As we move through this new era of Web 2.0, we experience changes in how many things in business now work. Beyond the look and feel of business, the free flowing river of information that is the web powers new trends, and even new rules, as to how business works. Chad Levitt recently posted about the new rules of B2B sales in his New Sales Economy blog. Here we see how the rules have changed: the lines between marketing and sales have blurred, so Chad urges salespeople to make themselves visible by publishing relevant content and promoting themselves through virtual channels content.
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.
Good post. I recently had an interesting discussion with Web 2.0 guru Charlene Li, who is pretty confident that within the next few years, social media will become ‘like air.’ Hope this post helps. Cheers, Matthew
http://zoominfoblogger.wordpress.com/2010/05/25/when-social-media-%e2%80%98will-be-like-air%e2%80%99/