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I'll throw out some "it depends on" OTHER THAN the cost of the software:
- Your competition. I'm going to assert that it's tough to sell your software over the phone if the competition has a suit sitting in the prospect's office.
- Remoteness. Prospects in NY and LA may well expect a salesperson; if you don't have one, they may not take you seriously. Prospects in Fargo, ND may not expect a sales call.
- Culture. In much of the world, business is done face-to-face; it's just NOT DONE over the telephone.
- Culture II. Old line companies like banks and east coast heavy manufacturers may expect a sales call; e-commerce firms are (I hope!) more willing to do business over the Web.
- Complexity. The more complex the product, the more I would think it needs a salesperson AND a tech weenie to wave their arms and explain how it works, and overcome technical objections.
Categories: Sales and Distribution
With the costs of face to face travel increasing compared to the price of a phone call and the latest web conferencing technology, is there still a need for field sales reps? The last stat I read was it cost about $700 for a face to face visit versus about $2-$3 for a phone call. The obvious answer is yes. But why?
I know someone will come up with it depends on the type and cost of the software and yet a company I worked for closed 98% of their business over the phone including many, many multi-million dollar deals on software that sold for an average of $52k per license.
Thought I'd stir up the pot.
Ron
- member since: 11/06/2001
- rank: 88 of 53406
- 31 forum threads started
- 1948 comments
Ron -
I think debate is healthy but I don't want to seem to argue with you.
At my old company we sold mainframe software, 95% by telephone, reasonably successfully into banks, insurance companies, governments, and manufacturers from Maine to California and from NYC to gosh knows where. So, YES, it can be done. I still stand by my impressions of the factors that make it harder. I know that when we had about 50 sales, I put pins into a map and was surprised how many of our customers were "out in the weeds." That got me thinking and I came up at that time with the factors I listed; I refined them over the years.
BTW, by "selling against a suit" I don't mean s/he is in the office during your conference call debating with you (although a favored salesperson might be invited to sit quietly through your speakerphone presentation!). I just meant the situation where you are selling by telephone and the competition is selling with feet on the street. OTOH, salespeople are an expensive item. All things being equal, your product ought to be cheaper than the one sold by a suit.
Count me out! :) My idea of a good book on selling would be one called "How to Hire a Great VP of Sales"!
Back to the F2F vs. phone sales.
I think everyone has made good points. I have seen companies successfully do $25mil US per quarter on the phone. I have seen companies that could not sell over the phone if their life depended on it. Simply you can not rule out the "depends". Every situation is unique and there is not one right answer for every sales department or company. In the end, it will depend on what your reps are good at. Have you ever noticed that in the same company, with two reps selling the same product, one can move the process along to 90% close before they meet F2F while the first struggles to get an needs analysis done over the phone?
If the managers want their reps to sell over the phone, and they reinforce those skills and provide the training; it can be done. If management want their reps out of the office, selling F2F, if no one believes that their product can be sold over the phone, then they are right - it can not be.
"Either you believe you can, or you believe can't. Either way you will be right" ( I can't remember who said this....Einstein? Churchill? Ford?
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