Sales persons in the Internet age
Mr. Sanjeewa Samarasinghe
Traditional selling models are fast becoming obsolete as the role of salespersons is no longer the key for establishing relations with the customers. In the modern digital era the prospective customer or client is being able to find and buy products and services via web searches and online content.
Today’s sales force is not required to find prospects for products and services for customers as online marketing has put an end to traditional sales and marketing.
Salespersons must be fully integrated into e- marketing because online selling is the primary driver of the e-commerce process.
This customer shift to digital has compelled companies to make sure their sellers across all levels and industries need to be active where their prospects are online.
As sales careers in today’s environment have moved beyond the days of glad-handing and door-opening, a whole realm of knowledge has come to separate the best-performing professionals from their peers.
A great salesperson today can assess multiple customer needs and motivations, analyse and forecast market trends, use sophisticated automation tools, and develop value-driven solutions in partnership with clients. Critical thinking, analytical skills, and the ability to negotiate have become more important than an outgoing personality.
To prepare a new generation of sales professionals to suit present day sales requirements, one requires knowledge in fundamental sales, advanced sales, valuations, sales management, business communication, and sales technology (sales-effectiveness tools).
It’s important that organisations realise the meaning of selling through customer satisfaction and keep the same customer to become a “Silent salesperson” for their products or services.
It is one step ahead than referral selling. This is super salesman’s job today. “Make your customer sell for you.”
Salesmanship is certainly a profession- challenging, thrilling, enchanting and paying-in all those nations where it has been cultivated, pruned and shaped under the sophisticated conditions.
However, it does not mean that all salespersons are professional in the case of advanced nations. Those who are exposed to the requisites of this profession by learning and training and practices can be called as professionals.
Until quite recently, business education might have been perfectly justified in skipping over sales. Time was when the model salesperson was two parts personality and one part product knowledge. Their job was to carry a bag, get a foot in the door or a retailer, and talk up about offering’s features and benefits.
Perhaps a formal sales education couldn’t add much to that. Product knowledge was unique to a company and therefore handled by internal training.
People’s skills weren’t considered teachable in any conventional sense. Selling was something to be learned by doing. As in a changing customer environment the skills of addressing the changing customer has to be updated daily basis.
At present, many of our direct addressed customers do not have time to understand product features and realign with their required benefits.The salesman plays the key role of differentiating their products in a customer’s mind making it easier to decide your company’s products over competition.For this reason conventional selling theories are no longer in practice and all modern selling techniques need to be understood and practiced.
(The writer is a corporate trainer in Sri Lanka and Director – Sales and Distribution at Etisalat Lanka)