The #1 Gap in Your Sales Tech Stack: Presales
The #1 goal in sales? Hit your target.
The #1 way to hit your target? Close deals.
The #1 prerequisite to closing a deal? Get the technical win.
The #1 way to get the technical win? Run a successful presales POC.
Given that POCs are mission-critical to hitting your sales target… Why are there no solutions for presales POCs and technical evaluations?
Before building Homerun, we had a need to better plan and execute presales POCS and technical evaluations that would get technical wins. We looked for purpose-built software solutions to help with this, but to our surprise we couldn’t find any. So we did what all good software developers do when they can’t find what they need… we built it ourselves. As more and more sales engineers adopted Homerun as their Go-To tool for managing their presales activities, we knew the need was greater than our own and decided to launch Homerun as a commercially available software solution.
As we were getting ready to launch, we looked for how best to categorize Homerun within the Sales Tech Stack. We reviewed multiple articles, diagrams, and landscapes that listed the major and minor categories in the modern Sales Tech Stack (see below for a few examples). To our surprise, we discovered that none of them included categories related to presales, sales engineering, presales POCs, nor technical evaluations.
Bottom line: The modern Sales Tech Stack (both in practice and in diagram/landscape form) has a major gap, and we’re doing our part to fill it.
Examples of Sales Tech Stack Categorizations:
The 2019 SalesTech Landscape: What’s Hot and What’s Not Today
Source: Sales Hacker (the self-proclaimed ‘World's Largest Community for B2B Sales’), by Nicolas de Kouchkovsky
Categories:
Engagement
Online Meeting & Sharing
Email Tools
Sales Dialer
Lead Distribution & Call Management
Proactive Engagement
Signals & Social Engagement
Mobile & Field Sales Enablement
Sales Activity Capture
Productivity & Enablement
Sales Content & Collaboration
Content Sharing
Sales Guidance & Recommendations
Sales Engagement
Scheduling & Appointment Setting
Sales Automation
Quote & Proposal
Contract & e-Signature
Partner Management & Channel Enablement
Sales Intelligence
Database & List Services
Account Intelligence
Intent Data
Company Financial Intelligence
Technographics
Buyer Insights
Relationship Intelligence
Contact Information
Call Tracking & Intelligence
Visitor Intelligence & Reverse IP Lookup
Web & Social Prospecting
Pipeline & Analytics
Price Optimization & Revenue Management
Account-based Planning
Predictive Analytics
Pipeline Management (CRM)
Forecasting & Performance Management
Conversation Intelligence
Data Visualization
People
Territory & Quota Management
Incentives & Commissions
Onboarding & Training
Sales Coaching
Sales Gamification
Miscellaneous
The Sales Tech Stack (2015)
Source: Scale Venture Partners
Categories:
CRM
Prospect
Contact Data
Lead Ranking
Lead Enrich
Social Apps
Email Auto
Dialing Auto
Marketing Automation
Virtual Assistant
Qualify
Demo / Presentation
Proposal
CPQ
Methodology / Process
CRM Updating
Close
Contact Management
Referral
E-Signature
Sales Ops
Content
Quota
Motivation
Territory
Forecasting
Comp Admin
Partner
Retain
The Essential B2B Sales Stack (2017)
Source: Zoominfo
URL: https://blog.zoominfo.com/the-essential-b2b-sales-stack/
Categories:
Growth Acceleration
Data & Prospecting Insights
Sales Enablement
Social Selling
Dialing Automation
Lead Management
Meetings & Product Demos
Securing Contracts
Predictive Lead Scoring
Scheduling Software
Sales Performance & Tracking
Startup Sales Stack Report (2019)
Source: Bowery Capital
URL: https://bowerycap.com/blog/sales/2019-startup-sales-stack-report/
Categories:
“Core” Tools
CRM
Marketing Automation
Sales Intelligence
Sales Engagement
Live Chat
Outbound Call Tracking
Sales Enablement
CPQ
Lead Intelligence
“Emerging” Tools
Sales Analytics
Email Tracking
E-Signature
Sales Coaching
Proposal
Contract Management
Want to learn more? Talk to one of our presales experts about how Homerun can help your presales team become a high performing team. Click here to get started!
