Is Sales Today Nothing More than its Tech Stack?

August 9, 2024
Posted by: Dave Kurlan
Category: Understanding the Sales Force

SalesProCentral.com aggregates Blog posts and sends a daily newsletter highlighting the selected posts. While articles from my Blog are often included and highly rated with their readers, I was shocked by some of the other titles from their July 9 newsletter:

Tailored to Succeed: How Personalized Learning Transforms Sales Teams

Sales Talk for CEOs: From Engineer to CEO: Marko Dinic’s Unexpected Journey in Tech Leadership (Ep127)

10 Best Practices for Conducting a Great Candidate Interview

5 Things To Consider When Branding Your New Business

The Time Is Now to Realize the Impact of Your Job On Your Health

The Best Digital Marketing Consultancy Services for Your Needs

Time-Outs Give Way to Innovative Ideas and Growth

Sales Talk for CEOs: Marko Dinic’s 18-Year Journey: From Tech Startup to Industry Leader (Ep127)

Building a Strong Digital Marketing Network: Tips and Strategies

How to Optimize Call Monitoring: Automate QA and Elevate Customer Experience

How to Use ChatGPT’s Memory Feature to Improve Your Sales Process

Building Emergency Funds for Financial Resilience in Marketing Agencies

The 9 Questions Every Lawyer MUST Ask Before Investing in an SEO Package

Secrets of a Successful Sale: Optimizing Your Checkout Process

Implementing Financial Controls for Internet Marketing Agencies

Building Brand Loyalty Through Personalized Experiences with Generative AI

Strategies for Pricing Services in Internet Marketing Agencies

The New GTM Playbook: 18 Ways to Future-Proof Your Sales

Building a Strong Marketing Funnel for an Internet Marketing

What’s going on?

Somebody or a whole bunch of somebodies have lost their way. Sales and marketing are not the same. Most of the blog authors listed here are from tech companies selling AI, CRM, SEO, Content, Shopping Carts, Call Analyses, etc. Not only are they all on the marketing and tech side of business, they are NOT experts on selling. Has sales changed? Yes. Has it changed to the degree that selling is no longer part of sales? Not a chance.

Nearly every company executive I speak with is frustrated with sales process, forecasts, pipeline, performance, win rates and delayed closings. Given what others are writing about, is it any wonder that sales teams are distracted by all of the wrong stuff?

I’m not saying that those 20 articles should not be read, aren’t important, or don’t have their place; but that stuff doesn’t matter until after sales process, pipeline, forecasts, and sales execution have been perfected.

Just this week, a CEO asked, “We aren’t quite where we need to be on our sales tech stack. Should we hold off on developing our salespeople until we have that all in place?” Newsflash – we sold without that stuff for decades before those applications were developed.

Do those applications help? A few of them do, but the one thing the sales tech stack does better than anything is to distract salespeople from selling, while providing them with excuses for not selling. I was the first to jump on board with functional, salesperson-friendly CRM (we love Membrain.com). And you’ll also need an app that will provide account intelligence, host your common content, and send out agreements for signature. Sales managers can benefit from apps that provide call analyses.

What about SEO? That’s Marketing

What about Lead Generation? That’s Marketing

What about AI? That’s Marketing

What about an app to manage a drip campaign on LinkedIn? That’s Marketing

What about presentations, proposals, ROI calculation, videos, etc.? What about them? Use what you need but none of them are part of the sales function as much as they belong to sales operations and support.

If you are on the sales team in any function, focus on selling and ignore the noise and distractions of anything that isn’t directly helping you develop your skills to: