The Biggest Question About Sales 2.0
Doyle Slayton | Dec 20, 2009 | Comments 20
Reader Q & A:
Is Sales 2.0 really about sales?
Sales 2.0 has been one of the big buzz words throughout 2009. What do you think… is Sales 2.0 really about sales… or… is it about something else? I look forward to your responses!
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Filed Under: Blog • Fun-n-Stuff • Reader Questions • Sales
Ah! Sales and Social Media now you’ve done it, mix an anti-social process (Sales) with a wholly social product.
Here’s my problem B2B sales is VERY tough using the SM concept, why you ask, well here is my take on it – in B2B PRODUCT sales, my customers are not here! I think we should all stick with it since eventually people will be. (Look how flooded LinkedIn became this past year. When people have a need they reach out!)
On the other hand, if I am selling seminars, books, and other “Thought-ware” Social media is PERFECT! But, you can’t effectively “pushy” sell here, it’s a buyers market and they are savvy, they smell a salesperson in two bits! (that’s less than a second!) You must be ready for a long selling cycle since social media revolves around helping people, yes helping people find you, but helping them in other ways as well! Treat them to information in your industry, or more importantly in their industry (showing them you understand it and are able to help them today AND tomorrow AND next week…)
Building this level of trust, commitment and engagement takes a LONG time and a lot of patience!
Now, can you get a sale tomorrow in Sales 2.0? ABSOLUTELY! Push you product to enough people and someone is bound to “Bite.” (I suggest if you are selling that way you won’t be in the job long…)
My humble opinion; that is not how this new tool works!
Remember being pushy DOES NOT work, unless you push this way:
Prepare, Understand, Share and Harvest (C)
I respectfully recommend reading: The Hard Truth About Soft-Selling: Restoring Pride and Purpose to the Sales Profession by George W. Dudley and John F. Tanner
TS
Thanks for the tip, Tibor. I just finished reading the book you recommended The Hard Truth About Soft Selling. Wow! It opened my eyes about the selling profession. The book uncovered some of the deep assumptions sales professionals make behind the issues raised in this discussion. What is sales supposed to really be? Why are sales professionals usually on the defensive about being in sales? How did we get this way? Who says so? A little book written by ivory tower types cleared away the rubbish and reminded me how to be proud again to in sales. Thanks for the tip.
Thom
I agree with the sentiment in Hank’s comment.
Using Social Media sites to increase B2B product and services sales other than seminars, books and consulting services has inherent restrictions – 1. businesses (and more specifically the “buyers” in those businesses) may not be part of the SM audience (yet); 2 people join SM sites when they have a need to reach out.
Sales 2.0, to me, is simply another company in a long line of sales training company’s (or in the past a line of sales training books – SPIN Selling, Secrets of Top-Performing Salespeople; Strategic Selling etc.) with the added dimension of attempting to incorporate new web based tools into their solution.
The Sales 2.0 story has a familiar sound a person new to sales finds that its harder to succeed than they thought, with no training, so turned to reading books on selling techniques – found confusion so decided to come up with his own sales process – Sales 2.0. see also – The End of Solution-Based Selling – Jeff Thull, http://www.sandhill.com , Nov 16th, 2006
There not much left to write about the art, skills, or techniques to be used in selling. The trick is gaining the training and being able to adapt to any given situation. New books or new systems need to create the illusion of being new or incorporating some process that has never been described before in order to sell themselves.
I believe that SM like LinkedIn are being polluted by the Sales 2.0 approach. I now have to wade through sales pitches for MLM’s, green products, people selling webinars on this subject or that, etc. etc. when I just want to talk to others about their thoughts on a subject or gain something from someone else’s experience.
Sales 2.0 is about sales – the sale of Sales 2.0 services – consulting, lead generation, and training
Doyle – I’m sorry but my opine on “Whatever-it-is 2.0” is probably counter to the social media folks who like to pin labels on things … but we have been doing that for centuries with a what’s old is new process anyhow. We are continuously improving the way we do things with tools that help us keep up with a world that creates 8 times the data contained in all libraries daily. Should it really be Sales 3.0 or 24.0 or whatever? When Contact Management came out in the late 1980’s that could have been Sales x.0 or when online CRM came out xx.0, or now the growth of SE – Sales Enablement. I think a key driver of any “Whatever-it-is 2.0” is that we approach our daily effort with eyes wide open to new and better ways and tools to do our tasks and then use them in our own way to build success.
Doyle,
I think you can absolutely sell products or services uses social media if you establish trust first. I have sold copies of my new ebook by using social media alone (Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn). I am really close to helping to get a deal inked for logistics services as a result of using social media (LinkedIn).
Social media is still relatively new. Many of the prospects I need to reach are not using social media just yet. However, I would encourage any salesperson to consider adding it to the mix of other things that work to get new business. What I see working today is cold calling, networking, getting referrals, using your website to capture leads, joining associations to sell, smart e-mail marketing, and traditional marketing. You gotta do what works and what your budget allows.
Regarding social media, I highly recommend reading “Crush It” by Gary Vaynerchuck.
Thanks for the referral on the Gary Vaynerchuk book; wine library is one of my favourite sites to check out for wine reviews.
Emanuel,
What was your “Take-away from Gary’s book?
I am fortunate enough to be part of a group seeing him speak January 6th here in Greenville SC (I will probably even get signed copy of his book!) but I haven’t purchased on yet…
Here’s the review I wrote Hank:
Gary Vaynerchuk knows social media like nobody’s business. Twitter. YouTube. Facebook. You name it, and he has used it to take his family’s wine business from a $4 million company to a $60 million empire. His new book “Crush It” tells the story of this immigrant’s journey, his road to success, and how he used online marketing to realize the American dream.
So what exactly does it mean to crush it? It’s a term used to plan your dream and surpass all expectations by harnessing the power of the Internet to market and sell it. Vaynerchuk gives tactical instructions on how to use tools like blogs, Flip Cams, and Twitter to build your brand. The author also shares his experience with traditional advertising versus social media. For example he writes:
“In December 2008, I spent $7500 to offer free shipping codes for Winelibrary.com via three marketing/advertising channels—a perfectly placed billboard on the New Jersey Turnpike, direct mail, and radio. The billboard brought in a hundred and seventy orders. The radio campaign did about two hundred and forty orders. Through direct mail we got a little over three hundred. I Twittered out—for free—a free shipping code and got seventeen hundred orders in forty-eight hours.”
Vaynerchuk is no hype man though. He readily admits that it takes hard work, sleepless nights, and patience to build your online brand. For some adapters in could take months to years to build an audience, get them to trust that you care about them, and convert them to buyers. His realistic take on building your brand is refreshing.
There is a downside though. Readers who may want to take their business from scratch should not assume that they will create a $60 million dollar company. Not everyone gets a $4 million dollar start. Also, we should keep in mind that the dotcom folks were preaching some of the same things regarding the end of traditional media and the beginning of something new and wonderful before the dotcom bubble burst and the NASDAQ crashed. In today’s economy, adapters need more proof that if you build it and they will come.
All in all, if you care about the future of marketing, selling, or becoming an entrepreneur, you will love this book. Vaynerchuk is personal, humorous, and speaks from personal experiences. His teachings are all you really need to master leveraging social media to your advantage.
Great comments above. I have three thoughts about the subject.
One, although I am a proponent of social media, not everybody needs to do more than have a website (Most should, but not everybody.)
Two, effective social media use is about becoming a part of the conversation. Like any conversation, if you just push your own products or services rather than contribute, people will never listen.
Three, social media will not work for most people for the same reasons that most will fail in sales anyway. They don’t have a strategy to guide their activity. They won’t give it enough time. They won’t be disciplined about it.
It is just like networking. It takes time to get known and it takes time to build a following of people who trust you enough to buy from you and to recommend you to others.
One final thought, everyone who has commented thus far is part of the social media conversation. Google your name and your comments will come up. You have enhanced your findability. You have also enhanced your credibility with those who like what you wrote. Do enough, and you may get some leads.
Your buyers do not have to be “social media users”. All they need to do is use Google and your SM activities will help them find YOU.
Sales 2.0 is about sales AND a lot about marketing too IMHO.
Thanks Pekka. I didn’t realize search engine optimization was part of Sales 2.0.
Sales 2.0 and Social Media have everything to do with sales.
It really depends on the stage of the sales funnel to determine what Sales 2.0 tool, process or social networking tool will be the biggest benefit. It also greatly depends on the industry and type of sales you are in.
It won’t be long until Sales 2.0 processes, technology and social media are staples of the sales profession. It really is a matter of creativity and drive to figure out the best ways to use these tools to gain a competitive advantage.
Social comments and analytics for this post…
This post was mentioned on Twitter by SFsalesjobshoot: The Biggest Question About Sales 2.0 http://bit.ly/6Efr9w #news #sales…
I think the other important point I’m picking up on, regarding the B2B product sales point, is that where your offering really is a commodity/utility, the maximum interest you can generate from buyers and prospects will probably be price. The expectation being that all such suppliers will of course offer “award-winning customer service”.
But where, in fact, your product is better seen and purchased as part of the solution to a problem, it is the prospects and buyers “problems” that you seek out, and try to discuss and share and improve upon. Now, if that’s “how to drill for oil in a mile deep rough sea”, you might not find too many places online where that’s being discussed (don’t know though – I haven’t looked and if the web is full of one thing, it’s surprises!). But as we move back down the spectrum from “monster, one-off” B2B products to more everyday items, I’m pretty sure you’ll find that most buyers and prospects are having some kind of conversation, or seeking similar guidance, searches, whatever, based around those issues. Not to mention that you can anyway be the instigator of those self-same discussion areas, in whatever “trade press/media” area is appropriate.
Regards and Seasons Greeting to all – Neil
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As the principal of four person recruiting firm, I am considering the investment in Hubspot to be more effective with Social Media and better leverage my blog activity.
However, after reading the above comments, I am wondering if B2B phone prospecting will become less popular, more unique, and better received. Let everyone esle BLOG and Web 2.0, perhaps creative-warm-sincere phone prospecting will best help http://www.xtraeffort.com stand out from the clutter!
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Super blog you’ve got here. Will keep coming reading these good articles you are going to write. Maybe you want to check out the commodity brokerage website.
I believe diferrent because my friends and family use another brand name.It’s relaxing and i love it’s very much.But next drill driver I may think of this as drill driver stuffs which you present.Thank!!!