21st Century Sales - 3 BIG Ideas During early November 2014 I attended a course at Henley Business School on 'Social Selling with LinkedIn', a Microsoft event; 'Future Decoded' and a Callidus Cloud customer event; 'C3 EMEA'. This presentation is a summary of some of the big themes I heard from great speakers and organisations including; Accenture, Really Connect, Sir Martin Sorrell (WPP CEO), Jeremy Paxman, Shashi Verma (TFL) and Sir Bob Goldelf to name just a few...

1. 21st Century Sales:
3 BIG Ideas

2. The traditional B2B sales process is dead…
Offer…. Respond…. Fulfil….
Salesperson or marketing
department seeks out new
customers by advertising details
and features of a product or service
Once a buying signal is
given the sales person
“sells” the benefits of
the product to the buyer
The buyer
negotiates
a price, the
contract is
signed and
the order is
fulfilled…

3. …a new era for sales and the sales person
The buyer delays their conversation
with a sales person… they control the
channel of engagement, they research
the product, potential suppliers and
the market in great depth
Sales use content and context to advise
buyers (it’s not about campaigns). The
buyer is often more educated than the
seller on the product…
Sales guide buyers through a
process, the buyer relies on
customer feedback and
endorsements to reduce risk. The
seller should expect constant re-
evaluation and challenge.
60%
of the
Process
is here
NEED MATCH ENGAGE

4. “What got
you here
won’t get
you there” Marshall Goldsmith

5. a new era requires a new approach…

6. 3 BIG Ideas…
2

7. Putting
the ‘C’
back in
CRM

8. Putting
the ‘C’
back in
CRM

9. • Sales need active strategies for online networking; making professional connections and
sharing great content can give you exponential leverage
• 67% of 2nd degree LinkedIn referrals will result in a prospect meeting (whereas only 3% of cold
calls will)
• Content must engage and differentiate, you must provide it with no expectation of receiving
anything in return – talk context not product, serve the ‘non stop customer’ and let them find
your business digitally
• TRUST is the most valuable currency you have in sales, when people do research using Social
Media they are essentially looking to see if they can trust you and your organisation

10. Putting
the ‘C’
back in
CRM

11. • Customer Experience will overtake price and product as the key brand differential
by 2020
• You have to innovate the customer experience – transform operational processes
through digital technologies; the experience must be simple, available across
multiple channels and personal
• B2B customers are behaving like B2C – customer service is influencing the sales
cycle, create a fan base with customers and use it to differentiate with prospects
• Let customers build the product roadmap - use data to make products and
services relevant, customers are the “new” business advisors

12. Putting
the ‘C’
back in
CRM

13. • Sales leaders need to focus on the 70% of middle performers (the frozen middle)
and less on the top 20% and the bottom 10%
• The new era of sales is more a science than an art… you can train the behaviours
and strategies that can unlock the potential among your 70% (sales people are
born AND made)
• Tie customer experience to your sales compensation scheme – sales (and repeat
business) is more about successful conversations and satisfaction and less about
products and services
• 7/10 people will become disengaged if they are not held accountable for their
performance – make sure the reward you offer is influencing outcomes

14. NEED
MATCH
ENGAGE

15. http://uk.linkedin.com/in/brewertom/