This is a question that companies of all sizes need to wrestle with now.  While some companies are facing this head on, the majority seem to have adopted the famous ostrich act.

We recently posed this question on Linked In and received some interesting comments.  But this comment, by Brian Hasenbauer at Lead G2, was particularly prescient:

Brian Hasenbauer

Great rephrasing of the question – “Is there a future for Sales People as we know them today?”… my answer, NO. UNLESS, they have already embraced modern technology such as marketing automation, sales enablement and have come to the conclusion that warm leads trump cold calls. That’s the salesman of the future. The smart phone carrying, CRM using, marketing automation guru that uses lead intelligence to no longer make “cold calls” but “smart calls”… They understand and embrace technology, not hide behind their land lines phones and robo-dialers or direct mail…