The Sales Revolution
If you haven’t noticed, there has been a huge movement in the last 5 years to move traditional outbound sales to the inside. Technology has made it easier to connect, hold meetings via the web, walk prospects through the sales process and become more efficient.
However, efficient doesn’t’ mean effective.
As companies have moved their sales teams inside and the Inbound Revolution began they’ve noticed their sales stars were spending a lot of unproductive time qualifying. This created the need to build Top of the Funnel sales positions or lower level sales to pre-qualify the leads. This is typically a younger, less skilled and lesser paid employee that is charged with qualifying the lead then turning it over to the sales engagement team. Or whatever fancy label you want to place on the ‘closer’.
This brings us to the new millennial sales person. This evolution has created even more confusion for the sales process, the client, the responsibilities, the metrics measured, and realistic expectations for results. This movement is degrading the sales profession.
Top this with an ever increasing desire for marketing to create more inbound leads and we have a disaster in the sales department. What? A disaster? Yes, a big disaster.
Here’s the problem.
The sales process begins much further down the line because the prospect has reached out to the company in some way by responding to an offer, a webinar, a white paper, or maybe a free consultation.
Something caused the prospect to raise their hand and say: “I want some more information about this. I need to learn more. I’ve done my research. I know what I want. Just get out of the way and let me buy on my terms with my decision making process.”
And by the way your company may be nothing more than another research project for a prospect that doesn’t really understand what they want, why they want it, how they can maximize the products and services, and most of the time winds up buying from someone else after you’ve spent hard fought resources educating the prospect.
What is lost in the process is why the prospect raised their hand in the first place.
To further complicate the problem, the Millennial would rather talk with their thumbs at lightening speed, even with their friends and families, than have a real conversation. (No offense Millennials, it is what it is, and it’s not your fault!)
In most cases, you have executive decision maker,
most likely in the baby boomer generation being courted by a millennial.
The younger generation has not been trained properly or has clue how to communicate verbally, capture the attention of the prospect, persuade, ask questions, and create a differential value for your products and services therefore creating a compelling reason for the prospect to want to spend more time with your ‘closers’. For statistics and details to back this up check out this article by Dave Kurlan.
Then, the ‘qualified lead’ is passed to the sales closers. At best the lead is semi-qualified, and if the prospect shows at the meeting there is a rush to the demo. At best the ‘semi-qualified’ leads are 20% quality. This of course decreases closing rates and the need for MORE LEADS. A vicious cycle that spirals down and degrades the entire selling profession.
What you really want to know is how can I pre-determine the quality of the sales force for all positions. Join us for our upcoming webinar. Here we’ll show you the magic of sales selection.
There is no greater teacher than failure,
as long as you learn the right lesson and don’t make the same mistakes twice.
Hang in there Millennials!
Good Selling,
Rocky LaGrone
Head Coach & CEO