New Customer Acquisition tops Gartner’s list in 2018

What is your top challenge in Sales in 2018?  According to this Gartner Report, 25% of respondents identified new customer acquisition as the top challenge for Sales Leaders in 2018.

Reading further through the Gartner report, 80% of respondents listed ‘improving sellers’ skills and enablement’ as their top initiative by importance and leadership confidence in execution.

We’re living in an age of inbound customers, delivered to us on an email platter, garnished with tasty data telling us exactly what it would take for them to buy.  It is so easy to reach customers.  Some would say it’s never been easier.  So why then do sales leaders report that their top challenge in 2018 is new customer acquisition?

Another question – With the latest training so easily accessible from our desktops, why are salespeople in such urgent need of training?

Perhaps the time that we’re living is the source of these challenges.  Many businesses are so distracted by generating inbound leads that they forget some vital statistics.  Like the fact that only a very small percentage of visitors to your website are ready to buy right now.  Read this blog by HubSpot, where they put the figure of website visitors who are ready to buy at just one per cent!

Make no mistake – the one per cent of total website visitors who are ready to buy are most definitely worth spending time on.

However – what about the remaining 99% who are not yet ready?  How do you bring them in so that they become your customers?  The automation software that is available to help you progress these website visitors on their journey to becoming customers is a huge help to your sales team.

Sticking with these prospects on their journey to becoming your customers will require a lot of love and a lot of patience.  That’s right – you’ll need to nurture them.

Sales is all about building positive and profitable client relationships.  Emphasis please on building.  It takes time to build something worthwhile.  Sometimes, the best customer relationships, those long-term customers who absolutely love what you do and will never move, take some solid time to build up.  Along with your content marketing, social media and any automated sales processes, customer relationships can also benefit from some old-fashioned care in the form of telephone calls, visits and even snail mail.

There’s so much noise for your customers, so many emails to navigate through each day.  If you’re serious about succeeding in new customer acquisition in 2018, when you’re looking to improve your ‘sellers’ skills and enablement’ in order to deliver on this goal – be sure to look for ways that you and your team can stand out to your prospective customers.