The New High-Performing Seller: How B2B Sales is Changing?

Global B2B sales landscape is in flux, presenting a significant challenge for sales organizations.

With 72% of sellers feeling overwhelmed by required skills and 75% of B2B buyers preferring rep-free experiences, the traditional sales approach is under pressure. Yet, high-performing sellers are still 2.9x to 3.7x more likely to meet their quotas.

This blog post, drawing insights from a recent Gartner webinar on ‘The New High-Performing Seller: Essential Skills to Supercharge Your Sales Force’ featuring experts Billy Luckey, Director, Advisory, Gartner and Michael Katz, Sr Director, Research, Gartner, aims to uncover the secrets of these successful sellers.

We'll explore the essential skills defining the new high-performing seller and provide a roadmap for navigating this challenging terrain for sales organizations.

From the evolving seller mindset to the critical role of AI in sales, we'll delve into the competencies that truly impact today's B2B sales environment.

How Seller's Mindset Has Changed?

The B2B sales landscape has significantly transformed, necessitating a shift in the seller's mindset and approach. Several factors drive this change:

Overwhelming complexity

Modern sellers are grappling with an increasingly complex role. According to the 2024 Gartner Seller Skills Survey, 72% of sellers agree they are overwhelmed by the required skills. This complexity extends to their technology, with 50% of sellers feeling overwhelmed by the technology needed to do their jobs effectively.

Expanding responsibilities

The role of a B2B seller has evolved far beyond traditional selling activities. Today's sellers are expected to manage a diverse range of tasks, including:

• Sales reporting and territory planning
• Deal reviews and account planning
• Quote and contract generation
• Coaching and mentoring peers
• Product knowledge management
• Data upkeep and cleaning
• CRM management
• Value messaging and digital adoption
• Market and customer research
• Pricing justification and negotiation

Adaptation to buyer preferences

With 75% of buyers preferring a rep-free experience, sellers must adapt their approach to add value in limited interactions. This requires shifting from a pure selling mindset to strategic consultation and value addition.

Emotional intelligence

Since 77% of buyers feel personal reputational risk associated with a purchase, sellers need to develop a more empathetic and emotionally intelligent approach to address both the rational and emotional aspects of B2B decision-making.

Continuous learning orientation

The rapidly changing business environment demands that sellers adopt a mindset of continuous learning and adaptation. This includes embracing new technologies, understanding evolving buyer behaviors, and constantly refining their skills.

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Facts about B2B Buying that Influenced this Change

Several key factors have contributed to the evolution of B2B buying, necessitating a change in selling approaches:

Increased complexity and variability: The B2B buying journey has become highly complex and variable, with multiple touchpoints, stakeholders, and decision points.

Emotional nature of B2B buying: 77% of buyers feel personal reputational risk associated with a purchase, highlighting the emotional aspect of B2B decisions.

Preference for independence: 75% of buyers prefer a rep-free sales experience, indicating a shift towards self-directed learning and decision-making.

Limited time with suppliers: Buyers spend only about 20% of their total purchase time meeting with suppliers, emphasizing the need for sellers to maximize the impact of their interactions.

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Selling Skills that are the Need of the Hour

To thrive in the new B2B sales environment, high-performing sellers need to develop three key competencies, each comprising specific skills:

Mentalizing

This competency is about inferring unspoken beliefs, feelings, and intentions to predict and influence buyer behavior. It comprises three key skills:

Active listening: Being fully present as the buyer speaks rather than focusing on what to say next. This involves:

• Paraphrasing to confirm understanding
• Clarifying ambiguous points
• Asking open-ended questions to encourage deeper discussion

Perspective taking: Putting oneself in the buyer's shoes to understand their context and thought process. This includes:

• Understanding the buyer's business context
• Recognizing patterns in buyer behavior
• Inferring underlying motivations and concerns

Cognitive decoding: Synthesizing all information to predict buyers' behavior and adjust opportunity strategy accordingly. This involves:

• Responding to subtle cues
• Adjusting plans based on new insights
• Assessing buyer reactions to proposals or information

Tactical flexibility

This competency is about thinking outside the box and pivoting approaches according to the demands of the situation. It includes two primary skills:

Learning agility: Experimenting with different sales approaches based on the situation. This might involve:

• Participating in brainstorming sessions to learn new ideas
• Recommending novel solutions to overcome customer engagement obstacles
• Continuously experimenting with different approaches to solve customer challenges

Situational versatility: Shifting strategies for sharing content with customers based on their changing needs and requirements. This could include:

• Adapting presentation styles to suit different buyer personas
• Flexibly adjusting the sales approach mid-conversation based on buyer feedback
• Customizing content delivery methods to match buyer preferences

AI Partnership

This competency involves effectively leveraging AI tools to enhance sales performance. It comprises two key skills:

Use case selection: Knowing how and when to leverage the right AI to tailor/automate customer messaging, gather competitive market data, and summarize sales reports. This includes:

• Understanding the strengths and limitations of various AI tools
• Identifying repetitive tasks that can be automated or enhanced by AI
• Matching specific sales activities with appropriate AI solutions

Prompt engineering: Effectively translating specific ideas into instructions for AI tech. This involves:

• Crafting clear and specific instructions for AI tools
• Understanding how to phrase requests to get optimal results from AI
• Iteratively refining prompts based on AI outputs

These competencies are strongly linked to sales performance. The webinar data shows that sellers demonstrating high competency in these areas are 2.9x to 3.7x more likely to meet their quotas than those with low competency.

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Role of AI in the Future of Selling

Artificial Intelligence is poised to play a transformative role in the future of B2B sales, shifting from being a mere tool to becoming an integral teammate in the sales process.

This evolution necessitates a new approach to how sellers interact with and leverage AI:

From tool to teammate

The perception of AI is evolving from being just another tool in the sales tech stack to becoming a collaborative partner in the sales process. This shift requires sellers to develop a new mindset and skillset for effective AI collaboration.

Identifying the appropriate use cases

Sellers need to become adept at identifying appropriate AI use cases within their sales workflow. This involves understanding the strengths and limitations of different AI technologies and matching them to specific sales activities.

For example:

• Using AI for tailoring and automating customer messaging in sales presentations
• Leveraging AI to gather and analyze competitive market data
• Employing AI to summarize sales reports for internal stakeholders

Workflow integration

AI is becoming increasingly integrated into various sales process stages. Sellers need to understand how to incorporate AI into their daily workflows effectively. This might involve:

• Using AI-powered conversational intelligence tools to analyze customer interactions
• Leveraging AI for opportunity prioritization and lead scoring
• Employing AI-driven insights for account planning and strategy development

Ethical considerations

As AI becomes more prevalent in sales, sellers need to be aware of its ethical implications. This includes understanding issues around data privacy, bias in AI algorithms, and transparent communication with customers about AI usage.

Continuous learning

The rapid evolution of AI technology means that sellers must adopt a mindset of continuous learning and adaptation. This involves staying updated on new AI capabilities, understanding their potential applications in sales, and continuously refining their AI collaboration skills.

Balancing AI and human skills: While AI can significantly enhance various aspects of the sales process, it's crucial for sellers to understand where human skills remain irreplaceable. This involves leveraging AI to augment rather than replace core human competencies like empathy, complex problem-solving, and relationship building.

Performance enhancement: When used effectively, AI has the potential to significantly boost seller performance. The webinar data suggests that sellers effectively leverage AI in their work are more likely to meet or exceed their quotas.

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Conclusion

In B2B sales, success depends on combining human skills with AI capabilities. Top sellers excel at understanding buyers' needs, adapting strategies, and using AI as a collaborative tool. To develop these skills, sales teams must go beyond traditional training, adopting innovative learning methods that foster lasting change.

By embracing AI as a partner rather than just a tool, sellers can enhance their effectiveness, streamline workflows, and make data-driven decisions. This AI-human synergy is key to navigating complex sales processes and consistently exceeding targets in a competitive market.

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