Overlooked secret to sales effectiveness & productivity in age of AI: simplify & refocus on the essence of sales
What is the essence of selling & how can you use salestech strategically to optimise your process to this reality for next level sales productivity and effectiveness?
The opportunity / challenge
> 70% of sellers will miss their target in 2024 (Pavilion) despite all the salestech (and in part because of it)...
So there is a real need for sales transformation
Salestech is proliferating much as martech did previously.
There is today huge weight of FOMO (fear of missing out) pressuring AI adoption
And while everyone talks about budgets being tight... we are seeing drunken sailor spending on the AI hype-train/ silver bullet machine gun with > 85% adopting AI into some part of their sales process.
BUT few sales orgs are seeing much revenue uplift
"70% of sales transformations fail. They do not deliver revenue increases or performance improvement... Big investments in sales technology... have delivered negligible returns" McKinsey & Company
And there is a hidden cost of automation: a decline in the human cognitive skills they are applied to: Google Maps replaced navigation skills... Google Search / Wikipedia diminished the need for memorisation
Sales AI is already removing the need for so much headcount in sales teams, as tech-empowered super soldiers can take you to market with their AI co-pilot > effectively... and even before the launch of Chat GPT many were talking about the death of the sales profession
So what to do?
I firmly believe that how you sell is why you win and this Andy Paul quote really resonates with me
I have oversight on hundreds of sales orgs and 1000's of sales rep and one common theme I see is that top performers follow the short & direct path:
? Have the conversations that matter with the people that matter
? Focus on understanding & helping them to achieve their goals
? Real-time human-to-human communication is where successful solutions are co-created & committed to
What? Obviously!
This perennial wisdom is easily overlooked and forgotten...
It is not basic. it is foundational and essential. And yet with shiny object syndrome and new tools coming out every day it is too easy to get distracted from this truth.
Sales effectiveness really is this simple... This is NOT speculative or anecdotal hippy mumbo jumbo:
? Compelling evidence-based research shows that conversations are the pinnacle of sales effectiveness (=) a moneyball strategy
? Neuroscience shows that our brains are hardwired for real time spoken conversations.
AND just because it is simple, does not mean it is easy / does not require hard work
>85% of the buyers are dissatisfied with their on-the-phone experience with sellers? (Salesforce State of Sales Report)
BUT here's a playbook (I'm not gatekeeping secrets) for
? overcoming call reluctance (which is nearly universal)
? mastering the craft of having high quality conversations:
Contrived complex sales processes are often unnecessary & even unhelpful rituals
? Many salespeople are successful when NOT following the playbook not because of it
? Many salespeople are successful despite NOT using the latest shiny new salestech you thought would be a game changer (I bet you have loads of shelfware going unused)
Most omni-channel AI-everything techno-magery = harassment not true service e.g. psuedo-personalised ?? email sequence spam cannons 'enriched' with intent data:
? Illusion of understanding and trust-building meaningful communication
? Burns > bridges than it builds
Sales channel diversification is a strategic blunder. Invariably
? Dilution / self-defeating busy work
? Delivers inferior results to focussing on best performing channel where under Pareto’s Law likely 80% of value is created from 20% of input effort
? 73% of seller time is still wasted on non-revenue generating activities (Salesforce State of Sales Report). So only 27% of seller time can be allocated to active selling... do you really want to miss-allocate this to what is not most effective?
You must of course use salestech to facilitate buyer objectives to grow revenue efficiently today BUT do so thoughtfully and strategically
? Ask yourself "Is this tool or process actually enabling me to have the conversation that matters more efficiently?"
? If not don't bother / cut your losses (=) do less unnecessary busywork.
? Reallocate your finite time & budget to doing more of what moves the needle more effectively (=) make > time for doing what is essential / fundamental to serving properly
? You can't do everything (let alone do it well) & you don't need to
Worked Example: how my own team leverage salestech intelligently to align to the reality of conversations with decision makers being the north star of sales effectiveness
EACH seller on my team from ONLY outbound calling alone averages in ONLY the last month
Follow the noble path of actual active service and transactions, referrals, satisfaction & even joy in work will flow... how you sell is why you win.
I hope this helps a few fellow career sales pros out there.
P.S. 1
I don't claim to have all the answers and thank to anyone who takes the time to correct my faulty thinking and helps me better serve others.
This article is just my 2p / top tip after > 20 years & >100m in revenue generated... still learning everyday...
P.S. 2 (kids found my old PS2 the other day and are back-back-forward-?"Tekkening" it up as I type)
- Stop wasting valuable time scrolling on LinkedIn (even a saint can't reclaim a second)
- Pick up the phone! Have the conversation that matters. I wish you every success in helping others and reaping the rewards
Sales Repeatability | Founder @ The Closing Foundry & LiveGuru | Strategic Selling Expertise
1 周There's a few ways to describe the essence of B2B sellng, service is one, "helping", "a series of decisions", pain + gain, COI + ROI, prove cost of inaction > cost of action or the juice is worth the squeeze. You've hit and continue to hit one of the root causes of poor sales execution, lack of conversations. There's a pipeline problem epidemic everywhere, compounded by too many point solutions, too much believable but conflicting content, too much content, more due dilligence on investments, bigger buyering teams, more decisions lost to status quo and rejected because average and good is good enough. You won't get the chance to start to beat status quo or fomu unless you have that initial conversation. Keep banging the drum Alex Hobbs, your weapon of choice is a must have.
Sales trainer ??1:1 sales coaching ??Crush sales goals BigTime ?? Attract perfect clients Faster ?? Cliff dive off that comfort zone Fearlessly ?? Toss that head trash Now ?? Close deals Sooner ?? #salesconsulting
1 周Pick up the phone! Amen!!! You’ve nailed it Alex Hobbs “have conversations that matter with people who matter.”
fascinating insight inside the mind of a top seller