Ten Ways Twitter has Completely Changed the Sales Process

10 Ways Twitter has Completely Changed the Sales Process

By Pat Kitano (@pkitano) on May 21st, 2009:

“[…]

Pre-Twitter [or lets say Pre-Sales 2.0]	Post-Twitter [or lets say with Sales 2.0]
Sales opportunities run through channels and pipelines	Sales opportunities also arise out of cloud, provider and client find each other via “shared business interest”
Sales happen closer to where the sales force is physically based	Sales can happen virtually anywhere with priority based upon size of opportunity
Relationships and networks facilitate execution	Sure, relationships matter, but older networks usually don’t facilitate new opportunities. Twitter builds new networks quickly via search, target and network
Referral-based networking systems conducive to building business connections	Sure, referrals work, but credible online reputation will now serve as a “self-reference”
Scheduling conference call three weeks in advance (frankly, I always thought this was arrogant)	Instantaneous, and serendipitous conversations happen
Hard to get noticed by decision makers	Retweet decision maker, compliment, and comment. Easy to start a conversation.
Dealing with the “gatekeeper”	Twitter facilitates direct communication between relevant parties
Sales calls limited from 9 to 5	On Twitter, business conversations can happen any time (if one so chooses), because Twitterers are generally on 24-by-7
Closing requires face-to-face	Twitter, social media and the recession facilitates closing by most economical means possible
Tedious sales support based on phone tree systems and locating the right resources	Twitter begins to replace the phone system with new support and CRM tools (note Salesforce is integrating Twitter)