In today's tech driven world, is it still necessary to have face to face meetings with clients?

Hi Lauren! We recommend going in person when it is …

Necessary
To see their facility to make appropriate recommendations
To sell to a committee

Warranted
To make a formal, high-level presentation
To respond to a competitive challenge

Desirable
To recover from performance failure
To thank a long-term, valuable customer

A couple pertinent stories … a client in the ocean transportation business no longer hosts standard in-person sales meetings. They only host vendors on-site for quarterly account reviews. And on a flight from SF-NY, I sat next to a commercial jet aircraft broker who sells used US jets to aviation ministers and heads-of-state of third-world nations. He does it entirely by phone!

I think this is a great question and one that is at the heart of a great debate going on right now in the B2B space. The question is similar to asking: should we use inbound or outbound marketing? If you are selling a commodity (low margins, little differentiation) you may be able to get by with no face-to-face contact and you may be able to depend on all inbound marketing. If you are selling a higher margin, complex product, service or solution, you better blend outbound (for strategic accounts) along with inbound AND there is going to have to be some face-to-face interaction. People buy things from people, and telephone calls and emails make it difficult to develop a true relationship with a buyer.

One approach to answering this question is to ask "in order to achieve a successful sales outcome, what MUST happen (or occur)?"

Before anyone jumps to an answer, I recommend taking some time to think this through. In the B2B sales world, most sales will not happen without establishing trust, rapport, credibility, integrity, transparency, the promise of returned value--there's more, but I'll stop here. And I caveat all of this by saying there are always exceptions.

The answer depends on how the product or service is bought. If the elements I listed can be ensured asynchronously over distance, then rock and roll, and save some airfare or windshield time. But if they can't, or if they're wildly at risk without a face to face meeting, then you have your answer.

A blog I wrote on this topic: "So You Want a Career in Sales? How Fast Can You Type?" http://www.customerthink.com/blog/so_you_want_a_career_in_sales_how_fast_can_...