Transforming your B2B Sales Team
B2B buying behaviour has become even more unpredictable with Covid-19 and as a result driving customer retention challenges for many organisations who have traditionally leveraged the sales function to manage high value accounts. A multinational client shared with us that their frontline sales teams were now working remotely as their ability to generate face to face meetings with their clients had become near impossible.
Whilst this trend has been disrupting field sales for many years it has almost definitely been brought to a head and compounded by the pandemic this past year.
Our data and research suggests’ that today’s buyer wants to engage with suppliers through digital channels at least initially. To meet this omnichannel experience for the buyer sales functions will need to leverage new skills and learn to execute the new technologies at their disposal.
The future of sales has been permanently transformed and as a consequence companies that want to be relevant in a sales economy tomorrow need to ensure that their sales processes are bookended and supported by a ‘digital’ engagement will all customers.
Research* suggests that B2B customers are leveraging digital channels for information and guidance prior to engaging sales representatives. In many cases respondents suggested post acquiring the knowledge they needed to make their buying decision they opted away from any engagement at all with the sales rep.
Furthermore, as buyers move more towards digital platforms to help them navigate their decision making process, they are rewarding those companies that have invested in seamless omni channel experiences, hence from a selling perspective ensuring technology is underpinning the sales process has become more critical than ever in terms of revenue protection.
Despite the enormous rhetoric around data and its importance over the last decade research* also suggests that most sales led companies fail to leverage data and AI capabilities to capture customer and buyer behaviour hence enhancing the risk at a relationship level between the sales representative and the customer.
“Sales companies that plan to succeed moving forward must move their cultures towards being the leaders of the selling process as opposed to being the leaders of sellers. ”
That requires a shift in the strategy and focus away from sales professionals as the primary and predominant channel to market and a move towards digital sales channels that are supported by personal human engagement at the appropriate moment for the buyer. In this new world sellers’ decision making will be driven by data, analytics and AI, not on intuition and experience.
A key shift for organisations seeking to transform their sales functions will be their ability to pivot to a model whereby they can be ready to engage a customer in whatever channel they are seeking to be served whilst in parallel having an ability to execute effective selling.
Sales leaders have an opportunity as we move into this next chapter of selling to help navigate their organisations by creating a roadmap that is focused on aligning to their capabilities around customer buying behaviour.
Simple considerations for transformational roadmaps might include:
Position your salesforces as the facilitators of education in the buying cycle
In a world where it’s never been harder for the sales teams to engage and influence buying decisions sales needs to be focused on helping customers feel more confident in their assessment of data and ultimately their buying decisions.
Focus on increasing the digital capability of your sales team
By focusing on up-skilling your sales teams and increasing their digital competence, you will be able to enable your sales team to sell more effectively across various digital channels and in turn be able to be more visible and present to the customer and their buying pattern.
Reconsider your GTM channels so as they embrace more digital engagement points
Moving towards a customer centric channel approach will force your organisation to stop being so focused on your own products and will allow you to leverage your customer lifecycle or value stream to determine the right time to engage a customer based on their need or problem relative to the buying cycle. This shift towards the buyer is fundamental and requires you to focus operational efforts on ensuring all commercial channels are integrated around the customer needs not yours. Taking note and acknowledging customer engagement preferences for digital, sales and self-service channels will allow you to reprogram your efforts around the customer.
Leverage your technology assets to drive customer engagement
Ensure you are using whatever levels of technology to support as much automation of the customer journey as possible. For example, using AI to execute basic sales tasks such as preparation and insights, to detect buying signals and predict business outcomes will be useful for both your sales teams and your customers will be one.
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Never in our lifetime has the importance of revenue generation and profitability been greater yet failing to accept that technology and readily available data has driven the power to the astute buyer in the old sales process.
The new era of selling means that there can be no separation between your sales teams, technology, marketing communications, data and analytics and all of the operational functions that sit in between.
It’s time to transform to the new approach to selling where every move is driven by how well you leverage AI to command the entire sales process and all of those who serve it.
With change comes opportunity and be clear the possibilities are enormous; but will only benefit those sales leaders who are bold and progressive enough take action now and transform their sales functions.
Moving towards agile workflows and channels that can engage their customers wherever they want, whenever they want will only drive a great connection to the new millennial buyer and in turn a great share of wallet for your company.
Looking to capitalise on these trends and plan your own sales strategy? Let us help.
Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au
*Source: Gartner B2B Buying survey 2018
