Selling is dead, long live sales!

Today's Channel Minute Blog is written by @Rob Schade. Rob is a sales and marketing thought leader and a respected advisor to Channel Force. The below article is a thought provoking piece that provides some food for thought about the future of Sales and ultimately Channel Sales. As partnerships continue to innovate, Digital Selling tools like @Splashmetrics will be come the norm. Rob explains why!

Introduction

Information is the currency that makes commerce happen, and information is what both marketing and sales deliver to buyers. Companies have historically considered marketing and sales as distinctive functions of the business. They organized around these functions, hiring different people to lead and staff both. Marketers do brand identity and broad-stroke product communications, while sales do last-mile, detailed discussions about product fit, reputation, price, and delivery.

But what if marketing and sales are not separate functions but part of a single function?

The digitalization of marketing and sales through new technologies points out that they are part of the same function. Marketing and sales are a continuous information process that helps a buyer make an informed buying decision. This information process, historically separated into two different organizations, is more time-efficient, cost-effective, and customer-friendly when seamlessly integrated. Technology is accelerating this integration, and there will be significant benefits to those organizations that get this right.

The Two Functions of Business – Innovation and Marketing

Renowned management science guru, Peter Drucker, argued that businesses have two primary functions: innovation and marketing. Innovation involves creating customer value by developing new products, services, or processes. All value created during the innovation process is directed at helping customers get an activity done better, faster, and cheaper. That activity is called the customer’s job-to-be-done (JTBD).

Marketing, the other primary function of a business, focuses on effectively commercializing the value the company has created. Commercialization is about making value understood by the buyer at a price and business terms that provide them a return on their investment. Once customers understand this, they will buy, and the company will realize value.

Where Does Sales Fit?

Notice that Drucker does not mention sales as a primary function of a business. Drucker also says, “The aim of marketing is to know and understand the customer so well the product or service fits him and sells itself.” He then doubles down and says, “The aim of marketing is to make sales superfluous.” Does Drucker suggest sales is not needed? It would certainly seem so. What did Drucker see 50+ years ago that we did not?

Drucker saw that sales is part of the commercialization function. And the better an organization does the subcomponents of that function, the less an organization needs to “sell.” Selling is the company’s activity, and buying is the buyer’s activity. Drucker knew that a well-designed commercialization function would pull customers into their orbit, ready to buy. He also knew that focusing on the customer’s buying activity should be the commercialization function’s primary focus.?

Drivers of change

In the olden days (pre-internet), customers came to companies much earlier in their buying journey. They had to because that is where all the information resides. They picked up the phone and called suppliers to help them understand their problems and discover potential solutions. Salespeople had time to deeply understand the customer’s problem and work closely with them to ensure their solution fits the customer’s needs.

In today’s marketing world, content has been digitized and made available online. That means a good portion of the buyer’s journey is self-directed. Today, most customers don’t need (want) to talk to a vendor until they have specific questions outside of what is currently available online. According to Gartner research, 44% of millennial buyers do not want seller interaction in a B2B purchase.

Two major trends are accelerating this change. The first is the advancement of digital marketing software. As these technologies improve, more of the human sales process is being subsumed by digital buying. Gartner’s research indicates this is already happening, with buyers spending only 17% of their time with vendors. As the technologies improve, more time will be spent on a self-curated buyer’s journey and less time with the vendor.

The second trend is the digitalization of products, where the value is realized and monetized as a service, not a one-time purchase. This model has 20+ years of history in software (SaaS) but is now being adapted by hard product companies. These value-as-a-service models will require changes in organizational design and a realignment of customer-facing activities.

?Transforming the Organization

To answer Drucker, is marketing making sales superfluous? Not exactly, but the sales role in the commercialization function is narrowing. The historic line between marketing and sales is being erased and replaced with a more tightly integrated, buyer-friendly model.

Leading companies have seen this commercialization change coming and, in response, are embracing new technologies, adapting organizational structures, and implementing new business models. Companies that adapt to this shift will have a considerable operational advantage over their competitors. A modern, well-integrated commercialization function will help a company:

·????? Reduce commercialization costs - sales and marketing

·????? Reduce organizational complexity - a smaller, more unified commercialization team

·????? Improve the customer experience and their ease of buying

This transformation will not be easy, but the benefits will be substantial. And while technology will help accelerate the transition to this more tightly integrated commercialization function, you need a vision and a plan for this transformation. What must a plan include for making this transformation? We believe it is based upon these four essential pillars.

????? I.????????Buyer Centricity

???? II.??????? Organizational alignment

?? III.???????? Precision content

?? IV.???????? Seamless access

Buyer Centric

Selling is the company’s activity. Buying is the customer’s activity. The commercialization function, therefore, should be designed around helping the buyer successfully navigate the buyer’s journey. This will be a sea shift in thinking for many companies. Historically, we have thought of sales and marketing as different organizational functions. Now that the wall is being removed between sales and marketing, our goal is to understand exactly what the buyer is trying to accomplish and help them do that efficiently and effectively. A switch to the buyer’s perspective will improve the buyer experience, speed up the buyer’s journey, and lower the cost of sales.

Our research indicates there are 11 steps in the buyer’s journey. Each of the 11 steps comes with a series of questions a customer needs answered. These buyer questions are knowable and, for most steps, are not unique to your product or service. This is great news, as you can build this model once and modify it slightly for different offerings (i.e., scalable). For example, in the “Problem Identification” step (the first step in the buyer’s journey), customers will have the question, “What are the symptoms that would indicate a problem?” The symptoms are unique, but the question is not. Knowing each step and its related questions will enable the marketing function to flesh out the buyer’s journey with impactful content across all products and services.

The modern commercialization function will ensure customers can easily navigate these 11 steps. Commercialization is no longer about “selling.” It is about enabling the buyer to make an informed decision. Companies today say they are customer-centric when designing new products and services (innovation function). They also need to be customer-centric when commercializing them.

Organizational alignment

In this new world, the marketing and sales organizations are merged into one tightly integrated function. There will be a company set of goals and a unified plan for achieving them. No longer will there be finger-pointing with one group saying, “You didn’t do X, so we could not achieve Y.” It is one organization pursuing the goals in collaboration. Eventually, artifacts of the old system will dissolve, like individual sales quotas, end-of-quarter discounting, revolving sales leaders, and territory disputes. In addition, there will be one system of record for executing and tracking progress – everyone will be in the system, helping the buyer complete the buyer’s journey.

You see this organizational alignment happening in today’s more forward-thinking companies. They have moved to a Chief Revenue Officer (or other titles) as a unified leader of the commercialization function, replacing the old VP of Marketing and VP of Sales models. This leader will be the architect of the commercialization function and oversee its operation. This alignment will improve goal setting, increase transparency, reduce organizational complexity, and reduce costs. The result will be that the aligned commercialization organization will be smaller and more productive.

Precision content

Buying in the B2B world is complex, but it can be reduced when you know what the buyer is trying to accomplish and what questions they need answered. The communication function is, therefore, built around clearly answering questions at each step of the buyer’s journey. This entire journey might include 50-75 questions. That may sound like a lot, but once you know the questions, you have them for creating content for all products and services. It is truly a scalable marketing architecture.

Great content at each step of the buyer’s journey demonstrates unique knowledge competence and builds buyer confidence. The more precise the content, the deeper the engagement and the faster the journey. And, because the buyer is increasingly self-navigating their journey, precision content is essential for them to progress to the next step.

Seamless access

For large, complex B2B sales, you will not eliminate the human element. You do not want the sales team eliminated (sorry, Mr. Drucker). But you want to use your commercialization team most efficiently – i.e., when the buyer needs help. Some buyers will engage the company earlier in the buyer’s journeys, others later.

The system must seamlessly accommodate each scenario/preference. If the buyer needs no interaction, they should be able to self-curate the entire buying journey. Or, if a particular step includes highly complex questions requiring human interaction, then the customer can quickly connect to an expert to gain clarity. The commercialization function will allow buyers to seamlessly go from digital to live and back to digital – as their needs and preferences dictate. The easier a company makes the consumption of this information, the deeper the customer engagement.

Technology Enabled

Over the past decade, there has been an aggressive development of marketing technologies that are accelerating this transformation. You see this in marketing automation and customer relationship management solutions moving in this direction. But these platforms are still built around the old world of “selling” – they have not fully committed to the buyer yet.

Today, there is no one solution for the entire commercialization function. Until there is, we see some bright spots on the horizon. Solutions are emerging that are buyer-centric, deliver precision content tailored to each step of the buyer’s journey and allow for the seamless navigation between the digital and human-powered commercialization function. For example, startup Splashmetrics has created a platform enabling companies to build a self-curated buyer’s journey for their customer. Their value proposition is anchored in helping buyers buy, which is the linchpin in transforming the commercialization function.

Conclusion

Marketing and sales have always been part of the same commercialization function. The old, siloed organizational model is being replaced by a more tightly integrated, better-focused, and unified organization that is buyer-centric. New technologies are enabling this tighter integration, and the real revolution in commercialization is just starting. The benefits of this evolution will be lower customer acquisition costs, reduced organizational complexity and a better customer buying experience.

Author’s Note

I think this is a big topic that is not well suited to just one article. In future articles, I will go more deeply into the following topics:

·????? The Buyer’s Journey – What is it?

·????? The New Role of Sales

·????? Know Your Customer and What They Want