On Wednesday the 9th March we attended The British Excellence in Sales & Marketing Awards, otherwise known as BESMA. To our shock – and delight! – we took home the Innovation in Sales Award! The recognition with this award highlights some key learning points for us about the sales industry moving forward, which we would like to share with you now.

It’s not just about sales techniques anymore

One of the main aspects that set us apart in our category (who were all fierce competition) was that we didn’t just focus on sales techniques. We focused on the tools that can enhance a sales teams performance. Tools such as, IP lookup to identify new opportunities and a lead scoring methodology that actually qualifies leads successfully. As technology only continues to grow, these tools will become more useful to updating a sales teams technique than simple best practice procedures.

We work WITH marketing

You can imagine the shock of most people when a marketing automation company like CommuniGator won an innovation in sales award. But it’s because our sales and marketing team work together that we were able to produce greater results. The most important aspect of the pipeline is the divide between sales and marketing. Once this is functioning at the highest-performing level, your sales pipeline can too. Which in turn, improves your results.

We don’t just mean by using lead generation and scoring either. Our marketing (including email marketing, lead nurturing and automation) all feed directly back into the pipeline. This ensures a never-ending lead generation process. This continuous loop can mean that businesses won’t have to stifle their growth anymore.

We like winning!

Finally, we learnt that winning an award has only increased our appetite for success. We’re working on making our technology intuitive with more CRMs and automating more processes. The end goal is a lead generation, nurturing and automated process that will improve all B2B sales pipelines. Innovation in sales is a big responsibility, so we’re going to make sure we live up to our new reputation.