Why Selling Is More Difficult Now

This ain’t your daddy’s sale game. And it wasn’t easy for him.

It’s more difficult to command time. It’s more difficult than ever to gain an appointment with your dream client. They’re busier than they’ve ever been. They are being called on by more of your competitors, and they are being called more frequently. Your dream client has more trouble discerning the value creator from the time waster.

You need to improve how you prospect by being more direct and more compelling.

It’s more difficult to gain access to stakeholders. If it’s difficult to get time with one contact within your dream client’s company, it’s more difficult by a magnitude to gain access to all of the people who influence a buying decision, including the executive you need to support your deal. More still, the decision-maker that brings you in fears giving you access because she knows it will only bring to light the difficult questions they’ve wrestled with unsuccessfully in the past.

You need to improve your ability to gain access and build consensus.

It’s more difficult to gain the right investment. Your dream clients want better results. They need to improve, and they need partners who provide them some competitive advantage. But then they struggle to make the necessary investment that would produce those results. Many, if not most, of your competitors promise to deliver more at a lower price, reinforcing the big lie that you can have better, faster, and cheaper all in one package.

You must improve your willingness and your ability to move from price to cost, from transactional to consultative. You have to move to trust and value.

It’s more difficult to make a difference. The problems your dream clients deal with are systemic. Their challenges are greater, and they struggle to find a path forward because there are no easy answers. They trust their problems more than they trust you and your solution because they are afraid of making their problems worse, they are afraid of committing to a path, and they are afraid of what they will be required to do to execute a new plan.

You must become a trusted advisor. You have to commit to helping your dream clients through the process of changing.

Selling is more difficult because the outcomes are more difficult now. It takes a bigger salesperson to sell effectively and to deliver value.