There’s never been a shortage of books that come across the Agency Sales editorial desk. In a given month there will be any number of books, periodicals and articles devoted to entrepreneurship, salesmanship or the daily travails of the independent sales rep. That’s why it was so unusual when some of the contents of one book recently caught our eye.

Ostensibly, Eat Their Lunch: Winning Customers Away From Your Competition, by Anthony Iannarino, published late last fall by Portfolio/Penguin Random House (221 pp., $27), emphasizes the need for sales professionals to create and offer more value to their customers. There’s more to that message, however, and in order for the sales rep to provide more value, the point was driven home that it’s incumbent for them to harness the challenges that a rapidly changing technology presents.

According to the author, “…the inability to create a higher level of value” has proven to be the “root cause of the disintermediation of salespeople.” He goes on to maintain that “If you believe that your product should sell itself, then you are an order-taker, and the future doesn’t need order-takers; technological solutions are already eliminating roles where no value is created in interaction with a salesperson. Right now, you are likely to have an app on your phone that serves as the salesperson for many things you buy. Even you, a salesperson, buy without a salesperson (and you may come home to a stack of packages on your front porch, none of which required more than just a click…).

“If you believe that being able to produce a tangible result will allow you to succeed in sales, you are likely focused on responding to identified opportunities, and not the real work of being a salesperson and trusted adviser, which is creating opportunities.

“There is no reason for a client to change partners unless there is an advantage to be gained by doing so. If you cannot create greater value than your dream client’s current partner, you are not providing a reason to change. You need to be the person who can create new opportunities that are worth pursuing, by providing a vision of a better future and compelling change. You also need to be the person who brings that change to life.

“From this point forward, you will enter the conversation from the right, a higher, more strategic, and more complete approach to value creation, and one that is now necessary.”

Iannarino goes on to emphasize that the salesperson’s clients today “are faced with a world that no longer makes sense and is more uncertain than ever.” He includes some of the variables present that make their lives more uncertain:

• “Technological changes fueled by the Internet, the Internet of Things, and the ubiquity of handheld devices have reshaped businesses, business models, and customer expectations.
• “Globalization has brought greater competition, lower wages, and downward pressure on margins and a drive for greater financial results.
• “Whole industries are being disintermediated by technologies that didn’t exist a few years ago.”

He continues to note that “The speed of change today and uncertainty about the future are at the root of the dissonance your clients’ experience. There is a disharmonious clashing of your clients’ beliefs and the reality in which they find themselves.

“Enter the trusted adviser. The trusted adviser makes sense of the world in which her clients find themselves. She understands the forces that are at work on her client’s business and has a command of the facts. She can see into the future with greater clarity and knows what needs to be done now, how it needs to be done, and how to help make the necessary changes. This starts with the ability to explain the dissonance, making certain what is uncertain. She is confident and direct about what decisions need to be made and what actions must be taken.

“There are two major reasons why you must occupy this space. First, if there is information parity and your client knows as much as or more than you do about what they should be doing as it pertains to what you sell, you are unnecessary. We are back to trust and advice. If I don’t need your advice or count on you to do my thinking for me in some area, then you cannot be my trusted adviser. You are at best redundant, and at worst an annoyance, wasting my time with Level 1 conversations (as short as they are when you bring no real value.)

“Second, and equally important, if your competitor knew what you know and shared your beliefs about what needs to change, they’d already have moved your dream client forward to that better future. If they do know what the client should be doing but haven’t been able to get them to execute the necessary changes, they don’t have the mindshare they need — or they don’t have it at the right level.”

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