Conquering Obstacles: Key Steps to Overcoming Common Sales Challenges in Today’s Market

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Conquering Obstacles: Key Steps to Overcoming Common Sales Challenges in Today’s Market

Sales challenges are part and parcel of doing business. Every salesperson and marketer — even the most experienced — encounters obstacles when trying to close a deal. Overcoming them is essential to driving revenue and establishing a solid foothold in your industry. Discover the sales challenges in modern companies and how to overcome them.

Sales Challenges to Look Out For

Enterprises encounter many sales challenges in their pursuit of success. Here are several key obstacles in today’s market:

• Buyers expect personalized content: A TELUS survey found 43% of customers prefer personalized interactions in the buyer journey. This is a challenge for businesses, especially those who use a one-size-fits-all approach to lead generation and nurturing. People clamor for a personalized touch in a follow-up email and deal offers. The more they connect with the product or service, the better the chances they will hit that “buy” button.
• Longer sales cycles: Long sales cycles are part of the sales process. It is a challenge every brand faces, especially those that require high initial investments. Long sales cycles require more resources, and significant time and effort from sales and marketing teams. Buyers now have more power over the sales process than ever. Many prefer to research product features, benefits and reviews on their own until they are ready to purchase.
• AI concerns: Early adoption of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and automation can be costly for many businesses. They require significant investment in tools, staff training, progress tracking and more. Enterprises that refuse to ride the wave will be left out by those who do. Of course, using AI in business has many caveats firms should also consider.
• Social selling: Social selling is making waves in the industry. LinkedIn data shows 78% of salespeople outsell their peers who do not use social media in their sales processes. Consumers are everywhere, especially on social networking sites. Sales teams can generate and nurture leads by engaging consumers directly through their mobile devices.
• Sales and marketing disconnect: Marketing and sales go hand in hand. Both departments should align to make effective campaigns, pass high-quality leads and close deals. A disconnect between the two can create many challenges for everyone in the organization. Improving sales and marketing alignment can drive growth and generate revenue for any company.

Tips on How to Overcome Business Obstacles and Close the Deal

Organizations should look at sales challenges and see opportunities for growth instead of just obstacles. Here are some tips to overcome them.

Leverage Tools

Improving sales and marketing alignment can help overcome sales challenges in one fell swoop. Companies should invest in tools to help their teams work better together. Customer relationship management (CRM) systems offer intuitive features that help boost sales and marketing collaboration and consumer engagement.

Equipping workers with the right software and information can improve their performance and ability to close deals. A good CRM can show sales and marketing teams relevant data about existing campaigns, and help them derive actionable insights. Since CRMs have communication functions and scheduling systems, they can build rapport with prospects and send personalized follow-up emails to hot leads right on time.

Prioritize Personalization

Customer preferences change quickly, especially now that they have more resources at their disposal to research relevant information about a product or service they are interested in. Personalized marketing will play a massive role in nurturing leads and closing deals, so brands should tailor their sales approach depending on the type of lead they are pursuing.

Use surveys to study behaviors and create relevant buyer personas to make personalized reminders via multiple channels. Staying close to prospective consumers while being unintrusive can help sales teams react quickly when buying signals reveal themselves. The process is largely emotional — connecting with consumers is an excellent way to make them feel seen and understood, leading to more verified sales and revenue.

Build Trust and Shorten the Sales Cycle

Consumers can be indecisive, even the interested ones. Companies that use the traditional sales funnel may need to adjust their strategies to make the buying process as frictionless as possible. Marketing teams must work harder to build authority and consumer trust by providing more valuable information through content marketing and other engaging channels. Adopting a user-centered approach to sales also makes users feel more important in their buying journey.

Long sales cycles are detrimental to any firm, so it is essential to see which interactions work and which do not. Tracking key performance indicators, user engagement, lead scores and other metrics can help businesses devise stronger strategies and shorten the sales cycle. Enterprises should also consider making more enticing deals and offering multiple price tiers for products and services that fit different consumer budgets. Highlighting these high-value offers can help get people to take action faster.

Supercharge Different Functions With AI

Early AI adoption can help brands overcome sales challenges by maximizing their augmenting capabilities. Instead of fighting against AI and other technologies, sales and marketing teams should use them to make quick work of labor-intensive tasks.

AI tools can help organizations stay on top of their lead generation and nurturing processes by identifying prospects in a sea of visitors and interested users. Marketing teams can also derive valuable insights from user analytics and behavioral patterns to create personalized recommendations and reminders. Emerging technologies are here to stay — the quicker firms realize their potential in overcoming sales challenges, the faster they can react to changing conditions.

Implement Social Selling

While selling an excellent product is a sales tactic itself, supplementing it with good social interaction and engagement can help secure leads and close deals. Consumers yearn for a human touch whenever they need to decide whether to make a purchase. Integrating social selling into sales can help catch consumers’ attention and influence positive purchase decisions.

Sales and marketing teams should leverage social networks — whether B2B or B2C — to improve brand visibility and recognition. An excellent product will sell itself, but it also helps if brilliant salespeople attract attention and pique people’s interest. Treating social media as a valuable resource can be the deciding factor between a successful product launch and lackluster sales.

Conquering Sales Challenges Drives Business Growth

Organizations must constantly adapt to the evolving business environment. Part of that means catering to people’s ever-changing needs and preferences. Any company that wants to secure its future must pour time, effort, and resources into its sales and marketing strategies to conquer obstacles and turn them into business opportunities.

Conquering Obstacles: Key Steps to Overcoming Common Sales Challenges in Today’s Market
Brian Wallace

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