I was recently asked to deliver a keynote at HPE’s Partner Bootcamp in Queenstown. It went really well  – and I got a lot of great feedback around a particular part of my speech. It was a part that I had never presented before –  all about the generational shift in buyers that’s currently happening – and why organisations need a substantive strategy to deal with it.

I decided to rerecord that part of the speech to share with a wider audience – as it’s a really important thing for businesses to be thinking about. Here’s why.

There’s this concept I like of stated versus revealed preferences. It’s pretty self-explanatory, but your stated preferences are the things you say – your revealed preferences are the things you do.

I’ve been thinking a bit recently about this and how it relates to sales strategies – i.e., what’s your stated sales strategy and what’s your revealed one?

Because typically, when I ask someone what their salesmaking strategy is, I get the same answer…

“I’m going to keep doing what I’m doing”

That’s their stated strategy. When you look at what these people are actually doing – their revealed strategy is clear. Hire good people, try to keep them, and hit your sales target. 

“What’s the problem with that? Isn’t that what sales is?”

Here’s the thing.

We know that buyers’ trust in the sales role is declining – 43% of buyers don’t want to meet with a sales rep at all. 

We know buyers are buying differently – 70–80% of B2B decision-makers prefer remote or digital self-service interactions. 

And we know there’s a significant generational shift in the buying group afoot – by 2030, 80% of buyers will be millennials.

That’s 3 pretty significant and unavoidable macro trends. 

What’s your strategy to deal with them?

We’re quickly realising that most organisations don’t have a strategy to deal with these at all. Which means there’s a real competitive advantage up for grabs for organisations who look to develop a strategy for them. 

And for those who don’t – well, what’s already tough will just get a hell of a lot tougher.

A Generational change in buyers