Megatrends That Will Impact the Way We Manage Sales Organizations

By Sam Reese and Dario Priolo

No question about it: The business landscape is changing dramatically, and smart sales organizations need to change with it.

Major trends—think of them as "megatrends"—in four key categories are driving that shift. Those categories are:
Demographic
Technological
Regulatory
Social

TRENDS 101

Before we discuss each area in depth, let's start with a definition. What exactly is a trend?

From our perspective, a trend is significant long-term change (or changes) in the dynamics of a market, environment—or, in our profession—an account. That change may happen suddenly or gradually, although it usually occurs over a period of time.

Ultimately, to benefit from a wave of change, you must understand both the trend itself and the account's reaction to it. That's doubly important to keep from being swept away from the biggest waves, the changes we've dubbed "megatrends".

MEGATREND #1: DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGE

The oldest members of the Baby Boom generation—the 77 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964—will begin retiring en masse over the next 10 to 15 years. The smaller generations coming up behind them simply don't have sufficient numbers to fill those vacancies. Nowhere is that competition to find, hire and retain the best employees fiercer than in sales, where executives are already feeling the pinch.

Those demographic trends also threaten a less tangible but equally critical aspect of sales: the deep, long-standing personal relationships that vanish when a salesperson or a customer-company's contact person—or both—retire or otherwise leave their jobs.

We recommend that sales organizations that want to triumph despite these challenging trends take the following steps:

Offer flexibility. Survey after survey indicates that many professionals, especially those now younger than 40 years old, value flexibility above most other benefits; they're likely to gravitate to and remain with employers who provide it.

Guard top accounts. Instead of making each account one employee's turf, establish several peer-to-peer ("many-to-many") relationships within that account. That way, even if a star sales rep quits, the account stays safe.

Include C-Suite Involvement. Another recent shift—one that ties back to the peer-to-peer relationships—is the direct involvement of CEOs and other C-level executives in sales processes. Sales activities now touch finance, operations and other departments much more than in the past, and top leadership is taking notice.

Support sales managers. If you're serious about building a world-class sales force, provide the people who supervise the troops with everything they need to keep both upper-level executives and sales teams happy.

MEGATREND #2: TECHNOLOGICAL CHANGE

Nothing changes faster than technology, and, in our industry, the biggest change involves the recent widespread adoption of customer relationship management (CRM) systems. Not so long ago, most sales organizations were reluctant to use such systems because the technology's limitations dictated the relationship-management process rather than enabling and enhancing it.

Today, however, CRM is both simpler and better. On-demand systems are not only more affordable; they're easier to implement and to use. Application exchanges and bolt-on applications also represent major improvements for CRM. As a result, those systems are providing competitive advantage to sales teams who use them to obtain more and higher-quality information with which they can make better decisions.

MEGATREND #3: REGULATORY CHANGE

Free trade and collapse and loosening of "command-and-control" economies, especially in China and Southeast Asia, have created immense new markets. But globalization has also propelled the emergence of new competition and new threats of commoditization.

In our view, the best way for companies to differentiate themselves by constantly adding value is to become an expert in your customers' businesses as well as in your own. You need to:
Understand customers' concerns and desires at least as well as customers themselves do.
Move beyond being a seller to being a solution provider.
Stay ahead of the trend by being proactive.

MEGATREND #4: SOCIAL CHANGE

Today's most relevant social trend is the skyrocketing popularity of social networks, which connect people virtually so that they can share information, resources and referrals.

Today's young social networkers are tomorrow's salespeople. Having grown up with social networking, they're likely to continue relying on this way of communicating and collaborating throughout their careers. (In fact, some business-oriented grownup networking sites are already available).

In addition, research indicates that social capital—which James Kouzes, co-author of "The Leadership Challenge" defines as "the collective value of whom we know and what we'll do for each other"—is catching up in importance with intellectual capital. In fact, there's evidence that effective use of social capital improves business performance for both individuals and organizations.

CONCLUSION

What do these megatrends mean, individually and collectively, for sales leaders? Simply this: The wheels of change are in motion. Jump aboard and steer as best you can, or risk being flattened as the juggernaut goes by. Embracing and rolling along with change will help you recognize and take advantage of opportunities as they arise.