What is your sales organization doing about the current economic downturn? What will make a difference for your company? While the economic forecast may be “uncertain,” it is certain that our customers are reducing their budgets and spending more carefully, forcing their vendors to do the same. This economic challenge will accelerate the adoption of Sales 2.0 from a “nice to have” to a “need to have” philosophy. Companies that continue to sell the way they sold in the past will become less profitable or fail altogether. Customer preferences, the ever-rising cost of sales, and the availability of next-generation technologies are making change mandatory for companies that want to outperform the competition and minimize the impact of the economic slowdown.
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Sales 2.0 is not a new technology. It is the use of innovative sales
practices to improve business results, creating value for both the buyer and
seller, and is often enabled by Web 2.0 or next-generation technology. Sales
2.0 initiatives typically center on process and customer-engagement
improvements to increase sales productivity. Sales 2.0 practices combine the
science of measurable, process-driven operations with the art of
collaborative relationships, using the most profitable and expedient sales
resources required to meet your customers’ needs. The goal of Sales 2.0 is
to produce greater, predictable, repeatable business results, including
increased revenue, decreased sales costs, and sustained competitive
advantage.
Sales 2.0 initiatives require changing mindset and adjusting sales
strategies. A relatively simple Sales 2.0 practice involves selling more
through video or web conferencing. This can be done by inside salespeople or
by field salespeople who perform more of their jobs from their desks.
Selling more efficiently should also mean selling more effectively, as many
buyers now prefer to meet remotely via conference calls with video or web
conferencing, and salespeople benefit from additional selling time that
otherwise would be spent traveling. A traditional sales process that
included three or four onsite visits might now have zero or just one
face-to-face visit. The financial impact of reducing travel expenses can be
significant and is easily measured, but the economics of giving your most
expensive sales resources — your field salespeople — additional selling time
is even more compelling.
Many products and services, especially those of relatively small to
average value, can only be sold profitably with a remote or low-touch sales
model. The definition of “small to medium orders” is different for every
company, but they are generally those that fall into your bottom 50% in
value. If ignored, these mid-market customers or transaction types are
missed opportunities for organizations that rely solely or too heavily on a
field-based sales model. And when they are sold through field sales, these
smaller opportunities can derail focus and drain the organization’s
profitability.
Another Sales 2.0 practice uses some “science” to accurately capture key
market information and metrics such as average sales cycle, average deal
size and sales-cycle conversion rates. By using a defined sales process and
data analytics, you can determine how your sales force should be structured
and which customers and transaction types justify the assignment of field
account executives, inside salespeople, channel partners or no selling
effort at all. Data analytics in this sense can range from rudimentary (pen
and paper) to moderate (spreadsheets, CRM, and most reporting systems) to
advanced (dashboards and on-demand sales intelligence).
Rather than simply
measuring the final result (revenue), a Sales 2.0 approach measures the
effectiveness of every stage in your sales process by salesperson, giving
managers the opportunity to provide targeted coaching. Data analytics also
can be used to correlate and analyze the specific characteristics of your
most profitable customers (size, industries, locations, buyer types, etc.)
that produce the most revenue and profit. Sales and marketing leaders can
then use this information to fine-tune your sales model and activities to
ensure the loyalty of your most valuable customers and find more prospects
like them.
A key Sales 2.0 tenet involves experimentation, often through testing new
process ideas and piloting new technology. Testing a new sales message,
pricing options, new technology, or even a new sales process enables the
organization to be innovative with minimal risk. Small pilot programs that
use minimal resources enable ineffective ideas to fail on a small scale,
while good ones can be rolled out more aggressively.
Becoming a Sales 2.0 organization requires that we proactively adapt and
continually improve so we can become closer to our customers and weather the
economic storm better than our competitors.
