Newton’s third law says that “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.” Even though I did physics for over nine years of my life, I’m very rusty on that stuff. But when I started putting together the material for sales automation done right I realized that even though he didn’t know it at the time, Newton was onto something important concerning the sales cycle.

Over ten years ago I was trying to answer the question “what are the dynamics of the sales cycle—what variables change as the sales opportunity progresses through the period of time we call the sales cycle.” This was important to get to grips with because we were trying to find a way for a computer to understand those dynamics with some helpful information from the salesperson. To cut a long story short, and not to take away the punch from future postings, we developed a model that said that the sales cycle can be divided into three phases, and each phase was distinctly different, requiring special skills from the salesperson.

After we came up with this idea, I revisited Neil Rackham’s books on selling and his research on how people buy stuff, from jet planes, to computers, to houses – in fact, to anything. He found that the buying process almost always followed a three stage (phase) model. We had concluded that selling followed a three phase approach too. That’s where Newton comes in – selling is a reaction to the action of buying.

Now, I figure that if I had started off with Rackham’s ideas, coupled with a knowledge of the Third Law, I could have written SADR in half the time.

Why do I ask that question? Well, SalesWays is about sales and technology. In my book Sales Automation Done Right I am downright discriminatory against paper. There are many instances where I infer that a paper-based office will ensure the demise of the business. I’m not backing away from that, because I’m referring to paper-based processes.

Paper is not conducive to dynamic workflow within the company; it can’t move itself so it needs people to pick it up and move it from one desk to another. It accumulates in heaps, and people, inevitably intimidated, procrastinate when they have to stare down a leaning tower of paper. It is much better to make the process electronic and move it using electrons down a wire or through the air. With paper-based information, you have to store it in big metal boxes, and then spend a lifetime trying to make some practical use of it. It’s a much better idea to store it on a 200GB hard drive and take advantage of some friendly software to extract the stuff you need.

But here’s the paradox; paper is great when it comes to capturing information when you are sitting in front of the customer. You can usually write as fast as you think, but you certainly couldn’t touch type into your notebook computer at 40 wpm in front of the customer (if you can, you should be commended; you have a marvelous ability to multitask). Somehow, customers seem to appreciate you carefully writing notes about your conversation, whereas they may have a problem with you when you’re dealing with the odd Windows quirk at the same time as they are telling you about their budget, product needs, or difficulties dealing with their purchasing department.

Paper is great for capturing information quickly. Paper works with the human mind in splendid unison. If you don’t like what you just jotted down, you can scratch it out. If you love what you wrote, highlight it with a star. If there is no room left to write, put it in the margin or curve it around the perimeter—paper will let you do anything. And I don’t care how much of a computer junky they are, the typical salesperson will have their favorite notebook with no LCD or keyboard—just paper.