Sales Integration

Advertising is one-way communication, from the advertiser to the audience. Sales involves listening and responding. Marketers must recognize every interactive touchpoint – human or technological – is a sales activity.

When a shopper clicks on your inventory for a better description, the result needs to be a sales response. That is to say, it must demonstrate the product. To the degree possible, it should demonstrate the product's ability to meet the shopper's needs. Too many product descriptions read more like a data dump from engineering than a good sales response.

Often, customer reviews contain more useful sales information than the product description. This can be a problem when consumers start raving about the product's ability to do things it was not designed to do safely, or claim the product can't do something when they simply are not using it properly. Good product reviews not only balance out inaccurate customer reviews, they also help prevent them from occurring. Lack of good product descriptions leaves a dangerous vacuum.

Shoppers are often curious about more than just price and features. They may want to understand the product's ease of use, alternative uses, and durability. Some of these demonstrations require more than simple text. Pictures, motion, audio, and interactivity offer far more understanding in far less time than text alone. Better yet, they offer greater engagement with the product.

Customer service responses are sales opportunities. I recently sent an inquiry asking about the difference between two model numbers from the same manufacturer on two different sites. The explanation was that one was this year's model and one was last year's. There was no indication if the two models have different features, or if the newer model has improved components or assembly processes. From a production standpoint, the inquiry was dealt with quickly and cheaply. From a shopping perspective the question was not answered at all.

Look at the content on your website, the content you provide to other websites, and all your human interactions. Do they try to win the business, earn customer loyalty, and generate advocacy? Anything worth making is worth selling. We find time and time again the company winning the business is not necessarily the one with the best product or the lowest price but the one best meeting shoppers' needs and earning their trust.

For more on this subject, my new book, Sales Integration, delivers over 100 examples of meeting shopper's needs at interactive touchpoints.

My new book, Sales Integration, is now available on Amazon.com, http://tinyurl.com/3x8fban. The subtitle, The 4th Wave of Sales, gives an indication of just how revolutionary this change is.

Sales is still people selling to people, but those interactions are often not face to face. Every interactive touchpoint with a consumer, whether human or technological, is a revenue-building opportunity. The book explores interactive touchpoints at the store and across 15 broad categories of websites with a focus on integration across all of them.

Nearly 150 sites, stores, and organizations are referenced, with dozens of examples of what works and what does not. Sadly, some of the best product demonstrations and shopping tools found during my five years of research no longer exist. Site designers frequently measure the value of site content by traffic count rather than sales impact.

The transition to the 4th wave of sales will be painful for some. Many retail sales people and clerks will lose their jobs over the years to come. Many sales trainers will find their message increasingly insufficient for the times. However there is growing need for sales content and shopping tools yet to be built. Learning how to create effective sales content is not difficult. Understanding why to do it requires getting past old bureaucratic barriers. Employees must think about business in a way that enhances quality of life for all stakeholders. In a transparent market, there can be no job security without loyalty and advocacy.

Every day, I scanned through posts or received calls from people I wished could read the book and wakeup to a more profitable way of doing business. Today, I wait no longer.

An excerpt from Dennis Galbraith's upcoming book, Sales Integration:

The satisfaction a society receives in a year is not covered by GDP statistics. How much was produced and sold is one thing. Whether or not it was sold to the right people for the right purpose is another. Were the products sold delivered in a way that maximized satisfaction? Whether or not those buyers purchase again delivers a huge impact on future economic growth. How sales professionals carry out the sales process remains largely ignored in economics.

Fortunately, whether or not an economist measures something does not make that thing any less real or less important. Sales are the driving force of business; there is no getting around that. When done right, a great sales experience sends consumers back to work eager to earn more and spend more in a marketplace promising enhanced quality of life. Done poorly, sales can breed the kind of distrust hindering economic growth and prosperity.

People cannot achieve nearly the quality of life in isolation that they can when they exchange goods, services, and labor in a free market place. Dialing that up to its maximum capability requires the best sales processes possible. For those of us passionate about sales and customer satisfaction, this is our age.

This book contains criticism, much of which is aimed at very fine organizations. I make no apology for this. An optimist sees fault in the current state relative to what can be. If current operations are sufficient, there is nothing more to be optimistic about.

Sales Integration remains the most important concept in automotive internet. Dennis Galbraith developed the concept in 2005 to help dealers and manufacturers understand the internet's impact on business. In less than five minutes, this presentation explains Sales Integration and how to profit from it.