“Mass adoption takes a long time and I feel like that is particularly true in sales.” – Scott Ingram in today’s Tip 337
What do you think?
Join the conversation below and check that LinkedIn post!
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Transcript
Scott Ingram: You’re listening to the Daily Sales Tips podcast and I’m your host, Scott Ingram. Today I wanted to talk a little bit about 2020 predictions, but in a very different way than what you’re probably used to seeing. What’s super Ironic about this is I’m not even sure I can predict the next two weeks when it comes to this show. I really haven’t decided what I’m going to do, other than to continue to feature a new episode or tip every single day. So stay tuned for that and I guess we’ll just have to figure it out together. There’s a pretty good chance that you’ll be hearing a bit more from me and some of my thoughts as I reflect on 2019 and look ahead to 2020, but as far as work and travel goes. I just finished my last trip of the year on Friday night. I’m back home and have been reunited with my microphone. I’m also planning on taking most of the next couple of weeks off from work with a planned official return on January 6th. Though I’ve got one big proposal to finish and a couple of other loose ends to tie up, and I’ve got a number of Sales Success projects I’m pretty eager to tackle, including a communications platform migration, completing the 2020 Sales Success Summit landing page and a couple of surprises for the folks who attended the 2019 Summit.
But we were going to talk about predictions. I’m always fascinated by these looks ahead, but there are a few things that I’ve noticed having paid closer to attention to how things typically play out the last few years. While change often feels fast, things tend to play out a lot slower than you think. Especially big changes. So the really big predictions are often better suited for the longer-term look at the decade ahead as year to year tends generally don’t tend to be that dramatic. Mass adoption takes a long time and I feel like that is particularly true in sales. It feels like this industry adopts change a little bit slower than you might expect. So as you look at predictions, especially in the sales realm, I think it’s useful to think about them over a multi-year horizon, rather than just a 2020 view.
I also think you have to be really mindful of the source. I see a lot of predictions that are more about trying to drive a particular idea to market a specific product. Just something to be aware of.
Still, I’d like to look at this totally differently. Forget the big macro trends and how we think the world at large or the industry as a whole is going to change. Most of the time those don’t have a very meaningful personal impact. For example, does who the President is beyond all of the noise and media chatter on the topic have any real day to day impact on you personally? Probably not, and if it does… let’s just not go there, I’m just trying to make a point.
The point is that I want to hear about the most micro of trends. Are there external factors that really will change how you go about your business on a daily basis? Maybe you’re taking a more proactive approach and shifting your own strategies to drive a particular outcome. Those are the things I’m really interested in hearing about.
In fact, I started a thread on LinkedIn yesterday where I asked this very idea and I really hope you’ll take a minute to jump in and share some of your own thoughts with the community. You’ll find a link to that post at DailySales.Tips/337
I’m going to share one with you, and maybe over the course of the next couple of weeks I’ll share more as I continue to reflect, but one of the biggest things that have surprised me this year in my top 1% sales performer interviews on the Sales Success Stories podcast is how little technology many top performers are using. I would have thought that today’s best sales professionals would really be leveraging technology like crazy. I thought they’d be working super quote-unquote “smart” and finding ways to have different tools really work for them. Instead, I’m finding almost the complete opposite with a very common personal tech stack simply consisting of LinkedIn, email, their calendar and often times a notebook where they’re taking notes by hand.
This has me really considering my own approach very carefully and looking thoughtfully at each and every tool that I’m using and asking myself the question: Is this really serving me and making me better, or is it just serving to distract me and even though I might feel productive it’s actually serving to diminish the results I could achieve without it.
I think this is occurring at a macro level with organizations to some degree as well, but it’s worth evaluating personally and considering whether you’re the master of your tech or if you tech is mastering you and turning you into a slave.
What do you think? Not just on this topic, but about your own personal predictions and trends for 2020. I really want to hear what you think. Again, just click over to DailySales.Tips/337 to find the link to the conversation.
Then come on back tomorrow for another great sales tip. Thanks for listening!