What Does Sales 2.0 Mean for You?

By now, you’ve probably heard the term Sales 2.0, but do you know what it is? And more importantly, do you know its implications for your sales organization? Those are just a couple of the issues examined by Sales Performance International (SPI) in a recent Webinar called, "Sales 2.0 Meets Solution Selling: Framing a New Architecture for World-Class Selling." In the briefing, Tim Sullivan, SPI’s director of intellectual property and innovation, made clear that organizations that are not engaging with the Sales 2.0 phenomenon are going to get left behind. That’s because it’s not a fad, but rather a paradigm shift in the way companies are buying and selling.

Many people believe Web 2.0, which is the driver of Sales 2.0, is about social networking, but it goes far beyond that. It’s about looking at the Web in a whole new way that makes it possible to communicate more effectively, says Sullivan. It’s about the Web and all its connected devices as one global platform of reusable services and data; it’s about data consumption and remixing from all sources, particularly user-generated data; above all, it’s an architecture of participation. Sales 2.0 is a rethinking of how we can interact with customers and ultimately conduct business in this new environment. It has six key implications for sales:

1. Buying patterns are changing. Today, 80 percent of customers find you first, says Sullivan. They’re checking the Internet, researching their options, looking at alternatives, and by the time they first talk to you, they already have extensive knowledge of your company, your products, and your competitors. If you’re a seller, you’re hard-pressed to keep pace with the amount of information buyers bring to the table today. The result is a continual alignment of selling and buying processes.
2. Insightful technology enablement. Countless vendors have rushed to claim Sales 2.0 capability, says Sullivan. Vendors like LinkedIn, Jigsaw, SugarCRM, TypePad, Skype, Spoke, Leads.com and many others have staked a claim in this territory. And while many of them do have value, you can’t assimilate them all and you can’t do everything at once. There are two important questions to ask here. First, how can technologies accelerate the sales process? Many of them help early in the process with getting connections, getting leads, etc. Second, where does technology fit into the sales architecture? Technology requires you to think more carefully about your sales architecture so you can plug these capabilities in and they will be helpful, not detrimental.
3. Knowledge is the new imperative. Sellers must be well armed "knowledge warriors" so they can be at least where the customer is from a knowledge perspective. "If a customer thinks they’re educating you, you’re dead," says Sullivan. Reps must have fluency about their solutions and how they apply to customer situations, and in today’s 24/7 environment, they’ve got to be constantly prepared to deal with individual customers.
4. Marketing and sales blur. Marketing and sales functions are blurring together. Sullivan offers the example of Google, which now offers location-specific marketing. They know where you are, what you like, what you don’t like – and that’s starting to overlap with the kind of information that sales reps traditionally sought. Sales and marketing must get closer conversationally to tackle individual issues and problems.
5. Management systems must adapt. As buyer behavior changes and sales behavior changes, managers must change, too. For instance, managers should be using dashboards to monitor and track sales rep behavior. "If you can’t understand these technologies so you can manage your people effectively in this environment," says Sullivan, "you’re going to be at a disadvantage."
6. The network effect. It is critical your reps understand the evolving communities of participation. The ability to collaborate anytime, anywhere on the globe to provide solutions to prospects and customers is changing the entire sales dynamic. Sales leaders must assess and prioritize how collaboration benefits and intersects with their business model.

In the end, there’s only one way to truly get your arms around Sales 2.0 and its implications for your sales organization and that’s to dive into it with both feet. "You’ve got to engage to learn and understand [Sales 2.0]," says Sullivan. "You can’t sit on the sidelines until someone else figures it out. You’ve got to be part of the discovery process."

To access the full briefing, visit www.spisales.com.