Agents and representatives for selling in America

How the role of sales agents is changing in the U.S. market: to succeed in the United States, the sales force must act as consultants to solve the customer’s problems

The salesperson must act as a consultant for the customer, providing the right information at the right time to address immediate problems. Paradoxically, the overload of information from newsletters, emails, LinkedIn, and web pages makes it difficult to find the necessary information. And no one wants to receive yet another product catalog.

“Thanks for stopping by, leave your catalog in our recycling bin on your way out.”

The new challenge for 21st-century representatives in America is dealing with customers who say: “One day, I might need information about your product. But don’t even think about leaving a catalog here. I don’t have space to store catalogs. In fact, I don’t even want to see your information until the moment I need it, so I only want the information I need at the time I need it—nothing more. And if you can’t do that for me, I’ll find someone who can.”

This marks a paradigm shift that American representatives must embrace: customers no longer want representatives to provide exhaustive collections of information about every possible product they might use. Comprehensive information, provided in three-ring binders or on websites, is increasingly seen as a burden rather than a resource, as customers don’t want to be overwhelmed with everything a company does. They prefer receiving only the information they need to address the issue at hand.

This is a natural consequence of the information overload typical of working in America, stemming from the vast amount of data available online. The more information you can access, the more you find that the information you need is buried under a mountain of irrelevant data. As a result, customers no longer want representatives who bury them in information and leave them searching for what they need like a needle in a haystack. Increasingly, representatives add value not by providing more information but by delivering only the information that customers need at that moment, helping them pinpoint the data required to solve a problem.

The ultimate challenge for 21st-century representatives is to gain such an intimate familiarity with their customers’ applications and products that they fully understand their needs and provide not all possible solutions, but only the best solution for the specific issue at hand.

Given the tight time constraints typical of the U.S. market and lean purchasing teams, today’s customers increasingly value a consultant-sales representative capable of delivering exactly the information they need—no more, no less—on a just-in-time basis, neither too early nor too late.