The Greatest Changes in B2B Sales, and What the Future Holds

If you had to sum up the history of B2B sales until now, it’s probably safe to say the biggest change has been the shift from a solo activity to a true team effort.

Although junior sales reps might still start out by tagging along with someone more senior, for example, there had long been an expectation that success in B2B sales came when you had cultivated your own, exclusive set of customers and accounts. Having a great rolodex of contact names, as well as insider knowledge of procurement processes and buying patterns, were what set you apart from the rest of the sales team. Reps were all about competing with each other — and sharing information was not necessarily encouraged.

Contrast that with the introduction of customer relationship management (CRM) tools such as Sales Cloud, which not only triggered a more data-driven way of selling, but a more collaborative one as well. As CRM users quickly learned, success in B2B sales was now about having everyone contribute to the collective knowledge base about what customers want and need, and looking for common patterns and ways to close more deals. Although it may have taken some time for more experienced reps to adjust, the power of having a central place to store and manage sales information has defined the market leaders and challengers in almost every B2B sector imaginable.

More recently, B2B sales teams have started to take things to the next level by using artificial intelligence (AI) tools like Einstein to predict how customers might behave, rather than merely analyzing sales performance after the fact. And of course this can now all be done not only in the office but from practically anywhere, given the increased power of mobile technologies available from any smartphone.

All in all, we’ve come a long way from the days of doing most B2B selling via phone calls or knocking on doors. That said, B2B sales will continue to change based on advancements in technology, the rise of new channels and of course the evolution of customer buying habits. Some of those changes may be impossible to foresee today, but here are a few things you can count on to be part of B2B selling in the future:

1. Sales reps will perfect the art of the e-commerce pass

If reps are often competitive with each other, some of them might have been downright intimidated by online portals that allow B2B buyers to make purchases themselves.

Instead of getting caught up in worries about their job security, however, successful reps have come to recognize that e-commerce may be faster, easier and more efficient for certain kinds of purchases. Much like e-commerce in the consumer world, for instance, B2B e-commerce makes a lot of sense for repeat purchases, or products that don’t require a lot of configuration.

The future will see this process honed to a science, where reps spend more of their time on more consultative (and lucrative!) deals, while empowering their customers to take a self-service, e-commerce based approach whenever possible.

2. Customer demand will come via sensors

For several years now, companies have been talking about the “Internet of Things,” or IoT, which allow everyday objects to “talk” to each other by using smart sensors. While a lot of the excitement has focused on the concept of smart homes, the biggest impact may be within B2B environments.

Think of the process today, for instance, when a B2B sales rep “checks in” with a manufacturing customer to see if they need a new product, or to have something replaced. In the future, sensors on manufacturing equipment will be able to detect in advance when a part is getting old or obsolete. This can send a signal to the organization that runs the equipment, of course, but it could also feed into the firm’s vendor community, which means a B2B sales rep will be able to serve customers in real-time at the point of need.

3. Buying experiences will increasingly begin on social media

Sales teams are now being told to do more prospecting on channels like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook in addition to cold-calling or sending out targeted emails. As that kind of behaviour becomes more commonplace, expect customers to start more of their conversations with B2B sales teams the same way.

Whereas as sales rep might have been doing most of the outreach via a social channel in the past, for instance, customers will take advantage of the multimedia nature of social to help explain their needs. A customer might use a mixture of text, images and video to show what’s happening in their environment, and ask for recommendations on the best product. Or they might share posts they’ve received on their own social channels from customers that point to a particular problem.

Social channels, along with mobile tools, mean B2B sales reps can better serve customers all over the world. In some cases they might never meet face-to-face, but the relationships will be just as strong.

Conclusion: more future-oriented possibilities

Besides e-commerce, the IoT and social media, there are other technology triggers that could affect B2B selling in 2020 and beyond.

Already there are organizations experimenting with augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) to create a virtual way of modeling certain kinds of products within a customer environment.

There are also technologies such as blockchain, which could allow items of value to be exchanged in a highly secure but decentralized way, that could in turn create more direct relationships between B2B sales reps and their end customers.

And finally, it’s not just B2B sales teams that will be using AI to improve the way they work every day. As more of their customers adopt AI, there might be machine-to-machine relationships where a sales rep is merely overseeing a purchase process and ensuring certain quality standards are met.

The one thing you can count on is that the key qualities in B2B sales — product knowledge, customer empathy, timeliness and a consultative nature — will never go away. And for those that nurture those qualities while taking advantage of emerging technologies, the future of B2B sales is going to be bright.