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84% of B2B Sales Start with a Referral — Not a Salesperson

Harvard Business Review

Outbound B2B sales are becoming less and less effective. Meanwhile, 84% of B2B buyers are now starting the purchasing process with a referral, and peer recommendations are influencing more than 90% of all B2B buying decisions. First, three out of four B2B buyers rely on social media to engage with peers about buying decisions.

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B2B Salespeople Can Survive If They Reimagine Their Roles

Harvard Business Review

“Death of a B2B Salesman,” a new report from Forrester Research , lends urgency to the need for companies to rethink and radically transform their sales models by incorporating digital media into their processes. Contrary to what these findings — and Forrester’s prediction that “1 million U.S.

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How Digital Natives Are Changing B2B Purchasing

Harvard Business Review

The cartoon of business-to-business (B2B) buyers depicts gray-haired executives and purchasing agents in meetings, on the phone and lunching with their vendors. But along with fax machines and long golf games, these features of B2B life have all but disappeared due to the astonishing change in technology over the past two decades.

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Despite Dire Predictions, Salespeople Aren’t Going Away

Harvard Business Review

Forrester Research predicted that one million B2B salespeople will become obsolete by 2020, lost to e-commerce. Will there really be fewer B2B salespeople in 2020? Over the years, innovations in distribution, media, and technology have enabled buyers to use non-sales force channels for various steps of their buying journey.

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