Selling in a post-pandemic environment is far from impossible—but it is harder. Sales and marketing teams are facing lower budgets, burnt out buyers, and more noise in the SaaS space than ever.
Not quite convinced?
Deals are more complex. Between financial and security scrutiny, more integrations and more complex products, sellers face quite a few hoops.
Buyers are doing their own thing. Two-thirds of buyers prefer self-service over speaking to a rep—and most spend just 17% of their time directly with vendors.
Every champion may have a detractor. According to Gartner, more stakeholders are involved in the buying process than ever. Buying committees and multi-threading are the new norm.
Teams are facing a crunch. 92 percent of sales and marketing professionals think remote work will remain the norm; but 85 percent also say they expect leaner teams and fewer resources.
So, yes, selling is harder than ever.
But all of those insights have at least one thing in common: they only make selling harder if you haven’t taken the time to rethink sales. We have—and we’re ready to share how Modern Selling builds better experiences for buyers and sellers.
In other words: the fact that “old school” selling has become more difficult is a good thing for any seller or marketer looking to stand out from the crowd. It means they’re able to optimize the learning experience, buyer experience and seller experience with our new reality in mind.
Looking for more guidance on how to effectively prepare revenue-facing teams with the new remote, buyer-centric reality? Download your free copy of our eBook to learn the four core tenets of successful revenue enablement and how to prepare your sales team for Modern Selling.
You can get all the details in our eBook or read on for the three most foundational elements to Modern Selling, pulled right from the guide.
Get out of the buyer’s way: Optimizing the learning experience
Buyers now operate in hybrid, on-site, and remote environments. They learn about new solutions across multiple channels and touchpoints. Sellers can reduce friction across all buying channels by aligning content to the conversations they’re having with buyers.
The buyer is in control, so let them own their journey. We call this frictionless selling. It starts with getting your go-to-market team prepared with the right information then removing barriers throughout the selling process.
For example, a Shared Space or “digital deal room” lets buyers and sellers exchange information and collaborate without endless email threads and attachments. When it’s time to follow up with a buyer, sellers can lean on engagement insights within Shared Spaces to create a tailored follow-up that addresses any outstanding concerns and meets the buyer’s expectations.
On the seller’s end, it’s about making the most helpful content as accessible as possible—that way they’re ready when a buyer does raise their hand.
Be there when they need you: Optimizing the buying experience
More often than not, buyers recognize when a seller is reaching out with tired, boring content or a canned, copy-pasted response.
Consider that 85 percent of buyers will open a piece of video content, but ignore any other type of content. At the same time, sellers that break through email inboxes with personalized video content see 3x greater response rates.
Buying experiences tailored to buyers’ needs, timing, and preferences are going to be more effective. To do this well, you need to promote the right content at the right time, replacing low-engagement selling tools like static emails with interactive, visual content like personalized videos that engage the buyer.
“Producing tailored content faster and interacting with more buyers means we can guide the customer through the buying process,” Tjeerd Veninga, Head of Sales Enablement at MessageBird, told us. “It really is a partnership between buyers and sellers involving frequent communication across Slack, email, Zoom, and calls.”
According to Tjeerd, a differentiated buying experience is one of the best ways to stand out from the competition. And an exceptional buying experience is an interactive buying experience.
Give your sellers the tools they need: Optimizing the selling experience
Your selling team needs training strategies that go beyond in-person learning experiences and face-to-face meetings.
Think mobile.
Think digital.
Think on-demand.
Think setting your reps up for success.
As with modern buyers, today’s increasingly remote and hybrid go-to-market teams want more control of their training so they can learn flexibly, move faster, and sell smarter. Technology makes this possible through on-demand development, like live training, video, text, and interactive eLearning.
Sellers also need ways to follow up quickly and answer questions from prospective buyers in a way that’s timely, relevant, and contextual. They’ll need access to information for new prospects, existing customers, or upselling scenarios as well as a consolidated space to find relevant, effective content they can personalize to their buyer’s needs and journey.
A collaborative environment (whether it’s a shared Drive, group chat, or Shared Space) will help your selling team stay connected and collaborative. An informed and repeatable selling experience is crucial to ensure sales effectiveness. But repeatability doesn’t mean formulaic in the traditional sense—it means building processes that empower sellers to deliver the right content to buyers in the moments that matter.
Finally, video is a great way to encourage asynchronous collaboration across selling teams and with buyers. Capturing a quick video to share additional details, insight, or context is an easy, effective way to keep your selling teams aligned and your buyers engaged.
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Old-school sales is harder than ever. Modern Selling paves the way for a new approach to revenue that gives your sellers what they’re looking for, gives your buyers what they want, and gives everybody exactly what they need.
Looking for the four core tenets of Modern Selling? Download our free eBook—it builds from here.
