Death Of A Salesperson

Selling organizations need to reinvent themselves

Business has changed. You can feel it in your gut, but not truly understand or grasp it. We have been in this pandemic for more than a year, but we still have not fully realized our new future. Everyone clearly understands that Covid-19 has changed the corporate world, and specifically the sales world, but do we recognize what that means for today and most importantly, the long-term future? A few things that currently stand out:  
 

• Corporate responsibility is now a real and significant buying criteria
• Volatility is an expectation for business and personal life
• Individuals and businesses are questioning the status quo more than in the pre-Covid-19 world
• Social media and “cancel culture” create unprecedented risk in punishing mistakes, but also offer an opportunity to get ahead of trends
• Customers are more efficient in their buying process and are armed with more information

All of these realities have a direct implication on a salesperson – increasing sales cycle, more difficult sales, the decline of the transactional sale, the need for higher emotional intelligence in sales, and the list goes on.
 
Even prior to Covid-19, the sales organization was in one of the most transformational times of the profession – a digital transformation was occurring. Information was flowing faster, farther, and more directly than ever before. This led to a number of notable changes: the importance of global customers, the need for solution selling, and a move from transactional to consultative sales to address a more educated buyer. These selling adjustments would have occurred slowly, quarter by quarter, or year by year. Now they have accelerated and become more salient within a matter of months.
 

Unfortunately, in today’s world an organization that is not agile and visionary and has not adjusted, will not survive.  According to a recent CSO Insights study, 90% of companies report a significant change to their sales organizations. Additionally, 43% of companies report a significant change to how their clients buy their products and services. 
 
This change has created a need for decisive sales leadership and a rapid overhaul of the go-to-market approach for the sales organization. No longer can a leader simply manage a region’s revenue, expense, and overall profit. Today’s sales leaders need to hire, teach, develop, and evaluate their people to be innovative and resourceful in order to create a sustainable sales organization. This need is a direct response to customer demands. 

For example, we are currently witnessing the downfall of the direct face-to-face sales model. Customers are finding that a virtual sales model fits into their schedule easier, reduces the overall “cost” of a transaction, and better aligns with how they are currently working. 

Today, more than 1/3 of companies state that their clients have higher expectations for virtual calls than they previously had for in-person meetings (CSO Insights). This number will continue to grow as many more organizations come back “on-line” and realize their work can be done remotely today. Many corporate offices will remain at half-capacity and will most likely shrink in size as the true realization that the cost associated with office space is no longer essential. Conversely, the large travel and expense budgets a sales organization spent to marry up and deploy sales resources to these locations is not going to be needed.
 
The inefficient days of being on-site building a relationship, explaining your offerings, walking the halls and in many cases “wining and dining” to close a deal are no longer necessary. Your customers are located everywhere and will expect a higher level of service virtually than they ever expected directly.
 
As such, the sales organization of the future, is here today. Selling organizations need to reinvent themselves, and with that, new profiles and skills for talent are going to be needed. Interestingly enough, the people on the frontline of the sales organization know they do not currently have the skills and are begging for help. When asked, in the CSO Insights study, if sellers are currently successful at selling in a virtual environment and if they have the right skill sets, 63% of sellers and 70% of managers resoundingly said NO. 

So, Are Your Sellers Ready?

For today’s world, the profile of a successful seller looks much more like a professional services role than that of a seller pre-Covid-19. Account planning, and planning in general, is critical to understand the customers’ needs. Emotional intelligence is key to building rapport and trust. It is no longer an expectation that the seller is an expert in all things, they need to be a partner. Lastly, critical thinking and agility are necessary at an individual level if it is going to be represented at a corporate level. 

How Can Leaders Become more Certain that Your Sellers Will Be Successful in this Future World? 

Sales operations, including data and analytics, will have to have a greater role as a partner and enabler of sellers. Sales leaders and sales operations will need to work together to plan, execute, and monitor selling activity. The idea is to build a symbiotic relationship between your sales teams and your sales support functions so that they learn from one another and cooperate on behalf of the customer. There are many obstacles in the way of achieving this, of course, but having the right talent, sales analytics, and predictive sales performance models will help overcome these obstacles.
 
Additionally, there is a certainty that change will continue to occur – this makes continuous training for leaders and sellers another critical organizational capability. Consistent enablement creates consistent sales results.

As a sales leader, you cannot stay stuck in the legacy world. We are transitioning very quickly. Sales organizations need visionaries now! This may be the biggest opportunity any of us have seen in our business careers. The salesperson, as we know it, is gone for good. In order to stay relevant, we all must act quickly to re-invent.  

Joseph F. DiMisa is Global Salesforce Effectiveness & Rewards Advisory Leader at Korn Ferry. Visit www.kornferry.com  Connect Joseph DiMisa