The stereotype of the salesperson who’s independent, fast-moving, and often rule-breaking may soon be extinct. We’ve seen salespeople who have built notable careers in that mold, but today’s best salespeople combine all the best of “old school” selling with exceptional teamwork skills. In fact, teamwork within organizations may be the single most important factor in earning and retaining business…whether you’re selling a product direct to the consumer or a service to a large corporate organization.
Why? The Internet and other digital tools have not only sped up the flow of information, but also they’ve given your customers a multitude of places to hear about you, read about you, and even ask questions about you. It has never been more important that your marketing, sales, and service messages are consistent. And let us tell you, that requires a serious commitment to teamwork.
We’ve been hearing a lot of talk out there about this thing called Sales 2.0…but we’ve discovered that most sales managers don’t have a clue what it means or what it has to do with their salespeople’s skills. So let’s start with some definitions.
Sales 2.0 = consultative selling that uses Web 2.0 tools to extend your organization’s reach to new prospects, be more efficient, and close more sales.
But what is Web 2.0 and what are Web 2.0 tools? Web 2.0 is NOT some new version of the Internet. Web 2.0 simply refers to a newer generation of websites that seek to facilitate collaboration and creativity between users by being more interactive than traditional sites used primarily as information archives. Blogs, social networking sites, wikis, podcasts, RSS feeds, and web application programming interfaces (APIs) are all types of Web 2.0 technologies.
What Is the Potential Impact of Sales 2.0 on Your Salespeople?
Depending on your industry, for individual salespeople, these technologies mean more targeted prospecting, personalized service to prospects and customers via the Web, activity-based tracking of their interactions, and automated follow-up capabilities. But what’s more is that Web 2.0 technologies on the market today are helping entire sales organizations keep track of the huge store of knowledge that up until this point has been in the heads of their salespeople, operations team, and customer service reps.
Web 2.0 has also served to create a customer who demands more for less more quickly.
Before the Internet became a daily business tool for all of us, there were consultative salespeople who sold great quantities of their product or service—at high margins—and developed lasting, positive relationships with their customers. These successful salespeople were skillful at bringing all of their company’s resources to bear to ensure that their customers had a satisfying and productive experience with their product or service. The skills that these successful salespeople employed included product knowledge, consultative selling skills, customer relationship management, and sometimes even technical support abilities.
Some of the newest Web-based technologies combine the best features of Prospect Management Systems, Customer Relationship Management Systems, and Content Management Systems, giving your salespeople at-their-fingertips access to specific information that’s relevant to the specific prospect or customer they’re interacting with. And this information is accessible from anywhere in the world via the Web.
What’s the Catch?
Virtually any salesperson you ask will agree that the Internet has become as essential to us as the telephone (if not more so!). The best salespeople of today are those who understand that Web 2.0 technologies can help them achieve the same (or higher) sales goals and provide the highest level of personalized service to their customers…but with a lot less effort. In essence, when used effectively, Web 2.0 tools help the best salespeople do their jobs even better and more efficiently. (And incidentally, they make the gap between great salespeople and mediocre ones even larger.)
It almost goes without saying that Sales 2.0 requires your sales team to be technologically savvy. But there’s an elephant in the room with Sales 2.0. For an organization to use Sales 2.0 principles and techniques, it has to have a culture based on teamwork. It can’t be Sales versus Operations, or Inside versus Outside Sales, or perhaps worst of all, Sales versus Marketing.
Remember, the best Web 2.0 tools are collaborative in nature. Let’s look at the potential of just one type of Web 2.0 tool: modern Internet-enabled Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems.
What seems to amaze so many old-school sales managers is that the most effective salespeople aren’t just using these CRMs…they’re embracing them. But then again, these aren’t the CRMs of yesterday. Today’s best CRM systems aren’t just databases of customer contact information, and the most successful sales-driven companies don’t think of CRMs as a hassle. Rather, CRMs serve as repositories not only of customer data, but also prospecting tools, libraries of knowledge about sales processes, problem-solving advisors, and even mini training modules. They are also a tremendously valuable activity tracker and accountability tool – not just for salespeople, but for everyone in an organization that supports the sales effort.
That’s why these technologies require teamwork.
Best practices and knowledge archives must be built by the people who have experience at sales within their marketplace. The technology is there, and it works, but your sales team must contribute their expertise to fill the CRM with valuable, relevant information. Your marketing department must use the data in the system to target marketing campaigns that yield qualified leads. Your training department must develop mini-modules suitable for quick reference. And your operations team would be well served if they regularly reviewed what’s in the pipeline. A certain percentage of this pipeline will eventually end up in the operations arena.
CRMs require the diligent input of individuals across your organization; they can’t be seen as a sales-only tool. Web 2.0 enables fantastic CRM solutions, but if people don’t use them effectively, they’re no less effective than pencil and paper sales efforts.
Our CRM example is just one of many that reveal how important collaboration among key departments and personnel is to getting the most out of the Web 2.0 technologies that are out there today. Whether you are developing podcasts, blogging, or simply using an in-house project management website, the success of the endeavor is directly correlated to the buy-in it receives from personnel across your organization.
Still not convinced? Look at it this way: What do you have to lose by practicing teamwork in your sales team? Here are four strong reasons that teamwork is critical, no matter how technologically sophisticated your salespeople are:
Have you ever lost a salesperson, then had to try to figure out what the status of his/her accounts was? Teamwork ensures that you have redundancy in case of turnover. Even if you don’t have Web 2.0 tools to document and archive best practices and customer information, you should ensure that every key account has multiple touch points in your organization.