Is Sales 2.0 real? Yes. Are Sales 2.0 applications actually helping salespeople to win business? Yes. There is no question about that. But we believe in numbers significantly less than some would have you believe. I expect the Sales 2.0 vendors will be all over me about this. Yes, I know they can provide compelling case studies, references and testimonials. The issue is much broader and quite serious.
Before I go any further, I want to acknowledge that there are highly effective sales enablement (Sales 2.0) apps on the market. What immediately comes to mind are those of some of the leading sales training companies: The TAS Group with their Dealmaker and TAS:Pedia (we saw an exciting demo of new releases last week) and the effective technology implementations of a number of other sales methodologies by White Springs.
ESR knows that the sales methodology and the processes upon which it is built should be the backbone of a company's sales approach. Significant research bears this out. Get that methodology thing right, provide all the support, training and coaching and get all your salespeople following it (with the requisite flexibility for differing situations, of course), and you are taking one of the most important strategic actions that determines sales success. Automate it and you're doing even better. That's what some of the leading training companies are accomplishing. They're helping companies improve sales performance by getting them to employ a process. Then they're automating the process to make salespeople more effective and efficient. It works considerably more often than not, and in the world of B2B selling, that's an accomplishment.
Here's my concern: Sales 2.0 vendors are pushing hard, claiming that their software applications will solve specific selling problems. Many of the vendors are right, but-here's the thing-if the sales leaders who are considering investing in those apps don't have their team lined up and fully compliant with the consistent execution of a sales process, with training, coaching and metrics in place, they will more likely compound the problem than fix it. That's what happened with CRM years ago. Many of us saw it promoted as a paradigm-changing fix for most sales ills. CRM's big problem, was (is?) that there was nothing in it for the salesperson, and that's why compliance was (and still is, in many cases) so low. For many companies, CRM served to make the situation worse, not better. It kept sales management from focusing on the real issues. It was a decoy!
Will sales problems get compounded with the purchase of a few cool Sales 2.0 tools? It's like my problem with sales tips. Allowing sales people to spend time seeking out and using random tips from unapproved (and sometimes incompetent) sources takes everyone's attention off the real issue-no process!-and the lack of discipline to build one and follow one. Sales 2.0 has become the new silver bullet-this year's universal elixir to solve a company's selling problems. In those cases, Sales 2.0 may provide some value, granted, but with a steep price: it becomes a distraction from what really has to be done. By the way, I spent better part of a week struggling to make the same decoy argument about the current state of social media with respect to B2B sales...
Here's an example of how a solid Sales 2.0 application can turn out to be a broken promise: There are some terrific sales analytics packages out there. But what good are analytics if a company doesn't have a documented and fully-complied with sales process? What will happen when leading indicators show a bunch of deals are slowing down? What will managers coach reps on? How they themselves won business years ago? Those managers should be coaching the rep on how the rep can better comply with the pre-established sales process-on what specific behaviors the rep must improve so they can effectively execute the process and move the deal along. We have worked with companies that have installed analytics tools and the results were precisely as I described. Lots of data, but no standard operating procedure for fixing the situation.
Another example would be Sales 2.0 lead generation tools. There are some really good, innovative ones out there. Sexy as hell. So what happens when a sales rep uses one of these and winds up with some really good prospects and the rep can't advance the sale from that point to closure because they don't have the skills, proven path, tools and support to get that done? I hope you get my point.
So here is my recommendation. If you get all charged up about a Sales 2.0 tool that you think will help your sales team sell more stuff, faster and for bigger dollars, map the application onto the backbone of your overall sales process. If you don't have a sales process, stop right there. That's what you need to do first. It's not sexy, it's not fun, it takes time, thought, focus and you'll find every excuse not to do it. But the research says it's what you have to do.
Bottom line: If you want a real boost in sales effectiveness, get your selling methodology and process built, train your people on its use and support them in their effort. Automate it all, if you like.
Then, and only then, when that's ticking nicely along, and you can measure progress, start layering in the Sales 2.0 applications that will have the biggest bang for the buck. Then you'll really get some value out of Sales 2.0.
Let me hear from you. Do you think a solid, complied-with sales process is the backbone upon which Sales 2.0 applications must be layered? Or not?
Photo credit: © Valeriy Aksak - Fotolia.com
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