All of these changes and more have created an environment in which salespeople must adopt new attitudes, learn new skills, and gain a new understanding of how to approach their markets and work with customers. Your products or services are more difficult to sell than in the past. It has become a challenge just to differentiate your company from your competitors, and price issues are a constant problem. The upshot of these market influences is that the differentiated products of yesterday are the commodities of today. Instead of making differentiation easier, technology has made differentiation more difficult.
Differentiation is, however, the only way to be successful in today's market.
This is a monumental challenge that every company faces. It is a challenge met by collaborative selling, a system in which salespeople can create differentiation and its accompanying competitive advantage every time they go after business. When the war ended, the demand for consumer goods shot up to an all-time high. There was little if any information gathering. Instead, the sales process focused on a persuasive pitch, manipulative closing techniques, and the salesperson's skills in handling customer objections.