Sales processes have been transforming for the last four years as they have never had before. Thanks to ubiquitous internet, mobile devices and capabilities to track consumer behaviors selling is now more about serving customers ready to buy rather than trying to make them buy.
60% potential customers want to connect with Sales after they have researched the options and come up with a short list.
Cold calling, door-to-door and many other well-known-for-long techniques are dead. Now, a customer knows exactly what he or she wants and, what’s more important, they come to you after they did their research and they are ready to buy. So, what’s really important nowadays is MARKETING. But is marketing enough? Some might say yes, but I think differently. Marketing is now more important than ever because it’s marketing that builds leads’ and customers’ awareness. And it’s marketing that drives potential customers to your offerings. It’s also marketing, or more precisely marketing analytics, that helps you segment your customers and tailor your offers to accommodate for potential customers’ demands.
Selling was always about closing what marketing started. But now, you can go online and buy stuff without even bothering to talk to salespeople. It’s enough that you conduct a short research, read peer reviews and find out what you need about the product. And that’s it.
It works not only in the online world. It’s very popular to buy “real” stuff, atoms, via Offline-to-Online (O2O) platforms. Without even seeing the salesperson.
So, is Sales dead?
Yes and no. Traditional selling is dead. Modern selling, very closely coupled with marketing is not. Sales is for the first time in history (ok, in my opinion) strictly in the service of marketing. Selling and marketing are blended as they have never been. Selling just does not exist without marketing anymore. But marketing isn’t everything. Yet.
That’s why I came up with and coined the term SALKETING. In my opinion there is no better word to describe all activities that salespeople and marketers do nowadays to help their customers buy.
It’s selling smoothly blended with marketing, with marketing taking more and more of what we used to call a „sales funnel”.