Episode 33: Predictions for the World of Sales in 5 Years

Video:

Audio:

Show Notes

People are always underestimating the rate of change 10 years out, but overestimate the rate of change when it comes to more short-term concerns. There's murmurings in the sales and marketing space that sales is "going away", that "customer success is the new sales." While this is a fairly contradictory statement, it still begs the question: Where will sales be in the future? 

Doug and Mike try to predict where sales will be in 5 years. They express the growing concern that artificial intelligence can replace anyone. However, both Doug and Mike point out ways that humans will still have the edge in sales due to a few key abilities:

• The ability to recognize subtext
• The ability to notice the importance of what isn't being said
• The ability to read body language
• The ability to provide insight

These four abilities should be able to keep humans in control of the majority of sales conversations, especially as AI gains traction in the sales and marketing world.

Doug then (once again) compares sales to baseball. He points out that sales will have a similar shift to the one in baseball from old-school methodologies to Moneyball. "What you measure gets done" he says, pointing out how the historic emphasis in sales on closing has led to less productive and effective sales reps and processes. Much like the change in focus from batting average to on base percentage and OPS, sales will need to adjust its tracking towards metrics that encourage quality sales processes.

Resources:

• Episode 11: The State of Sales Today with Derek Wyszynski