Sales 2.0: Succeeding in the New World of High Productivity

Last week, OpenView Venture Partners, along with the American Association of Inside Sales Professionals (AA-ISP), Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI), and Georgia Tech Advanced Technology and Development Center (ATDC), hosted an executive workshop for venture capital investors and venture capital companies entitled “Sales 2.0: Succeeding in the New World of High Productivity”.

Our guest speaker was Anneke Seley, CEO of Phone Works and co-author of Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology.

Special thanks to Bill Cutts, Director at GTRI and our sponsors, Bob Perkins, founder and CEO of AA-ISP, Marge Bieler, founder and CEO of Rare Agent and Brent Wallace of ZoomInfo.

Anneke opened up her presentation with a picture of her first boss, Larry Ellison, founder and CEO of Oracle, where she was employee #12 and built out their direct sales channel called OracleDirect. She then went on to introduce a picture of her first employee, Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce.com. Needless to say, these are two titans in the world of information technology.

Anneke spent the morning discussing Sales 2.0 as the “new model” for sales. This model is based on inbound marketing and making outbound sales calls with telemarketing people, using the phone and Internet to create qualified leads, while decreasing cost of sales compared to a traditional, face-to-face model or what Anneke refers to as “Sales 1.0”. If done properly, Sales 2.0 or “process-driven” sales can increase sales and reduce expenses.
 
She then went on to describe the Sales 2.0 Framework: 1. Strategy – alignment, resource allocation
2. Process – measurable, predictable, customer centric
3. People – open, team oriented, relationship focused
4. Technology – enabling tools

Each of these stages builds on one another. It is important to think of it in this way in order to maximize resources and enhance overall sales productivity. We often see expansion stage companies that throw resources on the phone without first defining the sales process. Unfortunately, if you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. My advice is to make sure that you follow this framework and hire someone to manage the process. Without this, the odds of failure are high.

Other tips and tricks: – Generic pitches are dead..must be specific to client and include value proposition that
resonates directly to them.

– Use LinkedIn to understand who they know, what they do, who you know that knows them.
Get “connection” or referral to the decision maker.

– Cold Calling 2.0. Research the companies. Use personal approach with cold calls and e-mails to
the buyer. Make the “cold” portion as warm as you can.

– Embedded video in e-mail blast’s gets 20% better response rate. Humor works well in videos.

– Use tools like mindjet or jing when “white boarding” with a prospect

– Another article that is extremely useful is “The Sales Learning Curve” by Mark Leslie at
Stanford Business School. The more a company learns about the sales process, the more
efficient it becomes at selling, and the higher the sales yield.

– Gaining agreement between sales and marketing on the definition of a qualified lead is critical.
Anneke previously used the term “BANT” – Budget, Authority, Need and Timeframe.

– Order a copy of Digital Body Language by Steven Woods. Many of today’s buyers have access
to information on the web and much better informed. Gone is the day that sales reps are the
primary conduit for information. What are customers doing on your web site? How do they
use the data. How do you measure this data for customer follow up? What measurement tools
do you use for your web site? You need a web analytics engine to see what pages people have
viewed, if someone has come in, downloaded a white paper, looked at customer testimonial,
etc. These are good prospects and need to be contacted quickly.