Sales News, December 2020

This is the final Mastery sales news roundup for 2020. If you want to look back fondly (ha ha) on the longest year ever, check out earlier Mastery round-ups and the Weekly Buzz archive.

SLACKQUISITION

Some of the biggest news this month came around the acquisition of Slack by Salesforce. Salesforce acquires companies like they are trick-or-treating, but this particular match is likely to have a big impact on how sales professionals and sales operations specialists do their job.

Coverage over at Forbes had some of the most interesting takes, including these quotes about the impact on sales teams. Peter Tsai points out: “only 41% of business chat app adopters use tools such as Slack and Teams frequently for external communications, compared to 79% for internal communications.” Slack will look to make inroads into how we communicate with clients, partners, and prospects. The other key insight comes from Jack Saper of Emergence Capital, who observes: “It’s absurdly inefficient for sales reps to collaborate on deals in Slack and then begrudgingly log into Salesforce to update, track, and forecast.” Integrating the two products better will be much easier under one roof.

NO-CODE

A lot of the buzz in venture capital of late has been around low-code and no-code apps. When I started reading up on this trend, I realized that Maestro has in fact worked with clients that fall into this category.

So much of the B2B SaaS economy over the last few decades has focused on programmers, and a lot of the discussion, even in education, has turned to how to help people learn how to code so that they can be fluent in the intellectual currency of this new world we’re inhabiting. But the proliferation of tools like Zapier and Airtable has made it possible for people to create customer value without building everything from the ground up.

If you think about it, it’s just another layer on top of the code layer that already resides on top of the hardware and operating system. Nobody thinks less of software entrepreneurs just because they didn’t write the operating system their application runs on.

This shift is a great reminder of the importance of selling based on value, not on features. If you are spending time talking about how hardcore your technology is, you are wasting your time. Customers don’t care what programming language it’s written in, they care that it solves their problem reliably and is easy and pleasant to use. Want to learn more about low-code and no-code leaders? Check out this Gartner magic quadrant report.

NEW YEAR, NEW YOU

This is the time of year when people are doing last-minute shopping for loved ones…and for themselves. Often, the approach of the new year leads to reflection and resolutions. Many cookies get consumed in the process of deciding to join a gym.

But it’s 2020, so this holiday season has to be different. Joining a gym next month might not be a great idea, at all. Even popular outdoor activities can be risky because of the associated socializing and shared indoor spaces.

In the spirit of the worst year ever, here are some of the worst ideas around for getting fit after the holidays:

• Take a hike on Mt. Washington without appropriate gear.
• Buy this Peloton alternative.
• Get the creepiest fitness tracker. (Another review, without paywall)

Ok, so you probably have better gift ideas than that both for yourself and others. But have you thought about the end-of-year opportunities for gifting in your sales relationships? Reach out to a prospect and let them know you are thinking of them by sharing something they can benefit from—whether it’s a Maestro Mastery column, an electronic gift card for a coffee, or your latest white paper. Sales is essentially about human connection, something we’ve all had to work much harder for this year. Never stop trying!

Reach out to mastery@maestrogroup.co to put the latest sales tips and tricks to work for your team.