Despite the changing behaviours of buyers in B2B markets, salespeople are in danger of not adopting digital platforms and sales techniques such as social selling that are more likely to boost sales performance.
At Doqaru, we have set out to understand what B2B sales look like today to determine what is working best for salespeople. A quick google search tells us the future is digital. According to Gartner’s 2020 Future of Sales research, by 2025, we can expect 80% of B2B sales interactions between suppliers and buyers to happen on digital channels. So, we wanted to understand how far we are from this digital sales age. In November 2021, we administered a survey to gauge the performance of salespeople based on a series of factors. Such factors include the position in the company, industry, company size, and sales techniques.
As we look ahead to the predicted B2B sales trends of 2025, we first need to understand what is working today. Our survey went to 104 respondents in B2B sales roles. We asked them about the channels and techniques they use and the associated level of success.
You may expect to learn from the largest teams when you think about sales. But our survey shows that smaller companies (£1m or less in revenue) have the shortest sales cycles. For example, 47% of the salespeople in smaller companies are closing deals in just one to two calls. Most salespeople in larger companies take at least one to three months to close deals, with a third of them saying it takes three to six months.
We have identified the use of social media as a critical factor. Our research highlights a clear link between social media use and sales performance. Over half of salespeople that exceeded their sales target stated they use social media daily, whereas over 60% of those that did not meet their targets use social media monthly or less. Moreover, salespeople in the biggest companies (£100M+ in revenue) are the least comfortable using social media. A staggering 46.6% say they rarely or never use social media as a tool for sales.
Download your copy of the full report: Social Selling Proves to be a Critical Success Factor in Sales