The Metrics That Matter: Optimizing Your Sales Readiness Tech Stack with Peter Zink and Scott Powell

What keeps enablement leaders up at night? Making sure every dollar counts. 

With so many tech solutions available, businesses are tasked with consolidating their sales-readiness tech stack to streamline operations, enhance productivity, and prove ROI.

So, how can teams tackle this strategically? In this session from WorkRamp LEARN Virtual Summit, Peter Zink, Senior Director, Revenue Enablement, Sprout Social, and Scott Powell, Co-Founder, EnablePoint, LLC, dive into choosing the right solutions, proving value, and aligning teams on values, metrics, and more. 

Why consolidate your tech stack?

As Peter and Scott point out, tough times demand reevaluating how organizations approach technology adoption. Peter emphasizes that during tough times, the best organizations double down on enablement.

This means ensuring your workforce is more effective in their roles than ever before. Despite the consolidation of tools, there’s a shared understanding that these solutions are essential for success.

“We need more yield per rep than when times were easier,” Peter says. “If you don’t have a good learning or content solution, you can’t support fast-moving teams. We need our reps not to waste time trying to get up to speed, learn, or pull the content they need. Consolidation makes it easier for reps to pull from a single source of truth.”

Scott adds that there’s a greater need to streamline the tools and platforms teams are using. 

“Consolidating can bring simplicity,” he says. “Better interfaces with fewer systems. Getting consolidated on a learning platform is an effective way of driving a consistent enablement program.”

Building your tech stack: essential considerations

So, once you’ve decided to consolidate, how do you choose which tools to keep, add, and omit? 

Scott and Peter recommend considering these essential factors:

• Promised vs. delivered ROI. Ensure that the ROI promised aligns with the actual performance and revenue impact of the tools. If the platforms aren’t delivering as expected, they may be at risk
• Capability of new tools. Assess whether prospective tools have the capabilities you need. For example, can they deliver certifications with knowledge validation? The goal is to ensure your solutions can help your teams improve their skills and performance
• ROI tied to revenue. Every tool in your stack should be able to demonstrate its impact on business performance. It’s crucial to show how tools influence specific teams and contribute to overall revenue performance.

Tool adoption and performance

Building your tech stack is the first step, but once you have solutions, you must prove the value for your team and your business. 

Scott and Peter emphasize the importance of measuring the impact of tools on behavior and efficiency:

• Behavior change. Look for ways to measure behavior change resulting from training and initiatives. Improved behavior should lead to better business results
• Efficiency gains. While behavior change is essential, it’s also vital to consider efficiency. For example, are you saving time or resources through tool adoption?
• Telling the story. To justify tool adoption, it’s crucial to tell a compelling story that demonstrates the positive impact on business outcomes

“With every tool in your stack, you should be able to tell some type of story around usage and how it’s tying back to business performance and the performance of specific teams to get there,” Peter says. “If you can’t do that, that tool is certainly at risk.”

To prove value and show ROI, it’s also essential for teams to align on metrics and performance indicators.

“People must align on the metrics between sales and enablement and make sure they stick to them,” Scott says. “Measuring things like participation, time to first revenue, contribution, the number of people selling in a quarter, and pipe ratio. But it’s just as important to stick to them. Metrics can drift overtime. Agree at the outset and stick to them.”

Read more: Data-Driven Sales Enablement: Track, Measure, Improve

Using tools to attract qualified candidates

While the tools you adopt are critical for your team to succeed in their roles, your tech stack can also be a deciding factor in attracting top talent.

“The best reps are asking what type of technology an organization is using and don’t want to walk into an environment that doesn’t have a good set of tools,” Peter says. “A solid tech stack is a must-have investment to get the sellers we want.”

Read more: 5 Strategies to Build a Sales Enablement Team

Winning the hearts of buyers in the race to consolidate

When considering vendors, it’s not just about buying a product; it’s buying the company, the people, and experience 

Vendors must thoroughly understand their customers, their needs, and how they buy. Understanding the buyer’s journey is crucial. 

“It’s about understanding their thoughts and needs and, more importantly, how they buy,” Scott says. “In a recent Salesforce survey, 70 percent of customers said they are buying software in a new way. Getting into that process is critically important.”

Peter also notes that the best vendors know the relationship continues after the sale and that the post-sale experience is just as critical. 

“I’m looking for companies where they’re a business partner, aligned with us on strategic initiatives,” he says. “The best vendors are the ones that can come to me and understand my business and provide recommendations on how their tool can take us to a new level from what we’re doing today.” 

Consolidating your tech stack and proving ROI are essential strategies in today’s rapidly changing business landscape. It’s not just about reducing complexity; it’s about optimizing efficiency, behavior change, and alignment of metrics. 

Watch the full session, The Consolidation of the Sales Readiness Tech Stack, for more insights from Scott and Peter. And check out on-demand replays from WorkRamp LEARN Virtual Summit for actionable insights from People, Revenue, and Customer Success leaders.