While new B2B sales trends have emerged over the past two years, it’s safe to say that we have now moved past “pivots” and temporary adaptations to what can only be described as a B2B sales revolution. An entirely new era of B2B sales has taken shape and is continuing to evolve, transforming everything from go-to-market strategies to strategic revenue planning at B2B organizations across the globe.

Buyers’ priorities and preferences have changed requiring that sales strategies adapt to keep pace. Understanding this, well-informed B2B companies are rethinking who they sell to, how they sell, and where they sell. The sales planning changes that have resulted both internally and externally are a clear indication that there is a new face to B2B sales these days. How will that fact shape what you do next?

Globalization has given B2B companies access to a seemingly endless list of suppliers and buyers, lowering prices and shortening delivery times. That is, until a disruption is introduced into the global network that ripples through the system.

Some disruptions have a more limited scope (only affecting certain industries or regions), while others have a more widespread effect. The pandemic has been the widest reaching business disruption of our time, and it is not going to be resolved anytime soon.

In fact, over the last few months “supply chain” has quickly become the new trending topic that everyone is talking about. However, most B2B companies have been dealing with supply chain woes for almost two years now. And with no end in sight, they are feeling the pressure to get even more strategic with how they approach supply chain disruptions.

So, how should you handle today’s ongoing supply chain disruptions… and tomorrow’s?

The Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) role has been a staple for almost two decades in high tech manufacturing environments. But does it also apply to traditional manufacturers? Short answer: yes. Slightly longer answer: it depends. Let’s find out why and if it makes sense for your manufacturing company.

Manufacturing, in particular, has a distinctly different approach to revenue than retail or professional services. The distinct lens that the CEO of a manufacturing company looks at revenue through shapes everything from the metrics they track to the operational initiatives they support.

“The ability to withstand unpredictable threat or change and then to emerge stronger.”

This is how the team at McKinsey & Company defines resilience in their recently published an article on what they call The Resilience Imperative. They elaborate further that resilience is going to be more important in the coming decade than ever before when they explain, “Catastrophic events will grow more frequent but less predictable. They will unfold faster but in more varied ways. Disruption is becoming more frequent and more severe.”

Resilience can be financial, operational, technological, organizational, or reputational in nature but the greatest resiliency comes when an organization can anticipate and respond to threats across all categories to dynamically adapt as needed. Obviously, this kind of resiliency does not just fall into place – it is the result of careful planning to develop a revenue resiliency toolkit.

The pandemic hit many industries and demographics hard, but some shouldered the burden more than others. Women, especially working mothers, were overwhelmingly negatively affected.

In fact, the 2020 Women in the Workplace report revealed that 25% of working women and over 30% of mothers with young children were “contemplating downshifting their careers or leaving the workforce” with mothers citing increased domestic and child-care responsibilities as their primary motivation for doing so. The study summarized,

“Women in particular have been negatively impacted. Women—especially women of color—are more likely to have been laid off or furloughed during the COVID-19 crisis, stalling their careers and jeopardizing their financial security. The pandemic has intensified challenges that women already faced. Working mothers have always worked a ‘double shift’—a full day of work, followed by hours spent caring for children and doing household labor. Now the supports that made this possible—including school and childcare—have been upended. Meanwhile, Black women already faced more barriers to advancement than most other employees. Today they’re also coping with the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on the Black community.”

While these challenges impact women individually, the cumulative effect of women leaving the workforce significantly affects the companies they work for as well.

So, how can B2B companies keep women among their ranks and on their leadership teams?

In 2020, B2B sales abruptly transitioned from a face-to-face game of relationship-building to a digital game that aimed to do the same. Sales representatives traded long drives and flights for their home offices as companies nationwide closed themselves off to non-essential personnel. Video conferencing and email became the new standard as processes and systems shifted. However, the need to develop and build relationships never faltered.

Now, as companies look toward the future, they need to make difficult decisions about when to move employees back into the office, while considering the needs of both their employees and their clients. The other big issue facing employers is the variety of protocols that will need to continue and be enhanced to bring people back in safely while accounting for the fact that not everyone is planning on getting the vaccine. Ultimately, control of COVID-19 and the rate of vaccination is going to affect the speed with which we return to the workplace.

The timeframe on this decision will be heavily influenced by industry segment. Companies that have an internal focus and can work in a bubble likely have not stopped going into the office, at least to some degree. For example, manufacturers never stopped going into the plant, instead they implemented strict protocols to keep their workforce safe and on the job. However, externally focused companies, like professional services firms, started going back into the office since the first of the year, but are not interacting with clients yet. Meeting with clients and partners is still being done virtually in these settings. Most other companies will likely be back by this fall, all things equal, but not in the same way as before.

2020 saw the biggest shift in B2B buying, selling, and marketing in recent history. What was originally speculated to be a temporary pivot ended up being a cataclysmic shift in how revenue is generated in B2B organizations. The trends and strategies that emerged have permanently altered the future of B2B buying.

The biggest change to the B2B landscape over the last year has been the move to digital selling strategies. Digital is now the preferred contact and buying method for B2B buyers to do research, order products, and schedule service. And like many of the changes we have seen arise in 2020, the digital trend does not appear to be going anywhere any time soon. In fact, 80% of B2B buyers want to stick with digital interactions (remote interactions and digital self-serve) in 2021 and beyond.

Most sales and business development teams understand that B2B audiences are less influenced by emotion, preferring value-driven content with hard data instead. According to a recent study, 73% of B2B buyers surveyed indicate that they have less time to devote to reading and research than they used to, which makes creating compelling content even more important. However, even with less time available, 60% of B2B buyers still want access to industry insights from thought leaders, opening the door to provide access to this critical audience.

With fewer opportunities available to reach decision-makers, you must demonstrate that you can exhibit thought leadership by increasing quality, demonstrating value, using the right voice, and making content easily accessible.