Integrating Digital Tools into Every Stage of Your Sales Strategy

In their growth and customer-acquisition activities, most companies now face twin challenges: understanding and responding to omni-channel buying behavior and doing that without inadvertently decreasing sales productivity. Thirty years ago, Peter Drucker noted that sales professionals “now spend so much time serving computers . . . rather than calling on customers. This is not job enrichment; it is job impoverishment [and] destroys productivity.” Since then, the situation has grown worse while, ironically, many senior executives boast about their firm’s “digital transformation.” But some companies are combining human teams with digital tools like AI to improve sales productivity, quality time with prospects and customers, multi-channel marketing initiatives, and transaction costs. This article examines both sides of the buyer-seller exchange, provides examples, and the lessons inherent in those examples. Digital tools powered by relevant data can help to generate customer insights, better allocate sales resources, facilitate channel interactions, and improve brand value. But, like any tool, digital systems are only as good as their users. It’s not just data, but information relevant to sales and channel partners; and it’s not just information, but management and process initiatives that translate that information into marketplace results.