Who we are
- Delian Asparouhov
- Akash Badshah
- Ryan Lau
Problem Statement
Salespeople (in our context) are those responsible for the relationship between a client and a business, and ultimately for the economic value derived from that client. These salespeople are responsible for keeping regular contact with potentially hundreds of clients in order to meet the clients needs, and often they have to continue the relationship after a sale is made in order to earn a repeat customer or a brand advocate.
The nature of the relationship between a salesperson and their client is fundamentally different than a personal relationship because both parties are constantly aware of the intentions of the other. This means that the relationship is a lot less haphazard or natural and the salesperson is constantly looking for good ways to boost credibility and convince the client to buy.
In practice this means salespeople being extremely attentive to the personal preferences of their clients and how might be best to convince that particular client. While salespeople have always utilized many means of communication to develop these relationships, social media has provided a way to make quick but highly visible interactions with these clients (ie liking a post or retweeting) which save the salesperson time, but still makes an impact upon the client. However, social media has introduced another level of complexity by requiring these professionals to stay on top of a variety of different networks and all of their contacts within.
It is thus very difficult for a salesperson to both utilize all available channels to build this relationship with the client and manage many of these relationships in many different places. Salespeople require knowledge of their history with a client (in order to best address their needs) but have a hard time recalling it because of the number of clients and variety of tools at their disposal. Others, when being introduced to new potential clients, require access to new information very quickly to rapidly prioritize new relationships.
Successful management of these relationships provides the key to a successful business, and as clients are evolving to more savvy forms of communication, so too must the salespeople selling to them.