July 21, 2015
The Past, Present and Future of Sales Team Management
BY John Paul Narowski IN Productivity, Sales and Marketing 0 Comment
The way people used to sell products in the past completely differs from the way they sell them today. The art of selling has improved a lot and it still continues to evolve. This is thanks to developing customer lifecycle as well as sales team automation technology. Collaboration technology changed all the sales processes and strategies, starting from lead coordination for sales team, ending with trainings of salesmen. However it wasn’t like this before. To give you a better understanding of how sales processes have changed during many years and how they are still changing, today we will focus on introducing the past, present and future of sales team collaboration.
The Past of Sales Team Management
1950-1970s are sometimes called the age of advertising, when the selling process faced some major changes. This is the time when all the companies started to implement traditional marketing strategies, such as direct calling and targeted advertising. The reason was the development of modern technology. Just because the selling process was transitioned from personal, face-to-face meetings to phones, sales teams had to try very hard to better understand their customers’ needs and promote their brands in the right way.
However, if we move forward to the years of 1990s and 2000s, when Internet was not as available as today, e-mail marketing was on the top. The age of Internet adoption took flight, when sales teams started to use email and user profiles in order to connect with customers and suggest them some special offers, such as discounts. However, it is worth mentioning that nowadays more than 60 percent of customers still provide their email addresses to the companies to be informed about their news and their offers.
The Present
Nowadays, when Internet is used so much, other selling strategies have emerged. There are new methods and tools that today’s’ sales teams are used to implement, such as, customer relationship management(CRM) softwares, social networks(Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn), and other software which helps to collect, integrate and analyze information relating to customers. According to the infographic of Velocify, it was revealed today:
- More than 80 % of middle sized companies use CRM in order to collect and keep information relating to their customers
- About 75 % of B2C companies got clients with the help of social media networks, like Facebook
- More than 60 % of B2B companies use social media networks in order to increase lead generation
- About 85 % of top companies are using or are planning to use automation for sales
- Social media lead conversion rates are about 15 % higher than the average rates
All that matters today is to tailor your sales strategy to fit each stage of customer’s buying cycle. It’s very important, as about 70 % of customers said that they refused to buy from a company after having a bad experience, 65 % bought from a competitor after that bad experience and more than 80 % say that they are ready to pay for better services. In the past, the selling process was all about the seller, nowadays, it is all about the customer.
The Future
The future of sales team collaboration seems to be brighter than it is today. The specialists of Esna, which is a great source for communication and collaboration tools, believe that first of all, Web RTC (Real-time communication) is going to be on the top, as it has the potential to change the way companies communicate and collaborate. Secondly, sales strategies are going to evolve along with the changes in consumer preferences and include better lead coordination for sales team. With the speed that technology is developing, it is expected that in the future sales processes are going to be much easier and convenient for both sides: customers and sellers.
To conclude, in order to have successful sales strategies and to be good at sales team collaboration, you should be flexible to changes and always adapt to innovations. Remember, the world is changing every second and you should keep up with it to be on the top.
