When we stand still in the technology business, we are going backwards. Just when we figure things out, the market rolls the dice and changes the game. We not only need to innovate, we need to do it faster than the market changes.
This is especially true in sales. Your favorite sales technique loses its mojo. "Best Practices" stop being best, replaced by new practices that also will eventually only work for a limited time.
Best Practices of Yesteryear
What about traditional business growth practices that used to be commonplace?
- Newspaper & Magazine Advertising
- Door Knocks
- Direct Mail Campaigns
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"I'll Take Archaic Sales Practices for $200, Alex"
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Also Beat to Death
More recent practices are now "yesterday's news" because of overuse:
Vendors in the SF Bay area overdid Lunch & Learns to the extent that savvy consumers created apps to list and track all the sources of free food. Then dozens of homeless people started showing up to them.
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"Where's the nearest Lunch & Learn?"
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Circling the Drain
Last year, many salespeople had great success with video e-mail sent by applications such as BombBomb and Soapbox. Prospects clicked on them because they were new and different.
Once the novelty wears off, these videos don't work as well.
Similarly, marketers created interest for years by
sponsoring movie premieres. Especially successful, Star Wars, Spiderman, and Avengers. For obvious reasons, that doesn't work anymore either!
Everything works great, until it doesn't. As Gary Vaynerchuk says "Marketers Ruin Everything".
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"I came to hear about SD-WAN Kenobi"
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Old Faithful
Most distressing is what's happened to the most common, most widely used, most consistently successful prospecting approach ever: telephone calling. Since April, it's gotten much harder:
- more dials to get a connection
- more connections to book a meeting
- more bookings to get accepted opportunity
Here are some before / after stats from one telemarketing organization:
It literally takes three times more dials to get a confirmed meeting since CV-19 hit.
So What? Now What?
There's no point in identifying a hot, new idea in this space. By the time you read & implement it, it won't be as effective. The only solution? Constantly innovate and try new ideas.
Look forward, not back at what used to work. As Satchel Paige once said "Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you."
