About This Episode

Jeff Bajorek has a theory that technology can actually make the lives of sales people more complicated.

What does he mean by that? And how can you make sure technology is enabling your reps to enjoy a smoother sales process, not a more complicated one?

Well, that’s what I talked with Jeff about on the most recent episode of The Sales Engagement podcast. Here’s what he had to say.

The Role of Technology in Sales

Sales is made up of a bunch of straightforward processes.

And there are so many ways for technology to make those processes go a little smoother.

But we can’t forget what selling is at its core — it’s an exchange of value and enthusiasm between two people.

Sales reps have to understand that fundamental principle, before you add in a layer of technology to help them.

Technology enables the sales process, but it doesn’t replace it.

You cannot deploy technology at the expense of understanding of what selling is.

For a great salesperson, who has their contacts in order and knows where their prospects are in the sales process, technology will enable them to excel.

But for the person who never quite had even their own system together, technology will just exacerbate the challenges they were already facing.

Assess Whether Your Reps Truly Understand Sales — Before You Implement New Tool

So, before you implement new technologies to help your reps, you need to assess whether your reps truly understand the selling process.

Are they doing enough in each step of the sales process?

Do they understand the fundamental principles of sales?

You can be incredibly tech savvy. But if you’re not asking for the next step in the sales process when you’re in front of a prospect, it doesn’t matter how many apps you have of what your tech stack is.

No app or technology can help you better understand how to sell.

Your job as a salesperson is not to fill out the CRM or data entry — your job is to drive revenue.

If your sales reps are giving a strong performance, you can teach them to use technology to put forth an even stronger performance.

On the other hand, if you have someone who’s really adept from a technological standpoint, but they aren’t delivering the performance, you’ll need to step back and really dig into their understanding of the sales process, before you layer on any additional tools.

Make Sure You’re Communicating the Value Added by the Technology

There’s so many ways that tech is used as a band-aid.

So, before you make the decision to implement a new solution, you need to assess two things:

First, make sure your sales reps really get the sales process. Address any concerns there before you implement new tools.

Second, make sure you really understand the problem that you’re trying to solve.

Is this a problem that technology can fix? And have you chosen the right technology to do the job?

Once you’ve decided on a technology, you need to get buy in from your reps.

They need to understand how the technology can help them to do their job better. So, make sure you’re communicating the value of the tools in relation to the problem that you’re trying to solve.

Help your reps to understand that the technology is not to micromanage them, but to help them identify and strengthen their weaknesses.

Despite all the tools that we have, there’s no replacement for good leadership.

Let your reps know that you want to implement change together, that the goal is for new tools to help them identify and strengthen their weaknesses, so that they can achieve an even higher level of performance.

Couple helpful technology with great leadership and guidance to really enable your reps to soar.

This post is based on a podcast interview with Jeff Bajorek from Parabola Consulting. To hear this episode, and many more like it, you can subscribe to The Sales Engagement Podcast.

If you don’t use iTunes, you can listen to every episode here.

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