As buyers, we know how much the digital-first world has transformed buying behavior. It isn’t just the volume of choice. It’s unrestricted access to seller information, without actually having to rely on the seller for it. This has put B2B sellers in quite a tough spot. Now, sellers have an even smaller window and shorter opportunity to make an impact on their prospects.

The economy is slowing, and hundreds of layoff announcements are in the news, including Goldman Sachs (3,200), Pratt & Whitney (900), United Furniture Industries (2,700), and Meta (11,000). If you’re a B2B seller and your customers are cutting costs, what should you do?

With many organizations, we are seeing sales force reductions that parallel the layoff announcements. At others, we see sales force hiring freezes. And every sales organization is rethinking its strategy and scale.

Big changes are happening with B2B buyers. They are acting like B2C buyers. They want an Amazon-like buying experience, and they aren’t afraid to walk away from a purchase if they don’t get it. Traditional B2B selling practices are no longer effective with today’s digital buyers. If companies in that space want to compete, their sales teams need to take a hard look at their systems and processes.

Before 2020, B2B sales of complex solutions and services were conducted almost entirely in person. All that changed with the pandemic. Now, much of the process from lead identification to close is done virtually, requiring organizations and salespeople to hone new methods of connecting and communicating with potential buyers.

Today’s B2B customers are very clear about what they want from suppliers: more channels, more convenience, and a more personalized experience. They want the right mix of in-person interactions, remote contact via phone or video, and e-commerce self-service across the purchasing journey. Adjusting to this new dynamic requires B2B organizations to shift from “traditional” and “inside” sales to “hybrid” in order to move with the customer.

During the early stages of the pandemic, many B2B companies considered remote interactions as a temporary patch, a way to stay in touch with customers while sales reps were confined to their home offices. Now, it’s becoming clear that omnichannel is here to stay, and many businesses aren’t prepared for this permanent change.

My articles begin with analogies so we'll start by asking, has baseball changed? Games take longer, there is role specialization, starting pitchers rarely complete games, hitters are stronger, pitchers routinely throw in the mid 90's and there is a trend towards either hitting a home run or striking out. But it's still baseball. It is still played the same way. The changes are superficial.

And in the context of how it affects salespeople, has buying really changed?

In-person meetings between customers and salespeople were once at the heart of B2B buying and selling. Now digital communication is embedding itself in every aspect of business. This had led some organizations to look at the future and ask a simple question: Will we still need salespeople?

Once seen as secondary to in-person sales, the e-commerce channel has rocketed to the forefront since 2020 and is now a key purchasing gateway for many corporate buyers.

Despite this, misconceptions abound, with a number of B2B companies telling us that “customers aren’t ready” and “e-commerce is an immature space for businesses like ours.”

My articles begin with analogies so we'll start by asking, has baseball changed?

Games take longer, there is role specialization, starting pitchers rarely complete games, hitters are stronger, pitchers routinely throw in the mid 90's and there is a trend towards either hitting a home run or striking out. But it's still baseball. It is still played the same way. The changes are superficial.

Quarterly Business Reviews (QBRs) have been a mainstay for key account management for some time. But just a few years ago they—and for that matter, the whole customer success function—were the new kid on the block. And they were difficult to pull off. It was hard to get the right data, hard to build a case for value, hard to predict success and alter implementations.

B2B selling involves a myriad of choices about how to engage with customers. Sales organizations and salespeople spend an enormous amount of time planning which customers and prospects to spend time with and what messages to focus on. Typically, a high-level annual plan anchors more detailed quarterly plans which get broken down into even more granular periods.

Sales must help B2B buyers overcome the complexity of buying today by enabling buyers to complete each of the required jobs.

What is buyer enablement? Buyer enablement is the provisioning of information that supports the completion of critical buying jobs.