The Salesman

Imagine today your car broke down, or that your ready to just get a new car and upgrade. If your like most people, I can only imagine what goes through a consumers mind. Buying a new car seems like the last thing someone would want to do…unless you have the cash to pay for the car outright, which one would guess this is not your typical situation. Generally there would be a contract with financial terms for whatever company the consumer decided to work with.

The reason most consumers wouldn't look forward to this day, even though their getting a new car, is because of the infamous salesperson and sales process. The sales man and/ or woman has been around since the beginning of time. They’ve pretty much helped every person get whatever it is they have in their life…whether it’s a car, a house, life insurance, or even a nice pair of shoes. Pretty much anything and everything has to be sold to a consumer, and companies use a middlemen (The Salesman) to sell their products to the masses.

A smart business person once told me that the most successful companies in business today, are merely successful for one reason and one reason only…they have a good distribution process, aka salesman.

Companies now are competing in a marketplace that’s transformed from one type of distribution method, to many. Today consumers care more about the cost and value, as opposed to a specific brand that they used to be married to. Our economy has changed dramatically over the past decade ever since the internet has become the new norm for gathering information and making purchases. It’s taken the buying experience to a whole other level, where we used to rely solely on going to a physical location and trusting the company to be honest and ethical about it’s business practices, to a more open ended system that let’s the buyers decide how, where, and when they make purchases.

What we see now is that many companies are scavenging to be a one stop shop for everyone, hoping to fill the void in any area of ones life to get the consumer to stay a customer of XYZ company and to remain the dominant marketshare for that specific industry. Take a look at banks for example, banks are especially worried about how the internet has opened up the flood gates to accessing financial products all across the board. I mean you can get a Bank of America mortgage from LendingTree and several other mortgage shopping sites, and never even step inside of a Bank of America. The best part about this is, you sell yourself on what's the best solution.

Speaking of real estate, there are even online real estate companies that let you buy a house without a real estate agent, and the best part is you save the three percent commission that the real estate agent would have made. This leaves the consumer with more money in their pocket while still accomplishing the goal. Who would have ever thought you could purchase a home without even using a real estate agent? Well it’s possible, and it’s happening right now.

The trend to do things on your own is on the rise, and so are the companies that believe in giving people the power to be their own master. Don’t get me wrong, there will always be business conducted in the old fashioned way of doing things, which is still technically the way most of our world operates, but it’s only been a very short time since the internet has been around and with most of it’s expansion just in the past 10 years. We have yet to brush the surface of the possibilities and they seem limitless. I mean even our own government which created the internet is afraid of what the internet will do for us. Recently, the government passed laws describing the internet as a public service, and that moving forward there will be more guidelines to adhere to if your going to run an online business. Clearly there is a power struggle going on right now, where mankind has reached the point in time where it feels the need to be empowered with it’s choices. Having only one method of getting something done is no longer the norm, nor suits the needs of todays consumer.

Only time will tell how far the internet takes us…or should I say, how far the government will let us go!