Introduction to High IMPACT Selling

Hello readers.

I need your help with our new book.

My brother and I are collaborating on another book, High IMPACT Selling. We're completely revising the original (first published by The Brooks Group in 1988). It'll probably be out by March 2011. Right now, everything is set except for the Introduction. That's where you come in.

Sales 2.0 is a thread that runs throughout the book, but I want to frame up our discussion on the front end. As a result, I'd appreciate your thoughts on this section . . .

Combine rapidly evolving technology with a dynamically changing marketplace and you’ve got what has been called “Sales 2.0.” Factors like CRM’s, smart phones, marketing automation, social networking, and all kinds of cloud-based solutions have changed professional selling forever. However, that's nothing new. After all, sales has been changing since the first sale was won and, if we’re just now arriving at “2.0,” we’re a bit behind!

Regardless of where we are on the timeline, technology (from Internet searches to GPS devices) is useless unless salespeople can use it within a customer-focused, linked, sequential selling process. Sales training – whether it’s in a Sales 1.0 world or a Sales 9.0 world – should teach salespeople to focus first on their prospects and customers. Only then should it worry itself with how salespeople can use technology to become even more effective. Technology should compliment salespeople's professional relationships, not distract from them.

Please post your thoughts to the comments feed. Are we hitting the nail on the head? Or are we missing something?

@JebBrooks