Top 10 Sales and Marketing Innovations of the Last Ten Years

By

Steve Fawthrop

Originally Posted to LinkedIn 12/22/14

Last December Sales Benchmark Index posted to their blog a piece noting top innovations in the sales and marketing the last ten years. Additionally they added some comments about the downward trends in some aspects of selling. In general, the questions posed, to get you thinking, are good. Also, given a year has passed since they made these points, it gives you an even better standard to measure against the progress of your sales and marketing efforts in 2014 and how you are approaching next year. Let me highlight their post below with some additional comments. Excerpts from their post are in italics. ## Sales leaders have experienced a lot change in the past 10 years. Some have embraced it and some are still in denial. This blog represents a test. Look at the top 10 innovations and ask yourself each question below. Is your team embracing each trend or fighting them?

Top 10 Sales Innovations The Smart Phone: Are you utilizing content that is mobile friendly? Are you capturing cell phone numbers for leads, prospects and customers? Are your systems and training mobile enabled? The questions above highlight the versatility and utility of the smartphone today. They are focused on the use of the phone by the sales person and deal with content shared by the selling organization internally and externally. More consumers and buyers are reading messages and information on mobile devices. How well are you adapting your information for mobile? If your content is not readable in the format consumed then you have wasted an opportunity. Internally, many companies are looking at short videos that can be consumed in down time or during wait time as training and education opportunities internally and for potential customers to share product information or for customer service. If organizations would structure internal processes, like sales training, to be mobile friendly I doubt the company would fail to see the need to provide appropriate mobile content to potential customers. How quickly are you moving in that direction? The Tablet: Do you provide content that addresses your buyer’s market problems? Or is your buyer reading someone else’s content on their tablet?

The role of the tablet is not exactly the same as a smartphone but many potential applications are related. The tablet can be a more interactive tool in conversation in person with a client or prospect.

While many more smartphones are in the market than tablets, tablets have higher engagement overall and studies have consistently shown a higher level of use for shopping purposes. Also, since they are more expensive, tablets owners represent a generally more upscale demographic for consumer targets which may be important for marketing efforts. (Under “Additional Resources” below is a link to an Accenture report about mobile technology in sales.) CRM: Did you spend a lot of money on what amounts to a forecasting tool? Or are you driving revenue because you have gained 100% adoption? Does your team understand the value of CRM? Do you? It might have been simpler to pose a question around, "Have you clearly defined the purpose and application of CRM at the organization and individual user level? This leads to questions to measure if it has been sufficiently developed and effectively achieved. Social Selling: Is your profile top tier? Do you have a plan to connect to more of your target buyers? Are you getting referred to those target buyers? Or are you waiting to see if this is another fad? As someone who has personally been on LinkedIn since 2004—I was one of the first million members—I wholly endorse this point, but recommend taking it beyond the individual. Building a social profile through individual staff members and as a company, not just the sales team, is something I highly encourage as a value to companies, even small companies, through LinkedIn. I have a friend who is a managing partner in a consulting engineering firm with a staff of 35, including a dedicated marketing manager. They are a perfect model to use a companywide social selling strategy. They are small enough to roll it out relatively easily yet they can magnify their presence in the field in a way they have not fully appreciated yet. Content Marketing: Are you leading the charge or is this too much work? Is your content accessible, customer focused, and organized properly? Customer Aligned Sales Process: Do you sell the way the customer wants to buy? Or are you selling the way you want to sell? Buyer Process Mapping: Is your team able to spot where a buyer is in their buying journey? Can they address questions the buyer is asking before they actually ask them?

Buyer Personas: Do you know your buyers better than the competition? Marketing Automation: A larger percentage of the buying process takes place before a rep is engaged. Do you have visibility to what buyers are doing during this time? Are you making investments and qualifying based on how buyers interact with your website? Many of the points above tie into the use of marketing automation for sharing information, tracking interest and responding to buyer control in the process.

Whether a solution is via HubSpot or Marketo for smaller to mid-size companies or a larger scale enterprise solution, this is an area still operating at the tip of the iceberg. It will quickly accelerate over the next few years, especially as more data integration can enhance the process and insight and, thus, boost total value in implementation. Insight Selling: Are you differentiating early in the sales cycle? Or is your team still product pitching and commoditizing your offering? Given the high quality of good and services from multiple firms in any segment, creating distinctive value through innovations or insights will become even more important. The added value, including the human “high touch” of differentiation, will reflect a balance of technology and human interaction for winning organizations. You could argue that a couple of these existed prior to 10 years ago. They might have, but were not widely adopted. The best sales organizations have been early adopters of these innovations. They are stealing mindshare from you right now. Top 5 Most Obsolete Sales Practices Solution Selling - developed in the 80s when hair bands were popular This struck me, without defining what is meant, as a bit of a throwaway point. Every purchase or goods or services is ultimately to get to a solution to a client problem but, of course, it is not being addressed in the same way as 30 years ago. If that is the implied point, then I agree. If there is more to it, then it would have helped to be defined better.

Cold Calling-Using a more strategic approach is probably a better use of time. Given the access to information now, any higher value sale attempt should not be done blindly by a sales person. Relying on a PC – everything a rep did on a PC should now be mobile enabled. Productivity dips every time a sales person visits the office. Hiring for tenure and industry experience – the tenure scale has tipped. Being tenured can actually be a bad thing. Knowing a lot might mean wanting to learn a little.

This seems prejudicial as a generalized statement. I let the writer off the hook because of using “might” in the statement. It should not be assumed, though, that old dogs cannot learn new tricks. You have to look at the potential candidate for indications they are engaged and adaptable for a new environment and that, while they need to be on boarded and integrated into a new process, they have transferable skills, talent and knowledge so they can contribute to the success of the company and themselves. That is not inherently an age or experience issue.

Steve Jobs addresses the value of experience, when properly applied, in a Wired magazine interview:

“When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things. And the reason they were able to do that was that they’ve had more experiences or they have thought more about their experiences than other people.” People who lack the experience or ability to see these connections and conceptual overlaps “end up with very linear solutions without a broad perspective on the problem.” Closing techniques - buyers now have more control than ever. In complex sales, you don’t close them. You help them navigate their buyer’s journey to a logical conclusion. Absolutely agree although I do not think this is a new point, especially with more complex sales as noted. And for closing a sale in general, if you operate with a sense of integrity then you are not going to trick or manipulate someone or an organization into a sales commitment. What do all of these tell us? With each new innovation sales is becoming less about art and more about science. Sales people should be enabled with real time information at their fingerprints. If you are still in the art world, you are falling behind. If you fall behind the competition, it will be difficult to catch up. Innovation continues to accelerate and your competency gap as an organization is widening.

Additional Resources

Tips for improving your LinkedIn company pages: http://blog.linkedin.com/2013/04/11/top-10-tips-from-best-linkedin-company-pages-of-2012/ Accenture report looking at mobile solutions to help facilitate selling: http://www.accenture.com/SiteCollectionDocuments/PDF/Accenture-Selling-More-with-Mobile-Solutions.pdf Different marketing automation options reviewed: http://www.softwareadvice.com/crm/marketing-automation-comparison/ Sales Benchmark Index has a very good blog on their site covering all the dimensions of sales: http://www.salesbenchmarkindex.com/blog About Me

I have been in sales and sales management in advertising, marketing and media as a career. First in publishing, including with USA Today and American City Business Journals, the largest publisher of local business media in the country, then a shift into digital. My most recent work was with moment M, a mobile ad tech start up. I am also a community manager for Linked Seattle, one of the largest geographically focused groups on LinkedIn, with over 52,000 members. Other social media: www.google.com/+stevefawthrop Twitter: @SteveFawthrop

Other sales related posts on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/today/author/667794 “Trust and the Leadership Gap” “Six Buying Motives in a Purchase” “Losing Sales? Six Biases That Can Hold You Back” (from The Challenger Sale) “If Selling, Understand the Five Buying Decisions” “Am I the Last Sales Professional? I Don’t Think So” You can reach me via e-mail at: stevefawthrop@outlook.com or LinkedIn