DRIVING SALES IN A TRANSFORMED
BUSINESS WORLD New approaches to actively generate sales could make the difference in achieving our goals in this changing business environment. (Lothar Stadler, August 2021)
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e have learned how to do business without traveling, without attending physical events, and with far fewer face-toface meetings. While the pandemic has not affected all industries equally, the major disruptions it has triggered in markets, customer behavior, and ways of working and living, mark a historic turning point. Digital tools have helped us navigate this changing world, and many of them will continue to stay with us in the future. It has also changed the way we will work in B2B sales for years to come. The history of modern sales goes back to the 1950s, where salespeople sold products out of the back of their car. Every sales rep became their own mini business, and had to manage their own inventory, logistics and finance. That worked because they covered a dedicated market, but it did not maximize the efficiency of the sales teams. Starting in the 1980s, with the beginning of business technology coming to the fore, the role of sales people started to evolve. While people were still out driving around, they were not carrying all the products in their bags anymore. Sales reps got out to sell more unique products to different customer bases, making them more productive. In addition, they were able to leverage order management technology to handle the logistics and financial components, which sales reps were usually doing in their cars on the way from one customer to another. The 2000s marked the beginning of digital transformation. The promise of new technologies should help salespeople spend more time in the field and with
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customers. With the use of software systems, productivity of sales teams was also increasing. Until recently, B2B sales involved hordes of vendors travelling on planes to their customers, doing classic personal selling, looking for partners, engaging with users, and trying to convince potential customers.
Changes in the business environment are pushing sales transformation From one day to the other, travels to customers and conferences, where we used to personally connect with prospect customers, were cancelled. Many companies reported not finding potential customers anymore in the usual way. Today, meeting customers in video conferences has become the new normal and also interaction with customers in B2B has changed tremendously. We have started to work with chats and collaboration tools. Many of these tools came from B2C sales and marketing, where faster and more transparent customer interactions had already been developed. With the lockdowns, B2B customers were also sitting in their home offices
Figure 1: History of sales roles (Source: captivateiq.com)
and suddenly confronted with new challenges. At the same time, they enjoyed the convenience of e-commerce in consumer markets, with the mindset of “If I want and buy a product today, I want it to be delivered tomorrow”. So it was only natural that, based on the consumer markets, B2B customers’ expectations were also applied to their own business. Today, B2B customers want to enjoy a customer experience similar to that on the popular e-marketplaces such as Amazon, Zalando, Ebay, etc. Thus, new issues suddenly emerged in B2B, such as being seen in a digital world, immediate accessibility and quick responses. Today, in B2B sales, we need to be quick with answering questions from potential customers. For answers that used to take us several days, we now need immediate responses. This changes entire workflows in sales teams and organizations. Preparations of standard product answers, templates and clarification procedures have to be restructured and rethought. Today, it is all about availability and rapid response. Today’s industrial customers learn about products on the web, in videos,
