Revenue will fall for B2B sellers who continue with humans in their sales process. 

 

Buyers will |are migrating to competitors (today) to ensure they do not have to endure a human in the sales process. 

Gartner – 72% of B2B buyers want a rep-free (yes, that is a human-free) buying experience.

Buyers have transformed – but many sellers have not. 

Let’s be clear – this is across all industries. If your business is currently using humans to sell, 

• Franchises, professional services, heavy equipment, commercial furniture, insurance, HR recruitment – the list is long – this is now at odds – with what 72% of your buyers, on average, want. 

This transformation checklist may help – tip – this is a transformation process – it requires specialist assistance. 

 

1. Sales and marketing combine into a new role of revenue operations (Rev.Ops)
2. The training and implementation of the Social Selling methodology across revenue operations – is critical – your buyers are online buying – now your business needs to transform to online selling. 

The test is simple – can your ideal buyer today – buy a franchise – confirm and buy multi-million insurance cover (insert here what you sell), executive recruitment,  only online from your business today? 

The best businesses of all sizes and industries in every country are reinventing themselves to Social Selling to win more new buyers from new markets – faster.

Social selling is a multi-decade-long trend – if your business is new to this concept, there is much work to be done.

Social Influencing and Selling (#socialselling) – this is where your ideal potential buyers online – walk towards your business rather than your business chasing them. For this to work, it relies heavily on upgrading points 2,4,5,6 points below. 

On average, an investment in Social Selling can return five dollars for every dollar invested. That results from a survey of 47,000 B2B Sales Reps across 200 businesses. 

Other typical changes are 

1. Current traditional sales roles will evolve into customer support, customer success teams, retraining for other roles or termination – overall, your headcount will likely decline. 
2. As online sellers – your digital assets will need to be updated to improve your business’s online trust, authority and credibility. (less than 1% of technology buyers trust technology sellers)
3. Your website must enable self-service buying and payment across your range of products and services (up to $50,000 at a minimum). Now 27% of buyers up to $500,000 want a human-free sales experience – this percentage is likely to grow. 
4. Your WHY – is critical to sales growth. Why should your ideal buyer – only buy from your business instead of your competitors?
5. Your buying-facing communications – content will need to upgrade to tell a bigger story than just your product and services. Your business’s future success relies on a strategic narrative and pitch at each step of the buyer journey. 

Strategic narrative and pitch replace – mission and vision statements – brings together an improved purpose, culture and overall performance. It is not a marketing document – it is a CEO-led transformation. It knits a common purpose across the workforce. 

1. Your marketing budget and its allocation will become more strategic – more critical to success.
2. Your online revenue-facing roles’ across the entire buyer lifecycle – will need ongoing training. 
3. Market research and data analytics will become critical to measure each step of the buyer journey and continuous improvement cycles to ensure a seamless buyer journey. 
4. Upgraded training for customer success teams – to solve issues at the first step. 

The overall aim of the transformation is to reduce complexity and gain consistency across all revenue-facing channels. 

• To accelerate revenue generation and improve the probability of winning more business.

Changes you will notice – Old hierarchical command and control approaches will disappear – the business needs to be faster moving – old organisational charts won’t work in the fast-moving world. 

Buyer-facing staff require a fully transparent, 360-degree view of the buying journey in real-time. 

Buyer intent signals from multiple touch points – all buying signals need to be engaged within minutes, not hours. 

Conclusion

It is not a drill. Your buyers have changed – has your business? 

The game has changed – strategic growth, strategic marketing, narrative, and pitch which, at its core, is driven by delighting buyers at every turn – uniting in a common purpose to sell more. 

It is a life and death challenge – has your business covered this? 

How we at Accelerate – help businesses.