Everything You Need to Know About Selling in 2021
Becca Eddleman
“Everything you need to know about selling in 2021” is a tall order to absorb and make actionable, so we’ve narrowed it down into the six key areas you need to focus on when it comes to sales effectiveness.
If we had to boil it down to one – it would be digital selling.
2020 was a tall order in itself for salespeople, and it’s forever changed the face of sales.
Literally, if we think about virtual pitching and meetings versus in-person meetings, and grabbing dinner and a drink.
But on the other hand, 2020 really just accelerated what was already happening, and that’s moving more towards digital selling tactics and conversations.
That’s why the six trends we’re going to cover and GIVE AWAY ebooks, webinar recordings, articles, and worksheets for include:
- The modern outbound plays you should be running using a multi-channel approach (digital and traditional)
- How to use video in every stage of the process + examples
- Why we need more Sales Operations support and technology training for reps (there is no other way we’re going to keep up with the explosion of tech that’s supposed to improve sales effectiveness and efficiency)
- LinkedIn as a main channel for digital selling and how to create content for it that drives sales
- “Good sellers borrow, great sellers steal” – basically, sellers and leaders are putting out so much content right now on LinkedIn and sales community blogs of what’s working and what’s not. Learn from their failures and wins!
- Building an online reputation is something our CEO, Jake Dunlap, has been talking about and advising on for years. It is no longer negotiable.
The 2021 Checklist for Sales Effectiveness
You’re going to want to check this list twice to make sure you’re ready for 2021.
Before we dive in, let’s talk about what you’re going to find in each section.
Each digital selling and sales effectiveness trend you’ll find below will include free content for you to download, watch, and share with the team.
Some resources you may have come across before if you regularly consume our trends and best practices, but a few will be new!
2021 is here and there is no time like the present to review your current process, analyze how your team is doing, and implement these six trends to optimize your process for your buyer.
#1 Modern Outbound in 2021
We launched the first-ever Modern Outbound Playbook just a couple of months ago that contains everything you need to know about call, email, video, and Linkedin best practices + 5 ACTUAL plays your team can implement tomorrow.
Download The Modern Outbound Playbook
Two other sales effectiveness trends you’ll find below are around sales technology and LinkedIn – both are also a part of a modern approach so we’re including a few extra resources here when it comes to specifically outbound and prospecting.
3 Outreach Pro Tips for SDRs, Managers, & Admins
How to Switch Your Outbound to 50% LinkedIn [Webinar & Slide Deck w/ Skaled’s LinkedIn Checklist for Generating More Meetings]
Related Content: Modern Outbound Playbook – The Digital Selling Experience Edition
#2 Videos + Video & More Video
Industry leaders like Vidyard put out tons of content about the value of using video in your sales process and the many ways to do it.
You may have seen the SDR holding up a white dry erase board with a prospect’s name on it for instance.
But we don’t talk enough about the fact that you can use video in every step of the sales process (to engage, convert, and nurture), and a lot of these tactics (that work) can be recorded from your smartphone.
At Skaled, we love the LinkedIn DM. Tools like Vidyard are great for a little more professionalism and if you need to screen share. But there is nothing more personal in a world gone almost fully digital than video sent via LinkedIn from someone’s phone that is speaking directly to you.
Using video in an outbound sequence:
Engage with video through LinkedIn:
Engage with video through email or use it to send a meeting recap:
#3 Sales Ops Support & More Tech Training
According to our poll of 500 sales tech users earlier this year, 49% of respondents said that they struggled with adoption because of poor setup or training.
Another poll showed that 52% of respondents spent anywhere from 10-30% of their time on operational and technical tasks.
Now, that’s a wide range but other studies from Xant indicated sellers spend 15% of their time on administrative tasks and Salesforce indicated up to 25%.
Check out the full post of results for these two polls here to learn more about Sales Time Lost Due to Operational & Technical Task Overload.
Related Content: Time-to-Hire Ebook
If we think about the way the world is trending in 2021, there are really two needs when it comes to sales technology and sales effectiveness.
- Proper expert support – i.e. Sales Operations
- More emphasis on sales training and a new requirement when hiring SDRs and sales reps.
Obviously, adoption is a major issue in sales organizations. Most of the time Sales Operations handles setup and initial training, but ongoing training and optimization is an area of improvement for many organizations even with full sales operations teams.
Sellers need more training in order to do their jobs in a digital age. Sales Operations can only take sellers so far and adoption needs to be more of a priority from the frontlines to leadership.
Frontline reps and managers:
The Skale up Your Sales Tech series is a collection of 3-6 minute FREE trainings that we published on YouTube. Our main focuses were Outreach and Salesforce as they are the most common tools used by sellers.
Skaling up your sales tech doesn’t mean investing in more tech. It means investing in the proper training to 2X your return on investment. Watch the Skale Up Your Sales Tech Series for Free Trainings.
Watch the videos
Sales technology and sales tech adoption is a critical component of Sales Operations’ job, but it’s not the only component.
Related Content: 10 Ways Sales Operations Drives Revenue [Infographic]
If you don’t have the sales ops support you need in 2021, contact us to learn more about how we support growing organizations that don’t have a dedicated Sales Operations team or how we can augment your team for special initiatives.
Contact Skaled
#4 LinkedIn – Your Main Digital Selling Channel
Fortunately, more and more sales organizations are recognizing the importance of LinkedIn, but unfortunately many don’t know how to get started and usage isn’t as widespread as it should be.
If you’re in B2B sales, most likely your buyers are on LinkedIn. Some daily, some weekly. Some interact with content regularly, others post content regularly.
The beauty of LinkedIn is that there are many ways to build your digital presence and reputation and there are different tactics and strategies that can be used from frontline sellers to executive leadership.
But since this is a post about sales effectiveness trends in 2021, we’ll stick to how LinkedIn should be your main digital selling channel.
The Content C-Suites are Creating for LinkedIn [Webinar]Selling with Content [PDF] – get accessUsing LinkedIn Touchpoints to Increase Sales Performance
Every B2B sales team is active on LinkedIn but 90%+ of organizations do not have a real sales strategy for their team. They share company posts that get little to no interaction, they struggle to get responses from DMs, and overall we don’t know how effective any of the activities are.
For more information on how to utilize LinkedIn as your main digital selling channel, Contact Skaled to get a personalized audit of your content and strategy, a 2021 roadmap, ongoing training, and build-out of modern outbound plays that utilize LinkedIn effectively.
In 2021, LinkedIn networking will replace conferences, trade shows, and become the premier destination for your buyers online.
#5 Good Sellers Borrow, Great Sellers Steal
We mean a few things by this.
No.1: There is so much great sales advice available online for free right now. (Cough, cough. This blog post.)
Sellers and leaders are publishing tons of content on LinkedIn, Sales community blogs like RevGenius, even community slack channels. They’re talking about what’s working and what’s not, successes and failures – all ripe for the stealing.
Here are a few of the greats on LinkedIn that you should follow today and start stealing their advice.
Jake Dunlap, Morgan Ingram, Sarah Brazier, Kevin Dorsey, Kyle Coleman, Justin Welsh.
No. 2 In the last section, we talked about using LinkedIn as your main digital selling channel and using content to sell.
We’ll let you in on a little secret. Curating content can be just as effective as creating original content.
To give you some ideas: With millions of blogs posted a day and millions of LinkedIn posts posted a day, buyers and prospects will appreciate curated lists of top content so they don’t have to do the research, posts that offer key insights so they can read less, and posts that offer opposing opinions to help them make decisions.
Pro tip: Steal everything in this blog post.
No. 3: Steal from your marketing team. Talk about a pit of untapped content you can steal (and not feel bad about).
Chances are, your marketing team has the industry insights you’re looking for to share. They have what messaging works and what doesn’t data.
This is still one of our favorite talks about Sales and Marketing alignment, and it specifically covers how to steal Marketing’s content for Sales purposes.
Sales Engagement Masters: Kevin Dorsey. Four Steps to Amazing Sales + Marketing Alignment
#6 Building a Reputation People See
If you haven’t noticed by now, a lot of our checklist items for sales effectiveness are interrelated.
LinkedIn is a part of almost every trend. Content is a part of almost every trend. And digital selling is definitely the catalyst for all of these trends.
So #6 on our list is building a reputation people can see or a digital presence.
Face to face isn’t an option. Networking events isn’t an option. In-person trade shows isn’t an option.
You can’t get in front of your buyers physically – but you can get in front of them digitally on LinkedIn. Or any other platform your buyers may be on such as association websites and virtual events.
Here’s a thought. What if you did more webinars and guest podcasts? What if you encourage your team to do more?
It could be for your company’s content, it could be a collab with a partner, or you could just ask a LinkedIn connection.
You’ll grow connections during the live event and you can repurpose the video as on-demand content and thought leadership post the event.
When you think of your online or digital presence, your goal isn’t to be social media famous. Your goal is to build a reputation that your buyers respect and trust.
Get creative. Try different social platforms and different content mediums.
Building an online reputation that buyers see will never go away. Even when people can have human-to-human interaction again.
As we pointed out in the beginning of this post, 2020 really just accelerated what was already happening in sales.
Here are a couple of resources to get you started building your brand on LinkedIn and building an online reputation.
Our three-step process to building your personal brand on LinkedInSales Engagement Masters: Building a Reputation Online
The area we see sellers and leaders struggle with the most is creating content and coming up with ideas, so here’s one more resource you’ll want to bookmark:
Related Content: What should I post on LinkedIn? 99 Ideas.
Don’t forget to Review, Analyze, AND Optimize
After reading these six trends to improve sales effectiveness in 2021, how prepared do you feel?
Some of these trends apply to individual sellers, some apply to teams.
Whether you have finalized your strategy or are looking for the exact areas that will increase your sales effectiveness 10-20% in 2021, make sure to steal these six trends.
Or, you can always ask for help.
Our Executive, Operations, and Enablement experts will review your people, process, and technology and give you the roadmap to solve challenges faster.
Contact Skaled