B2B Sales has changed for the better in spite of the fact that 2020 was a challenging year in several ways. The change has mostly come through some mighty lessons that 2020 has left for all of us to learn and grow from there. Some of the adjustments which had to be done has actually elevated sales results and helped organizations generate revenue. Communication with customers has now become more personalized and sales can now be done from anywhere, anytime crossing all the boundaries and limitations of time zones, regions and even in the absence of face to face events.
Sales- Anywhere, anytime:
In the absence of face to face events, in person meetings, setting up in person appointments etc. there was a lot of apprehension and marketers were doubtful whether going totally virtual would really work for b2b sales.
After adopting virtual meetings, conferences and even work from home model, marketers feared that this set up may hamper sales. Organizations faced huge dilemmas and doubts about how to find leads, how to find best ways to nurture them without face to face interaction and that it would impact revenue to a great extent.
But in reality the picture turned out to be entirely different. Several organizations embraced technology, tools and went digital instantly with sales teams assimilating change and quickly finding out virtual ways to connect with customers.
This made sales more customer-centric with readiness to spend more time nurturing leads than direct selling. Sales could now happen from anywhere, anytime. None of the conditions or situation was a hindrance anymore. Inbound sales obviously gained more importance than ever before and sales and marketing teams spent more time in attracting and delighting the customer rather than running behind leads.
Reaching out:
One of the significant lessons learned during 2020 was the change in approach in sales. Selling mode changed to helping or listening and wanting to reach out more. This made more sales than actual selling.
Customers going through a major transformation too expected the sales and marketing people to understand their challenges and problems and present solutions accordingly. Enhanced buying experiences, empathetic communication with more human connection to help them navigate through change and help them make quick buying decisions is what customers expected the most from sales teams. These are some of the best lessons that sales teams learned; experiences that can be very well continued into the year 2021.
Importance of data re-established:
Data has always been important in b2b sales and marketing. But in 2020 one of the most important lessons learned were that data can give more leverage than just creating contact lists. Not that it want a known fact before but this year, data was also sought in the form of valuable customer information. Digital footprints of customers across social media proved critically important to understand buyers and their buyer journeys too. Data gave the much needed extra boost to b2b sales and in fact, cleansed data helped to shorten the sales cycle considerably.
Conclusion:
Nothing is impossible and at times when we are forced to adopt things we can get it right. Apart from the above technical changes some other changes such as resilience, innovative strategies aligned with the goals of the new changes and much more made sales more agile.