Salesforce has delivered a recent update on the state of the market based on their research with over 7,700 people in leadership roles worldwide. 

Salesforce provides software to businesses from startups to enterprises – from florists to Governments. 

The results provide a better understanding of the economy today. 

How to sell more now

Buyers expect sales organisations to show up wherever they are — on email, social media, and whatever emerging channels may come.

• 57% of buyers prefer to engage with companies through digital channels. 
• Companies report that nearly one-third of deals and revenue are entirely virtual.
• Companies use an average of 10 channels to sell to customers – email, phone, zoom, multiple social media platforms, website, and website chatbots, to name just some of them,
• Sales revenue from in-person selling is declining rapidly now. Only 34% of revenue is a result of in-person selling. 

Salesforce’s research results are consistent with McKinseys research. 

• The market has changed from face-to-face to online-only selling. The more online channels a business deploys, the bigger the market share gains. Customers of B2B ( and other business models) prefer omnichannel, regardless of industry, country, size, or customer relationship stage. In this order, potential buyers are digital-online, self-serve (social and websites), second remote human interactions (zoom), and the third person-to-person. 
• 70% of potential new buyers of B2B – with a transaction size up to $500,000 see little need for human – face-to-face interaction. 

It’s a problem 

 

Salespeople need help to show up with sophisticated insights for buyers – in person. Who often conduct research on their own before connecting and are very well prepared. 81% of salespeople say buyers increasingly research before they reach out.

High-achieving businesses equip their salespeople with what they need to succeed through technology, tools, training, or other support. It enables salespeople to build trusting customer relationships, opening the door to recurring sales.

Salespeople Strive to Meet Rising Buyer Expectations 

• Collaborate more across the company to help close deals with other internal teams — marketing, customer service, sales operations and other reps.
•  83% of buyers say they’re more loyal to companies that provide consistency across departments.
• Cross-functional alignment is sales leaders’ #1 tactic for driving growth, 

Businesses make it harder for salespeople to do their job – sell more.

 

Salespeople spend only 28% of their week selling. The rest of their time is on tedious administrative tasks like deal management and data entry.

The administrative jobs salespeople carry out. 

Anyone involved with salespeople will find that administration is the worse use of their time. (Many salespeople would bite off their arm rather than be part-time data input people) 

9.2% Prioritising leads/opportunities, 

9.3% Researching prospects,

9.0% Preparation and planning, 

9.4% Generating quotes/ proposals and approvals,

8.8% Manually entering customer and sales information,

8.8% Administrative tasks,

10.4% Meeting in person with customers, 

9.4% Connecting virtually with customers,

8.7% Prospecting,

8.8% Internal meetings and training,

8.3% Downtime,

Sales teams are drowning in tools: 

• analytics platforms, 
• account management platforms, 
• forecasting tools, lead management tools,
• artificial intelligence tools to support, 

The learn and churn problem for teams is growing. Learning and development training is vital and expensive – yet salespeople leave soon after. 

The sheer number of tools can create an overload problem. Two-thirds of salespeople say they’re overwhelmed by all the sales apps and technology tools. They want to focus on the human side of selling and less time switching from tool to tool.

Efficient selling, sales ops can prioritise their consolidation around features most popular with sales organisations: reporting, CRM functionality, and account/ contact management, among others.

94% of sales organisations plan to consolidate their tech stack in the next 12 months.*

Retention 

Salesforce reports that as of September 2022, nearly 25% of salespeople are looking or planning to look for a new job within 12 months. 

 

Nearly 50% were at least open to leaving if something better came along.

Salesforce reports that salespeople had a 25% average turnover over the last 12 months. (this is too high – the underlying causes are not addressed)

Salesforce has now integrated AI into its Einstein CRM to personalise clients’ journeys.  

 

In tomorrow’s newsletter, we delve deep into the next level of AI – Generative AI.

It is an entirely new form of AI media. It allows mass production of highly personalised, fully interactive and potentially more manipulative targeted content that policymakers, boards and business leaders are unprepared for – risk mitigation in AI and how to implement revenue at scale – tomorrow. 

 

Regards 

David