Will Women in Sales Leadership Change Your Results?

Have you noticed how professional selling is changing? What trends are happening that are impacting your sales results? How do you leverage these trends to increase your results?

What should you expect from your sales career in 2017? Yesterday, I shared What sales trend will increase your results in 2017?, I started this discussion talking about trends that impact your sales activities in the coming year.

Today, we continue our article by sharing several more sales trends that change your markets in ways that you may not have noticed yet. But you will.

The third sales trend for 2017 is that women are no longer working in corporate sales careers. Many are starting their own businesses. They are unwilling to deal with many of the challenges of a traditional corporate career. They are happy to be paid for their results. In many cases, sales provides the financial freedom they want for their lives. They don’t work for people who do not have their shared interests in mind as they develop their career.

Women sales leaders are natural bridge builders. They understand how to juggle multiple priorities and responsibilities. They expect their team members to do the same!

This means that many of your best solutions come from a group of partner organizations that can work together for a specific goal before going on to other projects. Many emerging technology organizations win early adopter advanced technology projects that change how corporate clients work with their larger partners. This change could disrupt many established client relationships.

The fourth sales trend for 2017 is social selling will go from influence to results. I’ve noticed many smaller technology organizations embrace the idea of social selling. The problem for most is they are very influential in their markets, but other organizations are increasing their sales more quickly. To be effective in social selling, you must prospect and qualify clients better.

For social selling to work, I believe you need a more rigorous sales methodology. You must know who your best clients are.  You need a more effective business development process. You must be able to uncover patterns so you invest your time where you can have greater impact.

Do you know what your best sales professionals do? Good sales management is the bridge between social selling interactions and  better results. Successful sales organizations invest time and resources to apply what they learn across their customer and client base. Are you prepared to run highly targeted sales campaigns? The future belongs to agile sales teams.

The final sales trend for 2017 is that enterprise level sales begin to change how we deliver our solutions to clients. Selling advanced technologies requires a better understanding of our clients’ businesses and their ecosystems. Successful enterprise level sales initiatives require co-creating with clients and partner organizations’ solutions. Individual key and strategic account plans require sales professionals to become more strategic in their account management practices.

Successful implementation of these account plans help ensure success for your business development efforts. The challenges our clients face reside across their organizations. To be effective in this business environment, sales professionals need to become better at leading teams. This new approach to doing business also requires creating compensation programs that reward for contribution made as well as support activities completed.

What do we do to take advantage of these five trends in the coming year? Stick around, we plan to help take your sales career to the next level in 2017. See you next Tuesday when we talk about the state of your best customer in 2017!

See you Tuesday.