Do We Really Need Sales People?

As the economy becomes more, um, difficult, an increasing number of companies pose the question " Do we really need sales people?"

The thinking behind this question, and it is a serious question, is as follows:

• Customers are smarter than ever. They know more about our products or services than our sales people, thanks to Google and peer advisory groups.
• We're spending a ton of money on marketing, and with good marketing automation tools like Eloqua or Unica or others, we can guide prospects through the consideration and evaluation process. Perhaps as much as 50% of the engagement with a prospect is through digital media anyway, why not streamline our operations and use marketing automation to close the deal?
• Sales is expensive. We spend as more money just on commissions for sales people than we do for all of marketing. How do we know what we're getting for that money?
• We're not really sure what sales people do anyway. Why don't we spend our money on something that we can control, like more product development?

The last thought is what's driving this sentiment -- if we don't understand it, and can't control it, perhaps we should get rid of it!

The same has been said of marketing, by the way. John Wanamaker, a department store pioneer, said in the early 1900's: "I know half of my advertising is wasted. I just don't know which half."

Today, advertising (and more broadly marketing) is more scientific, with marketers having the ability to track advertising dollars and their results from initial contact to deal close. It's not simple, and some media support this more than others, but marketers have made huge strides in this area.

In the same manner, sales activities can be tracked from initial customer touch to close. Most sales organizations choose not to do so. It's hard. It requires change management, behavior modification, a different way of doing business for the sales people. And sales people don't see the value in reporting useful, accurate information about their selling activities.

This will change as sales force automation (SFA) becomes more of a two way street -- providing value back to the sales professional in the form of sales enablement assets.

But that's a digression...the question is -- do we really need sales people?

To answer this question, I'll ask you to think about your own purchasing experiences. Sometimes you go to Amazon, type in the ISBN or title of a book or movie, click on purchase and you're done.

Other times, you walk into the showroom with some vague idea of what you want, perhaps a fuel efficient car, maybe sedan, maybe hatchback.

Or you have an intractable problem at work. You need to create a more efficient process of identifying stockouts and reordering before the manufacturing line comes to a halt. You're not an expert in ERP and supply chain management, so you call on an expert, someone who has helped similar companies with the same problem. This expert will assess your needs, make some recommendations, work with you to understand the implementation issues, and help you to justify the solution to your management.

You couldn't do this alone. You need the domain expert. That domain expert is a sales professional for his or her company, diagnosing customer problems and prescribing solutions.

So do we need sales people? For the transactional environment, where you know what you want, the answer is no, usually. In some cases, the buyer needs more than the simple transaction, he or she looks for the validation that they choice they're making is a good one, and this aspect of human nature will never go away.

For the complex business environment, we will always need sales professionals...and I'll note that the business environment continues to get more complex rather than less.

And finally, if you run a business, would you leave the choice of your product or your competitor's to your customer? Are you willing to bet that your customer will make the link between your specific product features and benefits with their business problem?

The sales professional makes those links and helps customers to move forward, in the interest of solving the business problem.

It's an interesting conversation, one that shines a light on issues that need to be addressed...but the answer is that in anything but a simple commodity sale, we will always need sales people!