Adobe’s Aberdeen Sales Report Reveals the Catalyst for Better Sales Performance
Listen up, sales teams – Adobe’s new report sheds light on the importance of seizing on new technologies to enhance efficiency and success.
Here’s something you probably haven’t thought of in a while: paper maps. I remember watching my parents spread maps out on the dining room table to plan our summer holiday, highlighting the route with a thick black marker. When I planned my business trips and holidays, I did the same thing — plotting each stop in my road atlas and calculating the fastest route from here to there.
Global Positioning System (GPS) devices were the real paradigm shifter. Just enter an address and a friendly computerized voice directed you as you drove. Take a wrong turn? Not to worry. The device simply found a new route from wherever you happened to find yourself.
As smartphone technology has continued to evolve, it only makes sense that we now have GPS technology at our fingertips with apps like Google Maps. These apps give us a faster, more convenient option to fixed GPS devices — and one equally useful when navigating by foot — that also saves hours of planning and frustration.
Innovative technologies support transformation
Similarly, sales professionals take advantage of innovative technologies to improve sales performance for their businesses. Unfortunately, many sales professionals aren’t seeing the kind of seamless evolution in their sales processes. According to a recent Aberdeen Sales Report, sales teams on average only achieve 55 percent of their company’s annual sales goals.
Clearly, sales teams are missing an important part of the equation for achieving optimal performance. As popular sales blogger Anthony Iannarino has said, “Effectiveness is the other side of the equation when it comes to results. All the activity in the world won’t help you if what you are doing doesn’t work.”
As a way forward, the Aberdeen report reveals more than the dark landscape of many of today’s sales teams — it highlights solutions. And though a number of solutions with the goal of increasing sales exist, e-signatures have steadily emerged as the transformative technology sales professionals need to pay attention to.
E-signatures: More than a convenience
E-signatures give businesses the convenience of having documents signed digitally, as opposed to having documents printed, scanned, faxed, or mailed. And while this might seem like a simple logistical upgrade, e-signatures have been proven to improve sales performance for the businesses that use it. The Aberdeen report found that sales professionals who use e-signatures are helping their businesses to grow company revenue at 2.3-times the rate of non-users (4.8 percent versus 2.1 percent).
And it’s not just about the convenience of digital signatures which makes the end process easier and faster. E-signature platforms, such as Adobe Sign, integrate with your other data systems to give you unprecedented analytics capabilities, giving you important insights on every step of the sales journey.
As the Aberdeen report reveals, almost all (94 percent) e-signature users accounted for an ability to identify the most profitable customers, and a large number of users (86 percent) reported the ability to provide continual training and ongoing education for employees.
With these and the many other kinds of insights provided by e-signatures, it’s easy to see why 62 percent of best-in-class sales teams are more likely to use e-signature technology and why teams that have adopted this technology are innovating for future growth.
And businesses that aren’t using this technology? They’re being left behind — plotting marks on a paper map while others are cruising along with Siri.
The Aberdeen report demonstrates the power of e-signature technology on boosting sales productivity. On August 23rd, join our webinar and learn how your brand can grow revenue with e-signatures.