During the Age of the Seller, getting an initial meeting was the easy step,
while closing the sale was more involved and required the most skill. But Age
of the Customer influences have shifted the way buyers prepare themselves
to purchase products or services, from needing assistance from a salesperson,
to being able to pre-qualify themselves by themselves. Buyers are avoiding
prospecting calls from all but the short list of vendors they have identified as
worthy in their information gathering process.
Armed with Age of the Customer resources, buyers now have access to most of the information they require to make a pre-qualifying decision. This unassisted information acquisition results in disruptions to the selling process and the cold-call looks a lot different today.
