The Experts: Sales Trends for 2016

sales trendsVA Partners recently reached out to local leaders and clients in the sales and digital marketing space. We asked them to provide insight about a specific topic about the startup and small business community. In the second post of this series, our experts weigh in on the biggest trends sales professionals can anticipate for 2016.

Here’s what they had to say:

Content is king. We will focus on case studies, whitepapers, webinars, blogs and content that we can share in the marketplace.

– Paul St. Onge, Managing Director at hjc, @paulstonge 

I think what will continue and accelerate in 2016 is the disappearance of Sales departments and Marketing departments, and the emergence of the Revenue team.  These will report into the Chief Revenue Officer.  This creates efficiencies for the selling organization, and more importantly for buyers.  Companies organized around revenue rather than sub-groups will better target and deliver a better client experience.  The right assets can be brought to the task based on the entire Client Life Cycle in a seamless way rather than disjointed based on perceived role and responsibilities. Since this journey starts and is driven at the top, it may take some organizations more effort to adopt then others.  If you can realize that this the right way to go, for tour clients, and your company, commit to the change, and be agile in how you execute, this trend gives you an opportunity to stand out as a first mover, and reason for buyer to deal with you without getting to price or other mundane issues.

– Tibor Shanto, Principle at Renbor Sales Solutions Inc@TiborShanto

The sales stack is back in a major way. Sales acceleration & productivity tools are very hot as sales organizations look to find the next best thing to automate and/or accelerate their sales growth.  Sales is still a “people sport” as people buy from people, and it is people that authorize checks – not buildings.  Leaders that stay focused on their teams getting better at the basics: finding opportunities, running cycles, winning deals and growing their footprints will win in 2016.  Use tools to help amplify these basics, but don’t overcrowd your teams sales tool box.  At the end of the day, a fool with a tool is still a fool.  Make your sales people awesome!

– David Bloom, CEO & Founder of Lurniture, @sdavidbloom 

2016 will be the year of the inbound digital war room. The inbound digital war room will consist of a marketing operations specialist A.K.A. a Data Scientist who is creating a consistent flow of marketing campaigns that drive demand generation. This inbound demand generation is delivered in a handshake between marketing operations and your SDR (Sales Development Representative) with real time customer engagement. The SDR team monitors a buyer’s content consumption patterns in real time and is creating an interactive touch point (phone, social) at the exact moment that the buyer is digesting their content. The SDR team is then contextualizing the conversation based on the content the buyer has or has not consumed and guides them through that buyer journey to the next step.

– Jamie Shanks, CEO at Sales for Life@jamietshanks

I think that 2016 will be the year of the sales stack. Cold email and cold calls continue to lose their effectiveness.  What tools the sales team is using to find, communicate, nurture, and connect with. Older tools like LinkedIn continue to evolve and provide an excellent way to both nurture existing prospects while giving the opportunity to discover new targets.  I think that B2B sales people should be using LinkedIn every day.  There are many other tools that range from the simple like Sidekick to full blown automation tools.

– Mark Elliott, Co-owner of Venture Accelerator Partners@markeelliott 

What sales strategies do you predict for 2016? Let us know in the comments below.

If you haven’t read the first post of this series, check it out here: Digital Marketing Trends 2016.

The Experts: Sales Trends for 2016