United Flight 173 from Boston to San Francisco

I am a flying advertisement for Sony Vaio notebooks as I'm stuffed into seat 21F. Any larger notebook and I couldn't open and work in the cramped corners with the seat in front of me reclined in my lap.

I'm heading to the Sales 2.0 conference and customer meetings. This is the first conference that begins to address the ideas and vision that have driven my professional life, in over 12 years with my current business, and 20 years working with multimedia in business communications.

I call my longstanding vision "Web Assisted Selling".

Web Assisted Selling is a strategy to use web delivery methods and multimedia communications to transform the way we engage customers and deliver our ideas and value messages. It is a critical capability in my quest to create value for customers through the sales conversations we conduct.

I believe Web Assisted Selling can provide a significant competitive advantage. But, like many new technologies, we need a new paradigm to apply it correctly in order to realize its full potential.

Four Components to the Strategy

Simply stated, there are four key components to a Web Assisted Selling strategy:

1. A central library of pre-produced multimedia modules and related elements (audio, documents, coaching notes, URL links), with an online assembly capability;
2. On demand delivery, and support for all vehicles such as PowerPoint, streaming audio-graphic programs, audio podcasts, and portals;
3. Live delivery support for web meetings;
4. Programmatic support that executes this vision as a well defined program, managed for continuous improvement of content, training, user support, and the overall process.

Disclaimer: I consider this to be an important generic idea. But it is the vision that drives my company. We have produced a 3 minute multimedia vignette that introduces this idea, and a 12 minute program that explains our approach in greater detail (there is registration required for the latter program).

Applications for Web Assisted Selling

There are many applications enabled by this strategy, they fall into three primary categories:

Prepare:

A central messaging and multimedia library that leverages PowerPoint, audio, Flash animation and video with links to associated documents, traing content and sales tools extends the typical training activities into "just-in-time coaching".

This helps sales people remediate learning lessons for complex and important ideas that need to be heard (role of audio) many times before they are internalized. It embeds sales coaching right into the sales workflow. In this, the appropriate materials show up when people need them. Short "overnight expert" audio graphic programs help sales people prepare for the "advisor" role of "trusted advisor".

Engage:

Web Assisted Selling improves the quality of visual support, which in turn improves sales conversations.

Mutlimedia programs become sales tools as "buddy-in-a-box" programs that help sales deliver complex or important messages. These programs help deliver messages in the proper "voice" -- the voice of the expert. Sometimes this is a technical voice, or that of an analyst, customer, or company executive.

Deliver:

Most sales conversations do not take place in real time, in person. Most are conducted over the telephone, or through self-viewing vechicles such as email, web sites, or documents. An important "vehicle" in the complex sale is third party individuals who deliver messages when sale professionals are not even present.

Web Assisted Selling improves the quality of these conversations by leveraging media to deliver with great impact, motivation, accuracy and (hopefully) convenience.

Sales professionals need to align the delivery method to the preference of the customer. Today, there are many more methods available than just a few years ago.

Given the way I sell and work with customers, I don't fly nearly as much as I used to. And, if you've driven in Boston lately, you know that's not an efficient use of time either. Nothing can replace the value of in person meetings. But the cost of these meetings -- direct and opportunity -- is so high. Every flying experience re-motivates me to take our proficiency with these ideas to a higher level.

Sales organizations that master this strategy will have a competitive advantage in the way they engage and communicate with customers. They will also lower selling costs.