The Seller’s Dilemma

B2B salespeople are in a pickle.

Some might even say a crisis.  
It goes something like this:

Companies want their salespeople to drive MORE engagement with buyers - send more emails, make more cold calls, book more meetings and do more demos

Buyers actually want LESS engagement with a vendor’s salespeople.

Salespeople are stuck in the middle.

The Inescapable Reality:

A vendor's salespeople are the next to last place a buyer turns when they have a problem to solve. (Forrester) More than 50% of buyers prefer self-service purchase experiences over sales-assisted ones. (Gartner) 
Therein lies the problem.  Traditional selling is at odds with modern buying.  

What Happened?
An inflection point occurred.  
As buyers easily gained access to the information they needed to make a purchase decision, they devalued interactions with salespeople.  
Buyers took back control.  
As salespeople amped up outreach, buyers neglected them in spectacular fashion. The bar to win a buyer's attention, gain access and build trust is higher than ever.  
Today buyers easily ignore unwanted advances.  Ghosting is a common thing, while in-person meetings are a thing of the past.  
This dynamic is only accelerating.  

The Impact Is Measurable. 
The role of sales has become a lot more difficult and a lot less enjoyable.  Salespeople are struggling to make the shift. Company sales performance has suffered.
The data is hard to dispute.
A deal takes longer, costs more and is less predictable than just a few years ago. Companies are hitting their targets, but they’re burning twice as many calories for  the same output. 
The more a company pushes, the further buyers get away and the faster talent heads for the exits.  It’s why quota attainment is at an all-time low and turnover is at an all-time high.  

Time For Change
It’s time to challenge the hard-charging, activity-driven, pursue-at-any-costs approach to selling. Sales doesn’t need to be less demanding, but the job needs to be more doable.  
The new B2B buying paradigm requires a more sophisticated response from sales.  
Less is actually more.

The right action makes all the difference.  A salesperson takes control by giving up control to the buyer.  Buyers engage when the experience is free of friction and full of transparency.

Raising the Bar 
The new style of selling is about supporting a buyer in their moments of need.  It’s helping buyers make better decisions.  It’s not pressuring someone to buy before they’re ready, rather it’s getting them ready to buy.   

A salesperson earns engagement by demonstrating an understanding of the buyer’s business.  They build trust by distinguishing one buyer’s needs from the next.  Salespeople gain credibility by proving they can solve a buyer’s problem.  They establish relevance by garnering support from stakeholders across the buyer’s company.
Salespeople who understand this style of selling are having great success in the new buying paradigm.

Top performing sales reps rarely have the most activity rather they take the next best action. 

Equipping Sellers 
In this new era where salespeople must be part-time analysts, full-time domain experts, create problems solver, content curator, collaborators and creative deal shapers - they must be equipped with support on-demand and enabled at the point of execution.  
Technology must stacked in their favor. Salespeople need a system that understands how they work. 
Enablment needs to enable.