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Check out the article in the March issue of CRM magazine talking about sales reps, and whether or not companies were willing to expand their sales teams. The article refers to a study by CSO insights in which they showed that companies who gave their reps access to sales intelligence (SI) had significantly shorter ramp-up periods. Given that 78% of the companies they surveyed said they are planning to add sales people this year – sales intelligence and productivity is a big issue.

“… the level of insights coming from a new generation of SI companies, such as FirstRain, InsideView, OneSource, and ZoomInfo, has expanded dramatically. Today, employing Web-crawling and other data-gathering methods, SI solutions constantly gather information about the marketplaces into which reps are selling, the competitive landscape, and details on prospect accounts and key stakeholders.

Think of it this way: Each sales rep has his own digital research assistant constantly to track key news and events in his territory. Let’s say a new executive gets hired in a prospect firm you are targeting, or a company reports an earnings surprise (good or bad), or a merger is announced in one of the industries on which you focus. The SI system immediately would notify you about any of those developments. Then that information could be appended to contact and opportunity records in the CRM system you are using to manage your pipeline.”

CRM magazine maintains that it’s worth it to invest in such intelligence; the knowledge that it provides is invaluable—and in many cases, unexpected. So if you’re looking to shorten the ramp-up period in expanding your sales team, check out our products!

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