5 Sales and Marketing Predictions for 2021

It’s hard to exaggerate just how much we learned in 2020. From the acceleration of digital transformation, to distributed work, to the broadening use of AI, and more, the impact of 2020 will be felt for decades to come. 

But what should we be ready for in 2021? Here are five trends that I think are in store for this year and beyond:

1. B2B sales as we know it is changed forever. Before COVID, most sellers relied upon high-touch behaviors to close prospects. Think fancy lunches, entertainment, and lots of face-to-face interaction. Even if you weren’t wine-ing and dining, you were most likely flying from place to place for a one hour meeting. The pandemic has changed all that, forcing a high-touch process to become digital-first. This has accelerated the Third Era of Marketing, where brands must meet customers on their terms, and learn to close deals in a purely digital environment. And even when we are able to gather again safely, there is no flipping a switch back to the way things were. Life – and selling – will maintain an increased digital element thanks to forced adoption in 2020. 
2. CMOs will be held accountable for revenue. 2020 has put organizations under more pressure than ever to drive revenue. This has resulted in a reassessment of all operations with an eye on what actually moves the needle. Practically, it means that everyone within an organization is now responsible for revenue in some form or fashion. This is especially true for marketers, who will now be held to unprecedented levels of scrutiny to demonstrate ROI and engage current and prospective customers across the entire life cycle – beyond simply new business, but across retention and expansion as well. CMOs need to ask themselves: Are you in service to sales, or are you a peer with a seat at the table? Those who align their efforts to revenue will be part of marketing’s migration away from sales support and into revenue acceleration.
3. The CRM as we know it is on borrowed time. The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation by nearly a decade. Now that teams and buyers are all remote, solutions need to be built to live online, and operate using technology like AI to allow teams to focus on revenue-generating tasks. The CRM – or as I think of it, the ‘filing cabinet in the sky’ – is being replaced with dynamic conversation models that aggregate data, infer conclusions, and require less stewarding from humans.  
4. AI will create an employment shift, freeing humans to take on more impactful jobs. AI is causing job displacement. But, as history has shown, displacement does not mean destruction. In fact, automation leads to job creation. While administrative responsibilities like email databasing and logging CRM data are being replaced by AI, the upshot is that we’ll see a complete restructuring of how we view work, resulting in new opportunities that require the innovation, agility, critical thinking and EQ that only a human can provide. 
5. AI bias will cause problems that will require industry collaboration to prevent. There are several ways bias can infiltrate AI, both intentionally and unintentionally through back doors in the development process. As an industry, we need to come together to set best practices to prevent bias and ensure the responsible and trustworthy use of AI. It starts with educating software and AI engineers, product managers, and designers about biases known to infiltrate AI. From there, it could include more tactile steps like the exclusion of personal data related to race, color, religion, sexual orientation, or other categories in AI processes. In 2021, we’ll see time and money invested into subverting AI bias, along with increased hiring of engineers with the right experience and training to help prevent it. 

2020 may not be a year we soon want to revisit. But the lessons we learned throughout it and the change it brought to the tech industry will inform what happens this year and for decades to come. 

You can hear me talk about these trends and more in my latest episode of Seeking Wisdom. And don’t forget to let me know what you think of these trends in the comments below, or text me at 212-380-1036.

-DC