Sales Engagement Is Having a Moment: Takeaways From Salesloft's Partner Day Spring 2022
A few weeks ago, Salesloft held their Spring ‘22 Partner Day in Atlanta, GA, where we got together with some of our fellow Salesloft partners to talk shop and have some fun. And as much fun as the event was, we still walked away learning quite a bit more about the industry and ecosystem. So, in the spirit of openness, we wanted to share our 3 biggest takeaways from Partner Day Spring 2022. In no particular order:
Sales Reps want more than just cadences
Back when Salesloft started in 2011, reps didn’t have much help when it came to planning sequences of messages. Most outbound outreach was done manually, and outbound cadences of messages were planned in spreadsheets emailed around the company. Fast forward to 2022, and the market is full of amazing tools that can help schedule sequences - I mean, the first page of google is littered with aggregations of them. These tools do an amazing job of giving reps scheduling options and planning out messages to prospects to educate them throughout the buying cycle. But scheduling out sequences of messages is no longer enough. What reps really need goes beyond cadences - helping them understand their buyer, keep track of where each deal is, and making recommendations on next best actions outside of directly messaging their prospect. These groups of tools are effectively called Sales Engagement platforms - and they are a huge, (and growing!) set of tools.
Sales Engagement is Having a Moment
So to start - Sales engagement is a broad term for a group of softwares that generally help the rep be more successful. Salesloft defines Sales Engagement in the following way:
Sales Engagement platforms guide sellers through a consistent, repeatable process focused on creating meaningful, personalized interactions with prospects and customers throughout the full revenue lifecycle.
If that feels like a pretty broad swath of functionality, you’re not wrong - the space is HUGE. Just take a look at the G2 Grid of Sales Engagement Tools to get a sense for how many different companies take a part in this space. When we look at the grid, we notice it is:
- Crowded. With over 130 companies there, you can tell that nearly everyone is playing some part in sales engagement these days
- Filled with lots of different functionality. Cadence planning, cold outreach enhancement, B2B buyer information, engagement analytics, calendar management, and more - all in a single market segment
To us, what this really signifies is a growing recognition that sales reps need more support throughout the entire sales cycle. Sales managers and sales enablers can’t just give reps a message sequencing tool and expect them to hit quota - in today’s environment they need every advantage they can get to get ahead, whether that’s next best steps from a call recording or automated calendar reminders to check in on prospects. In fact, Salesloft’s CEO Kyle Porter described that in the ideal world, sales engagement could provide reps an intelligent list of tasks each day in their order of importance, laying out everything that has to get done to move deals forward. Each interaction - whether it be a meeting, email, or phone call, could create tasks or follow ups in the future, with each sales activity effectively leading to more deal activity. Now that’s obviously a lofty ambition, but it hints at a bigger trend. Because it’s such a comprehensive space, sales engagement is going to evolve as digital sales and consumer expectations evolve alongside it. It’s going to be very interesting to see what the market looks like a few years from now as buyers expect more from their sellers and sellers, in turn, expect more from their tools and processes.
It’s Good to Be Back in Person
This likely goes without saying, but being at our first in-person conference in a while felt great. Connecting with other sales enablement pros in person was amazing, and learning about the industry just feels better when you’re on a rooftop together. Many thanks to our partners at Salesloft for the event - we’ll be at the next one!