Working In Sales: A Year-End Review of 2021

We’ve never seen anything like it, and we will never see anything like it again.

It’s our last Five Minutes Sales Training of 2021. We’re gonna be taking Christmas and New Year’s off, but I wanted to take this opportunity to give my year-end review of sales in 2021.

Let me paint the picture. You’re at a cocktail party 15 years from now, and some newbie’s gonna be talking about how tough it is to sell and whatever horrible conditions exist at that time in the future. And that’s when you have your mic drop moment.

Oh yeah? Well, I sold in 2021.

Please allow me to share three sales observations from 2021. These are three things that made for a radical transformation in the sales landscape.

Sociological Shifts

We saw huge shifts in society that we are just now beginning to understand. But most significantly, the pandemic put a laser focus on quality of life issues. Suddenly people became keenly aware of the level of dissatisfaction in their home, in their car, in their golf clubs. People everywhere started to insist upon a better life. That changed everything.

People moved across the country. Others pour tens of thousands into home improvement. People reevaluated their children’s education, their need for two cars, and how much they needed to eat out. All of that of course puts salespeople front and center. Suddenly we were heroes. That is, if we had the product to sell. We’ll get to that.

Change in Buyers Process

The technology was already in place to complete high price transactions entirely online. So why did online buying change so dramatically? Well, I think there were three things that we saw: need, ease, and trust.

When it came to need, suddenly everybody understood and came to grips with their own sense of dissatisfaction. Their life was not what they wanted it to be. The interesting thing about dissatisfaction is that there is no greater predictor of urgency. When I have a problem, it needs to be solved. The stronger the problem, the sooner it needs to be solved. Suddenly we became very, very aware of our needs.

The second thing was ease. Companies everywhere have gone to a “Buy Now” button. More and more companies are focusing on ease of purchase as a key initiative. They wanna make it easy for people to do what they want to do anyway. The technology was already there, but suddenly it’s being utilized on a much higher level.

The third huge change is trust. This is the single biggest change. I’m not talking about a buyer’s trust in you, the sales professional. I’m talking about the buyer’s trust in themselves. Buyers feel now more than ever that they can do the research on their own, and then make the purchase by simply clicking a button.

Chief Heartbreak Officers

It seems that our number one job, as sales professionals, was to deliver bad news.

• Sorry, we’re out of product.
• Sorry, there’s another delay.
• Sorry, the price just went up five percent.

So where does that put salespeople today? Customers can do so much on their own, right? This sounds like a bad thing. Some might say there’s no longer a need for salespeople.

That’s not how I see it because there is one constant truth that the internet hasn’t figured out. People buy on emotion. As we look into 2022, that is where I want you to focus. How do you connect much more deeply on the customer’s emotions? The emotions of pain. The emotions of hope. The emotions of frustration. The emotions of joy.

So here we are. Ready for whatever 2022 brings. And I say, bring it on because it’s another year to change people’s lives.

Happy Holidays my friends and until next time, learn more to earn more!