The changing role of sales

Brian Carroll just posted a great podcast on his B2B Lead Gen blog.

Its well worth a listen!

Very interesting perspective – sales people are the 2nd choice of prospects for information, 1st choice being your company’s website.

Think about that for a minute…

The sales person ultimately becomes the guide.  Shepherding the prospect through all the information available on your site so they can make an informed decision.  When you’re traveling, a good guide asks a lot of questions to get to know what you’re interested in and then steers you in that direction.

So a really good sales person that asks questions, identifies pain, etc. is perfect in this “future sales” role.

But most organizations are not hiring and training sales people this way.  I do love a good strong cold calling closer.  I hope we can keep a few around just to admire!

Related posts:

1. Worth reading – sales and marketing sites around the web
2. You Can’t Automate What You Don’t Understand
3. When to say its “Over”
4. If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it!
5. Sales Technique is about Organization