Sales Tools

Sales 2.0 Thoughts with Craig Klein – CEO of SalesNexus

clevitt — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 17:03:31 +0000

This is my second interview with Craig Klein, CEO of SalesNexus and thought leader in the Sales 2.0 space. In this interview Craig talks about what’s exciting him these days, the trend of social media intelligence in CRM’s, and if there is really a difference between a warm call and cold call. And for the Twitter fans out there, he also takes a stab at describing his company in 140 words or less.

Let’s hit it!

Chad: We are halfway through 2010, how has the first half of the year been for SalesNexus? What has been the most surprising development of the year so far?

Craig: 2010 will be our best year yet! Interest in our web based CRM built for sales teams is growing. As for surprises, it has to be the explosion in startups that we’re working with. I guess it’s expected – many folks laid off in the last couple years are striking out on their own but, the volume of startups we’re hearing from is truly amazing. I love it. Entrepreneurs are special people!

Chad: Sales 2.0 East was just held in Boston, what are some of the Sales 2.0 tools or processes that are driving incremental revenue change or increases in efficiency for SalesNexus?

Craig: Web Lead Automation! A sales person’s dream is to have a never ending stream of new leads to sell to. No cold calling, networking, etc. Interested customers calling you! Connecting your website to your web based CRM and ensuring you have good tracking of how leads are finding your site and help you increase website traffic and leads and make selling a lot more fun!

Chad: In your own words can you hash out what you see as the major differences between Sales 1.0 and Sales 2.0. Why do all organizations and sales minded folks need to pay attention?

Craig: To me, Sales 2.0 is about the way sales people see their role in business. Sales 2.0 is being a trusted advisor to everyone you come into contact with and using technology to automate and focus your time on customers and opportunities where you can add the most value.

Chad: What are your thoughts on social media intelligence and bringing data from Linkedin, Facebook, and Twitter to the sales rep through CRM systems?

Craig: I continue to be amazed at the creative ways that sales people find to use social media sites to network, prospect and build relationships. We’ve found that in certain industries, tracking your customers’ profiles in Facebook or LinkedIn is vital. In other industries it’s seen as a time waster. For us, it should be an option that can be enabled. Each business or sales person has to determine if a large portion of their market is using these sites and if so, it’s a no-brainer to have profiles and updates appear in your web based CRM!

Chad: Do you believe there is a real difference between a cold call and warm call? Isn’t still a cold call if the person is not expecting your call?

Craig: I see companies use email marketing and social media networking to make contact with people and warm up the relationship. If they connect with someone online and then call them, that’s not really a cold call to me. I also see a lot of people combining email marketing and cold calling to great effect.

Chad: We did a post about a year ago, and I’m certain there’s been a ton of change with SalesNexus. What’s new and exciting on your end?

Craig: In July of 2010, we’ll release the most significant update since the introduction of SalesNexus. Our web based CRM solution has an updated and streamlined interface for easier, faster navigation and robust email marketing capabilities including tracking of opens and clicks and triggering sales alerts and campaigns. SalesNexus is now both a web based CRM and a complete email marketing solution, all in one.

Chad: What is the most over-hyped aspect of this Sales 2.0 mania going on? The most overlooked?

Craig: Well, I think people think a new piece of software can drastically change their sales game on its own. Sales 2.0 is about changing the relationship with your customers to one of helping them get what they need, period. To do that effectively and profitably, you have to leverage technology to automate tasks that are repetitive and about educating the customer. Most people overlook the underlying principal that all this automation should give the sales person more time to listen to the customer’s needs, which is mostly about opening your ears, not your computer.

Chad: And for the Twitter bugs out there – can you describe SalesNexus in 140 characters or less?

Craig: More Leads, More Sales and Less Work – Web Based CRM and Email Marketing a 10 person sales team tailor to their unique way of doing business.

Chad: What are some awesome resources you recommend our awesome readers and subscribers check out?

Craig: Well, I’ve got to tell you about a great opportunity for sales teams to get some incredible exposure AND learn to sell at the highest levels. The Great American Sales Challenge will be airing on CNBC and their recruiting sales teams to be part of the show! Check it out here – The Great American Sales Challenge.

Chad: As always, it was a blast Craig, great stuff!

For the first interview with Craig Klein click here.

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Sales Productivity Decline: Why did 50% of Sales Reps Miss their Number?

clevitt — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 12:03:14 +0000

Here is a massively interesting and alarming sales statistic.

In 2009 only 50% of sales reps achieved their quota. This number is down from 64% quota attainment in 2008 and 67% quota attainment in 2007. The data was taken from the Bridge Group’s 2010 inside sales metrics survey, and raises many questions for sales organizations. Further, the survey indicates that since 2007 quotas have risen by 33%, while less reps are hitting quota.

That is a bloody mess for any sales organization and it begs some questions to be asked.

Here are a few that come to mind:

1.) Why are quotas going up while quota attainment is going down?
2.) Why is quota attainment going down?
3.) Why are quotas going up?
4.) Is there a disconnect between sales management and front line sales reps?
5.) Is the proper training being provided to sales reps?
6.) Is this a cyclical trend in the data or a secular shift in the way customers buy?
7.) How much of this trend is related to the 2009 recession?
8.) Do you have a repeatable and measurable sales process?
9.) Can you pilot changes in the sales process to increase rep quota attainment?

More then a few mind benders in that list, but they need to be put on the table and discussed if any organization is going to see an improvement in rep quota attainment. Many organizations will ignore the data, turn into an ostrich, and steak their heads in the sand. Don’t be an ostrich — it is not the solution.

The solutions start in getting feedback about your sales process (if you don’t have a sales process, start there.) Next, try surveying the sales organization so you can have both qualitative and quantitative data (from your CRM system and dashboards) about areas to improve or keep the same. Don’t be afraid to speak with the reps that are performing and the one’s that are not — really listen. You will begin to notice patterns — promote the good one’s, eliminate the bad one’s, keep experimenting, and you will find the answers to improving.

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Inside Sales Metrics Research Report: The Data Fueling Inside Sales

clevitt — Fri, 13 Aug 2010 00:07:04 +0000

The awesome crew over at The Bridge Group just released their 2010 Inside Sales Compensation and Metrics Report (it is an absolute must read). The report is chock full of great data, visualizations, and commentary that really shows some interesting and surprising trends within inside sales organizations. The B2B sales battlefield is changing and the report shows you exactly where the changes are happening so you can adapt your offensive.

Topics covered in the 2010 Inside Sales Compensation and Metrics Report:

Group Reporting Structure
Rep Activity Metrics
Revenue Contribution
Inside Sales Rep Compensation
Management Compensation

To download the 2010 Inside Sales Research Report click here.

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How Business Blogging Turns Interest Into Qualified Leads

clevitt — Mon, 09 Aug 2010 23:43:59 +0000

Creating interesting content through blogging is one of the best ways to generate inbound qualified leads for the sales organization. The HubSpot blog (I’m a HubSpotter) published a great guest post on the 3 Ways to Turn Your Company Into a Blogging Machine. It is must read stuff for marketing and sales organizations.

Excerpt:

“Many companies think of blogging as adding a bolt onto an existing machine. In reality, the companies that are successful at blogging inspire a blogging culture throughout the organization. To do this, your business needs to become a blogging machine.”

Keep in mind that success is measured in an increase in qualified leads and opportunities, more top line revenue, a lower cost per lead, and a lower cost of customer acquisition.

The end result of successful business blogging is increased profitability and brand awareness. That is why you need to be business blogging yesterday.

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The B2B Sales Profession is Changing – 3 Fundamental Shifts

clevitt — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 01:28:44 +0000

Here are the slides via slideshare from the webinar: What the Heck Happened to the Sales Profession I Love, that Trish Bertuzzi and I presented. We talked about how 3 fundamental shifts are reshaping the sales profession and the effect it will have on sales organizations.

What the Heck Happened to the Sales Profession I Love?!

View more presentations from The Bridge Group, Inc..

To watch the archived webinar please click here.

Stay tuned for more as Trish and I announced on the webinar that we are publishing a book on how sales executives, sales managers, and sales reps can stay relevant amidst all the changes happening in the sales profession.

To subscribe to the New Sales Economy blog click here.

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B2B Sales Teams – The 3 Personalities of Sales People

clevitt — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 13:26:39 +0000

Guest post by Darion Miller and Steve Teneriello from the Service Coach blog

Generally speaking, sales people fall into three distinct categories based on personality. Let’s talk about each one. (You’ll probably identity some of the members of your organization right away.)

The Technical Educator (TE) – TE’s rely heavily on educating the prospect through a lengthy and technical demonstration of the solution or product they are trying to sell – making sure to demonstrate each and every feature and function. Through this long process they may actually stumble upon the buyer‟s vision of a solution and magically close a deal after boring a prospect to death.

The Technical Educator isn’t really comfortable with sales. TE’s generally feel that asking for business is wrong. They hope that by providing information, a prospect will ask them to make a service appointment. As a result, technical educators can spend four hours on what an all-star could accomplish in sixty minutes or less. The bottom-line with a sales person who has a TE personality profile is that they are not producing at a high level. They invest too much time for too small a return on the investment.

The Bulldozer - You know the stigma “Snake oil salesman”. This is what may come to your mind as we explore the bulldozer personality trait. Bulldozers use trickery and trumped up discounting to make a deal. They masnake oil salesmany skip sales appointments because they may have a predetermined bias of a customer;s location or income level. If you’re familiar with the movie Tin Men, you have seen bulldozers in action. The film stars Richard Dreyfus and Danny Devito as aluminum siding salesmen in the 1960‟s, a time when the product was first being introduced to the public. To great comic effect, the two men are willing to stoop to any level to outsell one another. In one scene, for example, Devito pretends to be a Time-Life photographer. He coerces a homeowner into getting new siding by claiming that he has been dispatched by the magazine to take a picture of her distinctive home…distinguished by the fact that it is the ugliest one on the block.

Bulldozers may be funny on the big screen, but in real life, they give the sales profession a bad name. Bulldozers love to hear themselves speak and very rarely do they drill down and listen to their prospects. Unlike the Technical Educator, a Bulldozer flies right through a demonstration and may go directly to price without delivering any value in a presentation or demonstration. They are looking for quick hits and very rarely do they follow a process.

Beware of Bulldozers if you are trying to build a solid reputation in the market place. Prospects often feel uncomfortable with them since they frequently rely on high-pressure tactics or create false urgency by offering today only pricing. Bulldozers may have decent activity and they may actually close a lot of deals for you, but I can assure you those customer relationships are very fragile and the activity they produce is not quality activity.

The All-Star – As the name suggests, an All-Star personality is especially well-suited to life as a sales person. Empathy comes naturally to an All-Star. They understand a prospect’s level of pain because they have the unique ability to put themselves in the customer‟s shoes. Unlike a TE or Bulldozer, All-Stars form consultative solutions that are designed to meet the buyer’s challenges, needs or goals. They position themselves as the trusted advisor and prospects have the same confidence in the advice of an All-Star as they would in a family doctor.

All-Stars understand and research their products, competition and know how to think on their feet. They provide customers with realistic expectations and have great listening skills. They are not afraid to ask for the business. They are resilient and they never give up. All-stars aren‟t afraid to ask the tough questions. Get an All-Star on your team and they’ll out perform Bulldozers and Technical Educators by a long shot.

You see, All-Stars get satisfaction from helping their customers…but at the same time are motivated by money. They take pride in working hard and long hours with the idea of reaping a large commission check. They are the type of sales people who wake up early and are excited to get to work. Your sales people – Technical Educators, Bulldozers, and All-Stars — are the people your customers are interacting with. Would you buy from them if you were about to make a major purchase? Or perhaps the better question to ask is: Which one of these people would you prefer to have as a business contact?

For more great stuff from Darion and Steve drop by the Service Coach blog

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Is Fear Holding You Back?
Winning in the New World of B2B Sales
How Sales Reps Can Win With Twitter

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B2B Sales Reps – You Need to Become Better Marketers

Inbound Marketing, Outbound Marketing and Sales – Are You Herding Cattle or Cats?

clevitt — Sun, 01 Aug 2010 19:56:57 +0000

Yesterday, Trish Bertuzzi and I presented a webinar entitled: What the heck happened to the sales profession I love? and we dived into three fundamental shifts shaping the direction of the New Sales Economy. I spoke a lot about herding cattle vs. herding cats and I wanted to elaborate on the analogy here because it is really, really, really, really, (clever … just kidding), important to getting where the sales and marketing professions are heading in the B2B marketplace.

First, here is the 2010 Super Bowl commercial (notice the extra reach it got from YouTube) from HP’s services division EDS.

The first thing about herding cats is….. “don’t let anybody tell you it’s easy!” If you’ve ever tried to herd a cat you know it’s damn hard. And anyone can herd cattle — they are slow, stodgy, and like to be told what to do. Cats are nimble, quick, and verrrrry hard to corner – so are our customers today. The parallel is that the majority of sales and marketing organizations are still trying to herd cattle, when the marketplace has changed to herding cats.

I don’t know why, but for some reason, herding cats makes a very good analogy for the B2B marketplace today.

There are 3 types of cats (prospects) in the B2B marketplace today. There are cats that want to talk to you now – they are in the buying process and will be making a purchase. There are cats that want to learn more and research – they will purchase within the next six months to one year (maybe sooner if you are really compelling and aligned). And there are cats that will run away from you faster than you can chase them if you try.

What do you do?

Start focusing on the first two cats and let the third cat be free. If you make a habit of chasing the third cat, you may catch it from time to time (pretty rare), but you will lose far more often then you win, and you will waste a lot of energy (cost) in the process. And the real big cats – the cheetahs (the big deals) will always out run you. Even if you did chase down the cheetah for some reason, it will be at the expense of all the smaller cats, and you will be very, very tired (costly). Does that strategy really make sense?

Inbound, Outbound Marketing, and Sales

I get asked about the difference between Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing all the time. I also get asked why this is important to sales organizations. Well, Inbound Marketing is all about helping marketing and sales organizations herd more cats – the cats find you instead of you chasing them around like a crazy person. It helps get more sales reps, into more deals, more often. Inbound Marketing helps you close more business at a lower cost per lead.

How do you get more cats to pay attention to you?

A great way to get more cats that want to run away, to pay attention, is to give them food. In the B2B marketplace this food…. is remarkable content. Start publishing blogs, generating inbound links, and get active in social media. It makes it a lot easier to herd cats when you are offering them something they find interesting. If what you are offering is interesting enough, even the quickest of cats will come to you and it will buy what you are selling.

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Trish Bertuzzi Interview — Is Sales 2.0 and Inbound Marketing Just Buzz?
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How to Get More Things Done with the Liaise Outlook Add-on

admin — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 15:38:52 +0000

by Dan Waldschmidt

Getting things done is one of the hottest topics sweeping through the business world over the last few years. The quest for ultimate productivity.

There are books and charts and a million different perspectives on the subject. And yet there is still room to do better.

What if you could get things done without feeling chained to a formula? What if there was technology to help you stay productive? What if this technology fit nicely into your existing schedule and emailing platform?

Meet Liaise.

Liaise is an add-on for Outlook that reads the emails you write and creates tasks based on the requests to send to other people. It then attaches reminders and deadlines and stores it all next to the rest of your business stuff.

Pretty cool, huh?

Getting started with Liaise could not be any easier. No need to register anything or create any type of account. Just download the plugin from the website and install it on all the computers where you have Outlook.

Once you have Liaise in place inside Outlook, you can select that all messages you write have the additional Liaise task tracking automatically added.

Here’s what you’ll see. Next to each paragraph you’ll have the option to create action items and track the results of the requests that you make. Name a general time you want to get things done (e.g. like “mid next week) or add it to your calendar on a specific day (e.g. Wednesday).

You can do a bunch of reporting and tracking right inside the Liaise functionality that’s embedded into Outlook. You can see what needs to be done today, next week, or “sometime next month”. You can track it by project name or person, by priority, or by upcoming deadline. Chose what’s important to you at the time.

And there’s more for you to do.

You can work through the Liaise options yourself and set it up so it works the way you want to work.

If you are serious about getting things done . Try Liaise.

It makes things easy.

About Dan Waldschmidt:
Sure, he had a paper route, but he turned his into a money-making machine (though he opted not to tell his mom about his increased profits). He ran track like plenty of other kids, but he pushed himself to break his high school’s mile record. He got the usual entry-level job right of college, but then he changed the sales process, earned millions of dollars for the company, and became CEO by the time he was 25. These days, Dan is partner in a private equity technology accelerator and a former technology CEO. He is an early-early-early adopter of game-changing technology. He blogs regularly on his motivational selling blog The DEW View!. He is husband to a cute gal named Sara and father to two energetic boys. He’s just an ordinary dude who happens to have an outrageous vision. And he wants to change the world… So read the blog, check out his resources, send him an email. Whatever you, don’t just sit on the sidelines! www.DanWaldschmidt.com

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Are You Ready for the Digital Universe?

clevitt — Thu, 20 May 2010 00:01:16 +0000

Since 2007, IDC, an IT think tank, in sponsorship with EMC, puts out a report on the state of the Digital Universe. This year’s report has just been released and there are some interesting trends that sales reps can draw from the report.

Here are some of the major findings from the IDC report:

Between now and 2020, the amount of digital information created and replicated in the world will grow to an almost inconceivable 35 trillion gigabytes as all major forms of media – voice, TV, radio, print – will complete the journey from analog to digital.

Last year despite the global recession, the Digital Universe, set a record. It grew by 62% to nearly 800,000 petabytes. A petabytes is a million gigabytes. Picture a stack of DVD’s reaching from the earth to the moon and back.

This explosive growth means that by 2020, our Digital Universe will be 44 times as big as it was in 2009. Our stack of DVD’s would now reach halfway to Mars.

Most of the digital universe begins with an action by a consumer – an email typed on a laptop, a digital photo taken at a wedding, a movie downloaded from Netflix. In fact more than 70% of the Digital Universe this year will be generated by users – individuals at home, work, and on the go.

The social media invasion of the enterprise has just begun. IDC estimates that by 2020, business transactions on the internet, B2B and B2C, will reach 450 billion a day.

That is some blow your hair back data, beyond the realm of human understanding because we have no real reference point for numbers so large.

But, how do sales reps rise to the top when the waves of information keep crashing on our heads.

Key Takeaways:

1.) Begin to create content so that you can get found in search engines, social search, and the blogosphere. Do not get lost in the tsunami of digital information that is growing everyday.

2.) Learn a thing or two about SEO (search enging optimization) so that your remarkable content can be made sense of by search engines and given to the people looking for you. You want to be a search engine and opportunity magnet.

3.) Start digital networking everyday. There is more digital content available than ever before. If you read an interesting article about a company reach out to the CEO and other employees on Linkedin. If you meet someone interesting reach out to them on social networks and begin a digital conversation that can turn into a real relationship over time. Relationships turn into deals.

4.) Stop waiting to get into the personal branding game. The amount of content being created everyday is almost incomprehensible. The personal branders that are striving to solidify their personal brands now, will be the staples of their niche tomorrow.

The big question….

Sales reps, are you ready for the digital universe?

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Do You Freak When They Tweet?

clevitt — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:30:25 +0000

Do you have a plan for when your customers or prospects tweet your pricing? Do you have a process or workflow that will respond to someone when they crowdsource your pricing? This is the new frontier of virtual guerilla sales warfare – you need to be ready.

Consumers have figured out that they have a very powerful voice with new media tools. They know that they have more power than ever before and that they can cause major headaches for companies with a click of a mouse. It won’t be long until B2B customers and prospects realize they have the same type of power over their vendors.

What the heck am I talking about? Let me clarify.

I can see industry wide forums rising up to share competitor pricing. I can see this forum having features like enabling members to submit their pricing from vendors so others can vote if it seems to market.

Soon, you won’t be able to keep your pricing in the dark. Your customers and prospects will put it in the light for you, for everyone to see and share, good or bad.

Your brand, along with your employees, will be thrown into the conversation and into the deep end of the Web. What you do, say, or give is one tweet away from being shared with the masses. You are one tweet away from a PR mess or a headache you did not anticipate. You are also one tweet away from doing something awesome.

Consumers, customers and prospects have gotten a taste of the new power they hold; power they have not held for over 60 years. They like the feeling of being in power. They like watching companies beckon to their requests and doing what they feel is right.

Can we really blame them?

The B2B marketplace is shifting under a technological and societal movement. The marketplace is more connected and wired. Decision makers and influencers have more resources than ever before to help them make good decisions. Croudsourcing enabled by technology is the next competitive frontier.

Are you prepared for this new type of virtual guerilla sales warfare?

Are you prepared for a new form of competition known as complete transparency?

Do you freak when they tweet?

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