Today’s B2B or tech buyer is smarter than the one of yesteryear and is exposed to an array of information and online resources, all the time. In fact, half of their buying decision is usually already made before they reach out to a sales executive to find out more about a particular service or product.
With the unlimited access to information today, buyers demand more from sellers, in such a way that most salespeople are now expected to act like advisors and be go-to resources for their prospects.
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In a recent report, it said that 70% of the buyers surveyed would rather wait to ask a vendor to help solve a problem they had.
Given this changing expectation of buyer’s on the whole and the changing role of sales, coupled with the challenging business times that the Covid-19 pandemic has forced teams into, the best way forward is to add more value through every sales outreach and conversation.
Sales leaders across the tech and B2B marketplace have been sharing one core thought off late, there is now a need to become a partner to prospects, and not just sell for profit.
This transforming core of the role in sales can be achieved pretty easily.
To drive better sales efficiencies and sales effectiveness, while adding that much-needed value, here’s what sales can do:
Re-examine the Sales Process
Now is the time to share relevant, personalized insightful information with your prospects-> content in the form of educative tips, insights that can boost a buyer’s knowledge and help them in their everyday work will on the whole add value to your cadence and increase the perception of your sales team in their mind.
Every sales and marketing person is facing their own challenges during this time where on the one hand ensuring business continuity is important while also grabbing market share when no one really wants to buy.
Besides re-looking your core sales methodology, redefining your sales and marketing content and collaterals will help enable better outcomes. Understanding what kind of information your prospects need at the moment and repurposing your content creation activities to align to their needs will help you drive traffic and traction back to your sales goals and product.
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Remember, even if your prospect doesn’t buy from you now, they will remember the value-add information you’ve shared with them and they will be happy to initiate a conversation a few weeks later when things seem better, they’d be more open to interacte with a sales team they feel they can trust and one that focuses on the value instead of the selling…
A Quick Upskilling / Training Initiative
Changing times demand a change in skills for everyone, not just sales. When it comes to sales, field sales executives need to imbibe more of an Inside Sales role during this time where remote work and social distancing are part of the new normal. Besides this, sales teams have to readjust to what their buyers are looking for during these changing times and redefine their pitch, their process and their overall sales ideas to align to these needs. This involves a fair bit of training and even reskilling in some cases. For field executives who now need to learn what tools and processes can help with their inside sales efforts, a training on inside sales technologies or cold calling will come in handy. For sales teams who are accustomed to the routine of email followups, cold calls and sales cadences, learning to adapt pitches to be more valuable and informative while understanding which sales technologies can help give prospects what they need most today – timely content that’s personalized that meets them where they are in their digital and buying journey will help scale their activities to develop better prospect conversations and relationships. A good business relationship today will lead to a better sale tomorrow.
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Setting New Sales Goals
At a time when budgets are still on freeze in many cases, assessing sales teams on the basis of their quota and numbers might not work. Keeping those goals active while also introducing new assessment criteria like a) number of new sales conversations initiated b) number of active and new business relationships c) number of prospects engaging with a particular sales collateral could not only help forecast which of these prospects can be put into a stronger sales cadence few weeks down the line, it will also help understand how active sales has been in keeping the brand image running.
At the end of the day, as businesses move out of lockdown mode and restart activities to the level of pre-Covid-19 times, some of the first few functions that will need to pick up pace are sales and marketing.
Building up to that moment with the right ideologies, focus and objectives will enable better sales results when the time is right.
