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Do you know that some call them out as spammers at times, especially if it is an unsolicited call or mail, the people who perform the most vital function in a business, that of bringing in the bucks? The people who prepare the collaterals that drive your sales and build your reputation, and in turn your revenue, or the people that maintain the relationships that customers love your company for.
This is a nod to the marketer, and to the salesperson and relationship manger, who have revolutionized your business for you, toiling in the after-work hours tweaking your digital presence so search engines can find you or making numerous calls and hearing out disgruntled customers, greeting everyone with a smile and pleasance that is truly disarming.
Not to mention, winning awards from HR for making the conversions in time for you. And smilingly bearing your complaints or reprimands when things don’t work out! So, how exactly has the industry been hiring the heroes who go to war in the corporate world, and what are the key trends in 2024? What will sales and marketing and the hiring for these crucial roles look like. Read on to find out!
1. AI will assist sales and marketing a lot more
Businesses that use AI for sales were able to increase their leads by more than 50%, reduce call time by 60-70%, and realize cost reductions of 40-60%. Everybody knows that Generative AI can draft compelling sales and marketing copy. But that is not all! It’s AI that rules the digital playground of today and the future. AI can confirm what services to offer what clients (with personalized recommendations) and say which leads are most likely to convert, saving sales and marketing teams a lot of time and effort. AI chatbots can also streamline how a support team functions, reducing call volumes so that more people can do sales calls and focus on other strategic functions. Robust sales tools backed by AI will in fact be considered as coworkers! So new hires must work better with AI right from recruitment.
2. Multi-functional job roles in sales and marketing
Smaller organizations, especially with the startup space heating up with competition in India, will have salespeople and marketers don many hats. A marketer may be expected to be a good writer and a strategist, maybe even a designer! A salesperson would be expected to handle account management and even do customer service or delve into relationship management. Larger organizations are likely to have more targeted roles for each of these but respect any cross-functional knowledge you have in marketing or sales.
3. Finding the internal decision-maker will be key in B2B
84% of all decision-makers in B2B start their buying process through a referral. Sounds crucial, but there is something else! Though people can champion your product or service to others in their company, it is important to know who your champion is pitching to. In other words, who is the internal decision-maker in the client company you need to attract to make the purchase? The way you describe the product on call or the content you share about the product or service must be able to convince this person. Even the way the content is put and what content is used should be to their liking. In short, product positioning must be perfect.
4. More sales and marketing roles will have requirement for IT skills
Sales and marketing roles will have mandatory requirement for IT skills for even entry level roles in the future, especially in IT sales. The entry-level marketing and sales professionals in SaaS would need to have a basic knowledge of software engineering and what the product can do as well. According to a report from Salesforce released in January 2023, 94% of sales organizations were planning to consolidate their tech stack in the next 12 months. By now, in May 2024, the consolidation should already have happened! Has your organization already consolidated its tech stack. If not, do this before you begin hiring for sales roles that use such tech tools.
5. More marketing and sales teams will be distributed across the globe
Working under the same roof will no longer be a criterion for successful marketing and sales teams. With tools that can allow you to work from anywhere, sales and marketing people are working from the comfort of their homes or other places that let them work with people from all over the world, bridging cultural barriers and expanding their world view to successfully negotiate with customers all over the world. According to a HubSpot Report, currently, working in-office is the dominant arrangement for sales professionals, followed by remote work (33%) and hybrid (26%).
6. Salespeople with an existing network will be highly sought after
Are you a salesperson with a large network of people you sell to regularly? Here’s the fine print. Companies want you! And they will seek you out through recruiters. Recruiters who can connect companies with such experienced and strongly networked candidates will be highly rewarded by clients. But why are companies opting for this? Opting for people with a strong network will save marketing teams a lot of time such as that spent trying to push opt-in forms and even double opt-in confirmations to make sure the customer is interested in what they have to offer. They can just pick up the call and ask directly.
7. SDRs will have a greater role to play
Companies will be looking to their sales development representatives too, fixing things right at the beginning, rather than trying to fix it much later in the process. A robust framework for tracking and attributing sales outcomes to SDR efforts must be there. There will be a greater emphasis on using analytics to highlight the SDRs’ contributions to pipeline growth and revenue, shifting the focus from quantity of leads to their quality, leading to better engagements and higher conversions.
Did We Miss Something?
That’s how we think 2024 looks like for the sales and marketing teams, and to be honest a lot of this is already happening. What are you doing to maximize the efficiency of your sales and marketing teams? How do you reward them when they win a contract? Are you promoting them when they bring customers back repeatedly to the table for sale after sale? Are you empowering them with the right tools so that they have a work-life balance and continue to close effectively for you?
These are some of the questions you can ask yourself enroute to finding the best sales and marketing hires and establishing teams that will give you an edge over the competition. Or we can answer these questions for you! The good thing, we are only halfway into the year, you still have time to make a profitable pivot. Start today and talk to us at Alp Consulting before you decide on anything.
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Amit Saproo
Amit Saproo is the Head of Operations at ALP Consulting with nearly 17 years of experience in Executive Search, RPO, Leadership, and IT & Engineering recruitment. He leads nationwide recruitment programs across Technology, BFSI, and R&D domains, driving strategic hiring solutions for diverse client needs. Amit excels in building and managing high-performance teams that deliver scalable, end-to-end recruitment and consulting services.
