“We must grow our revenue” is what every business owner is telling me these days. An annual survey of hundreds of CEOs places top-line growth as their number one priority for the past 5 years. That is sales folks – we all need more of it.

While I don’t have the full answer to the thought exercise I’m about to throw out at you, here is one of the big obstacles keeping us from selling more: buyers live in the 21st century and sales remains mired in the 19th.

Stay with me. The road is going to get bumpy but this is important to your business.

How Did You Buy Your First Appliance?

In the 80’s when I started my family I had to buy some kitchen appliances. The closest thing I got to preparation was Consumer Reports. Basically you went got recommendations from your parents, went from store to store, and did your best to find the best deal.

The process could take weeks. You paid for the item with a check. You waited a month for delivery

When you got the appliance you didn’t have high expectations. You knew you had to take a day off from work because you never knew when the truck would show up. You also knew that there would be frequent service calls and if you were lucky, and I mean really lucky the machine would last you 10 years. Frankly anything past 5 years was a gift.

How Do You Buy Now?

Does that look like how anyone buys today?

Now we jump on the web. We research what we want. We check social media. We know the item’s service history, cost, and features. We buy on-line.

If we go into a store it’s only to buy something that we already know more about than the salesperson. They are an expert on everything in the store. We’re an expert on what we want.

What about Expectations?

Today when I buy an appliance I expect it to be my last. In other words it is going to last 20 years or more. Not only that but I don’t expect it to have any service problems.

We get delivery in a week or less. We get emails notifying us where the unit is and we can track progress along the way. We know within an hour when the unit will be at our door step.

Everything has Changed Outside of Sales

TQM, Six Sigma, Federal Express – almost everything about business has undergone a revolution. Things happen fast. Manufacturing has increased the quality and reliability of products while decreasing their costs.

Then why hasn’t sales changed? What is it about selling that prevents it from joining other business functions in the 21st Century? Why is the hunter model, the ABC – always be closing – the mantra of salespeople to this day?

Here is a fundamental truth:

Power has shifted from the seller to the buyer in profound and permanent ways.

Mr.  Fernandez, CEO of Marketo, says this in his excellent book “Revenue Disruption”

We are living, marketing, and selling in a brave new world, one where buyers determine their own brand preferences, research their own alternatives, ask friends about vendor qualifications, learn about pricing, and consent to talk to a salesperson only won their on timeline and terms.

We have seen how this new mode of buying has run headlong into hidebound marketing and sales practices that have not really changed much over the past 50 years.

They days of sales being an isolated silo from the rest of business are coming to an end. The image of warrior going to battle a lone or of a hunter going into the wild to bring back food for the rest of the tribe is going to have to change if we want to see revenue growth.

We can’t solve the entire challenge of getting Sales into the 21st Century here. What I’m hoping this short post will do is get us thinking. Thinking about how times have changed – even in our own experience. Perhaps thinking about how we can make our businesses and our Sales Forces align with our buyers is the starting point for real change.

And increasing sales.