“Loose Talk” At The Sales 2.0 Conference, Boston, MA

I was one of about 200 sales leaders that attended the Sales 2.0 conference in Boston, MA on May 21, 2009. The  conference agenda focused on how organizations can effectively leverage Sales 2.0 technologies to improve lead management, accelerate the sales process, improve sales effectiveness, decrease costs, and enhance the customer experience.

The conference was organized by Personal Selling Power, Inc. and the attendees included executives at many well known companies such as Experian, Akamai, Salary.com, Kronos and hot, Sales 2.0 vendors including Kadient, Inside View and ConnectandSell.

Here’s a sample of loose talk, quotes & quips and interesting ideas that I heard during the conference…

“The pitch is dead. Ditch the pitch!” exclaimed Gerhard Gschwandtner, Founder and CEO of Personal Selling Power Inc, and the host of the Sales 2.0 conference in his opening remarks on the “7 key trends in selling”.

‘The number one mistake I see in the area of “customer engagement” is that the Sales Reps think they should be doing all the talking.” shared Barry Trailer, a Partner at CSO Insights. He went on to state the importance of asking the right questions and having a true conversation with your customers.

“Don’t cold call, social call” declared Nigel Edelshain, the inventor of the phrase 2.0 and the CEO of Sales 2.0 LLC. Social calling happens at the intersection of prospect profiles, trigger events and relationships.

Eric Berridge Co-founder of Bluewolf, presented a keynote address on” Accelerating Sales During a Slow Economy“. Here are some of the highlights of Eric’s speech…

• ‘Salespeople control over 50% of why customer’s buy. Only 29% is the actual product or solution”
• Even with a focus on technology and process, there is a place for passion, soul, and creativity in Sales.. Need an example: Watch “The Carousel” a clip from the AMC series MadMen about a faux sales pitch to Kodak. Eric… You had us at hello.
• Investing in Sales Training? Consider investing in business writing classes for your sales team members due to the significant increase in email communication betweens buyers and sellers.
• What’s the difference between Sales 1.0 and Sales 2.0? In Sales 1.0 the Salespeople tell Marketing- “Your leads suck”. And Marketing tells Sales- “No, you suck”. In Sales 2.0, Sales and marketing professionals are enabled, and are able to “self serve” via technology.

Increase your response on web forms by making them shorter and requiring less information, then overlay any missing information using an information provider like ZoomInfo.  That’s what EvolveIP has been doing successfully, shared Tom Gaydos, Director of Marketing and self proclaimed “Tech Geek.

If you’re a Sales Operations leader and need to influence numerous, senior level decision makers across a large organization to get on board with a Sales 2.0 initiative- what’s the best way? “One mind at a time… One mind at a time”, shared Mark Myette, Director of Sales Learning & Performance at Pitney Bowes.

“Sales Operations are often the unsung heroes of an organization and truly help propel the effectiveness of a sales operation. However, only 10% of companies invest in the right level of operations support- which is very unfortunate” shared Mike Moorman, Managing Principal at ZS Associates during his presentation about the science behind selling.

How should you leverage social media in your organization? “Fish where your buyer’s swim” shared Trish Bertuzzi, President of The Bridge Group. Specifically: “Know your buyer personas”, “Go find your buyer personas” and then “Join the conversation”.

Want more info on the Sales 2.0 conference? Try these resources:

The Official Sales 2.0 Website

Photos From Sales 2.0 Boston on Flickr

A Tweetseye View of the Sales 2.0 Conference

Networking & Photos From The Sales 2.0 Conference San Francisco