3 Reasons to be Bullish about Sales

Growing up as a middle-class, little-league-playing, Catholic-school kid from suburban Philadelphia, it wasn’t hard to find a reason to raise money—the numbers on our uniforms were peeling off, the basketball nets were frayed and the pages of our school books were torn. So my friends and I went door-to-door peddling candy, magazine subscriptions, and raffle tickets. My brothers also had pet sitting, snow shoveling and lawn mowing services, and we had to go around the neighborhood to get the business. 

Someone had to knock on the door - and that someone was usually me. I did it because the others didn’t want to. It’s not that I wasn’t afraid of getting a door slammed in my face—I was just more worried about letting down my team, school and my two older brothers.

My sales skills secured me an important role in my childhood tribe. I found courage in the belief that I was doing something good, and joy in the fact that I was good at it. Selling gave me a sense of pride. Selling enabled me to make a difference for people and the causes that mattered in my community. Selling was my way to serve others.

Same Game, Different Arena

The doors open to boardrooms now—magazines have become mega-deals and moms in flour-smeared aprons have been replaced by hard-driving executives wearing expensive suits. Competition is fierce and it’s global. For every success, there are 20 times as many failures in the form of unopened emails, phone messages that will never be returned, proposals that get rejected and dreaded 2nd place finishes.  

On the most difficult days, it’s those childhood memories that pull me through. Every so often, as I’m walking into a client meeting, I still imagine crossing the threshold of a stranger's living room with the same nervous excitement I had when I was a kid.

While the scene has changed and the stakes are higher, many of the same rules apply. Most importantly, trust is the currency needed to play the game. Trust is built one interaction at a time. Be prepared and provide insights. Put the buyer’s interests first.

The play should be simple to run; identify the problem, get the right buyers in the room at the right time, present a compelling solution.

But of course, it’s not that easy.  

The Playbook is Changing

A new style of buying has emerged in the enterprise, making the doors much harder to open. A buyer requires less interaction with a seller to make a purchase decision. Much of what a buyer needs is easily accessible; pricing information, product demonstrations, competitive comparisons and independent reviews are abundant. Buying has become decentralized and consumerized as many more people have the power to purchase. The buying process is becoming digitized, giving buyers a choice of a self-service experience over a sales-supported one. Buyers are becoming reluctant to interact with sellers until it’s absolutely necessary. When a buyer eventually does engage with a seller, the window to influence is small as they’re likely to be 70% through their buying process already.

With this new paradigm it’s no surprise that sales professionals are struggling to meet their annual targets or that the average sales professional lasts less than two years in the role. For most sales organizations, win rates are down while sales-cycle times and costs keep going up.

Technology to the Rescue..with some Consequences

Enterprise sellers are slowly adapting to this new buying paradigm. Sales-side technologies are playing a big factor in improving performance. Technology promises to reduce low-value activities to increase sales productivity and effectiveness. On average sellers spend only half of their time interacting with clients - this should improve significantly. There will also be many positive outcomes for buyers in the form of better purchase experiences, insightful content, and much more relevant offers.  

There will also be some unfortunate negative consequences. Tech will enable aggressive companies to do more of the things that give sales and marketing a bad name. Robo-calls, email blasts, irrelevant text messages and other antics will perpetuate the already poor perception of our profession—pesky, manipulative and pushy. Meanwhile, nearly everything we do digitally is being tracked and indexed to build robust profiles of our preferences through personal data. Privacy takes on a new dimension. There will also be more companies using technology to sell more things without any human involvement. The economics are too attractive to pass up on selling without people involved. 

The End of Selling...the Beginning of Growth

In spite of some potential downsides, the future of B2B sales is going to be AMAZING—albeit very different than the world that we know today. Here’s why I am extremely bullish about the $1.4 trillion B2B marketplace that we play in:

1. A higher degree of trust between a buyer and seller will be achieved through a radical level of transparency. Buyers will eventually be able to say goodbye to high-pressure selling tactics, opaque offers or bait-and-switch behaviors. Meanwhile, a seller will be assured that a buyer isn’t wasting their time or stringing them along. Whether you’re a buyer or a seller, if you operate by self-oriented rules, you’ll need to change your approach or you won’t get to keep playing.
2. Sales and marketing organizations will become significantly more effective. Whether you are an individual contributor or sales leader responsible for an aggregate number - the role is incredible challenging. Enterprise sales is filled with a high degree of uncertainty - which causes us to spend a lot of time and money guessing. The most progressive leaders have realized they are wasting millions of dollars on strategies that don’t deliver results. High-performing sales pros recognize that traditional tactics are no longer working. And customers are refusing to be caught in the middle. The traditional approach of running B2B sales is becoming unsustainable. When all stakeholders are unsatisfied, as they are in enterprise sales, new and better models will undoubtedly be created.
3. Tremendous job opportunities will emerge and different skills will matter. The gregarious, charismatic and scrappy individual will continue to have a prominent role to play in sales. However, as the methods to support and serve clients evolve the doors open for a new breed of sellers—the introvert, the statistician, the artist and even the techie who prefers computers over people can make a significant contribution to growth. Sales will have a role for almost anyone who wants it. This couldn’t come at a better time as the profession is experiencing a shortage that is growing bigger everyday.

Betting on People

There is NO role in business that is more purpose-built for people than that of selling. A good sales professional finds purpose in a buyer’s moments of need—as the curious (not invasive), collaborative (not manipulative) and inspiring (not pushy) curator of the buying experience. Sellers in the future will be trusted advisors with the ability to connect things that would otherwise be disconnected without their personal involvement.

Businesses need more competent, character-rich women and men in sales just as little-league sports teams and elementary schools need scrappy 10-year-old kids standing at our doorsteps because growth doesn't happen in business until a sale is made.

Someone has to knock...and that person is in sales because we are more afraid of letting down our customers, colleagues or company than we are of a virtual door slammed on us. 

Happy Selling!