Death of the Salesman as BtoB Sales goes online?
E-commerce: consumer
Consumer goods have been available on the Internet since the early beginnings of the Internet: e-Commerce was all the hype during the Internet Bubble. The website were and are about consumer goods and consumer web services (in many cases related to the action of buying consumer goods).
Online selling Internet BtoB services
Since a few years during the Web 2.0 era a new breed of e-Commerce sites have emerged: web services for businesses. 
Previously all business to business services required a physical presence of a sales rep. or even a sales team in order to sell.
As the Internet has infiltrated business and web services are being promoted and provided over the Internet without human interaction or interference this change of trend just has happened.
In order to enable selling business to business the web services have become specialized or specific services with a minimum of functions and features.
Instead of promoting a complex ERP system with (too) many functions and functionalities (for buyers to fully grasp) solutions with only one or two business processes are being offered: CRM, collaboration, invoicing, lead generation or cash management.
The process of marketing and sales can be completely automated as:
- The marketing message is less complex due to the limited number of business functions
- Marketing is done using the Internet presence: website, advertising, blogs, reviews, and email campaigns (spam)
- Companies are identified while visiting the website
- Selling is limited to answering emails and providing a sign-up page with a payment scheme.
No man to man interaction required except for the email conversations.
Online marketing
As the current method of getting a solution for a problem in a business is mainly started by a search on the Internet, the Internet presence is most important.
The online marketing consists of:
- The website with content related to the problems the business service solves.
- The well positioned advertising of companies
- The social media marketing – even for BtoB
- The email campaigns
All the online content has become more important for the decision than any other marketing channel for attracting interested parties which are the potential customers. They will visit the website if the vendor throughout the entire buying process.
In order to attract Internet buyer-searchers the content and multiple presences on the Internet are king.
Both Outbound and Inbound marketing have theirs place. However there is a bias or preference towards Inbound Marketing as:
- Inbound marketing is always active instead of the on/off functionality of Outbound marketing.
- Inbound marketing has a broader reach.
Selling by a salesman is not really required for these web service providers.
The persuasion by the content and the presence on the Internet have become more important for engaging the potential customers.
No death of a Salesman for complex solutions
For solutions offering just one or two business services or functions the death of a Salesman is near.
However in all cases with greater complexity of the solution provided the greater need for human interaction by salesmen: discussions, interactions and meetings.
If the service is too complex the Internet is not yet convincing enough.
Still all decision makers and buyers will visit the website of the vendor during the entire sales process.
The online B2B Sales currently is only feasible for relatively simple and straightforward solutions and services limiting to one or 2 business processes only.
The question is how far the bar will be raised: up to what level of complexity people in business will buy without human interaction?
Currently most companies are still selling the traditional way.
The question is how long will this traditional selling last as the Internet has become ubiquitous and will move up the ladder of complexity of business services offered?
Has your BtoB sales already been affected by the Internet?
Will the Internet kill the salesman?
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The internet is growing in sophistication and in popularity with consumers, business or otherwise. Get your business on the bandwagon or be prepared to fade away one day. It has touched my last business a great deal, changing how we operated in numerous ways. The public demands a good internet presence.
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Today’s smart salesman can benefit greatly due to the internet. The only way the salesman will be predated is if he/she fails to establish an internet presence.
Today, the salesman and the company he works for can generate new leads and customers from the web by creating content deemed valuable by their “target” market.
Even if the customers are exclusively “local”, there are specific local optimization techniques for driving local traffic to the business’s content.
I think it depends on the particular business and how prospective clients want to be engaged. I do think, though, that the more a business presents itself online as the “thought leaders” or “subject matter experts”, the more business will result from being found as opposed to outbound selling efforts.
- John
The salesman is far from dead, he just has a very different face on the net. Just like any medium geared towards selling the pitch has to be direct and percise, since content is the pitch your salesman has to be able to put to words exactly what he customers eperience is and what they need. No easy task and hardly one size fits all. It has to always evolve to survive
Salesman? I guess it wont affect anything that much since not all people are into buying stuff online. There are some who prefer to see the item first hand before buying it. Though the net is completely different on selling stuff or getting a customer. It will depend on how the customer trust a site or a salesman.