Are Salespeople Becoming Obsolete?

What’s something that salespeople sell? If you answered “used cars”, you are not alone. Whether said with disdain, apathy, excitement, or admiration, “car salesperson” seems to have become a defining role for the profession. And it turns out even they are not being spared from the information and technology revolution that is rapidly changing the sales landscape.

Carvana recently opened a Car Vending Machine in Washington, D.C. If a customer chooses, they can complete the entire purchasing process from their home and simply show up for pickup at the vending machine. They never have to interact with a dealership or a sales person; no features and benefits, no test drive, and no financing conversation. So now that customers don’t NEED to interact with a salesperson, it’s up to salespeople to illustrate why they should WANT to.

How will technology impact you in the near future? Is your job in jeopardy of being replaced by a next generation smartphone app or digital self-service?

Maybe.

It depends on what you bring to the table—what value you add to the buyer-seller relationship beyond the transactional aspects of doing business.

That’s not a low bar to set. Almost every facet of business has been touched, and ostensibly improved, by technology. Everything from scheduling orders to tracking deliveries; forecasting production requirements to ordering raw materials; documenting services to tallying billable hours.

From a customer’s perspective, interactions with salespeople can be characterized, at one end of the spectrum, as dealing with a clerk — someone who shows up, gets the order, and then disappears. Or, it can be characterized, at the other end of the spectrum, as dealing with a trusted advisor — someone who understands the client’s needs and goals and provides insight and help in satisfying them.

How would your customers characterize your relationship? Unfortunately, for too many salespeople, it’s near the “clerk” end. These salespeople show up on schedule, get an order, and add little, if any, additional value.

One might argue that there’s a certain efficiency to the “clerk” methodology. And there very well may be. However, the days of the order taker salesperson are numbered because technology is rapidly deploying apps and digital self-service that are far more efficient and less costly than any “clerk” can be.

Unless order takers change what they represent to your customers and clients . . . and bring something to the relationships that they truly appreciate and value, then those customers are likely to migrate to a faster, easier, and/or cheaper technology based option.

How do you add value to the relationship? By contributing anything that helps your customers.

Perhaps you can orchestrate a quarterly or semi-annual roundtable discussion with your customer and the people within your company who can provide technical, financial, logistical, or other information that could help your customer improve internal systems . . . and ultimately production, revenue, and the bottom line? Maybe you can change your manner of interaction with your customers to make it easier for them to do business with you? Possibly you can provide market analyses or industry trend information which can help your customers make better production, inventory, or sales forecasts?

What can you do?

If you’re having trouble coming up with ways to add value to your customer relationships, perhaps you don’t know your customers as well as you should. Perhaps your interactions with them don’t extend much beyond the transactional aspects of the sale. Perhaps a smartphone app would do just fine.