Why Inbound and Inside Sales Experts Think Sales Process is Dead Too

Sales Process isn't even the only thing that inbound marketers say is dead.  They'll have you believing that salespeople are no longer needed, selling is dead, and a consultative approach is dead too.  They are basically ready to proclaim that anything selling related, that they don't really understand or find it necessary to do, is not needed and dead.  

Let's start with my recent Google search for "Sales Process is Dead."  That search turned up these articles on the first page of results:

So who wrote all of these articles?  

One article was written by a sales expert discussing the concept of following the buyer's purchasing process.  OK, that's still a sales process and it has some validity if you have weak salespeople that sell to large companies where you can't impact or change anything relative to how they buy.

One article was published in Harvard Business Review and was really about Solution Selling being dead.  It isn't dead but the authors are making a lot of money by saying that and pushing the Challenger Sale!

And the rest were written by marketers who might sell a lot more of their services if they can convince you that sales process is dead. 

The second page of the Google search results was even worse, including proclamations that B2B selling is dead and that field sales is dead.  Don't get me wrong.  I love and use some of their tools and services and recommend them to clients too.  But the key word here is tools.  They support and enhance selling.  Tools don't replace selling.

There's very little question that everything we know about selling has changed dramatically in the past 5-8 years.  I've written about these changes on 5 occasions and even my viewpoint has changed during this time!  See:

There is some truth to what inbound marketing experts and inside sales experts are saying relative to the context of who they work with.  Certainly, those who work inbound leads only need to follow up and either schedule a call or get the lead to click a button and subscribe.  There isn't any complicated selling or sales process to navigate in order for that to work!  Many inside salespeople only need to concern themselves with the top of the funnel where scheduling an appointment is their ultimate success.  

The disconnect occurs when salespeople, sales managers, sales leaders, marketing executives and CEO s read the propaganda from the inbound/inside experts and mistakenly believe that it applies to them!  There are 10 scenarios where that message does not and will not ever apply you:

1. If you don't sell inexpensive subscriptions
2. If you aren't the lowest price in your category
3. If you don't have a short sales cycle
4. If you aren't the brand leader
5. If you have a story to tell
6. If your product requires design/build or customization 
7. If what you sell is a lot of money
8. If you have a new company, new product or new technology
9. If you need to get to the C Suite
10. If you are the underdog

Today, there are a significant number of inside salespeople who are responsible for entire sales cycle and they carry a quota too.  Don't even suggest that they don't need a sales process and don't need to sell.  And today, if you want to have any chance of selling value, differentiating and winning business, you must take a consultative approach using a milestone-centric sales process.  You can include buyer milestones in that process if you like, but if you include only buyer side milestones and don't focus on sales-side milestones, you will get beat by competitors who have a true sales process.

This is important.  Selling is difficult - more difficult than ever before.  Consistent success requires a consultative approach that most salespeople have difficulty executing because they haven't been properly trained or coached in its application, don't practice, and aren't confident enough to use it.  It's much easier to give in to the marketers and abandon the sales process, abandon the consultative approach, abandon value selling, and abandon best practices despite how relevant and effective they still are.  You'll have a longer sales process and a lower win-rate but failing will never be easier!

Or, you can take the path less traveled, use the more difficult consultative approach in a more challenging milestone-centric sales process. Your sales cycle will be shorter and you'll have a higher win rate.

Easy gets you lousy results.  Difficult helps you achieve consistent success.

I've seen this first-hand with Golf and Tennis.  Accept the difficult job of learning to play either game the right way, learn the right strokes, learn the right strategies, and practice your butt off and you'll win a lot more than you'll lose and feel much better about it too.  Or, continue to play like a hack and you'll lose a lot more than you'll win and be constantly frustrated and discouraged.

In the end it's always up to you.  There are plenty of us who are always more than willing to help with if you want to take the journey to mastery.