5 Stats on the Future of Selling That'll Make You a Better Salesperson
It’s a confusing time.
Over the past year and a half, COVID-19 has transformed the sales profession and brought Zoom calls, virtual selling, and remote work to the forefront. To understand exactly what’s changed, we surveyed more than 7,500 buyers and sellers in 11 countries, examined the impacts of the pandemic for LinkedIn’s Global State of Sales report.
Within the report, we identified five key stats shaping the future of sales, which helps make sense of it all. They are:
1. 55% of buyers say working remotely has made the purchasing process easier.
Since the start of the pandemic, buyers have been difficult to reach in any way but virtually. And they seem to be happy with this situation, according to the Global State of Sales report.
Fifty-five percent of buyers surveyed say that working remotely has made the purchasing process easier. And almost three-quarters (71%) of buyers want to continue working remotely.
What This Stat Says About the Future of Sales: Virtual selling — or at least a hybrid of virtual and in-person selling — is here to stay.
This fact will require an adjustment from many sellers, but the shift is not necessarily bad news. That’s because 36% of sellers responding to our State of Sales survey say they closed deals of $500,000 or more without ever meeting the buyer in person.
2. 60% of sellers say they always put the buyer first – but only 24% of buyers agree.
Three in five sellers say they “always” put the buyer first. Yet less than a quarter (24%) of buyers agree.
That’s quite a disconnect between sellers and buyers. What’s at work here?
According to our State of Sales report, the problem may lie more with the sales organization as a whole, rather than with individual salespeople. Sellers identified six critical areas where sales organizations prevent salespeople from acting buyer first:
- The organization’s emphasis on meeting short-term sales/revenue goals (42%)
- Lack of the right skillset among existing sales talent (41%)
- Limited budgets (39%)
- Limited commitment to training (39%)
- Inadequate coaching (38%)
- Poor approach to recruiting talent (37%)
What This Stat Says About the Future of Sales: It’s crucial for sales managers to enable their organization’s sellers to place the buyer first, both to gain new customers and to keep current ones.
Here's how to make that happen.
3. 48% of buyers say that delivering misleading information is an immediate deal killer.
In our survey, we asked buyers what seller behaviors are immediate deal-killers. At the top of the buyers' list of seller actions that will halt deals in their tracks is delivering misleading information about a product or its price.
The fact that delivering misleading information sits at the top of the list highlights the importance of trust for buyers. They look to sellers to provide accurate information and insight into a buying process that is often confusing.
Of the top five deal-killers, four of them involve failing to deliver useful or accurate information:
- Delivering misleading information about a product, its price, etc. (48%)
- Not understanding their own product or service (44%)
- Not understanding my company and its needs (43%)
- Not understanding their competitors’ products and services (34%)
What This Stat Says About the Future of Sales: Trust has always been critical. But now, with the world more connected than ever, trust is even more critical.
To be trusted, you need to be clear about pricing. But it also means understanding your own product, your competitors, and the customer you're selling to.
4. 80% of sellers say they lost or delayed a deal in the last 6 months because a key client stakeholder changed jobs.
That’s a remarkable stat: 80% of sellers say they lost or delayed a deal in the last 6 months because a key client stakeholder changed jobs. In an era when buying committees continue to add more members, it’s more critical than ever for sellers to keep track of decision-makers and influencers at their customers and prospects. (Forrester research found that 63% of purchases now involve four or more people, up from 47% four years ago).
What This Stat Says About the Future of Sales: This figure highlights the increasing importance of data for sellers to help them stay in communication with buyers. The Great Reshuffle that is currently underway only makes it more crucial for sellers to stay on top of job changes by buyers.
Additionally, it underscores the importance of multithreading into an account and having multiple champions.
The sales tech stack enables sellers to stay on top of these kinds of moves. LinkedIn Sales Navigator, for instance, enables sellers to receive Alerts when Saved Leads take on a new role.
The silver lining? When product champions switch companies, it can open an opportunity for sellers to open a new account.
5. 74% of sales professionals say their organizations plan to invest more in sales intelligence tools.
The growing investment in the sales technology stack is about helping sellers build trust among their buyers. That’s because only 37% of buyers say that salespeople are trustworthy, according to LinkedIn’s Global State of Sales report.
At the same time, buyers say that trusting a salesperson is a top factor in selecting which companies they do business with. In the State of Sales report, buyers rank “trustworthy” as the No. 1 trait they value in a sales professional. In fact, 89% of buyers describe the salespeople they ultimately do business with as “trusted advisors.”
So it seems clear that for sales professionals getting past that initial distrust is crucial to closing deals. The question, of course, is how to get from Point A (distrust) to Point B (trust).
What This Stat Says About the Future of Sales: Increasingly, with face-to-face meetings limited, the pathway to gaining the trust of buyers and closing deals is through virtual selling powered by sales technology. Sellers are able to use sales technology to understand the potential customer before any outreach had taken place.
For instance, sellers could use Gong to analyze transcripts of sales calls to understand the typical customer’s state of mind and to anticipate their objections.
It’s no surprise, then, that our survey indicated that both usage of and investment in sales technology are increasing. Three-quarters (75%) of our survey respondents say they use sales technology at least once a week; almost one-third (30%) use it every day.
And some technologies are gaining more investment than others. Specifically, 74% of sales professionals say their sales org plans to invest more in sales intelligence tools, such as LinkedIn Sales Navigator, which can provide the insights needed to build trust with buyers.
Topics: Sales strategy
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