Sales 2.0 Sideshow

I was socialising with a team of new business salespeople when the conversation turned to use of their shiny new crm.  Unsurprisingly most were unenamoured with it.  When one described it as “a sales 2.0 sideshow”, debate began on what exactly the ‘two-point-oh’ part meant.

One abstract on which we agreed was that web 2.0 was all about the rise of greater personal networking coupled with user-generated content in a “cloud” context.

Homing in on how this moulds onto our selling world was less easy.  Here’s a few key phrases that got heads nodding on what it should unleash:

• process time shrinks
• gain real-time knowledge of true prospects
• leverage any past conversation
• remove gatekeepers & middlemen

Interestingly, on-demand crm was not considered part of sales 2.0.  I guess in solution selling cloud-style collaboration helps, but the real impact of ‘2.0’ is probably being felt by Farmers and customer service right now.  That said, I still believe there are areas where sales 2.0 lights up a new route that can help propel greater b2b new business solution sales, my lament is that (despite the abundance of crm-vendor webinar clips) I’m yet to see it truly in glow the field.

On reflection, I think a more insightful question would be:

What one, single Sales 2.0 initiative would you really want to see your company make happen?