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bossThink about how you sell and, more importantly, the value you as a salesperson bring to your customers?

Could you be replaced by a website?

I’m not trying to scare you, but it’s real.

I’ve watched a lot of companies take the cost they’ve been paying salespeople and invest it in interactive websites and customer service departments.

Can you honestly say you bring value to your customers or are you doing nothing more than giving them a bunch of product information?  I hear people saying right now that the value they bring is in the convenience of servicing the customer.   Sorry, but the measurement of what is convenient is changing every day.

I know a lot of customers who would say their measurement of convenience would be never having to see a salesperson again.

Wow, that’s a statement that should grab you.

Unless you are truly helping your customer achieve results they otherwise would not be able to achieve, then I say what you do is at risk of being replaced.  I hate to be blunt, but the role of the salesperson has changed. Unfortunately, a lot of salespeople never got the memo.

Now don’t think for a moment I believe the sales profession is going to go away. On the contrary, I believe the opposite. It’s going to grow.   It’s going to grow, but with a different job description.

Salespeople must think of themselves as the customer’s research and development (R&D) department.  We must see our role as being the ones to help them find and develop new opportunities.  We’re the ones who have to assume a much greater role for their success.

View yourself as not the conveyor of product information, but instead as the developer of opportunities.

The role of the salesperson has never been more important. Our goal is to become the “new salesperson” — or maybe to steal something from the software industry: Salesperson 2.0.

Copyright 2013, Mark Hunter “The Sales Hunter.” Sales Motivation Blog.

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