Is the world really changing? Yes, I read the same papers you do and hear the same talking heads that you see on TV but I wonder, “How different, really, is the New World from the Old World?”
As sellers, we live and die by “The Contact,” the one who buys or recommends the purchase that we need to sell to exist. Business book shelves are awash in titles that give us method after method on ways to meet, greet, find, schmooze and work The Contact to achieve a sale. Since business book titles tend to fade quickly from the shelves, (the classics by authors such as Zig Ziglar, Dale Carnegie and a few others excepted) people like me offer up the latest and greatest ideas for your perusal on how to work The Contact and win at the selling game.
In my newest incarnation as a salesman, I am tasked with adopting New World tools and techniques that are in stark contrast to the last 32 years of selling in the Old World. These include the telephone, computer, GoToMeeting, the Internet and other high tech, low touch tools. I am becoming more expert at using “social media” and the various cute name products like Twitter and Facebook.
Yesterday at our farewell lunch on my way to the airport, my boss, a co-worker and I discussed my new incarnation. Since my co-worker doesn’t control my very existence, I only really care what my boss thinks and in his opinion, I am a dinosaur in the New World. My way of doing business has expired. The “Use by” date passed at least two years ago, if not earlier. This should raise some red flags in my mind but it does not (although, my reasoning is subject to debate). The reason is that I am surfing the wave of change in real time.
I taught my “Building and Maintaining Relationships in the Digital Age” class last week to 54 industry sales professionals and there were only two under the age of 40. The class stresses (as I stressed to my boss) that the New World Order needs Old World skills to prosper. While we may make individual purchases over the Internet from many unknown sources, we form enduring relationships with our buyers by cultivating them. While I talk a good game, however, there are many strong buying relationships in our business between people who have never met each other in the flesh. I know that while it’s possible to forge strong business relationships using Old World tools, the New World tools are more efficient, if not better.
In real terms, if we get proficient in the new ways of selling, we may even make more personal income from smaller sales volume simply by reducing expenses and increasing efficiency. And, since we score our efforts on a dollar scale, the more dollars in our pocket means we’re doing better in our profession. That is a good thing, too.
Happy Selling!