Sales Conferences

Many sales leaders approach setting GTM sales strategy as an exercise in optimizing inside, field and indirect sales channels to deliver predictable revenue growth while controlling the cost of sales. However, gradual shifts in buying dynamics only accelerated across 2020 as the pandemic drove virtual work to become the norm. Today’s customers with digital purchase aspirations are increasingly frustrated with every aspect of a purchase. Buyers encounter inconsistent information across channels, and stakeholder groups spend inordinate amounts of time simply deconflicting competing perspectives and revisiting earlier decision milestones. These dysfunctions drive buyer confidence down and the likelihood of stalled or lost deals up.

Although seller-centric sales strategies sound good in theory, they underperform in significant and pernicious ways. Chief sales officers (CSOs) and their leadership teams can mitigate these customer challenges by adopting a buyer-centric GTM strategy that recognizes buyers’ preferences and prioritizes information consistency across all channels. Successful organizations will respond to these changes by moving to a:

Parallel commercial structure: The traditional commercial engine is designed to operate in a serial fashion, with a series of well-timed handoffs between the marketing, sales and service teams. This serial strategy falls apart in a world where the buying journey looks more like a maze than a straight line. GTM strategies should be built around parallel engagements where commercial functions work together throughout the entire customer life cycle to help buyers complete critical buying tasks, rather than well-timed handoffs between marketing, sales and service teams.

Hybrid approach to sales force deployments: Successful sales force deployments will be designed around a sales force that primarily operates virtually but conducts a limited number of high-value in-person engagements. This hybrid deployment strategy enables them to flex to customer dynamics in a more agile way than the traditional inside/field model allows.

Dynamic customer engagements rather than reactive engagements: Instead of reactive engagements where customers decide how and when to engage, CSOs at leading commercial organizations have an enriched view of customer patterns and preferences. Then, powered with AI, these once disparate data points transform into nuanced recommendations by which suppliers can deliver personalized and proactive engagements that guide customers to the channel most likely to result in a positive commercial outcome.

To grow revenue in today’s sales landscape, CSOs must acknowledge that sales reps are no longer the channel, but rather just one channel, to customers, and must shift their mindsets from leading sellers to leading selling on behalf of the organization. Making this shift will require understanding how and why customers are using in-person and digital channels, and reallocating resources to improve customer experiences across all buying channels.

Key questions

• How should you lead the sales function through digital transformation? 
• What does it mean to move from a seller-centric to a buyer-centric orientation? 
• What steps should you take now to prepare for the future of sales? 
• How can you balance short-term cost optimization measures with long-term growth? How should you define the sales ROI of mergers and acquisitions?

A GTM strategy that reflects buyers’ preferences and is built around creating a low-effort, confidence-inspiring buying experience is a competitive advantage in today’s distracting and complex business environment. This requires commercial functions to work together to engage with customers throughout the entire customer life cycle, and employ a unified approach to target, pursue and service customers in a way that makes it easy for them to purchase and quickly recognize value.

Key questions

• What routes to market best suit your buyers’ needs? 
• How can you effectively partner with my colleagues across the entire commercial engine? 
• How should your organization segment and tier customers? 
• How should you effectively launch and manage your channel partner strategy and program?

Meeting growth targets requires sales leaders to adjust their approach to sales force design and deployment to reflect today’s buying realities. This requires taking a holistic look at all aspects of sales force design, including sales role definitions and resource allocation, in a way that aligns with how customers engage and buy. Further, sales leaders must continually monitor sales effectiveness and productivity to proactively address issues and inform future design decisions and investments.

Key questions

• How do you align sales strategy, sales process and role design for maximum effectiveness? 
• How should you adjust your territory design in response to virtual selling? 
• How can you ensure your sales roles are designed with clarity?

Sales enablement plays a central and increasingly important role in making the sales organization, not just sellers, more effective. However, the function is often expected to deliver more value with fewer resources and to constantly evolve responsibilities to meet changing demands from commercial leaders. To succeed, the function must shift from being simply a reactive contributor to sales revenue to being a key driver of the organization’s commercial success.

Key questions

• How do the structure, budget and staffing of your sales enablement function compare with those of other organizations? 
• What does a world-class sales enablement function look like? 
• How should you adjust your sales enablement strategy to increase the effectiveness of other customer-facing roles such as customer success, subject matter experts, etc.? 
• What key performance indicators (KPIs) are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the sales enablement function?

While customers are increasingly learning about and completing purchases through digital channels, sellers have fewer opportunities to influence customers. Consequently, sellers and managers need to focus on different-in-kind competencies and activities to sell effectively. Accordingly, sales enablement must adapt training, coaching and onboarding programs to prepare the frontline to deliver disruptive insights, align diverse stakeholders and help customers make sense of an overwhelming amount of high-quality information.

Key questions

• How should you structure your sales training programs? 
• Which are the top sales training providers? 
• How do you improve sales manager coaching effectiveness? 
• How should you improve time to productivity for newly hired frontline sellers? 
• How can you enable sellers to perform in a virtual sales environment?

A fast-changing, complex selling environment requires sales enablement to frequently evolve and create new resources to improve frontline effectiveness while also making it easier for customers to buy. At the same time, the amount of sales support available for sellers and managers has expanded significantly: 76% of sellers report that sales enablement adds complexity to their jobs. As a result, sales enablement leaders must simplify the enablement ecosystem as they create new support to reduce sellers’ burden while improving their productivity.

Key questions

• How can you develop better buyer enablement and commercial insights for your customers? 
• What is the best way for sales enablement to collaborate across functions to align enablement initiatives for greater impact? 
• How can you reduce the complexity of your sales enablement ecosystem while improving productivity? 
• What is the best way to measure the effectiveness of seller and buyer enablement efforts? 
• How can you mitigate sellers’ digital fatigue brought on by a predominantly virtual selling environment?