Chad is onto something here, and a few of his points really stand out to me. He mentions that the cause of this shift to sales 2.0 is web 2.0; meaning the increase in the flow of information that social media and the web has created is allowing for more informed customers. It also allows for more informed sellers; for example it is incredibly easy to look up a prospect on LinkedIn, get a sense for their business personality and then to look up the company they work for through information services or by simply googling it.

Chad also mentions that at the “center of all this change is content and how we interact with it”. If you have interesting blog posts, tweets that speak to your buyer’s needs, or some other sort of intriguing or valuable thought, you will drive a following and in turn drive more sales opportunities. However it is also important to monitor others content; if your buyers can find information about your product and about you, then you can certainly find information about some of your prospects and their companies. In addition, you can find all sorts of valuable tricks of the trade by searching for articles, blogs, etc. Since you are reading this blog I guess you already know that.

Beyond the necessary information on your prospects, monitoring social networking and/or business sites can also keep you up to date with client events and will keep you on top of certain activities that can trigger sales, such as a merger or management change. While it may prove time consuming to do this on your own, there are information tools that can help you do this (iSell for example).

Bottom line: Make yourself visible on the web through effective content and self promotion, and take advantage of existing content by searching social channels or through business information tools.

 While the practice of not letting leads go cold is widespread, increasing the speed at which the leads are contacted after they first appear may be more crucial than is currently perceived by the majority of sales and marketing individuals. A new study by Leads360 shows that there is a direct correlation between the time it takes to contact a lead and conversion rate. According to the study, 88% of all leads that eventually convert were called within the first 24 hours. Even more astonishing is this figure: “sales leads called within 60 seconds of being first generated online showed a fourfold (391%) advantage over average conversion rates”. While it may be a bit of a pipedream to think that you can always get to your leads within a minute of them popping up, this stat still shows the importance of getting to your leads quickly. The faster you can get to the leads, the more likely they are to still have your product top of mind, and the easier it will be to convert them into an opportunity.

 That being said, don’t sacrifice speed for quality here. Don’t call the prospect if you aren’t fully prepared (for instance if you haven’t done any research into the prospects needs and how to position your solution to them appropriately). The fact that you called them within ten minutes of them opting in doesn’t mean squat if you have no idea who they are and why they might need your product. Take a few minutes to figure out who you’re talking to and what their needs are, and then make the call.

In any case, the blog post discusses what to do when a prospect starts to shut you out. Instead of losing hope, it advises you to try some new tactics that might help you get your foot back in the door. I can’t help but agree – it’s better to keep trying than to give up at the first sign of rejection.

One of the suggestions is to probe for a new decision maker or influencer.

Maybe the reason why your prospect isn’t responding is because you aren’t talking to the right person anymore. Maybe your contact has changed positions or left the company, and is no longer relevant.

 Or maybe there’s someone else in the company who has a more influential hand in the decision making process that would be more than happy to meet with you. In order to find out the most relevant contact information, make sure you have a viable content information provider– preferably one that aggregates and sorts the most up-to-date information, so you can easily see all the information you’re looking for – saving you time and gaining you access to the right person and of course, closing that sale!

 Trish Bertuzzi makes this point in a recent blog post where she discusses getting rid of the BANT system and moving to another system she calls NOW. No, it’s not an acronym, but it is a helpful reminder that sales people should be focused on what their organization is and what it needs NOW. She also mentions that your methodologies need to be reviewed and re-vamped every so often, otherwise “NOW” becomes outdated.

 The tools salespeople use should be just as up-to-date as their methods. You need the most comprehensive, accurate information to do your job as best you can, so make sure both your sales strategies and information sources are fresh!

In fact, Brian Vellmure of CRM Strategies recently posted on the importance for sales individuals of being “social anthropologists”. This means knowing not only the basics about your clients but also knowing what influences them such as who they associate with, their interests, preferences etc. Brian describes it as striving to learn about your customers in the contexts of their lives. He describes how understanding how your customers work will allow you to gain insight into how they influence others, which can lead to additional sales for you.

Being connected via social networks is imperative to a sales 2.0 world, where this up-to-date information can often provide more valuable insight into customers/prospects than static information. For example, in a recent survey conducted by OneSource, it was found that 47.8% of those surveyed were using LinkedIn more this year than last year for B2B sales prospecting. This suggests that sales professionals are using social media more and more for prospecting purposes, most likely because of the amount of readily available information it provides about the prospect. The more information you can gather about a prospect, the more likely you will be to close.

 The other major problem that Hopkins sights is that sales reps tend to be too aggressive in tougher times: “They go into sales situations with dollar signs in their eyes. They know that their company and their family needs them to make a sale and so they come across with too much intensity” says Hopkins. Instead of worrying about each sale to the point of making this mistake, realize that the economy will bounce back at some point and use a more normal sales approach.

 Hopkins believes that 2010 -2011 will be a great year for sales, so now is the time to get your ‘ducks in a row.’ The past few years have been challenging, but when the economy turns the corner it might be worth revisiting lost opportunities from the past few years. As the economy changes, so do people’s needs, and you might find these individuals to be more receptive the second time around.