ASHER Top 10 Sales Trends for 2020
1.
The concept of a “unique selling proposition” (USP) is increasing in importance. If the buyer’s old decision making brain doesn’t see a clear difference between your company and the competition, price becomes the only discriminator. If your company has a strong USP, price does not enter the discussion.
2.
When companies are selling commodities, it may be difficult to develop a USP. In this case, using Simon Sinek’s “Why” technique is increasing in importance. Your company’s “Why” must be relevant to your associates and partners. Then your company’s “Why” will resonate with prospects.
3.
In today’s fast-paced world, buyers want to quickly understand your offering. The need to simplify the description of your products and services has increased in importance. Also, the need for a one-minute explanation video on your home page as increased Importance.
4.
For the rest of the sales based on overall value where buyers want relevant experience, good quality, reasonable prices and good follow on service, salespeople must use a consultative approach to win sales. Sales skill training has increased in importance for these types of sales.
5.
As consultative selling has become more important, the sales aptitude of the people doing the selling has increased in importance. Getting the right people on the “right seat on the sales bus” is more important than ever.
6.
Subject matter experts (SME) have become the real rainmakers in highly technical sales. Senior buyers and executives would rather deal with an SME with deep technical knowledge than a salesperson with shallow technical knowledge who the buyer knows is just trying to sell them something. For these technical salespeople, using an intelligence assessment is as important as a sales aptitude assessment.
7.
The salespeople schooled in the “Challenger Sale” technique using new technologies are winning business from the traditional salespeople who depend on their personal relationship with the buyer to maintain their position. Buyer’s will stay with the status quo (bias) unless you challenge them with an offering that has at least a 15% improvement in appropriate financial metrics over those provided by the incumbent.
8.
Since sales cycle times are longer, sellers can no longer spend time on leads that are not highly qualified. Therefore, a robust qualification of prospects has become more important. The optimism bias causes most salespeople to pursue leads well after they are no longer qualified.
9.
Most buyers remember two things from an interaction with a salesperson:
- A. Videos. The comprehension rate of our old brain for videos is 9000 times as fast as reading words.
- B. Customer stories (how you have made a customer just like them successful including appropriate financial metrics).
Combining these two concepts will result in powerful video testimonials by your best customers on your website. Unfortunately, less than one percent of the companies in the USA selling B2B have these powerful video testimonials on their websites.
10.
Buyers have been conditioned by AI techniques used by Google and Amazon to expect that salespeople should know what they want without the buyer having to tell them. Therefore, great salespeople are great preparers and great researchers.
