The modern sales game has changed, and so have its players.
In other words, the buyer, the salesperson and the sales manager look very different than they did a few years ago.
Modern sales leaders don’t take after Glengarry Glen Ross anymore, and modern sales reps no longer resemble the suspicious used car salesman. What’s more, the internet provides the modern buyer with almost limitless knowledge — so they don’t have to rely on salespeople to tell them what they want to know
The Modern Sales Problem:
Statistics suggest that members of the sales organization don’t really understand each other.
According to research from Vantage Point Performance and the Sales Management Association, 44 percent of executives think their organization is ineffective at managing their sales pipeline. In addition, a report from The Bridge Group shows that only about 50 percent of sales reps make quota. So to sum that up, sales leaders don’t think their reps manage their pipeline correctly, most reps don’t understand the buyer and only half of reps hit quota.
There’s some misalignment in sales organizations here.
The Consequences:
If you and your sales team don’t understand modern buyers, you won’t be effective at selling to them. As the sales leader, if you don’t understand the modern salesperson, you won’t be able to truly manage and motivate performance. And if you haven’t transformed yourself into a modern sales leader, then you’re already behind the rest of the sales industry.
The Solution:
So let’s set bring some clarity on what exactly has changed our three players of the sales process. Here’s how to look at both the old school and modern versions of the buyer, the salesperson and the sales leader.
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There’s more: We pulled together the best 101 sales performance quotes from modern sales leaders in 2015. Grab your copy of this eBook to see what they said:
