There’s lots of talk lately about a projected reduction in sales professionals over the next decade.

The thought (or one of them anyway) is that the online experience will render many sales positions obsolete.

Here’s one silly reason why I think smart companies are crying bullsh*t on that one.

Sales People have a vested interest in the sale and more importantly the overall relationship . . . a computer program typically doesn’t nor do many of the salaried employees hired to respond to online inquiries.

Case in point . . . I had an issue with an online organization that I won’t name here. It wasn’t a major issue but it was something that was keeping my business from making money.

It took me forever to even find a way to contact them, even then they restricted my options for contacting them and 48 hours later I still haven’t heard back.

Another case in point. I reached out to a company for something that I needed for a big launch we have coming up on this website. Once again, a real pain in the ass to contact them. I email them and I get this ridiculous, scripted response that confused me further.

I never responded to their response and they never responded to my lack of response but . . . (and please put on your earmuffs because my language is not going to be appropriate)

A good sales person would have jumped all over that sh*t!

For this next example, I will name the guilty party because overall I’m a huge fan . . . actually an obsessively huge fan!

Amazon.com didn’t score points with me last year when there was a major screw up with my affiliate link. My website was showing a substantial amount of clicks and my affiliate reports showed a big goose egg!

Being the mathematical genius that I am, I figured if they aren’t showing the clicks, they aren’t capturing my sales.

I reach out to them and get this ridiculously scripted response . . . that further confused the heck out of me so I did the logical thing and said “screw this” and pulled my affiliate account.

Ready for the shocker . . . A commissioned sales person would have jumped all over this!

But here’s the great news gang . . . I bet the companies in these examples saved a whole bunch of money at the expense of . . .

Making money!

Your Turn . . . What are your thoughts?