If you haven't listened to the latest CSO (chief sales officer) webinar from Gartner it's well worth an hour. You can listen to it here.
So what is Gartner advising?
1. Get a plan - With so many people "let wait and see what happens" as there plan. This is Covid controlling you. While the plan cannot have anything more than an 18 month timeline.
You must be data driven, in this blog I explain what digital measures look like and in this blog I explain what the outcome of a digital sales project looks like.
"You cannot wing it as a leader".
2. Get digital dexterity as a team - Gartner says we are not going back to having face-to-face meetings with all of our customers. Your sales team have to get digital.
3. Stop expecting the sales team to figure digital out - Gartner see too many companies with a "digital hope strategy" where leaders that hope that sales people will work out digital. They won't.
4. Stop throwing everything at sales enablement - Gartner say that not everything can be resolved by sales enablement, sometimes you will need to get independent third parties in to support your move to digital.
5. Not everybody will come on the journey with you to digital.
Gartner also say that when you announce the need to be digital "some people will self select out of your organisation and you need to let them go. Even though this is a really difficult time to look for talent. You are better to let the people go without the digital skills you need to compete."
"You need to look in non-traditional places for the sales people of the future. Also don't choose sales people based on past experience. There is nothing about the past that is teaching us to sell today. You cannot just poach your competitors people. You need digital dexterity".
6. Gartner recommend that you start using digital metrics to give you leading indicators as to how the business is responding.
Gartner also say that the plan, must be data driven, in this blog I explain what digital measures look like and in this blog I explain what the outcome of a digital sales project looks like.
The parting thought from Gartner was that sales leaders should see this move to digital as an opportunity and those that embrace digital will be the winners.
They also said "Careers will be made in the next 18 months".
So who's doing this?
In case you missed it, the Bank of America’s Merrill Lynch have banned cold calling and have moved all their people to social selling. This isn't some trendy tech company that might have decided to do this on a whim, this is a very conservative financial services company that has made a decision based on data.
But surely cold calling has a better ROI than social selling? Not according to Merrill Lynch.
"They will also be encouraged to contact prospects over LinkedIn, which has a higher hit rate than cold calling"
The CRO (chief revenue officer), Richard Eltham of Namos Solutions, of one of clients posted a comment on LinkedIn about social selling. See here.
“Social selling is not an option now it is the way of the world and you either learn and execute it or fear getting left behind”
Kevin Murray who is the Head of Sales at MacArtney Underwater Technology recently posted about his success with social selling here and wrote an article about the transformation that has happened in sales here.
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