The State of Sales in 2024: As I See It.
Hey Friends,
The world of sales is upside down.
Having been in the game for many years, I want to pause and reflect on what’s happening in sales in 2024.
First things first: closing a deal in 2024 is much more complicated than it was a few years ago.
It takes two or three times the effort, interactions, and touchpoints. It’s wild.
The buyers’ committee is scattered, with more people involved in the decision-making process and tighter budgets, resulting in longer sales cycles.
On the other hand, sales teams feel pressured.
Founders need sales to raise money or become profitable because investors demand it.
This pressure builds up, resulting in stress, poor productivity, and missed goals.
But it’s not all dark and gloomy.
There are three major trends that, if mastered, can help you get ahead of the curve.
Having worked with many startups (this year alone, I helped 20+ founders build and scale sales teams), I see some trends worth noticing.
1. The New Outbound
Outbound and cold outreach is gone.
The days of waking up, pulling 200 decision-makers from Apollo, and sending out a sequence are over.
While it worked well until last year (I had clients with 10% cold-to-discovery conversions), those times are over. 2024, you must be a growth engineer to run effective outbound campaigns.
That’s why I added the incredible Federico Costa to my team.
Clay, Smarlead, Apollo, Sales Navigator, Apify, multiple domains - outbound is levelling up.
The good news is that personalised outreach works very well, so our good old Sales Navigator can always get you fresh insights to leverage for your outreach.
2. The Discovery Call 2.0
If you’ve been reading this newsletter, you know how obsessed I am with discovery calls.
If you’ve worked with me, you know that too.
Discovery calls used to be based on the BANT methodology, which still works.
But buyers are more complicated and challenging to crack. I believe sales methodologies like SPICED (check out Winning By Design) work best.
SPICED by Winning By Design
3. The Life Long Sales Coach
One of my clients who sells a learning platform often talks about lifelong learners.
I always loved that term and what it meant.
Today, we urgently need lifelong sales coaches - leaders who take on teams and coach them effectively.
The number of salespeople who have received limited or no coaching in recent years is incredibly high.
Embracing effective coaching will get you ahead of the curve.
Role plays, shadowing, listening to calls, and giving feedback are all effective ways to implement a coaching culture and help your team level up.
Some Personal Updates
I’m writing this newsletter today in my new home office.
The house we bought almost three years ago is now ready.
It’s incredible to see such a development - this was an old, abandoned building in Oleggio (NO), and it is now my home.
As I woke up this morning, I appreciated the time that had passed and the outcome.
The journey of renovating your home is similar to the journey of scaling your sales and your company.
It starts from the bottom, and day by day, you start levelling up. Initially, you struggle; then you have some moments of joy. Then you struggle again.
But ultimately, you will wake up one day, as I did today, at peace, looking back and enjoying what you have done, hopeful for the future ahead.
Thanks for reading this far. See you all next week!
