The percentage of the decision making process that takes place before engaging with sales continues to move further down the customer journey, often starting with the consumption of problem/solution related content. Oh! And no one wants to meet in person any more, so, yay rapport building! This has raised the bar for what both sales and marketing must bring to the table to be relevant. What used to pass as marketing collateral or a sales pitch is now table stakes, and both now need to go one layer deeper, customizing the dialogue in a solution-centric way. Buyers want tailored information and solutions but have a fight-or-flight aversion to being sold to. Especially non-Boomer generations. As Gen-X take over the executive ranks and Millennials take over middle management, generational dynamics are compounding this evolution. Sales interactions can be stressful and a perceived waste of time, so prospects stay hidden as long as they can before hitting a wall on a resource they need. People crave control over what matters to them. That includes both problems they’re trying to solve and the process of arriving at a solution. We need to create marketing & sales strategies that give them both and are aligned in doing so.