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What were your biggest take-aways from the Sales 2.0 2011 conference?
Just completed the Sales 2.0 2011 conference (http://www.sales20conf.com/SF2011/). What were the big take-aways?
Events
- Dos and Don'ts of Small Business Marketing May 29 @ 11 am PT
- Lead Nurturing 202: The Next Generation May 31 @ 11 am PT
- The Tricks to Paid Media June 6 @ 11 am PT
- Display Advertising for Brand Awareness June 20 @ 11 am PT
Related Activity
8 Answers
1.Peer powered sales and marketing
Only 20% of buyer’s surveyed, say the seller found them. The other 80% of buyer's said they found the seller. (Paul Melchiorre of Ariba quoting a Marketing Sherpa study).
What it means. Need to engage with buyers before you begin selling, participate in the conversation, watch for trigger alerts, answer questions on social media sites, offer valuable content. Make sure reps have access to an ‘A’ prospect list with automatic trigger event alerts.
2. Build followers and your database
30% of data in your database churns every year. (Brett Wallace of ZoomInfo quoting Serius Decisions)
What it means. Understand the ramifications: you don’t know which 30% needs refreshing. Can you afford to lose 30% of your contacts every year due to out-dated contact details? Consider hiring a database provider to perform a complete database refresh – kill dead contacts, update existing ones, and add net new. When evaluating solution providers, ask for a sample of 5,000 contacts and conduct a test email.
3. Reps need help
A full 50% of reps did not meet quota last year (from the breakout session: Accelerate Revenue with Smarter Prospect Data Management, quoting IDC)
What it means. Need smarter prospect data management (an estimated 33% of a reps time is spent searching for the right contact). Reps need automatic sales trigger notifications. Reps need content they can offer their prospect that is timely and informative. They need to schedule sales calls quickly to build opportunity momentum. They need to speed the time-to-signature for sales contracts and know the current outstanding contract-value at any given point in time.
4.It’s not too late
57% of CRM buyers are buying for the first time (Craig Rosenberg of Focus.com)
What it means. If you haven’t deployed CRM, it’s not too late. Among existing CRM users, ~50% are using legacy systems like ACT. Next Gen CRM solutions have more functionality than ever to increase sales efficiency. However, do not look to Sales2.0 solutions until you learn which tasks or sticking points take up your reps valuable selling time.
Prioritize based on those that are easiest to solve; that offer the best probability for impacting sales; and that benefit reps (not just managers).
Biggest take-aways for me:
1) Social Media/Networking is no longer on the outside looking in. Many vendors and companies have fully integrated social presence into their sales/marketing processes or are in the middle of doing so. If you haven't engaged, you better get moving, and fast.
2) Overall vibe was more optimistic and positive than the last two years. Hiring, growth and business development are now actively in play across the board.
3) Video is coming into it's own as a communication, selling and training tool.
4) Web Tool vendors are continuing to innovate and bring new solutions to market. Learn the newest approaches, tools and vendors to accelerate your success in this area.
Overall feeling of energy and optimism on the way home from the conference, which was in contrast to the feeling from the last several shows.
Not sure if this is what Miles means, but the crowd seemed a bit less universally overwhelmed/confused by how to shop for Sales 2.0 solutions and products (although making appropriate buying decisions does remain a significant point of interest for attendees). Maybe that accounts for the feeling of optimism he sensed.
What I saw was an intense focus on themes related to the buyer. What does today's buyer look like, where are the opportunities to reach those buyers, and how do they want to be engaged? (Note the phrasing there -- it's how do buyers want to be engaged, not "how do we engage with buyers." The buyer is steering the ship.)
Gerhard summed it on the first day: More than ever, sales success is customer success. The successful company of the future will make everyone (not just sales folks) responsible for the customer experience.
The themes I heard were:
1/ iterative experimentations (do, observe, analyze, adapt) are a key way in which firms are striving to optimize their sales performance. Resonated with me as the equivalent of what Eric Ries talks about in his new book The Lean Start-Up.
2/ a broad hunger for more closed loop feedback. Whether in compensation, social selling, or adoption of new tools, a hunger to know via metrics what's being accomplished from new approaches being tried.
3/ the awe of what's accomplished with Design Thinking. We saw, on display, the value of slowing down, thinking hard about how the end user (buyer and seller) experiences may be broken, and working backwards from those experiences in terms of shaping new approaches. Accomplished with a blend of curiousity and courage. Justin Shriber showed this adeptly in his prototyping of a new interface for the sales person. Michael Weening showed this in his approach to sales transformation. Jeff Hayzlett showed this in his approach to building and amplifying brand. Others showed their own forms of it in the breakout sessions. We saw some brave new approaches and learned of mistakes made along the way. As Jeff would likely say, it was worth it. No one died.
Overall feeling I came away with was that the Sales 2.0 community has made significant progress in the past year + the fun bits are within shooting distance.
I attended the first Sales 2.0 conference five years ago (can't believe it has been that long ago) - so could easily contrast a huge difference between then and now. I agree with most of the insights above - and also noticed:
A much larger crowd with more age diversity, and many more women in attendance.
Breakout sessions were more intimate and helpful.
A whole second event of people "in the hallways" talking and meeting others, and getting vendor demos, which to me was very valuable.
I appreciated the "case studies" and metrics that were shared, as many B2B companies are thirsting for the "proof" of the value of these strategies - especially companies under 500 employees.
The stat about the rate of inside sales growing completely supports the use of more Sales 2.0 tools. Productivity, however, is not increasing with sales reps, despite these tools. Lots of opportunity for improvement here.
For me it is about the people - some amazing folks there that are wonderful to see all in one place.
The themes I heard at the conference were:
1. It's all about the customer. To Lisa's point above, sales success is customer success. To have an alignment around the customer is vital for organizations to survive and it changes the organization in that everyone is a sales person.
2. To achieve this customer centricity, marketing and sales must work together to serve the needs and dialogue with the buyer throughout the journey. It is no longer sales and marketing, but salesmarketing. They need to act as on collaborative unit.
3. Inside sales is growing and will be key to the Sales 2.0 success of companies. The inside sales role is vital and in many respects will supplant the traditional sales model that existed in the past.
Overall a great conference with solid content and high level of attendee.
Carlos Hidalgo
The Annuitas Group
@cahidalgo
It was amazing how many of the presentations and conversations were about this new awareness of the 2.0 buyer. By the time I did my preso at 4pm on Monday, I felt like most of my ideas were shared already by everybody. And this is good -- embracing the changes in buying behavior will drive more effective sales and marketing.
I agree with Austin. Further, my biggest take away is that video will be the new means to get to the masses. If you want to sell your product successfully, find them using tools like OneSource's, iSell and then market to them via the several newer video platforms that were on display at the show....
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