show real-world adoption.
2. “We use a range of different content types, from InDesign and interactive PPT to
HTML5 detailers and web content – can your solution handle a wide variety of
content types?”
Why Ask? – One of the biggest challenges sales enablement software has faced is the
proliferation of ‘apps’ and systems designed to work with a single type of content. More often
than not, integrating heterogeneous content formats into the software simply doesn't work
because it’s too limiting, making reps lose confidence in both marketing and sales enablement
solutions.

Answer – Vendors should understand this problem and provide a ‘single pane of glass’
approach where all content works and renders (or displays) in a way that feels natural and
includes all the capabilities that the original content piece supported. If reps can access any
type of content within the solution, adoption will improve, as will the return on your investment.

Ask to See - Real world content running in the system and how it got there. Especially look for
the type of next generation animated PowerPoint files, interactive HTML guided selling tools,
web content, and even Apple iWork format materials that are being used for real world sales
content. Check out how it handles fonts, animations and transitions and more. Is it usable for
the sales team in closing a deal?

3. “Are you utilizing machine learning and other AI technologies to help sales
people and sales ops?”
Why Ask? - AI technologies are becoming more embedded in all areas of software, both for
consumers and businesses, and for good reason. Many of today’s sales enablement software
offer basic tagging based on search and content recommendations.
Those that leverage real world machine learning capabilities can understand how sales people
work, recommend content, and help reps learn from others. This includes providing
information about the most effective processes and the sales approaches so reps can improve
their own performance. For example: the AI-powered software recommends content for a
sales person just about to visit a specific customer, and it appears right in their flow of work
when they fire up their tablet in the waiting room.
AI-powered sales enablement systems are quickly becoming part of a bigger AI trend that is
impacting CRM systems. For Salesforce.com users, this is especially important as Einstein
technologies are gradually becoming part of the Sales and Service Clouds. The best Sales
Enablement solutions will get the right data into CRM so Einstein can do its job. Without quality
data, AI platforms don’t perform well.

Answer - Vendors should not only have a plan to use machine learning and AI technologies
inside their tool, but their tools should provide data back to other AI platforms (like Salesforce
 Einstein) to improve overall sales and service
effectiveness. Sales enablement teams should look
to the future where AI will play a more important
role, both for today’s needs to improve
recommendations and content for the sales team
and for tomorrow where the larger scale global AIs
(like Einstein) will play an increasingly important
role.
That means leading vendors will use machine
learning and AI to help sale ops and management get
better data about how the sales teams are working,
whether or not those organizations are already deploying Einstein or similar technologies.

Ask to See - Ask about how the AI technology actually helps a sales person find what they
need to win deals and get more done. Specifically look to understand how the AI makes that
content available and whether it can dynamically change as the user changes role, products,
sales teams and more. And look for tools that have AI technology embedded – and don’t
require lots of ‘content tagging’ to setup.

4. “How much day-to-day maintenance does your SE system require?”

Why Ask? - The cost of operating and maintaining a sales enablement system can be the
biggest barrier to success. Many organizations understand the value sales enablement
systems can provide, but if deployment requires hiring multiple new human resources to
manage and maintain the system on a daily basis, that additional cost can greatly reduce long-
term ROI.
Sales enablement tools should ideally be deployed and maintained without dedicated
resources and should take advantage of modern technologies to reduce the load on
administrators, content creators, publishers and users.

Answer - Vendors should be able to point to built-in technology areas (like the machine
learning and AI technologies discussed in question three) to help businesses deploy the
software without having to use resources to manage ‘tagging’ or other manual processes to
ensure that the right data gets to the sales person.

Ask to See - Make sure you view how content is added to the system and how the content can
be used, and updated. Look for flexibility that allows for advanced meta-data around the
content. Best of breed systems will support all mechanisms for understanding how content
works – tagging, metadata and machine learning based recommendations - and will group
them together for the most flexible results.
5. “How will your system meet the needs of our IT security team and provide the
right controls to help us enable users?”
Why Ask? - Deploying a sales enablement system ensures that the right sales person gets
access to the right information and content at the right time and location. But allowing various
levels of user access means your solution must also meet strict security, control and
information governance requirements – without restricting users from successfully using the
tool.

Answer - Vendors should present a solution that meets business needs for security, control,
management, reporting and overall governance. Sales enablement solutions need to
demonstrate the ability to work with other security management platforms (like VPN, MDM, and
other control systems) and do so in a way that is entirely transparent to the sales person using
the tool. Who hasn't had a situation where the sales person sent the wrong (often internal)
content to their prospect by mistake? The best solutions have all the encryption and security
required to satisfy your IT department, while helping to protect the sales person from making
errors.

Ask to See - You’ll want to see how and where the content is stored, how you can have direct
access to your own storage sub system and how that content can be selectively controlled on
a per piece basis. Look for things like watermarking, and encryption that does not just come
from the device settings. And most importantly, ask to see details of where the content is
hosted to be sure you understand how it moves across borders and around the world.

6. “Will we be able to use your system wherever our sales team works?”
Why Ask? - Sales people need to be able to be as effective as they can be no matter where
they choose to work, either physically or remotely. And as we know, sales people always want
to be able to use their preferred computing platform. Whether using the company’s CRM
system (e.g. Salesforce.com,) email (e.g. Outlook) or mobile device (e.g. iPad), it’s important
sales people get the content and information they need to work with customers and other
team members in a unified way.

Answer - Vendors should be able to show how content and information, as well as deep
insights to guided selling and the sales process, are available for sales reps in the key places
they work. This includes: mobile devices used in front of a customer or in preparation for a
meeting; inside the CRM system they use every day to track progress; and email, where sales
people do most of their work and communicate with customers.

Ask to See - Make sure you see how the sales person can flow between different systems,
from inside CRM, to a mobile device and then to everyday work tools like email. The user
 should be able to do the same things on each
platform and be able to pick up where they left off
in another environment.

7. “Will your solution allow us to have a

customized experience that meets our
corporate brand needs?”
Why Ask? - As every sales executive knows,
ensuring the materials you present and the way you
present them are tied to your corporate brand and
are critical in gaining confidence from the customer
and moving the sale forward. But for many sales enablement tools, branding is limited to
tinkering with the brand of the company offering the software.

Answer - Vendors should allow you to customize branding over the entire system, not just
limited to a few templates or fields. This should include your content, how it supports multiple
languages, how the system can be programmed to include accessing your corporate brand
and identity, and more. Any vendor should be able to describe how their branding and
customization program works and how easy it is to change when corporate brand and
messaging shifts. But all this must happen without the project becoming another ‘custom app’-
it should never cost an organization significant sums to maintain, update or improve a custom
branded platform.

Ask to See - Examples of custom branded apps, with completely different user experiences.
Make sure you can have not just your colors, logo, and backgrounds, but look for tools that
allow you to embed your sales process into the UI to ensure that sales people are not jumping
between tools to be successful.

8. “Does your sales enablement solution integrate with third party technologies?”
Why Ask? - Businesses have a range of existing platforms and systems that are critical to
efficient business operations. From CMS and file storage platforms to CRM, Marketing
Automation and other tools, Sales Enablement will perform better, produce more powerful
results and get better adoption if it connects to these systems. What is important here is not
just some off-the-shelf connection, but the ability to make this work in a way that fits business
needs.

Answer - Prospective vendors should understand how to connect different tools, platforms and
systems beyond a broad-brush level. They should be able to work with you to guide you down
the right path to make these integrations useful and effective. And their platforms should have
 an open API that helps you to connect with systems over and above simple content
repositories (e.g. Dropbox).

Ask to See - Look for configuration options inside the UI that you can turn on and off without
programming, and make sure that the integrations extend across the web, API level and even
integrated system level integrations.

9. “Can users edit and create real content on the mobile device?”
Why Ask? - Mobile is not just for reading PDFs and other documents sent to the sales person.
It's about empowering the sales executive to create, edit, update and interact with material in a
way that the business allows. Enabling your sales people to react to the market, adapt their
materials, create custom presentations and more – all from a mobile device – can significantly
impact win rates and help reps have more successful meetings and customer engagements.

Answer - Vendors that understand the future of mobile and how it is impacting sales teams
should be able to propose solutions that equip sales people with the right content to do their
job, as well as help sales people (within the rules created by the business) interact with that
content. Leading vendors will allow for creation, editing, annotations and more, and the best
will even allow custom material creation based on approved content sets. It's important to
choose systems that understand the power of mobile – it can make the difference between a
strategic sales enablement solution vs. a tactical one.

Ask to See - Ask to see how a document or content piece can be opened, edited, updated
and presented from the device – and be sure that the security controls are there to stop the
salesperson mistakenly updating the original with their edited copy. Look for tools that make
editing controllable and that can be disabled in a piece by piece way.
And be sure that all standard MS type documents are supported to keep the options open for
content creation inside the business and in the field.

10. Last, but certainly not least “Does your solution provide sales teams with formal
and informal learning content? How can I integrate with or replace our existing
Learning Management System (LMS) with a single, unified SE solution?”
Why Ask? - Learning is critical to the success of sales reps. Without training and learning,
getting sales teams to be successful is a tough road. Sales enablement solutions must provide
a way to help deliver learning content that is integrated into the information flow for the rep.
Learning for the YouTube generation is all about delivering the training, learning and micro-
learning right when the user needs it – not in some legacy PC-based website that reps visit
twice a year. When powered by the machine learning and AI technologies discussed above,
 you can start to create a new environment for teams that ensure the right learning materials
are delivered to the right people when they need it and in a way that they can use.

Answer - Top sales enablement software vendors will understand how important it to link
learning to sales enablement. They will provide the ability to create and deliver a variety of
learning content directly to each rep based on a series of contextually-sensitive variables.
They will support the creation, delivery and reporting of quizzes, forms, videos and interactive
content within their system, as well as the integration into existing legacy LMS systems that
were originally built for the web. Today, learning and training must work wherever the sales
person chooses to interact – whether that’s in their car or home office, or even onsite prior to
meeting with a customer.
Adoption, flexibility, usability, integration, portability, customization and security – these should
be top-of-mind for any business evaluating a sales enablement solution. And once all the
check-boxes are ticked off, it’s important to take the solution for a test-drive. For all the bells
and whistles it may have, using a sales enablement tool should be as easy as sending an email
and the paradigms of the UI and UX should be molded from existing, familiar systems that
sales people already know how to use. The sales enablement solution you select is only as
powerful as the people who use it.

Ask to See - Look for a complete LMS – not just a system content publishing system. You’ll
need to be able to assign users to courses, measure completion and set structures of multiple
courses that follow successful completion of other specific materials. But also look for a system
that supports flexible micro-learning that can be delivered right with the content that a user
needs to work with in their normal, customer facing or internal roles inside your business.

ABOUT BIGTINCAN
Bigtincan (ASX: BTH) helps sales and service teams increase win rates and customer satisfaction.
The company’s mobile, AI-powered sales enablement platform features the industry’s premier
user experience that empowers reps to more effectively engage with customers and prospects
and encourages team-wide adoption. Leading brands including AT&T, ThermoFisher, Merck, ANZ
Bank and others rely on Bigtincan to enhance sales productivity at every customer interaction.
Headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts, Bigtincan also has offices across EMEA, Australia and
Asia. To discover more about how your
organization can benefit from the Bigtincan Hub
platform please visit www.bigtincan.com or
follow @bigtincan on Twitter.