Yes, the Internet has changed the role of manufacturers’ representatives. We no longer deliver boxes of catalogs into the hands of customers eagerly awaiting printed notification of our newest products, or communicate by postal letter or fax.

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Which has led some pundits to predict that Internet selling will eventually replace manufacturers’ representatives completely.

I’ve always known that those pundits were wrong, but I’ve struggled to articulate exactly why they are wrong — until now, thanks to a brief description of human psychology that I share below.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you’ve said.

No sustainable advantage in “what you’ve said” for manufacturers’ representatives over Internet selling. We’ve all met with customers and carefully described the features and limitations of our products and secured a sale — and then gotten the call after the sale complaining about the absence of a feature we never offered or the existence of a limitation that we carefully described before the purchase. Whether it is something we said, or something presented on a web page, customers forget or misremember what’s been said or posted on a web page.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you’ve said.
People will forget what you did.

Again, no sustainable advantage in “what you did” for manufacturers’ representatives over Internet selling. The memory of our in-person product demonstrations often will fade before the customer makes a buying decision, just as the memory of an online video demonstrating the product also soon fades.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you’ve said.
People will forget what you did.
But people will never forget how you made them feel.
— Maya Angelou

That is why there will always be manufacturers’ representatives. Because human beings don’t remember what you said, or what you did, but they do remember how you made them feel. A website can reproduce everything that a manufacturers’ representative could say during a sales call. And a website can offer a credible reproduction of the product demonstration a manufacturers’ representative did during a sales call.

But a website can only be a feeble imitation of person-to-person engagement when it comes to how the customer feels about a purchase. All of us have to purchase things that call for special expertise; things that we would be anxious about buying if we did not have an expert at our side. Or purchases where knowing that our business is highly valued reassures us that we will get special attention when we need it.

Manufacturers’ representatives’ roles may change, but they will always be a crucial part of commerce — because customers make buying decisions based on how they feel, and the most powerful way to impact how people feel is face-to-face.