Hey Sales Reps, Don't be "Clippy"

I was reading an article in MIT's technology review this past weekend about social intelligence, and I came across an interesting comment by Stanford professor Clifford Nass, an expert on human-computer interaction.  You may be thinking, "what could this possibly do with sales?"  Well, Nass was commenting on why Microsoft's 1997 intelligent assistant for Microsoft Office, Clippy, failed so miserably.  As Nass suggests, "Clippy's problem was it said 'I'll do everything' and then procreeded to disappoint [its customers]."  Sound familiar?. . . I hear this from a lot of CIOs about their interaction with their vendors' sales teams.

Many experienced, and very smart sales managers tend to get a bit too wrapped up in client discussions, attempting to answer every client inquiry themselves in order to close the deal as quickly as possible; while buyers are striving to get access to much more that their vendors have to offer.  In fact, in a recent study by IDC's Sales Advisory Service of 200+ technology buyers, participants indicated that "interaction with vendors' technical teams" and "consumption of vendor content" are more important than "interaction with sales reps" in influencing their decision-making process. But don't devalue the role of sales reps just yet. 

The better sales reps responsible for complex, longer term sales understand that a significant part of their role is to act as the emissary or ambassador for their client to help connect them with the best people across their organization to facilitate the buying process. The key message here is that the best sales reps don't try to be "Clippy" and answer buyers' every question; but work with their buyers in a consultative manner to identify their greatest needs, leveraging this insight to bring the best that their organization has to offer to the buyer.