Sales News, February 2022

Maybe you’re a disappointed Bengals fan recovering from Sunday’s game. Or maybe you were spurned by your Valentine on Monday. Or perhaps you realized that we’re several days into Freelance Writers Appreciation Week and you haven’t been appreciated by anyone!

Whatever your totally legitimate disappointment has been this week, we’re about to turn things around for you with Maestro’s February Sales News Roundup. Learn about the latest news and research on sales, leadership, and this month’s focus—trust.

ARE YOUR TRUST FACTORS THE SAME AS YOUR CUSTOMERS’?

A recent PwC survey found that both consumers and companies agree on four actions that can help establish trust—data protection and cybersecurity, treating employees well, ethical business practices, and admitting mistakes quickly and honestly. The problem is that while the overall actions are agreed upon, the way these actions are measured and shared by companies don’t always resonate with customers.

Ethical business practices provide an example of this disconnect. Consumers care about a company’s societal and environmental impacts, but most companies share their efforts in these areas through Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) reports. Consumers aren’t connecting the data in these reports to a company’s impacts on everyday consumers. Until businesses are able to communicate ESG report information in a way that the public can understand and relate to, it won’t serve as an effective trust indicator.

GEN Z VALUES TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY

Let’s take a break from generational warfare and take a look at things objectively. (That’s easy for me because I’m an apathetic Gen Xer.) Generation Z now makes up 40 percent of the consumer population. That means that, regardless of your opinions about which generation is truly the greatest, the purchasing habits and trends of teens and early twenty-somethings cannot be ignored.

Generation Z values genuineness and trustworthiness more than any generation before them. Twenty-three percent of this group say authenticity is an important company trait, and 22 percent say that a lack of transparency reduces their opinion of a brand. Do you know what else they prefer more than any other generation? Shopping in stores. Weird, right?

BUSINESS IS BEST! (WHEN COMPARED TO OTHER ABYSMAL INSTITUTIONS)

You may have seen recent headlines like, “Believe It or Not, Businesses Are Society’s Most Trusted Institutions.” Based on Edelman’s annual trust and credibility survey, this is technically true. When compared to other institutions—namely government, media, and NGOs—business ranks the highest. Congratulations, business, you’re the king of the dipshits.

Sixty-three percent of survey participants believe that business leaders are purposefully trying to mislead people by saying things they know are false or gross exaggerations. A good example of such a gross exaggeration would be a headline proclaiming, “Business Is the Most Trusted Institution!” when only 37% of people actually trust you. Of course, these headlines were written by journalists and reporters who are distrusted even more than businesses. Is this what Gen Zers mean when they describe something as meta?

ANOTHER LIST OF SALES STATS

Field sales engagement platform provider Spotio recently published “149 Eye-Opening Sales Statistics to Consider in 2022.” While there are plenty of lists out there that similarly follow the “[prime number] sales stats you need to know!” formula, this one is worth looking at. It’s conveniently organized into categories for quick reference, links most of the stats to relatively recent source information, and gives a thorough overview of just about every step of the sales process from both the buyer’s and seller’s perspectives.

A few of the stats that stood out to the Maestro team?

• Eighty-four percent of B2B decision makers begin their buying process with a referral.
• Every dollar invested in sales training returned $29 in incremental revenues.
• Eighty percent of decision makers prefer to get company information from a series of articles vs. an advertisement.
• Nine out of 10 B2B buyers say online content has a moderate to major effect on their purchasing decision. (Wow. Sounds like content is important. Maybe important enough that writers do warrant an entire week of appreciation.)

Be sure to check out the other 144 stats on everything from lead qualification to sales productivity. And to whoever wrote this well-curated and organized list, we appreciate you!

Interested in that 29-fold return on investment from sales training? Contact us at mastery@maestrogroup.co to schedule workshops for your team.