Inside Sales Managers’ Community: The Telebusiness Alliance

Communities  — and not just the online varieties — seem to be in vogue.  As our world changes, buying and selling practices evolve, and our jobs become harder and more competitive, Sales 2.0 leaders realize they don’t have all the answers — there is a lot to learn by looking outside one’s own company and comparing experiences with others.

The Telebusiness Alliance, a community of inside sales managers, was founded because of my own desire to connect with other managers whose teams sold by phone and Web.   After I started Phone Works after a 10-year, nose-to-the-ground career at Oracle,  I knew that to build a a successful consulting practice providing  trusted advice,  I had a lot to learn about how companies other than Oracle viewed and implemented inside sales.  So 17 years ago, I called six inside sales managers at companies known for their inside sales prowess and invited them to join me for lunch at a local restaurant. I was eager to hear from my peers about their successes and challenges,  how their departments fit into their companies’ overall sales strategies and how they approached key issues such as integrating with marketing and other sales channels, mapping to buying processes, finding good people, motivating them, measuring their performance, and enabling their productivity.

Today the Telebusiness Alliance has grown to almost 200 members in the San Francisco Bay Area, is led by a board of dedicated volunteers and meets every quarter to share industry best practices and provide support and mentoring. The group consists of noncompeting inside sales managers, running both quota-carrying and sales development/lead generating teams, who see value in discussing mutual business issues, both at meetings and online via our LinkedIn group.  Perhaps because we manage inside functions, we especially welcome face-to-face gatherings, and the meetings are well-attended.  Attendees come from the newest start-ups, as well as the who’s who of the valley, and everyone learns from each other.

Inside sales managers aren’t the only ones looking to learn from their peers. Last year, my longtime colleague, Phone Works General Manager Sally Duby, helped form the Silicon Valley VP of Sales Executives Forum to serve the needs of local chief sales officers. Sales operations managers can join their own special interest community, the Sales Operations Forum.

Inside sales managers, you can join our community at the next meeting of the Telebusiness Alliance on February 9 from 8:30 to noon in Redwood City, CA.   We’ll be asking:

• What did you do to change behavior to increase productivity in 2009?
• What are you looking to implement to gain efficiencies in 2010?
• What are the top sales productivity tools you are using today or planning for tomorrow?

Do you have a local community for sharing ideas and best practices? What are the benefits of being part of a community?

Tags: Community, inside sales, Telebusiness Alliance

Unanswered Questions from Last Week’s Webinars

Thanks to all who attended last week’s webinars.  We had great audience participation, but lots of questions went unanswered, so I want to respond to a few more great questions.  I’m doing an experiment by taking the extended Q&A session online. Let me know what you think!

If your question is still not addressed in this blog post, please feel free to re-post it in the comments section. Or if you prefer, contact me by e-mail or phone.

Q: What changes, if any, to the Sales 2.0 process would you suggest for companies choosing to use an independent sales agent approach to building a business development organization?

A: The same principles apply, whether you are building a virtual sales team or hiring staff. Develop a sales culture that includes a focused sales strategy, with aligned sales and marketing functions, as well as aligned sales channels. Consider phone/Web-based or inside selling to leverage and support face-to-face selling.  Define and measure a customer-centric sales process. Find open-minded, flexible, team-oriented sales people who are willing to try new things as the business climate and customer preferences change. And enable as much of the buying and selling process with technology as makes sense for your customers and your business.  Listen to Mike Mansbach’s story of CitrixOnline’s inside sales group or Dan Freund’s description of OracleDirect to hear how leading companies are implementing Sales 2.0.

Q: Could you describe the movement of Product Pitch to Trusted Adviser through implementation of Sales 2.0?

A trusted adviser does more than recite a list of product features and benefits that may not be relevant to a buyer.  He or she does research on prospects, their industries, their companies; anticipates their needs; and provides valuable and expert information. This research is more possible than ever before because of tools such as online search (e.g. Google, Yahoo!), social networking and Sales 2.0 technologies that deliver accurate and timely information to sales people.  Check out Chad Levitt’s story about building a million-dollar pipeline as an example.

Q: How do you avoid making sales people not feel distrusted and micromanaged when you measure every activity so closely?

A: The last thing we want to do is demotivate our sales people!  Read Brent Holloway’s excellent post on how he uses metrics in his sales environment to manage his reps in a positive, motivating way.  The prerequisite, of course, is having the right sales people on your team who are constantly striving to improve and optimize their sales approach and see measurement as a way to gauge their performance and learn from their peers.

Q: Moving from Sales 1.0 to Sales 2.0 involves technical skills/knowledge development. Any idea of what segments and sizes of companies are adapting and being successful and why?

A: At Phone Works, our consulting business, we work with early venture-backed start-ups, as well as multi-billion-dollar companies that are succeeding with sales transformation from Sales 1.0 to Sales 2.0. These companies are across industries, though we have seen the most innovation in the technology, green/clean energy, health-care and media segments. The most important prerequisites to success are a willingness to change, thirst for new knowledge, an open-minded attitude to try new approaches, an inability to settle with the status quo, and a willingness for look for new ideas and ask for help from experts outside the company.  The companies that are the most successful with Sales 2.0 have leadership that supports and embraces these core values.

You can  listen to recordings of my Web events — or share them with colleagues who couldn’t attend — with Dan Freund, VP and GM of OracleDirect, on “Inside Sales 2.0: What Practices and Technologies Produce Results”; and Gerhard Gschwandtner, CEO of Selling Power and Mike Mansbach, GM and VP of Global Sales GM at CitrixOnline, on  “Sales 2.0, Actionable Strategies for Driving Sales and Increasing ROI”.

How an Inside Sales Rep Built a Million-Dollar Pipeline Using Social Media

This is an excerpt from my interview with social-media selling expert and super-blogger Chad Levitt. The full interview will be published in my upcoming book … stay tuned!

Chad Levitt is a model Sales 2.0 guy. He recently accepted a sales role at HubSpot, which makes inbound marketing software. At the time of this interview, he was an inside sales associate responsible for lead generation and account fulfillment at EMC Corp., the global leader in information infrastructure technology and solutions. While he was named EMC’s sales associate of the year for 2009, Chad doesn’t just sell. He is also the author of the NewSalesEconomy.com blog, which explores using social media, Sales 2.0 and inbound marketing as a B2B sales strategy for the Web 2.0 world. Chad is the featured Sales 2.0 blogger at SalesGravy.com and a contributing author for Sales2.com, as well as a contributing author for Personal Branding Blog.

I wanted to get insight on how a sales rep on the front lines uses Sales 2.0 practices and technology, especially social-media tools, and learn from his experiences.

Anneke: Tell us about the role social media and social networking play in your role as a salesperson.

Chad: Many sales reps and managers don’t believe social networking and media can increase their business. They see it as a leisure activity and a waste of the sales rep’s time. Depending on the viewpoint, the person and the use, they may be right or wrong.

What is true — and will continue to hold more weight in the future — is that social media and networking can help you reach any business goal. The hard part is finding the right mix of what works and what doesn’t. The only way I know to do that is through trying and experimenting.

As a sales associate primarily engaged in lead-gen activities for my territory, I use LinkedIn and Jigsaw extensively. I am able to find prospects, research them, get their contact info and then try to call and e-mail them. These two platforms are my bread and butter for my calling activities. I can do all of this extremely quickly, and it integrates with my CRM (Salesforce.com), so I’m constantly building account intelligence.

Over time, I’ve noticed many customers and prospects are on LinkedIn, a smaller but growing number are on Facebook, and I have even found a few customers on Twitter. I Google every single customer and prospect I have. You’d be surprised at the amount of information available on the Web. If there is information I can use to my advantage, I’ll take the edge.

Anneke: How do you currently use your blog, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. as part of your sales process?

Chad: I use my blog as a platform to share my thoughts and others’ thoughts on how Sales 2.0 and social media are changing the sales profession. I am active on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter — make sure to connect with me! I use these networks to help build and promote my brand both personally and professionally.

Some people wonder why I invest all this time building my personal brand. I believe the best future opportunities in the sales profession will go to the sales reps with the best performance and visible personal brands. If you are not easily found online, you might as well not exist; many opportunities are going to pass you by.

Anneke: Does your use of social media and networking help you make your sales quota? How?

Chad: Yes! I have never missed my weekly quota. Keep in mind my role is in supporting EMC’s enterprise accounts (Fortune 1,000) with lead generation at the top of the sales funnel process; this would be different lower in the sales funnel.

The point is: The information available in social networks, especially LinkedIn, helps me have more meaningful conversations with customers and prospects. I’m able to see who people know and what they do at the company. I can see their past job history and where they went to school. Social media helps me gain traction in under-penetrated accounts and create more activity for my territory.

Anneke: What measurable results have you seen? How do you measure results and success?

Chad: I am accountable for my weekly appointment quota and other activities such as talk time and dials. While these are important, the real question is: Can social media help create more revenue and close more business? My answer is yes. Through the appointments I have set, there has been more than $1 million in booked revenue in 2009. These appointments were aided by social-networking, media and Sales 2.0 tools, including LinkedIn and Jigsaw.

Anneke: What would you recommend to other sales people getting started in social media/networking and their managers?

Chad: I would recommend they read as much as possible on social media, networking, Sales 2.0 and inbound marketing. Use Google Reader to subscribe to blogs such as Sales 2.0 Advocate, Sales2, Hubspot Inbound Marketing, SmashMouth Sales and Marketing, Selling to Big Companies, Personal Branding and my blog, New Sales Economy.

By reading up on best practices and new trends, they’ll learn about the Sales 2.0 movement and find ways to increase their business. There is no shortcut, though; it takes time, patience, dedication, and willingness to fail and persevere. I know I am going to make mistakes and will try things that don’t work; but I’m also going to find the things that do work and always be on the cutting edge.

And the winner of the Sales 2.0 Book is….

Brian Corey!  Congratulations, Brian!

Thanks to everyone who joined Dan Freund, VP and General Manager of OracleDirect, and me on yesterday’s webinar hosted by Jigsaw.  During the web event, I announced that one lucky participant would receive a signed copy of the book.

Besides having some fun with the contest, I hope we met our objectives and delivered helpful information on:

• the outlook for inside sales and its role in the new culture of social selling (Sales 2.0)
• how one SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) company tripled their revenue by assessing and improving their inside sales group
• Oracle’s innovative and leading inside sales groups from inception to >$700 million in North American sales today
• how you can get started with Inside Sales 2.0 initiatives

You’ll soon be able listen to a recording of the webinar or forward it to your manager, employee, friend or colleague; stay tuned for the link. Also, I’ll be answering questions we didn’t get to in my next blog post, so be sure to check back or subscribe by email or RSS feed.

Sales Compensation Trends: How Does Your Package Compare?

Compensation is a critical component of business strategy, and sales incentives are especially important to get right. In his new book, Drive, Daniel Pink professes that most people are motivated by autonomy, mastery and purpose rather than carrots and sticks. When it comes to sales reps, though, I disagree: Most great salespeople I know are still motivated by money. To be credible consultants and to provide the most current advice to our clients, we at Phone Works conduct two compensation surveys each year — one for VPs of sales and one for inside sales professionals at all levels — and we’ve just released the latest results. This year, we are also offering customized versions of the reports, so contact us at Phone Works or leave a comment here to request a quote for specific data relating to your industry, geography, size or type of company, and other criteria.

Is your sales compensation tracking with industry standards?  Are you experimenting with new models such as Pink-style “Motivation 2.0″ compensation in your sales organization? I’d love to hear more about your experiences.

Tags: compensation