Contrary to popular belief, business products and services are not sold any more.

They are bought.

This bit of blasphemy flies in the face of traditional thinking. But then, in this new age of communications, a lot of things fly in traditional thinkers' faces.

Conventional business-to-business wisdom says that salespeople seek out prospects, convince them of the excellence of your products and persuade them to sign on the dotted line.

Guess again, Sparky
That seldom happens anymore in real life.

If you look closely at your company's purchase cycle, you'll probably find that it's almost always the customer who is the active party. And it's the sales person who's the passive one. The buyer is the party who takes the initiative and keeps it throughout the buying process.

And in this new age of customer control over information and communication, you can bet they're wresting control over the sales process faster and more enthusiastically than Luciano Pavarotti going after a Cinnabun.

Your sales force is being stealthed
Right now, at this very minute, your prospects are using the Internet like Stealth bomber pilots to check you and your competitors out at 50,000 feet without being detected. And the main reason is to learn and compare on their terms and at their convenience without having to endure a sales call.

Sure, your sales reps will get in to see them. When they're good and ready. After they've done their homework. If you pass the Stealth test.

Truth is
Your salespeople aren't out there banging on doors like a short-changed Domino's delivery guy. And if they are, that approach just won't hack it anymore anyway.

As a matter of fact, your salespeople don't spend as much time in the field as you may think. And when they do get out there, they spend a vast majority of it with customers dealing with problems. The result is they simply don't have time to move prospects through the stages of the sales process.

Don't take our word for it, take a survey
Check it out. Take a survey of your sales force. If your numbers are anything like ours, and a variety of industry studies, they spell trouble. With a capital "T." And that rhymes with "P." And that stands for paranoid schizophrenia. Just click here to compare your results or estimates with an aggregate of surveys we've done for clients.

If, on the other hand, you're already schizo over trying to deal with this change and don't need any proof, just click here. We'll take you right to some thoughts about taking advantage of this paradigm shift.