Trending Sales Strategy for Success – Walmart, Amazon, Apple and Google

You stay in business as long as your sales machine is well fuelled, utilizing the latest sales training, technology, technique, consulting and research for best results. The success stories of world famous enterprises like Walmart, Amazon, Apple and Google prove that the disruption in technology has touched every area of business including Sales. The emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, machine learning, deep learning, neural networks, robotics have influenced consumer behavior to a massive extent, and since consumers have changed, the way sales used to happen must change.

Analysts predict, based on statistical data, more than 80 percent of sales leaders don’t have the requisite competence they need to succeed in sales job under changing circumstances. Why is it so? Let’s analyze various aspects of what organizations and their sales leaders can do, what skill-building is necessary and what approaches can be implemented to enhance sales.

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Let’s understand how sales has changed with technological advancement. If you take a close look at modern-day buyers, you will find significant changes in buying pattern. Today buyers have access to surplus information which was not the case earlier. They may not be necessarily better informed, but they are definitely more informed. Though modern day sellers are succeeding in buyer engagement, only an insignificant figure of around 20 percent buyers are counting upon sellers to provide them requisite information on products or services. Sellers are no more the reliable primary source of information.

 

Buyer behavior is changing at stellar pace and sellers are finding it tough to cope up. Around a decade ago, it would suffice for a seller to simply meet a potential buyer, ask intelligence provoking smart questions to draw an initial draft of buyer’s requirements, then revert back to present them with a product well packaged in the form of the best possible solution. In the digital era, that doesn't work anymore, buyers retaliate you are wasting their time. In the role of a seller, you’re expected to inspire a buyer, not just provide information about your product and/or services. You need to provide a buyer with a perspective on something they haven’t delved into or even thought about, if your aim is to thrive well in today’s ecosystem.

So what it takes to inspire buyers to the point that you crack it? If you are able to provide data-backed insights that make them think differently, you succeed in creating a good impression. Once buyers start thinking differently, they’ll start listening and depending on you for information. Explicitly speaking, modern day selling is much more sophisticated. Sellers need to draw on their IQ, their knowledge needs to have sufficient supporting data, and they need to have strong EQ to help in relationship-building skills.

So why sales leaders feel there is a dearth of talent? Let’s take a look at the factors responsible.

First, high-performing seller’s profile has completely changed. Twenty years ago, the best sellers were resources with influential business acumen, who were good at initiating and growing relationships to multiple folds, and who asked intelligent questions. All of those skills are still priceless and highly valued, but in addition, an effective seller today needs that analytical spark to compel buyers to the point of thinking differently. Sales organizations are dealing with the issue that the sellers they have and the new sellers they are hiring, are trained in the traditional methods of selling, without methodology or analytics.

Second, sales organizations are making massive blunders when it comes to building their sales talent. Recent surveys of sales organizations prove that sales hiring managers consistently look at the wrong skills when scanning candidates. They look at past performance, they look for fit, but they don’t look for learning agility or analytical and cognitive abilities, which are critical in today’s high-performing selling environment and far better predictors of future sales success.

Sales organizations approach talent development as a set of practices rather than with an integrated talent strategy. To build out sales talent you need to kindle different aspects such as effective hiring, great onboarding, sales training and sales enablement.

In order to implement an effective sales talent strategy, it has to be owned by a senior executive and should cover a few of the following aspects:

•  Well-defined sales goals
• Clear vision for how talent fits into the overall sales strategy
• A data-driven approach to determine who are the best resources and why they are the best
• Behavioral, cognitive, analytical and predictive assessments
• Systematic methodology to source and recruit required talent
• A dedicated sales enablement discipline which supports both sellers as well as sales leaders through onboarding, consistent development and coaching
• Up-to-date job descriptions, competency models and hiring profiles for key positions
• Organizational branding, employee value proposition and other internal selling mechanisms

 

Why do organizations face issue with the adoption of sales and CRM tools? Let’s analyze the impediments, and find out ways to enhance levels of adoption.

An honest problem that we come across in its current state is that CRM doesn’t add value for sellers. It was never designed for sellers, it was crafted for sales managers and executives. CRM isn’t what sellers get enthusiastic about. You will not hear a seller thanking his CRM for winning a deal. Most sellers visualize CRM as an administrative overload that curtails on their selling time. Consequently, we’re still seeing poor adoption rates across organizations large and small.

So you need to make your sellers realize the value-add CRM has for them. And how do you achieve that?

You need to base the CRM around sales methodology. Results are based on the actions that a sales team takes on a daily basis, what they decide to do, who they decide to call or meet or demonstrate any product or service capabilities. What facilitates CRM or any sales tools behavior is an organization's methodology. Once you have the technology in place that puts a methodology behind your CRM, your sellers will find that CRM can learn from their actions, and augment their thinking, which will help them figure out what move they need to make next. Once the tool starts giving them answers, sellers start actively engaging with their CRM. Adoption goes up, win rates go up, sales managers get a better forecast, closure rate enhances, all thanks to common methodology.

Alone you may survive, but together you thrive and grow. So what are the parallel functions that the sales team ought to coordinate with more closely, e.g., Marketing, IT, Analytics, HR, etc.? Maybe all of these adjacent functions because sellers need relevant data, content, training, enablement and much more. Your sales resources are content marketers now. They need data, insights, studies, market demand and relevant content that go beyond informing a buyer and actually inspires the buyer. Behind every effective sales team is a content engine that’s constantly producing effective new material, new research, new industry trends, what purchasing now will mean down the road. For a powerful content engine yielding the desired result, you need smart technologists in IT team, for effective hiring you need to collaborate well with HR team and so on.

Last but not the least, a sales team needs to remain more closely abreast to the evolving customer requirements. So a sales organization needs to reevaluate its sales process and methodology as well as ensure that it’s adding perspective for buyers, perspective implies insights, value, industry trends, data, analytics and research. Besides, sales organizations need to continue to be in touch with clients, ask effective questions, find out from time to time if they are facing any challenges. With new challenges, new opportunities pop up and those determine what direction the business needs to go.