It looks as if the future of selling resembles the distant past
more than recent history. If there is a theme to this new selling
environment, it's this: back to basics. "The philosophy of
going in and finding out what customers need dates back to
1980," says Schiffman. "Now they're returning to what
worked years ago, which is seeing people and establishing
relationships."
One major difference between 1980 and today is the Net. Some see
it will play a major role in one shift: that is, to deploy
salespeople only to those accounts identified as having the biggest
potential. The rest will move to less costly Web-based sales
interfaces. "The top accounts are going to get the attention
and the others, unfortunately, aren't," says Kieran.
Meanwhile, entrepreneurs forced to cope with the effects of
September's terror and the 2001 recession are now looking on
the bright side. They've dusted off sales tricks they
haven't tried in years. And they're not sorry. "The
marketplace dictated we do this," says McClennan. "I wish
we had done it a lot sooner."
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Mark Henricks is Entrepreneur's "Books"
and "Smart Moves" columnist.
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