three skills you need in 2023

The role of sales as we know it will change dramatically over the next 3 years.

Here’s why 👇

There are two types of products/services you can sell:

  1. Transactional - fast sales cycle, low price tag, clear value prop, etc.

    1. Example: staffing services

  2. Complex - long sales cycle (6-24 months), heavy price tag, value prop takes time and conversation.

    1. Example: enterprise software, like salesforce

The level of live human interaction needed for both types of sales is decreasing and will continue to do so.

Let’s break down the pending changes for both of these:

Transactional products and services will become AI-reliant quickly. Staffing services, Wifi, cell phone service, or most retail products don’t require a ton of human intervention as it stands, it’ll only become more automated. Self-service capabilities are going through the roof right along with customer expectations to be able to purchase quickly without confusion. Give your potential customer all of their options and enable them to walk themselves down various buying journeys to a purchase decision. This is the future (and the present, frankly).

This applies to customer service too - 99% of the questions customers ask will have out-of-the-box answers.

From a business, leadership, and customer perspective - there’s not an overwhelming amount of value a person can add to a sales process when the purchasing decision is such an easy one. In fact, it’s fair to say that salespeople tend to make these types of purchase decisions less enjoyable with unnecessary sales pressure.

Wondering if what you sell is transactional?

If your sales cycle is 45 days or less, you’re in a transactional sales role.

This isn’t a bad thing by any means, but you should consider transitioning into a complex sales role or different function altogether.

Complex products and services will always require more human interaction because of how nuanced the offering is, but the volume of interaction with salespeople is decreasing based on prospect expectations as well as actual business need.

Ideally, we give a prospect a free trial with in-product tutorials that allow them to decide whether or not the product fits their needs. This is Product-Led Growth (or PLG). In other words, let the prospect get their hands on the product and salespeople, we get out of the way.

For many years selling an enterprise product required hours of meetings, 10-12 demos, and hundreds of emails exchanged over 1-2 years.

That’s all going away.

Buyers spend just 17% of their time with sellers during a complex purchase process. They spend the majority of their time doing research, talking with peers, and putting together internal task forces to help build a business case for the type of product they need.

Because they spend most of their time without us (salespeople), they expect to experience a B2C buying experience - and we need to deliver on that. If every prospect wants buying software to feel like buying a new coffee machine on Amazon, it’s on us to work towards that.

So, what does all of this mean for you?

Upgrade your skills.

Here are three skills you should develop over the next 12 months. If it feels unrealistic to develop all three, then you need to absolute master one of them.

1. Marketing - content creation/distribution, copywriting, personal branding, etc. Cold outreach isn't dead, but it's not the future. Learn how to capture and convert attention and you'll be in a good spot. Also, if buyers are spending most of their time doing research, that means they’re consuming the most relevant and credible content - aka marketing.

2. Technical Product Tours - I spent the first 5 years of my career in closing roles and am guilty of leaning product/service experts to tell the full story of problem > product > value and answer really technical questions.For those who want to become/remain a top closer, developing a deep and technical understanding of your product will set you apart from most reps.

3. Narrative/Storytelling - especially true for enterprise sales. Buyers have more control of the buy process than ever before and that won't change. You have to give your prospects an “internal sales product” to take back to their stakeholder team. It needs to get your stakeholder excited and needs to be a compelling story to anyone who reads it. Here’s a simple but powerful storytelling framework:

“Every day…” (platform)

“Until one day…” (tilt)

“And because of that…” (impact of tilt)

“And because of that…” (impact of first tilt)

“Until finally…” (climax of story)

“And ever since then…” (setting new normal)

“The moral of the story is…” (puts story into new perspective/context)

This framework is very applicable to sales and business.

Going back to the 17%, this Gartner research is eye opening for anyone in sales and makes it clear that traditional salespeople need to evolve their skill set.

Bottom line is if you’re a salesperson that’s built a career from being able to talk a good game and butter up prospects, you need to develop some hard-nosed tangible skills to hang around.

The game has changed.

Until next time!