I always appreciate good contrarians and provocative people who like to shake things up. That’s why my ears perked up when I heard a few people are not waving the big Sales 2.0 flag around.
The first is Joe Galvin who is the VP of Research for Sirius Decisions and he believes that sales 2.0 is a technology discussion which attracts skeptic buyers who are just recovering from the SFA promises that were made in the past . He wrote a brief titled, Sales 2.0 Don’t Believe the Hype, which confirms the need for us to keep pace with our customers. He quotes, “the knowledge-driven buyer has raised the bar for sales people to be more informed and better prepared to bring value to the interaction.” It seems if we are selling independent of this major component, Sales 2.0 is just a buzz word.
The second is Sharon Drew Morgen, best selling author and owner of Morgen Facilitation wrote a blog post, Sales 2.0: 5 Things you Shouldn’t Expect and explains that Sales 2.0 is about generating lots of names and building your database but it falls short on converting these into sales. She writes, “Like sales, Sales 2.0 is a push modality, even though it professes to be a pull model. Because it doesn’t help buyers maneuver through their unique and idiosyncratic hidden dynamics that need to buy-in to making a change at this time – independent of the need.”
I believe that Sales 2.0 is alerting us that that we can no longer sell in the same way and that we must incorporate more into our sales process in order to survive. We also cannot sell in a vacuum and must be aware that our buyer knows more than we do.
9 Comments
Josiane, you framed the discussion well! Our view is that Sales 2.0 is not a revolution, as many would like it to be, but rather an evolution on how we sell and/or help our buyers buy. But, before you get to 2.0 you have to have laid a solid foundation of good old fashioned business practice. I would love your feedback on our post “Have You Mastered Sales 1.5?” http://tinyurl.com/l4d6fb
Looking forward to your book!
I think Joe’s post is back from 2007… since then he’s updated his view (and commented on Sales 2.0 at the Sirius Decisions Summit) with a new post that says “Sales 2.0 has gained a lot of traction over the past 18 months…” and offers “some compelling value propositions”. In his 2009 brief, his main point (which we share and have written extensively about) is that marketing needs to be added as a partner with Sales to fully leverage the benefits of Sales 2.0 processes and technologies.
Yes- thanks for clarifying that and I don’t think sales 2.0 will ever survive without a strong marketing arm. Genius has done a great job in educating people on that.
Thanks Trish- laying the foundation is key to the sales 2.0 evolution. I liked your blog post.
I had a very candid conversaion with a couple of Sales 2.0 heavyweight companies - household names. They told me that sales 2.0, as a concept that sales leaders talk about, hasn’t really become top of mind.
Josiane - thank you for including my contrarian thoughts in your post and Parker, thank you for the clarification. The answer is Yes to both. Yes, I believe the sales 2.0 “movement” that I saw at the November ‘07 event (and again in Boston this spring) is mostly vendor hype - this movement should be called sales automation 2.0 as it follows a technology first mantra (and yes there are some very compelling technologies). And Yes, I have a vision of sales 2.0 that focuses on adapting customer engagement strategies to the realities of today’s buyers and needs to integrate marketing as a cornerstone throughout the buying process - then supported by technology: http://www.siriusdecisions.com/live/home/document.php?dA=C1522.68&cv=1
Sales 2.0 is a (mainly technology) vendor- and press-driven phenomenon. We’ve seen these types of clever marketing pushes before. Personally, I was in the middle of one very notable one: the migration from MRP to ERP in the enterprise application software space. SAP and Oracle were the main drivers then. Gartner, AMR and other analyst groups jumped into the fray. I worked for and consulted with other ERP software companies. We all made a lot of money. Some customers got some value. Many didn’t.
Most often vendors create products to meet real customer needs. But pushing the product often doesn’t get the traction and attention of jumping on a sexy bandwagon. Sales 2.0 is certainly that.
Don’t get me wrong. There are terrific Sales 2.0 technologies and processes being developed and others in full use. ESR has written and I’ve spoken about them. But the promise of a new world of selling based upon a Sales 2.0 or any other trendy new platform won’t happen unless the core deficiencies causing overall sales ineffectiveness are overcome. We’ve got a long, long way to go there.
Thanks Dave and you are absolutely right- core dificiencies must be addressed in order for Sales 2.0 to become a reality for many organizations.
Thanks Joe- vendor hype creates Sales 2.0 - that’s a scary thought. We are all in agreement that Sales 2.0 cannot exist unless some inefficienies get addressed.