Промышленный лизинг Промышленный лизинг  Методички 

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sales trap 24:

The Internet Will Replace All Consultative Salespeople

Although the Internet has replaced some consultative salespeople, it will never replace them all. Many of the low-value sales functions in business-to-business (B2B) selling that were formerly handled by consultative salespeople have now been shifted to online sales. The transactions shifted to the Web include those related to:

A Routine purchases

A Product information

A Discount information

A Pricing information

A Contact information for account teams

A Smaller accounts

A Existing accounts

A Researching products

A Placing orders (for existing customers)

A Checking on the status of orders

As Bill Gates says, As the Internet drives down the cost of transactions, the middlemen will disappear or evolve to add new value. 13 One sales recruiter said that his company uses a combination of inside salespeople (outbound and inbound telemarketing) and the Internet to sell computer hardware and software equipment to its customers. By doing this, the company doesnt incur the costs associated with an outside sales force. One might argue that with the



sophistication of call centers, the Internet and web sites, field sales organization must discover new ways to create value for their customers in order to justify their existence. The Internet may be responsible for sales force reductions of between 35 to 40 percent

by 2005.14

Tim Furey is CEO of Oxford Associates, Inc., a sales consultancy firm in Bethesda, Maryland, and coauthor of The Channel Advantage.1 He says:

The Internet has clearly cut field sales forces and has moved many previously face-to-face functions online or in-house. But the consultative salesperson will remain. Most of the hype around the Internet-the Amazon.coms, the eBays-[is] around relatively simple, off-the-rack, commodity products that can be sold with minimal human involvement.

Getting a customer to sign a two-year, multimillion-dollar industrial parts contract probably wont happen online. The transactions that are staying with consultative salespeople include those relating to:

A Acquiring new business

A Negotiating individual pricing agreements

A Negotiating configuration exceptions

A Customizing solutions

A Resolving complicated issues, services, and products A Handling major accounts

A Managing situations in which the sales consultant has to create value, i.e., situations that are too qualitative without his or her involvement



In the future, there may be fewer consultative salespeople. Those that remain will have to be sure that they add value. Principle 4, Create Value, and Sales Traps 9 through 18 in that section will remain as true tomorrow as they are today.

B2B E-COMMERCE

The majority of e-commerce transactions are B2B, where most consultative selling has traditionally taken place. This more than anything else probably accounts for the decline in consultative sales positions. Forrester Research, Inc., reports that in 1998, B2B e-commerce accounted for $43 billion in transactions, compared to $7.8 billion in business-to-consumer (B2C) transactions.16 The computer industry claims the largest percentage of online B2B sales transactions; these transactions were valued at $50.4 billion (45 percent of online transactions) in 1999.17 And Forrester estimates that the online B2B market will grow to $1.3 trillion by 2003.18 Goldman Sachs estimates sales in B2B e-commerce by 2004 of:

A Chemicals, $349 billion

A Computer hardware and software, $221 billion A Industrial equipment, $140 billion A Energy/utilities, $133 billion19

Because of this expected growth in online sales, the number of consultative sales positions is expected to continue to be reduced, but these positions will not be eliminated.

online selling. B2B e-commerce increasingly uses web-based sites and extranets (para-enterprise network organizations that extend intranets to existing outside customers and suppliers) for online selling. Much of this selling is automated and directed by the customers themselves. Larry Carter, CFO of Cisco Systems, even claims that



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