Career coach Barbara Safani of Career Solvers tackles the art of the LinkedIn invitation in her terrific post: Make Your LinkedIn Invitations Work For You.

She proposes savvy alternatives to the standard "Since you are a person I trust..." default message that LinkedIn generates. I wish LinkedIn would replace that with "[please type your own message here, doofus]" to give people the hint that they need to do something more than click the "Send Invitation" button.

It really doesn't take much time to craft a personal message, yet more than 90% of the invitations I get stick with the default. What that says to me is that the person either didn't know how to change the message or didn't care to change the message. How does this lack of effort reflect on them and their willingness to invest in building a real relationship with me? Not well. 

Too busy? Well I'm busy too. Why should I bother to click the invitation link, log into my LinkedIn account, read your profile and decide whether or not to accept, when it's faster for me to just hit the delete key?

I always personalize my invitations, both on LinkedIn and on Facebook, even when sending them to people I know. I take the time to tweak the default message, even if just to add "Hope you're well!" at the end. Now, thanks to Barbara, I have some great templates to follow when reaching out to brand new connections.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Sales 2.0: the conversion of technology and sales and the symbiotic relationship between the two; how they can be integrated together and co-exist in harmony. Yet, with all the technology that is going to change how salespeople sell and manage themselves, we need to be keenly sensitive about removing the human side of interaction and communication from our daily lives and processes; the deeper level of connection we foster between each other, especially with our customers.

Sure, technology will automate and streamline many of the functions and tasks salespeople and management are currently responsible for. More specifically, how they manage their sales pipeline and the stages of their selling cycle, how they qualify and mine for new prospects, how they network with other business professionals, how they maintain their contact database as well as how they communicate with their prospects and customers. And the trend for companies to transition from what was once a face to face sale to a virtual, off site sale will continue to dominate more sales cultures.

Yet, with any change, certain imminent challenges are sure to follow in its wake. Sales 2.0 and Web 2.0 have certainly had an impact on how we communicate. I have already seen the negative impact that some of these great advancements are having on sales teams across the globe as it relates to how salespeople are interacting with their prospects, customers, even their managers. Sure, these technological breakthroughs allow us to communicate and connect on many different platforms, yet it’s diluting our ability to connect powerfully on a deeper level, the level that long term relationships are fostered. Many managers have reported spending far too much time reviewing a thread of email conversations between their salespeople and prospects when attempting to uncover where a communication breakdown occurred or when trying to identify how a great selling opportunity was lost. Misinterpreted and poorly worded emails between management and their staff are the cause of more costly problems and upsets which deteriorate relations than any additional time-savings they supposedly create. As such rather than connect – we’re getting more disconnected with every communication breakdown that ensues.

Moreover, there’s the ever-widening communication gap that some of these new technologies promote between the younger generations and that of their boss, especially as more and more sales teams are built on a virtual platform where there’s little, if any face to face weekly interaction with their manager. Rather than develop their core leadership and coaching competencies and skills, managers are relying far too heavily on these solutions to solve many of the managerial challenges they are up against when building and managing their sales team.

Salespeople are expecting their webinars, proposals, websites, online marketing campaigns and collateral materials to do the selling and prospecting for them. And what’s worse, there are those salespeople who attempt to close a prospect or overcome objections via email rather than simply picking up the phone to facilitate a direct, one to one conversation that would appease the person’s concerns. Here’s just one example of a perfectly good opportunity and a valid reason to reach out to a prospect over the phone that salespeople need to take full advantage of, yet fail to do so.

The introduction of these new technologies into our sales culture will continue to proliferate, for change is truly the only constant. After all, there will always be a need to make the selling process easier and more efficient for the salesperson, for your company and for your customers.

While more applications such as the ones I’ve mentioned are infused throughout each stage of the sale, the technology of maximizing human potential is far from tapped. And as more technology emerges to simplify the selling process, there will be an even greater demand for the elite salesperson who can manage and leverage technology as well as effectively communicate their message to their targeted audience.

The technology of interpersonal, result oriented communication; the language and true art of selling will still reign supreme in the selling profession. Sure, these new tools we have at our disposal will improve efficiency, cut down on travel as well as timely administrative tasks, and reduce prospecting time and the time it takes to convert prospects into customers, now that there is less of a need to meet face to face with prospects in order to sell your product or service to them. However, it will be the sales leader who is the rainmaker, the fearless and persistent prospector, the conduit to building and maintaining strong relationships and the master of communication, who will continue to dominate this era of technological change.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 03:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

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)

I've never much liked most sales-related technology. For the most part, it's implemented for the good of the corporation, not the individual who's making the calls.

Occasionally, I come across technology that warms my heart. From the moment I see it, I know that using it will help sellers get more done - easier & faster. That's exactly how I felt when I saw Jigsaw and the iPhone.*

Last year, two technology companies really impressed me:

• InsideView - a business search and intelligence application that can notify salespeople of triggering events in their targeted accounts. As I point out in my book, Selling to Big Companies, this is the best way to shorten your sales cycle. Plus, InsideView can be set up to notify sellers of any changes in an organization - including personnel, company news releases and more.

• Landslide** - an on-beyond CRM tool that was designed for salespeople. It literally has tools built into it that help sellers advance the process, not just track sales meetings. Plus, their most recent release has customizable email prospecting tools and more.

When I heard the announcement today that Landslide was integrating SalesView from InsideView into their system, it seemed like the marriage made in heaven.

Why?  Everything a seller needs is all in one place. There's no need to go searching and scouring the web for updates about the companies you want to get into. Instead, this info is all dropped on your workspace.

All you need to do then is figure out how to integrate this new info into your account entry campaign. That's selling. That's what you're good at. That's the best use of your time - not spending hours poking through google hoping to uncover a savory tidbit of insider information.

To increase your sales productivity, check out all the above resources.

* I got the iPhone as a Christmas present from my really nice husband.!

**In the spirit of full disclosure, I am on the Advisory Board for Landslide. The reason I got involved is because I liked how they built their system from a salesperson's perspective.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 10:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are many tools cropping up around the Web 2.0 universe and many of them address productivity. Jott is one and also one of my new best friends. If you are unfamiliar, Jott.com allows you to call a toll free number and leave yourself or others a message. That message once complete is e-mailed to you or anybody you connect with your account. In the three short months I have been using Jott, enormous benefits have abounded.

I will share a few, starting with the most personal and work my way up to the most professional.

A wonderful thing about Jott is that it is free. There are other products that are similar popping up and I will review them as well. For now, I can attest that the time saved is time put back into other areas.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 02:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

• 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.

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

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

A couple of weeks ago I received an email from a young sales guy who wrote:

if you get the chance, could you possibly write about tactics that you have used to get into a companies face? (What do you do as the sales guy with the Jigsaw Info?

I know we all have our secret tactics, but I guess me being in my mid 20's and working with some older sales men, they do seem to go about sales the old fashioned way (knocking on doors etc). They would most likely ridicule me for using a site like Jigsaw/Linkedin.

My approach has been email/phone/mail, and of course Jigsaw helps me with this. If what I'm asking goes against salesman code 101, just ignore my request!

As much as I like ranting about sales topics that are somewhat tangential to Jigsaw, please allow me a week to try and tackle these questions. Jigsaw does pay the bills, after all. (Well, sort of pays my bills- I do live in Silicon Valley.)

First of all I like how the emailer above says “get into a companies face.” Even though his English is questionable (like most sales people I know), he is correct in targeting a company first. If you asked me how to get into a CEO’s face I would refer you to a dentist. Even though you can get a CEO’s email and direct dial telephone number from Jigsaw, don’t be “that guy” that war dials at the highest level possible without preparation. Pick a more reasonable entry point, or several (Jigsaw usually has many), that are at the director, manager or even individual contributor level and find someone in the organization that will answer some strategic questions for you as to what the ultimate decision maker is trying to accomplish. Because you’re not necessarily trying to sell them, they are more likely to open up and help you match your widget with their needs, which is the whole ballgame. Then you use what you learned to arrange a carefully scripted call with the CEO, who will listen to you because you are spot on target with your 15 minutes.

As far as the “old fashioned salespeople” that would “mock you for using Jigsaw/Linked In,” these people are your job security. A recession is coming and grandpa will get the pink slip donkey punch first. The key elements of the sales revolution taking place are all the new communication techniques and information sources that are available to a salesperson (and the customer). You need to be an expert in all of them. Use whatever combination, order and cadence of telephone, email, text, online contact or in–person introduction that works the best for you- try them all. We have salespeople “knocking on our door” at Jigsaw- they sell office supplies and our Admin sends ‘em packing. The days of the silverback (like the gorilla) sales guy doing deals on the golf course and the strip joint are over.

People tell me all the time that “even if I can’t get to the exact person I’m looking for on Jigsaw, I get by the gatekeepers and into the right floor or building.” This is really the whole point of the service- to get you to the starting line. How you run the race from there is up to you.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 04:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

What do you do with leads or inquires once you generate them?

This basic question is overlooked by so many and yet it’s the leading cause of failure in what would otherwise be effective lead generation programs.

The common-sense answer to this challenge is easier said than done: Have your best people respond to them quickly and consistently in order to qualify them into sales ready leads.

The need to better manage leads and inquires has given rise to a slew of new software companies offering a variety of lead management or marketing automation solutions.

An interesting conversation was started recently by Laura Ramos on the Forrester Marketing blog about lead management software. I’m really glad to see an analyst giving their opinion and I look forward to more insights. Ramos’ post, B2B Lead Management Market Heats Up is definitely worth checking out.

According to Ramos, there are four primary buckets of technology solutions aimed at solving the “how do I make lead generation activities more effective?” They are:

1. Web analytics
2. Database services
3. Marketing automation
4. “Pure play” lead management

With that said, I think it is important to realize that lead management software and marketing automation tools are only one part of an effective process.

Software will not spontaneously generate collaboration between sales and marketing, nor will it create solutions that match your processes and it certainly will not generate sales-ready leads on it’s own. However, for many the allure of easy execution and fast results are difficult to resist. It’s easy to overlook that these systems require a great deal of hands on input and maintenance to be fully appreciated.

My company has spent well over a million dollars and years to develop our lead management software that we use as part of our services and learning what works through continual testing and refinement. That said, I can say from experience that developing a good process always takes more time than you think and developing people to execute the process consistently is even more difficult.

I regularly encounter organizations that invest in expensive software before they fully understand the fundamental operational processes that it will be supporting. This was and still is true of CRM and SFA systems. Lead management software has turned out to be no different. If you want to fully leverage your lead management software, you’ll first need to develop operational discipline and focus on good execution.

Start by understanding your lead generation requirements and design a suitable process to support it and insert the software into the process where it will be most effective and actually used. Most importantly, don’t under estimate the need for a dedicated team of people that will drive the process and make the inputs into the system.

Begin by mapping out a clear process. At InTouch we use process flow and data diagrams to collaborate with clients when designing lead management programs. Make sure you involve and collaborate with everyone who will be part of the process. Their buy-in will be key to the programs success. Then identify if there are still any gaps in staffing. Finally, once people and process are mapped out, select the tools or systems that will help your people efficiently manage the process.

Lead management is the bridge between sales and marketing that connects the beginning and middle of the customer acquisition process. It requires engaged people to execute the right process, which is then supported by the right software.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

LinkedIn, the online business networking site, connects over 17 million experienced professionals from over 150 countries. Yikes! That's so many that it makes my head spin. I'd love to fantasize that a few of these people would stumble onto my profile, be suitably impressed and initiate contact. But so far, it hasn't turned out that way.

Yet many sellers have learned how to leverage LinkedIn to drive more sales. They're not sitting around waiting for their phone to ring. Instead, they're using it as an additional resource that supports their prospecting efforts.

Here's how your peers are using LinkedIn to grow their business. True stories. Real results.

Launching Account Entry Campaigns
Kent Speakman of Suitcase Interactive says:  We're very deliberate in pursuing certain targeted accounts. LinkedIn is a tool that allows our business development department to look for connections or contacts within their network they already know.

For example, when creating an account entry campaign for larger organizations, my team generates a list of people within the organization to be contacted to discuss our value proposition. By spending a short time span looking at the contacts they have, and who their contacts know, we can then ask for introductions to people at the target account. We usually have a much warmer response if we do it this way.

Connecting with CxOs
Stu Garrow, Managing Director of Software Traction Pty, Ltd adds: I've used Linked-In a few times to discover that the CxO who I was trying to meet with was a contact of one of my direct contacts. It certainly opened some doors when I needed it, but it isn't a replacement for proper research. Accessing second level contacts works, but 3rd, 4th and 5th level contacts would be a very long shot at success.

Inside Information
From Nick Ehrman, Director of New Business Development for Voltaggio Johnson: I always look everyone up. You can glean all sorts of info this way. You can learn where someone has worked, where they went to school, hobbies and more. You can also find out who they're linked to. Knowing "who knows who" is powerful. Plus, the idea is to become a subject matter expert, right? Well, LinkedIn is a cool tool to help that along.

Replacing Cold Calling
John-Erich Mantius, Director of Business Development at Arvato Digital Services offers this advice: While not everyone you'd like to know is in LinkedIn and the database is only as reliable as those users who keep their profiles updated, I find that it's an indispensable part of my sales tool kit.

I'm pretty methodical about using it regularly to determine if anyone in my network "knows somebody who knows somebody." I'd prefer not cold-calling. Even if my network comes up empty, I'm sure to find someone at the company I was going to cold call who  can help me navigate into an organization.

An example: At a conference last month, I was looking for the head of supply chain at one of the leading headset manufacturers in the US. I got the name, but the person was not sure of the spelling. Back in the office, I tried a few different ways of spelling his name on LinkedIn and voila ... confirmed I had the right person. Alas, his profile was out of date. A quick Google search eliminated any doubt who I needed to call as a press release confirmed he'd left and where he was working now.

Sure, a Google search could have eliminated LinkedIn altogether, but what it could not do is tell me who within my network could connect me to my targeted contact. Continuing my search within LinkedIn, I found additional relevant contacts at this manufacturer. Now that I had the e-mail protocol, I could add their names to my contact manager and begin strategizing my sales approach.

Assessing Interest
Dan Coates, Co-Founder of SurveyU - The Voice of the American Student writes: I recently started a company that provides marketing data on the college student population. We're a new entrant within a new space. It's tough identifying prospects as not all marketers have an interest in collegians.

Sending InMails via LinkedIn is a great way to qualify interest. Rather than cold calling into an organization and pestering people, we simply send InMails that ask if the target knows of anyone within their organization who would be interested in knowing more about college students. It's easy for someone to ignore an InMail if they aren't interested.

Three out of ten InMails result in a response. One out of three responses lead to an actual conversation with an interested party. Results like this simply can't be achieved via telephone.

Making a Connection
The managing partner of a consulting firm adds: We needed to reach the VP of Sales of a larger company. Repeated attempts to connect had failed. I used LinkedIn to find the individual and found 5 different paths that connected with her. I sent different messages through 2nd, 3rd and 4th level connections to get to her. I sent out my requests to have people forward my request to talk with her on Thursday. Tuesday she called me and asked why four different people suggested she call me and ask me the question I had posed to all five connections.

Finding the Decision Maker
Silvia Quintanilla of Industry Gems contributes: I use LinkedIn as a "people finder." For example, I wanted to get into technology company in my area. I typed their name into the company search field. Then I perused who came up. I found a guy who was Director of Financial Services.
I then "cold" emailed him using their corporate email pattern. He wrote back and told me he was leaving, but I should contact his replacement. He then gave me the replacement's email address, I wrote him an email and was successful in getting an appointment. This lead to an initial project of $35,000 with more to come. I've done this before with similar results at other companies.

Research & Relationships
Rennie Filler, an account exec from Austin shares: I use LinkedIn to research the background and career experience of my customer. LinkedIn tells me where they went to college and their major. It details their past career experience and positions held, and it reveals their specific personal interests and unique expertise.

Through LinkedIn, I've discovered that my customers and I share the same interests or know the same people. I leverage those interests and connections in my rapport/trust building phase of the relationship. Even better, I'm now aware of how they got to their current position, how long they've been in that position, and what their job responsibilities are at their current company. I leverage that knowledge to help me understand my customer's role in the organization and his/her role in the final decision-making process.

Most importantly, after the deal is won, I invite my new customer to join my LinkedIn network. This helps me keep in touch with them for up-selling opportunities and to keep an eye on their network for referral selling. And, if my customer leaves the company I am able to find out where they are going. This enables me to continue to engage with them and sell to them throughout the rest of their career. My success comes from building lasting friendships with my customers. LinkedIn provides an excellent platform that assists me in this success.

In Summary
Savvy sellers are using LinkedIn to research their prospects, find decision makers, assess interest and build relationships. They're leveraging this information and their connections to crack into corporate accounts and win big contracts.

LinkedIn is a tool that augments your business development efforts. It also can shorten the time it takes to get your foot in the door. Finally, it's a great way to keep in touch with your customers when they move on. Hopefully you're starting to see the potential in this online network - because it's there, waiting for us to embrace it.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 06:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

While the internet has given small businesses access to a vast number of potential customers it has also made it tougher to respond to the influx of quote proposal requests. Many business owners are ecstatic when their web marketing efforts begin generating traffic on their website. The unexpected burden comes when prospects begin requesting more information, often detailed in nature.

I met with a client last week that provides a one-stop shop for business infrastructure services; phone, web, accounting and such. He was complaining that his website was working too well!

His creative copy and well-designed site was capturing the interest of many people; so much that many of them were requesting specific pricing for certain services. His days were being spent responding to all sorts of proposal requests that relentlessly come in day and night. Admittedly he was only getting back to a small percentage of the requestors and even then it was hours or days later. His problem, as he saw it, was that every customer needed a custom price proposal based on their individual needs and in order to get that information he needed to contact the prospect and ask them several questions.

After discussing his services and the request issue we began analyzing how he might solve the problem. His site was already organized into product categories but the main problem was that every service had many options, each with their own criteria. We first determined that the goal was not to provide a perfect, custom solution for every requestor but rather provide something helpful as quickly as possible so we could engage the customer.

The Solution - Package it.
What we did as a first attempt at simplifying his process was to create several “typical” packages for each service. For instance, a “Phone Starter Package - Small Business” was targeted at a new, base customer with a specific number of employees. “Phone Upgrades” was another category that included several key options along with pricing. By simplifying and packaging his services into preconfigured proposals based on the same descriptions as what was described on his website he was able to respond to 90% of requests within minutes.

Are you being inundated with proposal requests that go unanswered? You’re spending good money to funnel those prospects to your site in the first place so be prepared to respond with something - quickly. Try to setup your process so that you can send a generic, yet content-rich proposal to your prospects easily no matter where you are located when the request comes in. Your prospects will appreciate it and the ones that represent real business will become customers.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 05:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Historically, top sellers have generally relied on the right mix of confidence, stamina and people skills--and a hefty Rolodex. Sales force automation and CRM systems have added a layer of technology to sales operations, without fundamentally shifting the skill set needed by a sales person or sales teams to make quota. Simply put, selling is still considered more art than science, even after decades of technology advances.

What if technology could save sales people time by providing them with relevant intelligence on prospective customers? What if this relevant intelligence could help uncover new customers? New types of on-demand applications have arrived that are transforming the sales process. These new tools are built on intelligent Web applications that can discover new customers and their buying habits, help sales people connect more easily with the right targets and provide the necessary information to ensure that you sell to the right person at the right time.

Sales Force Automation and CRM adoption
The adoption of CRM through applications like salesforce.com and SugarCRM has been important to an industry determined to see stronger, faster sales. But CRM applications alone are not a quick fix. To continue increasing ROI, companies must look deeper. CRM does well at the level of tracking and forecasting, however these applications do little to improve prospecting or pipeline quality or to help close deals.

Information Overload
Previous attempts at providing sales intelligence proved useful to a certain extent. With the emergence of Web 1.0 technologies, sales people could more easily learn the basics about prospect companies. Very quickly, however, the amount of data available on the Web has ballooned. Finding the relevant and actionable data out there has become difficult and incredibly time consuming. Fortunately, the new wave of sales intelligence applications bring strong aggregating and filtering capabilities to help sales people find and even predict their next customers.

The Science Of Sales
The emergence of Web 2.0 has begun to disrupt traditional sales and marketing considerably. Enterprises are beginning to utilize the abundance of information gathering and social networking tools now available. In the area of sales, this has spawned a set of technologies that are able to provide relevant intelligence to help sales people zero in on the customers most likely to buy or even help predict who future customers might be. For the first time, sales people have technology at their disposal that enables highly targeted selling in order to close more deals and make quota, transforming sales from an art to a science.

Companies like InsideView, Landslide and Genius utilize Web 2.0 strategies to aggregate and distill the wealth of information available on the Web, providing sales people with invaluable knowledge that they could not have imagined having access to even five years ago. Such applications weed through the immense clutter of information available today to provide sales people with data that can streamline the sales process or uncover opportunities that would have been impossible to identify without their help.

As an example, a sales person using one of these tools to close a deal on a particular company could find out in real time that:

1) a fresh CFO just came on board in a particular company he or she is scouting,
2) that the new CFO is connected to the sales person via his or her social network,
3) that the company is searching for engineers in a particular department and
4) that someone from the prospective company has spent time looking at particular products on the sales person's Web site, indicating that they presently require a particular technology.

These tools offer a scientific approach to sales that makes it possible for anyone to find the information needed to close deals or to prioritize leads or particular accounts. More and more salespeople are starting to deploy these tools rather than relying on the difficult-to-master art traditionally utilized by the top players in the industry.

The exponential growth of data generated in our information economy demands that salespeople utilize new tools to sell in an ever-increasingly competitive world. Closing the big deal will always require artful touches. However, personality and presentation skills will matter less and less in a world where technology is able to provide relevant intelligence. Sales people and organizations that utilize the latest technology for managing this information--tools that apply the best science to the problem--will have the competitive advantage needed to thrive.

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

“How much does your product cost?”

Ever get asked that question before you’ve had a chance to deliver your value proposition? It’s becoming more common in B2B sales, but why? The primary reason is that most prospects have already researched your products on the web before you ever step in the door and they don’t want to waste their time if they can’t afford it. It may not matter how good your product or service is.

What if you could reach out to many potential customers using a telesales service and then use the incentive of self-service budgetary pricing to uncover the interested ones? For example, look in the sidebar on this page and you see a link to “Self-Service Pricing”. If you were curious about using a telesales service for your organization but had a certain budget in mind, wouldn’t you want to get an idea of the cost before you engage a sales person?

It works the same way for complex B2B sales as well. Highly qualified prospects that are interested in your products are willing to give you their information in exchange for budgetary pricing…IF they can get it easily and quickly. They do not want to fill out a long form that goes into a marketing email cycle.

For this process to work effectively several key things must be in place. First, a self-service pricing tool must be configured and made available via the web. It must be easy to access and use by the prospect. If the prospect is interested and clicks on the tool, then it must be capable of advising the prospect on selecting a basic configuration. Preconfigured “kits” are useful to guide first time prospects. Remember, the purpose of this tool is not to give pricing; it is to help us uncover interested prospects and at the same time fulfill their basic need.

Secondly, every outbound contact that the telesales group makes with potential prospects needs to highlight the fact that the prospect can get budgetary pricing using the tool. A well-designed campaign may include this message as the formal Call to Action, for example “if you are interested in what we have just discussed, you can price it yourself using our web tool”. This process alone will save you lots of time by having prospects self-qualify.

Third, you must be ready to respond to queries. A recent MarketingSherpa study showed that prospects lose interest after only 5 minutes of waiting. Do yourself a favor if you haven’t already, get a web enabled phone or PDA and be ready to amaze your prospects. When a prospect takes the time to select the items they want to quote you need to be ready to approve it quickly and then follow-up to make sure they received it. Your call will be surprisingly warm because you have truly added value.

How would your sales numbers be affected if you had several inbound, qualified prospects per day proclaiming their strong interest in your products?

Posted by Sales 2.0 at 11:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

For those of you who attended the first ever Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco this past October, it was a testament to the new age of selling and the role technology will play in how we sell. Sales 2.0; the conversion of technology and sales and the symbiotic relationship between the two; how they can be integrated together and co-exist in harmony.

Sales leaders, business owners and sales managers need to prepare for the next evolution of selling and what it's going to take to make their sales team a leading force in their space.

Sure, technology will automate and streamline many of the functions and tasks salespeople and management are currently responsible for. And the trend for companies to transition from what was once a face to face sale to a virtual, off site sale will continue to dominate more sales cultures.

Unfortunately, in the wake of change, collateral damage has also followed. I have already seen the negative impact that some of these great advancements are having on sales teams across the globe as it relates to how salespeople are interacting with their prospects, customers even their managers. Many managers have reported spending far too much time reviewing a thread of email conversations between their salespeople and prospects when attempting to uncover where a communication breakdown occurred or when trying to identify how a great selling opportunity was lost. Misinterpreted and poorly worded emails between management and their staff are the cause of more costly problems and upsets which deteriorate relations than any additional time-savings they supposedly create.

Moreover, there's the ever-widening communication gap that some of these new technologies promote between the younger, MySpace generation and that of their boss, especially as more and more sales teams are built on a virtual platform where there's little, if any face to face weekly interaction with their manager. Rather than develop their core leadership and coaching competencies and skills, managers are relying far too heavily on these solutions to solve many of the managerial challenges they are up against when building and managing their sales team.

Salespeople are expecting their webinars, proposals, websites, online marketing campaigns and collateral materials to do the selling and prospecting for them. And what's worse, there are those salespeople who attempt to close a prospect or overcome objections via email rather than simply picking up the phone to facilitate a direct, one to one conversation that would appease the person's concerns. Here's just one example of a perfectly good opportunity and a valid reason to reach out to a prospect over the phone that salespeople need to take full advantage of, yet fail to do so.

While more applications such as the ones I've mentioned are infused throughout each stage of the sale, the technology of maximizing human potential is far from tapped. And as more technology emerges to simplify the selling process, there will be an even greater demand for the elite salesperson who can manage and leverage technology as well as effectively communicate their message to their targeted audience.

The technology of interpersonal, result oriented communication; the language and true art of selling will still reign supreme in the selling profession. Sure, these new tools we have at our disposal will improve efficiency, cut down on travel as well as timely administrative tasks, and reduce prospecting time and the time it takes to convert prospects into customers, now that there is less of a need to meet face to face with prospects in order to sell your product or service to them. However, it will be the sales leader who is the rainmaker, the fearless and persistent prospector, the conduit to building and maintaining strong relationships and the master of the language of selling who will continue to dominate this era of technological change.

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One of the most common questions I get asked is, "How can LinkedIn help me sell more?" LinkedIn isn’t just for job seekers and recruiters. And while trying to use LinkedIn as a cold-calling tool may not be very effective, there are several ways that you can use LinkedIn to support the entire sales lifecycle: lead generation, sales acceleration and solution delivery.

Lead Generation

Find and be found. Search by title and industry for the ideal contacts at your ideal customers. Search by title and company name for specific target customers. Be sure your profile is complete and contains the appropriate keywords for your business so that people looking for your solution will find you. Endorsements/recommendations count for a lot — get them from people who have actually been your clients if at all possible.

Learn more: Using LinkedIn to Make the Sale

Sales Acceleration

Search for people at your prospect who are not closely involved in your deal - preferably 2nd degree contacts, not 3rd degree. Ask for an informational interview. This is where strong, trusted relationships count for a lot - "light linking" breaks down here. Ask your interview subject about the priorities that are going on at the company — what are the high-level factors that might be influencing the buying process. Be completely open/transparent. If you have a good solution and a really good referral to a true "friend of a friend", you will very likely find an internal champion in that person. This is the #1 technique that LinkedIn supports better than any other tool.

Learn more: A Tool to Help with Reference Selling

Solution Delivery

Quite often, especially for small businesses, you can’t do it all yourself. LinkedIn is invaluable for finding partners with particular skill sets who can help you deliver the total solution. In addition to searching, you can post questions asking about the solution area you need expertise in and use that as a way to attract potential partners.

Learn more: Getting More Than Just Answers

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In Have You Earned the Right to Get In? Nigel Edelshain makes a great point – why would anyone want to hear from you if you don’t have something that can help them? And even worse, if you haven’t even bothered to do your homework?

I’m always amazed by the type of calls and emails I get:

“Mr. Milletti, please call Jackie Shallow at 555-121-1212” – like I have nothing better to do

“Mr. Milletti, I would like to tell you how we can improve DigitalThink’s marketing programs” – buddy, I haven’t been with DigitalThink for 2 years!

“Mr. Milletti, I would like to have a conference call with you Monday at 1:30 to discuss your IT infrastructure” – you want me to spend an hour educating you about my company?

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Looking to improve sales acceleration and overall sales effectiveness metrics, many leading edge B2B organizations are adopting trigger-based selling solutions. These automated tools provide sales execs with leads and insights into news and events within their territory or existing account base, which may indicate a readiness to buy.

Depending on the solution a company offers, these triggering events can include management changes, new product announcements, mergers and acquisitions, new financing, new locations, etc. The leading trigger-based tools monitor and mine large bases of business information sources and filter the information based on pre-set profiles so that only information relevant to their account base is provided. The alerts are typically delivered via email or through a web portal right to the sales person’s desktop or mobile device, utilizing a pre-set profile.

Many companies are finding that trigger-based tools are accelerating the closing cycle and making their sales staff more efficient. Condensing the amount of time sales people spend researching their accounts (estimated to be as high as 15% to 30% of the average work week) these trigger-based sales tools have proven to be effective for sales execs managing a small base of large accounts, as well as someone with a large geographic territory.

“Knowledge is the price of admission for sales people today,” says Jill Konrath, a leading sales strategist and author of Selling To Big Companies (www.sellingtobigcompanies.com). “It is a huge competitive advantage to have timely information about your existing clients and prospects. It has really become a baseline item. You either have it or you don’t and if you don’t you can’t compete.”

Joe Chappell, CEO of TrueAdvantage, one of the leading suppliers of trigger-based subscription services, points out that another key benefit of these solutions is providing the ability to be in front of clients early in the buying cycle. “One of the biggest issues we keep hearing from our prospects is that they want to know more about the buying cycle,” Chappell says.

With more buyers making their early-stage decisions without the involvement of vendors, companies want to make sure they aren’t left out based on an analyst recommendation or another factor. “By knowing all of the key triggering events that are going on with an account, you are greatly reducing the risk of being left out of a deal,” he says.

Integrating With Sales Systems
Unlike some of the other complex sales automation tools, trigger-based solutions are relatively inexpensive and can be easily integrated into most of the major CRM systems. Frank Filippo, director of product management for Dow Jones' Factiva SalesWorks product line, points out that the company’s solution has been easily integrated with Salesforce.com, Microsoft Dynamics, Siebel and many other sales management systems.

Factiva SalesWorks has north of 200 companies utilizing its solution, including major tech players such as Cisco Systems and Microsoft. Factiva SalesWorks sits on top of one of the largest news and content sources via Dow Jones brands such as The Wall Street Journal and Barron’s. Beyond the vast content, Fillipo says another key feature of the tool is the mapping and chart functions that allow sales professionals to monitor their territory in a single view or build a breakdown of a single company.

Thanks to the easy integration low cost of entry, proving the ROI of trigger-based solutions has been a relatively easy exercise for the early adopters. TrueAdvantage’s Chappell says most of the company’s clients have started out with 20-40 sales executives who test the solution over a two to three month period and then roll it out to the larger sales force based on the initial success. TrueAdvantage also has more than 200 accounts, ranging from large tech players (IBM and Tech Data) security services (ADT) and office furnishings (Herman Miller).

“We go as far as guaranteeing the results for our clients,” Chappell says. With TrueAdvantage’s solution selling for approximately $1,200 per sales person per year, he points out that most companies will see ROI from the margin on 1 incremental deal. “We’ve seen the solution work equally well for sales people that have a concentrated territory of 1 to 10 very large accounts, as well as account executives that have 300 to 400 accounts across a large geographic territory.”

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By Jim Berkowitz, CRM Mastery

There's so much more customer management technology available then just the "big" CRM software suites. Here's an article by Alex Salkever, Turning Sales Into Science, that covers some of the most interesting new technologies:

Remember the bad old days of sales-oriented technology? Customer relationship management systems that cost a fortune to install and crashed easily. Downloadable lists of sales leads filled with old or bogus data. E-mail marketing tools that targeted the wrong consumers. And on and on.

Fortunately, software firms that target small companies with sales tools have been getting smarter and smarter. Following pioneers such as Salesforce.com and NetSuite, a new generation of companies is offering easy-to-use, cheap (indeed, often free) technology that can supercharge the performance of your sales force--with minimal training and virtually none of the heavy-duty installation associated with the CRM systems of the past.

With lead-generation and networking services, e-mail marketing products, relationship managing tools, and other bells and whistles, it's now possible to turn a sales operation into a gleaming high-tech machine. Here's a quick tutorial on some of the new tools and a nine-step guide to launching your sales force into the future.

1. Build a bigger Rolodex

The Products - Jigsaw, Ziggs, ZoomInfo, Spoke

How They Work - It's said that a salesperson is only as good as his or her Rolodex. Fortunately, it's now easy to have a much, much bigger Rolodex. There are a number of websites that invite businesspeople to upload and share their contacts with one another.

2. Network more efficiently

The Products - LinkedIn, Ryze, BranchIt, CompanyClick

How They Work - Unless you're selling something like video games or skateboarding gear, you're probably not going to have much luck marketing on MySpace. Fortunately, a number of social networking services geared toward small business have emerged. They promise to change the way we network forever. Palo Alto, California-based LinkedIn, for example, is often described as MySpace for businesspeople. You won't find videos, MP3s, or other flashy media on the site's bare-bones profile pages. What you will find are resumés, people's professional affiliations, special interests--and lots of them.

3. Find better sales leads

The Product - Spoke

How It Works - In years past, marketers approached lists of sales leads with extreme wariness. They'd take a deep breath and pray that the data was decent. Spoke removes at least some of the faith from the equation. The company takes existing list data and checks it against online information, even going so far as to send e-mails to individuals on lists asking them to validate their information. It then maps relationships between list leads and salespeople in a manner similar to what LinkedIn does, and allows users to search by such criteria as industry, location, and revenue. Checked against multiple sources of data, these new lists eliminate a lot of bad information.

4. Make the buyers come to you

The Products - Leads.com, Ingenio, eStara

How They Work - a number of start-ups targeting local advertisers are providing new vehicles for local online advertising. Leads.com, for example, converts a customer's online queries into e-mails that are sent directly to an advertiser's in box. Then there are pay-to-call services such as eStara and Ingenio, which convert online ads into phone calls by posting a toll-free number in a Web ad. Clients are charged a certain amount per call, and, unlike with typical phone calls, businesses can track the origins of each lead--and, as a result, the efficacy of the ad campaign.

5. Focus on your best prospects

The Products - Eloqua, ExactTarget, VerticalResponse

How They Work - All sales leads are not created equal. The challenge is identifying the promising ones and giving them top priority. In the past, this involved syncing sales data with often pricey demographic information, a service that was well beyond the reach of most small businesses. But in a Sales 2.0 world, that's no longer the case. Software from companies like Eloqua and ExactTarget lets marketers sift through data contained in, say, an online sweepstakes entry, to more easily identify likely buyers. The software ranks your leads, based on a complex analysis of e-mail addresses, the tenor of a response, and other factors. That makes it easier to focus subsequent campaigns on better targets.

6. Warm up your cold calls

The Product - Before the Call

How It Works - So you've got your target list. Now it's time to start selling. Think a minute before you pick up the receiver. Do you know anything about the people you'll be calling? Do you know anything other than their phone numbers and job titles? The imperfect remedy for this vacuum of information has been a Google search. No longer. Services such as Before the Call automatically scour the Internet, data from providers like Hoover's and Factiva, and their own proprietary database for news articles. Before the Call can be integrated with CRM systems from Salesforce.com and Oracle OnDemand, making it easy to keep databases up-to-date and full of new and timely information.

7. Get more out of your salespeople

The Products - Landslide, ShareMethods

How They Work - Managers have long sought to manage their salespeople. And salespeople, being an independent lot, have tended to dismiss such efforts as meddling. Indeed, that's been a huge problem with CRM systems, which require salespeople to spend too much time entering data into cumbersome and crash-prone systems. But new so-called guided selling is now adaptable enough to automate and provide a flexible script for the sales process while making the lives of salespeople easier. These guided selling programs incorporate elements of traditional CRM and contact management but also add some new tricks to make the sales process run more smoothly--giving sales staffers what they need, when they need it, to close a deal.

8. Hold your (potential) customer's hand

The Products - ExactTarget, Silverpop, Epsilon Interactive, Constant Contact

How They Work - E-mail marketing often has meant building as big a list as possible and hitting the Send button. However, smart marketers have realized that campaigns work better if you can customize an e-mail pitch to fit a particular customer's needs, rather than cramming a single sales pitch down everyone's throat. These systems also boast sophisticated tracking and analytic capabilities, which help marketers develop a better sense of which triggers will cause potential customers to hit the Buy button.

9. Turn new clients into repeat customers

The Products - Vontoo, VoiceShot

How They Work - If you've already won a client's trust, it ought to be relatively easy to sell him or her more stuff. Alas, in practice, the repeat sell can be tricky. How do you reapproach a client who already has written one big check? When is the best time to do so? While timely e-mails might work, a simple phone call is often more effective. Not that you can call all your customers, but now, for the first time, smaller businesses can afford to send automated phone messages to targeted clients. With these products (which cost about 10 cents a call), a salesperson or business owner calls a toll-free number and records a brief message with a sales pitch. The message is uploaded to the Internet and broadcast using a voice over Internet protocol system to anywhere from a dozen to thousands of customers.

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In The Right Stuff for a Liberated Salesforce, Razi Imam, President & CEO of Landslide notes the following:

If Willy Loman carried a BlackBerry instead of a briefcase, could his demise have been prevented? Maybe not, but you'd be hard pressed to find many traveling salespeople today who don't rely on their BlackBerry, PDA , cell phone or laptop to support their daily activities. So why does software directed at salespeople completely ignore their day-to-day selling lives?

The software industry has done an admirable job of automating and streamlining processes for accounting, finance, human resources, customer service and shipping. Meanwhile, one of the most important functions within the corporation -- sales -- has been overlooked.

Sure, there are dozens of CRM (customer relationship management) and SFA (sales force automation) solutions claiming to improve the lives of individual salespeople. But a look under the covers shows that they are focused on contact management, reporting and forecasting -- activities much more important to executive management than everyday salespeople. In fact, these solutions tend to add more work for salespeople and keep them from doing the most important part of their job -- actually selling.

It is this human factor that ultimately drove early CRM/SFA solutions off course. Salespeople watched in frustration as rigid data entry routines were imposed on them and number crunching became the norm. Many simply ignored them or waited until the end of the quarter to update data. It is no surprise that these traditional selling solutions, which ironically force salespeople to report on their progress rather than engage prospects, continue to suffer from low user adoption rates.

Eleven percent of CRM implementations fail to go live, reports analyst Rob Bois in a recent note from AMR Research . He speculates that the actual failure rate could be two or three times higher and points to two reasons:

Salespeople are slow to adopt software tools and technologies that don't add immediate value to their ability to sell.
Applications are too often deployed as glorified contact and account management systems specified and selected by sales management or IT -- not by the salespeople who will actually be using the system.
"The key to SFA adoption is a combination of choosing the right tool, aligning it to the right business processes, taking a multifront approach to selling the project to users, and closely monitoring adoption," Bois continues.

"If the tools are easy to use, mirror the actual processes sales people employ, and give the rep value back in the form of reduced administrative work or better customer insights," he adds, "long-term value can be derived."

It's time to usher in a new breed of selling solutions that gets back to the salesperson. If any software geared for the salesperson is going to stick, it must perform the following functions:

Eliminate Data Entry,
Increase High-Touch Selling,
Provide Step-by-Step Guidance During the Selling Process,
Maximize Productivity and Profit, and
Maximize Productivity and Profit.
If this article strikes a cord with you, then you should definitely check out the Landslide's Sales Workstyle Solution. I recently completed a 25 page Landslide Technology Briefing Report which is available free by contacting Landlside directly via their website or by calling 1-866-450-8522. Here's just one small tidbit from this comprehensive report:

"We've never seem such a clever combination of technology and complementary support services so geared to making sales professionals more effective and efficient. Most importantly, although there are other solutions in the marketplave that offer various forms of selling process automation, the Landslide solution offers the most practical approach to implementing and managing "best-practice" selling processes that we've ever seen."

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The following was noted in CRM Easier, Sales Harder, Study Shows:

The latest annual survey from the sales consultancy, based in Boulder, Colo., and San Francisco, found that the percentage of reps making quota had remained steady, but quotas had increased an average of 20%.

"Things clearly are improving," said Barry Trailer, partner with CSO Insights and co-author of the report. "Is that because people are working harder or working smarter? What was interesting to us was many of the metrics we look at to see if the life of the sales rep is improving were either static or declining. In our view, reps are working harder."

One clear reason for the increased difficulty is the change in the buying cycle, Trailer noted. With the Internet providing so much information, the buying process often starts long before a sales rep even gets involved. No longer does someone simply "raise [his] hand" and ask for information from a salesperson.

"That has serious implications down the line," he said, "because in addition to getting a late start -- with all the info available through Web sites, demos, webinars, customer blogs, online reviews -- when someone finally does sort of visibly raise their hand, the nature of the conversation is much different."

The shift in the buying cycle has companies re-evaluating their sales goals, according to the survey. An increase in revenues remains the No. 1 priority for sales organizations, but it is followed by increased sales effectiveness and increased market share.

The role of CRM software in the life of the sales representative is evolving as well. Nearly 60% of the firms that have implemented CRM have seen adoption rates above 75%, a far cry from the 1990s, Trailer said. In addition, more than a third of respondents said CRM made significant improvements to sales performance, and though 56% reported no measurable improvements or only minor improvements, there were some significant results for others, according to the report. One professional services firm increased its lead conversion rate by more than 300%, a medical products firm shortened its sell cycle by more than 35%, and a financial services firm increased its close rates from 45% to just under 80%. Much of that is thanks to the increased emphasis on ease of use and the rise of the Software as a Service (SaaS) CRM vendors that made implementations easier, Trailer said.

"The credit really goes to the vendors -- and maybe it's a reflection of CRM maturing -- but in the late '90s or 2000, when everything was irrationally exuberant, professional service fees were three or four times the license fee," Trailer said. "A lot of that was simply implementing CRM. Now, professional services fees are lower and going more toward integrating the front and back office or add-ons to the base application."

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Here's a post from B2Blog's Marketing Eye for the Sales Guy Series:

MTV never killed radio, and the Internet won't kill salespeople, or so says Mike Smock (vSente blog) in this oddly-titled post: Mark Babej, Nobel Prize Winners and the Coming Extinction of Salesmen.

Mike's post picks apart this article by Mark Babej in Fortune Magazine that said:

1. Salesmen in the before Internet (B.I.) world existed only because they held all the cards when it came to information.
2. That consumers in the A.I. (after Internet) world now hold all the cards driving salesmen into extinction.

And while statement 2 can be true in some circumstances, Mike says the Internet has also boosted the power of the salesperson:

"In other words the signal to noise ratio is much greater today with the Internet than it was without. The need for a trusted, educated, experienced source of information is greater than ever. And the ability for consumers to really become educated consumers is more and more difficult due to the daunting number of alternatives and the complexity of the decisions. Smart sales folks will understand this and learn to use the Internet to make themselves indispensable. For better or worse, the Internet has tilted the playing field in favor of the salesman. Are salesmen going extinct? Quite the contrary."

In case you missed the gem in that paragraph, let me repeat: "Smart sales folks will understand this and learn to use the Internet to make themselves indispensable." To that extent, the Fortune article does provide good advice for being a salesperson AI:

1. Respect your customer.
2. Defy comparison.
3. Offer the best proposition to the right target.
4. Deliver what you promise.

Marketing Eye tip: Make your website a tool that your sales team can use to their advantage. One savvy salesperson said to me "we've got all the information our website when you need it", hoping his company would be the one I turn to when I am ready to move forward. Be the marketing person whose website can back-up such a promise.

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