Call me old school, I believe salespeople are getting too far away from their customers.
I still believe it takes a lot of time and effort to build strong customer relationships and trust.
Tight bonds with clients can all go away in one poor conversation, a misinterpreted e-mail (pick up the phone, you have one on you at all times), an oddball text, or
worst of all pointing the finger at others in your organization and not stepping up and taking full responsibility.
Salespeople are getting too far away from their customers. and companies are responsible. This is one of the major reasons I left my career as a broadcast general sales manager after 17 years.
When I start selling,
I would earn a client & manage every facet of the sale from order input, to schedule management, to post-sale.
Several years later sales assistants were added
Fast forward a few more years account managers were added to manage the order and post-sale details. If digital was involved that added to an order then an entirely new set of people gets involved: digital sales specialist, central ad operations (likely in a different state), and digital account managers.
Adding all of these additional layers to the sales process created the dreaded term SLA. That stands for Sales Level Agreement. The SLA gives everyone an excuse not to get their work done quickly, accurately, and somehow absolves most involved of responsibility. I remember a client asking for a digital report and our SLA took three days to produce it. When a client asks for a report they should receive it promptly no excuses
Adding layers decreased customer satisfaction, employing morale, increased mistakes, the time it takes tasks to be accomplished, accountability, and adds cost.
The best way to get where you are going is a straight line.
At ConnectADtv, from inception to post-sale, to invoice, only 2 people will ever touch your order
Everything starts with the client and the salesperson should be responsible for every step of the process.
Yeah, I am Old School! If you are also old school and/or want to get back to straight lines of communication and responsibility let's talk CTV
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