For anyone curious enough to delve deeper, yes – there are answers. But that is a discussion for another day. In this post, I only want to touch the surface of this intriguing inquiry into the role of a salesman in todays world. What exactly does a salesman currently do in a sales call, to communicate “value” to the customer?
In Economics 101, Value is defined as below:
Value = Benefit – Cost
Lets not look at the value of a product or service here. Lets look at the value created in a sales call. The “cost” that a customer expends in meeting a sales person is his Time & Energy. In an increasingly fast paced corporate world, our customer has limited resources of both, which he spends with due care. Hence, in his eyes it is a very valuable commodity.
Now, what is the “benefit” that a sales person can possibly give this same customer of ours in a sales call? The answers I generally hear are in terms of, “A good value proposition”, “A cost effective solution” and other such terms. Invariably though, I feel there is too much stress paid on the “cost” angle. This is despite the fact that we know that as consumers ourselves, we do not always buy “the cheapest” item on the block. Anyways, without debating that further, to stay with the sales call, I ask, “ok, so what does that translate to in terms of what you actually speak in the call?”, “Tell me the actual words”. Far too often, what I then hear is about a whole list of features and their related benefits.
Lets take a pause here and think for a minute. Rewind to a few years back, when you had to buy a car. How did you go about that purchase? You perhaps had a few cars in mind from the advertisements you saw on TV. You then went to a few showrooms, heard out a few sales guys and chances are that, one particular sales guy got you hooked with a few interesting features in his car. You negotiated ofcourse, but since the few features really caught your fancy you did not mind paying a little more than you had budgeted for.
Circa 2011. Same scenario again. How will you go about buying your car? Chances are, you will first log in to the internet. You will check out all the options of all the brands, available at the click of a mouse. You also browse through all the feature and product comparisons. You also have a good idea of the price ranges. Now, fully armed, you still visit the showroom. But this time, the difference is that you perhaps know more about the cars and how they compare against competitors than most of the sales people there. What is the only benefit, you think, a sales person can now give you? – a better price! From being one of the factors at the point of purchase, “Price” has truly been crowned the undisputed king in your purchase criteria.
Let us now return to our sales person who has to take his sales call. If all he can talk about in his sales call is about product features, their benefits and at best, comparisons with his competitors, is there someone else who can do a better job of that? Ofcourse there is – and the answer is GOOGLE!
In less than 0.5 seconds, Google can throw up all that data for me and more. Can ANY sales person in the world compete with that? I think not.
So, does that mean that Google has effectively killed the sales profession? The answer is an emphatic NO. What Google has done though is to elevate the requirement of an effective sales person from being someone who “communicates” value, to someone who “creates” value. People still pay a premium while buying certain products and services. But this happens only when the sales person, due to his knowledge of the industry and his offerings, brings in his “expertise” into play, to deliver “insights” to the customer that he cannot find from a Google search. An example of this is perhaps in the selling of Client Virtualization solutions in the IT Hardware space. The same customer who often cannot be sold a PC at any kind of premium, readily shells out a hefty premium to buy these solutions. Why? Because Google may tell him the specifications of the components involved, but it cannot give him or help him with the insight of how to go about it and how it can help improve his business metrics. That is the benefit that the salesperson can bring in.
The first step towards redemption of the sales profession, I think, is for sales people to understand and acknowledge that their job is not to compete with Google. The benefit that a sales person can deliver in a sales call, has to be the “insights” that come from their unique knowledge of the industry & the customer situation. That is something that Google cannot compete against.
I challenge you to think about your next sales call – will you be communicating something that Google cannot?
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5 comments:
well thought out! What we are missing is the solid sales guy who prides on selling the customer "product or the solution", that he is convinced, is the right one for the customer. Today sales guys just act as post men. Is it their mistake? Majority of the blame should be taken by senior sales managers who have stopped training and grooming their sales people. All they do is "dish out quota and review it". All they are bothered about is "hitting sales quota". They are not concerned about winning the "right customers and right kind of revenue"..how many managers go for calls with their boys at every stage of the selling cycle and show how it is done! Answer to this is, part of the measurement for a sales manager should be on qualitatives and not just quantitatives. Hope I am making sense here. Lets hope things change.
I realized the power of availability of specs, feeds n prices and hence the need to move beyond them when I went into selling Client Virtualization. As you have rightly pointed out people by and large have become post-men: delivering the same content available over the internet by adding their voice feature to it; & by the final stages of the deal we realize no matter what we try the client just doesnt care abt anything but price. The problem right from the start was that the deal was never "closed/qualified" at every stage of the deal (nor was he encouraged to do so, as rightly pointed out in the comment above).
So how do we raise the sales level: beyond specs, relationship and postmen-ship? Few thoughts that come to my mind:
1. Knowing your product in and out.
2. Knowing then how your product can be turned into a solution for a business problem. If there arent well laid out solutions for the product(beyond the marketing material/collaterals that anyways the customer would also know about) then keep debating, discussing with peers. Local ideas that you bounce with customers are always more effective than global case studies.
3. Understanding or trying to understand the future long-term benefits out of the proposed solution & eloquently discussing them at every stage of a deal. If required showing them as a demo is a must. Speaking about such stuff at the final stage of the deal doesnt help.
4. Finally, sharing the knowledge gained with your peers/collaborators/partners/seniors etc. If that culture thrives the qualitative and quantitative aspects can be taken care of.
It is all about customer benefit communication Vs. product feature communication.
Good article Arun. This reminds me of an incident on how effective sales people can be.
I visited Best Buy with the intention of buying a decent music system. They had all the leading brands in the segment I had budgeted for; and the products of all brands appeared to be more or less similar. The in-store sales agents of respective brands were trying hard to communicate the features and the advantages. Their talks did not really make sense to me; Thanks to Google, I was more knowledgeable than them.
Eventually price was going to be the deciding factor.
This was when an in-store agent of Polk Audio walked up to me and started a conversation. He started asking a variety of questions to understand my need better, explained to me a variety of things starting from the basics of sound through the wood used in speakers with the advantages, disadvantages and balance between sound quality and budget. He went on to demonstrate a range of products they had and eventually got me agreeing to him each time he made a point. Finally, he put the ball in my court and said "Sir, it is for you to decide now". Remember - he did not let me feel pushed even once. And you know what, I asked him this question "If you were me, what would you buy?”. He had made his sale!
I overshot my budget 30%, paid extra for home installation expertise and even after 3 years I continue to seek his advise when one of my friends is thinking of buying a music system (Most of them ended up buying from him). This is not because he was good to talk to, but is really because he is an expert in his domain – a person who provides value that Google cannot match.
This is what you call a sales person – others have really become postmen.
Hi Rags - couldn't agree with you more!
Hi Dushyant - good insights.
Hi Ananya - I would disagree a bit out there. I think the days of FAB selling are gone, thanks to Google. Its now all about the insights.
Hi Venkatesh - what a crystal clear exaample you have shared. Thanks a lot!
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