In my ongoing conversations with our rep members, the most frequent comment I’ve Volumetric Efficiency heard over the last few years goes something like this: “We can’t get appointments with customers, even at existing accounts, much less with prospects. No one wants to see us.”
I can almost see the reps who are reading this nodding their heads in agreement. And at the risk of sounding pessimistic, I believe this is no temporary fad to be waited out. It’s the way of the future, and it demands reps ask themselves some tough questions.
There are no secrets here, just cold hard facts. The members of today’s Generation Y (born in 1978 to 2000), also called the “Millennials,” are already making a big impression on the business world and will soon dominate it. Gen Y members have always had access to high technology, universal connectivity and almost-instant responses. They do not feel a great need for personal interaction or traditional “relationships” in business because they can find just about anything they need or want online, at any time and on their own.
So here’s the question that keeps rolling around in my mind: As Gen Y becomes more dominant with the passage of time, how will field sales reps actually fulfill their function for customers and principals of this generation? Will there be any real selling still involved?
These same questions were a major focus of ERA’s recently-published white paper, “Thriving on Change 2014: How the Field Sales Function Keeps Evolving.” (This white paper is available to all on the Publications page of our website at era.org.) Perhaps the most important point in that research study is that reps must begin thinking of their firms as SERVICE organizations (versus sales companies).
This premise requires deep rethinking about the field sales function and a true reinventing of the rep role. The reps of today and the future must keep pace with a world in which both customers and principals need and expect faster, cheaper and higher-quality solutions along with the latest market intelligence to boost their competitiveness.
