Hint:

If you are time-poor, you can jump ahead and find out how to modernize your sales approach and sell more, faster now, right here.

Or, you can read on...

Back in 2018, and even in 2019, sales reps and SDRs may have achieved acceptable revenue results by reaching out cold to prospective contacts, ambushing them with unsolicited and poorly targeted sales messages.

Back then, while the economy was still in reasonable shape and buyers didn't push back hard enough, marketers could rely on their automation tools to reach out to large numbers of "prospects" (more likely they were suspects at best) to generate leads, while salespeople and SDRs could get away with lazy follow-ups.

These days are over: Your buyers still love to buy. But they don't tolerate being sold to any longer.

Even worse, sellers took shortcuts and resorted to pitch slapping people on LinkedIn.

You may even have experienced some of this behavior yourself: It's when sellers you don't know reach out to you, asking to connect with you, only to hit you up with a sales pitch next.

It's called Pitch Slapping.

And when it is done to you,

it feels every bit as painful as it sounds.

Read more about Pitch Slapping here.

With all that unsolicited ambush going on it's no wonder then that in 2020, buyers finally had enough. The pandemic made them reach a tipping point.

Suddenly, people simply had too many other issues on their minds, such as dealing with the personal, financial, health and professional consequences of the global pandemic, to tolerate being pitched at any longer.

Prospects are now pushing back on sellers. And buyers' tolerance for cold solicitations is completely gone.

So, if buyers don't want to be sold to, what do they want instead? To look at this point from the buyer's perspective you need to put yourself into their shoes:

How would YOU want to be sold to?

Would you welcome an expert who points out your risks and opportunities that you had not previously been aware of?

Of course, you would. They'd be doing you a favor!

Now that you are aware, would you then want their help to discover HOW you can mitigate that risk and take advantage of that opportunity? Would you now want to listen to them and discover what else they may know that you don't and what else they may have in store for you?

Of course, you would! So you see, it's the same for your buyers. That means that sellers now need to stop seeing every buyer solely as a means to achieving their quota.

The Solution

Rather than being ambushed by SDRs, reps and emails, buyers now want to be educated, guided, and advised by someone they perceive as a subject matter expert to help them make informed purchasing decisions.

Buyers now want to be advised, educated, and guided to make informed buying decisions.

Therefore, the role of every seller is now to engage buyers in a meaningful sales conversation that is all about their benefits and the value and business outcomes that your buyers can expect from doing business with you.

Sellers need to switch focus:

Stop focusing on what they are selling and on how they want to sell it.

And start focusing on their buyers and on how they want to buy.

This means that prospect engagements and sales approaches need to become buyer-focused.

Also, adjust selling processes to reflect the modern buyers' decision-making processes.

To hit your quota, you now need to upgrade and modernize your Sales Funnel.

What does that modern sales funnel look like? And how do you get one?

The Buyer-Focused Sales Funnel is a structured, proven, and scalable sales engagement framework that makes it easier for sellers to sell, and buyers to buy.

There are ten exact customer engagement points that are critical to your selling success. I invite you to a walk-through of these and to explore your sales potential in a free call.

How does your current Sales Funnel compare?

That depends on how modern your current sales funnel is.

You can find out in just a few minutes, just by clicking on the image below.

A car and family from 1898

Here is to your sales success!

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About The Author

Peter Strohkorb is the Founder and Principal of Peter Strohkorb Advisory, the international Sales Acceleration Advisory firm with a growing list of happy clients specializing in advising b2b services and tech companies in the USA, in Australia and in the UK.

Our motto is "More Sales, Faster." and that is exactly what we deliver to our clients.

Let's talk about your sales potential in a free call.

Contact

Australia: +61 (0)411 865 301     pstrohkorb@peterstrohkorb.com

USA: +1 (628) 246-1242     peterstrohkorb.com

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