BUSINESS TIPS: Five Sales 2.0 Tools that Drive Results

Re-produced from the original article by Jeremy Miller, please find below a set of useful tips for leveraging web 2.0 innovations and tools in your sales process.

Five Sales 2.0 Tools that Drive Results

For much of the 20th century the typical sales process has involved objection-handling and closing tactics. In the 1980’s solution selling, a process of developing win-win customer relationships, redefined business-to-business selling. Solution selling offered a way for sales people to move beyond pushy tactics to consultative strategies.Now, solution selling is fading in relevancy as the tools of Web 2.0 allow customers to review products and share product information online. This paradigm creates well-educated buyers, who are sometimes better informed than the product’s salespeople.


Sales 2.0 Defined
Sales 2.0 uses the tools of Web 2.0 to drive people to your products. Specifically, sales 2.0 drives sales from any and all of these avenues: a company Website, Webinars, viral marketing, online product demos, product reviews, blogs, SMS messaging, discussion boards, videos, deal sites, organic search engine listing, and paid search engine listings. Because interested customers come to you, traditional sales activities such as cold-calling and in person meetings are no longer an effective use of resources.

A buyer who finds you on Google is often a far better prospect than a company you cold call. When someone engages you from your Website they have already initiated a relationship with your firm, formed an opinion and are receptive to entering into a sales dialogue. You face none of the buyer resistance that comes with cold calling.

Sales 2.0 requires a new methodology for sales departments. Rather than a salesperson originating a sale, they now help complete a sale. Within the Sales 2.0 framework, a sales department manages the buying process online, develops meaningful customer experiences, and allows customers to engage your salespeople at the time of their choosing.


Five Sales 2.0 Tools You Should Know About
Using new sales tools creates efficiencies throughout your sales process. Here are five examples of new sales tools:

Webinars: WebEx, Placeware and other online conferencing tools enable a sales force to conduct demonstrations virtually with customers who want more detailed information about a product. The customer gains immediate gratification by seeing how the product works, and they quickly educate themselves on its benefits. The seller also benefits by reducing certain costs such as the time and money incurred from traveling for face-to-face meeting.

Videos: Posting clever videos of your product on your own site as well as video hosting sites such as YouTube, offers your product tremendous exposure at a low cost. For example, BlendTec, a blender maker, turned to videos to prove how powerful and durable their blenders are. In their “Will it Blend?” series, they blend golf balls, alarm clocks, iPhones and many other items you would never put into a blender. These videos have become online hits, attracting media attention, as well as driving a 700 percent increase in sales.

Blogs: Companies typically use two types of blogs, one where employees can post videos or write about the design, features or progress of a product, and another where customers can offer feedback and recommendations for products or services. Blogs serve to enhance your online visibility, establish expertise, create brand loyalty, increase top-of-mind awareness and influence the public conversation about your company. Recently Starbucks launched the blog site mystarbucksidea.com where customers can make suggestions for new products (such as ice cubes made of coffee so iced-drinks don’t get diluted). Other customers can vote on or discuss the ideas. Customers who feel engaged and acknowledged become loyal customers.

Search Marketing: Search marketing is one of the most powerful ways to get prospects to find you on the Web. By leveraging the power of Google and Yahoo, customers will find you. There are two types of search marketing: paid key words and organic search.Organic search marketing focuses on fine-tuning the content and structure of your website so that it comes up first in search results. This is known as search engine optimization (SEO). The key to SEO is clear categorization. Users don’t type in unique value propositions to find what they are looking for; they type in categories and criteria. For example, if you are looking for a sales recruiter in Toronto you may type “Sales Recruiter Toronto.” LEAPJob has conducted SEO on their site so they come up first, which is delivering them two to five new customers per week.Companies can further increase their exposure by purchasing key words to get top-of-page results – Google calls this service AdWords. AdWords are highly effective for getting clear search results when you can’t achieve your organic listing goals, or when you want to run targeted campaigns. They allow companies to control their advertising budgets, and to promote pages, services or campaigns in a targeted fashion. It’s often money well spent.

Publicity and Social Proof: Leveraging the media can be an effective tool for generating leads, but in a Sales 2.0 context, it’s all about credibility. Consumers are inundated by marketers and advertisers so much that they begin to tune the messages out. Buyers are cynical of case studies and testimonials on companies’ websites. They want social proof instead. Social proof occurs when consumers rate, review or discuss your product online in review or blog sites, or when the press creates a story. Being quoted in major media outlets is powerful, because it says that a trusted source views your company as reputable. A media or unbiased consumer review creates a connection that helps prospective customers get beyond the hype, and listen to what your company has to say. The above listed tools drive sales, but also require a clear sales process that serves the customer’s buying experience. Shifting into Sales 2.0 takes a real commitment to understanding your customers, and to developing a sales process that meets the needs of their buying habits.Sales 2.0 is a long-term strategy. If you can embrace your customers and develop an organization tuned to their needs, you can build a powerful sales engine that outstrips the solution selling approach. If you think Sales 2.0 tools are not applicable to your business, think one more time about how your customers want to engage with your company online in a meaningful way. The companies that deliver on those expectations will be handsomely rewarded for it.

Jeremy Miller is a partner with LEAPJob, a sales recruiting firm in Toronto, Canada. LEAPJob recruits sales professionals and sales leaders for many of Canada's most recognized companies. Their clients range from the Top 50 Employers to smaller organizations building their first sales force. For more information on LEAPJob please visit http://www.LEAPJob.com.

BUSINESS TIPS: Managing your business through challenging times

Some useful thoughts and reminders on what makes a productive sales force and how to focus your team through the challenging economic climate. Re-produced for the original article by Frank Furness. For the original, please view the post here.

Managing your business through challenging times

Right now most businesses and individuals are faced with challenging times. Every Television station, radio station and newspaper is reporting on the doom and gloom (how is it that they rarely report good news) and the more people hear it, the more they believe it. The good news is that everyone has a choice. Here are my strategies to manage your business through challenging times.

Cutting or apportioning costs - is there anywhere where costs can be cut that will have little detrimental effect on the business. Now is the time to take a good look at the balance sheet and staff and see who and what is giving the company the best returns and who and what are not, and then making some difficult but effective decisions.

Culling time wasters – we all know the Pareto principle, that 80% of your profits come from 20% of your clients. Every organisation has those wonderful 20% of clients who are great to deal with, always pay on time and will stay loyal through challenging times. These clients are pure gold! How well do you look after them and how many referrals do you ask for from them?

Here is an effective exercise – write down the names of your top ten clients and then write down ten things you know about each of these clients. Get everyone at your company to do the same thing and you might be surprised at how little they know about your top clients. How do they like to be communicated with (email, phone or face to face), how often do they like to be contacted, what are their prime motivators in doing business with you, who are their top clients (and plenty more).

This is the time to really take care of these top clients, make them feel special and let them know that you appreciate their business.

Next you have your 60% of clients who will stay with you if you look after them, but could just as easily move somewhere else if they feel neglected. Right now is the time to keep in touch and ensure that all your staff really takes care of these ‘steady eddy’ clients.

Eight percent of your problems, headaches and unpaid accounts will come from your bottom 20% of your clients. They will give you eighty percent of your hassles.Do you have a client that when you see a message from them or an email, you immediately tense up because you know it is going to be bad news. Now is the time to rid yourself of these clients and concentrate on your top twenty who will easily replace the business with no headaches and you will sleep easier.

The best decision I ever made was to stop working with two organisations that had given me a fair amount of work over the years, but more stress and hassles than you can imagine. Every time they booked me for a talk or training it would be a huge fee negotiation and then having to wait to get paid. I easily replaced them with clients that I enjoy working with.

Develop a 10 touch plan – how many times a year do you stay in contact with your clients, remember out of sight is out of mind. If you are not visible, your competition will be!The easiest way is to have an effective newsletter or ezine.

Sharpen your sales skills – right now is the time you should be sharpening the skills of all your sales people. This is not the time to cut costs on sales training, but rather the time to invest in your sales people and make sure that their skills are sharp and they will be bringing in the sales that will see you through the challenging times.

Upsell and cross sell – McDonalds are masters of this. By asking one simple question – ‘do you want to go large’ they upsell most of their customers. Are you doing the same with your customers?

Increase your marketing efforts – this is the time you cannot sit back and wait for the clients to call. You need to up your marketing efforts dramatically. Here are some ideas you can use:Create an awareness of your company:

• Sponsor a local sports team
• Sponsor local industry awards – donate a trophy for the best new business in your area with your local chamber of commerce. When the award is given, you will get great free publicity and be featured in your local newspapersLet people know exactly what you do
• Create brochures or marketing materials that are client focused and not ‘you’ focused.
• See your website as a sales and marketing vehicle. Ensure you have the right sales copy, your website is search engine optimised and you know the exact statistics of your traffic. If you need assistance in this area, please contact me for consulting that will have your website driving traffic and sales.
• Newsletter – let your clients know exactly what you do in your newsletter
• Provide ‘subject matter’ expert articles in clients trade press. Let your clients know that you can do it better than your competition
• Speaking as subject matter experts at industry conferences
• Speaking at individual client conferences and meetingsTaking actionMore face to face meetings and pitches than ever before with well qualified prospects.

Set Goals and stay motivated – now is the time more than ever to set your goals and stay motivated. Avoid all the negative press and people and reward yourself for your achievements.

Opt out of the recession – we all have a choice, mine is to opt out of the recession and concentrate on areas of my business that are profitable.