Future of Sales in 5 years

So I've seen a lot of recent article talking about the future of sales moving from a outbound/marketing perspective to more of a relationship building/referral model in the next five years. Thoughts on this?  I agree it's definitely easier to build solid relationships which leads to upsells/referrals, however new logos and prospecting seems to get the bigger contracts.
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CoorsKing
WR Officer
6
Retired King of the Coors Knights
I guess it depends on how big of a company you work for. I feel like Salesforce, Oracle, Amazon etc probably will shift towards that model as they get market saturation, but start ups will most likely still be in the grind it out hunter mode. 
hh456
Celebrated Contributor
5
sales
Sales has been around forever. There will always be outbound, inbound, relational, transactional and that’s the way the biz goes.
CuriousFox
WR Officer
3
🦊
Agreed. I've always been more relationship/consultative, but I also "hunt." I'd rather do it instead of that stupid Marketo shit. 
hh456
Celebrated Contributor
2
sales
Never liked fully automated stacks. They’re not as good as human intuition.
poweredbycaffeine
WR Lieutenant
5
☕️
I would predict that the phone becomes less and less effective over the same time period, but only because more and more folks are working remote roles and dropping their desk phones. The legislation forecast will make it super hard for us to call personal cell numbers, which I already feel shitty about telling my reps to do (but we do it). 

This shift will cause the need for hyper-personalization, delivered via email, LinkedIn and perhaps other emerging technologies. Pounding the phones will be a thing of the past, which we should all prepare for.
IYNFYL
Politicker
1
Enterprise SaaS AE
I enjoy watching the back and forth banter on LI posts about people complaining about getting cold calls
Executioner
Politicker
1
Business Dev.
I don't think the outbound rep will "Die" as most automated outreach is creepy (and normally way off the mark) and people hate it - well I do. It pays to have both skills in the wheelhouse though.
IYNFYL
Politicker
1
Enterprise SaaS AE
I think companies are using both equally as the market is becoming more saturated with vendors which makes it harder to get in the door
payton_pritchard
Executive
1
RSM
I think the future looks something like what Atlassian is doing -- very product led and self-serve friendly to drive top of funnel and customer adoption. They claim they don't use sales people, but they do and just give them different titles. Their sales team drives expansions, cross sells, customer happiness and all that with most customers and works almost as normal with larger customers who need more attention and customization.

People who can really "hunt" for new logos and stand out from the noise sales automation tools and product led funnels will always be in demand (especially at smaller companies who don't have market share yet)
Diablo
Politicker
1
Sr. AE
Small companies will still have to hustle so I see the future of sales to be bright 
Blackwargreymon
Politicker
1
MDR
I guess it depends on how big of a company you work for. I feel like Salesforce, Oracle, Amazon etc
GDO
Politicker
0
BDM
I think both will still work in the future
justatopproducer
Politicker
0
VP OF SALES -US
No way, you aren't what you sell...are you? If so, I am going to have about a 57% satisfaction rating. 

If this is the case how beneficial would it be to work in inside sales or as an account manager right now. in a few years move to outside and call your old accounts.. with a different non-competing solution of course.
LordBusiness
Politicker
0
Chief Revenue Officer
Nothing I love more than "future of sales" articles.  I remember just a few ticks ago all of the "future of sales" spoke about how automation was going to replace us sales folk.....ummmm...no. #clickbait 
IYNFYL
Politicker
0
Enterprise SaaS AE
Most companies get more business by word of mouth and referrals than cold prospecting. I used to work in Corporate America and the P Club members got 75% of their deals on inbound leads of people who used it in the past and had relationships already built. People grinding making sales calls and prospecting had a harder time getting business and more importantly closing it. I just think with so many similar companies coming out these days is why the shift is starting with building relationships that leads to more deals.
IYNFYL
Politicker
0
Enterprise SaaS AE
Also I updated the title so it wasn’t #clickbait for ya
Wildcard
Opinionated
0
Account Executive
Products are becoming more complicated. Future salesperson will need iq and technical skills to explain complicated solutions to several stakeholders.

Cold calling, "closing" will become less important.
Error32
Politicker
0
ISR
Sales has been around forever.
Clashingsoulsspell
Politicker
0
ISR
Sales has been around forever.
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