This article has some great advice for all of us in sales and marketing.

The writer, Ann Sung Ruckstuhl makes some great points about curiosity and sales and marketing.

Ann Sung, talks a lot of sense by saying....

"Between 2000 and 2017, 52% of the Fortune 500 were bankrupted, acquired, or simply ceased to exist. Research firm Innosight has predicted that a full three quarters of the Fortune 500 will be replaced by the year 2027.

Whether you are a plucky startup duking it out for market share or a highly established industry player, you cannot afford to sit on your market position and past successes.

Startups need to learn how to blitz-scale and gain first mover advantage. Established enterprises need to learn how to sustain growth using account-based marketing (ABM) and deal-based marketing (DBM). Both need to learn from each other to thrive in the unrelenting new world of digital transformation.

Start with the most powerful three words in the English language: "I don't know." Admit that you do not know everything, and begin to learn best-practices wherever you can find them.

The world of B2B marketing has changed radically, and it continues to change.

• Buyers are digitally driven, socially connected, and mobile, and they have full access to research information.
• One-third of decision makers are Millennials, who view the B2B buying process differently from their predecessors.
• Twice the number of B2B buyers now prefer digital touchpoints over conventional sales interactions, according to a recent McKinsey report.
• Self-service is now normal, and marketing has become 70-80% of the journey.

As a marketer, you must be willing to remain curious, continually learn, and try new methods to stimulate growth. Since nothing is static, you must always be learning new skills, hacks, and perspectives. I would even say you should be willing to rotate roles or even change companies if you are not able to constantly learn new ideas and mechanisms where you are now."

Yesterday, I listened to a webinar by Gartner, well worth investing an hour listening to it here.

Some quotes from that are as follows

"We are see sales leaders shifting headcount to those salespeople that are digital savvy" 

"We are no longer looking at a bare minimum of virtual selling, it is now a core competency for salespeople today”

"the world is not going back to the way it was before, we are going to be selling virtually for a long time”

"50% of millennial buyers want a seller free experience”

"The change to sales today is going to have a permanent impact" 

"Buyers are looking for a seller free experience" 

"33% of B2B enterprise buyers never want to see a salesperson ..... ever" 

"we need to have a salesforce that goes to where the buyer is and not where they were"

"We also need to understand that they buyer does not want to see your salesperson"

"we were all given a break in 2020, I'm not sure leadership will cut us slack in 2021”

"Now is the time to take a hard look at the way we sell"

These quotes, let's not forget, these are from Gatner, these are not my opinion. 

Be curious .... stay up-to-date, be will to change, be willing to stand up to your colleagues who are not changing.

Sales and marketing have changed and we need to be curious as to these changes, sorry to say, but if you are still advertising, cold calling and using email marketing you have one foot in the past. 

And finally ... 

Late last year McKinsey and Co reported that its corporate clients experienced on average 7 years of digital transformation in the first six months of 2020 as they hustled to adjust to the global economic COVID disruption. 

Another way to think of that statistic is that if you didn't start transforming your business in those months you are now 7 years behind your competitors!