7 TRENDS THAT ARE

REDEFINING SALES

Executive Summary

Its been a great year for the professional sales industry. Not only have
there been strides in the overall economy, sales leaders continue to
make significant progress by advancing the profession with new ideas.
In this eBook, we share with you some of the most dominant themes that
have shaped the mindset of sales leaders in 2015. These concepts
some known, some new continue to be tried, tested and validated by
small and large organizations and have been listed as top trends by
research leaders such as PwC, Forrester , Accenture and SiriusDecisions
We invite you to explore these trends and ask yourself where your
organization and sales teams are with them. Our goal is that you take a
few ideas away and discuss them with your peers and teams.
The most successful people in life read voraciously. Business leaders
read to keep up with trends, foresee new ones and execute
aggressively to adopt the ones that make the most sense. They do so to
unearth million dollar ideas that theyre not aware of.
We hope this eBook brings you many of these million dollar ideas.

About The Author

Amar Sheth

Sales for Life

Social Selling Evangelist/Principal

Amar is a consummate business development, sales and

marketing leader with a passion for social media
technologies. With over a decade of experience, he has
been providing technology and digital marketing solutions to
some of the largest organizations in North America.
Through a series of progressively senior roles throughout his
career, he has been responsible for introducing and
implementing marketing and sales strategies for new
products and services.
He was most recently a co-founder and partner at Right Spot
Media which provided premier digital marketing and
technology solutions in North America and Asia. Amar enjoys
traveling, volunteers for causes that inspire him and is a
graduate of the University of Toronto.

Table of Contents
Page Number

4
5

6
8
10
12
13
15
17

19
20

Topic

Introduction
Trends

01 Big Data
02 Digital Transformation
03 Internet of Things (IoT)
04 Sales Acceleration Technology
05 Social Selling
06 Coaching The Coach
07 Repeatable Models

Summary
Next Steps

Introduction
Its Never Too Late
Before we begin to discuss these top trends, we leave you
with one clear message: its never too late.
We realize that as sales leaders youre being pulled in
multiple directions and that time is of the utmost value. The
sheer fact that youre reading this means youre interested
in knowing where the market is and possibly which ideas you
can incorporate into your organization.
Let that never be a reason for you to stop seeking new
information and ideas. Its never too late for you to try
unknown ideas and improve on the ones you may currently
have in play.

Trends

01 Big Data
2015 became the year of analytics and the start of big data
for sales teams. Smart organizations began incorporating
analytics at every stage of the sales process. The year saw
an explosion of tools and software to make it easier to make
sense of whats happening in your funnel.
Analytics ranges from the entire customer lifecycle through
to predictive analytics and even KPIs that empower insights
at various points of the sales funnel.

Data is not only being found but its being acted on. The
entire reason for analytics software empowering sales
teams is simple: better customer/user experience.
Organizations focused on superior Customer and User
Experience are the ones often rewarded with greater
revenues and customer loyalty.

High-performing sales
teams are 3.5x more likely
than underperforming
teams to use sales
analytics.
According to Salesforce Research,
2015 State of Sales

02 Digital Transformation

Skillset amongst sales professionals on any team are wildly

different. The challenge for sales leaders and enablement
continues to be having people march to the same
drumbeat and proving out repeatable models that ensure
the adoption of new technologies and processes.
Its not just about using tools. Its about shifting mindsets and
evolving routines to incorporate these tools. Training,
therefore, was and continues to be one of the top trends in
2015 and one that will continue for the foreseeable future.
As new technologies, processes and market realities sweep
our industry, expect your sales team to need more training
to keep up with the pace.

Simply doing things the way youve done them wont

protect your core. Youll need to expand on knowledge
and truly seek adoption to ensure your market position and
grow.

65% of employees say the

quality of training and
learning opportunities
positively impacts their
engagement.
According to The ATD (Association for
Talent Development).

03 The Internet of Things (IoT)

Internet-enabled gadgets like smart watches, pedometers,

fitness trackers, thermostats, and sleeping monitors are now
almost everywhere. These devices projected to sell 100
million units by 2016 are opening up a whole new world of
datagathering and storytelling possibilities for sales and
marketing teams.

10

When doing research about buyers, todays marketers and sales

professionals rely heavily on subjective responses, opinions and
quick feedback. However, subjective perceptions and
judgements can make these exercises very unreliable.
In the not so distant future, companies will use wearable devices
to measure direct reactions of participants and gather
information about buyers. The understanding of peoples
behaviors will be purer and far more granular.

By 2017, the IoT market will

surpass the PC, tablet, and
phone market combined.
Source: BI Intelligence Estimates

For example, an altimeter will inform when someone is in an

elevator, flying in a plane, or climbing a mountain. Similarly, a
health tracker will identify movement and stress levels, and an
air meter will differentiate between indoor and outdoor spaces,
says tech expert Cezary Pietrzak. In the end, companies will be
"able to understand context and drive a much more relevant
message, adds Pietrzak.
Sales teams can't ignore this trend. They should embrace the
potential on the internet of things and the customer-centric
approach it enables. In doing so, theyll build stronger
relationships with customers and ultimately drive more revenue.

11

04 Sales Acceleration
Technology
There has been wonderful technology innovation benefiting
the sales industry. There are now tools to automate many
aspects of the sales professionals daily life.
The challenge, however, is that these solutions sit in silos.
Sales operations and enablement often wonder how many
tools they can invest in and how a sales professional can
weave all of them into a daily workflow.
So while 2015 saw many great point solutions to help
accelerate sales, our prediction is a merging of minds and
companies. Expect consolidation to sweep the industry
while the techies determine how to converge ideas into
true platform-plays.

12

05 Social Selling
There should be no surprise that buyers are now increasingly
conducting parts of the due diligence process on their own
and without a sales professional.
We believe more organizations realized this than ever in
2015. As a result, Social Selling training and tools saw
increased traction. Some of the largest organizations in the
world are now actively adopting and incorporating social
into their overall sales process.

13

Some of the primary drivers of Social Selling in 2015 include:

The reality of cold outreach with diminishing results;

Increased pipeline and revenue generation;

Competitive advantage to stave off and/or increase market

share and;

The ability to influence buyers when sales professionals

arent present.
Accenture reports that 93%
of sales professionals
havent received any formal
training on Social Selling at
all. While some doubt the
necessity of social. As
traditional cold outreach
methods lose their
effectiveness, social will
become a priority for sales
leaders in the coming
months and years.

14

06 Coaching
The Coach
Frontline sales managers have increasingly challenging
roles. While overall team quota attainment is
the measure, many are still carrying individual quotas as
well.
In addition, there is a tremendous focus on rigorously
managing and coaching individual sales
Contributors.

15

The question then is, who is coaching the coach?

These are the reasons why 2015 witnessed an increased

investment by sales organizations to better train and
equip sales management. We fully expect this trend to
continue unabated and dominate sales priorities in the
coming years.
EcSELL Institute fully recommends that sales managers
have their own coaching programs and that they
participate in sales training with their teams at all times.
Knowing the intricacies is invaluable; it helps provide
coaching and mentoring opportunities that drive
adoption.

16

07 Repeatable
Models
The overall bombardment of information on sales teams
continues. Technology and access to information is adding
fuel to the fire.
As a result, in 2015 sales leaders started to focus on
uncluttering the sales professionals calendar. There is now
more focus on increased selling time through proven and
repeatable models.

17

Teams that started this are already seeing positive results.

This has been happening since 2013 when Qvidian reported
that firms acknowledged 30% greater profits than those
firms that do not consistently guide selling activity.

We expect two main themes emerging from this:

1. More sales leaders will go down this path to free up
more selling time.
2. Any sales tools/training programs that dont help with
creating more selling time will largely be ignored.
Guided selling activity through repeatable methodologies
can, therefore, lead to greater growth.

18

Summary
Ask yourself how many of these trends are help
shaping your business today. Where are the gaps in
your sales organization preventing it from greater
market share? Remember, its never too late to start
incorporating new ideas to take your team to the
next level.
Do you believe weve missed any trends? We invite
you to share your thoughts with us.

19

Are you ahead of the curve in sales?

Join our free webinar to learn Social Selling.

REGISTER - FREE

20