The Elevator Pitch

We had a good round-up of sales pitches at Dreamforce, mostly for selling software products or services. And while we had a one-minute maximum time for presenting the sales pitch in this contest, we saw there was one thing that the best sales reps had in common. They were extremely efficient with their time.

None of the top five sales reps voted in our contest went over 35 seconds with their pitch!

In fact, our top two winners, Brightfunnels and Conga, were able to talk us in about their business in 19 seconds, respectively 9 seconds!

Nine seconds for a sales pitch is not bad, given that most companies – especially technology companies – have a problem with keeping it short and simple when it comes to their vision, mission and values.

There’s a simple formula for creating your pitch, the author Donald Miller sums them up – use these and you can’t go wrong:

1. Character
2. Problem
3. Plan
4. Success

Keeping it Simple With Your Sales Pitch

XANT is a technology company, so we know sometimes it’s a struggle to communicate clearly and in a succinct manner – some complex and abstract notions about machine learning or algorithms.

Although awareness when it comes to tech systems is growing, this sort of language isn’t always meaningful to your average client.

They need to know how your product or service helps them solve a problem they have.

So, here’s our own sales pitch:

XANT helps salespeople reach their quota by using science and technology.

Mastering your sales pitch is essential for any sales professional, but it is also a useful skill for any employee of a company.

“Great leaders do this. They make sure everybody from the CEO to the guy mowing the lawn knows how to explain what the company does in under 60 seconds,” showed Gabe Larsen, VP of InsideSales Labs.

Top Sales Pitches at Dreamforce

Here’s our top 5 sales pitches at Dreamforce, based on the number of five star votes they received in our contest.

Brightfunnels

“Brightfunnels is a marketing attribution platform designed to help marketers understand the true value of their marketing touches and their impact on the revenue and buyer’s journey.”

Conga

“We are a suite of intelligent automation solutions for Salesforce, for everything from data, documents, to reporting.”

Vidyard 

“We are a B2B video platform for businesses, we change the way organizations communicate their video content through on-boarding, training and knowledge sharing as well as externally through sales, marketing and customer support. We can show the ROI of your video marketing initiatives by tracking who watches your videos and for how long so that you can justify the spend on those videos.”

Xactly

“We automate and streamline the commission process for sales organizations. For a lot of companies, that means getting you off an Excel spreadsheet or a home-grown cumbersome system. The Xactly advantage is that we’ve been in the cloud since 2005. He have been able to anonymize all of our customer’s data to allow you to leverage different data points when making your decision.”

G2Crowd

“G2Crowd is the user voice platform for people to accurately say what they think about software and not be told by analysts or people who don’t use it, or get a reference from the best customer. They actually hear it directly from the user and engage with people who actually use the product.”

This has been a fun exercise, and we are looking forward to re-do this contest again with other contenders. Until then, let us in the comments what your strategies are for creating the perfect sales pitch!

How Can AI Help Me Grow My Revenue?

There’s a lot of discussion around machine learning models, and certainly the discussion gets technical. However, the application of AI to real-world sales is what really matters. This was evident in the conversations we had with every sales rep at our booth. The main question that we heard was: “What can AI do for me? How can it help me grow my revenue?”.

People want to see more AI. It’s that simple. Artificial Intelligence is what drew people to our booth, and talking to our Artificial Intelligence capabilities was the key to getting people to stay. –Katie Gantt, Social Media Manager

With all the noise around the company, there was a sleuth of companies at Dreamforce who were touting Artificial Intelligence. Few people though could understand how it works, and what really matters for an AI to increase sales significantly.

The Importance of Data to AI

The data behind the machine learning engine is what really matters to improve its functionality.  With ten billion points of cross-company transactional data analyzed by Neuralytics, the XANT AI engine is the only engine which allows 80% accuracy on pipeline predictions and a 30% lift in revenue. And sales reps and leaders were aware that the old way of doing sales, using only the data in your CRM, is no longer enough to reach targets. Users are more empowered than ever to search and educate themselves about the solutions they need.

We had a lot of people talking to us who already knew who we were and how we could help. You often hear the statistic that 80% of people in the buying process have already done their research—and it was cool to see that come to life. People already knew who we were––we were really just there to help answer their questions,” Scott Mark, Field Marketing Specialist.

XANT Dreamforce Demos

It was a stunning sales conference, and we look forward to participating next year as well. We feel that the public has reached a maturity where they know what they are looking for, they know that Artificial Intelligence can truly help them grow their sales, and they know that XANT can provide that for them.

 “Instead of the constant barrage of sales people bombarding attendees with free stuff that they would end up throwing away later, XANT’s booth had a quite confidence about it that invited trailblazers in to learn more, see a Playbooks demo and watch a customer testimonial from companies like CenturyLink, Infor and Docusign,” said Derek Boggs, Demand Generation Manager.

We were happy to see so many sales professionals are interested in how data and science can really help them in their profession.

We saw that, truly, #Playmakers are everywhere, and they are looking to win the sales game with smart systems, with Artificial Intelligence-powered systems.

Until next year!

The sales pitch is the two-minute presentation (maximum) that shows who you are, what you do, who you do it for.

And it can make or break your sale.

Because if you can’t really explain your business in a simple and short pitch, how will you explain it to your customer?

We took to the booths at the Dreamforce conference to see how sales reps pitch their business. We came away with sixteen sales pitches, among which heavy-weights like: Dell, Cisco, G2Crowd, Vidyard and Xactly.

You’re welcome to watch these sales professionals pitch and vote for your favorite video.

Winners and prizes will be announced on the #Playmakers Facebook sales community.

What Makes a Good Sales Pitch

Sales Pitch Structure: The elevator pitch is a short presentation that explains your business, what problem it solves and for whom. Traditionally, these are two-minute long presentations – for the times when you have the opportunity to be in an elevator with a decision-maker or potential customer.

However, given we’ve all lost some of our patience due to digital communications, we’ve chosen to show only one minute videos.

The first and foremost tip for an effective sales pitch is to keep it simple, and make sure you’ve got down the basics:

• The people – who is your product or service for?
• The problem – What problem is your product solving?
• The solution – How are you solving this problem?
• The success – What does success look like for your customer?

There will always be other variables to consider. In certain niche industries, with complex products and a sleuth of competitors, things might get hairy when building your sales pitch.

However, if you don’t have the answer to these four questions, you might find yourself in the weeds and lose your customer’s attention before you even mention your brand’s name.

Do’s and Dont’s for Your Sales Pitch

Keeping it Short: It’s called the ‘elevator pitch’ because you should be able to give it in the time it takes you to ride the elevator with your boss or other important

Be Interactive: Many effective sales pitches include interactive elements. Offer your product up close for your audience to view, touch or try out. Being able to ‘show and tell’, rather than just ‘tell’ goes a long way, so if it’s possible to keep a sample in your pocket, or have a short video to sample on your phone – do it.

Always be Prepared for the Follow-up: There are bound to be objections to your pitch, no matter how good it is. People will want to know what they get for their money, and that’s absolutely natural. Whether it’s competition, pricing or delivery concerns, you need to have all the details ironed out. 

Mind the Competition: I’ve seen many professionals with years experience stumble and fall when having to explain their brand differentiator. It’s such an important part of the conversation, especially if we are dealing with multiple competitors and complex products or industries.

Tip: You don’t have to wait for your prospect to ask about the differentiator. You can lead with it. It’s something I have seen more and more, with companies who are competing in a crowded space.

Vote for the Best Dreamforce Sales Pitch

Hope you come away with interesting thoughts after watching our Dreamforce videos. Some of these professionals have been in the business for years, so watch the videos, vote for your favorite one, and comment on the #Playmakers group what you found most intriguing.

Of the messages that have resonated from this year’s Dreamforce, I’ve been most compelled by the following four:

CRM is declining. 

I’ve written and presented extensively about the paradigm of CRM. Customer Relationship Management software simply isn’t enough anymore. It is necessary as a system of records, but salespeople now look to other technologies to improve their sales productivity and efficiency.

AI, The #FourthIndustrialRevolution

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff spoke at length about the Fourth Industrial Revolution, in which technologies such as mobile, artificial technology and nano technology are converging. Artificial Intelligence will create, by his estimate, 3.3 million jobs and $859 billion of additional GDP by 2022.

AI is changing the nature of work, and this will have a profound impact on many within the current workforce.

Playmakers Are Everywhere

Playmakers use data, science and smart applications to win at the sales game and to achieve more revenue and career progression. They don’t take guesses, but take strategic actions to increase and accelerate their conversations with ideal sales leads.

AI-recommended sales data is crucial to this process. At Dreamforce, XANT launched the ground of our newest features for sales acceleration. Playbooks now have AI features available for every sales rep.

Giving Back

This was the focus of my own presentation and of several others as well, including the Marc Benioff keynote presentation on Day 1. It is vital that every organization know to craft and execute a successful giving back strategy.

Read the full article on Forbes Magazine to see all my takeaways from the Dreamforce conference.

Best Dreamforce Speakers

There is a massive line-up of celebrity speakers who are going to share innovative ideas this year at Dreamforce, so we really hope you don’t miss it.

Here’s a few of our favorite speakers at Dreamforce this year:

Best Parties at Dreamforce

Dreamforce is not just a dull SaaS conference, and we know this by the huge line-up of artists ready to put on a spectacular show!

The party starts Monday at 6PM, with the Welcome Jamboree. On Tuesday, between 7PM and 11PM, you can attend a benefit for UCSF Children’s Hospitals at AT&T Park featuring Alicia Keys, Lenny Kravitz and Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real.

The party goes on for the full week of the conference, with the Dream Valley music festival. The festival boasts 15+ bands which will play in the middle of the Dreamforce campus, on Howard Street.

They’ve got Chum, LT Smooth, Boca Mundial and Katie Cash among others. See the full line-up here.

Dreamforce Sales Training/Education

Dreamforce is  traditionally an event where you walk away with new ideas. This year, there are dozens of hands-on training sessions and workshops. Using the Dreamforce conference scheduling tool, you can choose the right training session to attend based on your industry and your interest.

Can’t Make it to Dreamforce? Join our LIVE Webinar

XANT will be at booth #1501, where our sales experts will be ready to tell you how data and science can be used to boosts your sales results.

We’re also launching the #Playmakers Facebook community. Playmakers use data, science and smart technologies to win at the sales game and boost their revenue. We’re creating a special community for Playmakers:  you tell us how you win at sales, we tell the world how great you are.

We’re looking forward to seeing you at Dreamforce!

And remember, if you can’t be there, you can RSVP for our Facebook live session!

I’ll the there to let you in on everything that happens on the show floor!

What Are Playmakers?

What’s a playmaker, you ask? It’s the new kind of salesperson.

Modern salespeople don’t just ‘hope’ that some of their contacts will pick up the phone or answer their email to say they want to buy. They rely on data and science to target the right contacts, at the right time, with the right message and they consistently hit quota.

How Technology Changes the Sales Game

How is this possible? Through the implementation of AI-powered technology, salespeople are not able to gain insights into what sales tactics work best. The XANT System of Growth is powered by Neuralytics, an AI engine built for sales on 10 years of data science and 6 trillion cross-company sales interaction data points.

Neuralytics uses machine learning and other methods to processes the trillions of data points that have been gathered and anonymized through the XANT platform. Using AI, sales reps can answer specific and valuable sales questions, such as:

1. Which lead is most likely to close?
2. Will this opportunity close this quarter?
3. How much quota attainment will a sales team achieve?

Become a Playmaker with XANT

XANT has the data and the research to transform the way you sell. We’ve created an amazing Facebook community where modern salespeople can connect and share sales strategies that work for their industry. Our Playmakers sales Facebook group is buzzing with sales reps, sales managers and executives looking to take their sales game to the next level.

Join the group to:

• Share the sales strategies that work for your industry, and find out hundreds more from other playmakers
• Get to know some of the best salespeople in the game
• Gain access to relevant sales research, so you can apply a scientific method to your sales process

Join our group during the Dreamforce conference (November 6-9), we’ll be giving out prizes every single day that week!

The Dreamforce 2017 Sales Conference

Dreamforce  is THE event for sales professionals in the United States, so we’re incredibly excited to be there! We have a packed agenda this year so let’s get to it . . Check out the behind the scenes footage as the team has been planning and strategizing about how we’re going to make a splash at Dreamforce!

Here are some of the activities we’ll be at and we’d love to see you at:

See You There, Playmakers!

In addition, we’ll be launching something special at Dreamforce and each day during the event we’ll be giving away prizes for participation.

This year, we’re making it all about #playmakers, the modern sales professionals who wage war against traditional sales tactics. Playmakers use data, science and smart technologies to win at the sales game and boost their revenue. We’re creating a special community for Playmakers:  you tell us how you win at sales, we tell the world how great you are.

We’re looking forward to seeing you at Dreamforce!

And remember, if you can’t be there, you can RSVP for our Facebook live session!

The company’s event headquarters for the week of Oct. 4-7 will be at Platinum Booth No. 615 in the Cloud Expo. We’re excited to show customers the highly anticipated Playbooks product, which represents the next generation in predictive sales acceleration technology.

For us, Dreamforce is one of the main benefits of being a member of the Salesforce AppExchange ecosystem. Salesforce has fueled a revolution in selling by championing the innovative software-as-a-service (SaaS) model. The mighty partner ecosystem that Salesforce has built, forecasted to produce $389 billion over the next five years, will be on full display during the show.

XANT recently announced that its Predictive Cloud, the industry’s first-of-its-kind open platform that enables businesses of all sizes to build rich, powerful predictive apps, surpassed the 100 billion sales interactions processed mark. XANT is the first company of its kind to reach this milestone.

A new era of customer success

Fortune 500 and large enterprise organizations have recently decided to embrace the XANT sales acceleration platform in large part due to the great success seen among its growing customer base.

For example, DocuSign has seen significant growth since implementation. The company has achieved double-digit increases across the board in the number of calls made, the number of leads they have connected with, and, most importantly, the number of sales qualified leads they have generated for account executives.

Apttus has also experienced impressive, positive growth:

“Achieving 74 percent higher connect rates, booking 55 percent more meetings, and seeing a 36 percent boost in our pipeline overall was a huge milestone for my sales team,” said Kent Perkocha, chief customer officer at Apttus. “XANT’s predictive technology was a definite contributing factor to our success and has aided our team to set and exceed even higher goals.”

In addition to product demonstrations at the booth, three XANT company executives will be featured during breakout sessions on the agenda:

• Dave Elkington, XANT CEO, will be speaking about “The Sales Revolution: How Data + Science Are Fueling Next-Generation B2B Sales.”
• Ken Krogue, XANT President and Chief Evangelist, will be speaking about “Sales in the Cloud: The Science of Inside Sales and Sales Acceleration.”
• David Rudnitsky, XANT senior vice president for enterprise sales, will be speaking about “Up Your Inside Sales Game with Key Plays from the Field Sales Playbook.”

Click here to learn more about how to connect with Xant at Dreamforce, or to reserve a spot to see a demo of how predictive is revolutionizing sales.

This year’s results revealed improvements in lead response times and persistency, although most companies are still falling well short of established best practices.

What is a ResponseAudit?

The XANT ResponseAudit determines how well an organization follows up on inbound web leads.

The ResponseAudit records an organization’s average response time and how many times reps call a lead before giving up.

Organizational performance in these areas can make or break a business.

Lead response best practices

In 2007, Dr. James Oldroyd published the Lead Response Management Study, which showed how little time sales reps have to respond before leads turn “cold.”

The study revealed that if a lead is called within five minutes versus 30 minutes after it’s submitted, that lead is 100 times more likely to be contacted and 21 times more likely to enter the sales cycle.

Furthermore, the study demonstrated that reps have a 90 percent chance of contacting a prospect if they call between 6 and 12 times.

Dreamforce 2015

Among Dreamforce 2015 participants, the average response time was 37 hours and 25 minutes. In terms of persistency, the average number of call attempts was 2.8. 

While both of these results are far from ideal, they represent an improvement over previous years.

At Dreamforce 2014, the average response time was much longer at 61 hours and 1 minute. There were also fewer contact attempts with an average of 2.2.

The Top 100

It’s time to reveal this year’s winners: the 100 fastest-responding organizations. 

Want to know if you made the cut or see how you compare to the best?

Check out the results below:

*Dreamforce 2015 sponsor

To request a ResponseAudit for your organization, sign up today.

Get a Free Lead ResponseAudit

How well are your sales teams responding to leads? Participate in a free Lead ResponseAudit and see how efficient your sales team actually is.

Get Lead ResponseAudit Now

Predictive technology is here, and it took over this year’s Dreamforce. Just last week, we at XANT launched the world’s first Predictive Cloud to enable any company to super-charge their business with the power of prediction.

Predictive tech is no longer a simple buzz. It’s a roaring boom and the expo floor was bustling with companies joining the predictive revolution.

Here are nine of our favorite predictive tech sightings:

1. Everstring

It was fun to see their ever-cheerful booth rep.

2. Radius

Radius’ reps were so busy they didn’t even have a chance to sit.

(No guarantee we didn’t rest our feet and borrow their chairs).

3. XANT

And, of course, the famous cheetah is bringing the power of prediction to the entire sales funnel. #likeaboss

The beauty of this year’s Dreamforce was how much engagement came from Twitter with #DF15.

Even in the Twitterverse, predictive analytics took hold:

4. Mobile phones and predictive tech? Sounds like a fit to us.

The Chairman of @Microsoft shared his #future vision at #DF15 – mobile phones with predictive intelligence https://t.co/bogFzs8Vkf

— Geoff Pidcock (@GeoffPidcock) September 16, 2015

5. This probably came in handy with all the traffic from Dreamforce.

.@uber now getting drivers to the areas of demand in advance of the demand. Predictive intelligence #df15

— Dan Williams (@danielwje) September 16, 2015

6. Yogi Berra’s infinite wisdom.

Predictive analytics are hard. Especially when they are about the future. – Yogi Berra #DF15

— Bill Cushard (@billcush) September 15, 2015

7. We’ll go one step further and say predictive analytics will revolutionize the business world.

Predictive analytics will revolutionize sales and #marketing #radiusDF15 #Df15

— Susan Thayer (@susanthayer) September 15, 2015

8. Couldn’t have said it better ourselves.

Move away from reactive analytics, and into predictive analytics. #DF15

— MobilePaks (@MobilePaks) September 16, 2015

9. Marc’s vision

#DF15 Keynote: Marc speaks of a data science revolution with predictive analytics, machine learning & artificial intelligence. #roadmap

— Bradley F. Shimmin (@ca_bshimmin) September 16, 2015

Share your Dreamforce experiences and photos using the hashtag #DF15Top10.