Why B2B buyers now hate traditional B2B selling

According to a recent survey, almost all (86%) B2B buyers desire to be sold to virtually. The majority of salesmen claim that their businesses aren’t yet equipped to deal with this.

Customers enjoy shopping online because they detest traditional sales tactics. Here are the top five, according to a report from a vendor of revenue enablement technology:

• Even when it has been made obvious that they are not interested, sellers still refuse to accept “no” as an answer (48%).
• persistent phone calls and texts (47%)
• Getting hassled after a presentation (31%).
• Lack of product knowledge by salespeople (27%).
• Getting sent too much information (24%).

B2B buyers want B2C experiences

Over the next five years, more than 75% of buyers anticipate that social media will play a bigger role in B2B sales. Following a metaverse or augmented reality demo, about 60% of people claim to have already made a purchase.

They are not referring to a social networking platform specifically for businesses. The ones they currently use most frequently to make commercial purchases are listed below:

• Facebook (69%)
• Instagram (57%)
• YouTube (48%)
• LinkedIn (26%)

Salespeople get it

Nearly 90% of B2B sellers concur that social media is significant and that YouTube and LinkedIn are the most crucial channels. Given that 79% of respondents claim to have a thorough understanding of digital-first selling, this is understandable. Sadly, they don’t share the same sentiments about their companies: only 27% claim that their firm sales team truly embraces digital selling.

This is true even though 74% of respondents claim that their organization has a standardized system in place for it and 71% claim that the company is currently investing enough in technology to support sales teams. The issue: 53% believe they may benefit from additional training in digital sales

With yearly revenues ranging from $2 million to $1 billion, Showpad examined 508 technology, manufacturing, and financial organizations in the United States and the United Kingdom for the report. Teams working in sales, marketing, and enablement had practitioners, managers, directors, and executives as their job titles.

Why do we care?

It’s long past time for dishonest, high-pressure sales techniques to disappear. Being closest to the clients, salespeople are aware of this. Unfortunately, they might work for companies or be managed by people who don’t fully understand it yet. It gives me hope to see how many sellers claim that neither the technology nor the money spent on it are the issue. Institutional inertia and training seem to be the major obstacles. The latter may assist in overcoming the former.