I wonder… ? Do industry salespeople really know what they are selling?
Most salespeople in a particular segment can become pretty adequate at selling products within that segment. Even the most simplistic sales strategies call for an understanding (or memorization) of benefits, features, corporate advantages, product differentiators and the overall, generic “value propositions”.
What happens to these value propositions when you must now include completely separate products in the thought process? Oh and by the way, those other products are from a segment that you never really worried about.. Oh and by the way, those other products require a deeper understanding of the technology. And by the way, traditionally, those other products would require that you take a completely different approach to the sales process.
I think it’s going to get pretty hairy for some of these companies that are trying to integrate not only different products, but different salespeople and different approaches to the sales process. When things get complicated, the natural reaction for a salesperson is to stick with what they know and what they are comfortable with. In this case, that means continuing to sell their old stuff in the old way. Ultimately, however, this doesn’t do anyone any good. Customers never are effectively introduced to the wider offering, and in turn, the vendor may accidentally miss out on additional upsell opportunities. It’s a lose/lose situation unless you have someone leading the sales process with an understanding of the complete product offering, competitive offerings and a little bit of “vision”.
This “visionary” type of salesperson is even more important now than ever due to the nature of the consolidating market. One of the proposed benefits of this consolidation is being able to offer customers a very broad set of functionality. But is that benefit relevant if the salespeople don’t know what they have? Of course, it is not. The broader offerings will take traditionally mid-market vendors into much larger enterprise deals. For the vendors to truly tap the potential of those deals the “box pushing”, “seat selling” salespeople will likely need their own upgrade.
The old question of being a hunter or a farmer is likely to be revisited once again. Organizations full of hunters are excellent when the offering is niche and targeted. Where you can do a deal and move on. Even within a single organization niche offerings can be widely adopted and successfully harvested by a hunter. Enterprise plays with wide ranging functionality is a different animal altogether. The companies that will prove to be successful will have figured out how to successfully blend the skillsets of the hunter with the longer-term, upsell-oriented, account management types.
Watch for some of the consolidating organizations to make some of these changes. Also watch for their competitors to make adjustments in their tactics in recognition of a changing sales model.
