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By Ryan Warren, Vice President of Marketing

For sales teams, everything relies on staying ahead of competitors: If you're not first, you're last! Yet sales reps often waste a lot of valuable time figuring out what their client needs. The thing is, they needn't do so. Thanks to customer analytics and sales intelligence, which work hand-in-hand to drive salespeople and teams to reach goals and achieve an ROI on investments, the sales community is seeing big boosts in sales – and it's all thanks to big data analytics.

Big data allows sales teams to stay small while ensuring customer insights don't take a back seat. Forgetting big data analytics can significantly drag down productivity and cause severe consequences – like lost clients. That sentiment was recently reinforced when Tom Davenport from the International Institute for Analytics and Jill Dyché of SAS released the report "Big Data in Big Companies." The report focused on the increasing need for firms to bet on big data.

What's the Use of Big Data?
The data use of 20 corporations in pilot projects was profiled in the research. According to the report, employing customer analytics requires sales teams to develop new skills and for sales management to boost their investment in technology. And with budget cuts, it's not easy.

Jill Dyché, vice president of best practices at SAS, said implementing big data into the company was a struggle for many corporations, yet the obvious benefits of such deployments have become too much for business leaders to ignore.

"Big data was a wake-up call for these executives," Dyché said. "But the promise of fresh innovation is the real allure of big data for executives. They're turning their attention – and their budgets – to emerging technologies and skills."

While investing in sales intelligence may seem daunting, it's really not. According InformationWeek, real-time analytics not only offer insights for salespeople to identify what is happening in the industry at that precise moment but helps them to adjust their sales goals for the future. But big data doesn't just enhance your customer relationship management strategy (CRM), InformationWeek suggests it may produce stronger client loyalty. If the customer knows their sales team understands them and are able to deliver exactly what they need when they need it, sales representatives are able to ensure their customer's long-term business.

Knowing what's going through client minds right now may not be enough – sales reps need to peer into their crystal ball and see into the future. But sales reps have no need for Tarot cards of palm-reading, when all they really need is big data analytics is a salesperson's crystal ball. Gleaning insights about the customer before sitting down with them lets salespeople make the most of the interaction. One of the best ways corporations can improve client relationships is to mix sales intelligence into their bag of tricks.

New Opportunities for Success
The newest advancement from FirstRain allows salespeople to employ analytics in an easy-to-use way each day. The latest innovation includes an additional set of capabilities so sales teams can take advantage of useful customer analytics right away. 

Salespeople can now detect their customer's future needs. This allows staff members who are in the middle of the pack to become top performers.

FirstRain's new enterprise platform lets sales representatives enter a client meeting knowing exactly what the customer needs. 

Greg Mihran, senior director of Global Sales Enablement, said integrating customer insights into the company's sales strategy helped to increase the productivity of sales teams. By utilizing an on-demand client intelligence solution, Global Sales Enablement was able to boost sales success and rise industry knowledge for sales professionals.

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