Javier Corral is a digital consultant focused on branding and digital marketing issues and a professor of master's degrees in the field of digital marketing and sales. In this interview we asked him how new technologies –or sales tech– have transformed the way sales teams work and how they can facilitate everything from the onboarding process to closing the sale.
— First of all, Javier, could you tell us a little about what it means to be a digital advisor?
Javier Corral : I mainly provide advice on digital marketing and branding, and I also teach a couple of master's degrees in these specialties, both digital marketing and sales.
Corral 1 - CatalogPlayer
— Thinking about advising in the field of sales, what challenges does a salesperson face?
The first problem a salesperson may encounter is not having a planned onboarding process. When a salesperson starts in a company, it is very important to have an onboarding process.
— How can we make a successful onboarding?
Look, there is a common question: what should this onboarding france whatsapp data be like? The answer is quite simple: it must exist. It must be prepared, it must be structured and, above all, it must avoid some common mistakes.
— What mistakes are we talking about?
That it is a cumbersome process, that it is an accumulation of information, that it is too long, that the training is not planned, that it is excessively long... Luckily, we have tools to solve this, such as technology.
—What technological solutions are we talking about?
Technology allows us to make the process much more visual and, above all, with up-to-date content. It can be made to be permanently updated and well structured. The key to technology is that it provides the sales team with tools that they will later have to work with.
—That is, it facilitates the onboarding process but also the work of the salesperson in general.
Yes, although we must not forget that this technological part is very good for complementing. We must not overuse it excessively. For example, something that I always say is that onboarding has to be structured and automated as much as possible. But then if we can personalize it with something as simple as: a welcome kit, company merchandising, a personalized letter, great. We must not forget this part. Automation does not cover everything.
Corral 2 - CatalogPlayer
—What if we had to summarize what technology does do for the company?
That's it, making the process simple. Taking advantage of all the tools and giving the salesperson access to all the content, to learning from other salespeople... and above all, keeping up to date. This is what can be automated.
—Speaking of automation, the possibilities of Artificial Intelligence for sales are much talked about these days. How can AI help us in this?
It has a lot of applications! A salesperson has to do a lot of things, but I think we can agree that in the end their goal is to sell, to get more clients and to get more sales. So, if the main goal of a salesperson is to sell, we are going to eliminate all those routines, procedures and processes that could be done through automatic procedures. That is the first benefit of artificial intelligence.
—Freeing you from certain routine functions. And a second benefit?
The next step is to provide the salesperson with up-to-date content. This is essential, because with this they will be able to provide valuable content to the customer. And in addition to this, there are many tools that optimize the work. In addition, AI can make product recommendations tailored to the customer, offer upselling and cross-selling options… basically it allows sales to be personalized based on all the information we have accumulated about that customer and other customers.