I was reading an interesting article from ManageSmarter.com titled Sales Triggers for Advantage and came across this opening:

Do you remember the old days when the sales professional’s role was easier to manage?

I’m not saying the actual job of selling was easier—none of us signed up for a sales career because it was easy—but the amount of information we had to work with was far less than today. Before the Web, you had a directory of industry professionals to cold call and some leads to follow up on. You drew from your own contacts and those of your colleagues, and perhaps read a trade magazine or journal for industry and market knowledge.

I absolutely remember those days and I’m a Gen Xer.  I still remember my first encounter with the World Wide Web on my PC running Windows 95.  So things have changed dramatically in terms of information.  The sheer vastness of information available today is staggering.  It has become so unmanageable that we recommend reading our friends over at Hidden Business Treasures blog to learn about how much of the information you are not finding.

That leads to this excerpt:

There’s no doubt that using information for profit is beneficial. But too many sales professionals spend unprofitable time looking for nuggets of information on the Web. If a salesperson isn’t careful, she can search the free Web for hours and not find credible information. And to add to the difficulties, all of the competition has access to same information on the free Web too.

The author is exactly right - there are salespeople who overemphasize research at the expense of action.  With so much information available, salespeople have to be efficient lest they become overwhelmed.  This balance in ability is measurable. 

The distinction is found in a salesperson’s Theoretical drive in comparison to their Utilitarian drive.  If you have a strong Theoretical salesperson with a lower Utilitarian drive, they will more than likely get caught up in researching prospects as opposed to actually contacting them.

This approach is not negative.  If you have a highly-targeted, complex sale with a finite number of prospects, this type of salesperson can be quite effective.  For many other types of sales, this salesperson will run the risk of over thinking in the prospecting stage.

Keep this distinction in mind next time you are hiring.  And if you are not assessing candidates, maybe it is time to start?

If you're new here and like what you see, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

Posted By Derrick Moe | Sales Management, Sales Techniques, Trends | |