But a lot has changed over the last few years - particularly under the influence of digital technology - and a real change of model is underway, which is considerably modifying the sales organization of companies. With one major impact: salespeople are going to have to move into "collaborative" mode!
1- The end of the unique sales-customer relationship
A lot has changed in recent years, challenging traditional business models.
In the first place, technology burst onto the scene, and shoppers reclaimed the balance of power they'd been missing: total control of the buying journey.
As we have already seen in several of our articles (The salesman is dead, long live the advisory salesman and Are your sales systems lagging behind?), most of the decision-making and purchasing process is now outsourced to the salesperson, via the Internet, social networks and peer review.
In parallel with this fundamental change in purchasing behavior, companies and their sales teams are increasingly faced with obstacles of various kinds. of different kinds:
- Customer volatility
- Longer sales cycles
- Lower average selling prices
- Difficulty contacting decision-makers for reasons of interest and availability
- Higher acquisition costs than customer retention costs
In addition, many products/services are now perceived as "commodities" under the influence of the multiplicity of suppliers: the best quality at the lowest cost has become the norm and therefore seems in the short term the only option for survival, although intrinsically unsustainable in the medium/long term.
What impact does this changeover have on organization and business models?
2- "Everyone is a Salesperson
The first impact is that these upheavals mark the end of the unique sales-customer relationship.
To caricaturize a little, before the changes mentioned above, the sales "go-to-market" strategy essentially consisted of asking "what size bait should I use?" to win customers and keep them coming back.
Usually, we had a segmentation of customer profile/sales contact type: telesales in charge of small customers, the field sales force in charge of the mid-market (SME/ETI) and key accounts in charge of national customers and more. This system made sense at a time when the sales representative was still the sole point of entry to the supplier.
Today, as we've seen, a customer completes most (57%) of his or her purchasing journey without a salesperson. They only approach the salesperson two-thirds of the way through, having defined their needs from the comfort of their own office, and in a much more objective way than with a salesperson who is inevitably the judge and arbiter.
In terms of sales organization, the approach of initiating the relationship when the salesperson catches the prospect's interest no longer corresponds to reality.
Nowadays, a prospect's or customer's relationship with a company is triggered well in advance (and sometimes even outside) of any contact with the salesperson.
The company's first "ambassadors" are often: discussion forums, comparison and evaluation sites, the supplier's official website and/or its official pages on social networks.
If the customer completes the entire purchasing process online, the efficiency of your logistics department, the clarity of your order tracking and the simplicity of your after-sales procedures will do even more to build customer loyalty than the relationships established by your sales force...!
Today, all company employees play an important role in how customers feel about their brand! This means they all have to be "customer-centric", aware of their role and mission with regard to the customer.
However, what has always been self-evident for salespeople ("pampering" their customers) is not necessarily the case for professions that are farthest removed from direct customer contact, such as logistics.
Hence the fundamental change represented by the entry into the era of "Everyone is a sales person": it underpins a real evolution in the sales organization model, with different professions working closely together, first and foremost marketing, sales and customer service.
3- Towards a new sales organization model
Today, as a result of these developments, companies are moving away from traditional customer profile/salesperson segmentation towards a sales organization built around the customer journey and its successive stages on the different channels.
Now that the salesperson has lost his or her role as the single point of entry for the prospect/customer, other functions will have to assume a decisive role: These include collecting customer data and generating "commitment", before handing over to the sales people in charge of converting the trial.
The traditional approach is vertical, siloed and sequential: emailing by marketing, follow-up by an outsourced sales force, appointments by sales and analysis of the campaign conversion rate by marketing and sales.
The new cross-functional, integrated sales approach requires tasks to be distributed throughout the customer journey: a visit to the supplier's website gives rise to a content proposal in exchange for obtaining the email, which may generate a newsletter subscription, a technical webinar proposal, a visit from a sales rep, the sharing of a white paper, an invitation to a customer event, and perhaps, ultimately, a meeting with the sales rep.
The marketing approach has evolved towards Inbound Marketing, and this means that the allocation of sales resources has changed: a large part of the decision and purchase cycle is handled through a marketing response, not a sales response.
However, in the current revolution, marketing has taken the lead over sales, creating a significant performance potential that needs to be exploited: using the leads transmitted and the information collected in a timely and constructive way to progressively refine sales tactics and therefore conversion rates.
4- Collaboration at the heart of digital transformation
As a result, new sales and marketing models must now meet the following challenges, and the internal organization must adapt to them in terms of skills and resources:
- Make the act of buying simple and easy:
Information and processes must be available anytime, anywhere, in any mode. Of course, as B2C companies have long understood, all channels must be connected, and the experience must be seamless from one part of the buying experience to the next.
Right from the start of the purchasing process, interactions should enable buyers to define their needs precisely, so that suppliers can provide the most personalized response possible, and respond precisely to their expectations.
- Delivering customer value differently
Today, virtual tools (online video, 3D animation, augmented reality...) are gradually replacing face-to-face sales pitches and demonstrations.
BtoB salespeople, given buyers' level of autonomy in terms of product knowledge, need to provide "advice" to help customers think through and build their projects.
- Getting to know customers better through a collaborative approach
Involving non-sales teams (customer service, after-sales service, technical teams in charge of deploying the solution, etc.) and sharing information via a 360° CRM tool around customers will enable us to collect rich data on the customer's life.
Reconciling marketing, sales and customer service is therefore a key factor in the performance of BtoB companies.
This reconciliation requires a better definition of each person's contribution to the customer journey, and greater sharing of information from lead detection through to after-sales service.
How do you perceive these changes in your business? Have you modified your internal organization and the distribution of sales effort?
