Social Networking–Technology or People?

5 Nov

I attended the first-ever Corporate Social Network Design Council hosted by Visible Path on October 29th in San Francisco. The concept of social networking was explored. There are some interesting challenges, but the emergence of thousands of social networking sites proves again that people want to talk to other people. Whether they decide to share their personal contacts with their business contacts is another story.

Check out Jeremiah Owyang’s post here.

Social networks can help identify specific contacts, but once that is done, we need to build the relationship and earn the right for the referral. At the end of the day, it’s all about a referred introduction. When we get the introduction, we get the meeting. And that’s what we want.

Now it’s going to be easier and easier to develop social networks. As of November 1st, Google announced OpenSocial. In non-techie parlance, developers can now use OpenSocial to create applications that work on any social network.

Get ready for the ride!

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….

Reasons Why People Buy

12 Oct

On my office bulletin board I’ve saved an old note from the first days of my sales career that lists the reasons why people buy. I don’t know the source anymore (if you do, please tell me so I can properly give credit).

Reasons Why People Buy

To Increase
– Profit
– Satisfaction
– Confidence
– Convenience
– Pleasure

To Improve
– Customer relations
– Employee relations
– Image
– Status
– Earnings

To Protect
– Investment
– Self
– Employees
– Property
– Money

To Reduce
– Risk
– Investment
– Expenses
– Competition
– Worry
– Trouble

To Make
– Money
– Satisfied customers
– Good impressions

To Save
– Time
– Money
– Energy
– Save

I recently found the 50reasonswhy website that takes the reasons from Geoff Ayling’s “Rapid Response Advertising” and adds pictures to illustrate creative ways to sell.

What are you selling?

Referral Fees for New Business

9 Oct

Inquisix is all about sales reps getting a referral to a prospective customer in return for giving a referral to their customer. It’s really a win-win-win-win scenario as each customer has agreed they’re interested in learning about a new solution and each rep gets a warm referral to a new prospect.

But are sales reps willing to do favors? Do they make an introduction to one of their customers on behalf of another sales rep? Of course they do – it may be a “you owe me one for next time” type of favor but that’s how it works – just make sure you give as many favors as you get!

And are sales reps willing to sell their contacts? Yes, of course they are, that’s what sites like JigSaw are all about – selling your contacts in order to get new contacts. Of course it’s done anonymously as no sales rep wants a good customer to know that their info has been sold – where’s their share!?!

Another way sales reps can make money selling their contacts is via the referral fee. Many companies provide the referral fee to non-employees who help them win business with new customers in exchange for a portion of the sale.

On LinkedIn recently, a question was asked if it was ethical to offer a referral fee for generating new business. There are 7 answers (including one from me) in the affirmative from sales reps, consultants and small business owners with no dissenting replies. This is different than selling a business contact’s information anonymously, rather this is a fee earned for introducing and helping sell the solution to your customer.

Selling to Senior Management

2 Oct

Where do senior managers get their information when evaluating purchase decisions? According to eMarketer and the always informative Paul DiModica of Digital Hatch, the internet is not the first place they look. Instead, the first place they get this information is from their colleagues in other companies. And the surprising second place winner? From the sales reps calling on them. If one of your own customers can’t refer you to the new prospective customer you’re targeting, then find a sales rep who already claims them as a customer!

emarketerreferral.gif

Paul does not have blog but he publishes a weekly email newsletter. I’ve saved every one of his newsletter since I started subscribing in 2004. Thanks, Paul!

Do Unto Others

24 Sep

I find it interesting when someone else is trying to sell me, either as a consumer or executive. The shoe is on the other foot! Even as I’m concentrating on what they’re saying to me, a part of me is critiquing how well they’re selling to me, how they handle objections, how they follow through on commitments and when they try their first trial close on me. And if my wife is with me, it’s even more interesting to see them try to discern who the final decision maker is!

I’ve found that two traits serve me well as a salesperson – one is putting myself in the buyer’s shoes to understand what’s motivating them to consider this sale. (also good for effective negotiation) The other is the biblical “…do unto others as you would have them do unto you…” I would hope and expect that people selling to me would exhibit the same traits.

A recent article by John Quelch in Harvard Business Online takes this further by outlining what he considers are the five traits that make a good customer – be demanding but also respectful. Be reliable but also engaging and surprising. He summarizes by saying the customers that exhibit these traits to a vendor are higher up on the priority pecking order. I wish this was true – unfortunately it’s usually the squeaky-wheel customer or 80%-of-this-quarter’s-sales customer that gets to the top of line. But I do wish it!

Personal SFA tool – Outlook!?!

21 Sep

Outlook is the ubiquitous sales tool for sales people. Our companies may offer us salesforce.com or Siebel or Goldmine or a home grown system but Outlook (for better or worse) remains the constant. I keep my contacts, to-do’s and calendar events synchronized between the corporate SFA system, Outlook and my cell/PDA.

In Outlook, I create folders for each customer, prospect and partner. I also create folders for internal things like engineering, legal, corporate, competition. Then, as I communicate, I put the correspondence in the appropriate folder. Emails that need follow-up I mark as unread until they’re completed. Or I’ll leave those emails in my inbox until they’re complete. I can also create to-do’s easily from within contacts. All my email templates are also inside Outlook. Now how about quoting & forecasting?

Some of the additional products to consider using to enhance Outlook include –

* Mapilab offers multiple Outlook add-in’s at very reasonable prices. I especially like their ability to send bulk emails & mail merges from w/in Outlook. They have great solutions for the do-it-yourself sales rep or the small business owner.

* Many SFA systems synchronize with Outlook but only a few are part of Outlook. One of the non-Microsoft ones that comes to mind is Avidian’s Prophet – I’ve tried it but don’t use it currently.

* And for Outlook help, tips & tricks – try slipstick. This site was just recommended to me by Stephen Roy from inside LinkedIn and has already saved me hours of frustration – thanks Stephen!

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