In B2B Sales, I Am NOT a Barcode + You're Are Not A Gadget

Written by John Cousineau

It's amazing how much you can learn about sales effectiveness by being a 'victim' of practices which badly miss the mark. Often it seems to happen with folks who’ve got the latest tools. Tools, by themselves, don't ensure sales effectiveness. It's all about how you use them. It's all about the kinds of experiences you create.

I seem to be increasingly a victim of tool-assisted BAD customer experiences. I had a pleasant chat with a vendor rep in a booth at a trade show, then 'got scanned'. A couple of weeks later, our sales desk received a call (in the middle of a sales meeting). One of our colleagues dipped out to take the call. When she lifted the receiver, there was no one at the other end of the line so she hung up. Thirty seconds later, my phone rang and (given the sales meeting had already been disrupted), I took the call. It was an Account Exec from the vendor and (apparently) not anyone I'd spoken to in the booth. While I wasn't rude (or at least worked at not being so), I did make it clear that this wasn't the most convenient time to chat. The call ended with no attempt by the Rep to be helpful by scheduling a callback or offering to help in any other way.

A few days later, I got another call. From the same vendor, but a different Account Executive who, also, I'd never met. This time, I explained I knew someone at the firm and would probably follow-up with them. At that point, I was effectively dropped (politely) like a hot potatoe.

In both cases, I walked away feeling like here were two well meaning sales professionals who connected with me (audibly) yet missed an opportunity to really connect with me substantively.

Add it all up, and you have a buyer experience that wasn't very helpful despite the gadgetry used to initiate contact with me. Neil Rackham's take on how to sell in tough economic times is the antithesis of this kind of activity-completing experience. Rackham advocates being exceptionally helpful, often unexpectedly; it will trigger prospects to engage in 'the conversation'.

Are your buyer experiences activity-completing ones for your sales people, or helpful ones for your buyers? If you were the buyer, which type would you rather participate in?

In my opinion, GREAT tools help sales people eliminate such profoundly bad buyer experiences and discover ways to create exceptional buyer experiences. Such tools incorporate this premise into their design; they purposely affect how sales people behave. Profoundly innovative tools take this a step further; such tools nudge people to change how they behave by giving them a clear sense of the relationships between their actions + their impacts. They provoke users to produce better results.

Sales productivity is not a gadget, nor is it guaranteed by tools. Optimizing sales productivity is a process, not a sea of buttons. It requires creativity, with testing and feedback that enables an on-going quest for excellence. I'm a huge fan of profoundly innovative tools in this space that make it all possible. Fundamentally, while such tools help Reps complete tasks more efficiently, their most profound value is in helping Reps complete tasks more EFFECTIVELY. They provoke learning. They build wisdom and hone craftsmanship in sales practices.

As others more enamored than me with the power of process automation press on with admonitions for sales people to automate, automate, automate, let me cry out for sales people to, instead, learn, learn, learn. Authentically, not automatically.

Be real. Be engaging, Be curious. Spark my curiousity. Learn about me + my situation. Help me learn how you could help me improve my business. Create value for me. Do so + you'll earn time with me. When you create a Return-on-Effort for me as a buyer, you'll get a chance to create a Return-on-Effort for yourself as seller. Until then, expect me to say NO as my automatic reply to your overtures to me.

I am not a barcode.You are not a gadget.

Don't scan me. Engage me.

John Cousineau -
	John Cousineau is CEO, innovativeinfo.com. Makers of Amacus, the ONLY tool triggering B2B sales productivity by revealing Return-on-Effort from sales activities. Read More >>
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it Websiteblog