I’ve just spent a few minutes completing the annual survey from one of the world’s most widely respected sales training organisations. Of course, I haven’t yet seen the results, but I was intrigued by the implications behind a number of the questions.
There appeared to be a strong implied endorsement of the value of adopting a structured sales process – a theme that is promoted by many of the established sales methodologies. But I’ve come to believe that this is now an outdated approach, particularly if taken to extremes.
In fact, the very word process is unhelpful. It implies linearity and a “production-line” approach to selling – which as any observer of complex buying decisions will know is completely at odds with how typical buying decisions are actually made…
Non-linearity is the true reality
As Gartner recently pointed out, significant B2B buying decisions are inherently non-linear and sometimes verging on the