I got this email from A Sales Guy Community member Rob Sader today. In it Rob is contemplating the role of sales people in the not too distant future. His ruminations are similar to mine. I often find myself musing about the same thing. What is the future of sales people? Do we have a future? How will access to information and people via social networks change sales?
Rob asks some good questions and I have my thoughts. But before I chimed in, I thought this was a great topic to put to the community. What do you think about Rob’s question?
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Jim,
I was doing some thinking today in my down time this morning. As I was thinking, I started to wrap my mind around the idea that slowly but surely, maybe our profession is going to be leaking away. Over the last few years, there have been companies that have said that they no longer need sales people and they can sell purely on the freemium model because their software is easy enough to sell that way. I have held to the belief that althought that sounds good, reality is much different. Enterprises buy differently than consumers. You know that and I know that. WHich has now given rise to the model of helping companies buy instead of just doing “consultitive” sales. Companies sometimes don’t even know their own processes, so they need a person that can walk them through buying effectively. So we have gone from selling door to door, to selling features and functions, to selling with a consultative approach, to helping people through the buying process in the span of about 50 years.
I started wondering today what could be next. I wonder, in high tech and software specifically, if the technology will become so simple that the free or freemium model will become the standard and sales people will not be needed much at all in Enterprises. What do you think of this concept? The CEO from Box.net has been very vocal for the last few years in saying that they never really needed sales people and the model is shifting away from sales people selling to enterprises. Funny enough, they started hiring sales people just after that statement to sell to enterprises. But I wonder if he is on to something. Will enterprise software in 20 years be so much more plug and play that the creativity and the complexity of the sale will be less important and top sales people will not be as important? Will those top minds in sales take on different roles or morph into more of a marketing role to support the need for creative ideas and use cases for technology?
Would love your thougths on this, in a blog post or an email back when you have time.
What do you think or Rob’s question?
the email got me thinking cos i always believed that a simple version of the company has 2 units/people – one who makes and one who sells.
consider a product which is produced by two cos. If Company A does away with its salesforce, Company B will get a better share of the market just by the virtue of having a salesforce because then the potential clients can be better reached out to and better advised by them.
i dont see a situation in which enterprises (and consumers in several product areas) can do away without being sold to.
Sales as a competitive advantage, I like this perspective Sanedevel.
Thanks!
I’ve heard this before and I really don’t buy it. It’s possible that the internet and other tools will replace sales people who sell small ticket items, but is a business (or even an individual) going to spend tens of thousands or more on something without talking to someone about it first?
If I want to buy a house, I’ll check it out online, but of course I’m going to meet with the agent, get a tour, investigate everything, get a home inspector and so on. No way I’m going to get a mortgage just based on a 360 degree picture of the living room on a website.
If I’m a CEO of a 10 million dollar business buying a 200k ERP solution, I’m probably going to have to talk to multiple humans at multiple companies; including their sales reps, solution consultants, professional services guys, even their executives.
Any time there is a real money at stake human beings are going to need to get involved on both ends.
Jim, I love this topic. You and Fred Wilson were discussing this a while back (Product vs. Marketing) and I chimed with my own take on my blog as well.
Before you can answer the question of whether or not sales is going away, you have to define what salespeople do. To me, salespeople make connections and tell stories that allow products to be diffused into the market at a faster pace and on a wider scale than they would be if a salesperson wasn’t involved. So companies hire salespeople when they believe that the investment in those people will be outweighed by the incremental revenue that will be produced from their activity.
That said, Rob is right that because of the internet there are some products that can be sold to enterprises without the involvement of a salesperson. But that doesn’t mean salespeople are going away, it just means that salespeople will have to continue to adapt to selling those things that can’t be sold off the shelf — this means more complex sales and more innovative products. This has always been true — products adapt and salespeople adapt.
If a company decides that they can rest on their laurels and its products are so refined that they don’t need people out making connections and speeding up the diffusion of their innovative products into the market, then salespeople aren’t going away, that company is going away.
In short, if a company feels like it doesn’t need salespeople then that company either isn’t innovating or doesn’t have high enough goals.
Thanks Keenan and excellent email Rob. I think the answer is out of the hands of sales people, and instead with consumers. Do they trust your business enough to interact/spend with you with or without personal interaction?
I’m focused on two ways of building trust at scale. The first is public speaking, and I’m looking for a good training course and places to practice so I can improve. The second is video, my view is that youtube has changed the way people use the internet to learn things – and allows you to interact with potential clients when they are ready to listen to you (ie asynchronous).
Seems to me there will always be openings for commercially minded people with the ability to see opportuities in the market place. Definitely worth thinking about and proactively addressing on an individual and company basis. Look forward to your thoughts.
This is a very interesting question. In the Enterprise space I think there will always be a need for sales people. I don’t know anyone who buys millions of dollars of software or hardware without wanting to discuss it in depth with an expert. I think the biggest shift will be sales people becoming more involved with the customer to know their environment inside and out and being experts on what they are selling. I think the SE and AE roles will start to merge a bit.
This is indeed an appreciable observation. However, i feel the basics are being missed here. Even when you say “if the technology will become so simple that the free or freemium model will become the standard”, the same will be applied to every product and can be done by any company. So everything is even now.
Ultimately, every company needs a Sales person to convince the customer that why their product is better from others .
In my experience sales people reach higher fruit than stuff that sells itself. So go freemium if you’re happy with low-hanging fruit, but if you want the whole tree you’d better have a sales operation.