Sales is changing and is changing fast.
Tools and tactics that got the job done just ten years ago don’t stand a chance of enabling sales or closing deals today.
The digital world has produced masses of data that can be used to track interactions, measure success , optimize performance and to power faster, smarter decision-making. Just as marketing professionals no longer gauge success by the cleverness of an ad campaign but by data-driven metrics like associated cost per lead and conversion rate, sales is realizing that the traditional “art of sales” approach is no longer a viable way to outsmart the competition. Nowadays successful sales reps understood that demonstrating how their solution solves a business problem is not enough anymore. They understood that apart of showing how an offering solves a pain, they need to find a way to explain why solving that business problem matters, what’s the outcome and why they are to only ones that can.
Despite these new trends, many sales teams are still being managed using the “same old” values, frameworks and methodologies. Tracking a sales process in Excel simply won’t cut it when data should be aggregated and analyzed in real-time. Similarly, asking a Millennial to repeat the same call script time and again without giving him the power to make adjustments probably won’t go over so well.
The goal is to transition your sales team from being perceived as brokers of information or walking-talking brochures to indispensable enablers in the customers ‘decision-making process and the key is to get started with an understanding of how today’s influencers and buyers evaluate and decide to purchase something, and an assessment of how well your current sales team address these preferences.
First and foremost the sales teams need a mind shift, they need to understand that they must go beyond explaining how their solution addresses the customer’s most critical challenges and to articulate why solving that business problem matters and what’s the outcome. Secondly they need to be enabled, they need access to specific content and tools ( such as ROI calculators and business case templates ) that helps them in understanding the customer’s most important business issues and drivers of financial performance and helps them effectively communicate the value proposition of their offering to justify investment.
Felix Dumitrica