The Top 10 Challenges In Sales Today - And How You Can Master Them

I have been offering a Modern Selling Survey, collecting market feedback on the biggest challenges in B2B sales today.

More than two hundred b2b sales leaders have taken the test so far. At the same time, they have discovered how well - or how poorly - they are performing, compared to their peers, when it comes to selling in today’s challenging environment.

This article analyzes all the responses and reveals the answers.

You can now benefit from the collective feedback of your peers and take away actionable steps to boost your sales.

But there is more:

It also offers YOU the opportunity to compare notes and to find answers to overcome your own sales challenges by taking the self assessment, too.

Spoiler Alert:

The research clearly shows that the hardest part of the sales cycle now is no longer to close a deal, but to gain traction and engagement with a prospect in the first place.

Or, put another way, while it is easy to REACH your ideal customers, it is very difficult to ENGAGE them into a business conversation that is meaningful for them.

The hardest part of the sales cycle now is no longer to close a deal, but to gain traction and engagement with your prospects in the first place.

So, what is this report based on?

The data is taken right from my LinkedIn article on the Buyer-Focused Sales Funnel.

In it, I rally against persevering with the old, inward-looking sales funnel as it is well and truly outmoded and outdated now. In its place I propose a new, modern, Buyer-Focused Sales Funnel, that feels less like selling and brings benefits for sellers and buyers alike.

How do you create sales engagements that enhance the buyer experience AND make selling easier for you?

If you haven't already, discover HOW you can create sales engagements that enhance the buying experience AND make selling easier for you.

Discover what you can do to improve your own sales engagements right now.

Try this quick Sales Funnel Assessment to help you identify the immediate opportunities for improvement in your sales funnel.

Now let’s get back to the subject of this article.

Below, you will see the exact data to give you actionable ideas on how you can accelerate your sales.

Tip: For a quick look, check out the Take-Aways at the end of each point.

Here we go:

1. How clear is your Brand Promise?

This question is not about your logo design or your corporate color scheme. It is about the fact that people buy with their head AND with their heart. People often make a buying decision with their heart, and then try to justify it with logic afterwards.

In sales emotions matter.

So, it is important that we send out a very clear message to our prospects about our customers' experience:

Ask yourself: "How well do we articulate the experience our customers can expect when they do business with us?"

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Nearly half said this could do with more work

• Just over 40% said they have this firmly under control

• And nearly 13% confessed this is still missing altogether

The Take Away:

Only 40% of respondents have a clear brand promise that describes the experience their customers can expect. What a missed opportunity for the remaining 60% to stand out from the crowd.

2. Are your Products & Services well-defined?

This item is about how clearly you can describe your products and/or services to your customers.

Why?

Because it is surprising how many sales organizations have trouble articulating to their customers exactly what they are trying to sell to them.

Ask yourself: How confident are we that our Prospects and Customers understand our products and services right from the start?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Just over half said they have this firmly under control

• A very small number of businesses said it is still missing altogether

• But a whopping 44% said that they could do better

The Take Away:

Almost half of all respondents do not have a clear definition of their products or services. How are prospects meant to understand what they are being asked to buy?

3. How are your Unique Selling Proposition (USP) And Killer Business Introduction (KBI) doing?

This one is probably the most critical point here.

It is the one point that most of my clients THINK they have under control, but digging deeper, many discover that they are not quite there yet.

Your value proposition must be more than a mere motherhood statement, such as: "We really care".

Instead, it needs to be hugely credible and must easily distinguish your business from that of your competitors, and you need to be able to back your statement up with evidence.

Ask yourself: What is our Unique Selling Proposition? I.e. can we clearly state what makes our business and its offerings unique, and why a buyer should absolutely be interested in what we do? What makes us and our business different from that of our competitors?

The next question is: How do we convey that difference at the first point of contact with a new Prospect? Importantly, how can we express that difference in just one introductory sentence that makes them sit up and take notice? How can we intrigue and engage them right from our very first interaction?

Here is something I talk about to my clients:

How do we create that precious LEAN FORWARD MOMENT? I.e. the point at which they respond to our introduction by literally leaning forward and asking: "Tell me more about that"?

So, also ask yourself this: How unique are our USP and our value proposition? Do we have a Killer Introduction Line that creates a "lean-forward moment" for our prospects?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Almost a quarter claimed they have this firmly under control

• Nearly 60% confessed that more work is needed here (wow)

• And more than 17% said that they have none!

The Take Away:

Just under 80% of respondents do not have an effective selling proposition with which to attract and engage their ideal customers. This often creates a huge top-of-the funnel problem with insufficient sales leads and poor conversion rates.

4. How clear are you on WHO your ideal Customers are?

This is a strange one. Logically, you would think that if you are in business then you'd have a very clear idea which people you should sell to. Right?

After all, there is little point in engaging with the wrong kind of prospects. You are better off engaging with the right kind instead. Right?

So, ask yourself this: How clear are we on what our ideal customers look like, in terms of industry sector, size of their business, their geographic location, job title, their challenges, their opportunities, their ambitions and motivations, etc.?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Not surprisingly, more than half claimed to have this firmly under control

• But a whopping 40% said it needs more work

• Just a small minority said their ideal customer definition is still missing in their business

The Take Away:

Just under half of all respondents are unsure of WHO their ideal customers are. This often results in poor prospecting results and wasted lead generation efforts, leading to frustrations and low morale.

5. Do you know WHERE to find your ideal Prospects?

This should be pretty straight forward. Right?

I mean, once you know WHO your ideal Buyers are, you should also know WHERE they hang out. Makes sense, doesn't it?

Now ask yourself this: How well do we know where we can find our ideal prospects and customers?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Surprisingly, fewer than 40% told us that they have this firmly under control

• Just over 13% said it is still missing in their business

• But almost half of all respondents said this needs more work

The Take Away:

More than 60% of respondents are unsure of WHERE to find their ideal clients. This creates problems with prospect engagement, poor sales quota attainment and loss of market share.

6. How well do you access and engage your ideal Prospects?

Once you know WHO your ideal customers are, and WHERE you can find them, the question turns to HOW to engage them in a meaningful way that draws them into a sales conversation.

Ask yourself: How well do we engage with our ideal customers at our first point of contact? How good are we at creating that lean-forward moment (the one we introduced in question 3 above)?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Almost an equal numbers of respondents said they either had this firmly under control, or that it is still missing in their business

• But more than two-thirds said it needs more work

The Take Away:

A combined total of more than 80% of respondents do not know HOW to engage their ideal customers in a sales conversation. This is THE KEY CHALLENGE IN SALES TODAY. Ineffective prospect engagement kills your pipeline, waists your sales leads and creates an army of unimpressed prospects for your brand.

7. How advanced are your skills to beat off your Competitors?

Let's say you successfully engaged with a prospect. You are in the running now to win this deal. However, very rarely will you be the only seller in this race. Instead, you will most likely have to beat off any number of competitors.

So, ask yourself this: How good are we at fending off our competitors, and ending up our Buyers' one and only choice?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Just over 17% said they don't know how to fend off competitors

• Well more than one-quarter said they have this firmly under control

• And well more than half confessed that this needs more work

The Take Away:

A combined total of well more than 70% of respondents say they are ill-equipped to fend off their competitors. This results in too many lost deals that should have been won, unpredictable forecasting and messy pipelines.

8. The know-how of how to use a sales proposal process effectively to close more deals

In most b2b sales situations the buyer will ask you to submit a formal sales proposal.

How do you handle this situation as a seller?

Do you get excited and send your proposal out asap? Or is there a better, smarter way?

Yes, the proposal content is important. I.e. we need to ensure that our proposal content covers off exactly what the buyer needs. But then, we can also use the way we submit our proposals to maximize our chances of success.

Ask yourself this: How well do we know how to use our sales proposal process, so that we end up as the last seller standing, and we win the deal?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• Fewer than one-third said they have this under control

• More than 13% told us they don't know how to do this

• And well over half said this is still incomplete in their business

The Take Away:

There is often a degree of confusion between the sales proposal content and the sales proposal process. Sure, what goes into a sales proposal is important, but the way it is presented is also critical to its success. My clients learn how to gain an unfair advantage by knowing HOW to present their proposals. Do you know how to get this right?

9. Do you deliver a superior pre, during and post-purchase customer experience?

Of course, most businesses understand just how mission-critical the customer experience is to the success of a business at every step of the way. But do we really know how well, or how poorly, we are doing in that regard?

So, ask yourself: How successful are we at managing our customers' experiences when they are doing business with us?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• 13% said customer experience is still missing in their business

• Only two-thirds claim they have this firmly under control

• While more than 56% said that CX needs more work

The Take Away:

A combined total of nearly 70% of respondents don't seem to be fully focused on their customers. Is this something they just don't take seriously in their business? Is it a matter of culture? Is it a matter of leadership? Are the wrong KPIs and metrics driving this behavior?

10. How well do you do at keeping your customers loyal, at winning their repeat business and at turning them into advocates for your business who refer more sales to you?

The experience our customers have with us does not end with a purchase or a transaction.

In fact, their post-sale experience is critical insofar as it will determine whether they will choose to come back to do more business with us, or not. Will your customers rave about you, or will they rant? Is their experience a pleasant one that will make them recommend you to their friends and colleagues? Or is it one that will more likely make them warn people off doing business with you?

So, you should ask yourself: How do our customers perceive their interactions with our business at every touch point?

Here is how respondents have answered this question:

• More than half of all respondents confessed this still needs more work in their business

• A small number said this is still missing in their business

• And a whopping 41% claimed this is firmly under control

The Take Away:

41% claim they have this fully under control, this seems quite a high number to me. Perhaps there is some wishful thinking in there?

It reminds me of a survey that was done a few years ago by IBM. 80% of surveyed CEOs stated that their organization provided a superior customer experience.

Only 8% of their customers agreed.

Conclusion

So, what conclusions should one draw from the above?

In my opinion and personal experience, we can all do better to engage with our ideal prospects and customers right down the sales funnel and all along the buyers journey.

While all ten points in the Buyer-Focused Sales Funnel are important points #3 and #6 are critical to the success of any sales team.

Why?

Because in every piece of research you look at these days, they say the same thing: The hardest part of the sales cycle is now not to close a deal, but to gain traction and engagement with a prospect in the first place.

It is getting harder to reach your ideal customers.

It is a sizeable problem. I recently gave a talk about it, called: "Opening Is the New Closing".

Unless you can engage your ideal prospect into a meaningful sales conversation, you will have a hard time advancing a sale and close it out.

Plus, the fascinating thing for me is that points #3 and #6 are closely linked. Yet many salespeople don't treat them with equal attention.

A good indicator of that is when someone claims that they have point #3 fully under control, yet say that point #6 is giving them trouble.

Digging deeper usually helps unearth the disconnect: Without a great USP, a value proposition, or a killer introduction line you will find it difficult to engage your ideal customers and prospects.

Where to from here?

If you want to discover the opportunities to modernize your Sales Funnel, then take up this free Sales Funnel Assessment, and compare your results to the ones above.

Further, I invite you to book a complimentary Sales Advisory Call with me.

In order to make the call more meaningful for both of us, I encourage you to book the call AFTER you have completed the test.

Here’s to your success,

Peter Strohkorb

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About The Author

Peter Strohkorb is the Founder and Principal at Peter Strohkorb Advisory, showing sales and business leaders how they can accelerate their sales, now serving clients in the USA, in Asia-Pacific, and in the UK & Europe.

After 10 years of starting and managing several startups and following 20+ more years in the corporate sector I wanted a change. I had first-hand experienced the same old mistakes that small, medium and even very large businesses make when trying to accelerate their sales results. So, I set myself the task to develop and to offer proven, structured and scalable sales acceleration programs that deliver better results for both sellers and for their customers.