The much talked about Forrester report on ‘death of a salesperson’ had me intrigued.
The report predicted that by 2020, the B2B salesperson will be on the verge of extinction. As a sales enablement company, we had reasons to be worried.
Much as the report is right about the shrinking role of the salesperson, I wouldn’t entirely agree on the disappearance of the salesperson altogether. It is more like the death of the salesperson as we know today, hinting at the rebirth of a new salesperson with reformed roles and responsibilities.
The average salesperson’s contribution to the buyer’s journey is undergoing a radical transformation. Traditionally, the sales rep engaged with buyers through cold calls or direct interactions at events and seminars. Today, many firms believe that the sales reps’ role emerges only towards the end of the buying cycle. Involvement of the salesperson comes at the mercy of the buyer, or so it appears. I believe organizations who think like this are wrong.
A well planned and executed sales strategy keeps sales reps at the core of the entire buying cycle, yes even today. The B2B buyer treads carefully throughout the buying cycle, weighing her decisions at every step. That however should not be a deterrent for activity by salespeople.
One of the reasons buyers don’t want to involve sales reps is due to reps being perceived as more promotional than empathic. They don’t want a rep who pushes, but are looking for someone who is genuinely interested in helping them make the right choice for their organizations.
Start with the basics. Identify the market that you want to cater to and track only willing prospects. A robust prospect tracking system allows you to track prospect activity across the wide spectrum of the internet- from emails, to website to social media. Marketing and sales teams need to pin down the prospects who can relate to your product. Keep the top of your sales funnel pure. Indulge these prospects with highly useful content from time to time. Keeping your sales rep involved from the first step gives a twofold advantage – 1. Reps are sentient to the needs of the buyer and can easily play the role of a “buying guide” instead of a pushy sales rep; 2. Roles for marketing and sales teams are better defined.
Apart from the basics, training your reps to survive the revolution will help everyone. Let your reps come to terms with new age technologies for connecting and selling to people. Make extensive training material, personalized sales assets and modern notification systems available to them. Though sales reps don’t have a reputation for challenging the status quo, they have made phenomenal transitions from time to time, from door-to-door selling to cold calling to handling CRM systems effectively. They have adopted, incorporated and blended newer methods into their traditional styles. They’ll brave this one too, because that is where success will be.
