Changes in the sales landscape?
How has sales evolved over the years? The last year has certainly seen a lot of change in the sales landscape. Face-to-face appointments were no longer possible, so we were forced to do our sales virtually or over the phone as much as possible. Not easy, but if you know the tricks of the trade, it doesn't matter whether you are sitting right in front of someone or looking at someone on a screen.
In this blog, we are not going to talk about the change in sales that Corona has brought with it. We are going to go a little further back in time to look at how sales has evolved over the years. Our Senior Sales Instigator Dirk tells us how he experiences this evolution.
Sales now and then.
If we look at 10 – 20 years ago, the biggest change is communication and certainly the speed of this communication. Another difference between now and before is the much shorter relationship you have with your customer or partner and that you now often have to sell the experience surrounding a service or product.
Yet I am convinced that for me the "essence" of sales has remained about the same. Give a lot of confidence, promise nothing that you cannot deliver and always think about and build long-term cooperation. Short-term successes are fun and are good for "one shots", but that will not help any company in the long term. Giving trust is always important and ensuring that it is always a win-win for all parties. It is often forgotten that people work with people, not companies with companies. The product or service is important, but the person selling it is just as important. The favor factor has become even greater today than before.
Sales or customer experience?
You have probably read or heard it somewhere: “Sales used to be the focus, today it is the customer experience”. Pitch, make the sale and move on to the next customer. In short, that's the old way of selling, but it doesn't quite work anymore today. Today, people crave simplicity and connection, but that lesson is often lost on salespeople. The worlds of sales and customer experience are intertwined, but salespeople often fall into the trap of pushing a single message to customers instead of considering the whole experience. To strengthen sales and create long-lasting relationships, salespeople need to understand and cater to the customer experience. Of course everything is also a matter of the product and timing, but in 90% of the cases it is always the experience, if necessary you have to create it yourself!
Fully automate and digitise sales?
Er zijn al heel wat jobs en departementen waar mensen plaats moeten maken voor machines en systemen. Kijken we naar een toekomst waar dit binnen sales ook zo zal zijn of toch niet. Natuurlijk denken wij van niet! Je kan mensen in een diensten omgeving – sales dus – niet vervangen door machines en systemen. De systemen kunnen zeker een hulpmiddel zijn maar ze zullen de verkopers nooit vervangen. Systemen nemen meer en meer aan belang toe, omdat de informatie ook veel groter is als vroeger en het allemaal veel sneller gaat. Om dit allemaal te kunnen bijhouden heb je dus nood aan systemen.
As mentioned above, we should not forget that sales is about people working with people. You often hear “going beyond expectations” in the sales world. Can a machine or system do this?
The future sales professionals.
When we talk about the future sales professionals, we talk about Junior Sales. The tricks of the sales profession can often not be learned, but come with years of experience. Of course we can put Junior Sales on the right track and support them with the right guidance. When we look at juniors now and in the past, we see that they often make the same mistakes as before. You shouldn't want to talk all the time, you should let the customer talk and as a salesperson you should therefore mainly listen and ask questions. Listen to what the prospect or customer is saying and ask the right questions to find out who they are, what they do and what they need to anticipate. What needs to be done more today is to REALLY talk, not via email but face-to-face or over the phone. Young salespeople are often afraid to call these days and that is completely out of the question.
Always look at what can help your customer or prospect, because suppose you can't help them but you know someone who can. The customer will therefore always be grateful to you, because you have solved his possible problem. Even if that is of no use to you in the short term, in the long term, on the other hand... Think of building a business relationship, that's how you do it.
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