Our 2019 Sales Performance Study and 2018 Buyer Preferences Study confirmed what sales leaders have known for some time: The selling world has become increasingly complex in recent years. There are more decision-makers involved on the customer side of a purchase (6.4 on average), sales cycles are longer (more than six months for a new customer), and the expectations for a sales experience are much higher.
Selling organizations have attempted to adapt to these changes with a range of responses:
Adding more sales tech tools (now 10 tools in use on average, with four more on the way)
Adding more sellers (9% growth on average)
Adding audiences for sales enablement and sales operations to support
Adding new products and services
Adding new channels to market
The unintended result is trying to address complexity… by adding more complexity. Rarely do these additions sit on top of a unified framework, a holistic sales system. Instead they sit piecemeal on