Like most of us (inside this new world) I blog since 2005, I tweet since 2007, I am LinkedIn while in private Beta (Id 8573) and where ever I blogged or commented we were all in agreement how cool and important social media is. After all - random noise. I pretty much ignored the posts and acts of the "not getters" and the ones who sneak into the groups with their new found ways to push out their message.
A flame war arose on TheCustomerCollective. It has become a heated discussion and one of the most read posts. It was ignited by another post called "Why have sales people such a bad reputation". The conversation expanded to other blogs not only in the US but in Europe. Being a "horses ass" - which one consultant called me is not the problem but I was torn between giving in in order to not hurt anybodies feelings and go with random noise - or continue the wake up call.

In the past I ignored those self centered blogs about "highly respected" sales coaches who are helping "double sales in 2009" or help young sales people to "thrive during the down economy" with most obscure methods. I didn't touch the sites, where people with just a small fee get taught all about cold calling from self crowned "Cold Call Queen". And I only smiled when I hear social media may be interesting for B2C but will not be touched in B2C for a long time as this is the field for the "real pros".

But how can enterprises embrace social media and create a better business experience for their customers, prospects, partners, suppliers and others, when the teams they have get educated to do better cold calls, do smarter advertising, improve their opening pitch, learn objection handling, and what ever else was taught in the 70's, 80's and 90's and eventually got us where we are today?

The good news is that some sales people recognize the change as they deal with their customers and actually experience the success by moving away from hard core selling to actually, as one reader wrote to me, "stopped selling and actually began helping the customer to buy". But the bad news is that those young sales people don't teach and coach and the ones who teach and coach lost the experience of selling many many years ago!

Not sure yet, what is the better way Random Noise - or Flame War.

@AxelS