According to Forrester Research, the topic of AI in B2B sales is big for 2022.
Along with artificial intelligence (AI) and purchase automation, deal analytics, is a big deal for B2B companies.
Deal analytics (or deal insights) is the analysis of your sales team activity. It includes:
- Basic CRM-captured data and insights
- AI guided activity
- Deal-specific guidance
- Contextual analysis
- Actionable recommendations
As B2B sales grow ever more competitive, your sales team needs to do more than generate lists of prospects and follow leads through the buyer’s journey. It needs data to be turned into knowledge that can help them gain the advantage.
Deal Analytics Scoring Program
Deal analytics uses a scoring process to clarify the pros and cons of potential large deals. This will help you get more deals on the forecast that you have a better chance of closing. Your team identifies a few factors essential to winning, including:
- Client engagement
- Strength of solution
- Price
- Strength of the sales team
For each factor, the scoring program poses a series of questions against each for every stage of the bid. Your team receives the qualifications they need when negotiating their deal. For example, the program might ask about the relationship between the seller and the critical decision-makers. If there is none, it asks about identifying trusted advisors.
Scores are made using a predetermined scale. Scores are weighted based on patterns revealed by past deal analysis, both wins and losses. The overall score changes as the deal progresses and you accumulate more information.
Other questions the program might pose include:
- Is there evidence competitors have better solutions than yours?
- Do other bidders have a stronger relationship with the prospect than you do?
- How does your price compare with competitors?
- Will the deal be profitable for your company?
- How likely is it that the client follows through with a purchase?
- Can you staff a sales team appropriately for this deal?
- Could this deal make you a star in the market?
Deal analytics also includes any considerations that could change the relative weight of deal profitability. Instead of whether you can succeed in engaging this client.
The Scoring System as Gate Review
The deal analytics scoring program provides executives a staged gate review that includes guidance for resource allocation to improve your deal’s prospects and the actions required to increase the odds at each stage. It also tells you when you are better off backing away from a deal.
Over half of the buying cycle is now self-guided. It’s more difficult for B2B sales organizations to assess whether a deal is worthy of the resources needed to bring it to fruition. You need to know the most effective engagement strategy for each stage in the sales cycle to bring in revenue reliably.
The Benefits of Deal Analytics
Developing an effective deal analytics program creates a playbook of repeatable actions to use for any future prospects. It gives you a way to approach each prospect most effectively.
It also eliminates “deal fever.” Too often, a salesperson grows so invested in a deal that they can’t bring themselves to back off a lost cause. They lose objectivity. And their actions eat up resources. It gets harder and harder to stop the wheel from turning.
Today’s B2B sales teams must run a tight ship. Using resources effectively on the most profitable and likely deals. Taking the emotion out of the equation and replacing it with hard analysis steers your organization to B2B sales nirvana. This is a big advantage in having AI in B2B sales. Emotion leaves and analytics help create a blueprint for future prospecting success.
So, Scoring Helps You Find Your Perfect Prospects?
Yes. Yes, it does. Zebrafi has offered a successful deal analytics program for many years. Zebrafi helps you identify factors that improve your odds of making a deal and keeps you from wasting resources on prospects that aren’t worth your time. Time is money. Therefore, there is no use working just for the sake of it. We want to work smart, close more deals in less time, and generate more revenue.
This scoring system can help with that.
How To Find Your Perfect Prospect
Finding your perfect prospect doesn’t have to be complicated. We created an ebook that is called Building Your Zebra to help you create your ideal customer in a far shorter amount of time. It is completely free because we want you to start closing more deals as soon as possible!
Wrap-Up
This post was about AI in B2B sales and deal analytics.
Other posts you may enjoy:
1. Forecasting Using the Z-Score
2. Why Selling Features and Functions Doesn’t Work In B2B Sales
3. Sales Process: Building Your Pushbutton Zebra
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