Sales 2.0?

On August 18, 2009 I found this definition of Sales 2.0 from blog.bridgegroupinc.com/blog/:

“Sales 2.0 is an approach not a sales process. It requires you to transform your business from one that is focused on selling to one that is focused on letting the market buy from you.

Sales 2.0 requires a change in mindset. It requires focus on buyer personas, lead nurturing, content development, social networking, web 2.0 tools, etc.”

I have been looking for a good definition of Sales 2.0 for while now. The following definitely helps to understand what it is not. Brandon from salesteamtools.com wrote a great post entitled The Wrong Definition of Sales 2.0 on January 6, 2009:

“There’s been a new term making the rounds the last couple years: “Sales 2.0.” But as with anything “2.0,” a few are leading the charge to innovate, while others are jumping on the bandwagon simply to use the term.

The sad thing is, while some of the latter group carry solid sales training credentials, they would have you believe that teaching 2.0 means regurgitating the same advice given over the last 45 years.

Here’s a call out to sales authors to use Sales 2.0 and mean it. If 2.0 refers to the “new version” or “next generation” or “next evolution” or “new approach” for doing something, then it can never be about reissuing a message that’s been taught for years.

Sales 2.0 is not “ask more questions.”
Sales 2.0 is not “sell yourself.”
Sales 2.0 is not “sell benefits, not features.”
Sales 2.0 is not “be unique.”
Sales 2.0 is not “don’t sell on price.”
Sales 2.0 is not “be sharp on the phone.”

Sales has always been about those things. The fact that it’s more important today than 5, 10, or 20 years ago, doesn’t suddenly make it innovative or insightful advice. Those are sales principles, they’re certainly not innovative techniques or approaches. […]

If you want to tell people to stick to certain sales principles, I’m on board, if you want to call that advice Sales 2.0, you’re branding it inaccurately.

SalesForce.com is Sales 2.0. Beyond the idea of online prospect management, the applications that have been built onto SalesForce are unreal.

Jigsaw is Sales 2.0. It’s an innovative approach to getting the names and contact info you need to get deals going.

PipelineDeals and BatchBook are Sales 2.0. They’re multiple progressions beyond Act! and Goldmine in terms of ease of use, speed to use, and sharing capabilities.

Landslide is Sales 2.0. It’s a whole new approach to sales rep planning and organization.

The Selling to Big Companies approach is Sales 2.0. Jill teaches a way to sell to executives that most salespeople aren’t aware of, and didn’t do 15 years ago.

SalesGenius is Sales 2.0. It takes us beyond phone communications, beyond email communications, to email communications that provide us with follow-through data on customers and prospects.

The Never Cold Call approach is Sales 2.0. Frank gets it, that decision-makers have more distractions and incoming messages now than ever. His self-marketing approach gets you through despite that.

The X2 Sales System is Sales 2.0. Jeff Hardesty teaches a cutting-edge prospecting system, backed up by data, feedback, and killer software, to schedule more appointments.

It may sound cliche, but Seth Godin is Sales 2.0.

Referrals via LinkedIn are Sales 2.0. The tool simply didn’t exist 10 years ago in any practical form.

Webinars and screencasts are Sales 2.0. There may be good ones and bad ones, but they introduce a new way to demonstrate your product or service and close the deal from thousands of miles away.

Brent Holloway gets Sales 2.0.

Sales 2.0 is about about new approaches to getting sales results. Sometimes they’re techniques, other times they’re tools. They’re not principles — those are timeless. And it’s never about saying the same things as sales trainers from a decade ago.”