Sales Trends In 2023 Part 2

In Part 1 of our Sales Trends for 2023, we discussed that sales strategies will continue to shift as new challenges and changes arise within the industry. If you haven’t read through Sales Trends In 2023 Part 1, I encourage you to do that now and return for Part 2.

To quickly recap Sales Trends In 2023 Part 1, demos should focus on the problem—not just the solution—and sales reps must tailor demos to each prospect. Sales reps need to persist through multiple touchpoints and not give up. The strongest sales reps will exhibit endurance, resilience, and patience. The ‘Freemium Model’ will become increasingly popular as organizations showcase some of their features in hopes that free accounts will convert to paid ones. Existing customers, who account for more than 30% of revenue growth, will be a focus to increase the ‘stickiness’ of accounts. 

Let’s look at the remaining trends, as highlighted in this Hubspot report.

Sales Hierarchy & Demo Personalization

5). Sales teams will have fewer managers and more sales reps. There is growing sentiment across the technology industry to simplify sales processes. Stuart Blake, VP of Sales at HelpScout, predicts that sales' hierarchical structure will degrade over the next five years, even if this shift is short-lived, and there will be more doers and fewer managers on sales teams.

6). The one-size-fits-all approach will continue to become obsolete. In Sales Trends for 2023 Part 1, we learned that sales reps should focus on tailoring demos to a prospect’s needs and demonstrate how the product will solve a specific pain point. Personalization is important, and 25% of sales reps believe personalizing interactions with prospects will be the most significant change in sales in 2023. 

Target a more narrow audience that includes your ideal customer profile as opposed to casting a wide net. Determining your ideal customer profile should be your first step. 

Sales Culture & More Selling

7). A winning sales culture will become increasingly important. Develop a sales culture that creates positive outcomes for your organization. After all, sales is the growth engine of any company. If you’re not selling, then you’re not growing. A strong and healthy culture will influence sales reps in critical areas. It will affect how productive the reps are and how long they stay with the organization. 

Building and maintaining a strong and healthy sales culture is difficult. The goal is to foster healthy competition while keeping turnover low. 

8). Sales reps will spend more time selling and less time on administrative tasks. Sales reps spend about 28% of their day selling. Thankfully, tools are available to help sales reps be more productive and focus more effort on selling.

Consider investing in a CRM tool. Many CRMs now have email templates, call recording capabilities, and calendar management features that allow sales reps to spend less time on those administrative tasks. They allow sales reps to make calls using the application, record them for review, and improve sales productivity. 

Recap & What’s Next

After reading through all the trends and predictions for sales in 2023, take one to two hours this week and review your sales structure. Consider the following questions:

• Where is the department falling short? 
• Were all of the last year’s goals met?
• What can you change based on what we covered in these last two posts?

After you answer the above questions, create goals for this new year, or change the existing goals you already created for your Sales department based on your answers and changes that need to be made to increase productivity in your Sales department. 

Next week, we will begin highlighting the value of multiple resources available to you here at PandaDoc and the impact they have on your team to achieve success with PandaDoc. We will start with PandaDoc Customer Support and the value and impact our Support Team has to help your team overcome challenges and roadblocks. You don’t want to miss what’s coming!