The new landscape for sales is changing. It is clear to everyone that sales information has become more symmetrical and this is the way of the land now. People do not want to waste their time with a sales person who will not take no for an answer. Here are a few ways in which sales has changed.
Traditional sales are outdated
The time has come for sellers to appreciate the buyer’s time and realize that their product may not be for everyone like it may have in the past. People do not want to waste their time and they do not want to feel pressure. Instead of the landscape where the seller is looking for the customer, the seller is really looking to be FOUND by the customer.
Buyers Decide
The customers now a days are most often in the driver seat. They are empowered to do their own research about a product and business. Therefore the businesses who offer the best information are the ones who will sell. They need to appeal to today’s market and just fill in the blanks and answer the questions that they have.
Technology
It all comes down to technology. Buyers have the web, TV, radio, smartphones, tablets, etc. to be informed and learn about what they are going to buy, before they buy it. This saves time for everyone. As a customer you do not have to drive around town looking for the best option and for the seller, half of their work is done because the customer is already informed.
Selling has become consulting. This has forced sellers to focus more on the value of the sale to a potential customer rather than just selling a product. People do not buy features, they need to be told what the value to their life your product will bring.
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Some great points! In this article you mentioned how customers frequently look up information on the web as opposed to physically going to these places. In light of this fact I am very surprised at the amount of businesses that actually do not have all of their information online. As a millennial this is very annoying to me. Sometimes I have to look up a business that is the only one in the area that has what I’m looking for. In this case, they have the upper hand because I have no other choices. I usually would be alright with that except when I can’t even find business hours on their website. This is very unprofessional and wastes a powerful opportunity that a business can have.
Some very true points! The sales industry has indeed undergone a dramatic transformation over the last decade. Technology has changed the way that almost everyone goes about buying and thus, it has also changed the way that salesmen need to go about selling. As I mention in some detail in my post Questions That Sell, the salesman’s just is now more information gathering than information giving. That being said, in many ways the salesman of today has it a lot harder than the salesman of yesteryear. Not only do customer now have the ability to shop around for prices (a feature which practically didn’t exist until the dawn of the internet), but salesmen now must cover two bases: that of an information given, and that of and information processor. Clients usually know what they want, but the salesman who can rep the old school still isn’t gonna last too long.
Sales has moved forward in a great way due to the internet. Everyone can check facts and this is great as it really keeps the salesperson honest. This just provided new challenges for the salesperson. Their job is now to really understand their customer because their is no other way around it.