Can We View Sales as a Profession Again?

I was reading an article published on LinkedIn from Kevin Catlin recently. In the piece, he provided an example of consultative selling in its purest form and it caused me to reflect on my business experience in the last 25 years.

I have been directly affected by acquisition and consolidation in my industry several times and it has been interesting to compare and contrast the culture surrounding revenue producers at each company. Fortune 1000 corporations in particular are revising their ideas on this topic and the result has been a significant erosion of the idea of sales as a profession. Acquisitions and mergers are creating companies so dominant in their segment, they tend to focus on controlling brands and market share, rather than training professional salespeople in the art of consultative selling. This merry-go-round I have dealt with has taught me one thing: educated and unique sales skills may produce individual results, but many corporations view this style of selling as outside of their go-to-market strategy. Two corporations have now discussed with me: top 25% sales results are great, but sales process must be reproducible on a large scale to be beneficial, especially for advancement.

Today's BtB selling may look a little different, but "people still buy from people". Clients tend to view BtB vendor relationships as: procurement of critical equipment/services that can affect company success and failure. The buy decision and an effective close will always benefit from a sales strategy that mitigates risk and resolves challenges. I see so many potential clients hurting for value-add vendor account managers. Until the day comes again when unique service, solutions and relationships drive corporate sales philosophy, we will all be stuck with brand management and marketing as the primary corporate sales tools. Either that, or the definition/role of an effective sales person will have to change substantially.

With shoe-string training budgets, I am not sure anything can be done at this point to change the current corporate environment (if they were to want to). It is easier and less costly to create cookie-cutter, step-by-step corporate sales processes that must be adhered to closely, rather than produce trained problem solvers. The best results will still come from a sales staff that can sell unique problem resolution, rather than simply referencing feature-benefit marketing brochures and telling clients to call tech support when an issue arises.

I don't know how many of the sales reps out there have had similar experiences, but I would be curious to know. I would guess this situation is even more representative of Fortune 100 corporations. Let me know if you have a minute to reply.