The year 2020 changed a lot of things, and sales departments were no exception. After a year full of surprises, businesses are looking to steady the ship with a new and refined sales strategy. Here are five sales trends that will leave a major impact on the success of businesses in 2021.

Personalization

According to a HubSpot report, only 3% of consumers think the sales reps are trustworthy. This is a big challenge for sales teams. After everything that happened last year, understanding what customers are going through in their daily lives and showing empathy can lead to unexpected success. Reps need to find innovative ways to impress buyers and nurturing the prospects with hyper-personalized content is going to help this year.

AI integration and automation

Artificial intelligence (AI) and automation in sales are not a new phenomena. AI curates email addresses of prospects, automates day-to-day tasks to increase efficiency, and helps in outreach campaigns. However, this year we'll see more intuitive and thoughtful use of AI and automation. AI going mainstream is set to improve cold calling performance. With consumers opening up to the idea of companies predicting their needs, AI-driven predictive analysis will have its time under the sun. 

Multi-channel selling

With so many options at their fingertips, buyers today are more prepared to quickly jump ship for another company. That's why value-based selling spanned across multiple social media channels will help you generate leads and nurture prospects. Linkedin and Instagram are bubbling with business opportunities. You need to assess the type of content your audience prefers to consume and build a social media strategy around it to constantly interact with them. A strong social media presence not only gives you more visibility but also enables you to analyze consumer behavior. 

Unification of sales and marketing

Sales and marketing teams must be aligned to expedite steps and cut down on the expenditure. In 2021, all the moving parts like customer service, sales, and marketing teams need to come together on a single platform to share knowledge, keep up with new trends, collaborate in real-time, and track KPIs. Sales enablement plays a crucial role in bringing together and optimizing multiple teams for the digital customer base.

Technology-driven sales strategy

Technology will be at the heart of revamped sales strategy in 2021. New developments in chatbots, deep learning, B2B lead generation, and NLP will keep changing the ways businesses acquire new customers. The bar has been set high and your sales team needs to be trained with best-in-class facilities to keep up with the trends. An advanced sales training software can help you customize training modules for each rep and improve their performance with data-driven insights. It analyses performance metrics, replicates top-performing strategies, and proactively finds issues in each sales process.

2021 will see a well-executed blending of technology and human creativity. Companies that will be able to contextualize human behaviors without narrowing themselves down to traditional sales channels will see their revenues soar.