What will never change in sales?

Being in sales everyday there are a lot of thoughts spinning around in my head. Sometimes it's just better just get it out and this is one of those moments. This morning I over heard an dialogue and some of the things made me wonder. The landscape that we as sales people are playing is constantly changing and it does that very fast. Today there are several people/functions involved in a purchase decision and they are influenced by many around them. At the same time there are new technologies, new platforms and company structures and fluctuating economies that makes it difficult to keep pace with. So to be successful in an environment like this you need to evolve your strategies to follow and reflect the market you are acting in. This is the challenge for all of us in sales to keep up with and some will succeed as well as some will fail but ultimately sales as a profession and the fundaments of sales will rarely change. I have spent many years in this environment and spent time with a lot of sales people and managers and reading articles and books about sales during these years and these are some things that are common and always come back from those discussions and meetings that most probably not change or rarely change. 

These are the top 10 things according to my opinion that will NEVER change within sales:

1) Prospecting will always be the most important thing - Whilst the way we prospect may change, the fact that it will always be essential to sales success will never change. Whether it's cold calling, email, voicemail, message, letter, social media or combination approach, it will always be the key activity for sales professionals.

2) Those that fail to plan are planning to fail - The best sales people always do their planning to optimize and maximize their time spent on sales to balance work life and private life. If you don't plan your days, weeks, months and years you're inadvertently planning to fail. Progress is more important than doing it 100% right.

3) Understanding and knowing the customers Buying Cycle - Although it varies greatly with product complexity and market maturity, today’s buyers might be anywhere from two-thirds to 90% of the way through their journey before they reach out to a vendor.

4) Always Be Closing – It sounds like a cliché but whilst some sales people have gone off the term closing and prefer to use consulting or connecting, the close will always be the single most important stage in the sales process. Without closing the sale there is no sale. No sales equals no revenue.

5) Sales people will always have 2 ears and 1 mouth - Unless we genetically mutate in the future it's always likely that listening more than talking will remain the winning strategy in sales. Sales people tend to present the features & functions without understanding the customer’s real need and their “reason to move”.

6) Human relationships will never die - Whilst technology, AI and other things continue to join into the buyer journey/cycle. One thing can never be replaced and that's the human interaction. Some sales will become automated and transactional but some traditional and even new sales will remain based on human interaction. Most business is done between people in different ways and we need to cherish and understand that.

7) YOU will always be the difference - No matter what you sell you'll always have competition. Chances are that your products will be very similar and so YOU will always be the key difference in the buyer making their choice. Bring new ideas, new products, and new services to the buyer even if they are not your own. This means always putting the buyer’s interests first before your own. This will put YOU in a situation where you build trust.

8) We will always need to adapt - Whilst selling in itself may not change significantly the landscape in which we sell and the tools we use will change. The passion to change as an sales representative to adapt to the changing market is a very powerful force then those sales representatives that defend to keep it the same.

9) Rejection will never go - One of the most challenging parts of working in sales as well one of the things you learn a lot from is the sheer volume of rejection we face. This will never go, if you're not getting a lot of No's then you're not asking enough people for the sale. The more you decide to learn from it no matter how hard it is the more confident you will get to ask for the sale and YOU will succeed.

10) It's not for everyone – Everyone can sell and most probably we all do that every day privately and in business. Not everyone can sell as a job and not everyone can do it professionally. Some can get through playing safe and these are the ones that will end up with mediocrity. Either you have it or not there is no right or wrong in that.

Recently I attended an sales seminar and there was discussions on difference of how did the sales look yesterday and how will it look for tomorrow and what are the buyers looking for in a sales representative? The conclusion I took from that discussion is something that I will reflect on in my meetings for the future. Satisfied buyers aren’t in the market for any products or services so a transactional product led statement is a sure fire strategy for failure. They are looking for you to tell them something that they didn’t know already about a problem they didn’t know they had.

For those that read this far of this post I’m grateful for that. So based on a frustration earlier today and an urge to get some of it out here is the result of that.

Kind regards,

Joakim