7 TRENDS THAT ARE REDEFINING SALES

Executive Summary

Its been a great year for the professional sales industry. Not only have there been strides in the overall economy, sales leaders continue to make significant progress by advancing the profession with new ideas. In this eBook, we share with you some of the most dominant themes that have shaped the mindset of sales leaders in 2015. These concepts some known, some new continue to be tried, tested and validated by small and large organizations and have been listed as top trends by research leaders such as PwC, Forrester , Accenture and SiriusDecisions We invite you to explore these trends and ask yourself where your organization and sales teams are with them. Our goal is that you take a few ideas away and discuss them with your peers and teams. The most successful people in life read voraciously. Business leaders read to keep up with trends, foresee new ones and execute aggressively to adopt the ones that make the most sense. They do so to unearth million dollar ideas that theyre not aware of. We hope this eBook brings you many of these million dollar ideas.

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About The Author

Amar is a consummate business development, sales and marketing leader with a passion for social media technologies. With over a decade of experience, he has been providing technology and digital marketing solutions to some of the largest organizations in North America. Through a series of progressively senior roles throughout his career, he has been responsible for introducing and implementing marketing and sales strategies for new products and services. He was most recently a co-founder and partner at Right Spot Media which provided premier digital marketing and technology solutions in North America and Asia. Amar enjoys traveling, volunteers for causes that inspire him and is a graduate of the University of Toronto.

Amar Sheth Sales for Life Social Selling Evangelist/Principal

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Table of Contents

Introduction Trends 01 Big Data 02 Digital Transformation 03 Internet of Things (IoT) 04 Sales Acceleration Technology 05 Social Selling 06 Coaching The Coach 07 Repeatable Models Summary Next Steps

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Page Number Topic

Introduction

Its Never Too Late

Before we begin to discuss these top trends, we leave you with one clear message: its never too late. We realize that as sales leaders youre being pulled in multiple directions and that time is of the utmost value. The sheer fact that youre reading this means youre interested in knowing where the market is and possibly which ideas you can incorporate into your organization. Let that never be a reason for you to stop seeking new information and ideas. Its never too late for you to try unknown ideas and improve on the ones you may currently have in play.

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Trends

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2015 became the year of analytics and the start of big data for sales teams. Smart organizations began incorporating analytics at every stage of the sales process. The year saw an explosion of tools and software to make it easier to make sense of whats happening in your funnel. Analytics ranges from the entire customer lifecycle through to predictive analytics and even KPIs that empower insights at various points of the sales funnel.

01 Big Data

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Data is not only being found but its being acted on. The entire reason for analytics software empowering sales teams is simple: better customer/user experience. Organizations focused on superior Customer and User Experience are the ones often rewarded with greater revenues and customer loyalty.

High-performing sales teams are 3.5x more likely than underperforming teams to use sales analytics. According to Salesforce Research, 2015 State of Sales

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Skillset amongst sales professionals on any team are wildly different. The challenge for sales leaders and enablement continues to be having people march to the same drumbeat and proving out repeatable models that ensure the adoption of new technologies and processes. Its not just about using tools. Its about shifting mindsets and evolving routines to incorporate these tools. Training, therefore, was and continues to be one of the top trends in 2015 and one that will continue for the foreseeable future. As new technologies, processes and market realities sweep our industry, expect your sales team to need more training to keep up with the pace.

02 Digital Transformation

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Simply doing things the way youve done them wont protect your core. Youll need to expand on knowledge and truly seek adoption to ensure your market position and grow.

65% of employees say the quality of training and learning opportunities positively impacts their engagement. According to The ATD (Association for Talent Development).

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Internet-enabled gadgets like smart watches, pedometers, fitness trackers, thermostats, and sleeping monitors are now almost everywhere. These devices projected to sell 100 million units by 2016 are opening up a whole new world of datagathering and storytelling possibilities for sales and marketing teams.

03 The Internet of Things (IoT)

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When doing research about buyers, todays marketers and sales professionals rely heavily on subjective responses, opinions and quick feedback. However, subjective perceptions and judgements can make these exercises very unreliable. In the not so distant future, companies will use wearable devices to measure direct reactions of participants and gather information about buyers. The understanding of peoples behaviors will be purer and far more granular.

For example, an altimeter will inform when someone is in an elevator, flying in a plane, or climbing a mountain. Similarly, a health tracker will identify movement and stress levels, and an air meter will differentiate between indoor and outdoor spaces, says tech expert Cezary Pietrzak. In the end, companies will be "able to understand context and drive a much more relevant message, adds Pietrzak. Sales teams can't ignore this trend. They should embrace the potential on the internet of things and the customer-centric approach it enables. In doing so, theyll build stronger relationships with customers and ultimately drive more revenue.

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By 2017, the IoT market will surpass the PC, tablet, and phone market combined. Source: BI Intelligence Estimates

There has been wonderful technology innovation benefiting the sales industry. There are now tools to automate many aspects of the sales professionals daily life. The challenge, however, is that these solutions sit in silos. Sales operations and enablement often wonder how many tools they can invest in and how a sales professional can weave all of them into a daily workflow. So while 2015 saw many great point solutions to help accelerate sales, our prediction is a merging of minds and companies. Expect consolidation to sweep the industry while the techies determine how to converge ideas into true platform-plays.

04 Sales Acceleration Technology

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05 Social Selling

There should be no surprise that buyers are now increasingly conducting parts of the due diligence process on their own and without a sales professional. We believe more organizations realized this than ever in 2015. As a result, Social Selling training and tools saw increased traction. Some of the largest organizations in the world are now actively adopting and incorporating social into their overall sales process.

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Some of the primary drivers of Social Selling in 2015 include: The reality of cold outreach with diminishing results;

Increased pipeline and revenue generation;

Competitive advantage to stave off and/or increase market share and;

The ability to influence buyers when sales professionals arent present.

Accenture reports that 93% of sales professionals havent received any formal training on Social Selling at all. While some doubt the necessity of social. As traditional cold outreach methods lose their effectiveness, social will become a priority for sales leaders in the coming months and years.

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Frontline sales managers have increasingly challenging roles. While overall team quota attainment is the measure, many are still carrying individual quotas as well. In addition, there is a tremendous focus on rigorously managing and coaching individual sales Contributors.

06 Coaching The Coach

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The question then is, who is coaching the coach?

These are the reasons why 2015 witnessed an increased investment by sales organizations to better train and equip sales management. We fully expect this trend to continue unabated and dominate sales priorities in the coming years. EcSELL Institute fully recommends that sales managers have their own coaching programs and that they participate in sales training with their teams at all times. Knowing the intricacies is invaluable; it helps provide coaching and mentoring opportunities that drive adoption.

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The overall bombardment of information on sales teams continues. Technology and access to information is adding fuel to the fire. As a result, in 2015 sales leaders started to focus on uncluttering the sales professionals calendar. There is now more focus on increased selling time through proven and repeatable models.

07 Repeatable Models

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We expect two main themes emerging from this: 1. More sales leaders will go down this path to free up

more selling time. 2. Any sales tools/training programs that dont help with

creating more selling time will largely be ignored. Guided selling activity through repeatable methodologies can, therefore, lead to greater growth.

Teams that started this are already seeing positive results. This has been happening since 2013 when Qvidian reported that firms acknowledged 30% greater profits than those firms that do not consistently guide selling activity.

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Summary Ask yourself how many of these trends are help shaping your business today. Where are the gaps in your sales organization preventing it from greater market share? Remember, its never too late to start incorporating new ideas to take your team to the next level. Do you believe weve missed any trends? We invite you to share your thoughts with us.

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