The Funnelholic

I’m  a day or two late on my write-up of the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, but that’s the story of my life. As an aside, I am not the kind of blogger who has to blog on every event I go to. I only write when something moves me. Period.

Here is my take on the Sales 2.0 Conference:

1. The Sales 2.0 conference is BLOWING UP: I think they will need to change venues to Pac Bell Park next year. This year was sold-out, and the place was wall-to-wall people.  Congrats to Gerhard Gschwandtner (CEO and organizer of the show) and his crew. Why is it growing? Gerhard cares about/believes in what he is selling and you can tell. That manifests itself in the content and organization of the conference.  Also, the attendees care. This isn’t a trip to Vegas for CES. People are there to learn how they can get better.

2. Sales 2.0 concepts and products are the steroids and painkillers that sales and marketing need to elevate their game: I couldn’t get this out of my head when I was at the conference. Sales 2.0 tools are legal steroids. Look, I don’t need to tell you that performance-enhancing drugs have been putting up big numbers for the last 10 years in sports.  Unfortunately for athletes, they are illegal.What Sales 2.0 vendors are peddling are legal and without long-term medical issues, and they enhance performance. Perfect.

Sales 2.0 painkillers are tools that remove some of the laborious parts of the sales process such as compensation reporting, reporting visibility, etc. Like real painkillers, the they’re addictive.  But unlike painkillers they won’t kill you. Instead they make life easier.

3. People believe: You know, it’s also cool to be around believers vs. skeptics. Conversations were around “what are you using?” It’s exciting to see sales and marketing managers getting together trying to make their teams better.

4.   Revolution is upon us: I have mentioned this before, but I remember talking to venture capitalist Doug Pepper (@dougpepper), who said, “Marketing is the last place in the enterprise that hasn’t been automated and made more efficient.” I think this is true for sales too … and it’s awesome.

Think I had fun? I did …

Social Media, social media, social media, social media, social media.  Everyone is talking about it (obviously).  Marketers have taken to the medium; sales is starting to as well, but adapting is hard. Salespeople rarely have the time or desire to learn something complicated, or the motivation to do something without seeing its immediate benefits. In my current role, I do marketing for my organization and my clients in addition to sales. Net-net, I’ve learned some easy, helpful tips to pass along to sales reps using social media for their professional work.  For resonance, I’ve decided to create these recommendations based on sales-isms:

1. The most unique thing you have to sell is yourself. This is a common sales tip that I have applied to how I sell and how I market.  Here’s what a sales rep needs to know: Before people talk to each other in this day and age, they look them up on Google, LinkedIn, Facebook, and other social-networking sites. This means you have to consider your presence on the Internet.

• Manage your online self-branding. Know what is out there about yourself.  If there are pictures of you doing inappropriate things on the internet, take them down.  It’s the age of private investigation. Play right.

• LinkedIn is not just for recruiting. In B2B, everyone is a LinkedIn power user. This is a self branding tool that should be modified to help you sell.  It shouldn’t say: “unrelenting closer,” etc. Keep in mind what buyers want:

a. The top sales rep or just a real pro: It’s ok to post that you’re the best salesperson at your company. Seriously, people want to know they have the best rep working their account. It’s particularly important to put some big companies you’ve managed on your online profiles. This is known in the rap industry as “game recognize game” – in other words, if you’re selling to IBM, have the big technology companies that you’ve worked for on your profile.

b. Trusted advisor: Think about key phrases like “creating customer partnerships,” etc. Post links to related third-party Web sites that show you care about the business.

c. Someone who cares about their business — Join relevant LinkedIn Groups. Even if you don’t do anything in them, they are badges of honor.

d. Someone who is wired — Get 3 degrees of separation: Take the time to connect with peers and clients online.  I make sure when I meet someone I like, I take the one second it takes to connect.  This is important because (i)  knowing lots of people - especially the right people - looks GOOD, (ii)  if you’re connected to respected companies, that reflects well on you, and (iii) the people you meet will see a mutual acquaintance, and your ice breaker is taken care of.

• Twitter: Twitter is daunting for the uninformed, but it is a GREAT way to gain credibility with clients.  Have the salespeople sign up not with stupid names likes “youngjeezy213894,” but with their real names. All the guys need to know is the following:

a. How to retweet and from who: Marketing can just send great blog posts to the sales reps to retweet. Cut and paste them with the : RT@funnelholic 10 ways to … . They can then just post it and they should do it frequently for credibility — An empty Twitter profile is a no-go.

b. How to find people and how to follow: Not only that, but reps should know who to follow – experts in the industry. When they do that, they look good.

2. Know thy customer: Many sales reps still find relevant articles in the newspaper or on Google Alerts and use that as a way to “show the customer they know them.”  That’s fine, but oftentimes in big companies, the people you’re selling to know as much as you do.  That’s reality. I have seen our sales reps try to spit game about some big merger or other notable event and the prospect is not impressed.  If you want to know the customer, see what he or she is writing on LinkedIn, on a personal blog, or on a Twitter page. That will tell you what THEY care about, which is a bigger deal.  Many people are using Facebook for this.  I think that’s fine, but I personally separate business from personal with my social-media sites.  If you can get data on the customer (where he or she has been traveling, etc.), that’s great too.  But I think of the world in terms of business priorities and insights, and Twitter’s brief 140-character updates is the way to go.

3. No one answers their phone anymore. People appreciate retweets. That’s why I like Twitter in the sales process; if a salesperson is following his or her prospects, retweeting their posts is a sincere form of flattery and a way to stay in their hearts and minds.  I have seen some sophisticated sales reps retweeting prospects’ tweets and the good ones add personal comments: “@funnelholic Great post today, I think that ….” You want multi-channel, right? How about that for multi-channel touches.

4. Nurture, because buyers won’t buy tomorrow. Everyone’s talking about nurturing, and here’s what you have take from this: The key to the nurturing revolution is the fact that clients are NOT going for the “Hi so-and-so, I wanted to touch base and see what your … needs are” or “I’d love to talk to you about our 75 percent clearance rate.” They’ll buy when they’re good and ready, so you have to keep them warm with relevant, meaningful, non-salesy content.  If the sales rep is “connected,” they’re a great channel for announcing workshops, Webinars, and any new cool content.  They should push it via their LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

There are lots of guys writing “how to use social media” and they probably have some more sophisticated tips to follow so keep looking.  These are some easy tips with which to start.

Drumroll please …  I present the 210 B2B marketing tips for 2010. Let me tell you, this was quite an adventure, one that I will certainly do differently in the future.

Basically, the sequence of events went like this: Continue Reading »

The Funnelholic will write again! Just not today … .

Great content is great content, and when I get the opportunity to publish anything that helps us market and sell better, I’ll do it. Today’s post is from Sharon Drew Morgen who is a prolific writer, speaker and coach on the world of sales. (By the way, she just wrote a great brief for Focus.com as well.) Why is she on The Funnelholic? Because her framework for looking at selling in today’s markets is important for everyone in the funnel to understand. Please enjoy and check out Sharon Drew’s upcoming book.

Without further delay, here’s Sharon Drew Morgen’s take on what’s happening behind the scenes in a buyer’s environment:

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