Sales has always been a part of our lives. After all, it's nothing but the art of selling a commodity. Early civilizations had a different approach to sales; they exchanged their precious goods for something of equal or higher value. In history books, it's famously known as the barter system.
But with the introduction of money, the selling and buying of commodities became much more widespread. As you know very well by now, the price of a commodity(service or product) is determined by its demand. That said, the commodity's price also depends on the value to the one buying it. In other words, the price will hinge on the commodity's potential to sell.
That, in a nutshell, is the goal of today's salespersons—to increase the value of the commodity for the customer so that it sells at the best(highest) price. Keep in mind that selling should be ethical. It should not hurt others sentiments or be labelled as a scam.
Nowadays, sales jobs can be of different varieties depending on the geography, industry, and the wide assortment of services and products. But this article isn't about the anatomy of sales. It's a look into the future of sales, what you should know about the career as an aspiring salesperson, and the things that you can hopefully do to be successful.
Without wasting any more time, let's look at some of the sales trends that will pick up in the next 10 years.
Sales Tools Will Be An Asset
There will be a lot of focus on making data-driven decisions and improving productivity. As such, apart from relying on top-notch AI-driven technologies and cross-functional teams, there will be huge demand for sales software solutions.Companies will pour their resources, in terms of money and time, into software for sales. And the better the sales software, or more the number of sales tools, the more will be the investment from companies.
Such tools and software will ultimately be integrated in the very fiber of sales processes.
Scalable Sales Solutions Depending on The Size of The Business Organization
For any sales role, adaptability will be an important key feature that cannot be brushed aside. This becomes all the more crucial in sales as selling emerges very early on in the sales process which is followed-up with continuance of the relationship.In terms of adaptability, smaller business organizations, in order to blur the lines, will opt for multi-talented human resources (individuals) to ensure customer success and account management.
On the other hand, bigger business organisations and conglomerates may opt for multiple sales personnel to handle every sales process whilst still valuing cross-functional talent.
Fresher Sales Personnel Will Need Work Experience And/or Focus On Sales-Specific Skills
Entry-level sales roles will need to evolve quickly. A majority of sales tasks that are less strategic in nature, such as prospecting, cold-calling, following--up, will be automated. Naturally, sales professionals who handle such manual tasks need to up their game.Going by recent sales treds, there will come a time when employers will need work experience in sales from entry-level sales professionals. Furthermore, business organizations may divert their focus towards soft-skills when hiring entry-level sales professionals if they ultimately fail in their quest to warrant work experience from freshers.
Focus and Interest on Technology Will Be a Part of Sales Jobs Descriptions
As you already know, professionals today are reliant on email and technology to get the job done. Needless to say, tech skills will be crucial for a successful career in sales.Sales professionals must be familiar with top-of-the-line CRMs, have the ability to navigate social media platforms and the internet, excel at communicating with vendors and/or customers, and get to grips with advanced technologies like Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.
The above mentioned are some examples of tech skills that will be important. And the more technology advances, the more companies will rely on technology and expect their sales team members to be familiar with little to no training.
Sale Professionals With Networking Capabilities Will Be Preferred
There's a lot of new and exciting developments in sales today. For instance, marketing efforts do most of the legwork to saturate the sales pipeline with prospects. Additionally, prospecting is leaning more towards automation, and customers(clients) are getting more comfortable with self-serve purchasing every day.So, where will sales professionals fit in? Their ability to build trust and establish new relationships will be the irreplaceable assets going forward. In other words, candidates who are exceptionally good at making new connections and those that already have a network established will be highly sought-after.These are certainly exciting times for sales, regardless of what the future holds. You can certainly look at where sales has been, where it is now, to clearly understand that the future of sales only reflects use of new sales technologies, dependence on cross-functional teams, and supremely skilled sales professionals.
