The Hindu Business Line : The evolving salesperson

DO consumers buy the small story or the big? Are consumers of the future going to be more savvy than the ones to whom we peddle our pressure cookers and Paracetamols today? Is the future more intelligent than the present? At least in terms of the consumer want, need, desire, aspiration and selling story they will succumb to?

I have been a hobby trend-spotter for a while now. My antennae that have been spread out over all these years of watching and predicting tell me there is going to be a whole new generation of consumers wanting to meet a morphed version of our existing salespersons. How so? Very simply, this. Selling has been a bit too focused and a bit too niche an activity thus far. Selling is really that piece of activity that brings in the revenue for the organisation. The salesperson is the one entity that is the most focused on the micro appeal that gets the sale going.

The salesperson in many ways is besotted with the product and its finite sets of offerings. The salesman of soap is very concerned about selling his cake of soap. The consumer is looking for a solution that takes care of hygiene needs and the soap is the solution. The salesperson is the solution provider at large. The salesperson's script of life is to sell. The consumer's is to buy. This relationship will continue in the decades to come. Something will change, though.

Let's take a look at one. This is the big one. The one issue about the consumer wanting to buy into more macro appeals in the future than the micro appeals peddled by the very focused seller of soap. Let me trace the logic thus. Essentially, all of us as consumers emote with the product first. I get into the retail market to buy a cake of soap. This is very focused.

As I evolve over the years, I get into the market to choose from a host of branded options. I actually step into the market to buy a brand of soap. As I evolve further, I want to buy a politically correct and acceptable brand of soap. As life goes on, I will evolve to buy the one brand that is good for all. Not for me alone, but for all!

How so again? Trace another line of logic. Essentially, all of us as consumers operate in different spectrums of community bonding. Draw a circle in your mind, then. Within this circle lies the spectrum most of us operate from. The `I, me and myself' spectrum. Draw a circle that encircles this circle. As consumers evolve, the outer circle represents a broader-thinking consumer who emotes from within the spectrum of `I, me and my family'. Draw a circle to enclose this one as well. This is the consumer who thinks of himself, his family of four (the `ideal family' in mass media advertising) and the locality in which he stays. Another circle, then. This is the consumer who operates out of the broader spectrum of `I, my family, my locality and my city'.

Keep drawing those circles and keep encircling the smaller circles with those of the country (something we think of when we are playing an India-Pakistan cricket match in particular), that of the world at large, and eventually the cosmos.

Let's stop drawing. Just look at what we have drawn. All consumers will progressively start operating from within wider and wider spectrums.

The salesman of the future has therefore to morph with the consumer and offer all those positive strokes of the wider spectrum at hand. The widest, even.

The complication arises when different consumers operate from different spectrums at the same time, but that is a different story to tackle altogether. The salesperson of the future has to, therefore, offer the broader story. She needs to be clued in on the bigger picture at hand.

What does the product do to society? What does the product do to labour? What does it do to tree cover? How does it affect child labour? The consumer is changing.

The salesperson had jolly well change! The issues are becoming bigger and bigger. Consumers of the future will demand much more than the product. They already demand the brand. Tomorrow they will want the brand plus the macro impetus to purchase. The salesperson needs to be ready with his macro response.

The salesperson of yore has to therefore prepare herself to move into the spectrum of the consumer she is currently selling to. The salesperson is a salesperson no more. She is a chameleon. Enjoy being one if you have to stay relevant to the perennially spectrum-hopping consumer.

(The author is a business strategy specialist and CEO, Harish Bijoor Consults Inc.)

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