L'article
The talent shortage in the sales function will continue to be a recurring issue in 2024. Even if sales management manages to recruit and retain their sales force, they will have to deal with the increasing challenges of prospecting:
• The poor quality of leads, which is reported by 40% of salespeople;
• The autonomy of B2B buyers, who complete up to 70% of their journey on their own;
• On average, the degree of alignment between Sales and Marketing is… 16%.
In 2024, companies will still struggle to recruit in the sales function.
Every year, HR firms assess recruitment trends and release their forecasts for the upcoming year. While trends may change, one constant remains regardless of the economic situation: the shortage of sales profiles. This has been a recurring theme in HR press since the late 1990s and has never really disappeared.
Before the pandemic, in 2018, Bpifrance reported that 41% of SMEs and mid-sized companies were unable to recruit salespeople.[i].
After the pandemic, in 2021, the firm Michael Page estimated that there was a shortage of more than 200,000 sales profiles in France to meet the needs of businesses. The shortage was exacerbated because companies needed even more salespeople to win contracts and put the final seal on the post-Covid recovery.[ii].
In 2024, Robert Walters documented the lack of talent in the sales force[iii]. “If the job market as a whole is under pressure, the case of salespeople is even more acute”. Several indicators point in this direction:
- +32% on the number of job offers for sales staff in 2022 (vs. 2021);
- It now takes four times more contact with each candidate to prevent dropouts during recruitment and no-shows on the first day of the job. “Salespeople always have three or four leads at the same time,” explains Justine Baronnet-Fruges, head of the sales and marketing division at Robert Walters.
And even when companies manage to staff their sales force, they have to deal with the unprecedented complexity of prospecting.
Prospecting, hindered by lead quality and buyer autonomy
In the 1980s, prospecting was mainly a question of perseverance, willpower and miles travelled. Today, it’s a game of chess between an often ill-equipped salesperson and an ultra-informed buyer.
Friction over the quality of leads sent to sales reps
Over 40% of B2B salespeople believe that prospecting remains the most complex task they have to manage… not least because the leads they receive “are of poor quality”[i], which leads to frustration and wasted time (and variable).
This is all the more problematic when you consider that :
- More than one company in two (53%) allocates at least half of its marketing budget to LeadGen;
- Lead generation is the top priority for 85% of companies[ii].
The challenge of engaging the B2B super-buyer
This friction over lead quality comes on top of the challenge of effectively engaging an autonomous and demanding “B2B super-buyer”:
- 68% of B2B buyers prefer to conduct online research independently and autonomously, without the assistance of a third party;
- 47% of B2B buyers consume three to five pieces of content before making contact with a sales rep;
- Buyers complete 50-70% of the journey before contacting a potential service provider.
As a result, the salesperson loses some of his or her influence on the buying process, and the prospect becomes better informed, acquiring a more detailed knowledge of his or her needs and of the possible solutions, but also of the biases and approximations involved.
There are two possible scenarios when it comes to talking to the sales representative:
- The most “confident” B2B buyers will see the sales rep as a simple “quotation” or “price negotiator”;
- The others expect the sales reps to be “sense-makers” (Gartner), capable of understanding their needs in detail and answering the questions they have not found the answers to throughout the autonomous phase of their journey.
Sales staff find themselves in difficulty in both scenarios.
In the first case, the sales rep does not have the opportunity to support the prospect, lay the foundations for a solid relationship and promote the company’s value proposition.
In the second case, the sales rep needs to be able to demonstrate cutting-edge expertise and be able to rely on high-level sales material concocted by marketing. But there’s a problem here too, because :
- Les commerciaux ne sont pas en mesure de répondre à 40 % des questions posées par les prospects en rendez-vous[i] ;
- On average, the alignment between Sales and Marketing is 16%.[ii].
[i] https://www.btob-leaders.com/commerciaux-b2b-vos-prospects-sont-autonomes-mais-ils-sont-aussi-incertains-et-stresses/
[ii] https://www.btob-leaders.com/catastrophe-dans-le-b2b-en-moyenne-le-degre-dalignement-sales-marketing-est-de-16/
[i] Study by Crowd Research Partners
[ii] Content Marketing Institute (CMI)
[i] https://presse.bpifrance.fr/attirer-les-talents-dans-les-pme-et-les-eti-un-defi-et-un-enjeu-de-taille/
[ii] https://www.e-marketing.fr/Thematique/management-1090/formations-2248/Breves/La-penurie-des-commerciaux-en-France-369928.htm
[iii] https://www.actionco.fr/Thematique/rh-1217/Breves/Des-commerciaux-encore-plus-difficiles-a-recruter-en-2023-377657.htm