Month: June 2009

Enterprise 2.0

2 in the cloud
I just discovered the blog sachachua.com where @sachac – Enterprise 2.0 consultant at IBM – has been blogging for many years.

On June 30, 2009, Sarah Lacy @sarahcuda wrote the following post on Techcrunch (I’m posting it here mainly because it led me to the Sales 2.0 case studies “Dell Makes $3 Million From Twitter-Related Sales” and “Comcast’s Twitter Guru Speaks”):

“I still think “Enterprise 2.0” is a meh business trend with a horrible name. It’s not that social media/collaboration tools don’t have a role in business, and I agree there are some situations where consumer tools aren’t the right fit. A great example is Twitter versus Yammer. (Oh, if you only saw the conversations that happen on TechCrunch’s Yammer feed…)

But I don’t see Enterprise 2.0 becoming a big area of corporate spending. The tools are too cheap and easy to replicate with tons of free alternatives, and many of the vendors are just not ready for prime time. One exception might be blogging software, but don’t most companies who want a corporate blog have one by now? Rather than the next Oracle (who by the way was one of the study’s underwriters) or even Salesforce.com emerging from this space, I’m betting that existing software-as-a-service companies incorporate the functionality themselves or you get a lot of built-in-house code.

There’s also the problem that nearly 20% of executives have no idea what “Enterprise 2.0″ is. That comes from a study [aiim.org/Research/Collaboration-Enterprise20-Research.aspx] that’s actually talking up the adoption of Enterprise 2.0. It points out that 40% didn’t know what it was at the beginning of the year, so at least that’s progress. What’s more it says that 50% of those surveyed consider enterprise 2.0 to be “very important” to their business success. (Of course, I think working out everyday is “very important” to my weight loss goals…doesn’t mean I actually do it.)

Still, given that number is so high, it stunned me that the study also said only 7% of people over the age of 45 think that Twitter is an important rapid-feedback tool for business. Sadly, it’s not much better among younger folks: Only 27% of those between the ages of 18-30 say Twitter is an important rapid-feedback tool for business. What? Really? You may think we obsess about Twitter too much on TechCrunch, but clearly most business folks aren’t getting the memo.

Let’s put aside for a moment that there are pretty well proven test cases on how Twitter utilization has helped companies like Dell and Comcast. Paying for outreach or collaboration tools without first checking out what a free, easy tool like Twitter could do is missing the entire point of the cheap flexibility and ubiquity of social media. Put another way (and to paraphrase James Carville): It’s a recession, stupid. Try the free tools first.”

Discuss Sarah Lacy’s blog post on Techcrunch

How do your sales people and channel partners navigate your product and services information?

Are you in Marketing/Sales Enablement at a business that sells to businesses all over the world? Do you have traditional intranet pages for each country or sales region you have sales people or channel partners in? Then you have thousands if silos to maintain and your users have hundreds of mouse clicks stealing their time!

offerings


  • Are you in Marketing/Sales Enablement at a business that sells to businesses all over the world?
  • Would it look anywhere close to the image above when all products and services, that your company needs to enable sales people and channel partners for, were shown in a taxonomy/hierarchy?
  • Do you have traditional intranet pages for each country or sales region that you have sales people or channel partners in?

If so, then you have thousands of silos to maintain and your users have hundreds of mouse clicks stealing their time! (Also see “Important characteristics of how typical sales reps at large organizations roll”.)cube


On May 15, 2009, @scottsantucci (Forrester Analyst covering Sales Enablement) tweeted:


“Had a briefing from BizSphere. Very interesting thinking, particularly about the need for an information architecture.”


Displaying your Sales Enablement resources and the feedback from your sales people and channel partners in…

  1. a context (an information architecture)
  2. in Rich Internet Applications using web2.0 technologies

… makes the scary amount of traditional intranet pages from the image above a thing of the past.

BizSphere Sales Web does exactly this. The result can look like the images below and requires an amazingly low number of mouse clicks to navigate.

sales web_mdt

BizSphere Sales Web

Analysis of Days in Sales Cycle Stage and Conversion Rates

Jeff Ernst (@jeffernst) wrote a blog post on a careful analysis of days in each sales cycle stage and conversion rates, on June 3, 2009:

“[…] We took a look at their sales cycles, and found that they were pretty good at getting leads into the top of the funnel, having initial exploratory conversations, and even getting late-stage deals over the goal line.  The choke point was getting folks who had shown interest in their product to convert to sales opportunities.

This type of analysis is not that hard to do. Lee Levitt, the [former] Director of the Sales Advisory Practice at IDC, has long been advocating a careful analysis of Days in Stage and Conversion Rates as a way to target areas for improvement.

So rather than continuing the broad brush approach to sales enablement, we decided to focus on improving that one conversion point.  We looked at what the most frequent objections they were getting in stalled deals, and not surprisingly, it sounded like this:

  • We have no budget
  • Our staff has no time for this right now
  • We’ve got too many other projects in the queue

This told me that we needed to come up with some messaging and tools to allow the sales reps to dig deeper into the “no budget” excuse to the root cause. We needed to arm them with tools to make the prospect realize that they could get started incredibly easily. And we even adjusted the pricing model to reflect the reality of today’s buying environment.

Look for the choke points. Give your reps what they need to improve the dialogue when buyers are going dark.”

From my point of view adjusting the pricing model might be the key.

Social Selling

I guess the term ‘Social Selling’ is equivalent to the term ‘Sales 2.0’. On June 09, 2009 http://blog.marketo.com wrote…

“[…] as buyers started to research their purchases online, preventing the sales rep from deciphering the buyer’s intention from their physical actions. So sales professionals reacted, spending their time pouring over online data, trying to understand what made a good buyer. Because it was difficult to tell which online behaviors were part of the buyer’s decision path, sales couldn’t just focus their energy where there would be the biggest payoff. And when they did reach the buyer, it was often after they had made much of their decision, leaving the sales rep to negotiate price and mail out a contract. Marketing tried to help by scoring leads and only passing the ones that met certain criteria, but this still meant a heavy burden for sales, who had to look through pages of online data for the leads that were given to them.

Sales is now ready to take back some of the control, with the evolution of social selling. Social selling is the use of web 2.0 technologies merged with traditional sale strategies, enabling sales to prioritize their time again, and help serve as experts in the product selection process instead of just serving as negotiators. But there are many misconceptions about its use.

Misconception of Social Selling

True Social Selling

Sales is notified when leads visit your site

Sales is notified when a qualified lead does something interesting on your website

Sales can view a list of all of their leads in their CRM

Sales can sort their leads in their CRM by priority, allowing them to contact leads when they need the most attention

Sales can see all the companies that visit your website

Sales can see the companies in their territory that visit your website, and can access and import key contacts at those organizations into their CRM

Sales must go to multiple websites to find contact information

Sales can access Jigsaw, Demandbase, & LinkedIn directly through the tools they are already using

Sales must learn to go through all their lead’s web activity and email activity to identify the best leads and to figure out when to make contact

Sales is alerted when leads participate in interesting activities that indicate they are a hot prospect

Sales must learn to use new email tools inside their CRM or other external tools requiring training

Sales can use Outlook to reach prospects, and data is sent to their CRM, with enhanced information about opens and click-throughs

Email templates are kept in the CRM

Email templates are accessed in Outlook

Sales must sit in front of their computer watching for interesting online body language from prospects

Sales can subscribe to receive Facebook style status updates for the prospects, companies, and actions they think are most important, allowing them to work on the go without missing an opportunity

Marketing tells sales when they need to work with a prospect

Marketing passes leads to sales, and, if needed, sales passes leads that need nurturing back to marketing

Sales must spend hours looking through information in multiple systems to understand what is going on with a prospect

Sales can use RSS to send all the different types of prospect information into one system, saving them time and effort

 

While sales may not go back to days on the golf course, with social selling they are able to go back to prioritizing their time, focusing on the qualified leads that will be the biggest sales earlier in the buying process. This will not only cause for increased success, but increased margins and shorter sales cycles, making their contributions evident to the entire organization.”

 

Finding the right Sales Enablement documents

Imagine the following scenario at a corporation selling to businesses:

One of their sales people is searching on the intranet or on their Sales Enablement site for the search term “Case Study”. Wouldn’t that lead to hundreds of search results even if the corporation was not that big?

Of course you would know better and do a more specific search but the question remains how a large number of search results can quickly be narrowed down to just documents of the type “Case Study” (as oppose to other types of documents that just happen to reference case studies) and how you then drill down to the most recent ones or to the ones your fellow sales people have rated as the most valuable?

Applications that allow this, amongst other things, with an amazingly low number of required mouse clicks are the ‘BizSphere Resource Browser’ and ‘Content Landscape’ from BizSphere.

Content Landscape

Job opening at CBS Interactive – Manager, Sales Marketing

Old! Outdated!

CBS Interactive: Manager, Sales Marketing

Published: 11 June 2009
Location: New York City (Midtown)

About CBS Interactive:
CBS Interactive, a division of CBS Corporation, is the best online content network for information and entertainment. Its portfolio of leading brands, which include CNET, CBS.com, CBSSports.com, GameSpot, TV.com, BNET, and Last.fm span popular categories like technology, entertainment, sports, news, and business. With more than 150 million people visiting its properties each month, CBS Interactive is a top 10 web property globally.

Job Description:
The CBS Interactive Manager, Sales Marketing is part of a team of creative thinkers that develop and execute industry strategies, communications and marketing programs to position CBS Interactive and its brands as a strategic partner amongst it client base of leading advertisers and marketers.. Programs focus on supporting revenue development and include both internal and external communications, marketing programs and campaigns, events, sales collateral, sales pitches, and industry association management. Ideally, this candidate will have consumer experience in marketing or media, both consumer and b2b/tech experience is a plus. The position reports into the Director of Sales Marketing and is located in New York.

Key Responsibilities:
Manage consistent industry marketing communications and programs to support the goals of CBS Interactive’s sales, partnerships, and executive organizations.
Translate marketing strategies into clear, tangible marketing programs.
Participate in development of sales enablement tools including; core pitches, brand videos, collateral, customer newsletters, client/agency promotions, events, etc.
Participate in development of and manage marketing programs and campaigns. Includes development of marketing project plans which outline programs, business requirements, resource needs and responsibilities as well as development schedules, key milestones, deliverables and measurements for success.
Contribute to creative process to address business and marketing goals, and then draw upon the appropriate resources required to deliver them.
Manage, and in some cases develop, several key industry marketing tools such as the category research, media kit/sales collateral, case studies, special events, agency promotions, vendor communications and executive presentations.
Manage alliances with industry associations, research organizations and event producers that will support sales functions and increased revenue.

Qualifications:
· 5 years of marketing experience, including industry marketing and sales or advertising agency experience
· Excellent written communication skills
· Strong project management skills
· Proven success in industry marketing, advertising, promotions and events
· Solid grasp of trends and industry topics as it relates to marketing and media; ability to grasp the implications of trends and translate into relevant positioning and programs
· Understanding of the principles of Marketing (including Research, Public Relations, Branding, Message Development, and Product Development) as well as sales and selling cycles
· Familiar with online media fundamentals (e.g. pricing models, packaging, inventory, targeting)
· Experience in establishing and maintaining effective relationships with customers, both internal and external
· Experience negotiating with and managing outside vendors
· Hands-on individual who is creative, flexible, proactive and thrives in fast paced environment
· Proficient in Microsoft Office applications, Adobe Suite, Power Point and web programming/HTML a plus
· Education: Bachelor’s degree or equivalent training and experience required

Additional Information:
Percent Travel <25%
Professional/College Professional
Brands Not Brand Specific
Expertise Marketing – Marketing Communication
Job Type Full Time
Location NY-New York
Preferred Language English

 

Job opening – Sales Enablement Manager at Lenovo

Old! Out dated!

Sales Enablement Manager

Company: Lenovo

Position Title: Sales Enablement Manager
Location: Sydney, Australia
Functional Area: Marketing
Facility: Corporate Office
Relocation Provided: No
Education Required: Bachelors Degree
Experience Required: 5 – 7 Years
Travel Percent: 0

Position Description
o Drive initiatives & programs for sales enablement & training
o Manage the yearly sales training budget in line with sales priorities & facilitate global sales programs
o Maintain & implement changes to the sales intranet & develop communications to increase online usage
o Compilation & distribution of eNewsletter
o Sales communications for product launches
o Online product testing and reporting
o Implementing tools for sales analysis
o Product reporting and analytics
o Alliance program management
o Consumer marketing & retail programs

Position Requirements
o Previous experience in sales training
o Sales & product marketing experience preferred
o Proficiency in PowerPoint
o Excellent written, verbal and interpersonal communication skills.

Job opening – Services Sales Enablement Consultant

Job Title Services Sales Enablement Consultant
Job Category Sales Management Staff
City (Non-US) Singapore – Singapore
Country Singapore
Job Description Responsible for supporting the sale of complex/technical Services solutions. Ensures that sales professionals and services associates understand and can articulate various Services offers. Proficient at presenting the company’s solutions from an implementation perspective, using their broad general knowledge of the portfolio. Articulates the solution in terms of the client’s business needs. Adept at developing relationships with account teams, pre-sales engineers and offer managers. Expertise in both voice and data networking technologies with the aptitude to grow expertise in the convergence arena. Has general knowledge of the entire Services portfolio and are familiar with the Services the company can provide. They are capable of some multi-product implementation designs and have the abilities to do some complex solution designs. Has basic knowledge of our competitors’ offerings and in our advantages over the competition. They are capable of designing and presenting some cross-portfolio solutions to sales professional and services associates and team well with other associates to develop implementation solutions. Exemplifies company values and is recognized as a team player. Participates in internal knowledge transfer sessions to build knowledge and share it with the team. Years of Experience: 3-6.
Qualifications graduate with 5-8 yrs experience, proven sales record

Found on June 11, 2009

Job opening – Marketing Professional: Technology Industry, Sales Enablement Focus

Marketing Professional: Technology Industry, Sales Enablement Focus

Northern NJ (relocation assistance is offered)

Experience Desired:

  • Experience working on/in/around very technical products from a marketing/market research standpoint
  • Experience working very closely with internal SalesForce to develop solid Sales Materials, Collateral, Training Sessions and More in order to Create Leads and Help SalesForce Develop New Business and Close More Deals
  • Experience Working on/in/around Go-To-Market and Launch Strategies surrounding technology based, B2B Products and Services.
  • Product Management Experience from a B2B technology product/service based standpoint: new product features and benefits, price and SLA comparison/competitiveness, Product/Service Viability, Usability, SalesWorthiness, product planning and lifecycle, maximizing profits and sales revenue, messaging/communications surrounding newly launched products/services.
  • Market Research Experience and Experience with Related Marketing efforts surrounding: product launch, competitive intelligence, product management, product analysis, pricing analysis, feature and benefit analysis, segmentation, partners/alliances, and other related areas as it Relates to the development of Sales Training, Sales Collateral, Sales Presentations and Webinars.
  • Must be extremely analytical…PhD or Master’s Degree from a top school is strongly preferred.
  • Experience working (in a similar capacity) closely with a combination of a Domestic SalesForce and an International SalesForce and Resellers is preferred.
  • Please Note, this is Not a Management Level Role (in terms of people managment)

Found on June 8, 2009

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