TL;DR: UserEvidence VP of Sales, Heather Bell, shares her team’s step-by-step playbook for how they use UserEvidence to win more deals–faster. She’s sharing examples of how her team works proof points into early stage outreach, mid-funnel stalled deals, and high-intensity late-stage conversations.
We’re past sending prospects a generic case study PDF and moving on, just like we’re past thinking that a “Hey, just checking in…” email will seal the deal.
Buyers expect more.
With countless vendors rolling out the red carpet and stakeholders weighing in, B2B purchase decisions are increasingly complex. Budget cuts and a cloud of global uncertainty add to the challenge.
What your buyers really need is the guidance and support to make a confident decision. Providing tangible evidence—and lots of it—gives them the ability to build trust and credibility from people who’ve walked in their shoes before.
In fact, according to The Customer Evidence Gap Report, 85% of sellers wished they had higher-quality and more diverse customer evidence. Even more alarming, 67% of sellers said one of their deals has suffered because they couldn’t produce relevant, specific customer evidence in a timely manner.
You can count me as part of that statistic. Before joining UserEvidence, I was constantly feeling that tug. I launched International at my last company and felt this pain deeply—we needed evidence for the UK, and the bottleneck of waiting for a case study was awful. (And, what’s worse, once that one was finally done, we had a backlog for new ones––all equally as urgent, by the way—for totally different industries and use cases. The hamster wheel continued.)
That’s why the usually-frought dynamic between sales and marketing exists, after all. Sales needs a new customer story right this very second, and marketing can’t make them fast enough.
Until joining UserEvidence.
Now that I’m heading up our sales team here and we’re drinking our own champagne by building an on-demand library of data-backed customer evidence, I see the power.
It’s all about storytelling and introducing customer evidence early.
Why we prioritize customer evidence > case studies alone
To me, customer evidence is synonymous with diversity and accessibility of data.
It’s a wide range of (and types of) data-backed proof points that help our sales team tell better stories and keep deals moving.
Let’s face it, relying on a case studies page in isolation doesn’t give the actual evidence (think: ROI stats, credible and diverse testimonials, specific industry business cases) a chance to shine. And it definitely doesn’t give your buyers an easy path to find it, either.
So, once we identified the right proof points that we needed to close (more on that later), then we shifted our focus to usage and accessibility.
For us, it’s all about storytelling and weaving relevant, data-backed evidence into the narrative from the start—evidence our team can pull directly from our Research Library, which houses real examples of competitive intelligence, product stats, and ROI data collected with UserEvidence.
Our goal? To make prospects so immersed in the story that they can’t imagine producing as much bottom-line impact without UserEvidence—and that story starts on day one.
Deals are won through data-backed storytelling. It allows others to tell their stories and showcase their success. That third-party validation is essential and sets our sellers apart in deals.
I’m not one to keep secrets. So I’m going to be sharing our UserEvidence sales playbook right here.
First, let’s get the lay of the land
Of course, our playbook isn’t one-size-fits-all, so it’s important for you to have a little context so you can make informed decisions on how much of our playbook you choose to use. A few highlights to give you an idea of our team:
- We’re a sales-led organization. Our team is responsible for sourcing pipeline, driving conversations, and closing deals. We have a stellar marketing team who supports us with inbound efforts, but at the end of the day we know that our team is driving full pipeline efforts.
- We’re split 50/50 between SDRs and AEs. Our SDRs are responsible for outbound prospecting to our ICPs (we’re dipping our toe in some light ABM efforts), and once a meeting is booked the AEs take it over from there. Our AEs are doing a bit of their own targeted outreach as well to keep our pipeline (and their skills) strong.
- Our product is multi-faceted. Our product has a lot of use cases that can impact a lot of different areas and functions within an organization, which means every sales conversation sounds a little bit different. That makes the importance for customer evidence at every stage of our conversations crucial. Again, it’s all about storytelling, so we need to make sure we have the building blocks to tell lots of different data-backed stories.
Now, let’s get to an overview of how we’re using customer evidence at every stage of our sales cycle.
Early-stage: Establishing credibility and building a business case
Every deal starts with customer evidence—and that’s built on a foundation we start laying well before a prospect jumps on Zoom with an AE.
Our SDRs lean on customer evidence during pre-sales activities. They use core assets, like stats from our ROI study or compelling quotes from a customer from their industry, to book initial meetings with prospects and set realistic expectations.
Every sales leader knows that the first touchpoint with a buyer is worth its weight in gold. It’s our one chance to make an unforgettable first impression and build the trust and credibility AEs rely on to push deals forward.
When our SDRs share evidence from the start—even if it’s just a teaser, like quotes from a success story—we’re showing the prospect that we understand their challenges. We’re also proving that we don’t expect them to just take our word that UserEvidence is the right fit for them.
That trust-building continues as they move from chatting with a SDR to an AE. Customer evidence is part of our preparation for every demo with AEs.
To make that first touchpoint with an AE count, we ask ourselves:
- What challenges are the prospects facing that we can solve?
- Which evidence best aligns with their industry, company, or role?
- Which format will resonate the most during our call?
- Which evidence have we already shared, and how can we build on it?
- Is the prospect interested in specific features? If so, do we have evidence that spotlights them?
If we can show prospects real, tangible examples that align with where they are in their journey, everything we say during that initial conversation—and everything after that—becomes that much more impactful.
How to use UserEvidence at this stage:
- Build out your asset library with ready-made proof points that your sales team can easily search through and pull from (see this in action in our Demo Center–scroll down to the “Curate The Best Customer Proof Points” section)
- Make your Research Library accessible to the entire sales team with Share features (like a Slackbot, or Evi–our AI search assistant)
- Build staple proof points into outbound email templates
An important thing to note here: your sales team will only use UserEvidence assets if they know how to access them. Our marketing team does a fabulous job of making sure they hammer home what assets are available, how to access them, and making sure they’re integrated into our core sales platforms (like Seismic, HubSpot, etc.)
Mid-stage: Keeping the ball rolling by overcoming objections
Anyone who’s been in sales for more than a day has received that dreaded email from a buyer—you know, the one that makes it painfully clear that you’ve hit a dead end.
Our team isn’t immune to that email; no sales team is. But we guard against it by keeping the proof points flowing as deals progress.
Through targeted follow-ups packed with proof points, our AEs can steer the conversation and, more importantly, tackle objections before they have a chance to derail even the most promising deals.
Objections like:
- We’re not sure the ROI is worth the investment
- We’re happy with our current solution
- We don’t have the internal team to manage UserEvidence once it’s up and running
- We don’t have room in the budget this quarter
We ensure our team is ready to tackle these objections by organizing the customer evidence for easy access. Being able to slice and dice our research library means that we can find and share stories that pull at the heartstrings of every prospect. It’s one of the most effective ways our team handles objections.
I partner heavily with our marketing team, especially Alex, our Director of Product Marketing, to make sure our best proof points are locked and loaded in our asset library. We try to always have a healthy mix of ROI stats, graphs of original research, and customer quotes to make sure that our reps have tons of customer evidence to pick and choose from.
For example, if a buyer is concerned about the resources needed to implement UserEvidence, our AEs will share a testimonial or success story centered around implementation and support.
Likewise, if a buyer says they’re happy with their current solution, our AEs can find assets that spotlight our key differentiators or feature a customer who was in the same position but decided to make the switch (and was happy they did).
Proof points on deck = the team can jump in to help each other tell data-backed stories.
How we use UserEvidence at this stage:
- Regularly identify buyer objections and hesitations (We look in Gong, regularly get feedback from our reps on where they’re getting stuck, and openly ask buyers where they’re feeling iffy)
- Cherry-pick the proof points in our Research Library your AEs need to drive conversations forward; make sure the assets are in our library ready for quick searching
- Bring those proof points up on weekly AE calls to help equip the team with the data they need to meet objections with data-backed stories
Late-stage: Reinforcing value and securing buy-in
Call it decision paralysis, the buyer’s uncertainty, or post-purchase anxiety—no B2B deal is complete without some second-guessing. Honestly, signing the dotted line without a hiccup or two doesn’t seem right.
As deals inch toward the finish line, the role of customer evidence shifts. It’s no longer about building trust and credibility. It’s about reinforcing the value and validating the decision for top-level executives—think CROs and CFOs.
To support our team at these make-or-break moments, we’ve taken even more steps to streamline access to our library of evidence and proof points.
We use a Slackbot that makes sharing customer evidence incredibly easy. We put the information where the team is working and asking questions. So, instead of someone Slacking the group to ask, ‘Hey, does anyone have an example of XYZ?,’ they find it with the bot in seconds.
We also use Distribute as our deal room tool. We bundle relevant testimonials with each proposal, so when the prospect goes to their budget holder, they have all the backing and proof they need to get a ‘yes’ without hesitation.
How we use UserEvidence at this stage:
- Set up a workflow or integration that makes it easy for our team to surface proof points from your Research Library, whether in Slack or elsewhere. Like I said, we love the Slackbot feature, where our reps can use the “/userevidence” command right in Slack to do a quick search for relevant proof points.
- We audit our content library regularly to make sure we’re creating assets (like slides, graphics, quotes, etc.) out of powerful proof points that we want our sales team using.
- Roll relevant case studies and proof points as extra collateral for proposals
The bottom line:
Our sales team uses customer evidence in every single stage of a deal–and UserEvidence is the tool that equips each of them to access and share relevant proof points. We would not have the scale of customer evidence that we have now if it weren’t for UserEvidence. (Which is why we’re glad to be selling it…we’re truly drinking our own champagne).
The result? Our sales team spends less time hunting for assets and more time solving buyer problems and focusing on what matters most to them.
Want to explore how UserEvidence can empower your sales team to increase buyer confidence and close more deals? Explore our Interactive Demo Center (AKA the Demo Ranch. Giddy up.)
