ASK A SALES FUTURIST: HOW MOBILE, ONLINE AND SOCIAL SELLING ARE CHANGING THE GAME

Sales futurists and keynote speakers are abuzz lately with talk of new technology trends and workforce innovations. And why not? We’re seeing tomorrow take shape as we talk, thanks to the arrival of AI, machine learning, etc. As we hear it from the best sales futurists and keynote speakers, the field is expected to encompass the use of more automation, data insights, and a focus on customer experience going forward, giving way to…

• AI-powered tools – Sales reps will heavily utilize AI to automate administrative tasks, analyze data, provide recommendations, and personalize outreach to buyers.
• Predictive analytics – Data and predictive modeling will be used more extensively to identify the highest value sales opportunities and optimize allocation of resources, per leading sales futurists and keynote speakers.
• Social selling – Social media engagement will become integral to building relationships with prospects and generating leads through valuable content.
• Consultative approach – Salespeople will act more as expert consultants guiding prospects through their buying journey rather than pure transactional sales.
• Video and remote selling – Digital tools like video conferencing will enable more virtual consultations and demos mirroring the online consumer experience.
• Sales and marketing alignment – Better integration of sales and marketing systems, data and content strategies will improve hand-offs in the funnel.
• Customer-centricity – Sales interactions or so sales futurists and keynote speakers say will be hyper personalized through deep understanding of each prospect’s needs, challenges and buying process.
• Sales enablement – More ongoing sales enablement and microlearning tools to update the skills and knowledge of the sales force in real-time.
• Specialization – Sales roles will become more specialized with deep product expertise as offerings become more complex and technical.

All that being said selling will rely heavily on technology to build trusted advisor relationships tailored to each customer through greater data insights and targeted content.