I have a newsflash for you. Two major waves are colliding.

First, there’s an exponential growth in the number of ideas, options, and solutions available for prospects. Prospects are drowning in a sea of could do. Vendors are publishing new and often contradictory “thought leadership” pieces at a startling rate. In response, prospects have developed a bias for the status quo. It just seems safer to stick with the way things are.

The second wave concerns the number and diversity of people involved in purchasing decisions. The buyer has become the buying unit, and is quickly growing into the buying battalion. Just about any single sale process seems to require dozens of yeses and risks running aground in the face of a single no. These two waves are changing the way B2B selling and buying are done.

While sales cycles haven’t elongated exponentially, the amount of effort required to win a single sale has. As a result, account executives (those reps who close sales) increasingly lack the time — and often the desire — to focus on building new sales pipelines. They argue that their time is better spent advancing and closing opportunities. “I’m busy doing demos, drafting proposals, and chasing contracts. I’m not prospecting because I just don’t have the bandwidth,” they say.

Enter the Sales Development Function.

Sales development is no longer about just smiling and dialing. It should be an integral part of

every company’s go to market plan.

To read the full article, The Hottest Job In Sales Right Now, visit Quotable.

So How Can You Learn More About Sales Development?

It’s one of the biggest trends in sales today and I couldn’t agree more, so much so that I wrote a book on the topic titled The Sales Development Playbook: How to Build Pipeline and Accelerate Growth with Inside Sales. I’ll be running a panel at Sales Machine NYC, June 15-16 (use this link to secure a 20% discount!) focused on the art and science of finding leads and qualifying opportunities.

About the Author

Trish Bertuzzi leads The Bridge Group, Inc ., an inside sales consulting firm focused on the B2B tech space. Her firm has worked with over 250 tech companies over the last 17 years and has won Consulting Provider of the Year for the last three years running from the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals. Her book, The Sales Development Playbook, was released in January 2016.