Fifth annual State of Sales report by LinkedIn which was released in July 2021 emphasizes virtual sales and its future.
It looks to the world of sales leaders and the other professionals that the way the world was selling before 2020, may not happen ever again because a lot of it has changed in the past few months.
Probably, it was inevitable and the pandemic certainly looks like a catalyst to this transformation.
Digging deep into this report which talks about the 7 trends which may shape the future of selling.
This report is backed by the information gathered out of surveying 400 sellers and 400 buyers and interviewing dozens of sales leaders.
These insights will help you as a sales leader or a sales professional to prepare futuristically for your journey ahead in sales.
The seven trends are:
State of Sales 2021 Trend # 1. Virtual selling is good for sellers and even better for buyers.
Virtual selling is now the norm
Since March 2020, virtual selling has been the only way of selling globally.
Many traditional sales practices like in-person meetings, traveling, etc became non-existent for a few weeks. And even when it resumed, it was definitely not like the way it used to be.
And with almost no notice or preparation, sellers and buyers embraced virtual selling to move on.
“What COVID has done is really exposed companies to the fact that digital selling is such a critical part of their business and has made them think about starting to invest in it. It’s been good to see them now necessary adoption of a practice that should have been standard all along.” – Samantha McKenna Founder, #samsales
Buyers have gone remote
On LinkedIn, the remote job postings saw a 5X growth since the start of March 2020 and the buyers have also reached virtually most of time. 64% of the buyers from the North American geography worked remotely.
Upon asked, 70% of the buyers said they’d. like to work remotely half or more of the time in the future. And, half of them even admitted saying their buying process became easier while doing it remotely.
So it is clear that virtual selling is making the buyer’s life easier.
“COVID has, obviously, forced a lot of people to sell virtually, but it’s a trend that’s been happening for a while. Like a lot of exponential changes, it was happening slowly, and now suddenly.” Matt Heinz President, Heinz Marketing
Will in-person events stage a comeback?
Events are one such aspect of the sales world that has probably seen one of the greatest impacts due to the COVID pandemic.
And they will find it extremely hard to pull the visitors in any geography or from any profession.
A note from LinkedIn’s State of Sales 2021 says – “Ninety percent of buyers responding to our survey have used industry events and conferences to meet salespeople and scope products, but almost three in five (59%) say they won’t return to events until at least the second half of 2021.”
When half of the salespeople participating in LinkedIn’s survey say that they closed deals worth US$ 500,000 or more virtual or without even meeting the buyer in person then the earlier tradition of handshake for the dealmaking is now transforming forever.
“Sellers will go back to face-to-face meetings but not remotely close to pre-pandemic levels. Digital transformation was coming no matter what. COVID-19 just accelerated everything. In other words, digital transformation is here to stay.” – Craig Rosenberg, Distinguished VP-Analyst at Gartner
State of Sales 2021 Trend # 2: Sales organizations and managers must adjust to a remote working world — now.
The world of work is changing
It was inevitable when the world witnessed the pandemic and with the availability of the required resources, the possibilities of working remotely had to be explored.
In the previous edition of LinkedIn’s State of Sales, it was said that 70% of sales managers agreed that the capability to handle change was more important in their job than it was 5 years ago, today that figure has increased to 86%.
About 50% of sales professionals say that transformation is needed in
1. Measuring the sales process and their outcomes
2. Bringing new technologies
3. Sales hiring
Remote work is on the rise
You may not be surprised by the fact that the no. of remote sales jobs posting on LinkedIn was exceedingly high in 2020.
5X times was the change between July and September 2020, compared to the same time in 2019.
Overall, more and more sales professionals were found working remotely half of the time or more since 2020.
It is also a fact both sales leaders and sales professionals think that the transition to remote work was challenging but most of them also believe that this is what the future is.
“Historically, sales have been an in-person culture. However, the in-person culture, customer calls, and customer dinners disappeared overnight, leaving those who required adult supervision in the dust. Alternatively, the sales professionals who are thriving today are independent and self-motivated. Overall, COVID caused sales to mature and increased the expectations placed on a sales team.” says Sahil Mansuri, CEO of Bravado.
And to take care of this remote work transformation, the number of sales operations professionals increased too, about 4.8X times faster growth of Sales Ops was observed, compared to the overall growth of the sales department as a whole.
Similarly, customer success and sales enablement grew 200% each, in the last two years.
Sales organizations need to diversify
LinkedIn’s data and interviews with sales leaders also indicate that the sales hiring may change in two crucial ways –
1. Sales leaders can now hire sales reps virtually anywhere
2. Sales leaders can make their teams more diverse across gender, location, and other characteristics.
Surprisingly, 4 out of 5 buyers hinted towards buying from a more diverse sales teams, provided everything else was equal.
Undoubtedly, the world is becoming more open to diversification, culture enhancement, and being more global and inclusive.
“You can really go where your talent is. Even if you don’t have an office in Louisville or Austin or Sacramento, you can hire people from there and bring incredible talent to your organization.” Samantha McKenna Founder, #Samsales
State of Sales 2021 Trend # 3: Sales organizations are preventing sellers from putting buyers first.
65% of Sellers say that they are putting the buyers first. But only 23% of the buyers agree to that.
“The selling process has changed to the buying process, is the best way I can put it.” Ed Calnan Chief Revenue Officer, Seismic
Putting the buyer first is now a must.
As the pandemic struck, the salespeople were meant to put the buyers’ condition on priority by considering their economic, health and emotional conditions first, than selling.
The information about the product on the internet made a huge difference for the buyers because they wanted the freedom and space to recognize and research the products and services of their needs.
The disconnect over Buyer First
When there is a huge difference between the sellers’ perception and the buyers’ about the ‘buyers first’ approach, there is a disconnect for sure.
LinkedIn’s data indicates that sales organizations are putting up barriers preventing their own sellers from serving buyers’ needs.
The Buyer-First behavior practice data says
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Providing free and easy access to product reviews and other content
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Staying actively engaged after the sale to ensure value delivery
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Being completely transparent about pricing
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Recommending different products/companies if your product doesn’t fit the buyer’s needs
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Aligning with the buyer’s success metrics related to the purchase
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Offering product tests, training, and trials
The barriers to Buyer First
Top 6 roadblocks that salespeople identified that exist while building a ‘Buyer First’ organization –
1. Lack of the right skillset among existing sales talent
2. The emphasis on meeting short-term sales/ revenue goals
3. Limited budgets
4. Limited commitment to training
5. Inadequate coaching
6. Organizational culture
State of Sales 2021 Trend # 4: These 6 sales behaviors are killing deals.
Quickly, let us dive in to understand what factors can help the salespeople.
When asked what factors would make them more likely to buy from the sellers, the 5 most mentioned factors from the buyers were –
1. If the sales professional works for a company with a strong professional brand
2. If the sales professional offers favorable pricing
3. If the sales professional is informed about the buyer’s company and business needs
4. If the buyer has a favorable impression of the sales professional
5. If the sales professional is referred or recommended to the buyer by someone in their professional network
Sales professionals are taking note that factors according to them that turn off the buyers are:
1. Misleading information
2. Engaging in cold outreach repeatedly
3. Lack of personal messaging
4. Don’t trust the brand
5. Never heard of the brand
And if we analyze both, seller and buyer perceptions then ‘misleading information’, ‘brand trust’, and ‘too many outreaches’ is something which is definitely taking the sales reps away from the ‘Buyers First’ philosophy.
Hence, the sales leaders must ensure that they find a solution to this.
And considering the buyer’s data, salespeople have been missing the importance of ‘understanding the buyer company and needs’ and ‘being prepared about knowing their product and other details thoroughly’ and also ‘understanding the competitor landscape’.
Moreover, it is the sales leadership’s responsibility in terms of empowering the reps with the right knowledge and also implementing a process where every reps ensure spending time around understanding every organization and their needs before and during prospecting them.
State of Sales 2021 Trend # 5: Sales technology provides the key pathway to building trust.
77% of sales professionals say that their organizations plan to invest in more sales intelligence tools.
The importance of trust
Only 40% of buyers say that salespeople are trustworthy.
Also, buyers agree that trust associated with the salesman is one of the biggest reasons of doing business with them.
Along with trust, buyers rate ‘transparency’ as the second biggest reason.
Before the pandemic, the salespeople were able to build trust with in-person meetings or introductions during the events. But after the pandemic things have changed and they can leverage the power of technology to understand the buyer behaviors and wants and accordingly plan their outreach.
Sales technology helps sales pros build trust
70% of the survey respondents said LinkedIn that sales technology is crucial for them to close deals.
The investments in CRM, Sales Intelligence, and Sales Enablement tools is expected to increase in the coming 6 to 12 months which speaks the importance of technology for the salespeople, after the start of the pandemic.
“Top-performing salespeople are willing to take the leap of faith and embrace new technologies in order to educate and engage with prospects and customers. This is key as more millennials now begin to enter the job market; these individuals have a new way of communicating. Salespeople need to change their ways and embrace new technologies or face being left behind.” Paul Lewis Global Social, Digital Marketing, and Sales Enablement Lead, Pitney Bowes
State of Sales 2021 Trend # 6: For sales organizations, data is more crucial than ever.
For sales orgs, data has become table stakes
According to a study by LinkedIn, there are top 5 uses of data within a sales organization:
1. To select accounts to target
2. To select industries to target
3. To assess the performance
4. To select geolocations to target
5. To define the buying committee
But, data is only as good as its source.
53% of sellers say that they are very confident in their CRM data.
But as we all know that every CRM data has a shelf life and the worst part – it is unpredictable.
Almost 25% of buyers change roles every year. This means, your data will be only 75% accurate during the next year same time. And only about 50% accurate the following year.
To most of the sales pros, the completeness, and accuracy of data matter a lot.
And that is where their challenges are when it comes to data.
Sales performance metrics are shifting.
Surprisingly this year, the top metric used to measure a salesperson’s performance is “Activity quantity”
Instead of prioritizing sales quota, leadership lately has started prioritizing activity and customer satisfaction when it comes to performance measurement.
State of Sales 2021 Trend # 7: Buyers and sellers are ramping up their use of LinkedIn
Maybe we saw it coming as the pandemic began. But believe me, a lot of us were not very sure that the world will adapt to LinkedIn so well, so fast, and with so much consistency.
“Once you show someone how their LinkedIn profile can become a sales tool that’s working seven days a week, 24 hours a day attracting customers, you just need to get them started.” Alejandro Cabral Global Digital Sales Transformation Leader, Kimberly Clark Professional
As the pandemic started, both buyers and sellers experienced that LinkedIn is a highly reliable platform and they reciprocated too.
More than half of the sellers are inclined towards writing content (updates/ articles) on LinkedIn.
And 36% agreed they share updates from their company’s page.
Whereas 34% say they are interacting MORE through likes, comments, and sharing.
Above all, ‘self-baught’ sales navigator licenses have significantly increased.
59% of Fortune 500 companies are LinkedIn sales, navigator users.
On the buyers side, 82% of buyers are more likely to buy from a salesperson with an informative LinkedIn profile. Now that’s the rise of power of personal branding.
With the relevant and the survey facts, it is clear that adapting to the digitalization and wisely balancing the remote work, while upgrading the technology and implementing your ‘buyer first’ approach will immensely help your sales teams achieve more.
For us at PipeBagger, the State of Sales report is always a very insightful tool.
We also love discussing about the trends in sales, challenges and their solutions, and if you have anything to share then simply drop your thoughts or queries in the comments below and we’d love to jump into the discussion there or over a virtual coffee 🙂
You can also follow #UnstoppableSales on LinkedIn where you can find some more insightful posts around sales, demand generation, and LinkedIn marketing.
