In this electronic media age of quick content grabs and digital headlines, most of us have fallen victim to “clickbait” For those who don’t know, Clickbait headlines typically aim to exploit the “curiosity gap”, providing just enough information to make the reader curious, but not enough to satisfy their curiosity without clicking through to the linked content. Clickbait relies on sensationalist headlines to attract click-throughs, especially at the expense of quality or accuracy.
Now if you never have been a victim of Clickbait, you can cross that off your list, because “Death of a TeleSalesman” is absolutely a false headline. And before we get further into this, I would be remiss not to point out my mother will view this at some point. She would be the first to smack me on the back of the head and say, “It’s Salesperson, dummy!”
So why can we put away the caskets? As they highlighted during their annual conference, SiriusDecisions pointed out some encouraging statics for the salesfolks who worry artificial intelligence will be soon replacing them. Out of 1,003 total responses, from verified decision makers, here is what they found:
- Number of B-to-B Buyer interactions, 6 to 9, depending on size of organization and number of people involved in the final decision. Human interaction increases as price point increases. At higher expenditure levels (over $50K), human-to-human interactions are used more frequently
- Sales presentations, by a sales rep, was the leading factor in making a final decision on a product/service.
- Buyers that ultimately choose a product/service stated they interacted with sales representatives from the beginning to the end of the buyer’s journey. In fact, not only do buyers interact with a sales representative in all phases of the decision-making process, but those interactions are also positive.
Digital marketing can provide valuable data and can assist in moving the sales process along. As SiriusDecisions also points out, “57% of decision cycle is complete before sales reps are engaged.” However, nothing will replace the intelligence gathering of talking with a live individual, so keep dialing and bringing business value to the table. The machines won’t do it for you!