With the last selling day for February today, I thought that it might be interesting to share what we've been seeing changing all through 2024 and now into the first two months of 2025.
12 years ago, I asked Tufts if I could develop a new course titled "The Science of Sales" to match up with my Marketing course. Today it's one of the core requirements for a minor in entrepreneurship which provides lot of opportunities to experiment and measure results while developing detailed research and comprehensive sales plans for six companies and another six of marketing plans over the course of 13 weeks.
What follows is a combination of what we're seeing in these projects, what we're observing using HubSpot's data since we use their software tools and findings in both courses plus the backbone of a recent McKenzie blog.
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The Buyer is in Charge: Throughout the buying journey from an SQL to the close of a deal, prospects are split somewhat evenly on their preferences for interfacing with sellers: one-third prefer in-person F2F interactions, one-third prefer/require only remote communications, and the final third prefer digital self-serve, digital-only options. This distribution remains consistent across various industries, geographies and company sizes, covering everything from initial purchases to repeat transactions. That 2024 data comes from McKinsey and HubSpot.
Our classroom findings are that that primary factor underlying this shift is that corporate buyers have less and less available time (up to 25% available less time since 2021). Buyers also complain more and more loudly about the inability of "the average" salesperson to define operational value for the buyer's specific requirements.
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Seamless Omnichannel Experience: Today's gold standard is a seamless omnichannel experience. B2B customers utilize an average of ten different interaction channels during their buying journey, a significant increase from five channels in 2016. This is a McKinsey factoid.
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E-Commerce is an Absolute Requirement: More than 30% of revenue now originates from e-commerce channels, marking a significant shift from in-person visits. Customers increasingly favor remote and self-serve options, particularly for substantial purchases exceeding $500,000.
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Success of Hybrid Work Models: Companies embracing hybrid work models, where sales employees operate from multiple locations (home, office, and client sites), tend to experience over 10% revenue growth compared to those restricted to a single location. Although the current hype of back-to-the-office may have some level of validity from both sides of the table, that is not the case with the best salespeople. We see just as many companies today opting for full or hybrid WFH as we did in 2022: enough to restate our 2022 chant that salespeople in general are never going back to the office full-time.
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Emergence of AI: Approximately 20% of B2B sales teams have integrated AI into their operations, reporting significant successes. An additional 20% are currently experimenting with AI-driven strategies. In today's sales world of being able to assess the analytics of customer insights and personalized experiences across millions of data points provides 20%+ increases in annual sales productivity while providing individually customized responses rather than countless spam-quality cold emails and meaningless posts
Just a few thoughts on the last selling day of the 2nd month of Q1, as we think ahead to kicking off March on Monday. Have a great weekend!
updating your 2025 Sales plans after Q1!
For a few ideas on how to update your own sales planning for Q2, click here for our just updated, no-cost "Writing the Winning Sales Plan in 2025, outlining ideas on structure, sales models, process funnels, productivity tools and how to recruit, hire and onboard the best salespeople. A hands-on "how to" guide for real salespeople written by real sales managers with their fingers in the dirt.
Connect with me any time at jack@derbymanagement.com, and let's discuss your own sales process and terms.
