THE BUYER HAS CHANGED. HAS THE SALESPERSON?

The customer is now in control, and while you're checking them out, they're checking you out too.

I sometimes wonder how many salespeople are still selling the way they were taught twenty years ago. They have their prospecting scripts, their presentations, their objection-handling techniques and their closing strategies. Some even believe that if they can just get in front of enough people and talk long enough, eventually somebody will buy something. Unfortunately, the customer has moved on, and in many cases the salesperson hasn't even noticed.

Years ago, the salesperson had a tremendous advantage. We controlled the information. If somebody wanted to know about our products, prices, features or competitors, they generally had to speak to us. We could arrange the appointment, turn up with our beautiful brochure, deliver our carefully rehearsed presentation and guide the customer through the sales process. We were the experts because we had the information. The customer had the questions, and hopefully we had the answers.

The Customer Has Taken Over

Then along came the internet, Google, social media, online reviews and now artificial intelligence. Suddenly, the customer didn't need us to explain everything. They could research our company, compare competitors, check prices, watch demonstrations and read what other customers thought about us. And they could do all of this at eleven o'clock at night, sitting on the sofa in their pajamas with a glass of wine. Not exactly the ideal environment for a salesperson to deliver their carefully rehearsed PowerPoint presentation.

Today, the buying journey often starts long before the salesperson knows there is a potential customer. Buyers can use ChatGPT, Perplexity or Gemini to research solutions, compare suppliers and prepare questions. They can ask AI to identify weaknesses in a proposal, evaluate alternatives and even suggest what they should negotiate. By the time they contact us, they may already have a shortlist of suppliers and a pretty good idea of what they want.

We used to think the salesperson was taking the customer on a journey. Now the customer is taking the journey, and we're hoping to be invited along for part of it. Sometimes we're invited in at the beginning, sometimes near the end, and occasionally we discover that the journey is over and somebody else has got the business.

And Here's Something I've Noticed in My Own Business

I spend a great deal of my time speaking at conferences, working with companies and training sales teams around the world. LinkedIn has become one of my most important business tools, and over the years I've noticed something rather interesting.

Before I've even spoken to a potential client, I can often see that they've been looking at my LinkedIn profile. Sometimes several people from the same organisation have been checking me out. I haven't delivered a presentation, sent a proposal or even had a conversation with them, but they're already doing their homework.

And it doesn't stop at LinkedIn. I regularly discover that people have been reading my articles and passing them around to colleagues and their teams. In some cases, my ideas are already circulating inside a company before I've had the opportunity to meet the people who might eventually book me.

Think about that for a moment. I'm being evaluated before I've even entered the room.

Fortunately, I enjoy writing articles and sharing ideas, and my LinkedIn profile gives people a pretty good idea of what I do, how I think and the subjects I'm passionate about. Hopefully, they also discover that I have a sense of humor and don't spend my entire life talking about artificial intelligence.

But it made me realise something important. While I was using LinkedIn to research potential clients, those same clients were using LinkedIn to research me. The salesperson was no longer the only one doing the investigating.

Would You Buy from You?

That's a question I increasingly ask people in my LinkedIn and sales training programs. Forget what you think your profile says about you. Look at it through the eyes of a potential customer who doesn't know you.

Imagine you've sent a beautifully written prospecting email. The customer is interested enough to look you up. Your LinkedIn photograph looks as though it was taken when Tony Blair was Prime Minister, your headline says 'Sales Executive at ABC Company', and the last thing you posted was a photograph of the Christmas party three years ago.

Your company website is full of photographs of people shaking hands, but there's very little evidence that you understand the customer's business or the problems they're trying to solve.

The customer hasn't met you, hasn't seen your presentation and hasn't discussed your prices. But they've already formed an opinion. And unfortunately for you, it might not be a particularly good one.

Now compare that with a salesperson whose profile clearly explains who they help, what problems they solve and the value they bring. They share useful ideas, customer stories, short videos and insights relevant to their industry. Which one would you be more inclined to meet?

And here's the irony. The first salesperson probably complains that nobody responds to prospecting emails anymore. They blame the economy, the competition, LinkedIn or perhaps the price of petrol. It never occurs to them that the customer may have rejected them before the sales conversation even started.

The New Salesperson Needs a Different Set of Skills

Does this mean salespeople are becoming irrelevant? Not at all. I think the opposite is true. But we have to stop believing our main job is simply to deliver information. AI can already do a remarkable amount of that.

Our real value comes from understanding customers, asking better questions, challenging assumptions, sharing experience, solving problems and building trust. The salesperson who turns up and repeats everything the customer has already read on the website is going to have a difficult time. The salesperson who brings fresh thinking and helps the customer make a better decision will always have an advantage.

We also need to recognise that our sales and marketing activities can no longer operate in separate little boxes. Our LinkedIn profiles, websites, videos, articles, customer testimonials and personal reputations are all contributing to the buying decision. Every one of them is either helping to build confidence or giving the customer another reason to look elsewhere.

The old sales process was largely about the salesperson controlling the conversation. The new one is about earning the right to be part of it.

So here's my question. We spend an enormous amount of time teaching salespeople how to find, research and approach customers. But how much time do we spend making sure that when customers research us, they like what they find?

The buyer has changed. Has your sales team changed with them?

Frank Furness
International Keynote Speaker | Sales, AI & LinkedIn Training

www.frankfurness.com
[email protected]