A Sales Guy Is Sales Changing?

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I need your help. I’ve got this nagging feeling. I can’t completely get my arms around it. What it’s telling me is sales is changing. It’s telling me the days of Glenn Gary/Glenn Ross are over. The hierarchical, high pressure, churn em and burn em, contest driven, sales at all cost, steak knives for second place, a Cadillac for first place, cold calling, list buying, sales culture is dying.

A number of things are causing this pestering sense of change. More and more companies, especially startups are building B2B businesses without sales teams and are having suceess. I’m seeing established companies cut sales teams without decline in revenue. I’m seeing more increasingly complex products and services in which the traditional sales person is ill equipped to sell. I’m seeing more and more tools available to companies to engage with potential customers without the need for sales teams. There are an increasing number of ways for companies to move their products virally across the Internet without the influence of a sales team. Companies like Yammer and SocialCast have penetrated 100′s of companies, from Fortune 500 to small mom and Pop’s without sales.

Sales is changing, I know it. I see the signs all around me. I just can’t get my finger on it. What I do know is traditional sales, that legacy system of hierarchical, high pressure, transactional sales is running it’s course. Customers and clients have choices in how they want to buy and engage and they are embracing them.

What do you think? Are you seeing it too? Are we at the beginning of a fundamental change in sales? Or am I just whacked?

davebrock

Interesting post Jim.

Sales has been changing and continue to need to change and evolve. I think there will always be the need for a sales function in organizations, though what we call it and the people that execute it will may change (At least from a B2B).

New tools and approaches (encompassed under Sales 2.0–though I hate that name) will also facilitate the way sales people interact with customers.

Customers will constantly be raising the bar on their expectations of and what they need from sales people. Sales professsionals need to raise the bar on themselves, improving the way they connect with and create value for their customers.

Our research and experience continues to reinforce the view that customers want to talk to someone—vendors/supplier—to get their advice when they are considering buying and implemening complex solutions. The greater complexity, while the customer may have done a lot of research using the new tools, they still want to engage people from the company in better understanding the solution. Helping advise and guide customers in their buying process is what these “sales” do.

The future of sales is an interesting thing to look at. The lack of progress in changing the way we sell, is disappointing. I have written qute a bit on this. I'd welcome your comments on some of those articles!

http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/the-future-…

http://partnersinexcellenceblog.com/sales-force…
Jack Sarsen

Jim, You are correct and you are doing it right now with this blog. Inbound Marketing and Demand Generation tools are re-defining the process that we use to get, nurture and convert leads into sales. I’m not suggesting that the sales role is becoming obsolete, but I believe that the front-end lead generation and nurturing process is changing dramatically.
With Inbound Marketing, you facilitate the buying process instead of trying to control the selling process. This is done by publishing valuable objective information about a topic through various digital media including video, audio, social media (Twitter, LinkedIn), blogs, wikis, eBooks/white papers, etc. When people find (and hopefully like) your content, you become an authority on the topic which allows you to start a dialog and relationship that could lead to a sale or a referral.
Think about the last time you went to buy something. Did you look in the phonebook, wait for a direct mail offer, or hope that a sales rep would call? My guess is that you went online to find the most relevant and objective information on the topic and then asked the opinion of friends and colleagues.
Jack Sarsen

Jim, You are correct and you are doing it right now with this blog. Inbound Marketing and Demand Generation tools are re-defining the process that we use to get, nurture and convert leads into sales. I’m not suggesting that the sales role is becoming obsolete, but I believe that the front-end lead generation and nurturing process is changing dramatically.
With Inbound Marketing, you facilitate the buying process instead of trying to control the selling process. This is done by publishing valuable objective information about a topic through various digital media including video, audio, social media (Twitter, LinkedIn), blogs, wikis, eBooks/white papers, etc. When people find (and hopefully like) your content, you become an authority on the topic which allows you to start a dialog and relationship that could lead to a sale or a referral.
Think about the last time you went to buy something. Did you look in the phonebook, wait for a direct mail offer, or hope that a sales rep would call? My guess is that you went online to find the most relevant and objective information on the topic and then asked the opinion of friends and colleagues.
http://asalesguy.com Keenan

I'm not sure Sales has changed much till now. It's not a bad thing,
because their hasn't been a need to change. The sales ecosystem has
seen very little in advances. The telephone, made door to door
obsolete, but other than that the ecosystem hasn't required any
fundamental approach changes.

Today, I'm sensing the ecosystem is changing. The way we engage,
communicate, access information, and share is impacting the sales
ecosystem. I just can't pinpoint how yet.

Your post The Future of Selling has some excellent observations. It
asks some good questions. I think it is going to become more clear
soon. Something is a foot.
http://www.newmangrace.com/ Brian Hemsworth

I think you're dead on. Sales is changing. Old school can work in some circumstances, but “not selling” seems to be more of the new school of sales.

I'm just finishing a new book called “Own The Room” about how much of what we've been taught on sales and presentation just doesn't work. New research has shown that people don't process names, specs, and pitches the way we thought they did. Instead, stories, narrative, context, intention and engagement are much more important.

I think sales people, and by extension sales organization, are going to have to rethink sales in light of the economy, Web 2.0, and the speed of business process today.
timlast

JIm – Fundamental Change…I'm not so sure.

Yes we see new modes of sales/new channels as a result of the web and the plethora of connections that can make. Yes some new services and products can now be successfully sold online/automated with little interaction from a real sales person (but that happened back in the earliest days of commercials on black and white TV so its not quite so new media)…Socialcast and others may have got into 100's of companies and 10,000's of desktops…but that doesn't mean they've made a sale, or will make one (giving away your product as a way of encouraging uptake has never struck me as a good way to start out…you're not left with many places to go after that).

When you're trying to persuade (or 'influence') a client to take your solution vs your competitors, I think it still comes down to a set of skills, process and emotional responses/cues which are inherently human. Whether its browbeating the guy on the phone/doorstep to get his gutter cleaned, or the CIO in the boardroom to go with your complex solution..'traditional sales' still has its place and always will. The key is you're in competition..if you have a monopoly, a significant market innovation or a free product…then you're not going to need the sales guy.

like the question..
timlast

JIm – Fundamental Change…I'm not so sure.

Yes we see new modes of sales/new channels as a result of the web and the plethora of connections that can make. Yes some new services and products can now be successfully sold online/automated with little interaction from a real sales person (but that happened back in the earliest days of commercials on black and white TV so its not quite so new media)…Socialcast and others may have got into 100's of companies and 10,000's of desktops…but that doesn't mean they've made a sale, or will make one (giving away your product as a way of encouraging uptake has never struck me as a good way to start out…you're not left with many places to go after that).

When you're trying to persuade (or 'influence') a client to take your solution vs your competitors, I think it still comes down to a set of skills, process and emotional responses/cues which are inherently human. Whether its browbeating the guy on the phone/doorstep to get his gutter cleaned, or the CIO in the boardroom to go with your complex solution..'traditional sales' still has its place and always will. The key is you're in competition..if you have a monopoly, a significant market innovation or a free product…then you're not going to need the sales guy.

like the question..

Is Sales Changing?

Keenan 411

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