The Death & Resurrection Of The Salesman
Slack is the fastest-growing startup in history. Within 20 months of launch it had roughly 2 million users. Its user base grew 5% each week for a staggering 70 weeks running. Slack’s marquee clients include NASA, Dow Jones and Samsung.
Now guess how many salespeople Slack has. Zero. That’s right, zero.
Technology is displacing the salesperson. According to Forrester 1 million less B2B salespeople will be employed by 2020. The study found that by a factor of 3 to 1, B2B buyers want to self-educate by going to sellers’ websites and a majority of buyers prefer to make purchases online.
Google studies report buyers being nearly 60% through the sales process before engaging a salesperson, regardless of price point. More accurately, 60% of the sales process just disappeared.
Welcome to the age of the customer.
Here’s how B2B companies can take advantage of this trend and thrive in the age of empowered consumers.
Expand the Role of Self-Service E-commerce
Give buyers what they want. Identify which buyers are best served by Internet channels and automate the sales process for them. But in order to create an effective e-commerce experience, you have to truly understand your buyer.
Have you visited your buyers? Stood in their shoes and asked how to make their lives better? Have you created buyer personas? Do you truly understand the buyer journey across devices?
Until this research is complete, it’s impossible to deliver an autonomous self-service experience that delights. What’s more, this type of contextual observation will lead to increased loyalty — and even generate new business.
Evolve ‘Order-Takers’ into ‘Consultants’
Despite the trend toward self-service, in some cases B2B buyers will want to engage with a salesperson. Especially to negotiate price or understand technical complexity.
If buyers must interact with salespeople as part of the purchase process, be certain the interaction adds value to the experience. Providing value to today’s savvy buyer takes more than a winning smile and a tray of red velvet cupcakes.
Order-takers become consultants by providing expertise to buyers. The modern, consultative salesperson has a deep understanding of at least one of the following:
- Business Acumen / Quantifying ROI
- Technology Solutions
- User Research & Validation
- Disruptive Innovation
- Industry Best Practices
- Data Trends
- Social Marketing
Adapt or Risk Extinction
Buyers are self-educating. No longer are salespeople the sole source of information about your company. Technology renders old sales methodologies obsolete. Evolve your sales team to truly deliver value in the 40% of the sales process you can control.
“The trend will only accelerate. For sales, this isn’t just another long, hot summer; it’s wholesale climate change.” - Brent Adamson, “The Challenger Sale”
Want to learn more about evolving your sales team? Email jay@mozmanconsulting.com or follow me on Twitter @jaysmays and I’ll share more tips on how you can deliver value in the sales process.
Jay Mays is a Managing Partner at Mozman Consulting, where he helps growth-stage B2B companies achieve revenue predictability, repeatability & scalability. www.MozmanConsulting.com
