For decades sales and marketing have functioned like a one-way street. Roads were defined to control traffic using marketing materials, product information and the sales processes to channel the customer towards a close.

 

The customers were closely confined within the guardrails of a defined sales path. The only real power a customer held was to choose an exit.

 

Sales training and processes were focused upon the maneuverings to guide a customer to a close while deterring them from taking off-ramps.

 

As long as the sales department could maintain relatively full control over the flow of information this approach functioned and remained the way things got done.

 

The Internet’s growth brought huge change beyond the initial, and incorrect, view that it was just another extension of the “brick and mortar” operation.

 

First there came an unprecedented access to information. The sales department could no longer control or limit the customer’s access to information as an uncontrolled explosion of data became available to anyone, anywhere.

 

In fact, the customer now had the access and capability to become better informed than the average salesperson.

 

The real drama came with the advent of Web 2.0 and its social capabilities.  Suddenly the customer had a voice. And not only could that voice be heard but it could be shared directly with others and so create a conversation.

 

This was not a minor shift or a “leveling of the playing field”. The customers today can create choices, define paths and dictate results. They no longer just follow roads, they build them.

 

Does this mean the extinction of the sales species? No, in fact a salesperson’s role is arguably more vital than ever before.

 

Customers are faced with information overload and too many choices. In addition quality has risen to such a degree that many choices are no longer “good vs. bad” but an impossible “good vs. a bit gooder”.

 

These are major problems to consumers and create a real need for powerful salespeople.

 

To succeed at meeting that need takes an entirely new level of knowledge, expertise and competence.

 

What will separate the winners from the losers? Good chance it will be just how committed a company is to achieving a level of training that goes beyond satisfactory.

 

Nothing short of remarkable will do.

 

Written by

Thomas Soracco

Real Ability Software and Management Systems