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CONTENT
TO REVENUE
IN CONSULTING

Benchmark Report
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Table of Contents
Introduction 3

Executive Summary 5

Business Development Agility 7

Technology’s Impact 10

The Role of Content 15

Content Effectiveness Drivers 18

Content as an Alignment Indicator 23

Analyst Bottom Line and Action Plan 26

Acknowledgements 28

Appendix: Survey Background 29

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Introduction
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Introduction
Success for consulting firms is a function of winning clients, retaining
them, and turning them into loyal advocates. When firms can do these
things efficiently, they enjoy higher margins. Efficiency in the consulting
profession comes down to utilization, enabling consultants to stay focused
on the highest and best use of time for their firms.

Pursuing clients and fulfilling their needs is a labor- and content-in-

tensive endeavor. Managing the intricacies of producing content is an
activity that takes away from consultants staying focused on sales and
high, value-add billable work.

However, many consultants find that they must remain very hands-on to
get the content they want, but they pay a price for their involvement in
the form of lower utilization.

Sales enablement is a category of solutions that streamline the process

of creating content. Organizations that embrace sales enablement tech-
nology enjoy better alignment and collaboration between marketing
and business development teams, leading to more effective content
and, ultimately, higher revenue.

Demand Metric partnered with Seismic to conduct this research study to

benchmark how sales enablement technology can impact consulting firms.

The study’s hypothesis was that sales enablement technology improves

collaboration and agility in pursuing clients, resulting in greater content
effectiveness and higher revenue. This report shares key insights from
the study and provides data that is useful for building sales enablement
best practices.
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Executive Summary
 EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
The largest segment of this study’s respondents were in consulting roles. A majority of the firms in this study experienced revenue growth during the past
fiscal year. The nature of consulting work in which participants are engaged included strategy, operations, IT, financial advisory, organizational, and other
types. Over one-third of the consultants in the study are involved in strategy consulting.
Some of biggest findings and takeaways include:
When sales enablement technology is not in use,
73 percent of study participants report having no
or slight agility in responding to client requests.
Sales enablement technology helps business
development teams increase their effectiveness.
When it’s present, almost two-thirds of study
participants say team effectiveness is increasing.
When it’s not present, only half the teams report
increasing effectiveness.
This report details the results and insights from the
analysis of the study data. For more detail on the
survey participants, please refer to the Appendix.
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Almost three-fourths of study participants that
have significantly or completely adopted sales
enablement technology report increasing revenue.
Just over 60 percent of those who have no or slight
adoption also report increasing revenues.
When sales enablement technology is in use, over
60 percent of marketers in the study are able to
curate contextually relevant content, but only 38
percent can do that without this technology.
Increasing the business development team’s effec-
tiveness directly impacts revenue. Over 70 percent
of teams that experienced increased effectiveness
also reported revenue growth. However, almost half
of teams that experienced decreased effectiveness
reported declining revenues.
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Business Development Agility

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Business Development Agility The people in the definition above refers to:

Marketing: traditionally the part

Agility is a much sought-after business characteristic. Sales enablement
of the organization responsible for
has much to do with driving sales success by improving the agility of
building the brand, strengthening
business development teams. A precise definition of sales enablement
relationships, and supporting the
creates context for many of the findings this report shares.
development of content assets.
According to Seismic:

Sales enablement is about people and technology, Business development: (“sales” in

and strategically aligning them both behind a common the definition above) the team that
goal: sales successes. Sales enablement helps supports existing engagements
organizations streamline and shorten pursuit cycles and pursuits using content such as
by improving buyer interactions with relevant sales proposals, pitch decks, engagement
content that is tailored and personalized. When deliverables and more.
executed properly, sales enablement has a measured
impact on time spent selling, win rates, and deal size.”

Clients: the current

or prospective
customers that
consume materials
and are hopefully
influenced by them.
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This study found a strong relationship between streamlining and short-

ening pursuit cycles – agility – and the use of sales enablement tech- The Use of Technology to Enable Business Development &
nology by the business development team. Agility Responding to Client Requests
Figure 1 shows how this technology influences agility in responding to
client requests.
Consultants in the study report that the absence of technology
The organizations that do enable their business development teams hinders an organization’s agility in responding to client requests.
with technology are also far more likely to report moderate to significant
agility in responding to client requests (48%).

The data in Figure 1, however, tells a more powerful story on the nega-
tive side of the technology ledger: almost three-fourths of those who do
not enable their business development teams with technology report
having no or slight agility.

This finding validates a major productivity benefit of sales enablement

technology.
48% 29% 23%

9% 18% 73%

Moderate/ Some agility No/slight

significant agility agility
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Technology’s Impact
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Technology’s Impact FIGURE 2

Conventional wisdom is that the lack of technology to enable business

development teams will impair their ability to respond, be agile, and
collaborate.

If true, the introduction of technology should remove barriers to produc-

tivity, creating better aligned teams that collaborate effectively and grow
revenue as a result. As intuitive as these assumptions are, one goal of
this study was to confirm that sales enablement technology investments
are linked to revenue growth.

Using data from the study, we were able to test this assumption. First, the
correlation between technology and business development team effec-
tiveness was explored, as shown in Figure 2.

While it’s not impossible for business development teams to improve

their effectiveness without the assistance of technology, Figure 2 shows
that technology makes improvement more likely.

Half of the consultants in this study report that organizations that are
not enabling their business development teams with technology are
experiencing flat or declining team effectiveness.
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With the assumption about technology’s favorable impact on business FIGURE 3

development team effectiveness established, it remains to confirm
that as business development team effectiveness increases, so does
revenue growth.

Figure 3 reveals what the study data says about this relationship.
For business development teams whose effectiveness is improving,
Figure 3 shows that an investment in business development technology over 70 percent also report revenue growth.
is essentially an investment in revenue growth. The importance of this
relationship between business development team effectiveness, the
use of technology, and revenue growth requires more clarity around the
technology component.
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The martech landscape is expansive, with over 450 discrete sales auto- FIGURE 4
mation enablement and intelligence solutions offered by vendors.

There are, however, three foundational components of the technology

stack that create value for business development and marketing teams.
These components are shown in Figure 4.

As Figure 4 depicts, it is not the mere presence of these technology

components that creates value, but the integration that helps align
business development and marketing, spawning collaboration and
improving agility.
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Most B2B organizations have adopted CRM and marketing automation. FIGURE 5
It is the sales enablement component that is most often absent from the
technology stack.

This study, however, found a correlation between the adoption of sales

enablement technology and revenue growth, as shown in Figure 5.

This technology lets the business development team focus on high-

er-value work that increases revenue by automating manual tasks.

The next section of this report will focus on a sales enablement task that
is vital yet highly time consuming and manual: content creation.
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The Role of Content

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The Role of Content FIGURE 6

Business development teams rely heavily on content – for example,

proposals – in the pursuit of clients. In fact, pursuing a client until an
engagement letter is signed requires the creation, deployment, use, and
measurement of a variety of content.

Figure 6 illustrates how effective content is linked to business develop-

ment team effectiveness.

The study shows that marketing content effectiveness – particularly that

content in use by the business development team in pursuit of clients –
is a driver of team effectiveness.

Almost two-thirds of teams that report their effectiveness is improving

also rate the content that they use as effective or very effective.

From Figure 6, it is clear that expecting team effectiveness to rise as

content quality or effectiveness falls is unrealistic.
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Figure 7 takes a different look at content, this time showing the correla- FIGURE 7
tion between how well content meets the needs of the business devel-
opment team and the team’s effectiveness.

The line between effective marketing content (Figure 6) and content

that meets the needs of the business development team (Figure 7) is
perhaps a fine line.

The distinction, however, is made based on who judges content effec-

tiveness. In the case of Figure 6, the client makes the judgement, and in
Figure 7, it is the business development team.

Regardless of who makes the judgement, in either case, effective content

that meets needs of clients and the business development team is a
catalyst for improving the team’s effectiveness.
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Content Effectiveness Drivers

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Content Effectiveness Drivers FIGURE 8

Consultants have much to say about making essential business

processes more effective and efficient. This study collected consul-
tant input about the content marketing produces and known drivers to
process effectiveness, such as collaboration, contextual relevance, and
visibility into usage.

The goal of this part of the research was to understand the effectiveness
that sales enablement technology has on the business development
team by better enabling these drivers.

Creating content that meets the needs of the business development

team and effectively helps clients through their buying journeys is
historically a manual process that doesn’t scale well.

Many factors, such as collaboration, knowledge sharing, and enabling

technology, not only help streamline the process, but result in better
content.

Figure 8 shows that some level of collaboration between marketing and

business development has a favorable impact on business development
team effectiveness.

Figure 8 offers proof that the value of collaboration between marketing

and business development has benefit beyond inter-team harmony
and morale.

Even occasional collaboration around content bears fruit in the area of

helping business development teams perform better.
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The study shows that the collaboration and knowledge sharing that helps FIGURE 9
drive the business development team’s effectiveness comes in part from
using sales enablement technology.

Figure 9 shows that when sales enablement technology is in place,

enabling the team, it serves as a platform for sharing tribal knowledge
Moderate to significant collaboration and knowledge sharing occurs
and collaborating around pursuit strategy. at more than twice the rate (43 percent) when sales enablement
technology is in use compared to when it isn’t in use (20 percent).
Study participants report that moderate to significant levels of knowl-
edge sharing and collaboration occur when sales enablement tech-
nology is in use.

Figure 8 shows that collaboration drives business development team

effectiveness, and Figure 9 shows how that collaboration can occur
using sales enablement technology.
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This technology benefits more than the business development team; FIGURE 10
marketing gets help curating contextually relevant content for the busi-
ness development team through its use.

Figure 10 shows the difference technology can make in content curation.

The importance of what Figure 10 depicts is lost without a common under- Marketing is better able to curate contextually relevant content
standing of what contextually relevant content is. For B2B marketers, the through the use of sales enablement technology.
context is the client journey.

Deploying content in context means having useful and influential content

available that is unique to each stage of the pursuit process.

When the marketing team is using sales enablement technology, providing

content in this way becomes the norm rather than the exception.
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A final driver of content effectiveness is visibility: as the business devel- FIGURE 11

opment team uses content to engage with buyers, how effective are
their efforts?

Marketing and business development teams alike are often frustrated

with the inability to see anything that indicates their engagement
efforts are working.

Content seems to disappear into the void with no feedback or signals

that it is having its desired effect. Figure 11 shows that sales enablement
technology can remove the veil.

Having visibility and feedback into the effectiveness and efficiency of

the business development team is important for allowing the team to
improve its engagement efforts, and for improving marketing content.

The results of this study show that the use of sales enablement tech-
nology more than doubles this visibility.

The data from this study establishes the value sales enablement tech-
nology has as a driver of content effectiveness in many areas, such as
facilitating collaboration between marketing and business development
team, sharing knowledge, curating contextually relevant content, and
creating visibility into its use.
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Content as an Alignment
Indicator
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Content as an Alignment FIGURE 12

Indicator
In consulting firms, certain key business processes are indicators of
cultural health and effectiveness. The content creation and deployment
process is one such indicator.

Marketing content can only meet needs and drive preferred outcomes
when the marketing and business development teams are aligned,
collaborating, and sharing knowledge and visibility into content usage.

Sales enablement technology can serve as the alignment point and

interface between marketing and business development. There are two
views of data from the study that reinforce how organizational silos are
minimized when this technology is in place.

The first view, shown in Figure 12, presents how technology enables
marketing content to better meet the needs of the business develop-
53%
ment team.

22% 58%

Meets needs
well
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Sales enablement technology helps synchronize marketing’s content FIGURE 13

creation efforts with the needs of the business develop team. Without
this technology, barely one in five organizations report that marketing
content meets needs.

With this technology, over half of the organizations studied say marketing
content meets needs well. The technology gives the marketing team
insights from data to allow it to produce more effective assets.

More important than meeting the needs of the business development

team is delivering content that influences potential clients on their
journey, accelerating their progression.

Figure 13 shares this second view of how sales enablement technology

helps create alignment.

Of the two views this section shares, this second view is more important.
When working pursuits, business development teams place high value
on content that influences prospects and helps accelerate their progres-
sion on their buying journeys.

Technology is clearly a way to enable the marketing team to align the

content it produces for that purpose.
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Analyst Bottom Line

and Action Plan

Analyst Bottom Line
For consulting firms, the success formula for winning clients, retaining
them, and turning them into loyal advocates is to keep consultants
engaged in doing these things.
While this formula is conceptually simple to understand, putting it in
practice is not easy. Consultants often find themselves pulled into work
that doesn’t align with their highest and best use to the firm.
When that work involves developing and managing content, this study
shows that sales enablement technology is taking much of the manual
work out of creating the content needed to win pursuits. This reality
allows consultants to focus on more value-added client work rather than
provide oversight to how their content is produced.
The study’s hypothesis was that sales enablement technology improves
collaboration and agility in pursuing clients, resulting in greater content
effectiveness and higher revenue.
The results of this study resoundingly support this hypothesis, providing
compelling evidence that sales enablement technology produces a
range of benefits: greater agility, collaboration, alignment, efficiency,
and content effectiveness. Each one is a highly sought-after benefit.
Collectively, they allow consultants to produce the most sought-after
outcome: revenue.
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Sales Enablement Plan for
Consulting Firms
Does it make sense for your consulting firm to adopt sales enablement
technology? Consider these questions:
Examine your pursuit and engagement processes.
1
How content-driven, or content-dependent, are your proj-
ects? Most consulting firms rely heavily on content to influ-
ence and grow client engagements. Is content a critical
success factor for your firm?
Evaluate your content.
2
If content is critical, does your firm have the ability to
develop and deploy content that is relevant to each stage
of a pursuit, and do so in agile and efficient fashion?
If you answered “Yes” to the first question, but “No” to the second, sales
enablement technology, as this study suggests, can help.
As Figure 5 (page 14) shows, using this technology is helping to enable
revenue growth for almost three-fourths of the firms in this study.

Acknowledgements
Demand Metric is grateful to Seismic for sponsoring this research, and
for those who took the time to complete the study survey.
Demand Metric is a global research and advisory firm that supports
marketing professionals with primary research and benchmark reports,
technology research and advice, consulting services, training, and
software.  supporting the sales.
Demand Metric’s core focus is to help B2B marketing organizations
grow revenue by operationalizing the best practices discovered in our
research.
To learn more about Demand Metric, sign up for a free membership at
www.demandmetric.com
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Seismic is the leading sales enablement solution that increases marketing
effectiveness and sales productivity with automated sales content that
finds reps and personalizes itself. Marketers control the creative while
By creating, personalizing, and analyzing sales materials using Seismic,
our customers dramatically increase time spent selling and improve
win rates. With offices in San Diego, Boston, Chicago, New York, and
Melbourne, Seismic is privately held by its three-time serial entrepreneur
executive team and leading venture capital firms JMI Equity and Jackson
Square Ventures.
To learn more, please visit www.seismic.com.
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Appendix: Survey Background

This 2019 Sales Enablement Benchmark Study survey was administered Only valid or correlated findings are shared in this report. The representativeness
online during the period of April 2 through April 10, 2019. During this period, of this study’s results depends on the similarity of the sample to environments
222 responses were collected, 194 of which were qualified and complete in which this survey data is used for comparison or guidance.
enough for inclusion in the analysis.

Summarized below is the basic categorization data collected about respondents to enable filtering and analysis of the data:

FOCUS OF CONSULTING WORK: NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES AT FIRM:

30%
Other consulting

35% 17%
5% Strategy More than 38%
Financial advisory 500 50 or less

7% 10%
Operational
Organizational
10% 45%
IT 51 to 500

PRIMARY ROLE OF RESPONDENT: REVENUE GROWTH ENVIRONMENT IN MOST RECENT FISCAL YEAR:

18% 4%
Significant
Other
decrease

42% 9% 18%
12% Consultant, Slight
Significant
increase
Management Director, decrease
role Partner
22%
28% Flat
Marketing role 47%
Slight increase
 © Demand Metric Research Corporation.
All Rights Reserved.

www.demandmetric.com

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