CRM Vendors Think You're Stupid

My recent post about CRM spawned a comment that epitomizes how CRM vendors disrespect sales pros. The comment, from a self-described “technology consultant,” accused me of being a “true sales hack&...rdquo; and a “whiney, mediocre sales amatuer” [sic] and told me to “stop being so lazy, log some real data.”  Gee, all because I dared to vent complaints about CRM I've heard innumerable times from sales pros around the country.

Frankly, I wasn't all that surprised, because that comment pretty much sums up how most CRM vendors see sales pros – as luddite dolts who are just too lazy and dumb to use their wondrous "state-of-the-art" technology.  As further evidence of this arrogant attitude, witness the opening paragraph of a "pitch letter" I received yesterday from a CRM vendor who shall remain nameless. (A "pitch letter" is an email that a PR firm sends journalists to get them interested in a story).  Here's the paragraph, verbatim: 

Sales has been one of the last silos of the enterprise to accept change. Like the salesman and stock brokers of Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker, the sales team has been more about gut-instinct, firm handshakes, and fancy dinners than science, data and analytics. According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, savvy organizations such as NBC are bringing in top sales executives who have a “history of using sophisticated analytical methods to generate sales growth”.

Say what? Let’s do a little deconstruction here:

Sales has been one of the last silos of the enterprise to accept change. On what freakin’ planet is this true?  In the past few years, the sales profession has undergone a major transformation from product sales to consultative sales, and in the process has embraced email, IM, GPS, blackberries, mobile computing, the Internet, automated ordering, web conferencing and more.  Sales teams immediately glom onto ANY technology that helps them sell.  The reason they’ve resisted CRM is that, in most cases, it doesn’t help them sell.  Period.

Like the salesman and stock brokers of Michael Lewis’ Liar’s Poker, the sales team has been more about gut-instinct, firm handshakes, and fancy dinners than science, data and analytics.  First, Liar’s Poker was published nearly 20 years ago, so it’s bizarre to trot it out as a description of today’s sales environments. Second, comparing sales professionals, as a group, to boiler room stockbrokers is as offensive as calling all of them used car salesmen. Selling, especially in consultative B2B environments, is extremely sophisticated -- certainly much more sophisticated than computer programming -- because selling involves multiple levels of self-awareness, applied psychology, the ability to understand every detail of the customer's business and to craft a solution that meets the customer's needs.

According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, savvy organizations such as NBC are bringing in top sales executives who have a “history of using sophisticated analytical methods to generate sales growth”.  First, using NBC as an example is downright weird, considering that NBC has trailed ABC and CBS for nearly a decade.  Second, the notion that an “analytical method” can “generate sales growth” is beyond ludicrous.  True, sales pros can use a method -- a good one, anyway -- to help them sell, but the method, by itself, does diddly squat. And the role of the sales executive is minimal in any case. The way that quote is phrased, the role of the sales rep – the person really doing the work, remember -- is minimized into non-existence.  

In short, CRM vendors think you're stupid. And that’s been true since the days when CRM was called Sales Force Automation (SFA).  The roots of CRM lie in the absurd idea that sales process can be automated and sales reps transformed into deskilled, factory-like drones who execute an “analytical method.”  And that's a wad of stale baloney.