The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sales Engagement

INDUSTRY NEWS

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to Sales Engagement

If you want a blueprint on how to navigate the complexities of outer space, you might want to opt for reading a textbook over The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. However, if you are looking for help navigating the confusing galaxy of sales engagement, Gartner has you covered. On Monday, Gartner published its 2023 “Market Guide for Sales Engagement Applications” with new market insights from analysts Dan Gottlieb, Keith Jones, Roland Johnson, Amy Jenkins, and Guy Wood, available now for Gartner clients. How vast is this research? We’re talking 31 pages of out-of-this-world analysis of the sales engagement category and 16 of its most representative vendors. Written specifically for Earthpeople, this guide makes sales tech buying a breeze.

Shake it off ♪

The players gonna play, play, play, play. That’s how disruptive innovation begins and it’s usually met with unshakable distaste from category leaders that are narrowly focused on the needs of their most valued customers. In the world of sales performance management, new players are entering the field ready to provide innovative solutions to market segments that have been ignored. According to Seth Marrs, Principal Analyst at Forrester, these emerging companies will continue their momentum and shake up the SPM category. Taylor Swift might recommend you “shake shake shake it off.” But, we’re going to stay in our lane and leave the shaking and the reading to you.

IN THE GROOVE

Victory

Forget coffee, there is nothing like the sweet smell of victory in the mornings. This week, G2 released its Spring 2023 Grid Reports, and Groove has once again been ranked #1 in enterprise customer satisfaction in the Sales Engagement category for the 18th consecutive quarter. That’s a long time to hold a title if you ask us, and we are honored to wear this crown. Groove was also the highest-rated enterprise platform in six sales tech categories, earned the top Enterprise Relationship Index in five, was named a Momentum leader in nine, and an overall leader in ten. Smell that? Victory.

Sales Tech Madness

March is full of wins for college basketball fans and sales tech providers alike. Now, we didn’t enter into any March Sales Tech Madness competitions (although, how awesome would that be?), but we are excited about this big win. Groove is proud to announce that we’ve won a 2023 Comparably Award for Best Places to Work in the Bay Area. This award comes in great company with our eight other Comparably Awards from 2022. Unlike March Madness, the wins don’t stop here – we’re excited to see what else we can score during the rest of 2023!

LEARN SOMETHING NEW

Raising the bar  

In today’s day and age, the negative stigma that comes with being in sales is all too familiar. If only there was a way to disprove this unfortunate stereotype. Well, lucky for us, there is. Thought leader at LinkedIn Sales Solutions, J.C. McKissen, outlined how sellers can raise the bar in key areas and rework the sales stereotype in the process. By humanizing your buyer, taking the time to understand their pain, and showing up with credibility, you can raise the bar for your sales career and the entire sales profession. No bad reputations ahead. 

You can’t SparkNotes sales 

Whether you want to sound smart in a business meeting or need to shortcut your way through English homework, SparkNotes can come in pretty handy. Unfortunately, you can’t SparkNotes your way through sales – you have to roll up your sleeves and do the dirty work. But, if you are searching for a cheat sheet on how to build an effective value proposition, RAIN Group has just the thing you need. The key takeaway? Don’t rush your value proposition, take the time to resonate, differentiate, and substantiate your value. But that’s just our SparkNotes version of the article, read it yourself to sound smart during your next meeting. 

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