Is the future of sales fully remote? Not so fast…
Todd Caponi

“Loneliness – The Salesman’s Curse”… the title of an article from the March 1922 edition of Sales Management Magazine.

“From place to place and town to town. The real business of this great land of ours is conducted and fostered by the fellows who keep a railroad timetable always in their wallets. Loneliness is a curse, the retardent of any salesman who must fare far from home.”

 

“His thoughts were at home. He would wait for hours in his little hotel room, while the Central made the connection. And the conversations were nearly always the same. How was Mary? Were the kids all right? He just wanted to know that everything was ok. The very hearing of the home voices was enough. Then he was satisfied. And he was conscientious enough to pay for them himself. They didn’t go to the expense account. At the end of the month, he had eaten up his salary in telephone bills.”

 

“While a great many salesmen would have you think they are hardened to the life, deep down in their hearts, they are hungry for something that stays put.”

One hundred years ago – a time when sales had to be done face-to-face.

Here we are. It’s 2022. The pendulum has swung entirely in the other direction. Instead of sales requiring a face-to-face connection, the sentiment is now that the future of selling will be fully remote – at home.

Fantastic, right? Not so fast.

We spend roughly one-third of our lives working. We’ll likely spend 90,000 hours of our lives working. In a fully remote environment, won’t the salesperson’s curse of loneliness emerge once again, but now on the other side of the pendulum? Void of actual human interaction during each work day beyond just what exists within their home. And what about the younger generation of sellers, living alone or with roommates who they might love to get away from during the week – who may also be trying to work from home?

And what about your prospects and customers? Remember this 1990 commercial from United Airlines? “He said he didn’t know us anymore…”

I have always believed that the pendulum of in-person versus virtual must proactively be guided to the middle.

Over the next three weeks, I’m teaching workshops in Connecticut (where I am as I write this), then Boston, then Milwaukee, with a sprinkling of Chicago in-person events in between. Six workshops, four of which are in-person. I went from no in-person events for months to now the majority are. I don’t enjoy being an airplane turd. But every leader and every team I’m working with is loving being in the same room with one another. Nobody is complaining. And I’m loving the impact I’m able to make.

There’s a human element to this – which was one of the contributors to “The Great Resignation”. When the emotional cost of changing jobs barely exists – when you’ve never actually met the individuals you are working with, it becomes abundantly easier to leave them. Video connection can never replace the relationships that are built face-to-face.

And with your customers? You can differentiate with your solution. Your process. Your pricing. Your value. But the human being in all of us creates the opportunity for another differentiator – the connection. We won’t go back to the two-martini lunches that my Dad won sales via in the 1960s. But to say that sales will now be 100% remote? I don’t believe it. In speaking to a client last night, he spoke about one deal they recently won.

“The prospect said we were the only one who came to see them.”

Leaders – embrace the human factor. When your competitors are sitting in the same room with your prospects and you’re not, you will eventually lose because of it.

Balance. The secret to success in life and in your revenue organizations is in finding it.

Establish practices that allow for the investment in relationships. Don’t be fooled by the LinkedIn posts that crush the idea of bringing people back to the office – or by the companies that say “we are fully…” one way or the other, or the sales ‘experts’ who say the future of sales is 100% remote.

Your younger reps? They’re probably already desiring human connection. They don’t want to be in their apartment sharing wifi with their roommate with whom they spend all their time.

You’re tenured reps? They likely don’t want to be gone all the time, but the majority likely also don’t want to be sedentary in their home office all day, either.

Your prospects and clients? You might be surprised by the trust they crave as they make decisions that impact their businesses, but also their own careers as defined by the decisions they make – and the trust that’s built through human connection.

Balance.