Moderator:
When you hear “automation” as a sales person do you think of efficiency or of losing control over your sales process?

Jen:
I love automation if it means I can keep my boss happy and do less.  I hate automation when it tries to do the thinking for me.  Given that sales is primarily an art, I welcome anything that will free up my time to sell; that is to deal with people.  I must admit that when management speaks of “automation” I wince, because it usually means they are introducing a new tool that actually requires me to do more.  They want me to spend more time learning a new system – which means less time selling – and expect that as a result my sales will increase because something is being “automated” for me.  When I hear “automation”, I think of losing control over my sales process.  I’m a professional.  Tell me what to do and let me handle the how.

Sam:
I actually have to agree with Jen on this one.  Save me time, but don’t try to think for me!  Now, given that sales is primarily a science, there are components that are repeatable and therefore can be automated.  I’d love a system to automatically log my calls for me, so I don’t have to.  But I don’t want it to draw presumptive conclusions from those calls.  For example, fewer calls in a day may not be a bad thing if they are longer calls with meaningful conversations.  I welcome automation, but sometimes I think the wrong things are trying to be automated.  When I hear “automation” I hope for efficiency, and sometimes I get it…sometimes.

Readers, what do you think?  Does automation automatically mean efficiency?  Post your comments.