Sales = Customer Problem-solving.

Sales = Solving Customer Problem.

Sales and marketing have gone through a transformation in past two decades. Technology such as the Internet, Smart phones, Big Data Analytics, IoT, Cloud, Social Media, Digital, and e-commerce are the technologies that have contributed towards the transformation. These technologies have affected economic, Operations and supply chain as well. The 7P’s of Product and 7C’s of Service Marketing have also been affected and so has been the concept of Core and Augmented Product.

Sales today is all about solving the customer problems. I would say a good sales person is a good advocate who researches on customers problem at the same time bring together a futuristic solution. A good sales person is a good advisor and spends a lot of his time learning, studying and understanding the subject or practice of offering to his or her customers. They do not just solve customers current problem but provide a solution that goes beyond the current customer problem and addresses all possible .future customer needs and mitigating future unforeseen problems. ( at least informs the customer about the same) It is also important to understand and inform on the interoperability of a product of solution to current customer landscape of product and their version.

I Understand that the organization employing the sales person require business and linearity of same, but the mentioned approach would provide a sustainable business and growth. This would also help to build brand, credibility and value proposition that would help companies gain the premium for their product and services.  They should have work design which encourages this approach where time devoted to learning backs the quality of engagement between their representative and customer. In fact, the organization should have a healthy budget toward skills and knowledge development, and only those people should be allowed to interface with customers who go through this periodic skills upgrades.

Today's sales person needs to be articulate in documenting the solution such that is carried forward to become scope of work as well facilitate legal and SLA documents. This shall lead to a sustainable long term mutually beneficial relationship.

In an earlier comment to an Harvard business review article I shared and my blog, I had stressed on the need for collaboration. We are living in a knowledge economy, and no industry is untouched. In fact, we are in the Industrial Revolution 4.0. We have all functions in an organization getting merged into one another, and hence a work place of future might be different from what we are used to machines,  Artificial Intelligence (AI) would do the repetitive function. Hence it is necessary for a new age sales person/employee or managers have multi facet knowledge of the product,  project management, delivery, finance, legal, statistics, analytics, strategy, HR, Process, digital and social media. In fact, I am sure the professional itself would have a different terminology as the value proposition for a product or service would be linked to real time information, review and feedback available on digital platforms and value creation and value capture for an organization would require multi facet skill, knowledge, and experience. It would be fair to say a good sales person or team would be consultants.

Instead of happy selling, I would say Happy learning, collaborating and selling!