Single source of the truth for accurate business funding decisions

Conducting IT due diligence when taking over or merging with another company is key to a smooth transitional period. It may not be the most interesting or enjoyable task, but it’s important that the process isn’t rushed. Being as thorough as possible will not only save you time later on but will also highlight any potential issues that will need to be fixed before the sale goes ahead. 

The main aim of carrying out this type of due diligence is that it helps you to build a clear picture of what the target company’s IT infrastructure is like and find out whether it’s similar to your own to determine what changes may need to be made when the merger/acquisition takes place. 

As part of the IT due diligence process, you will need to make a visit to the acquired company’s workplace to see their technology stack first-hand. However, to ensure that the visit is as productive as possible, it’s best practice to send an outline of the onsite delivery process you hope to take. 

The key elements that need to be included in your IT due diligence are: 

1. Hardware 
2. Software 
3. Internet and telecom systems 
4. Cyber & Network Security 
5. Customer support systems 
6. IT Support Staff 
7. Company products & services 

1. Hardware

The most important aspects to consider when it comes to hardware is what hardware they have, who owns it, and how much is it worth. 

You will need to make a record of the following hardware: 

• IoT Devices - desktops, laptops, tablets, mobile phones etc.   
• Servers and storage devices 
• Mainframe computers 

Once you’ve drawn up a comprehensive inventory, you must then find out details on the manufacturer and model number, how much they are currently worth, and whether they are leased or owned by the company. 

2. Software

Once you’ve collected all the relevant information on hardware, you should do the same for software. Finding out which anti-virus software, data management systems, SLAs, and hosting systems the company uses is particularly important. 

• Security systems 
• Anti-virus systems 
• Operating systems 
• Email software 
• CRM systems 
• Payroll software 
• Data management systems 
• Software licensing agreements 
• Databases 
• Outsourced software development agreements 
• All software for internal use 
• Storage management (e.g., cloud systems) 
• Operating systems (e.g., Windows, Chrome etc.) 
• Open-source software 
• Information on software development processes 

3. Internet and telecoms system

Examining the company’s existing network and telecoms set-up will help you to understand which methods of communication are favoured by their employees and how their computer systems are organised. 

• Internet provider and contracts 
• Information on hosting environment (cloud, dedicated or hybrid) 
• Log of planned (and unplanned) network downtime over a set period 
• Storage backup systems (including information on cloud-based programmes) 
• A diagram of the network set-up 
• A description of the internal communication system 

4. Cyber & Network Security

The security of the company needs to be thoroughly scrutinised; this is one area where you really cannot afford to cut corners. It’s especially important to gauge the vulnerability of the company to a cyber-attack in order to assess whether their IT security needs to be bolstered. 

• Intruder detection programmes 
• Security of online payment systems 
• Data encryption program 
• Tests results for system vulnerability checks 
• Information on previous security breaches (and what measures were put in place to prevent another) 
• Cyber security insurance and certificates 
• Staff training programmes on security 
• Network Firewall settings and maintenance 
• Remote access software 
• Background checks for all employees 
• Policy on acceptable use for hardware and software 
• Policy on remote working 
• Information on which non-employees are granted access to important company data 
• Log of any hardware without anti-virus software 
• Policy on company passwords 
• Plan for disaster recovery and security breaches 
• Information on database record storage 
• Vendor updates 

5. Customer Support Systems

The main objective of gathering information on the company’s customer support systems is to determine how IT is utilised to interact with their customer base. The key areas to assess when it comes to customers are: 

• How do customers access technical support? 
• What technical support is offered to customers? 
• What are the most common technical questions that customers ask? 
• How new customers are integrated into the IT system 

6. IT Support Staff

A key element in the smooth running of your IT infrastructure is the number of staff employed to provide technical support. Finding out about the roles and responsibilities of IT personnel will help you to determine whether you’re doubling up on roles or need to employ additional IT support staff. 

• Full list of all IT personnel and their individual roles and responsibilities 
• Confidentiality and intellectual property agreements for staff 
• List of employees who have had access to source codes in the last 3 years 
• Staff training programmes 
• Chart showing how the IT department is organised 
• List of vacancies that need to be filled over the next year 

7. Company products & services

You will also need to identify all products that have been created for both internal and external use and find out who within the company has access to the products. This will help you to get a better understanding of who owns the software, and which staff are involved in its creation/development. 

• Software that the company has sold 
• Software that has the company is still responsible for 
• Products that are currently being developed by the organisation 
• Industry certification 
• All software that the company has developed where the source code no longer exists 
• A demonstration of all software 

How FullCircl can help? 

FullCircl is a customer lifecycle intelligence (CLI) platform that enables businesses to find the right customers, onboard them faster, and keep the for life.    

We deliver a multi-dimensional view that combines advanced data ingestion, validation and augmentation with real-time news, social signals and more. All neatly delivered via a web app or API. 
 
The end result for your business is that you can move fast. Really fast. Whether it’s automated data collection and critical checks, ensuring compliance, or conducting IT due diligence ahead of a merger or acquisition. We give you the speed to succeed. 

 We want to help you do Better Business Faster. Watch how we are tackling the biggest customer lifecycle challenges in your market. Or drop us a line to find out how we can support your needs.  

SMEs (small and medium-sized enterprises) account for 99.9% of the business population (5.6 million businesses). It’s fair to say they’re the backbone of the economy. Yet when it comes to providing them with insurance, they are a hugely underserved market, a problem that has been exacerbated by the Covid19 pandemic. 

 According to a recent report by the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) SMEs are facing an uphill battle to secure insurance coverage and handle rising premiums. Its survey uncovered that 16% of small businesses have experienced a premium increase of more than 25% since 2021, while around one quarter (24%) said that this has caused them to assess and/or reduce expenditures. Over half (52%) also reported increased premium costs said that the rise is 11% or greater.   

The problem is that many insurers and brokers find it difficult to serve smaller companies. Indeed, what makes the SME market vibrant is also what makes it complicated: they come in all sizes, operate in thousands of different industries, and often have highly complex needs. The way SME insurance is currently delivered then becomes a race to the bottom in terms of price, partly because SMEs struggle to understand the intricacies of different policies and the benefits of more expensive, but also more comprehensive cover.  

Combine this with the impact of Covid-19 and a hard market, and this often leads to SMEs being underinsured against the risks they face. In fact, according to Government research around 80% of SMEs are underinsured. Many small businesses lack the time and expertise to assess their insurance needs and underestimate the cover they require. Simply put, not every business owner has the time and knowledge to research all of the insurance policies that they will need.  

Why is it so hard to serve SMEs? 

The problem lies in the fact that the SME market is not homogenous. There are around 4.3 million SMEs in the UK, every one of them different to the other. As a result, underwriting these companies at scale is a difficult task because insurers aren’t always able to develop a clear picture of how each SME operates. 

For example, most of the information that insurers need, such as valuations, revenue levels and profit margins, are filed only once or twice a year. This leaves insurance companies little information to go on when determining what level of coverage is required.  

Lack of data can be the biggest hurdle for effective insurance coverage of SMEs. 

“It’s about greater and more effective utilisation of data to inform pricing and improve customer experience – making it more effective and human at the same time,” she said. “We are looking at ways to use data enrichment so we don’t have to ask so many questions of customers which can mean fewer tripwires. It’s a fine balance though as SMEs still want that interaction and human touch.”  Helen Bryant, Director SME and Corporate Partners, Allianz UK 

Transformative Customer Lifecycle Intelligence 

So how can the insurance sector improve the way it interacts with SMEs? It’s clear that the SME market offers significant growth potential for the insurance sector, but progress is being stifled by an inability to meet such a huge range of bespoke requirements at scale. Despite technological advances, inefficient and outdated processes are still being used.  

The answer lies in adopting transformative customer lifecycle intelligence technologies that not only help insurers and brokers reach small business clients but also use automation and data science to develop a better understanding of the nature of each business and how it operates. 

The more an insurer understands a business, the better it can underwrite an insurance policy for them. In the past, it may have been difficult for insurers to truly see all of the activities a business undertakes or the particular risks it faces. But by using data sources such as Companies House, insurers can quickly gain insight into how it operates, how it is structured and what its credit and financial profiles look like. 

With better insights into a company’s financial position, as well as its growth trajectory and business activities, insurers are better able to tailor policies around their specific needs. Moreover, the use of CLI technologies allows this to happen in real-time and makes it scalable across vast numbers of SMEs with variable needs.  

The challenge in serving SMEs up until now was that they needed a personal service but often could not afford it. Through the use of automation and data science, they can create efficiencies that streamline underwriting and provide small companies with the service they need at the right price. 

When it comes to serving SME’s FullCircl has brokers covered 

FullCircl is helping brokers sharpen their focus on the companies that fit their specialism or verticals.  Part of that is helping them get the right data on small business customers.    

We recently partnered with Codat the universal API for small business data, to provide seamless integrations to the accounting platforms used by 84% of UK SMEs.  Combining this data with FullCircl’s Business Information Graph (B.I.G™), Engage monitoring and business development applications, and Connect rules-based automation engine means that brokers get an instant real-time 360° customer view. 

Find out more by downloading our Insurance Broker Toolkit. Get commentary on the biggest issues impacting the broking industry, market research, and free guides on handling underinsurance and the hard market. 

Companies rely on FullCircl to expand their addressable markets and win more of the right customers by identifying new prospects that are not currently on their radar and delivering definitive insights into their markets, so they can find high-quality opportunities and close them faster. FullCircl allows businesses to strike the right balance between coverage, granularity and reducing noise. 

Read on to find out more about white space analysis, or click here to learn about FullCircl for B2B professionals. 

What is white space analysis? 

White space analysis is the process of using Customer Lifecycle Intelligence to uncover new opportunities. A white space opportunity is essentially a gap that your business can take advantage of to increase sales or increase market share. 

White space analysis process 

White space mapping is the process of identifying your company’s white space and identifying the customer spend that you aren’t receiving. There are several different avenues your business can take to identify new opportunities, win the right customers, and close them faster. 

Different types of white space mapping can be categorised as either internally focused or externally focused.  

• Internally focused white space mapping involves looking at your company’s strengths and capabilities, and then establishing what opportunities exist, as well as any potential risks. This type of white space analysis helps identify the barriers that are preventing you from pursuing new products, new groups and new markets. 
• Externally focused white space mapping looks outwards at the market and determines which products and/or services are dominating, and which are being undersold in order to identify gaps in the market that you could be filling.  

‍

The most common ways your businesses can identify white space are: ‍

‍

1. Look into how you can sell more to your existing customers‍

Finding the gap between what a customer is currently receiving from your company, and the other products/services you have to offer. This will help you to identify new opportunities to sell more to your existing customers. Upselling and cross-selling to your current customers, instead of chasing new customers can be infinitely more rewarding and successful if approached correctly. 

To sell to your existing customers effectively you must gain a comprehensive understanding of their current situation and get to grips with their main needs, ambitions, and pain points. Determining what issues your customers may be having and finding solutions to address them is essential to bridging the gap between what your customer has already invested in and what more your company has to offer. 

Identifying the white space within your existing customer base can also help ensure that keep customers for life – ensuring they remain satisfied and do not look to your competitors to solve their problem or need. ‍

‍

2. Define the audience you want to sell to
‍

The difference between a profitable customer and an unprofitable customer is shrinking by the day. It’s unlikely that your product or service offering, or your competitors, will be able to cater to all audiences, and many businesses fail attempting to adopt a blanket approach.  

It’s essential that you focus your attention on winning the right customers, including those who may have been overlooked or neglected by your competitors. Focusing on one defined group and learning as much as you can about their likes and dislikes, pain points and demographics will help you to become an expert at selling to this niche group. 

Segmenting your Total Addressable Market (TAM) based on the attributes of your most profitable customers will focus your efforts in the right places and will help you to map your product/service directly to their problems, providing a comprehensive and useful solution to encourage them to buy from you. ‍

‍

3. Understand your competitors
‍

Another way to identify potential white space is to assess your competitors’ performance and establish their main strengths and shortcomings. You should consider what you do much better than your competitors, and secondly, what your competitors do better than you. 

Although it’s important to understand what areas your competitors are superior in, your focus should be on what your company does better than your competitors as this is your white space. It’s also important to keep on top of what your competitors are doing as a slip-up on their part could provide the perfect opportunity for you to approach their customers with a remedy. 

How FullCircl can help 

Accelerating growth means making the right decisions about who you sell to and how. Chasing the wrong accounts increases acquisition costs, wastes time, and kills your momentum.  

 FullCircl is a Customer Lifecycle Intelligence platform that helps you to: 

• Identify the right customers at the right time - segment the market based on dozens of filters, create watchlists and alerts based on the information that signals to you that they’re ready to buy 
• Have conversations that convert - our Business Information Graph (B.I.G.) provides you with unique real-time intelligence on your customers so you can engage with contextual, relevant messages. Daily alerts do the heavy lifting and with all the essential company information just a click away, you’ll get your meeting prep done in minutes.   
• Spend less time stalling and more time selling - our real-time intelligence eliminates reliance on manual research, giving your reps enriched account data that accelerates the speed at which they close.  
• Show customers you care - Segment customers into watchlists and leverage powerful filters to stay on top of your key accounts so you’re always ahead of the game.  Daily alerts and contextual news gives you the insight needed to proactively engage with customers with tailored products and offers to match their latest challenges.  

What are you waiting for?  

Contact us today to discuss how we can help you engage the right business customers, onboard them quickly and keep them for life. Better business, faster with FullCircl. 

Insurance: it’s one of those things you hope you will never need, but you can’t operate without. When things go wrong, there’s nothing more reassuring than knowing your business is covered. 

Yet many small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are unwittingly underinsured. A survey of sole traders and SME decision makers commissioned by Allianz Commercial has found that a growing proportion of small businesses do not have any insurance while those that do often fail to review their cover needs when their circumstances change. The proportion of SMEs without any cover has grown from 40% in 2021 to 44% in 2022  

Worryingly, according to the Federation of Small Businesses almost 500,000 UK small businesses are currently ‘at risk of going bust within weeks’. This makes for disturbing reading given that not having enough insurance can prove disastrous: from employee redundancies and the loss of future contracts to being put out of business. 

Why is underinsurance still a problem? 

In many cases, it’s because SMEs lack the time and expertise to assess their insurance needs. In other cases, they will underestimate the cover they need, or they may undervalue their businesses to reduce insurance premiums. 

Other SMEs fall foul of undervaluing what it would cost to rebuild a commercial property, which can differ from the market value. Research tells us that on average, underinsured buildings are covered for just 68% of the amount they should be. 

In fact, recent research has found that 80% of UK properties are underinsured – to put that in context, that’s around 587,000 high net worth homes and commercial property with a total value of £340 billion standing without adequate buildings insurance. What’s more, those numbers are heading in the wrong direction, having risen from 580,000 and £325 billion respectively in the space of 12 months. 

The reason for this? They may have failed to factor in market fluctuations in property prices and possible delays in repairing the property and issues with global supply chains pushing up the price of building materials. According to the Department for Business, Energy, and Industrial Strategy in 2021 the price of timber increased by 73.3%, steel by 72.6% and the cost of materials generally by 23.6%.  Compounding the issue further is constantly rising inflation rates. 

Another problem is that SMEs might not be receiving the right guidance despite the rise of online brokerages that are designed to save time and keep costs low. 

“This is becoming a big reason for underinsurance,” says James Tingley, head of SME commercial division at insurance brokerage Aston Lark. “The fact is, insurance policies still comprise a lot of technical jargon, despite efforts to simplify the process. SMEs can therefore become confused about what they’re insuring for, and how much cover is required.” 

Insurance companies can play a major role in solving the problem by creating underwriting processes that are easier to understand and more straightforward. This can include eliminating complex jargon and creating onboarding processes that demand less information from business owners. 

For example, SMEs are often required to provide significant amounts of information to insurers around revenue and profits, but this is not always quickly verifiable and leads to an insurance gap. Moreover, insurers can reduce friction and ease the burden by introducing more automation and streamlining the underwriting process. 

Miscalculated profits can affect policies 

A key policy for SMEs is business interruption (BI) insurance, which compensates for the loss of income after a disaster – and this is where many SMEs are tripping up. 

According to the Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters (CILA) 43% of business interruption insurance demonstrate underinsurance, with the average shortfall 53%. 

The big problem is the indemnity period. This is how long SMEs think it will take their business to get back on its feet. The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) says it takes a small business about two years to fully recover. But it’s estimated around three quarters (75%) of BI policies have an indemnity period of just 12 months. 

One of the major reasons for not having enough BI cover is when companies miscalculate their profits. 

A gross profit basis is the most common choice of BI cover. But what an insurer defines as gross profit is vastly different to a business accountant’s definition – often resulting in a heap of confusion among small firms. 

While most accountants will exclude staff wages and utility costs from gross profit, insurers do not – and will build in calculations such as payroll and ongoing employee costs. As such, firms should ensure their assessment of gross profit matches the one in the insurance policy. 

Underinsurance is a headache for insurers 

The risks related to underinsurance don’t just affect SMEs. Insurers also feel the hit as inadequate insurance premiums erupt into disputes and litigation between the policyholder and provider.  

With SMEs making up 99% of the business population, the time and resources spent dealing with these disputes can be significant. 

For insurers, the challenge is to not only educate SMEs on the dangers of inadequate cover – such as insolvency – but also to ensure they are being matched with the right blend of insurance products. Insurers want to model risk as accurately as possible and make sure the right claims are being paid out 

The problem is that this has proved difficult in the past, in part because insurers and SMEs may have different definitions of what constitutes gross profit, or because companies experiencing rapid growth need to factor in rapidly rising revenues. 

The solution to these challenges may lie in an underwriting process that makes better use of automation, injecting accurate insights into the process so that risk can be assessed more accurately. SMEs are often short on time and resources, which means a better customer experience is not just a nice-to-have, but essential to the success of their business. Time spent on admin and form-filling is time spent away from other crucial areas, and anxiety about insurance cover can eat into their bottom line. 

Insurers can help to ease their burden by offering a streamlined service that takes advantage of live company data to determine the right level of cover for their needs. 

Download our report to find out more about the rising risk of underinsurance.

How can FullCircl help brokers tackle SME underinsurance?

FullCircl empowers your brokers with rich, contextualised company information on every business in the UK and Ireland.  

Think of all the elements you need to consider in order to make an accurate underwriting presentation. Perhaps you need to filter by geographical region, turnover, or employee headcount. Or maybe you need to uncover more specific details, like size of fleet, or property exposure.  
 
All of this takes time, and the information is often out of date the moment you find it. FullCircl targets companies in real-time, so you know what they actually look like – giving you a better focus on opportunities to fill the SME underinsurance gap. 

Ready to find out more about FullCircl is tackling the insurance industry’s biggest challenges? 

Just click here. 

FullCircl is pleased to be an exhibitor at the Insurance Age Broker Expo on the 10th of November, 2022. Bringing together 95% of the UK’s Top 100 brokers to tackle the latest industry challenges

This year the event has four content zones, curated to deliver knowledge exchange and insights to help you grow your business, embrace technological advances, tackle the challenges associated with rising inflation, and understand the implications of current geopolitical risks on your business and your clients.

FullCircl is a trusted advisor and provider of Customer Lifecycle Intelligence to many of the UK’s largest and most influential insurance brokers. Join us at stand 98 to find out how we’re powering meaningful opportunities to help them drive growth.

Here’s a preview of what we will share:

Revolutionising insurance brokerage through technology

Learn how we can furnish your brokerage with high-value actionable insights about key changes in your client’s world – from M&A activity, management changes and contract wins, to changes in legislation and HSE activity, as well potential exposures that affect their business activities. These relationship triggers give you constant reasons to engage. FullCircl is the place where personal touch meets first class service delivery.

Staying ahead in cybersecurity

Uncover how to cement your position as a trusted advisor with specialist knowledge by staying constantly in touch with sector insights and the latest developments happening within regulators, government bodies, and leading cyber security specialists. Plus, how we can help you can stay one-step ahead of client needs with advanced abilities to spot cyber-risks within your portfolio.

Harnessing the insurer-broker relationship to overcome the hard market challenge

Learn how FullCircl is helping brokers utilise structured and unstructured data to provide underwriters with the best presentation possible - so that armed with better quality intelligence they can make more accurate assessments of risk and provide better quotations that boost their win rate. Let us show you how we are bringing collaboration and innovation together to help brokers find new opportunities for profitable growth in a hard market.

Bracing ourselves for the inflation challenge in tackling underinsurance

Rising inflation is impacting prices across all sectors of the economy, leaving many commercial clients underinsured. Learn how we can help you tackle your clients’ inflationary pressures by filtering and matching thousands of data sources for a holistic view of every client, with enhanced abilities to proactively ensure they are always covered to the right level.

How the most recent regulations are posing a challenge for the insurance industry

The insurance industry is facing a dizzying number of challenges when it comes to keeping pace with regulatory change. Adhering to current challenges such as the Financial Services and Markets Bill is expensive and resource heavy. Learn how we can lighten the regulatory burden with constant alerts to changes and key developments.

Meet us at stand 98

FullCircl is already trusted by the UK’s leading Brokers, Underwriters and MGAs to tackle the industry's biggest challenges. Don’t miss your opportunity to meet the FullCircl team at stand 98 to find out more about how FullCircl can help you win the right customers, accelerate onboarding and keep them for life.

Book a meeting in advance with our Insurance Success Director, Ashleigh Gwilliam, here.

If you’re unable to attend, why not download our Broker Toolkit to understand more about the customer lifecycle intelligence advantage, and how you can join the growing number of brokers doing better business, faster with FullCircl.

What makes a great sales leader?  

Is it their personality and charisma? Is it the results they have achieved? Is it their team leadership abilities? Or is it their vision and unique sales methodology? 

In truth, no one characteristic defines success, every sales leader is different. 

However, there are some key sales leadership qualities that top sales leaders share, and these characteristics make all the difference when it comes to ensuring their team ascends to higher levels, and that their business achieves long-term sustainable growth and success. 

So, what are the characteristics of a great sales leader? What are the key sales leader skills and qualities? 

A great sales leader: 

Is a mentor and a coach 

Long gone are the days of the authoritative boss–employee dynamic, especially now that we are all operating in the new hybrid working era. The term “lead by example” couldn’t be more important than it is right now. 

Every single person in a sales team influences its ultimate success. It is a myth in business that people simply do what you tell them to do. Now more than ever sales leaders need to be able to motivate and inspire hybrid teams to achieve a shared goal. 

In reality, people do what they want to do, and a great sales leader should be capable of helping them and empowering them to make the right decisions and take the right course of action.   

Each individual in a team will be handling multiple accounts, will have their own prospect pipeline, and will be juggling many individual needs, their job, therefore, requires them to drive their own priorities. 

Sales coaching and mentoring is cited as the most important role that frontline managers play, according to 74% of leading companies. Companies with dynamic sales coaching programs achieve 28% higher win rates. 

The best sales leaders have a coaching mind-set and understand that a vital part of their role is mentoring. They understand the DNA of their team, everyone’s personality, sales approach and goals. They know how to get the best out of them, and what tools and training they need to do their job autonomously and remotely. Equally as important they can pick up quickly when a team member is underperforming. 

Salespeople are naturally failure averse and their own worst critics. Most sales cycles tend to be annual. During that time there will be a lot of ups and downs – failed deals, missed targets, missed opportunities and increased pressure. 

A good hybrid sales leader needs to recognise this and know how to support each team member and provide encouragement and patience as they go through a rough patch. 

Frontline technologies, like FullCircl, are playing a great facilitating role. Arming sales leaders with greater insight and understanding of how sales teams are behaving and performing, as well as modelling how performance could be improved. 

Armed with this deeper level insight, sales leaders can then coach each member of the team to define or refine their goals and strategies, facilitate a change in behaviour or the development of new habits and advise on alternative ways to maximise leads or engage with customers. 

They can motivate and empower self-improvement and self-direction and help them get the best out of the tools and training at their disposal. Tools like FullCircl help hybrid sales leaders ensure that wherever reps are, they remain empowered and focused on accelerating customer acquisition with clarity and speed.  

Is focussed on team success, not on their own success 

Sales leaders start as salespeople and on their way to the top they will have overperformed, smashed targets, and contributed in a measurable way to the success of the company, but now their role has evolved into something else. 

A great hybrid sales leader knows when to stay hands off, and equally when to pitch in and get involved, without taking all the glory. There is nothing more demotivating for a sales team than a sales leader who misses selling and starts competing with their team to prove ‘they’ve still got it – a sales leader with a sales target is a bad situation. 

Micro-management is the default setting of any sales leader who has inadequate performance with their people. Instead, great hybrid sales leaders harness tools for KPI management and insight into what each salesperson has been doing, their prospect pipeline, sales behaviours, and activities to equip those in their team to be potentially better than them, not to crack the whip because their own success is on the line. 

A good sales leader must recognise their role is to lead, set a strategy and vision and provide guidance and support for the team to get there. 

A great sales leader gets a buzz from seeing someone they’ve developed get a sale.   

Hybrid sales leaders using FullCircl have an extra tool at their disposal. They can ensure each member of their team achieves their potential by providing them with the rich, contextualised company information they need to always make the right decisions about who to sell to and how. Helping them act with conviction and beat the competition (even if that also means they beat the sales leaders own record). 

Is focussed on collaboration 

One of the biggest hurdles affecting hybrid sales teams is effective collaboration.   

The best results are achieved when everyone feels like they have contributed to the process. The team itself might be diverse in terms of the individuals involved, their approach, personality, and individual responsibilities, but each person brings to the table different areas of expertise, different experiences, and different views. 

Great hybrid collaboration requires effective leadership. A great hybrid sales leader is able to pull the team together regardless of their location, draw on the skills of everyone and guide them to collaborate, share ideas and focus on the collective goals, as well as the individual ones. 

Likewise, they promote cross-functional collaboration across the entire business – no small task in the hybrid environment.  

A great sales leader takes a macro-level view, working out how sales can collaborate with marketing, business development, customer success, R&D, and product development teams to build an eco-system focussed on combined goals and shared vision. An environment where each team helps each to collectively do Better Business, Faster. 

Technology once again can help. For a business to collaborate and have shared goals it must have a shared understanding. FullCircl’s Business Information Graph (B.I.G)™ ingests billions of data points every day from a multitude of official and third-party sources, then matches and enriches this information to unlock the most accurate and contextualised view of every business in the UK and Ireland – A single 360° view up-to-the-minute view of what you everyone within an organisation (from frontline to back office) from which hybrid collaboration can grow, synergies in skill sets can be exploited, opportunities can be the evaluated, and roadmaps are drawn up for teams and individuals to add value at every stage of the journey. 

 Smart use of technology can not only bring hybrid sales teams together but also facilitate cross-functional teams collaboration for the long-term success of the company. 

Is a believer in encouraging curiosity and creativity 

Curiosity is perhaps the most important trait any seller can have. Curious people seek to understand the world around them from every angle, they tend to be the ones that are keen to push boundaries, find new reasons to get excited, suggest new ideas, and uncover new ways to solve problems. 

Curiosity, when nurtured and channelled in the right way, delivers what companies and customers ultimately aspire to from their sales teams, i.e., customer-centric engagement, strong relationships, and solutions that achieve goals and solve problems. 

Likewise, the ability to jump on new ideas and opportunities for improved outcomes and competitive advantage. 

Great hybrid sales leaders encouraging a curious methodology see amazing results. By giving people space and time, as well as access to the intelligence and insight tools they need to indulge their curiosity they are rewarded with an engaged team. 

An engaged and curious team goes out to ask questions and seek answers, share ideas, solve problems, predict needs, identify opportunities, and uncover new ways to innovate and differentiate and drive the business forward. 

FullCircl makes it easier for sales leaders and their teams to get ahead of their customers with journeys that excite, delight, and inspire loyalty.  With FullCircl, reps can dig deeper and segment the market based on dozens of filters, and create watchlists and alerts based on the information they are most curious to learn more about. Whilst real-time intelligence eliminates reliance on manual research, giving reps enriched account data that can help them get more creative with solutions.    

Is a visionary, a great communicator and gives people meaning to their work 

Salespeople are more motivated by having an overarching vision. People and companies can be inspiring, but what really drives a great sales team is the ‘why’ behind the business. 

Research has found that when employees find their work to be meaningful, their performance improves by 33%, they are 75% more committed to their organization, and are 49% less likely to leave. 

More and more people want to do meaningful work. 90% of people are willing to earn less money to do work they find meaningful, and for many, the move towards meaningfulness has only accelerated because of the pandemic.   

It’s the ’why’ that provides a reason for getting out of bed in the morning and gives salespeople the focus they need to achieve fantastic results. Today’s salespeople crave more than “just a job.” 

A great hybrid sales leader is both a visionary big thinker and a tactician. They are also capable of communicating the big ideas and connecting this vision to the team by explaining the strategies and tactics to be employed, the behavioural/cultural changes needed etc. 

A great sales leader can turn vision into reality, taking the big ideas and turning them into executable plans that inspire and drive the team forward. 

It is also important to give the team the tools needed to do their job to the best of their abilities. Sales leaders need to be alive to advances in technology that helps reps get more creative and spend more time doing what they love, and what they do best.   

 FullCircl not only eliminates research time but stops reps from wasting a vast amount of time chasing companies who are a poor fit or aren’t yet in the market for your solution. 

Hence the next point… 

Is able to maximise productivity without limiting creativity 

It’s an issue (and a fine balancing act) that all hybrid sales leaders face, how to maximise productivity without limiting creativity. The board, shareholders, banks, and investors all want a better bottom line, and expect sales teams to be ever more efficient and productive even when working remotely. 

But to compete and meet expectations reps need to spend more time being creative, something which is difficult when they spend a significant proportion of their day undertaking administrative tasks. 

Utilising advanced sales technologies like FullCircl to automate key activities such as customer information gathering, uncovering new prospects, understanding buying behaviours, sentiments and trends, and due diligence leaves reps free to undertake more strategic decision-making and human-touch relationship-building tasks with an even greater level of clarity. 

According to the Raconteur Report, between 70-85% of businesses say AI is making their organisation more creative, helping them make better management decisions, and furnishing them with more time to think creatively about the challenges their customers face. 

Take BT Local Business for example. BT Local Businesses were finding that their ability to uncover new opportunities was hampered by highly manual, time consuming sales processes (i.e. trawling the internet to uncover potential new opportunities and gain a deeper understanding of customers). 

By adopting FullCircl Engage to harness real-time news, social media, and people insights, they uncovered new prospects, gained a deeper understanding of leads, were able to act quickly on opportunities, and engage proactively in more sophisticated ways based on a real-time understanding of trends, sentiments and needs. 

BT Local Businesses have generated 4,316 new opportunities in the last 12 months alone with a pipeline value of £29.5 million directly attributable to the insights delivered by FullCircl. Board and shareholders were satisfied, productivity improved, and a team of sellers was freed from the burden of busy work and focussed on doing what they do best. Perhaps most importantly of all happier customers achieving superior results thanks to improved creativity  – win, win, win. 

Is a believer in the value of training and development 

Companies that invest in training are 57% more effective at sales than their competitors.  Whilst on an individual level, sales training can boost a sales reps performance by an average of 20%. 

It has also been reported that sales training reaps a staggering 353% ROI for the average company.  No wonder high-growth companies are twice as likely to provide customised training to their employees.

But it’s not just when hiring new members or implementing new ways of working (such as hybrid working) that training is vital. All too often, a seasoned salesperson will simply rely on outdated selling techniques that don’t cut it with today’s demanding buyers or accelerated digital environment. 

The truth is that everyone – regardless of experience or age – needs a refresher course every now and then. Sales skills are always evolving and require constant refinement.  Continuous training is said to result in 50% higher net sales per sales rep. 

A great hybrid sales leader realises sales training is time and money well spent. And invests time in understanding the development needs of their team.  

Take a quick look at FullCircl’s upcoming training courses and start unlocking the potential for reps to engage with the right business customers, accelerate onboarding and keep them for life. 

Is able to accurately reward and incentivise 

A great hybrid sales leader is able to develop a strong reward and recognition program, one that is timely and relevant. Motivating sales teams is about providing the right incentives to the right people is essential. 

There is little point in incentives and rewards if they don’t instil a sense of purpose and are not related to anything – i.e. they either happen or they don’t and sellers don’t really believe or understand that they can influence the process. 

A great sales leader invests in their sales teams’ development and rewards individuals based on contribution and drive, not on age or time served. Of course, if you can integrate your performance tracking tool with your compensation system you can ensure that people are accurately rewarded for their achievements and incentivised in meaningful ways to continue to raise the bar. 

Of course, I could go on all day, and there’s no doubt many more leadership qualities that great hybrid sales leaders have in common. So over to you… 

Do you know an inspiring sales leader? What do you think makes a great sales leader? What tools do you think sales leaders need to get the best out of themselves and their teams? 

We would love to hear your thoughts….  And while you’re at it why not put us to the intelligence test? 

 We love a challenge. In fact, we love it so much we guarantee we can help hybrid sales leaders and their teams do Better Business, Faster.  Drop us a line at letstalk@fullcircl.com to review our product suite, API and web applications, and to set up your structured pilot.