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Is Sales 2.0 Really New?

2 Nov

I attended the Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco on October 30. The speakers had very little to say that was “new news.” I heard statements such as: cold calling is dead—because it doesn’t scale, it’s all about relationships, it’s not about what’s in the funnel, it’s about what’s moving in the funnel, you need to have a sales process, salespeople need to ask good questions, etc. And, when will speakers learn that reading your slides word-for-word is not particularly engaging and does little to enhance learning?

Top salespeople have always built relationships, had a reliable process, and learned and listened from their customers. Successful salespeople build an active referral network and regularly win high profile deals. They don’t cold call.

What is new is the technology—which can speed up lead identification and qualification. Interesting sites are www.visiblepath.com and www.insideview.com. Then it’s up to us to pick up the phone and build a relationship. Technology will save time and thus increase productivity, but people do business with people. Period.

Sales 2.0 Conference….version 0.5

1 Nov

Well, I’m back from the Sales 2.0 conference held earlier this week in San Francisco. And now I can say that I survived an earthquake, albeit a minor one and certainly not on my to-do list. As I mentioned previously, the definition of Sales 2.0, as quoted from the website, is “…Sales 2.0 means integrating the power of Web 2.0 technologies with proven sales techniques to increase sales velocity and volume.” Conceived by genius.com, there were plenty of vendors talking the Sales 2.0 hype, from Oracle and Webex to JigSaw, Brainshark, Spoke and ZoomInfo. Some of the big names of the speaker circuit, including Moira Gunn, Geoffrey Moore and Michael Bosworth, presented their thoughts on Sales 2.0. And the turnout was quite successful as over 400 people attended the event.

So why do I call it version 0.5? Although it was well attended, the ratio of sponsors + vendors vs attendees seemed very high. I spoke with lots of people attending to learn more about the hype and to see if they’d sponsor a future event. But actual attendees? Rather few, I believe. So there’s work and socializing to see if “Sales 2.0” is a buzzword worth hyping. My opinion – yes, it is.

Interesting people I enjoyed meeting at the conference:

– Joanne Black, author of “No More Cold Calling” and fellow attendee. The ideal book to complement the Inquisix solution and vice versa.
– Katie Bruno, VP of Sales at Visible Path – we worked together at Sybase over 10 years ago and she has the same enthusiasm and energy as ever. Great to see you again!
– Jim Burns, President of Avitage – a fellow Boston entrepreneur/blogger and yet we had to meet for the first time (but surely not the last) in San Francisco.
– Razi Imam, CEO of Landslide, a sales solution designed for the sales person first and the VP second. He was genuinely surprised when the Webex keynote speaker mentioned his company’s use of Landslide to prove a point.
– Steve Burrows of Quantum, who spoke in length about the challenges of integrating two sales teams with differing cultures.

More about Sales 2.0 and my thoughts on the presentations in a future blog.

Speed Networking vs Networking While You Sleep

27 Oct

I attended a speed networking event held by a local chamber of commerce in Central Mass. They had a great turnout for a 7.30am breakfast event the morning after a late World Series game! I’d say over 200 people attended and participated in this well run event. For those of you not familiar with speed networking, it’s similar to speed dating. You sit down at a table for 10 and each of you spends a minute on a “commercial” about yourself. You exchange business cards with each other and then move to another table to sit down with a new set of people. You go to 3 tables so you’ve met a minimum of 27 new people to network with. It was a great event and I met a bunch of really nice people.

So where do we go from here? I will touch base with the people I met to trade information and maybe help each other out. But I wonder if there was any person in the 150+ group that I did not meet that would have been the perfect person for me to network with? I would have to attend 8 of these events and always sit with new people so that I could meet all the people in that room.

Inquisix is a great compliment to speed networking. What if we all put our speed-networking commercials online and let Inquisix set the seating chart? That way, we’d meet the people in the room most able to help us and vice-versa. And then Inquisix would continually monitor our commercials as new members came or current members met new people so we’d be informed of new networking opportunities. Even as we sleep.

SpeedDatingChickens

Networking vs Not Working

19 Oct

Rick Roberge, a Sales Consultant with Dave Kurlan & Associates, spoke at this week’s New England Expo and invited me to join the audience. His topic was about “…how effective networking can begin the sales process with a warm prospect and avoid cold sales calls.” A very engaging speaker, Rick spoke for about an hour about networking, how to do it and why to do it. He provided numerous examples on the power of networking by encouraging the audience to network amongst themselves.

The most important idea that I brought away from his talk is the theory of the Giver’s Gain – you network to introduce new services to your customer so that your customer will remember and value you. You don’t network to help the person you just met!

By providing new and valuable services to your customer, you move from a transaction-based sales rep to consultant to trusted advisor and finally to the go-to resource. As Rick joked, you network to become the second speed-dial on your customer’s phone after their spouse.

Rick then walked-the-talk as he and I strolled the exhibit floor together for an hour while he introduced me to his customers and colleagues. And when I left, I had 20 business cards in my pocket of people he introduced me to that wanted follow up.

And so I’ll close with the second most important idea from Rick’s talk – follow up with those introductions you just made! So I’m getting on the phone….

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