Sales POP - Purveyors of Propserity
Old Habits & Old Technology
Blog / Sales Management / Oct 19, 2017 / Posted by John Golden / 7827

Old Habits & Old Technology

0 comments

Sometimes I wish I could pick David Meerman Scott’s brain on a daily basis because every time I speak with him he comes out with some outstanding pearls of wisdom. These simple yet extremely powerful insights have influenced my thinking on more than one occasion in the past. Some years back he was one of the first to talk about salespeople needing to brand themselves on LinkedIn and other social networks so they communicated their value to prospects and customers because at the time most were using LinkedIn as an online resume. He had spotted a shift in buyer behavior whereby prospects were now researching the salesperson as much as the company they represented – today this has become conventional wisdom but when David told me about this at the time, it was far from it.

Well this week I had another opportunity to interview David and yes he did it again! About half-way through our 20 minute interview he mentioned two major problems that may be negatively impacting sales in an organization.

#1 OLD HABITS [icon name=”suitcase” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]

There are top performing salespeople who often get promoted in sales management positions – nothing unusual there. But consider for a moment if they were promoted into the position say 10 years ago – the very sales strategies and approaches that they successfully used as a salesperson way back then are not likely to be as effective today given the major shifts in buyer behavior that we have seen over the past number of years. So unless the sales manager has moved with the times (and many have) there is the potential that there are some out there pushing out-dated sales strategies onto their sales teams. Think about the negative impact that could be having – not only could it mean your sales teams are not evolving and moving forward it could mean they are actually going backwards and your organization is becoming increasingly less-aligned with your customers.

#2 OLD TECHNOLOGY [icon name=”anchor” class=”” unprefixed_class=””]

Customer Relationship Management and Sales Force Automation is not a new concept. These have been around for a long time and some of today’s biggest and best-known vendors have also been around for a long time – indeed some of the biggest started in the last century – albeit near the end [icon name=”smile-o” class=”” unprefixed_class=””] – but the point is that these systems were built with the selling approaches and concepts of the day in mind. So today many of these systems still reinforce and support what are outdated and outmoded sales approaches. So inadvertently you could be hampering your salespeople from selling in a more buyer-aligned and contemporary fashion by your choice of sales technology.

Something to chew on, don’t you think?

Here is the clip of David providing me with these fantastic insights (the full interview with all its other nuggets will be published next month).

I sincerely suggest you get to know David’s work if you are not already familiar with him: www.davidmeermanscott.com

Pipeliner CRM is the most sales-empowering of the new technology. Get your free trial of Pipeliner CRM now.

About Author

John is the Amazon bestselling author of Winning the Battle for Sales: Lessons on Closing Every Deal from the World’s Greatest Military Victories and Social Upheaval: How to Win at Social Selling. A globally acknowledged Sales & Marketing thought leader, speaker, and strategist, he has conducted over 1500 video interviews of thought leaders for Sales POP! online sales magazine & YouTube Channel and for audio podcast channels where Sales POP! is rated in the top 2% of most popular shows out of 3,320,580 podcasts globally, ranked by Listen Score. He is CSMO at Pipeliner CRM. In his spare time, John is an avid Martial Artist.

Author's Publications on Amazon

John Golden, best selling author of "Winning the Battle for Sales" presents "Social Upheaval: How to Win At Social Selling" to explain how every B2B salesperson can add social selling methods to their toolkits, and why it is so important that they do so without…
Buy on Amazon
FROM THE CREATORS OF SPIN SELLING―TRIED-AND-TRUE STRATEGIES TO ARM YOU IN THE WAR FOR SALES SUPREMACY "I distinctly remember my first VP talking about 'campaigns' and 'targets.' Indeed, successful salespeople have made learning from military tactics an important aspect of their careers. In this engaging…
Buy on Amazon
Comments

..
..
.
Sales Process Automation
.
This website uses cookies. By continuing to use this website you are giving consent to cookies being used. For information on cookies and how you can disable them, visit our privacy and cookie policy.