Selling to a person, not a persona: Why it matters for sales efficiency

Humans are complicated. Seth Godin and Nick Warren shared this point of view on the Stories Mean Business podcast.

And it’s true. People are complicated.

Maybe that’s why focusing on personas — not people — has become a standard practice in marketing. Personas are easy.

The self-titled “inventor of design personas” is software engineer Alan Cooper. Software designers needed a way to focus on the needs of different users. So personas were born. Cooper wrote a book I recommend called The Inmates are Running the Asylum. In it, he explains that “Personas are not real people. They are hypothetical archetypes of actual users.”

Sales efficiency is about making connections.

Personas aren’t bad. They’re helpful because humans are so complicated. We need simplification. A frame of reference. A starting place. But even though personas are good for training, they’re not very useful for actual selling.

Why?

Because people aren’t averages. To be effective, sales reps need to connect with real people, not marketing avatars.

Shifting the focus from personas to people leads to more meaningful interactions, better adoption of sales tools, and improved sales efficiency.

They’ll get more out of their sales calls because they’ll be having real conversations instead of wasting time with small talk. Plus, they’ll be able to make suggestions that actually make impacts for the customer instead of pitching products and services that aren’t relevant.

So how can you help your sales team make meaningful connections?

 1. Deeper insights lead to more meaningful sales conversations.

Personas are based on broad averages. For example, a persona might represent a manager who has a team of 11–50 people. Or whose company revenue is $1M–10M annually. But in reality, there’s no such thing. A manager could have 13 or 20 or 47 employees, but never 11–50. A company’s revenue could be $1.7M or $4M or $8.9M but never $1M–$10M. Cooper himself said, “The average user is never actually average.”

When it comes to creating sales enablement materials, your reps need specifics. Not generalizations.

Real conversations happen when reps talk to real people. One-on-one interactions provide deeper insights into what a customer truly needs. As long as you make those conversations meaningful, you can achieve sales efficiency and effectiveness.

This personal approach allows reps to avoid wasting time on irrelevant pitches that don’t resonate. Instead, they can tailor their conversations to address each customer’s specific pain points and goals.

2. Personal connections reveal hidden opportunities.

The danger of a persona is that it reinforces the idea that all customers are the same. And that can cause reps to miss out on opportunities.

When you equip reps to engage with real individuals, you open the door for opportunity.

Let’s say Tom is a sales rep for a packaging company, and he goes to visit his customer Tina, a distributor of facility solutions products. Tina is frustrated about a problem she’s having: Several pallets of product have recently broken up in transit. It’s costing her money in product replacements, but it’s also dangerous. And it has the potential to damage her reputation. She says she wants to try a different brand of film.

Instead of just saying ok, Tom thinks back to his sales enablement playbook. He remembers a story about one of his peers who was facing a similar issue. His coworker was able to ask a few specific questions about the type of stretch film and the method they were using to wrap the pallets, and discover the source of the problem. So Tom asks some similar questions and finds that a new warehouse worker has wrapped all the problem pallets. Turns out, the new guy was using the wrong film when wrapping loads. So it wasn’t an issue with the film at all.

Asking better questions and exploring beyond the obvious helps sales reps offer better solutions. When your sales team can read real stories from your most successful reps, your team gets smarter and better at selling. That sets them up to act as true consultants who understand their customers on a deeper level. And that leads to trust.

3. Focusing on real people encourages the pursuit of opportunities.

By focusing on individual conversations, sales reps are better equipped to discern and pursue potential opportunities in every interaction.

When reps understand that every customer presents a unique chance to offer value, they stop overlooking important details and begin treating every conversation like a potential win.

Turn insights into action.

Selling to a person, not a persona, transforms the way sales reps engage with customers. It leads to deeper connections, uncovers hidden opportunities, and drives sales efficiency. In distribution, where relationships and trust are key, this shift from personas to people can be the difference between missed opportunities and long-term success.

Here are some ways to help your sales team sell to real people.

• • Ask them to share real stories from real customers.
  • Identify the lessons and educational moments from the stories they share.
  • Construct the stories so they’re compelling to others.
  • Distribute these stories and lessons as part of your sales enablement system.

For marketing leaders like you, adopting this approach helps you create sales enablement tools that resonate on a personal level. This fosters better alignment between marketing and sales — and ensures that your materials actually get adopted.

Want to learn more about effective sales enablement? Let’s talk.

Related:
4 reasons marketing gets ignored by sales
Growth is not an option unless you have adoption
Advanced basics: The role of message strategy in sales enablement