How has sales education changed with the advancement of technology?
At first, sales was more transactional. A customer would come in, and the salesperson would tell him or her about the product. The customer would ask questions like, ‘How much is it going to cost me? How long is it going to take to get to me? Are there any special deals?’ If the customer liked the product, he or she would buy it, but if not, he or she didn’t. As time went on, customers became more professional and were even trained in product purchasing. The Internet allowed buyers to get as much information as the salesperson had. But buyers needed help in creating solutions to their problems, so transactional selling morphed into solution selling. The salesperson asks good questions, listens to the customers, identifies their problems and then provides them with the best solution. Characteristics of the sales consultant then started evolving to accommodate this change. What does the future of sales education look like? It’s moving toward consultative selling. Buyers are now college-t
