By Josh Gordon, Smarter Media Sales

[Editor's Note: Josh is the "Grandfather of Sales 2.0" he wrote "Selling 2.0" long before any of us had even thought about adding a "2.0" to the profession]

With all the current interest in Sales 2.0 a look back at my 2001 book, "Selling 2.0, Motivating Customers in the New Economy" might be in order. 

In the writing, I interviewed over 100 top sales managers and surveyed thousands of salespeople, sales managers, and buyers. I mapped trends, shared the wisdom of many, and learned a lot myself. I wrote the following ten lessons I learned in the process which are more true today than when first written.  

Lesson #1: It is more important to be well trusted than well liked. In a world of repeat purchases, consolidated buying, inter-dependencies, and partnerships, greater power may have shifted to the buyer but so has greater risk. When risk to the buyer increases, customers make buying from someone they trust their top priority.

Given the limited time and resources you get to spend with any of your customers, how big a priority is trust building? Most sales people jump at the chance to build a personal relationship with a customer and invest considerable time and resources to do so. But trust building opportunities, such as aggressively handling mistakes or missionary selling before buying begins, are often overlooked. It is important to identify trust building moments, strategies, and codes of behavior and to pursue them as your highest priority.

Lesson #2 You have to create value not just talk about it
I used to ask myself what I was going to SAY on my next sales call. Today I ask what am I going to DO. Customers are less interested in spending time with salespeople who just add a positive spin and offer to buy lunch over information that customers can download from the Internet themselves. Today a sales call has to be more than presenting information; it needs to be about planning, researching, thinking, brainstorming, idea sharing, knowledge building, value creating, or discovery.

 Lesson #3: There are bigger differences between how you and your competition handle customers than between your products.
Your job is to live your product and as result you will see greater differences between your product and your competition than your customers ever will.

But today there are many new ways to work with customers that did not exist before. Customers may be seeing less and less difference between product offerings but are seeing greater differences in how sales people and companies build and maintain relationships and customer interfaces.

Lesson #4: You sell to a customer network, not a collection of isolated customers.
Your customers are more connected to each other than ever before. Through chat rooms on the Internet, email, partnerships between members of your customer base, and newsgroups, you sell in a networked world. Assume that if you do something truly outstanding, either positive or negative, all of your customers will hear about it and be influenced.

Lesson #5: Information is a commodity, knowledge is power.
The old adage that, “information is power” predates the Internet. Customers can now access more information than ever and make informed decisions without ever talking to a salesperson. What now has value is the knowledge, judgment, experience, and training to help your customer take advantage of the ubiquitous information.

What has not changed is that aggressive salespeople still make the most sales. What has changed is how the aggression is channeled. Customers are smarter and just won’t stand for the aggressive “closer” style salesperson of old. But if you use a motivational approach, your customer will view your activities as aggressively working for them. Stop pushing products, start motivating your customer to buy.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 03:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Lee Salz, Sales Dodo

Many years ago, I learned, painfully, that there is no such thing as a rubber stamp. Many sales people hear "rubber stamp" and feel confident that they are working with the right person. "The sale is mine!" If anything, the rubber stamp is simply the fuse on a stick of dynamite. Better get under your desk, your deal is about to implode!

Here is what happens behind the scenes as your administrator visits with his boss. "Mr Jones, I've found a new supplier for our widgets. The sales rep is terrific. We've worked together and developed an ideal solution that makes everyone's life easier and we'll save 10% on our spending." "Put it in my inbox," says, Mr. Jones. Days become weeks as the administrator pings Mr. Jones about his rubber stamp, but no signature is forthcoming.

Finally, Mr. Jones develops an interest in his widget purchasing and surfs the web for potential suppliers. He meets with three of them and finds one to his liking. "This supplier is going to save the company 10.25%". Guess who got the deal? However, the sales person never knows about this because the administrator is too embarrassed to call him. After all, the administrator said this was just a rubber stamp, you had been awarded the business. Communication with the administrator goes dark; he just stops responding to your emails and voice mails.

What sales people often forget is that as you go up the corporate ladder, business leaders maintain accountability for the lower rungs of their responsibility. Thus, they want to feel as if they are involved in the solution development phase, or at least be offered the opportunity to participate. When administrators fly into their office with what they feel is a great decision, they are rebuffed. And, for one core reason, EGO! While the administrator's plan may very well be a great one, it is met with resistance for the simple reason that his manager was not invited to participate in the process. When he finally becomes interested enough to look at this issue, his goal becomes proving that there is a better deal to be had. In essence, this approach creates a saboteur of your deal.

If you are the sales person dealing with the administrator, how do you have the conversation where you share the concern of their manager not being involved in the process without offending? It takes a tremendous amount of finesse and strategic planning. However, if you truly have your client's best interests at heart, it is easy. This is the ultimate key. If you are committed to ensuring that your clients achieve their goals, you can have this conversation. After all, you know that they won't get what they want if you continue down this path.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By Nigel Edelshain, Sales 2.0

In the category of "why are so many things in the sales profession messed up", a new survey by Blueroads and Sirius Decisions has found that most executives running channel programs in large companies need to focus more on helping their partners sell?!

It seems most channel executives have been spending their time and money on things like partner portals and have just realized that maybe it is time to focus on actually generating leads that their partners can close. I doubt this is much of a surprise for their partners! Of the channel executives who did focus on sales effectiveness 62% reported...an increase in revenue...

Reading between the lines, it's my opinion that channel executives are not fighting the tough fights in their own companies to get the resources they need to actually help generate business for their partners. Hopefully this report will help to change that. The channel team has often been treated as the "poor cousins" in many sales organizations I have seen. I hope they will stand up for themselves more in 2009 and help their partners drive some big revenue gains. With the way the economy looks partners surely need it!

Here's a few extracts from the report:

Top channel executives do not focus enough resources on driving sales effectiveness, suggest the results of a new survey released today by Blueroads and Sirius Decisions. In fact, 80 percent of the channel investments by the vendors that were surveyed are focused around tactical issues such as training, partner portals, and partner communication tools – all activities that automate partners, but fail to help them drive top-line revenue growth.

The Channel Survey: 2009 Priorities, which polled an audience of over 1000 high ranking vendor channel leaders, also indicates that vendors are seeking to drive revenues, but didn’t always know how, and resorted to brute force tactics including channel partner recruitment in their existing markets rather than focusing on programs that increase the productivity and yield of their current resellers and partners. The survey covered a variety of channel-dependent industries--including software, telecommunications, computer hardware, and information services--on their channel plans, investments, and expectations.

“Too many channel chiefs are engaged in low-risk, low-return activities,” said Charles Watson, Senior Vice President of Marketing and Sales for Blueroads. “Too few are ready to drive fundamental changes that help them achieve greater equality with direct sales and enable increased visibility, empowerment and accountability in the channel.”

Nearly sixty percent of respondents recognize they need to spend more on sales effectiveness programs in 2009. However, their intended actions don’t necessarily support that goal. For example, training and partner content portals were among the top technology investments, yet these are often simply easy-to-implement infrastructure investments with limited return.

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By Jonathan Farrington, The Sales Corporation

As the recession begins to bite hard, now is the time to make the very most of our most important customers.

A vitally important sales activity is that of managing existing customer accounts to consolidate and grow the relationship. Yet unfortunately, when compared over time, the customers’ interest levels increase while salespeople’s interest levels tend to decrease. This creates a “relationship gap” and is due entirely to complacency.

Another major issue is that too often the salesperson fails to expand his “contact base” as this next survey proves which results in vulnerability and exposure to competitive activity

Periodically, the Financial Times conducts a survey of British industry to establish how companies go about their purchasing. The survey is very comprehensive, broken down into many kinds of products and services.

From a Sales Director’s perspective, these are very worrying statistics.

Customer size (Number of employees): Less than 200
Average number of buying influencers: 3.43
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.72

Customer size (Number of employees): 200 – 400
Average number of buying influencers: 4.85
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.75

Customer size (Number of employees): 401 – 1000
Average number of buying influencers: 5.81
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.90

Customer size (Number of employees): 1001 +
Average number of buying influencers: 6.50
Number of influencers visited by salespeople: 1.65

In essence, without a sustained approach to ongoing servicing and support activities, customers that took months to win are ultimately lost because there was a lack of interest from their supplier.

To-days clients/customers are looking for vendors who can be business-partners, who are willing and able to share risks and who are able to properly manage the entire sales process.

Fact: It costs seven times as much to locate and sell to a new customer as it does to an existing one.

Are you making the most of your customer base? Answer the questions below honestly and find out.

1. How many regular clients do you have?
2. Has that number increased in the last twelve months?
3. How many of them have bought in the last three months?
4. Of those ‘regular clients’, how many have you contacted in the last month?
5. Of those, in how many have you progressed upwards from the user/recommender?
6. With how many of them do you enjoy exclusivity i.e. preferred supplier status?
7. How many of your clients have bought more the ‘second’ time around than when they originally bought from you?
8. With how many of your regular clients have you conducted an account review within the last six months?

Study your answers - are you still confident you are making the most of your most important accounts?

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Aaron Ross, Alloy Ventures

I love getting and answering questions, as it helps shape my thoughts into useful forms to share. Here's a recent answer I posted on ExpertCEO (a private online community for CEOs), to a question that was along the lines of...

"Do you have any advice for a company with a strong services practice that has sold mostly through partners in the past, but who is now looking to build their own Sales Machine? Any advice would much appreciated."

That's a pretty broad question, so here's a broad answer. principles I feel would help anyone get going in the right direction:

1) Be PATIENT. Developing a sales engine that predictably generates revenue can take 12-24+ months, depending on the state of your company. Even any one new program in b2b sales can take 3-6 months to be defined, show measured progress, and become integrated & habitual (i.e. machine-like).

2) Experiment. With everything. Constantly.

3) No one-offs! (Unless it's an experiment to learn something for the future). It's not worth doing if it's not repeatable. One-off efforts, even for a quick payoff, are a distraction from focusing your energy on sustainable efforts.

4) If it doesn't exist in your CRM system, it doesn't exist. (Sales)people must be comp'd only off data in the CRM system. Reports must be run totally in salesforce.com/CRM, whenever possible. Etc. [Update: thank you Ken Rudin of for the comment below, I agree the data just needs to be in a system and accessible. I should have said here that reports must not be in Excel whenever possible!]

5) Can you sketch out how things work on a flow chart? Even simply, on paper or a whiteboard? If not, that's a problem. What's the desired outcome, and process that leads to that outcome? Is it being done ad-hoc today? Sketching it out is the first step to bringing some order to the process...and thus outcome.

6) Focus on results rather than activity (ex: number of qualified opportunities created per month is much more meaningful than number of sales calls made)

7) Track fewer, more important metrics. It's easy to go way overboard in building reports and dashboards. Work with your team to prioritize metrics. Think in handfuls, not dozens.

8) Special attention on batons that cross functions. Whenever a process crosses teams (marketing to sales, or sales to professional services, or...), a baton is passed, and you have all the ripest conditions for problems.

9) Babysteps! Consistently try lots of little improvements. If you keep at them, they'll add up to big changes over time. (Remember the patience part?)

Additional posts
A few other blog posts that help illustrate the kind of thinking it takes to build a sales machine:

• The Joy of Weekly Pipeline Metrics
• Waterfall Metrics
• Stop Measuring Calls Per Day
• The Problems with "Lumping"; Separate the Four Core Sales Functions

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:58 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By John Gaffney, Demand Gen Report

Geoffrey Moore is one of those rare business authors and experts that has written a book that “belongs on that small and select shelf of ‘must-reads’ in technology marketing,” says Gord Hotchkiss, president of Enquiro. The book, released in 1999, is Crossing the Chasm. Its central thesis was that high-tech products initially sell well, mainly to a technically literate customer base, but then hit a lull as marketers try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers.

Now Moore, managing director of TCG Advisors, is promoting a new line of thinking, this one focused on BtoB selling in the current economic downturn. His take on demand generation and lead generation is different from most. But his provocations and blunt approach will help any company struggling with keeping and growing current customers, as well as acquiring new ones. DemandGen Report recently had the opportunity to chat with Moore and got his take on how sales and marketing organizations need to change their approach to do get budget dollars allocated for new projects during this downturn.

Moore’s most provocative thinking for BtoB executives can be boiled down to the following three areas:

Embrace Provocation-Based Selling: Moore’s approach for breaking into new markets is aggressive. In fact he calls it “breaking and entering” new markets. Provocation-based selling requires companies to present a product offering that is differentiated from competitors. Solution-based selling identifies an existing problem and then the fix. Provocation-based selling presents unmet opportunities or future problems. Then it requires a BtoB marketer to find a line of business executive that will respond to the provocation. In other words, direct connections are essential. The BtoB marketer needs to convince the executive that they have a serious problem, that you will save them money, and your product will fulfill a vision of new business.

“If you don’t rethink the way you break into a new category, you are at risk,” Moore says. “Put something on the table that is controversial and edgy.”

Creating A Budget: In a downturn, IT budgets can go from 15-25% allocated for new technology to zero. Many companies, Moore says, make their case for budget creation on taking money from other areas. But Moore says provocation-based selling will bring about a new approach to budget creation. By focusing first on the line of business leader, sales and marketing executives can then customize the approach based on the personality of that executive. There are basically two kinds of executives, he says, pragmatists and visionaries. Pragmatists either want to address pain points or they have options. The “pain point pragmatist” wants to fix a broken mission critical process, with a rapid response complete solution. Provocation-based sellers should approach them by focusing on the cost of not solving the problem. Option-based pragmatists want to achieve rapid competitive advantage. Provoke them with revenue and margin gains. Visionaries want to create game-changing advantages through technology that will provide competitive advantage. Moore says they should be provoked by focusing on category share gains.

Implementing Efficient Lead Generation: “In a difficult market it’s great to use high volume lead generation,” Moore says. “It works well in high growth markets. But if you don’t have high volume lead generation, or if you’re entering a new market, you might need a course correction.” Moore recommends that BtoB lead prospecting focus heavily on referrals. Leads should be generated as a way to gain a referral, not just a connection. Qualifying leads should focus on the prospects’ compelling reason to buy, and finding leads that have serious issues that warrant special attention. “Chasing un-closable deals is the most common strategic error in a tough market,” Moore says.

The Crossing the Chasm strategy still applies to provocation-based selling, Moore says. It still starts with the technology adoption lifecycle and focuses on pragmatism in the client’s executive suite. But in the current economy, budget creation might be the most important addition to his thinking. “Create instead of consume budgets,” he says. “Most sales people don’t do that and it is critical to overcome this obstacle.”

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Jonathan Farrington, The Sales Corporation

I have read a plethora of articles and commentary recently about Sales 2.0 and there is an air of inevitability that at some point in the not too distant future, many of the tasks now routinely handled by “salespeople” will become automated – in fact it is already happening.

But, and this is a really big but, in my view, there will always be a place for the professional business consultant – the “Top 5% Player” – these people never sell anything, but they do assist their clients in making sound buying decisions.

However, this is a wake-up call for the “order takers and marketers” because gone are the days in which a salesperson could simply walk into an office, establish a good rapport with the client, show he/she had thorough knowledge of their products and services and clinch the sale.

Nowadays, the emphasis is on establishing long-term, mutually beneficial relationships and in order to achieve this, the salesperson needs to earn the right to continue discussions with his/her client. Before they can proceed to sell their products or services, the salesperson needs to reassure the client of their integrity, reliability, and ability to understand and recommend the appropriate solution.

They can do this by demonstrating:
• Up-to-date knowledge of business news and current affairs.

Best practices include - reading newspapers, magazines, journals, trade publications and other sources of business information; maintaining membership of appropriate professional organisations; acknowledging gaps in knowledge and taking steps to fill them; locating or developing databases with information on customers, their industries and their own customers.

• An in-depth understanding of the customer’s industry, company and strategies as well as an appreciation of “the big picture.”

Best practices include - gaining an understanding of the issues at all levels of the customer’s organisation including strategic, departmental, and individual needs; seeking to understand the customer’s perceptions of market trends, company direction, plus potential product and service needs.

• A readiness to exchange information and ideas between the supplier and client organisation.

Best practices include - familiarising the customer with your own industry and companies; sharing useful business information even if it does not directly impact on the sales effort; demonstrating the cost-cutting or revenue producing benefits of your products and services.

• The ability to listen and absorb information.

Best practices include - refining the way you identify customer’s needs by asking the right questions and listening actively to customer comments; speaking at the listener’s level of knowledge; using stories and analogies effectively; asking for feedback on the clarity of your message. By demonstrating comprehensive knowledge, outstanding communication skills, and the proper attitude, the salesperson earns the right to move beyond the role of supplier to that of a valued business consultant

These are just a few pointers to those wanting to stay in the game – the clock is ticking and as the man said, the one constant that we can absolutely rely on in life is change.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

By Jim Logan, JS Logan

None of us are the only person on the planet to offer whatever it is each of us do to make a living.

If we are, we may well be trying to offer something no one wants. But that's rarely the case.

Most of us have a number of competitors - large and small. So, what can we do to differentiate ourselves from our competition that compels a prospective customer to give us their business? Isn't that really the question all of us face?

Assuming we have something people want and we can deliver it reliably and to an acceptable level of satisfaction, why should a prospect give us their money and trust us with their business as opposed to our competition?

The key is difference.

Truth be told, the real question isn't what's different about your offer. The real question is what do you do different that your prospect cares about to the level of compelling them to choose you over your competition.

The real issue is valued difference.

When you offer difference your prospective customers truly value - two things happen:

• competitive pressure drops
• price falls in the hierarchy of purchase decisions

It's not enough to be different. You have to be different is a way your target audience cares about. Otherwise, your difference is of no difference at all.

Why should I do business with you instead of your competition? What do you offer that's meaningfully different to your customers as opposed to what your competition offers?

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Umberto Milletti, CEO InsideView

The amount of rich, unstructured data living on social Web sites continues to expand everyday due to the popularity of the Facebooks and Twitters of the world.  This has the potential to offer salespeople a more updated, personalized view of leads than standard CRM applications alone can grant. Salespeople can leverage the social Web to unearth rich insights that result in getting better leads, faster; but it's not easy and depends on the salesperson to be his or her own filter for what information and what networks deliver the right information at the right time.

For businesses, the problem has been applying a salesperson's intuition across a lot of data and  "making sense" of the constantly changing, unstructured information living on social Web sites. But fresh strategies and tools are making it possible for companies to mash up data with business search and intelligence applications, allowing them to collect, scan and sort social data to their advantage. My company, InsideView, has coined this new development "Socialprise" – the mash-up of social tools with the enterprise. Socialprise applications are making it easier for companies to leverage the social Web to help grow their business and increase ROI from applications that exist only within the enterprise walls.

Be efficient with your time
A key element to a successful salesforce is their use of time: how much they spend researching potential clients and updating customer databases, as well as understanding when to contact a lead. It shouldn't take a significant amount of time to identify the right contact within an organization or to prepare for a call – the window for making a successful sales call can be very short. While pre-call research is essential, it's the actual conversation that brings in the business. By strategically making use of the abundance of constantly updated, personalized customer data across the social Web on sites like LinkedIn, Facebook, ZoomInfo, etc. – salespeople can improve their timing and time saved.

The data should come to you
CRM applications are filled with a wealth of sales management information, but that data is rarely utilized to stimulate more business. We've all seen the power of RSS feeds and systems, such as Google Alerts. Today, there are far more detailed, sophisticated systems that can be integrated with CRM applications and then deliver highly targeted, automated information alerts for salespeople. Imagine how many more leads you could generate if you received a notification every time a previous client took a new job or a company you've been chasing for months just announced record earnings. Getting that critical information to be sent directly to your salespeople as it's announced guarantees they can make a sales call faster and with the most current information about their target.

ROI from the Socialprise
We have worked with a number of companies who have reported a significant ROI from integrating Socialprise technology with their CRM applications. Two of the key categories in which clients have benefited are productivity (time/cost savings) and close rate (opportunity quality.) Below are a few examples:

1) Productivity (Time / cost savings)

• Fortune 500 computer security provider saw a 33% decrease in named account research across a pilot group of 20 inside sales reps over 12 months.
• An online personal assistant company saw a 200% decrease in pre-call research time over 12 months.

2) Close rate (Opportunity quality)

• Closed More – Overall close rate increased 200%
• Sold Higher – Deals involving VP/SVP increased 80%
• Sold Faster – Average sales cycle decreased 10%

It's time
Intelligently aggregating information about sales targets from the social Web should be a standard activity for all sales forces.  There is just too much valuable data out there to ignore or stay wedded to an every man for himself approach. Companies that are merging relevant data from the social Web with their sales management systems and automatically receiving relevant updates about their sales targets have a significant competitive advantage over others. That advantage will only increase as these companies continue to mash up new Socialprise tools with existing CRM applications, while others around them are left waiting to get into the party.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 08:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Brian Wright, Ally Force Inc.

By "indirect," I don't mean that sales people should be under-handed, evasive or dishonest. I believe sales people should be straightforward.

Some take "indirect" to refer to channel reps. I'm not referring to that either. This article is for bag-carrying sales reps who manage a territory or a good number of accounts. And by "indirect," I really mean to say getting referrals, rather than cold-calling directly into accounts.

Using referrals isn't by any means a new idea. But how many sales reps do it efficiently and effectively? Do you? What this first part of the article is to describe is the necessity and benefits of thinking "indirectly" with the goal of raising the urgency of prospecting and selling through an ecosystem of indirect relationships.

I break the forcing functions as impacting three dimensions: width, depth, and time.

You need wider coverage because you need to do more with less
Typically, sales reps need to cover more because corporations need to do more with less. Now, you may be a rep who feels that you territory is too small. In that case, "wider" coverage means turning over more of those stones with a finer-toothed comb in order to find opportunities. In either case, the first rule of hitting a quota is building sufficient pipeline to cover it. And wider coverage is going to require basically churning through more and more accounts to fill that pipeline.

It's more than a single rep can do.

Leveraging others sales reps at other companies to turn over referrals addresses the coverage issue. These other reps could be typical resellers or consultants, or you can have an expanded view of whom to get referrals from (a topic covered later in the article).

Without them, the numbers are clearly against you. Remember: you need to do more with less, coverage more prospects for less revenue. How will you do that?

Niche products and complex options requires deeper expertise product wise and company wise
There are endless choices for corporations now. And solutions need to be more focused and in some cases more complex. The typical targeting approach is to start with the C-level and work down. Nowadays, every sales rep is armed with a Hoovers account or access to a Yahoo finance page and they are looking for the CFO, CIO, or the VP of whatever it is that they need.

Meanwhile, solutions (technology or otherwise) often meet specific needs and can fit within a set of complexity either in explanation or deployment at the customer site. You cannot get that from typical, publicly available data. You need depth within the organization, not only executive-level sponsorship. You need to get into a company and build value from the people experiencing the pain directly.

You also need depth in terms of the product and solution -- what systems are in place and how does it fit their unique environment?

Referrals can give you bits and pieces of that information. Why? Because they may have spoken to the right person you need and understood their needs. Or, better yet, the company you are targeting is already one of their customers.

Imagine the kinds of information they could provide to you.

Time isn't on your side -- similar products to yours are coming out and if you miss the window, you've left money on the table
As much as we all like to believe that our product is superior (and it could very well be), often times if a customer has a pain and someone gets there before you, you've lost the sale. How many of you have reached a prospect who is a great fit and they tell you that they just bought Product A or Product B which is a substitute or competitor? Isn't it that much more frustrating when you realize (and even the prospect realizes) that you have a better solution? But the purchase has already been made. There are plenty of reasons to lose a sale that are out of our control. But do you want getting to a customer too late to be one of them?

There are more competitors, all using efficiency-enhancing tools like sales-force automation and online marketing tools, who are driving to your targets before you can. Where can you get an upper-hand? What about through referrals, people who could even know the customer has a problem before they have gotten a solution? Conclusion -- it's not a new idea, but do you think it's a good one?

Sometimes the best ideas are ones that we already know, but just aren't implementing. Building your business through referrals is one of those.

But our approach is slightly different. That’s why we call it building your “ally force.” In the same way that a company builds a sales force, you build an ally force – allies who turn referrals and contacts to you. In other words: Don't be the lone wolf. Run with the pack, instead.

The forces are closing in. You need wider coverage; you need deeper expertise and penetration; and you need a faster go-to-market. Allies are the way. Stay tuned to find out more on how.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 04:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

By Nigel Edelshain, Sales 2.0

In a "Sales 2.0 world" sales and marketing are the same thing.

I'm a bit weird in that during my career I've spent several years in both marketing and sales (and studied marketing at Wharton but now "eat and drink" sales). My take away from being on both sides of the departmental divide is that this is a problem we have created for ourselves - it's not a fundamental one.

The problem usually starts when a growing company appoints its first head of marketing (if it has a head of sales) or its first head of sales (if it has a head of marketing). As soon as that happens it opens up the possibility of departments not being aligned.

To me sales and marketing are just different parts of the same function. The point for a business is to generate leads and close deals. Who cares who does that? As a CEO, I certainly don't, as long as we close deals then the accountant could do it as far as I'm concerned.

The biggest real divide I have seen between sales and marketing people is that sales people think everything can be done on the telephone and marketing people will use any mechanism possible before calling a prospect themselves. This is a bit of a strange differentiation in jobs isn't it?

As we move into a "Sales 2.0 world", we sales people are starting to be armed with the more advanced tools we need to deal with ever more difficult-to-reach buyers. But as we start to use these tools look what's happening: sales people are sending their own mass email (e.g. Sales Genius) and grabbing their own contact lists (e.g. Jigsaw), so sales people are doing the same thing as marketing people.

As Sales 2.0 picks up, sales and marketing departments are going to look more-and-more alike. Maybe the big change will come when the first marketing person makes a cold call - a bit like the opening scene from the movie "2001 - A Space Odyssey". (By the way, please, email me if you know what the end of that movie means I'm still trying to figure it out).

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 10:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

By Jonathan Farrington, The Sales Corporation

Many organisations do not know who their major accounts are. Certainly many of the people who manage the relationships do not know and even if they know, very few people understand why this customer is a major account but that one is not.

A quick way to test this is to ask ten people in your organisation who your ten most important accounts are. You can be sure that you will receive more than ten answers. In one company we worked with, we received 56 different answers from 10 senior managers! The clarification of major accounts has been a critically important part of our work with a number of the organisations with whom we have worked.

Understand:

We need to understand our major accounts better than our ordinary customers. We need to understand the world they work in, the challenge of their markets, the competition they face etc. We need to understand the individual projects (be it fighting to win new business or managing an existing project for maximum profitability). Major Account management involves understanding who takes decisions and how, who are our competitors, how does our offering impact on the customer’s business? Those who manage, need to keep developing their skills of questioning and listening, of networking and analysing.

Plan:

If a customer is worth being called a major account, then they are worth a plan. It is of course possible to sell successfully in an unplanned way, there are always opportunities to be seized by chance. But if we are serious about developing a long term relationship and if this customer is really important to our success as a business, then we need to plan. We will look later at two types of planning. One of the most encouraging spin-offs in our work with clients is when we see the emergence of succinct, professional business plans for major accounts that cascade down into satellite plans for other parts of the business.

Influence:

There are many people to influence. We need to influence technical people and commercial people; we need to influence our customers, their clients and our colleagues. The major account manager often has little authority to tell people what to do. Instead he or she needs to influence and persuade.

Deliver:

It is good to plan and understand and influence, but our business will depend on our ability to deliver what we promise. This is often seen as the responsibility of customer service but in fact the whole organisation needs to be committed to delivering what the customer needs, the right quality, at the right time and to do it in such a way that the customer feels good about it.

Manage:

Any major account needs managing because success does not just happen. By manage, I mean doing all those things which make things go smoothly. It may be arranging a regular review meeting with the customer, or training the account team to understand the customer better or handling problems or managing complex projects. If we work hard on all six areas of account management and if we gain the trust of our customers, then we will greatly increase our chances of long term, sustainable success.

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