Hello there!
I am writing this as I wrap up a fantastic week at the Gartner CSO & Sales Leader Conference in Vegas. I am both inspired by and keenly aware of the challenges sales leaders and sellers face.
Gartner's keynote presentation reiterated just that. This is difficult!
🌅 The path forward
It’s been an “interesting” couple of years to say the least. Sales leaders are facing big challenges. Budgets are limited. We are all being asked to do more with less. And because of all this, we must be more thoughtful about our investments in time, people, and technology.
The good news? There is a massive opportunity for organizations and leaders who can make smarter, faster, better decisions. I am hearing from our customers like Cisco on how they are improving forecasts, increasing win rates, and optimizing sellers' time.
⛏️ The goldmine you already have (your data)
At Gartner, I had the privilege of sharing the stage with my good friend and customer, Sandeep Kumar, GTM Strategy and Revenue Operations Leader at Cisco. Cisco is a massive organization with layers of complexity.
They faced challenges with offline deal qualification processes, leading to poor pipeline visibility and constant communication gaps. Sandeep shared how AI is reshaping sales at Cisco to help solve these challenges and the massive opportunity for large sales organizations that adopt AI and automation early.
Early on, Sandeep realized that Cisco was sitting on a goldmine that would provide his organization with much-needed clarity: their first-party data! They just needed to find a way to effectively capture it and make it accessible across their organization.
Sandeep shared their journey to unlocking their data and how it is reshaping sales at Cisco.
🔗 Building a connected selling experience
Cisco’s evolution of the digital selling experience for 2024 and beyond is guided by a clear North Star: “Deliver a connected, role-centric, AI-driven digital selling experience that accelerates a “One Cisco” approach for our customers.”
This bold vision may seem unattainable, but Cisco’s systematic approach makes it possible. Their previous North Star was, “Prepare the foundation for Cisco’s transformation to everything-as-a-service,” laying the groundwork for where they are today.
And it’s paid off. Cisco has already achieved some incredible results. They started with a People.ai pilot of 400 users and swiftly expanded to over 20,000 sellers globally to automatically capture up to 1.8 million sales activities hourly, and increased their win rate by 21%!
Read Cisco’s full story to learn how they leverage their data for renewed success.
Be bold. Sell smart.
Laura Palmer
Chief Revenue Officer | People.ai
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