What can you do to change the way you sell – actually not sell!!!

Nearly 50% of Sales people are missing their quotas consistently – CSO insights

More than 70% of Buyers engage Sales people after they have made majority of their buying decisions – Gartner Buying process

Nearly 90% of Sales Conversations fail – Buyers survey by Forrester

 Now that doesn’t seem very motivating for Sales folks but then this is not a one way street, what is making Buyers move away from Sellers? Simple answer “Nobody wants to be sold to” therefore “You don’t need to be selling”.

 Huh!!! Then is that the end of the Sales profession? NO – ABSOLUTELY NOT!!!, it just means Sales people have to demonstrate a new set of behaviours leading to Value based Trust in helping prospects/clients make their buying decisions. Meaning BUYER ENABLEMENT IS THE NEW SALES FUNDAMENTAL.

Sirius decisions  surveyed executive decision makers and established that they value Sales conversations revolving around their Business, Industry & Problems 4X (times) more than what Sales people normally deliver as expertise on their own products/services and relationships.

What that means for the Sales person is to quickly develop deep knowledge and insights on expected lines as a task; The underlying change of heart! is a major shift of mindset from “I” “WANT TO/CAN” “SELL” to “Let me help you solve problems”. This requires deep empathy to learn/care for the client and Business acumen to connect the knowledge/insights with product/service expertise and carve a solution with which the client can do New/more/better activities.

Well that’s a major problem solved for Sales people. Or may be not because this is just one aspect of Buyer Enablement.

 Can you place yourself in this quadrant on the role(s) you are currently playing and the roles your prospects/clients want you to play. If you really want to play in the upper half of the quadrant, you will need some help in unlearning, relearning and learning some stuff. What is it? Well just knowing is not enough.