A number of fast growing companies, particularly in the tech sector, are getting ready to sprint to the IPO goal line. Most of these organizations, are looking to rev their sales engine to produce quarter on quarter top line growth. This context is ripe for leaders of these organizations, especially the ones with complex sales cycles, to answer the question – what does it take to win the race? But instead, it would serve most organizations to rephrase the question as – what does it take to win a relay race? A relay race is relevant here because a healthy sales engine is often a great combination of sales engagement and sales readiness.

1. Sales Readiness
Why? And why now?
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2. Business cycles are getting shorter;
“dynamic” is an understatement
New Product or Services – the cloud model has shrunk innovation cycles from months to
weeks
New wave of competitors –Uber disrupted car rental, AirBnB disrupted hotels, WhatsApp
disrupted texting - all in < 2 years
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3. By 2015, one out of every two employees worldwide will be under 35
By 2025, this will grow to three out of four
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4. Customers are becoming more demanding and discerning; it is harder to
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lock them in
The role of a sales rep is not to educate about features but to be a consultant; 70% of
decision is done before the sales call
With lower switching costs, one poor experience increases the probability of customer
churn by 500%
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Keeping your sales teams on top of their game is not the cost of
doing business anymore
It is a matter of survival
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6. Despite being so critical, onboarding & sales training is scattered and
not engaging enough
Wiki LMS Webinar Classroom
No tracking or
engagement
Fails to engage
the reps; low
adoption
Not interactive or
personalized
Does not scale;
not engaging
It is time to rethink “sales readiness”
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