Virtualizing the Field Sales Role in Electronic Components with Michael Knight

 After a year of working virtually the vaccinations are here, which means companies can shift the field sales force back to their road-warrior ways. But should they?  Michael Knight, President of the TTI Semiconductor Group, is a naturally curious person. He asks a lot of questions, which leads to new ideas, and he invariably finds himself serving as a change agent for the company. When it comes to TTI's sales model, this was no different.Back in those blissful pre-COVID days, Michael was already questioning the traditional field sales model. It started with Applications Engineers (AEs), who were in high demand and spread very thin, leading to lack of coverage for important customer engagements. The TTI team set up a formal pilot program, complete with demo kits and Zoom accounts, to provide more AE coverage with the same personnel through virtual meetings. Having successfully implemented the pilot and adopting the Virtual AE model is their norm, TTI was well-positioned when COVID hit and field sales was grounded to keep business moving with little disruption. Now that vaccines are in arms and people are headed back to the office, I was curious to hear from Michael how TTI planned to approach the future of field sales.I won't spoil all the surprises from the episode, but I'll summarize Michael's response in this way: there are five unique generations in the workplace today, and not all of them learn or want to interact the same way. Just as our marketing should be tailored to meet the buyer where they are, so should our field sales approach.Check out the full episode to learn more about TTI's plans for field sales, lessons learned from a year of social selling, and their biggest marketing investments for 2021.

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