Embracing the Future With Sales 2.0
July 14, 2008
A step-by-step overview of Sales 2.0
By David Thompson
In today's Web 2.0 world, your customer often knows almost as much about your company's products as your sales reps do.
With instant access to corporate Web sites, search and social networks, your customers have company and product information at their fingertips, which gives them much more control over the sales process than they had in the days when brochures and pricing were only available from a sales rep. Many prospective customers postpone talking with a sales rep, believing that they'll get a better deal by acquiring as much "ammunition" as possible.
To keep pace, organizations are looking to level the playing field and bring sales back into the equation. They are turning to a new set of methodologies and technologies—what we now refer to as Sales 2.0—that take advantage of the Internet to understand and connect with prospects to offer superior service. This, in the end, translates into selling more.
Sales 2.0 technologies are not new. They began with the advent of Web conferencing and on-demand CRM in the late 1990s, but have come into their own with the emergence of broadband, software-as-a-service and a range of tools for user-generated content and interaction. All of these have enabled sales organizations to leverage corporate Web sites and the Internet to shorten sales cycles and increase selling velocity. Sales 2.0 technologies enable sales professionals to better attract, interact, track and manage their customers and prospects.
As a first step, sales professionals can now use online database and networking tools to attract customers to their Web sites. Companies like Jigsaw, SaleSpider, Hoovers and Spoke provide developed lists of prospective customers, based on a variety of target criteria like company size, type, location and so on. Genius.com's SalesGenius supplies the next step—identifying those prospects who are most interested in what you're selling. SalesGenius, for instance, lets users simply e-mail prospective customers and automatically include a trackable link to the company Web site.
With products from Genius, IM, LivePerson and others, you can serve your most important customers in seconds while they are on the Web site. They get answers to their questions and the rep moves the buying process forward. And because you know who's interested, the other parties aren't bothered unnecessarily. It's what Geoffrey Moore, strategy consultant and best-selling author of Crossing the Chasm, calls the "Light Touch, Right Touch" method of Sales 2.0 selling.
Armed with instant insight about which prospects are most interested, sales reps can then use other Sales 2.0 solutions to speed up the sales cycle. Web conferencing solutions like WebEx Sales Center or rich media presentations from Brainshark enable them to quickly reach out to the most interested prospects with tailored and powerful communications.
Once the contact has been made, all of this information can be retained in CRM solutions from salesforce.com, SugarCRM, Oracle and others, so the rep can track his or her pipeline activity, its recent developments, history and actions.
Technologies are also in place to help reps close the sale and encourage customer loyalty, leading to future purchases. Sales can make use of products like Nsite and EchoSign that provide online contract and approval management.
After the sale, online communities (powered by companies like Lithium and LucidEra) are taking the best of social networking and making it available for enterprises. Companies can attain product feedback, generate grassroots ideas and foster collaboration to close the loop with their customers once the purchase has been made. And because the Web enables metrics, you can measure it all to gauge your success from initial click, through pipeline stage, to conversion and close.
Sales 2.0 technologies are delivering instant information that build relationships and enable sales to be more efficient, more cost-effective and more productive than the old Willie Loman-style of selling. Just as the Internet allowed buyers to literally let their fingers do the walking, these new Sales 2.0 technologies are allowing the customer's online behavior to dictate the communication—before sales does the talking.
And it's a change that is paying off for both parties. Reps are learning about and adapting to customers' buying behaviors, in turn helping customers buy the right products to meet their needs.
David Thompson is the CEO of Genius.com.
Sales & Marketing Management Magazine
This article is brought to you by Sales & Marketing Management, the leading authority for executives in the sales and marketing field.
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