The Have's and Have Not's

By Dave Stein

I'm getting very concerned, now that technology is playing an increasing role in selling resulting from the Sales 2.0 generation of software tools and capabilities that are now gradually being introduced. 

The reason I'm concerned is that there is a gap between sellers who are technology "have’s" and those who are technology "have-not's." All the technology in the world isn’t going to help people who don’t have the requisite skills and, more importantly, the inherent traits, to be consistently effective sellers.  On the other hand, consistent performers will have to become considerable more technology capable to maintain their performance levels going forward. 

ESR has found that 25-33% (depending on the industry) of B2B sales people aren’t qualified for the jobs they hold and neither training nor coaching will improve their performance.  This is a critical problem.  It is one of the root causes of the troubling statistics that we’ve all seen regarding sales performance and job tenure.

Let me elaborate on the issue of personal traits.  Depending on their specific job, we know that varying proportions of these among other traits are required for a sales person to be successful:  courage, tenacity, intelligence, problem solving, integrity (inward- and outwardly directed), self-motivation/drive, optimism, and competitiveness.

Not only does a seller have to be technologically comfortable (if not savvy) to leverage these exciting new tools and capabilities—they must have the right DNA (traits) to be a consistently effective seller, as well.

So let’s not get so enamored with the promise of an anywhere-access, collaborative, content-rich, best-practices, wiki-enabled, personalized iWorld that we elevate the vision of Sales 2.0 to the lofty position we did with CRM—that of a universal elixir.  CRM didn’t deliver on the promise because no one thought about what’s in it for the sales person.  Sales 2.0 does hold great promise for those companies that understand the importance of the three P’s—people, process and product—and have the right infrastructure in place to support a new generation of technology-enabled selling.  But for those companies that don’t, so far as improvements in sales effectiveness is concerned, Sales 2.0 has all the business value of a kid’s video game.

Dave Stein is CEO & Founder of ES Research Group, Inc. He is also a monthly strategy coulmnist for Sales & Marketing Management magazine.

Comments

[Sam Miller]

I am surprised you did not mention one of the most important quality that a sales person needs to possess. Knowlegde. Too often you will meet sales people that know little about their product. Particularly in the IT industry.

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