Apple Watch And The Sales Guy
With the Apple Watch event happening recently there have been lots of stories in the press about what it will take for it to be successful. The New York Times’ view is that
If the watch is going to succeed, those other companies will have a lot to do with it because few devices — not even those made by Apple — will sell well without the help of a whole lot of app developers.
Help is already out there. Amazon, Salesforce.com, Uber and other hugely popular companies are planning on developing apps for the Apple Watch.
What About Salespeople?
According to Gartner Group VP and Distinguished Analyst Rob Desisto, the Apple Watch lacks compelling use cases for salespeople. Rob says he
question(s) if there is any real compelling use cases for salespeople. I could see alerts being important but the idea of a salesperson reading email, checking the status of sales opportunities, or trying to navigate some report in a screen a little bigger than a quarter seems like a stretch.
As anyone who has used Salesforce1 on the iPhone knows, that screen already seems too small for all the salesforce data and options.
What About You?
I couldn’t help but comment on Rob’s blog because I see a lot of potential for the Apple Watch — and other wearable technology. I really believe that wearables can have a very positive impact on a salesperson’s behavior.
The Apple Watch has some great features that combined with the right app, could coach a sales rep in real-time during a sales call. How could it do that?
- Perhaps it could use the heart rate monitor to see if you’re getting overly excited during a sales call, perhaps rushing and not communicating effectively with your prospect.
- The heart rate monitor could act like a polygraph machine and tell if you’re lying or not. I know a few sales guys who could use a reminder when they’re getting a bit ahead of the truth.
- Right now the Apple Watch has the ability to listen to Siri commands. Perhaps in the future apps could listen in on your conversations and when in ‘sales coach’ mode, it could make subtle suggestions — like stop sounding like a sales guy.
- Future releases of the Apple Watch are supposed to include an oxygen sensor; maybe it might remind a long-winded sales guy to take a breath and focus on listening.
Calling Stark Industries: Create The Bionic Sales Guy
It’s possible that my brain is a bit influenced from watching a few too many Iron Man movies, but I really think that we’re on to something here with wearable sales technology. The Apple Watch may or may not be the right platform to get that kicked off, but given what I know about sales guys and their love of fancy watches, it’s a pretty natural segue.
Given all the chatter about sales jobs being replaced by robots, being bionic might just be the edge you need in 2020.
