47 Sales Experts Predict How to Radically Improve Sales Productivity in 2024

It‘s hard to believe, but we‘re already halfway through the 2020s. As a new year kicks off, sales leaders everywhere are under immense pressure to hit higher revenue targets with leaner teams and budgets.

The old playbook of cold calling and coffee meetings simply won‘t cut it in today‘s digital-first B2B landscape. Buyers have more power, options, and distractions than ever before. And with a potential recession looming, sales efficiency is the name of the game.

To understand how the best sales teams are adapting, I interviewed 47 leading B2B sales experts and practitioners. From CROs to analysts to reps in the trenches, they shared their predictions and prescriptions for radically improving sales productivity in 2024 and beyond.

While the full list of insights [linked here] is well worth a read, I‘ve distilled their wisdom into 7 key themes that every sales leader must embrace to stay ahead of the curve. Fair warning: none are quick fixes. Transforming your sales engine will require fundamentally rethinking many long-held assumptions.

But if you commit to putting customers at the center of your strategy, there‘s incredible opportunity ahead. In fact, Gartner predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales interactions will occur in digital channels. The winners will be those who move quickly to add value to the buyer journey, wherever and however it happens.

Let‘s dive into the 7 plays to boost sales productivity in 2024.

Embrace Inbound Selling

Perhaps the most universal trend cited by experts was the shift from outbound to inbound selling. In an age of infinite information and choice, buyers are tuning out one-size-fits-most sales tactics. They expect vendors to deeply understand their business, personalize the experience, and proactively deliver value.

Consider these stats:

• 61% of B2B transactions now start online (McKinsey)
• 27% of B2B buyers research independently online and don‘t want to interact with sales reps at all (Gartner)
• 5x more revenue is generated by marketing-sourced leads vs. those from sales outreach (Forrester)

"Inbound is fundamentally a trust-building approach," says Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot. "Reps become advisors that guide buyers to the right decision for their needs, not convincers focused on pushing products."

Pivoting from pitching to advising means:

• Personalizing messaging at scale: Use sales engagement platforms to tailor outreach based on buyer role, intent, relationship, and journey stage. Incorporate account and contact-level insights from your CRM.
• Leading with insight: Provide buyers with unique perspectives and thought leadership content. Challenge their status quo and reframe their problems in a way that creates urgency.
• Coordinating with marketing: Align on target personas, pain points, and plays. Use intent data to prioritize accounts showing buying signals. Collaborate on account-based campaigns.

It takes patience and discipline, but early movers like Snowflake, Gong, and Seismic are proving the power of inbound selling. Their reps have become trusted, go-to resources for buyers and it‘s paying off in higher win rates and deal values.

Build Your Online Authority

In a world where buyers are 57% of the way through the journey before engaging sales (CEB), establishing your credibility and expertise online has never been more critical.

"Your digital reputation as a subject matter expert can make or break deals," says LinkedIn‘s Alyssa Merwin. "Buyers don‘t just evaluate vendors, they evaluate individual reps too."

Of B2B buyers, 82% look up provider reps on LinkedIn before replying to outreach (LinkedIn State of Sales Report). They want to see that you‘ve helped similar people solve similar problems and that you have a strong network of advocates.

To boost your online brand and authority:

• Create a compelling LinkedIn presence: Optimize your profile around how you help clients succeed. Share relevant content and engage in discussions. Build your network in your target industries.
• Contribute to company content: Partner with marketing to publish blog posts, case studies, webinars and more showcasing your expertise. Make sure it‘s educational, not promotional.
• Build your own thought leadership: Start a newsletter or podcast to share your unique point of view. Guest post in industry publications. Speak at events to expand your reach.

Guru‘s Director of Sales Development Ryan Nolan notes that their reps who consistently post helpful content generate 7x more pipeline than those who don‘t. "Our buyers see us as an expert resource, not just another vendor hawking products."

Maximize Sales Technology

Ask any rep where they spend the most time and you‘ll invariably hear one answer: the CRM. From logging activities to analyzing reports to creating forecasts, Salesforce can often feel like a second job.

The good news is that sales tech is finally catching up to the incredible innovation we‘ve seen in marketing tech over the past decade. AI and automation are eliminating many of the manual tasks that bog reps down so they can spend more time actually selling.

For example:

• Conversational intelligence tools like Gong and Chorus automatically record, transcribe and analyze sales calls to surface coaching insights
• Sales engagement platforms like SalesLoft and Outreach enable reps to execute multi-touch, multi-channel sequences at scale while staying personalized
• Revenue intelligence solutions like Clari and InsightSquared use machine learning to predict deal risk, recommend next best actions, and forecast pipeline

The ROI is undeniable:

• Highspot found that companies using sales enablement technology have 32% higher rep attainment and 24% faster onboarding
• Chorus customers report productivity gains of 20-30% by eliminating note taking and identifying deal risks
• Clari users save 36 hours per quarter on forecasting and see 7-13% more reps hitting quota

"The highest growth sales orgs have adopted a range of AI-powered technologies across the revenue cycle," says Nancy Nardin of Smart Selling Tools. "But tech for tech‘s sake is dangerous. Focus on the problems you need to solve and look for tools with proven ROI."

Prioritize Coaching & Enablement

In my 3 decades in B2B sales, I‘ve learned that the single biggest driver of sales productivity is the front-line manager. Research from Vantage Point shows that reps who receive at least 3 hours of coaching per month achieve 17% higher revenue attainment.

Yet in reality, managers spend less than 8% of their time actively coaching reps (Gartner). They‘re swamped with forecasting, reporting, and internal meetings, leaving little bandwidth for skill development.

"Coaching is the force multiplier of enablement," says George Donovan, CRO of Allego. "Without ongoing reinforcement from managers, reps forget 84% of training within 90 days."

To build a coaching culture:

• Set a regular coaching cadence: Block dedicated time on managers‘ calendars for 1:1s, film reviews, ride alongs, and other coaching activities. Aim for at least 2-3 hours per rep per month.
• Create a coaching framework: Define the core competencies, plays, and metrics to coach to for each sales role. Use AI tools to identify skill gaps and deliver micro-coaching.
• Offer ongoing training, not one-time onboarding: Implement an always-on learning approach with on-demand content, peer learning, and manager-led sessions. Constantly refresh and roll out new trainings.

Organizations with dynamic coaching and enablement programs like Brainshark and MindTickle are seeing incredible results:

• 74% more reps achieving quota (CSO Insights)
• 64% higher win rates (SiriusDecisions)
• 15% higher lead conversion rates (Highspot)

Embrace Agility & Experimentation

In today‘s uncertain environment, adaptability has become a key competitive advantage. Buyers‘ needs and preferences are shifting faster than ever. What worked in 2019 is ancient history.

"Growth-minded sales teams are running constant experiments to optimize their messaging, tactics, and tech," says best-selling author Jill Konrath. "Then rigorously measuring results to determine what to start, stop, and scale."

This test-and-learn ethos is a major culture change for many sales orgs accustomed to a rigid top-down approach. But those quickest to iterate and innovate will win.

Key areas to build a culture of experimentation:

• Messaging and content: Continuously A/B test cold outreach, discovery questions, demos, proposals, and sales collateral to see what resonates. Personalize value props for different personas.
• Process and metrics: Identify the leading indicators that drive results at each stage of your sales cycle. Dig into why some reps over or underperform to spot patterns. Run competitions to gamify new behaviors.
• Tools and tech: Be an early adopter of emerging sales tech categories like revenue intelligence, sales enablement, and conversational intelligence. Measure the impact on productivity and results.

Master the Sales Fundamentals

With so much buzz about the latest tech and tactics, it can be easy to overlook the timeless fundamentals of great selling. In the rush to automate and scale, we must not lose the authenticity and immediacy of human-to-human conversation.

"Regardless of channel, the basics of influence, objection handling, and closing will always be relevant," says Anthony Iannarino, author of The Lost Art of Closing. "AI should augment reps‘ emotional intelligence, not replace it."

The core elements of customer-centric selling:

• Discovery: Uncovering goals, plans, challenges, and decision criteria. Be an active listener and let the buyer do most of the talking.
• Storytelling: Sharing customer case studies to build trust and credibility. Make the buyer the hero overcoming obstacles to reach their destination.
• Demonstrating value: Quantifying the business impact of your solution through ROI analysis, reference calls with existing customers, and proof of concept projects.
• Handling objections: Anticipating common concerns and having a playbook to resolve them. View pushback as an opportunity to strengthen the relationship.
• Gaining commitment: Creating a shared plan with mutual next steps at every interaction. Maintain momentum while being sensitive to shifting priorities.

Sales orgs that excel at these fundamentals have:

• 18% higher lead-to-opp conversion rates (Bridge Group)
• 54% higher quota attainment (SiriusDecisions)
• 96% customer retention (Brevet)

Focus on the Customer Experience

Perhaps the expert prediction I heard most frequently was that in 2024, customer experience will overtake product and price as the key brand differentiator.

With the rise of experience disruptors like Amazon and Netflix, B2B buyers now expect the same level of speed, simplicity, and personalization. Gartner finds that customers who perceive their buying experience as helpful are 2.8x more likely to buy and 3x more likely to pay a premium.

"How you sell is becoming more important than what you sell," says CX guru Dan Tyre. "Buyers will choose the vendor that makes the process easiest and most valuable for them, end to end."

While the full scope of CX spans the entire customer lifecycle, sales plays a pivotal role in several make-or-break moments:

• First contact: Provide relevant, tailored outreach that demonstrates an understanding of the buyer‘s role and goals. Offer unique perspectives and content.
• Needs discovery: Dig deep to understand the buyer‘s problem, decision process, success criteria, and alternatives. Collaboratively develop a vision of a solution.
• Solution design: Co-create a customized solution leveraging internal experts. Mock up prototypes and pilots to make it tangible.
• Proof and ROI: Build a compelling business case backed by customer proof points, value assessments, and ROI tools. Make it easy for buyers to sell internally.
• Evaluation and decision: Create mutual close plans and proactively resolve obstacles. Offer risk-free guarantees and success services.

B2B CX leaders like DocuSign and IBM are already reaping the rewards:

• 11% higher win rates (McKinsey)
• 10-15% higher ACVs (Bain)
• 40% improvement in cycle times (Accenture)

Where Do We Go From Here?

As we kick off 2024, one thing is crystal clear: the old ways of selling are never coming back. Surviving and thriving in the new era of B2B buying will require a customer-obsessed, digitally powered sales model.

Is it simple? Absolutely not. These trends represent tectonic shifts in how we‘ve traditionally gone to market. But those who move with speed and conviction can reap incredible rewards.

The experts have spoken. Now it‘s on us as sales leaders to drive the transformation. We owe it to our customers, our shareholders, our employees, and ourselves.

If you only remember one thing, make it this: put your buyers at the center of everything. How can you make their lives easier? Their businesses better? Their careers more successful?

Those are the questions that the best sales teams will relentlessly ask and answer in 2024. I can‘t wait to see what you accomplish. Now let‘s get after it.