1. Based on 20 Years of World Class Sales Research Across 80,000 B-B Customers and 7,300 Sales Forces
By Howard Stevens and Geoffrey James
Selling in
the Internet Age
How the Web is Transforming the Buyer/Seller Relationship

3. 3
Introduction
Over the past 15 years, the business world has been
adapting to the sudden appearance of the Internet in its
midst. During that time, we’ve seen the Internet move
from dial-up medium of email and brochure-ware into a
broadband and wireless medium capable of displaying
two-way video. At the same time, we’ve seen a massive
migration of all sorts of information onto the Web, along
with the introduction of entirely new business models
for selling, such as e-commerce.
At first, it was difficult to see exactly how the Internet would
change the ways that businesses buy and sell. That’s be-
cause the process by which business culture absorbs new
technology can be broken into two distinct phases.
During the first phase, the technology is compared to
whatever technology is already familiar. The telephone,
for instance, was originally seen as a more convenient
form of telegraphy, with a clerk at Business A calling a
clerk at Business B in order to dictate a message from
one corporate executive to another. It was only after the
novelty of the telephone had worn off that executives
realized that it would be more useful to use the tele-
phone to have a direct one-on-one conversation.
The second phase happens after the technology be-
comes more commonplace and people begin experi-
menting with the tool in new ways. In the case of the
telephone, it took several decades for businesses to
figure out how to use it in new and different ways. The
result was the use of the telephone for negotiating, tele-
sales, closing verbal contracts, and all the other elements
of 20th century business telecommunications. Today, we
take the telephone for granted; it’s become largely invis-
ible. It was at that point, when the telephone slipped
into invisibility that the “telephone era” was over in the
business world.
A similar transformation took place with the personal
computer. When first introduced, the PC was widely
viewed as a cheaper version of a word-processor. While
it was capable of calculations (via spreadsheets), many
executives considered it more a device intended for a
secretary than for an executive. Even today there are CEOs
inside highly traditional companies who believe that a PC
on the desk demeans the status of a top executive.
However, with the exception of these few holdouts, the
PC is now seen as a generalized tool that belongs on
every desk. Today, everyone in the business world knows
what a PC can do as a standalone personal productivity
tool, so we’re now in the post-PC era.
Until quite recently, the Internet was still in the first phase
of technological introduction, with perception of the
technologies viewed almost entirely through the lens of
those previous. For example, even today many corporate
websites are simple “brochure-ware” – collections of data
that previously would have been presented in hard-copy
format. Even most e-commerce sites are little more than
online versions of mail-order catalogs, with the same pre-
sentation and same methods of ordering.
At the same time, people are learning to use the Internet
in ways that are quite different than their pre-Internet
counterparts. We are now in an era when those changes
are becoming clear, and they are truly enormous. Every
aspect of the sale has been altered in a variety of small
and large ways, a process that is accelerating as further
technological advances inject even more innovation into
an already rapidly evolving environment.
This white paper provides an overview of how the
Internet is wreaking massive changes in the culture of
the business buyer, changes in the way that they buy
products, and changes in how they expect sales profes-
sionals to provide products and services. It then provides
an overview of how the Internet-based technology has
changed the sales process, and how the cumulative re-
sult in all these changes is forcing companies to change
the way they do sales training and define sales roles.

4. 4
brochures and elaborate product pitches are meaning-
less because the customer already knows what to buy
and can locate multiple places to buy it. As a result, the
importance of the sales rep to the customer as a deliv-
erer of information has waned, almost to the point of
non-existence.
Similarly, the information on the Internet has vastly
increased the ability of customers to negotiate their own
price. In the past, the simple mechanics of gathering
data on competitive products (and comparing relative
prices) was a formidable job, requiring many man-hours
on the part of the customer. Such work was productive
only when the customer was comparing products that
were nearly identical, and where the difference in price
was large enough to justify the effort required to un-
cover that difference.
For example, a company purchasing a complicated com-
puter system could easily justify writing an RFP, reading
multiple vendor proposals, and finally selecting the right
vendor because the difference in price (or, more precise-
ly, total cost of ownership) between the two competing
systems was likely to be far greater than the expense of
the complex buying process.
However, in cases where the variation between the
prices of two competing products was relatively small,
customers were naturally reluctant to go through such
an expensive process. Instead, they’d depend upon local
sales reps to provide basic product information and trust
them to provide the best price. Often these relationships
were “locked down” with the purchasing department,
thereby guaranteeing that certain amount of buying
behavior would take place going forward.
The net effect of such relationship was to leave the
power of setting prices to the selling firm and (by exten-
sion) the sales rep who represented the firm. As long as
the price was not egregiously higher than what else was
available, the customer would continue to buy from the
“approved vendor” at the price set by that vendor.
How the Internet
Is Changing the
Business Buyer
Historically, customers relied on sales reps to provide
information and expertise about the products that the
customer needed to purchase. As such, sales reps in
a certain sense, were in the information delivery busi-
ness. The typical sales rep spent much of his or her time
carrying product information from the company to the
customer. Sales calls involved showing the latest bro-
chure, delivering a product presentation, and explaining
the benefits to the customer. This behavior was of value
to the customer because the sales rep was presenting
information that the customer needed in order to make
a buying decision.
Over time, two factors led to a demand for a new class
of salespeople – ones who worked for independent
companies who produced no products themselves, but
specialized in selling other companies products. These
became an alternative channel that vendors or suppliers
could use to further penetrate their markets.
These independent sales companies
provided either:
1. A less expensive way to reach a specific geographic
market or a market dedicated to a specific class of
products. They created this “distribution” business by
serving the products of multiple vendors (usually non-
competitive) at a greatly reduced cost to each service
supplier or manufacturer.
2. Specialized technical sales “experts” who could
include a supplier’s products in a more sophisticated
solution that required multiple products (or services)
in a specially designed application for a specific
customer. They became known as value added
resellers or VARs.
The Internet, however, has now made the historical sales
methodology obsolete and put both substantial ad-
ditional pressure and opportunity on both distributors
and VARs. Using the Internet, customers can get product
information at the same time as the sales rep, not just
about the sales rep’s offerings, but the offerings of all
of the rep’s competitors. In this environment, product

5. 5
Today, however, customers can instantaneously compare
products online, both in terms of functionality and price.
Suddenly, it’s become relatively inexpensive for custom-
ers to search for the lowest prices for many goods and
services that they might require. This ability to easily and
quickly find alternatives tends to drive prices downward
because, all other things being equal, the customer can
now purchase the lower-priced product without carrying
a heavy financial burden of researching alternatives.
Customers, and the processes they use to buy, have
changed in other ways as well. Opportunities that
were once within the purview of one, or perhaps two,
decision-makers may now involve an entire commit-
tee. Complex sales that previously could have moved
forward on the basis of general consensus among the
buyer’s management team are today often subjected to
increased levels of scrutiny and formal approval.
There are two sources to these changes in buying behav-
ior. The first source is the economy. Many companies have
reacted to the current recession by tightening financial
controls and adding additional roadblocks, in order to
limit purchasing to essential products and services.
The second source of the change in buying behavior is
the flood of technology into the infrastructure of most
corporations. Because organizations are better con-
nected, they’re more inter-dependent, which means that
large purchases – and the operational changes that they
might involve – tend to ripple through a corporation, like
a sharp tug on one strand of a gigantic web.
Today, it is not unusual for sales professionals to confront
opportunities where the customer’s senior manage-
ment, procurement group, legal group, financial group,
engineering group, and even human resources depart-
ment possess the right to review and approve major
purchases.
As a result, it is no longer enough for a sales professional
to cultivate one or two key contacts inside an account.
Instead, it’s now necessary to sell to all these constituen-
cies, each of which is likely to have a different agenda
and a different reason for being interested in the offer-
ing and its impact on the entire customer organization.
In addition, each element of this multitude of stakehold-
ers has the potential to delay or block the purchase,
which can create a truly Byzantine sales cycle. Large op-
portunities now take much longer to develop and close,
and thus require sales reps to manage the process with
both patience and precision.
This would be burdensome enough if it were merely
timidity and risk avoidance on the part of the customer.
In fact, the slower decision-making that results from
greater levels of financial control often reflect the poten-
tial for very real disasters from the viewpoint of a selling
firm and the people who represent it in a sales capacity.
For example, while large companies usually have little
difficulty getting credit to make business purchases
while still covering operating expenses, smaller firms are
often at the mercy of a banking sector that’s reluctant to
lend to any but the most stable corporations. As a result,
it’s not always clear whether a customer who wishes to
purchase, and intends to purchase, will actually have the
money to purchase when it finally comes to paying the
selling firm.
Because of this, sales professionals are now expected to
constantly re-qualify the financial viability of potential and
existing customers. At the same time, they’ve needed to
get far more creative in terms of crafting purchasing terms
that may need to accommodate problems with cash-
flow. All of this takes time and effort, all of which must
be layered atop whatever efforts the sales professional is
already taking to develop and close the opportunity.
To summarize, today’s business buyers:
• Often know more about a product category than
the sales rep
• Can more easily make product and price
comparisons
• Are therefore better able to demand price
concessions
• Have increasingly complicated buying processes
• Experience frequent changes in management
• Are experiencing more extensive financial controls
• Require sales professionals to work harder for the sale

6. 6
How the Internet
Is Changing the
Buying Process
Not too long ago, pundits were arguing over whether
selling, as a profession, could survive at all. According to
many experts, the Internet would make sales reps obso-
lete because customers would be able to make deci-
sions, order products, check delivery status, and so forth,
entirely without the assistance of a sales rep.
Under this theory, most (if not all) products and services
would be purchased across the Internet, with the cus-
tomer driving the process. Because of this, the only way
that a company could differentiate itself would be by
offering a lower price for a similar product, or a compa-
rable price for a better product, either in terms of func-
tionality, quality, or the services surrounding it.
In other words, the Internet was supposed to create a
“value-driven” marketplace where a salesperson was
largely irrelevant. And indeed, that has happened to a
certain degree, as the Internet has gradually replaced so
many of the traditional sales functions, such as the deliv-
ery of simple product information and the controlling of
price lists and the ordering process.
The airline industry, for example, has become almost
entirely driven by price, with consumers and business
people alike able to choose the lowest cost flight on a
variety of websites. In order to preserve margins in the
face of an Internet-driven price war, airlines have resort-
ed to charging a wide variety of fees which were, until
recently, hidden from the purchaser. There is an irony
here since traditionally sellers would have preferred to
avoid listing line items that often became targets for
buyers to individually challenge for a lower price.
This relentless pressure on pricing has made the airline
industry peculiarly brittle, subject to bankruptcies, merg-
ers, and other difficult-to-manage events. More impor-
tantly (from the perspective of sales professional), the
movement of airline ticket purchasing on the Internet
almost eliminated an entire class of sales professionals,
the domestic travel agent.
However, while travel agents are no longer responsible
for selling the millions of domestic airline tickets, the
profession of the travel agent still exists, albeit in a more
rarified form. Their continued existence hinged on their
ability to switch from being “just distributors” which
the Internet easily replaced for many buyers, to values
added resellers, who could provide specialized exper-
tise. As the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics explained in
the Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 Edition:
Employment of travel agents is expected to decline by [only]
1 percent over the 2008 – 18 periods. The ease of Internet
use and the ready availability of travel and airline Web sites
that allow people to research and plan their own trips, make
their own reservations, and purchase their own tickets will
result in less demand for travel agents for routine travel
arrangements. However, as more travelers take exotic and
customized trips, the demand for some of the specialized
services offered by travel agents will grow. Additionally, the
increasing number of international visitors to the United
States represents a growing market for travel agents who
organize and sell tours to these international visitors.
The Internet, therefore, has not rendered the service of
travel agents obsolete, but instead forced them to pro-
vide more complex types of services to a more complex
type of customers. This has grown to such a level of
complexity and sophistication that today, in many if not
most markets, no one salesperson is capable of learn-
ing, staying up-to-date or managing all options. This has
forced (as in all other professions) the need to specialize
into multiple sales roles. Any doctor is better than a non-
professional for less important medical needs, but no
one would depend on a pediatrician to do brain surgery,
or a chemical engineer to build a bridge, nor a patent
lawyer to defend a criminal case. So to, the Internet has
replaced the less specialized sales functions, such as the
delivery of product information.
In brief, a new market for a new type of complex
product emerged because the Internet drove prices of
the basic product down. And that new, more complex
product requires a sales professional to create and
package the product to meet the need of travelers,
who now want to buy more complex products that are
(in a sense) layered upon the inexpensive products that
no longer require a sales professional. In this instance

7. 7
the Internet has not only created a new sales demand, it
has allowed these newly specialized salespeople to com-
petitively advantage themselves against competitors.
All products and services evolve through a life cycle.
Most basic marketing courses will define and elaborate
the characteristics of the different stages of the product
market life cycle. What is less well known is that the sales
process also evolves through a similar product sales
cycle where the skills, competence and therefore the
“specialty” of the salesperson must also change as the
market and its customers mature.
In the initial stage of the product sales cycle, the product
comes in only one shape and size, there are no com-
petitors, and there is little or no history, not to mention
empirical proof, of the real advantages of the product to
demonstrate to a prospect. The sale depends on the skill
of the salesperson to create an intuitively compelling
“vision” of potential success. And while the decision is
ultimately a simple one (because there are essentially no
variables to consider and weigh), that presentation can
only be made to the ultimate financial decision maker…
as lower-ranking “buyers” seldom have the authority to
make such a “risky decision.” This type of salesperson is
a special breed of new business developer (or “hunter”)
that we frequently call “a Closer.” The Internet replaces
many of the old requirements of the Closer who no lon-
ger has to generate his or her own leads because email
and other market promotions not only generate leads,
but to a large extent, even qualify them.
If the product proves to be a success, it will move on to
the second phase of the sales life cycle. We now see the
emergence of additional features and options, additional
applications and the beginnings of a real product history
in the form of case studies, thought leadership articles,
and, of course, additional providers who create a new
competitive market. However, the product is still new
to the customer, a salesperson must essentially become
a “consultant” who must now provide a full basket of
additional personal competencies, not only in introduc-
ing the solution to the customer, but also demonstrating
the potential, identifying and designing a specific (and
usually “pilot”) application, but also teaching the cus-
tomer how to manage the new application at least until
they develop the expertise themselves. This sales phase
may sometimes be so complex that it requires a team
of sales specialists to fully cover all of the requirements.
There may be an operationally oriented team member, a
technical salesperson, a relationship manager and other
Consultative Stage
State-of-the-art
high technology
product / service
systems
Relationship
Management Stage
Accepted and widely
used product /service
subsystems or
Assemblies
Initial Stage
“Exciting”New or
Unique Product /
Service
Often Fads / Trends
Commodity Stage
Parts or supplies
What Customers Are Buying Added Values Customers Want
Purchase
Complexity
Customer
Experience
With Product
/ Service
low High
lowHigh
Hi-Tech Product /
Service System
• Flexibility
• Custom Design
• Improve Existing Systems
• Expandable
• Installation and Training
• Professional
Relationship
Management Stage
• Feature / Option Flexibility
• Match Existing Quality
Specifications
• Deliverable to specific
Schedules
• Cost (not price) Savings
• Repeatability
• UnderstandableTechnology
New Unique
Product / Service
• Simplicity
• Ease of Installation
and Use
• Ego Enhancement
• Margin Increase Tied to
Uniqueness
• Competitive Edge
Commodity Stage
• Standardized to Fit
Existing Usage
• Easily Replaceable
• Lowered Costs
• Easily Available
• Just-in-Time Delivery
Purchase
Complexity
Customer
Experience
With Product
/ Service
low High
lowHigh
•

8. 8
positions to complete the team. These team members
are often called consultative salespeople. The leader of
the team may be the “partner” in a professional business
segment or the “rainmaker” in a consulting firm. The
Internet provides sellers a market presence, and through
thought leadership campaigns, establishes the cred-
ibility of the consulting organization. The lack of “online
presence” greatly restricts the seller’s opportunities.
In the third phase of the sales cycle, customers have
developed sufficient internal expertise that they need
little consulting in the typical sense but are dependent
on a salesperson who will be a fully responsible resource
to manage the relationship between buyer and supplier,
and assure that all customer requirements are managed
effectively. We typically call this type of salesperson an
“account executive.” The Internet provides these ac-
count managers additional forms of communication,
greatly enhanced speed of response, and even increased
networking opportunities to more thoroughly penetrate
and strengthen their position within the customer’s total
organization.
As the product reaches the final stage it has become a
commodity until it is replaced with a new technology.
Except at the largest contractual relationships, the role
of a live salesperson is minimal, and may be entirely
replaced by the Internet.*
The computer industry is another example of
this metamorphosis
It was once believed that the Internet would mitigate the
need for a sales force to sell computer technology. It was
assumed that since a wide variety of computer hardware,
software and services were available across the Internet,
companies would easily be able to find whatever com-
puter products they wanted for the lowest price pos-
sible. This, in turn, was supposed to result in technology
companies that no longer depended on a sales force to
arrange the purchase of their products.
As with the airline example, the expected impact of the
Internet was partially true. Relatively simply products,
like personal computers, became commodities, forcing
the companies selling them to move away from direct
sales, with sales reps calling on customers in person or
customers coming into retail stores, which was how busi-
nesses purchased computers until about the late 1980s.
Companies like Dell, CDW, and Insight began experi-
menting with telephone ordering and eventual “out-
bound telesales” and, later, direct orders across the
Internet. The rest of the industry followed suit, greatly
reducing the number of sales that took place from direct
sales (to large enterprises) and retail sales (to consum-
ers and small businesses). While these new buying
methods proved to be less expensive than the previous
alternative, they were unable to prevent the continuing
commoditization of the product, and the consequent
decrease in sales margins.
However, even as Internet-driven commoditization elimi-
nated the need for direct sales and retail sales, it para-
doxically began to create a demand for a higher-level of
sales activity. Because basic computer’s power became
so cheap, companies discovered they could use that
power in ever-more-complex and interesting ways.
Doing so, however, often required expertise that the
company itself did not currently have, or lacked the
ability (or interest) to go out and obtain. Because of this,
computer firms like IBM began to focus on selling and
providing services to help companies harness all the
cheap computing power that they could now obtain
without the intervention of sales professional.
IBM also discovered, somewhat painfully, the innate
limits imposed by the reality of the product sales cycle in
the 1970s when they attempted to develop a retail store
chain to compete in the commodity market as had Radio
Shack. They, at first, believed they could reach success at
all four stages of the product sales cycle. They planned
to be the major introducers of new products, provide
consulting expertise to major “enterprise applications,”
Telesales Performance 2006 Telesales Study 2010 Telesales Study
Companies with an Average
Telesales Quota > $1M
15% 25%
Average Deal Size > $25K 6% 29%

9. 9
field a salesforce of account executives, and build a
retail chain. Ultimately, after two separate attempts at
retail, they learned they could not convince consumers
that they could be the high tech developer of increas-
ingly more complicated main frames and still be the low
cost, low end provider, any more than the market could
believe that Radio Shack could be a high end, high tech
corporate supplier (although Radio Shack did try a short-
lived marketing campaign to that end.)
Today IBM deliberately focuses on both Consulting (in
phase two of the product sales cycle) computers and
peripherals through VARs and distributors. They are also
careful to exit markets that have become absolute com-
modities, spinning of printers and related machines to
Lexmark and later the PC to a Chinese partner.
Today, there are hundreds of thousands of sales profes-
sionals in the computer industry. However, rather than
selling the basic product, they are essentially managing
complex projects that often combine multiple hard-
ware and software technologies, bringing together the
capabilities of multiple companies to satisfy customer
requirements, and so forth.
Another reason that the Internet hasn’t eliminated the
need for large numbers of salespeople is that customers
are not nearly as enchanted at the prospect of control-
ling the buying process as one might think they’d be. For
example, while it’s true that customers have the ability
to research competitive alternatives in multiple product
categories, they often elect not to do so.
The problem, from the perspective of the customer, lies
what social psychologists call the “tyranny of choice.” In
the 2004 book The Paradox of Choice - Why More Is Less
author Barry Schwartz argues that too many choices can
create buyer anxiety and actually make a purchase less
likely. “Though modern Americans have more choice
than any group of people ever has before, and thus, pre-
sumably, more freedom and autonomy, we don’t seem
to be benefiting from it psychologically,” he writes.
Seeing a wealth of choices for every single purchase that
a company makes can easily be seen as a liability when
once considers the other changes that have taken place,
particularly in the pace at which business takes place. It’s
easy to imagine that, after a while, harried decision-mak-
ers would begin to feel that they’re wasting their time
trolling around on Internet sites to look for a bargain,
when they could simply call an expert (i.e., a sales profes-
sional) and just have him or her “take care of it all.”
To summarize, the Internet has made the
following changes to the buying process:
• Produced a price war among competitive products
• Made it more difficult for sellers to differentiate
• Created a constant lowering of profit margins
• Forced sales of low-end products into inexpensive
sales channels
• Created the possibility of higher-order solutions
based on sophisticated combinations low-cost
offerings
• Resulted in a tyranny of choice as customers tried to
create such solutions
• Generated a demand for high-end “solution selling”
Even though the airline industry and the computer
industry could not be more different, there are striking
similarities between what happened in terms of how
their products and services are sold. The sales effort,
which originally consisted of direct sales of all classes of
products, bifurcated into two very different sales mod-
els.
On the low end, selling becomes transactional, with the
Internet providing the capability for customers to pur-
chase directly, with the presence of inside sales person-
nel (i.e., sales support) to handle cases where customers
are unable to transact business purely online.
By contrast, on the high end, selling becomes solution-
oriented, where the sales professional takes the basic
elements sold at the low end (e.g., tickets or PCs) and
combines them into something that uniquely addresses
the buyer’s individual needs.

10. 10
How The Internet
is Changing Buyer
Expectations
In addition to changing the way the customers buy, the Internet has profoundly altered their expectations from the
individuals and firms that sell to them. The most important alteration is a basic change in business model that makes
the sales relationship even more important than it was formerly.
In the past, companies tended to organize vertically as far as was practical. A good example of this model is the IBM
of the 1960s through the early 1980s. During those years, IBM created virtually everything that was required to de-
liver computer power to its customers -- from the research that went into the electronic components in the chips, all
the way to support and maintenance of end user applications. Today, by contrast, IBM participates in many segments
of the computer industry, but it no longer attempts to integrate all those parts into a single vertical supply chain. As
mentioned earlier, IBM-branded PCs (for instance) and the chips that go into them, are manufactured by a company
in China.
Other firms have been even more assiduous in shedding parts of their business that can be more profitably and
easily handled elsewhere. Today’s most successful companies tend to focus on a particular aspect of an industry that
they, and they alone, can do better than other companies. This is not to say that the elements that are outsourced
are in any way unimportant; in many cases, the outsourced elements are entirely crucial. It’s just that it’s most cost-
effective to have a company that specializes in that element be responsible for that part of the supply chain.
This type of dispersed supply chain is only possible because the Internet creates an infrastructure where compo-
nents, products, raw materials, and services can be easily tracked and transferred. As a result, it’s not unusual for an
electronics firm (for instance) to have a supply chain that encompasses several hundred different companies, all com-
municating with each other across the Internet in order to ensure the orderly transfer of goods and services.

11. 11
The massive shift away from the vertical organizational
structure and toward a dispersed outsourcing model
radically increases the importance of the sales profes-
sional. Businesses have become dependent on the sales
professionals who represent the outsourced functions
and supply chain partners. Businesses now look to their
vendors (and the sales professionals they employ) to
“own” the aspects of their customers’ business that those
customers would prefer not to own themselves.
The sales professional, in essence, acts as the “manager”
of that key function within the buying firm’s business
model, ensuring that the vendor delivers what’s prom-
ised on time and on budget. In performing this function,
the sales professional is aided by both internal (e.g., tech-
nical specialists, finance, legal, administrative and others)
as well as customer-facing organizations, like customer
service, within his or her firm. However, the burden of
responsibility, for design and solution and ensuring that
it not only works well in the customer environment, but
actually impacts the customer’s business, now falls on
the shoulders of the sales professional.
While this is a positive development in the sense that it
increases the strategic importance of the sales profes-
sional, it also comes at a price. Treating the sales profes-
sional as an outsource manager puts that professional
in the same supercharged (and often political) environ-
ment where a firm’s internal managers must operate.
And that environment can be demanding. Paradoxically,
while the pace of decision making has slowed and be-
come more complete, the pace at which business is ex-
pected to be conducted, completed, and delivered has
increased. What exists today is a supercharged business
environment where managers (internal and external, i.e.,
sales reps) are being driven to constantly do more with
less and produce predictable results that reduce the risk
of corporate failure.
Such environments can be both exhilarating and ex-
hausting. Despite the fact that staffs are leaner than ever,
projects that in a previous decade would be been slated
for completion in six months are now expected to be
finished in a single quarter, or even in a single month.
Corporate environments are often highly unstable, with
new decision-makers arriving (and old ones departing)
far more frequently than in the past. Sales managers, for
example, often have an average tenure of less than 18
months, according to Gerhard Gschwandtner, publisher
of SellingPower magazine.
In this highly fluid environment, priorities are constantly
changing in ways that are often surprising, even to the
people who exist inside that environment. This state of
flux has an enormous impact on sales professionals, who
are alternatively asked to wait for long periods of time
(while highly controlled consensus-driven buying process-
es grind slowly forward) and then take immediate actions
on those occasions when the proverbial “iron” is hot.
Unfortunately, the sales professional is asked to accom-
plish this while still remaining something of an outsider
in the customer’s corporate environment. Lacking any
official authority, the sales professional is forced to cre-
ate leverage and influence in other ways. Clearly, this
kind of subtle leadership is worlds away from the original
notion of the sales rep as a simple information provider.
To summarize, the Internet has made
the following changes to buyer
expectations:
• Most companies eschew vertical integration
• Companies tend to organize into complex supply
chains, or join associations that integrate them
• Companies need vendors to provide key elements
of their business
• The role of the sales professional is consequently
more important
• Sales professionals now act as outsourced managers
• Sales professionals have limited authority at the
customer site
• Sales professionals are, nonetheless, expected to be
leaders

12. 12
How the Internet
is Changing the
Selling Process
In addition to changing the culture of business buyers
and the way that they buy, the Internet has also massive-
ly changed the way that organizations attempt to sell to
those buyers. The Internet has given birth to a wealth of
sales-oriented tools, many of which change the way that
sales teams locate, develop, and close opportunities.
Throwing technology at the sales team, of course, is
nothing new. The product category known as Sales
Force Automation (SFA) is at least two decades old. The
basic concept behind SFA (and its successor, Customer
Relationship Management or CRM now frequently called
Sales 2.0) was to apply the principles of factory automa-
tion to the sales environment. The emphasis was on
making the sales processes repeatable and standardized,
with reps following a standard set of behaviors at each
stage of the process, and then monitoring those steps,
much like a factory automation system monitors the
steps in a manufacturing line.
This approach did very little to help sales teams to sell.
Quite the contrary, because the early applications needed
data from the sales force to produce meaningful reports,
sales reps were often forced to do a lot of keystroking, on
top of their normal duties. Not surprisingly, many sales
reps (especially those trying to pursue a higher level
of professionalism) resented the seemingly insatiable
demand for data entry. As a result, the failure rate of CRM
implementations was as high as 50 percent, according to
figures from the market research firm Gartner.
In addition, the “factory” model of sales automation
tended to ignore the rather obvious fact that customers
might have a very different idea of how they would like
the buying processes to proceed. The “factory” model
assumed that selling was the simple, repeatable process
that it had been under the “information delivery” selling
model. It was difficult to adapt that model to a “con-
sultative selling” situation where the sales professional
works in partnership with a customer, working on a joint
agenda.
CRM systems are increasingly seen not as a mechanism
for monitoring and controlling the sales process, but
instead as a way of documenting what happened in or-
der to replicate successful sales situations and diagnose
those that failed. For example, many companies now use
analytics programs to search through their CRM data-
base to identify the profile of prospects that were easy
to develop into opportunities, and then use that profile
to generate better incoming leads.
CRM has also changed the way that sales groups are
managed. For example, in a traditional sales organiza-
tion, forecasting typically involved a sales manager
meeting with the sales reps on a weekly basis and asking
what deals were likely to close. Then, the manager would
make his or her best judgment about what would really
happen based upon gut instinct and a sense of which
reps could be trusted to actually make their number. By
contrast, with a CRM system, a sales manager can look
at historical data, pinpoint progress in the current sales
pipeline, and determine what’s likely to happen in the
future, thereby creating a more accurate sales forecast.
Sales professionals have also incorporated additional In-
ternet-based technologies. Blogs, web conferencing, and
social network sites (e.g., Facebook, Twitter) have been
harnessed as relationship-building tools. At the same
time, marketing groups have begun mining both the CRM
data and the wealth of data available on the Internet, and
using tools like email and websites to develop qualified
sales leads that are more likely to buy. For example, a
website can now track when and where potential custom-
ers visit, thereby providing the sales rep with additional
insight into the customer’s potential interest areas.
The areas where sales technology firms
have been particularly active in recent years
include:
Lead Generation
Today, many tools exist to help sales teams create a more
robust pipeline. The challenge here is to have some way
to differentiate between leads that have high potential
and leads that don’t. Lead generation tools like InsideView,
Hoovers, and Dow Jones provide in-depth background
and current news about prospects’ financial status and
corporate strategies. Armed with that knowledge, a sales
team can better qualify prospects, thereby building a
pipeline that’s full of high-quality opportunities.

13. 13
Sales Cycle Acceleration
A great deal of technology now exists to help sales
teams develop the deals in their pipeline so that they are
quicker and easier to close. For example, sales research
tools like Jigsaw, SalesGenie, and LinkedIn provide
in-depth information on hundreds of thousands of
decision-makers. Having that “inside information” helps
the sales team build additional contacts in the pros-
pect’s firm and build stronger relationships with those
contacts. Similarly, sales analytics tools such as Cloud9
and Birst allow you to compare past opportunities with
current ones, so that sales managers can better assign
resources to opportunities likely to reach fruition.
Compensation Management
In the past, compensation and commissions were often
handled haphazardly, which limited the ability of sales
managers to drive strategic and tactical sales behavior.
Today, sales compensation tools like Xactly and Makana
allow sales managers to fine tune commissions and
quickly inform the team of the changes. As a result, sales
professionals are now better informed and presumably
better targeted at pursuing the deals that sales manage-
ment would like them to pursue.
Sales and Marketing Integration
Sales and marketing groups are traditionally at logger-
heads, arguing over spending, lead quality, sales execu-
tion and so forth. The resulting turf wars and stovepipes
consume “energy” that could otherwise be channeled
into tactical execution of a sales and marketing strategy.
Sometimes top executives have become so frustrated
with these distractions they create a new position that
both sales and marketing must report to such as Chief
Revenue Officer. More frequently, companies are using
sales-oriented technology to measure the effectiveness
of both sales and marketing. As a result, verifiable facts
and figures begin to replace the opinions and subjective
perceptions that lie at the core of these interdepartmen-
tal squabbles.
Sales Management
Many of the tools discussed above provide sales man-
agement with deeper visibility into both the sales
process and individual performance within that process.
This helps sales managers identify the areas (and people)
that need improvement, and that can prove invaluable
when a company is positioning itself for future growth
while trying to hold expenses down.
However, even with this massive influx in new technol-
ogy, many companies are struggling to keep up. The
research firm CSO Insights recently conducted a survey
of more than two thousand sales and marketing profes-
sionals revealed that 85 percent of marketers felt they
were doing a good job generating quality sales leads. By
contrast, only 50 percent of the sales professionals -- in
those same organizations -- were satisfied with those
leads.
Another CSO Insights survey, this one of 600 sales and
marketing groups, revealed that marketers think they
produce 38 percent of the leads that convert, while the
sales pros think that number only 23 percent. However,
even if the marketers are correct, sales groups (or cus-
tomer referral) on average are still generating nearly two
thirds of the leads that actually turn into customers.
The simple truth is that, despite a vast influx of new tech-
nology, most sales organizations are floundering. Ac-
cording to CSO Insight’s 2010 survey of 2,800 companies
worldwide, “the percentage of reps making individual
quotas dropped significantly, and the percentage of the
overall company revenue target achieved dropped, as
well.” Ironically, 85% of the firms surveyed reported that
they raised quotas for the subsequent year!
To summarize, the Internet has made
the following changes to the selling
process:
• Created a vast influx of new technology
• Impacted nearly every aspect of sales activity
• Promised to vastly increase productivity
• Has, in many cases, failed to do so
• Has apparently made quotas MORE difficult to
achieve

14. 14
How the Internet
is Changing Sales
Training
In the past, sales reps were masters of the “art of selling” the softer or more interpersonal skills, often rooted in
social psychology such as rapport building, closing techniques, etc.) and procedural knowledge (how to configure
a deal and write an order, etc.) Today, the best salespeople possess business acumen and the in-depth industry
experience required to take responsibility for key functions inside a customer’s account. The salesperson who can
not only read a P&L statement but also understand it, is capable of speaking the language of business. If not, they
cannot present a financial benefit to justify a high-level investment that will be required to make the largest sales. In
short, they won’t be able to sell to the “C” suite.
To succeed with technical buyers, the heads of functional departments, the new sales professionals must also be
more technologically savvy than their old-time counterparts. Where they once rejected applications like CRM as
intrusive nuisances, they embrace new technology and even pioneer its use, not because they’ve suddenly become
technology wonks, but because they view that technology a way to augment their ability to sell.
This is not to say that the old sales skills will be entirely useless. After all, selling is the very core of business, and, as
such, possessing these skills must remain eternal. For example, the ability to building a strong customer relationship
will always be valuable. However, these soft skills will increasingly be used in inside sales situations that involve a
higher level of human interaction, where only the most “professional” of sales professionals will be able to thrive.
In the PBS special, New Selling of America, author Walter A. Friedman* explains how the role of the sales professional
has changed and evolved since the 19th century. That evolution process has accelerated over the past decade, be-
cause the growth of “consultative selling” demands that sales professionals become, well, more professional.

15. 15
Traditionally, sales jobs have been filled with individuals
who lacked a college degree or (best case) had a degree
in a non-business field. To bring such individuals up to
speed, companies typically provided a week or so of
training on product features, followed by a few days on
basic selling skills, like cold calling and closing. Similarly,
business schools tended to treat selling as a craft rather
than an academic discipline. Most universities and even
business colleges, not to mention MBA programs, all but
ignored Sales, focusing instead upon Marketing, which
seemed more strategic and professional.
That’s no longer true under the “consultative selling”
model. Vendors can hardly expect customers to wel-
come sales reps into their business as consultants and
trusted advisors if all those reps bring to the table is
company-specific information and some rudimentary
selling skills.
As a result, companies in an increasing number of indus-
tries are hiring sales reps who have technical degrees or
equivalent experience specific to the industry in which
they’ll be selling. For example, it is not at all unusual for
electronics firms to hire sales candidates who have a
BS in Electrical Engineering and then train them to sell,
which is seen as easier than providing technical train-
ing to employees with a sales background. At Samsung,
for example, sales reps work alongside their customers’
engineering staff during the early phases of a project,
To summarize, the Internet has made the
following changes to sales training:
• Motivational sales training is no longer effective
• Consultative selling requires business acumen
• Some companies now provide college-level
business classes
• Academia is finally taking Sales more seriously
• Companies are investing heavily in sales training
helping to devise ways to build custom circuitry into
future products, according to Joe Virginia, former vice
president of Samsung Semiconductor’s LCD business.
In other cases, companies are providing extensive
industry-specific training to bring sales reps up to speed.
For example, Genzyme Biosurgery, a maker of products
for cartilage repair and severe burn treatment, puts new
sales reps through an eight week training program that
includes basic anatomy, surgical vernacular and protocol,
and how to interpret and explain clinical data related to
what the product performs, according to Devin Hughes,
the company’s Director of Sales.
Even business schools are starting to take Sales more
seriously. As of February of 2011, more than 50 colleges
now offer some kind of certificate or degree in Sales,
according to the Sales Education Foundation, an orga-
nization that tracks college-level programs. Virtually no
business schools offered programs of this sort twenty
years ago.
Another indication of the growth of sales professional-
ism is the sales training business which has grown from
a relatively small industry comprising a few firms into
a $4 billion business in 2008 in the United States alone,
according to the Sales Training Vendor Guide, published
by the ES Research Group, a firm that studies the sales
training market.

16. 16
How the Internet
Is Changing the
Role of the Sales
Professional
In the traditional “information delivery” model of selling, the sales rep delivers a “sales pitch” that provides informa-
tion (features, benefits, etc.) that’s intended to convince the customer to buy. The model also laid great emphasis on
“closing” – getting the order – and upon techniques that help manipulate the transaction towards that end.
In some companies, aggressive selling behavior was treated with an almost cult-like reverence, as shown in the
movies Glengarry Glen Ross, based upon the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony-winning play by David Mamet or Barbarians
At The Gate based upon the book by Bryan Burrough and John Helya. Sales teams had a culture where a sale rep
would be considered stupid and lazy if he or she weren’t constantly pushing to make a deal. This aggressive style
also led to the use of unethical methods which has been a major contributor to the less-than-professional image
that has stigmatized sales as a profession in the eyes of a major part of the public including many business execu-
tives and university faculty.
That selling model assumed that customers understood what they wanted to buy or could be easily convinced and
would therefore decide whether to buy from the rep depending upon how well the sales rep could “pitch” the product.
However, that approach tends to be aimed at individual consumers for a Business to Consumer product line but is seldom
the case when the customer is outsourcing a major function, or setting up a complex supply chain in a more corporate or
organizational environment.
In these cases, the sales professional asks questions of a customer in order to better define a problem. After the
problem is defined, and agreed-upon by both parties, the sales rep determines if his or her firm has a combination of
products, services and/or alliances that can solve that problem. That solution is then offered to the customer, not in the
form of a canned pitch, but in the form of a proposal or presentation customized specifically to that customer’s needs.

17. 17
This “consultative selling” model differs from the “infor-
mation delivery” model in several respects. Sales profes-
sionals using this model typically do not assume that the
customer has a complete understanding of the problem;
in fact, they assume that the customer may not recog-
nize a problem exists.
As described in Jeff Thull’s Mastering the Complex Sale, the
sales professional asks questions about the customer’s
business situation, locates the root problems that are
causing that business to run less effectively, and then
proposes ways to work together to address the root prob-
lems. The sales rep typically proposes a solution that the
customer would not have been able to put together and
would not have thought to ask for.
This form of selling has its roots in classic works on sell-
ing like Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence
People (1936) and Neil Rackham’s SPIN Selling (1988) and
more recently documented in Achieve Sales Excellence
(2007) based on research with 80,000 business custom-
ers and Building a Winning Sales Force (2009) by Andris
Zoltners. There have always been industries that have
depended on their suppliers for solutions to complex
problems. In such situations, it was normal for the sales
professional and the customer to work closely together
to come up with a solution to a complex problem.
For example, the aerospace and defense industries have
long used a complicated contracting and sub-contracting
system to create complex systems. And there are numer-
ous examples, going back decades, where manufactur-
ers design specific labels, sizes, delivery methods for a
particular customer. What’s different today is that this
sales model, in one form or another, has become nearly
universal in business-to-business transactions.
Unlike the “information delivery” model, the “consulta-
tive selling” model requires a sales professional to have
a deep understanding of the customer’s business, the
economics in which that business operates, and the abil-
ity of the rep’s own offerings to become elements of a
solution. And that, in turn, is forcing companies to look
for a different kind of sales candidate and to provide
significant training in industry-specific and business-
specific subject areas.
To summarize, the Internet has made
the following changes to the role of
the sales professional:
• Selling is now consultative rather than
informational
• The aggressive sales tactics of the past are now
meaningless
• Sales professionals must now diagnose problems
• Sales professionals are responsible for providing
solutions
• Sales professionals need deep understanding of
business in general
• Sales professionals need deep understanding of
specific customer challenges
• Sales professionals must develop acute political
savvy
Beyond that, the sales professional must be extremely as-
tute politically (another soft sales skill requirement), in order
to create a network of influence and borrowed authority
through the entire sales cycle. In other words, selling at the
highest level has become an extraordinarily complicated
and challenging task that can be far more difficult than in-
ternal management or other tasks where authority derives
partly from organizational position.

18. 18
Conclusion
SOURCES: * Howard Stevens and Jeff Cox. The Quadrant Solution: A Business Novel That Solves the Mystery of Sales Success.
(AMACOM, 1991) * Carnegie, Dale. How to Win Friend and Influence People. (Simon and Schuster, 1936) * Walter A. Friedman.
Birth of a Salesman: the Transformation of Selling in America. (Harvard 2005) * David Mamet (screenplay), Glengarry Glen Ross.
(Lion’s Gate Studios, 1992) * Neil Rackham, Spin Selling. (McGraw-Hill, 1988) * Linda Richardson, Perfect Selling. (McGraw
Hill, 2008) * Anneke Seley and Brent Holloway. Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technol-
ogy. (Wiley, 2008) * Douglas A. Smock, Robert A. Rudzki, Steve C. Rogers. On-demand Supply Management: World-class Strat-
egies, Practices and Technology. (J. Ross, 2007) * Dave Stein. Sales Training Vendor Guide. (ES Research Group, 2009) * Howard
Stevens and Theodore Kinni, Achieve Sales Excellence: The 7 Customer Rules for Becoming the New Sales Professional. (Platinum
Press, 2007) * Jeff Thull, Mastering the Complex Sale: How to Compete and Win When the Stakes are High. (Wiley, 2004) * An-
dris Zoltners. Building a Winning Sales Force (AMACOM, 2009) * Howard Stevens and Jeff Cox. Selling The Wheel: Choosing The
Best Way To Sell For You Your Company Your Customers . (Simon & Schuster, 2001)
It’s a truism that a massive change in technology demands a corresponding change in corporate culture. The old
archetype of the sales rep as a maverick individual who closes the big deal and collects the big commission is becom-
ing increasingly quaint and obsolete. With customers ordering some products and services directly over the Internet
and with B2B connectivity linking the entire corporation into the sales process, selling has become a more collabora-
tive effort.
The Internet has forced sales reps to be less oriented toward paperwork and “stroking the system” and more ori-
ented toward working directly with customers to come up with solutions. Sales reps will increasingly be expected to
become experts in their fields who can act as consultants, help customers to understand their needs and then come
up with a plan to fulfill those needs.
Sales professionals (and the firms that employ them) have a choice. Either fight against this overwhelming trend or
embrace it. While embracing it will require massive changes at every level of the sales environment, it will ultimately
be to the advantage of sales professionals. What will emerge is a new breed of sales professional – smarter and more
knowledgeable, and far more professional than ever before.

19. 19
Howard P. Stevens
Howard Stevens is Chairman of Chally Group Worldwide.
Mr. Stevens specializes in leadership development, suc-
cession planning, customer and market analysis, and
sales benchmarking. He is the creator of the original
sales product lifecycle classifications and designed the
major 5-year longitudinal study of leadership develop-
ment for the U.S. Department of Defense and NASA. A
licensed clinical psychologist, he is also known for his
research and programs to develop a professional sales
curriculum at the university level. With diversified inter-
ests, he is the author of several books on sales and man-
agement (published in multiple languages) including
Achieve Sales Excellence, The Quadrant Solution and Selling
the Wheel. He has written many articles and is a frequent
speaker and radio and television guest. His World Class
sales benchmarks program has been presented over 500
times across 30 countries for corporations, trade asso-
ciations, government agencies, and universities. He has
been a guest on CNN, Bloomberg USA, National Public
Radio, Radio Free America, and other business-based
programs. Mr. Stevens also taught “World Class Sales”
benchmarks at the Columbia University Graduate School
of Business and other universities, and serves on the
Sales Advisory Board for Ohio University and the Foun-
dation Board of Wright State University.
About the Authors
Geoffrey James
Geoffrey James writes the world’s most popular sales-
oriented blog, “Sales Source on Inc.com.” Previously
named “Sales Machine” and hosted on CBS, Geoffrey’s
blog won awards from both the Society of American
Business Editors and Writers and the American Society of
Business Publication Editors.
Unlike other sales blogs, Sales Source on Inc.com is 100%
independent. Geoffrey doesn’t do sales training and he
doesn’t do sales consulting. That frees him to present his
readers with the very best ideas from the very best sales
experts and executives. To get updates, sign up for his
newsletter or the @Sales_Source Twitter feed.
In addition, Geoffrey has published hundreds of articles
in dozens of national magazines, including Men’s Health,
Wired, Brandweek, Technology Marketing, and Selling
Power magazine.
About Chally
A global leadership and sales potential and performance measurement firm, Chally Group Worldwide utilizes our
industry leading research, predictive analytics and advisory services to ensure our clients have the vital information
to minimize risk associated with making critical talent management decisions relating to selection, alignment, devel-
opment and succession planning. With over 37 years of experience, Chally provides tools in more than 24 languages
across 49 countries.

20. © Copyright Chally Group Worldwide
Chally Group Worldwide
3123 Research Blvd
Dayton, OH 45420
937.259.1200 800.254.5995 www.chally.com