With more than 700 sales tech vendors and countless tools, it’s enough to make any sales leader’s head spin. Jill recommends thinking about “the pains and the challenges that our organizations are having that can be solved, in part, by leveraging technology.” Additionally, she warns that what works great for a small business might be disastrous for an enterprise company, and vice versa. Less is more Think about it: for every new piece of tech you add, that’s another tool that salespeople have to get trained on, remember their login for, and remember to check. Save your tech investments for tools that are aligned with your specific business goals and that work well with your existing technology. Next, consider your existing sales tech stack. How will this new piece of technology integrate with your existing systems? That also means thinking about their existing processes and workflows—how will this fit in? Want to find out how we evaluate sales tech at Vidyard? Check out Business Development Director Dan Wardle’s post Evaluating Sales Technology: An Insider’s Look. What criteria do you use to evaluate new sales tech?

Source: Vidyard

The sales tech landscape is overwhelming. With more than 700 sales tech vendors and countless tools, it’s enough to make any sales leader’s head spin. How do you decide which tools are worth your while and which ones are just bright shiny objects that will distract—or worse, detract—from your selling goals?

Never fear, intrepid leaders! Jill Rowley, Chief Growth Officer at Marketo, has the inside scoop on how to get the best value out of your sales technology. As an expert on marketing automation and a self-described “salesperson trapped in a marketer’s body” (she spent a decade building the marketing automation space as a sales leader at Eloqua) she’s uniquely qualified to comment on how to make the best use of the seemingly boundless sales tools at your disposal. Here’s her advice:

You need a sales tech strategy

As a team—and ideally, as an organization—you need to have a unified tech strategy. This means understanding your individual business needs: the goals you have and the kinds of tools you need to achieve them. Jill recommends thinking about “the pains and the challenges that our organizations are having that can be solved, in part, by leveraging technology.”

Additionally, she warns that what works great for a small business might be disastrous for an enterprise company, and vice versa. Even if something is a great piece of tech, if it’s not aligned with your business goals it’s going to be ineffective and costly.