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Sales Leadership with Jim Pancero

Jim Pancero has been influencing, guiding, and inspiring sales professionals in more than 80 different industries to increase sales, market share and profitability. Jim's combination of humor, larger-than-life personality, outstanding research and real-world examples that hit home, provide even experienced sales pros who think they've heard it all, with strategies and concepts that work! Your sales team will be charged up and ready to go...and your company and customers will reap the rewards. Time with Jim is time well spent. Watch your productivity and profitability soar! https://pancero.com

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Sales Leadership with Jim Pancero

Are your customers getting harder to reach?

November 11, 2026 • Jim Pancero • Season 5 • Episode 77

0:00 | 1:36

It used to be that sales reps were considered the chief new information source for a buyer. If a buyer wanted something, the first thing they did was call a sales rep.

Because of the Internet and all the other options of communication today, we're finding that sales reps are being brought in later in the buying process. Most buyers today are doing their own independent Internet research and talking to friends before ever talking to a sales rep. Because of this “research before you talk with a rep so you don’t get taken advantage of” philosophy, buyers tend to be dodging our phone calls.

I’m finding texting more effective than calling today. Most follow the approach of calling a buyer’s cell phone. If the buyer doesn’t answer, instead of leaving a message, they hang up and send a text to their cell. Many are finding that texting a buyer is the most likely way to generate a response.

Think your team could benefit from expanding the way they communicate with prospects and trying something different?

Today’s video talks about this challenge of reaching buyers today…and how changing the ways you’re reaching potential buyers could help you sell even more!

Are your customers getting harder to reach? Hi, I'm Jim Pancero, helping you and your team be more effective in selling today. And the reality is we're seeing a major cultural shift in how buyers buy and how they deal with sales reps. It used to be the sales reps were considered the chief source of great information for a customer. So if a customer wanted something, the first thing they do is call a sales rep. Because of the internet and because of all the other options of communications today, we're finding that just isn't true anymore. So the reality today is that sales reps are being brought in later in the buying process. There's a good chance the customer is going to do research on the internet and talk to others about what they're interested in buying before they actually ever talk to a sales rep. So because of that, they tend to be dodging our phone calls. We're finding the phone to telephone today is just not a good resource as a way to reach customers. So what is working? I find texting. A lot of sales reps today will call a customer's cell phone. If they don't answer, they don't leave a message. They hang up and then send a text because texts tend to be responded to much faster and better than a phone call does. Same with emails. I've seen some sales reps even send written letters to a customer, thank you notes for orders and trying to reach out for additional communications. The idea is we've learned the sales is effectiveness of a telephone is just not what it used to be. So we've got to try something different. How are you helping your sales reps expand their flexibility, how they outreach to customers so they can become more persuasive, so they can sell even more?