6 Sales Trends To Prepare For In 2023

Looking for 2023 sales trends? Well, look no further…

Here we are again, about to face another new year. With each new year comes a new set of challenges for you and your team. Non-more so than your sales team. As if the past two years haven’t been challenging enough with the pandemic, we’re now facing economic turmoil with the cost of running a business and global markets fluctuating.

Many different challenges lay ahead for business owners. The UK economy is set to be in a recession all the way up until the summer of 2023. Because of this, the tough conditions for business owners are only forecasted to become tougher. 

However, as ever, the key to getting through this storm with the smoothest ride possible is… preparation.  

So, to help you get ahead of this preparation, we thought we’d focus on assisting with the sales end, giving you 6 sales trends for you to think about implementing into your 2023 sales process. Let’s take a look…

1 – Adopt More Touchpoints

It’s very rare to make a sale at the first point of contact with a prospect – despite how much we may want to! This is because a large part of sales is about forming a relationship with your prospects. And so, the reality is, a good sales process requires us to make contact multiple times first – building up a relationship and slowly demonstrating value over time. The average salesperson makes just two attempts to reach a prospect. However, it is critical to apply a multi-touchpoint approach to build a quality relationship and win that sale. 

According to a HubSpot sales and trend report, 33% of sales representatives reported that they average 2-4 interactions with a prospect in the process. 26% report 5-7 interactions, 17% 8-10 and just 6% 11-13 interactions. Following these stats, 84% of sales representatives communicate with a prospect across 2-4 channels, for example, email, social media, live chats, telephone calls etc. 

The trend to follow here is about building long-term, meaningful interactions – using relationship-building communication and problem-solving materials across a number of platforms.

2 – Problems Vs Solutions In Your Demos

Imagine your selling a diet book. You could tell everyone about its author, their credits, the actual weight of the book, how many pages it has and the dimensions – but you’d probably be more successful selling the information in the book, talking about how it can actually help the person reading to lose weight.

Now think about your demonstrations. How much time are you dedicating to the singing and dancing elements, instead of drilling into the problems it’s going to solve for your prospect? Consumers these days just want to know what’s in it for them. They’re less interested in seeing how it actually works and more interested in finding out how it fits the needs and requirements of their specific situation.

In other words, your product knowledge is only going to get you so far. It’s going to be more about your ability to uncover and understand what your prospect can truly get out of it. Curate your demo around that.

3 – Social Selling 

Social selling is the art of using online platforms (such as LinkedIn, Twitter etc) to form a rapport with prospects online. Commonly misunderstood as social media marketing (which it’s not), social selling – if done right – can end up replacing the dreaded cold calling. And with prospects and consumers looking for that added extra human touch and personalisation, social selling is a must-practice for your business in 2023.

Social selling isn’t about trying to get your product or service sold right there and then – in fact, it’s a very soft method of selling.  

Use your understanding of your existing customer base. Where is your product or service solving the problems and challenges? Plant those ideas into the minds of your prospects and develop them into expert subject matter – answering questions, raising debates and demonstrating your expertise online. So much so that when someone is looking for that product or service, you are in the front of their minds – and their screen.  

One of the biggest trends of social selling in 2023 will be personal brand development. As a professional person (CEO, Director, Manager) you should look to work on establishing authority in your industry on social platforms. 

One platform that is continually on the up-and-up and great for this is LinkedIn. Gain the trust of your audience, attract attention and organically steer them towards your products and services.

4 – Videos Are Everywhere

Thanks to the COVID restrictions and lockdown, our culture saw an absolute explosion of video content and video communication. From using Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and Google Meet to TikTok and YouTube – video is now all the rage and quickly becoming the standard.

2021 also saw the introduction of video into the sales world – and it looks as though it’s here to stay. Because of this sudden already established route, video is another route to try and leverage in 2023. 

Using video filming software like Loom is perfect for creating short, highly personalised videos to send as follow-ups or by way of an introduction. Video tracking can give you insights to see how much of your content is being viewed or skipped, in addition, any subject line containing the word video is 8x more likely to be opened.

5 – Personalisation Is Critical

One thing that you may notice across a lot of these 2023 sales trends is humanising your process. The ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach that companies once relied upon is becoming more and more obsolete as time goes on. Personalisation is now the name of the game. More than a quarter of sales professionals believe that personalisation was the biggest changing factor in sales in 2022. 

As we’ve already touched on, this is because consumers and prospects are looking for that added, extra, human touch. They want to know that the businesses that they are dealing with understand exactly what they are looking for. Personalisation in this way is an almost acknowledgement and inference that you already know their needs and specifications. 

The tradeoff for this, however, is that it’s less than ideal to spend hours at a time researching each and every prospect. Instead, start at a lower level of personalisation, with your social selling and added touchpoints, and grow your personalisation over time.

6 – Implement Value-Based Selling 

Okay, so, you’re gonna have to stick with us on this one. Now, it may sound completely backward, but one big sales trend for 2023 is to… stop trying to sell. 

With saturated markets, tight budgets, and more accessible information, customers and prospects are refusing proposals left and right. With everything becoming more expensive and their purchasing power declining, people are going to be cautious about what they spend their money on.

Too often, prospects shut down an offer without even giving you a chance to elaborate on it because, perhaps, they think the price is too high. Value-based selling overcomes this problem. Identify your prospects’ needs and wants before creating your offer to them.

Entry-level sales reps sell features; advanced ones sell the outcomes their product creates for the buyer. Make the offer appealing to leads by highlighting the benefits they’re going to get out of it! Know your product and understand why it works for customers.

The idea is to then package and sell your product or service on a personal value basis. This way price is better justified and understood by your prospects.

Conclusion

Tough times may be on the horizon. But that doesn’t mean it has to be all doom and gloom. With good preparation, understanding, and implementation – persevering through the tough times could make your business all the more resilient and secure for the future. Adopt these sales trends into your strategy and give yourself the smoothest 2023 you can. 

Here at Yo, we’re all about improving the success of the businesses we deal with.  So, If you are interested in learning more about sales prospecting, improving your business development, or generally future-proofing your business – enter your contact details into the form below and we’ll be in touch with how we can help you and your business TODAY!