OREANDA-NEWS. March 25, 2016.  At first glance, salespeople and lawyers don’t appear to have much in common. Practicing law requires extensive formal education and certification; many salespeople begin their careers after receiving their bachelor’s degree. Lawyers are often called book smart; salespeople have “situational intelligence.” Lawyers may spend dozens of hours preparing for a case; salespeople rarely have that benefit.

But as the B2B sales process gets more and more complicated, these two professions and their needs are more similar than ever.

In the not-too-distant past, selling into an enterprise largely entailed developing rapport with one or two decision makers, often in social settings such as dinner or on the golf course. Today, the average number of decision makers at enterprises has increased to more than five and includes people from multiple areas of the company. Such decisions are now often made in more formal settings—striking a startling similarity to presenting to a jury.

There are a host of factors involved in effectively preparing and executing a B2B sales presentation: existing programs at the buyer’s organization, their needs and priorities, pricing, the competitive landscape, and more. This complexity and volume of information one needs to consider is rapidly approaching that of a team of lawyers compiling their case. In both instances, if you miss one detail, you could be dead upon arrival.

Trial law is adversarial, as is now B2B sales. Once a buyer recognizes the need for a product or solution, they are not going to take the offer of the first vendor they find. In almost any situation, in B2B sales you are facing a sales team from a competitor going through the same level of preparation as you are, and as the purchase becomes more complex, the more in-depth the research and details become. You know the buyer’s strengths and weaknesses, and they know yours.

Trial lawyer Ira Mickenberg once wrote, “Opening statements are the lens through which jurors view the evidence.” Just as opening statements are cornerstone to a trial, the first few minutes of a sales presentation can make or break your ability to close. All great lawyers and salespeople know that if you don’t hook them right from the start, your chances of winning the deal greatly diminish.

So while it’s clear that preparation is key to success in both law and sales, for salespeople the analogy unfortunately ends here, as the actual preparation processes in both professions are very different. Lawyers have a robust team of paralegals, assistants, and clerks helping them in every step of the way. B2B sales reps, meanwhile, often have multiple “trials” (presentations, demos, calls, etc.) per day, with often no assistance at all in the way of preparation. Lawyers aren’t burdened by content accessibility or lack of resources when it comes to building a case—they will delegate such responsibilities to lower-level members on the team. But salespeople will spend an average of 30 hours per month searching for and creating materials for buyer interactions.

How do sales teams make up for this unfortunate discrepancy in resources? The answer is in technology.

Sales organizations need to look at sales technology to supplement the increasing complexity and workload that reps are burdened with in this new technological era. Sales leaders should take the time to assess where sales resources are lacking, such as CRM, integrations with marketing technology, content accessibility, personalization, and visibility into buyer insights. Once the exact inefficiencies have been identified, it is easier to pinpoint where technology can automate or enhance sales processes.

Forrester has dubbed this era of the complex buying process the “age of the customer.” Every single buyer interaction is different, and each requires a personalized, differentiated approach. It is no easy feat to prepare for each “trial” without a dedicated support team to help gather buyer insights and values and prepare messaging points and excellent, relevant content, but sales technology is undoubtedly lessening this burden on salespeople. Organizations that enable reps to prepare for each buyer interaction effectively and efficiently will have a definite step up over the competition, winning more “cases” (and revenue) along the way.

Rob Fardin is the vice president, enterprise sales at Seismic, the leading end-to-end sales enablement solution for enterprise organizations. A veteran with more than 20 years’ experience in sales and business development, Rob has led teams at companies ranging from software technologies to media and entertainment. Rob has a BA from St. Michael’s College and an MBA from the University of Oregon and currently resides in Massachusetts.