Here is a problem I have seen developing in sales over the past 10 years – shorter attention spans in salespeople having to deal with longer sales cycles.
First, some background from a quick American Management Association:
Whenever I teach students, I tell them, “Your chance of being successful has gone up exponentially because all you’ve got to do now is actually try to pay attention for more than five minutes.”
Ok, that is disconcerting. You can see where this is going. The integration of the Internet into our lives has provided prospects with a unique ability to research your company, and more importantly, your solutions. We often talk about how prospects approach your sales team today. The prospects have probably been to your website, at a minimum, and have pursued social media information regarding your company and solution. The prospects are well-informed.
The control of information used to be a tool of the salesperson but no longer. Instead, the salesperson has to focus on being a guide to the prospect. The Internet’s ability to dispense information has moved many transactional sales to automated orders. Think Amazon here: people do their own searching, determine the “best” solution, and then place their order without any human interaction.
Salespeople now have to nurture these types of sales. More often, they have to move towards complex sales and their longer sales cycles. There is a certain type of salesperson who struggles with this long-term, relationship sale…the classic High-D hunter.
High D’s are quick-pace, aggressive and, well, not relationship-driven. They are task-driven and short which makes them powerful in new business development roles. It does not make them powerful at relationship sales. If more sales are moving to a relationship base, what will happen with these classic hunters?
I think we are observing a fundamental shift in sales. The classic hunter is either adapting to a modified hunter with relationship-sales focus or they are slowly exiting the sales world. I am seeing this first-hand during phone screens and during face-to-face interviews. The High D hunters are learning to temper their drive to mold into the modern day sales world. Those that successfully make this transformation will survive this new world.