The importance for Salespeople to be perceived as an expert in their field is made powerfully by the statistic below. If 92% of B2B buyers engage on the basis of the salesperson being seen as a "thought leader", there are very slim pickings for those perceived as anything else.  

To put that the other way around, only 8% of sales engagements  will be initiated with people not perceived as "thought leaders". 

That does not mean that there will be no leads going to the remainder of the salesforce but active engagements, where a prospect reaches out to a salesperson are very much the plum opportunities.

So, if you are a salesperson and you do not demonstrate your knowledge effectively, you'll remain in the junior leagues, even if you have nailed every other aspect of your role. 

At a team or company-level this can be the difference between success and failure.