In the coming years, trends and developments will significantly shake up the B2B sales profession. Online will play an increasingly important role in the buyer journey, thereby changing purchasing behavior.
In addition, decision-making is becoming not only more complex but also more personal. This requires new skills and abilities from your B2B sales team.
Benchmark research
Naturally, as a team, you want to be prepared and be able to change course in time if necessary. But how do you do that, and does it actually work?
And do sales teams possess all the necessary skills and abilities for this? To see how far companies in the Netherlands have progressed, we conducted a benchmark study, 'Sales of the Future', at Kenneth Smit earlier this year.
Over one hundred leading companies participated. What stands out in the results is that there is a small group of frontrunners (16%) that is already responding very well to the aforementioned sales developments.
I'd like to share what they do differently so you can learn from it and your organization can adjust its sales compass in time.
'Research shows that a small group of frontrunners are already responding well to B2B sales trends'
Positive consequences
In the study, we compared the sales organization of the frontrunners with the rest of the research group, and this shows, for example, that it is structured in a much more agile and flexible manner. There is a culture where there is a continuous focus on change and improvement.
This adaptive capacity is not only the starting point for the sales team, it is also the accelerator. To keep pace with the significant change in B2B sales, you will need to outline a clear sales strategy, just like the frontrunners, with a key role for the online part of the buying process.
'In the leading group, marketing and sales work together more intensively'
Marketing supports
To gain more control over the sales process and to be successful in the earlier stages of the buyer journey, the organizational structure of B2B sales also plays an important role. For instance, among the leaders, you more frequently see marketing satisfactorily supporting the sales department.
On average, they rate this collaboration (sales enablement) with a generous 8, while the rest of the group does not score higher than a meager 6.
In fact, over two-thirds say that the alignment between marketing and sales is mediocre to poor. The difference is made because sales teams at leading companies more frequently receive the right support in terms of actionable leads.
Sales teams also receive adequate sales information and relevant content to optimally inform prospects during the purchasing process so that they are connected at an early stage.
Share content
A striking difference is that the frontrunners share relevant knowledge more frequently and successfully via social media (social selling). When creating this content – ​​whether for blogs, personal videos, or webinars – marketing and sales work closely together.
They then distribute this content via LinkedIn or other social and digital channels, depending on where the prospect is located. This is how you pique curiosity, create value, share valuable knowledge, and plant the first seeds in a prospect's mind.
Personalisation
And what about the more traditional way of selling with a phone call, a cup of coffee, or a networking drink? The trend is certainly that the personal relationship remains incredibly important. At the same time, attention to personalization is growing in the earlier, online phases of the buying process.
The sales of the future will therefore be an interplay of social selling and personal contact; both actually reinforce each other. I am convinced of that!
Download our trend report and use the checklist
Curious to what extent your sales team is already fully future-proof, or do you want to learn more from the frontrunners? Download the Kenneth Smit trend report 'Sales of the Future'.
Our handy checklist will help you determine whether your sales team is ready or whether there are skills and abilities that could use some attention.