Digitising Information
Someone sent me a link to a blog from August 04 that no longer seems to exist, extolling the virtues of sales team HQs starting up a blog. The idea is that anyone can add anything and make info flow better around the whole team. I don’t know from where this opinion heralds, but here it is anyway…..:
(quote) One of the toughest groups to win over when deploying technology has always been the sales force. Let’s face it, sales folks are cut from a different mold and everyone has their own “modus operandi.” So why are salespeople a good target for Blogs?
Here’s the short list:
1. Information at your fingertips …
2. You become the de facto destination for information…
3. Better distribution of your content…
4. Instant collaboration …
5. Branding …
6. Online Proposals …
7. Cross-selling opportunities …
8. Humanizing your company …
9. So when you’re “Googled”, you’re found…
10. Because your competitor is already using Blogs…
At my last company, we used a Sales Weblog to distribute competitive intelligence, partner/vendor information, and other general updates relevant to closing new business. Blogs are an easy way to digitize the information sales reps use the most. Think about how many times reps look for the latest Powerpoint, Proposal, spec sheet, etc. With a sales blog you have a central repository for the information and anyone can comment on it. That alone is very powerful when you consider the amount of collective knowledge it takes to win a new client.
And with the RSS feed, reps know when the site is updated. How many intranets can do that? (unquote)
Now a number of interesting things occur to me, given my daily exposure to this arena. The main one is that it’s difficult enough as it is to get reps to input data into crm and the like, so how much success is there going to be from expecting anyone to contribute experiences and insight through a blog? If someone central gets to administer it, then there’ll be little difference between the intranet with a weekly email update sent and info disseminated along these lines, surely?