Wow, 2021 was an amazing year. I hope it was for you as well, but you know, there's really,
some lessons learned that many of my clients learned throughout the year that I want to share
with you. So in this video, I'm gonna walk you through the lessons learned in sales from 2021
that you can apply moving forward. That will help you accelerate your sales. Make sure as
well you watch the end of this video. There's a couple little secrets I'll share at the very end.
And I think you'll find helpful. Hi, I'm Sean Casemore and I help you learn how to be a high
performing sales professional so that you can earn more and less time. If that sounds good to you,
make sure you click the subscribe button so you can stay up to date and all my upcoming videos,
as well as click the like button on this video and make sure in every video of comments to share your
own best practices, add them to the comments so that others can learn from you as well.
So the first lesson from 2021 in sales is this. And it's a, it's a big one
selling as we know it is dead. There is no longer a salesperson. Now, before you panic,
I'm not saying a robot's coming to take your job, but here's what I am suggesting.
When you look at recent studies around buyer behavior, especially in the B2B market, right,
buyers today are using information around them to inform their decisions. They're using people,
they're doing research online and offline to inform their decisions. They're not engaging
with sales people early on, at least on purpose to help inform their decisions. So when they're
coming to the salesperson and it's with a lot of information and at least some idea
of what they're looking for, what that really means that is in sales, our role is changing.
Uh, could you tell me about some of your phones please?
Uh,
We're becoming a sales concierge in a way, meaning that we take you by the hand, not, not literally,
but we take you by the hand in and we're gonna help inform you along the way. So we're gonna
say that this piece of information is relevant. This one is not, let me add this to it. Let me
introduce you to my team, who can answer some more of your questions. And we're really escorting our
buyer through the sales process and helping them make an informed decision. That's really
how our role has changed. So if you're still walking into somebody's office saying, Hey,
what am I gonna sell them today? And suggest you change your approach of
it. Think about how can I help this buyer. Who's trying to make a decision, help them
clear it through the mess, right? Gain clarity so they can make a quick decision.
And Hey, then maybe you'll be part of that decision. The second lesson learned from 2021,
and this really continues to evolve. As I mentioned earlier, and you've seen
in multiple studies, I've referenced here before. It's getting harder and harder for
buyers to make a decision for a lot of reasons, right? They're overwhelmed with information.
There's a lot of people involved now in decisions unlike maybe 10, 15 years ago,
where one person made that decision. Now I think organizationally, those are all good things,
but from a salesperson's standpoint, they can make it very challenging because their buyers are
indecisive and they tend to ghost us when they're not ready to make a decision. And we wonder what's
happened. What I wanna suggest to you is if we take from this lesson as to what's happened here,
the way we can really inject ourselves and ensure that our buyers are reliant on us throughout
their journey so that we can be their sales concierge. As I mentioned earlier, is that we
add value. Now you've heard me talk about this multiple times before value is in the eyes of
the beholder. Meaning what your buyer suggests is value is what you need to provide. And in
these days, a lot of what is valued are tools that help buyers make decisions, information
that inform buyers, right? Keep in mind, if you go onto Google and you put in any sort of term,
you're gonna get all sorts of answers off times opposing answers. So buyers are seeking clarity.
I can see clearly now.
So if you can step in offer clarity, offer credible resources, information, support,
subject matter experts that you can bring in that can offer all this adds to value and it helps your
buyers make decisions. So the more you can add value, the more you can smooth out that line,
your buyers are taking. When it comes to making decision, the faster they'll make a decision and
they'll credit you for having good in the one to help them get there quickly. If you're enjoying
these tips so far, make sure you click the like button in this video and hit that subscribe
button. So you can stay up to date when I release new videos each and every let's get back to it.
This next tip, relative to what we've learned in 2021 about sales is that we really need to empower
our buyers to buy, you know, more and more studies are coming out saying that to days, buyers really
want a self-managed buying process. Now that makes sense in the retail sector, right? If they want to
go online and buy something from Amazon that's, that's no problem. They can self-manage that?
I think we like this one. What? What's it called? Deep slumber,
3000. You're buying it on Amazon. Aren't you? Yep. They have drones now.
But if you're in B2B, it's a little bit different. Your company might not have a shopping cart,
or if you're selling a million dollar service or a million dollar product,
they might not want it to dump that in the shopping cart. Although I know companies that
are doing it, but the key is this, the way we empower our buyers to buy is we give them
clarity. So I often tell a lot of my clients, coaching clients and the teams that I train,
create your own FAQ. Take the questions that you get frequently from prospects
really create your own frequently asked questions, document that you can share. You can laminate it,
put it on color paper. And we're not talking about a book here. I'm not saying this is a 22
page document. I'm talking about a single page or maybe double sided, and it's a leaf behind.
So when you talk to a prospect in person or virtually after we're, or you say, you know,
in my experience, there's been some key questions that you'll want to answer. As you move forward,
I've created a document to try and answer those. I'd like to share that with you now, and then
maybe we can book a follow up for next Tuesday at 10. What does your calendar look like? Then?
That document is obviously branded. It's got your contact information on it'll sit on their desk. If
it's in physical form or in their inbox, it's not only gonna keep top of mind, but it's gonna help
inform them and empower them to make that buying decision. And guess who they're gonna credit
for helping them. That's right. It's you so empower your buyers to buy, create that FAQ
document for yourself. Something simple based on all the questions you're getting and you're gonna
find new prospects find that extremely helpful as they move forward in the buying process.
This next one here, this last tip I have for you before. There's a, a couple bonus tips I
wanna share. But before we do that, this last one's gonna seem a little bit controversial,
but here it is slow down to speed up the sale. That's right. Slow down
too many sales professionals. I meet today pushing for the sale, right?
And you seem to have these two extremes. You got the people that never ask for the sale at all,
right? But then we have these other folks that are just pushing, driving, driving. I gotta get more
sales gonna ask for the sale, gonna move on to the next person. Here's the thing. In most cases, when
you push hard for the sale, you diminish trust. Now that depends on what you're selling. There
are some unique circumstances where pushing, being a little bit assertive makes complete sense. Price
Is not important. No
Price is very important,
Actually. Okay. You got me take me away. Okay. It's a little bit expensive,
but let me tell you it's worth it.
But generally speaking, when you slow down, you focus more on the buyer, their needs,
and the relationship. What you tend to build is trust with, to means it doesn't really matter
what you're selling. The buyer's gonna trust you because you've slowed down. You've put
their best interest at mine, not yours. So if we can learn anything from 2021,
and it's really been building up to this point, it's that we need to slow down in order to speed
up the sale. Here's a little bit of a bonus tip for you. If you will. I said I had some
first off. There's no such thing as verse tool selling. I mean, there are virtual tools or better
yet tools we use to connect and speak with and present to buyers virtually, but virtual selling.
That's just another tool in the toolbox you see moving forward from now on buyers,
at least some of them are gonna want to speak with you and only interact with salespeople.
Virtually other buyers will wanna meet with you in person. So we can't look at this as
virtual selling versus in person selling. We have to look at this as selling and we really
need to have the tools available, the skills and knowledge available to shift because a buyer might
want to meet and then suddenly they're traveling and they wanna have some virtual meetings. So
as sales professionals, don't think about how to virtually sell somebody think about and building
your skills in the area of sales. Because from now on, you're gonna be jumping back and forth
sometimes with the same prospect based on their specific needs, timing, et cetera, and priorities
ultimately. So there is no such thing as virtual selling, there's just selling,
build the skills to get you there. And the last bonus tip I really wanted to share with this,
what we we've learned really from 2021, even the last couple years is that sales will continue.
There are always fits and spurts. There are challenges that will slow down sales, but they
will continue on when the economy crashes, some companies do stop buying for a period of time,
but eventually they come around. I know a lot of people that when the pandemic hit back in 2020,
it really hurt them. And they moved outta the role of sales because they didn't sell anything for a
period of time that made them very uncomfortable. You know, when it comes to selling things
always need to be sold. There will always be a role in sales. So remember if you're going through
a difficult time or sales have slowed down, go back to, what's worked for you in the past and
continue with that. Making slight adjustments and tweaks. And if you're really stuck,
ask your existing customers, how are you buying today? What does the process look like?
Do you have any tips or strategies and how I can change my approach? You see, as you continue,
as the world continues to evolve, we need to evolve with it. And we do that by continuing
to build our skills, stay in touch with our buyers and move forward. So don't let
times that are tough or difficult hold you back, right? Keep moving forward, stay confident. And
you'll be successful. Speaking of being successful about a year ago, I created what I call the 30 day
action planner. It's a sale planner meant for high performing sales professionals
that allow you to map out the basic activities you wanna achieve by day by week and by month
there's even prompts as to what you should be doing included. I created this. There's
a link below. Make sure you click the link. There's no obligation. It's my gift to you.
As a way to try and help you continue to move forward as a high performing sales
professional. So click that link down below. All right. If you've enjoyed this video, make sure
you click the like button comment below with your strategies. What lessons did you learn from 2021
that you can add to the list and hit the subscribe button. You can stay up to date when I release
each and every video. Now, if you want to take these lessons and move forward, you'll need to
increase your influence. Make sure you watch this video next. We're I walk you through some
essential skills you'll need to have, if you want to be influential in sales. And until next time,
get out there, go sell something and we'll talk to you again soon. Take care.