The demise of the salesperson has been in the news for several years. This blog post could also be called the rise of the modern salesperson, but this title is more impactful. Forester Research published a report recently that forecasted one million B2B salespeople will lose their jobs by 2020. A recent infographic from our friends at Sales for Life highlights some of the reasons that these positions will disappear. The reasons range from e-commerce capabilities to prospects researching their own solutions to problems.

There will still be a role for B2B salespeople in the future, the role is just changing. I was reminded of this just this week as a marketing automation sales person followed up with a telephone call about a potential partnership. This is one of the largest and best-known marketing automation companies using sales people, to sell their marketing solution. The challenge for sales leaders and entrepreneurs is hiring the right salesperson or transitioning the sales force from traditional, old schools sales, to a modern sales person.

Here are some of the attributes and capabilities of the modern salesperson.

Process and CRM

When I started my sales career, my Rolodex was my CRM. This has changed but some reps have replaced the Rolodex with Excel and Outlook or Gmail. This is not a sustaining long-term practice. Using a CRM every day as part of the regular sales practice has to be a requirement for a modern sales person.
 

Content Marketing

In the past, when a customer had a question they could have reached out to an organization to learn about what they could offer. Today, customers search online and once they engage a salesperson they have already accumulated information to make a buying decision. Creating and sharing content allows for a sales person to be seen as a subject matter expert. Regular content production and sharing also helps people and organizations to be found by prospective buyers.
 

Social Selling

Using tools like Twitter and LinkedIn can help sales people with both account management and prospecting. Keeping in contact with current customers and contacts through social is a great way to stay top of mind and also keep up with their activities. Social selling is also a great way to prospect new clients. Examples include social listening with Twitter and researching targets contacts with LinkedIn. A sales person not embracing social selling will be missing on opportunities and not maximizing their effort.
 

Remote Selling

One the most impactful books that I had read at the start of our business was Sales 2.0. One of the key components from Sales 1.0 was that Account Executives are flying all over the country or even world to meet customers. Today, the tools and customer expectations that are present allows sales people to sell remotely and in many cases never visit the client for an in-person meeting. Face-to-face in-person meetings may still be needed and used, but should not be the default.
 

Team Selling and Support

Old school sales people often sheltered the customer from the rest of their organization. In some cases it was done to simplify things for the customer and in other cases it was so the sales person could control the relationship. Today, there may be many team members that interact with the customer/prospect. This could range from inside sales, customer service, technical sales, and even more contacts.
 

Traditional Selling

At the end of the day the sales person’s main goal is to bring in revenue for the organization. That still means they need be persistent, a great listener, able to handle objections and many other tactics that make for a great sales person.

For other great sales and marketing information subscribe to our monthly newsletter.