The Science of Modern Selling

In our digital world, how we sell -- or rather, how we should sell -- is undergoing a dramatic transformation.

What hasn’t changed in our modern sales ecosystem is the critical role played by the sales team: develop a deep understanding of a buyer’s problem or needs, and provide value along their decision-making journey. The problem is, sales organizations are struggling to deliver that value.

According to our research at Altify, 62 percent of new sales meetings don’t progress to a second meeting. The reason? Customers don’t see value.

The key trends driving this sales disruption, include:

• Digital Transformation – With new technology and new competitors, it requires a wholesale change in how nearly every industry competes and goes to market. Digital transformation is also changing what channels companies use to sell and service their customers.
• The Empowered Customer – With the explosion of data and access to information, customers expect a great experience from their vendors and partners. Often there are many stakeholders involved in the buying decision, which decreases the likelihood that a purchase decision will be made.
• The Subscription Economy – Companies across all industries are moving from product companies to services companies. This change to the revenue model means companies need extreme precision in their sales execution with new customers, and a maniacal focus on customer success to retain the customer and grow the business.

To compete effectively in the highly competitive world of modern selling, it requires us to apply a combination of methodology, strategy and technology to the process. In other words, to turn sales into a science.

At the core of this approach is to put the customer at the center of the business process, and to align everyone on the team to focus on the customer’s goals, pressures and initiatives. When every player is aligned to the customer and their needs, every touch point is an opportunity to deliver value.

For many organizations, the role of Sales Operations is the answer to ushering in this new sales environment.

Sirius Decision describes Sales Operations as:

“The critical link between the development and the execution of the sales strategy and go-to-market strategy.”

In other words, they work to increase the productivity or effectiveness of the sales team by reducing friction in the sales process.

Through cross-collaboration with Sales, Marketing and Finance, Sales Ops specialists can focus their efforts on sales velocity -- measuring how fast revenue is being generated,  how quickly leads are moving through the pipeline, and how much value new customers provide over a given period.

To improve and optimize revenue requires a detailed execution plan combining methodology, technology and process, a sharp focus on the velocity metrics, and alignment across the team to make sure everyone on the revenue team is deeply focused on producing value for the customer.

This evolution to thinking of sales as science is critical for all companies in order to compete in a time of massive disruption and change in the market.

Companies that can combine the science of selling with customer alignment will win big in the digitally transformed world.