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June 2021: Death Of The Sales Territory

Death Of The Sales Territory

In Arthur Miller's play Death of a Salesman, the protagonist Willy Loman confronts a collage of memories, dreams, and conflicts, all of which make up the last 24 hours of his life. The loss of identity and the metaphorical inability of "man" to accept change concludes tragically with Willy's suicide.   

Covid 19 has accelerated the writing of a new real-life drama that doesn’t star Willy Loman but thousands of salespeople across the world who travel by plane, train, automobile, and metro to see potential clients every day. These people often carry bags of samples, brochures, and other materials on iPads to wow clients and influence a purchase. With Covid shutting doors, and person to person access all but denied, thousands of sales reps around the globe are trying to adjust to a new online playing field.   

About this time a century ago the silent movies of the 1920’s Charlie Chaplin era transitioned to talkies presenting actors and filmmakers with all sorts of new challenges and opportunities. The new roaring 20’s online world is presenting similar but different challenges to sales-oriented organizations. Trained up in the art of personal persuasion, the removal of face-to-face interactions has left most sales organizations impendent as they clumsily struggle to connect on internet platforms like Zoom, Bluejeans and Teams. This new e-world of communications still requires a personal touch but it’s transforming to a digital "touch" rather than in person handshakes, causing a huge disruption in sales force design and training. For corporate America and beyond, the opportunity to eliminate (or at least greatly reduce) millions of travel miles each year, lost productivity from endless hours on the road, and the cost saving on airline tickets, rental cars, hotels and expensive meals, might prove just too tempting to pass up.    

Many of you reading this may be thinking Zoom and others will never replace good old face-to-face meetings. However, progressive companies like ProfBehindtheGlass, Virtual Selling Studio and others, are creating a "Minority report"-like user experience where digital content is shared on an interactive 3 x 5 ft glass display. This brand of technology is galvanizing online content and creating a personal e-interaction even though the sales rep and client are thousands of mile apart.

Increased online engagement may not be the only benefit of taking your sales presentations to the "e" level.  The cost savings in travel alone is staggering, as is the opportunity to reduce a business’s carbon footprint. While there is much here to ponder, perhaps the most dramatic Willy Loman type step change will be the death of the sales territory. The sales model for most companies pre-covid has been to divide the world into nice bite size geographical parcels or territories where assigned sales teams would scour the territory, relentlessly hunting for customers to purchase their products or services. Sales reps would need to geographically locate near their customers and spend endless hours in cars or on airplanes (or both) to meet up with clients in their territory. Like the character Ryan Bingham (played by George Clooney) in the movie Up In The Air, sales reps travel the continent chasing down clients and airmiles. But Up In The Air also hinted at a digital future when a new hire and new online Zoom like technology tried to replace the in-person meetings. Bingham’s short-term future was preserved when the tech couldn’t cut it, however the writing was on the wall and what was true of e-meetings then is no longer true today.

But let’s get back to the death of the sales territory and the theme of this article. If personal connections can be developed online, sales reps are no longer shackled to a pre-defined slice of geography. By illustrating concepts and plans that are projected transparently into a window, an e-sales rep can be standing in Coeur de lane, Idaho presenting to a client in NY.  With new online tech, future territories might be better determined by time zone rather than geographical proximity. Top sales reps can now be assigned to the high-flying clients regardless of where the customer is physically located. This all leads to the potential of assigning sales reps to clients in a similar way that dating sites might match up partners based on interests and hobbies rather than solely physical proximity. As companies using this tech have shown us, by employing emerging online technology, it’s totally possible to make meaningful online connections. Relationships can be forged and people can bond even though they may never physically meet. Sales territories that require endless travel time to reach distant customers will be a thing of the past, as geographical separation becomes an equally distant thought.

During a recent e-presentation of a Conjoint study by this author, the discussion turned to the need to adapt sales presentations by customer type. The Conjoint study clearly established that within one business territory, there were three distinct customer segments. Each segment had several high potential clients that could clearly benefit from the product, but for very different reasons. As the discussion turned to how to approach each client, it was apparent that each regional rep was a perfect match for some clients but not for others. With all presentations now being e-presentations, the sales manager quickly saw the potential of matching sales reps to clients needs, rather than trying to shoehorn in one rep for all clients types. With the potential for e-meetings to better match sales reps with distinct customer needs... maybe this new e-world is the one that Willy Loman was longing for.