Hughes & Co. is proud to be a partner agency with HubSpot and the time of year has come to review and learn from the HubSpot’s State of Inbound Report. This year the report included a quote that stood out to our team. It’s something that we tell many of our clients, but I am not sure that every business realizes. We often mention in our blogs how consumers buying patterns have changed and how businesses need to adapt and modernize the way they tackle sales, this quote lays out the why.

“Salespeople are a last resort for modern buyers”

THE SALES DISCONNECT

Traditional sales tactics no longer align with buyer expectations. Technology has shifted how and where consumers buy and has shifted consumers expectations of a sales call.  The top priority for a salesperson should be to close more deals, however more and more salespeople are finding it more difficult to close deals or even solicit a response from their prospects. What that tells us is that the gap between traditional sales tactics (like cold calls) and how a consumer buys is widening. 

When HubSpot asked salespeople, "What is more difficult to do in sales compared to 2 to 3 years ago?" These were the top five answers:

• Getting a response from prospects
• Closing deals
• Engaging multiple decision makers at a company
• Finding and identifying quality leads
• Avoiding negotiation and discounting 

CONTENT THAT DRIVES SALES

A big marker of this disconnect is that buyers want different content to learn from then what salespeople are supplying. This is also true of the initial sales call, what sales wants to talk about is not what the buyer does.

Preferred content
When surveyed, buyers identified product information, information about features and functions and product ratings and reviews as the content they want to use to learn and make buying decisions from. 

Preferred sales discussion
When surveyed, buyers indicated that during an initial sales call they want to discuss pricing (58%) and how the product works (54%) primarily. Whereas sales reps wanted to discuss the reason a company needs to make the purchase (63%) and what the companies goals are (61%). The only point both buyers and sales reps agreed should be covered in the initial phone call is what the company wants to achieve with the purchase. 

YOU ARE A PUSHY 

77% of sales reps think they are helpful and avoid being pushy in their approach, but buyers in the same HubSpot survey described salespeople as pushy. Buyers simply feel that a negative sales experience is one where sales is pushy, does not listen to their needs and does not do enough research before their call. 

HOW CAN YOU ADAPT

Buyers simply want to speak with sales much further down the buying funnel than ever before. The buyer likes to move through the awareness stage on their own, using digital outlets for research. When a buyer is ready to consider a product or service then they are ready to speak with a sales rep. Buyers will use search engines (62%) or a business' website (48%) to learn more about a product or service. Less than 30% of buyers are willing to connect with a sales rep in the awareness stage. 

Sales needs to adopt an inbound sales strategy in order to adapt. It's a process that turns traditional sales tactics on its heads and instead matches sales to how people buy. This strategy can be further serviced by an inbound marketing strategy that helps to facilitate sales and delivers leads to sales at the buying stage. Click here to learn more.