A group of people quickly agree with the statement “Face to Face Selling is Dying,” perhaps too much. For you, I say well done but don’t be too cocky, there are still quite a few people who like to do business face to face even if we see it changing.
On the other hand, a large group of sales people are absolutely laughing at me for stating this. You are thinking about all the sales calls you make and the business that you derive from face to face meetings. You can validate your position with numerous examples to prove how important face to face selling is. But are we all seeing what we want to see? Ask yourself, which of the following 2 horizontal lines is longer.
Which line is longer?
They are, of course, the same size. And even though I know this to be true, I have to work at realizing it to be true because my eyes deceive me despite knowing the truth. Clearly the top line is longer than the bottom. It’s obvious! Except that it is not.
The point is that sometimes what we see is based on what we already think. The way these lines are drawn creates a story for our minds in which both lines are different sizes but the fact is they are the same size. A simple illusion, but the same is true for what you see in your business and sales life. You may be seeing longer lines than really exist in your day to day sales life. So stop thinking about what you know for just a moment, look back over the last 10 years and you will likely see clearly that your clients want to see LESS of you.
It’s no secret that online distributors are growing faster than traditional distributors as a group. Perhaps you aren’t watching their growth as much as your own growth, but I assure you, they are growing rapidly. And they are doing so because they are capitalizing on the transition away from face to face selling.
Face to face selling is not yet dead (it will probably never die) and there are times people want us in their office. But there are many more times customers just want to know you personally and order from your website without ever speaking to you. You are important to the transaction. People want to work with you. But maybe they don’t need you in their office each time and maybe they don’t even want to talk to you to place the order. But they do like knowing you are there taking care of the issues rather than some company without a person they know personally cares about them.
Take a moment today to think about how you interact with your clients and start planning carefully to continue to adapt to the way they want to work with you. Some of you already do or will successfully differentiate yourself such that technology is not an issue. Others need to come up with an investment strategy to compete in the changing world of commerce.
You’ll likely find you need to make an investment in technology. It will be expensive, but it will pay off. And perhaps you’ll find a slightly different look at the problem, will help you see more clearly.
P.S. The title of this post was inspired by an article titled Face to Face Selling is Obsolete published on inc.com.
Geiger CIO Dale Denham, MAS+ provides practical insights on how you can benefit from technology in no nonsense terms. Follow him on Twitter: @GeigerCIO.
