The Sales 2.0 Conference: The Results of Listening to (or Ignoring) Your Customers

For me, attending the Sales 2.0 conferences is like going to a 500-plus-person family reunion. There are so many Phone Works customers, partners, friends and familiar faces in attendance that, in two days, it’s impossible to spend the time I’d like to catch up with everyone. The good news is the size and continued growth of the Sales 2.0 community, as witnessed by the increasing number of conference participants, bodes well for the health of companies’ finances and their customer relationships, as buyers and sellers embrace Sales 2.0 practices and technology. As we heard from presenter after presenter at the conference, successful Sales 2.0 strategy and implementation increases sales effectiveness and efficiency.

In reviewing my notes (actually my live Twitter stream; follow @annekeseley and others with #s20c if you want all the details), I found some recurring themes worth emphasizing. One of the simplest but most important ones has to do with paying attention to the people who buy your products and services.

Employ a Chief Listening Officer

Jeffrey Hayzlett, chief marketing officer and VP at Eastman Kodak (and a showman on top of that), gave the most entertaining presentation on critical business transformation I’ve experienced yet. During his talk, “Kodak’s Successful Fight for Survival in the Digital Age,” Jeff revealed, among other things, how his company embraced social media to connect more closely with customers. After naming a chief blogger — one of the first large companies to do so, according to his interview with Sales 2.0 Conference staff — he created the position of chief listening officer. This person’s job is to follow online conversations across social platforms such as Twitter and Facebook, as well as on blogs, and direct them to the appropriate department within Kodak for follow-up. This allows the company to respond in real time to customers’ needs.

I like the concept of dedicating staff to listen to (and ensure response to) customers. With the evolution of social media tools, wouldn’t it be great if our sales managers and reps could all become listening officers?

Engage With Unexpected Contacts

Jeff  and I connected on Twitter and exchanged a few personal messages just before his presentation. This is the first Twitter interaction I’ve had with the CMO of a Fortune 500 company. The guy knows how to engage!

Have you had any interactions on Twitter with C-level buyers you’ve never met (or other social networking or social media sites)?

Consider an Updated View of ROI

Like many of us, Hayzlett is frequently challenged by his CFO about the ROI of his social media marketing programs. His retort: “Engagement is the new ROI. You want to know the other ROI? Return on Ignoring!”

If your competitors are following and responding to customers on social media, and you aren’t, can you imagine what that might cost you?

Consider an Updated View of CLV

Though I don’t think they coordinated their presentations in advance, Clara Shih’s presentation supported many of Jeff’s key points by introducing a new way of thinking about Customer Lifetime Value (CLV). In her presentation, “Social Networking & Sales,” the wicked smart and always delightful Shih, CEO of Hearsay Labs and author of The Facebook Era, touched on the concept of “Social CLV,” which Clara promised to cover in the second edition of her book. Social CLV includes word-of-mouth (WOM) referrals, customer support cost savings, and sales resulting from idea contributions. Hayzlett gave a perfect example: By listening to a customer suggestion to add an external microphone jack to its digital video camera, the company was able to create a competitive advantage in one of its products that can be measured in revenue dollars.

Are you listening to your customers and implementing their suggestions? What are the results?

Tags: Clara Shih, Jeffrey Hayzlett, Sales 2.0, Sales 2.0 Conference, social media

Social Networking in Sales: Show Me the Money

Last Thursday at the Sales 2.0 conference in Boston, a sales executive from Microsoft was lamenting the growing popularity of social networking in his sales force.  “My sales people are wasting valuable time on Facebook when they should be selling,” he said in frustration during the final presentation of the day (mine) on Social Networking in Sales.  This topic was part of the agenda of the first Sales 2.0 conference to take place on the east coast, which attracted over 200 sales leaders looking for innovative ways to improve sales results. The event featured presentations by sales pioneers at companies who described the ways they are transforming the way they sell using Sales 2.0 practices, or forward-thinking sales strategy, people, and processes, enabled by sales productivity and customer engagement technologies.

In the sales community, there continues to be skepticism about social media’s ability to help sales people sell. This concern is not unique to east-coast-based sales managers; similar doubts were expressed at the March Sales 2.0 conference in San Francisco, which I wrote about in an earlier post. As sales managers are struggling to make their numbers in a slowed down economy, they are super vigilant of keeping their sales reps focused on revenue-generating activities.  Other than social networking’s ability to  “like Botox, make us feel younger and fresher”, as a I read on Twitter the day of the conference, it has yet to be proven in many sales organizations as a productive channel for sales people to connect with and close customers.

To prepare for my presentation at the conference, I knew what I had to do: find real world examples of sales and marketing people not just using social tools – but also seeing measurable results, i.e., qualified sales opportunities and revenue. Naturally, I reached out to my network by posting my search for social media ROI on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in addition to sending e-mail.  Here’s what I found:

Dan Harding, Regional Sales Manager at ConnectandSell, is on track to close 25% of his annual quota by using LinkedIn and Twitter.  Within four months of using these tools as part of his sales process, he has filled his pipeline with at least ten highly qualified opportunities representing several hundred thousand dollars in revenue.  He uses LinkedIn to stay in touch with his network of hundreds of contacts by regularly updating the status box to report on events, promotions, and customer successes. For example, Dan’s status box today reads:

Another Great Customer Kick-Off 12 reps, 12 hours, 140 connects, 24 referrals, 17 Demo/Follow-up! Meetings

E-mail is automatically sent to his connections through LinkedIn network updates, which drives people to check out his newly refreshed profile.  This includes a five-slide SlideShare presentation that succinctly describes how his offering helps clients increase their sales results.  Dan says, “LinkedIn helps me leverage referral-selling. I can easily update my network and stay in touch, which is resulting in e-mail and phone inquiries from people I used to work with or those they recommend.”

To the sales executives out there who are worried about social networking interfering with their ability to make their numbers, I say this: Sales managers who hire the right people –those who are self-motivated and driven to achieve – and set the right objectives, supported by the right compensation – can expect that these reps won’t waste time on non-revenue-generating activities. Quota-carrying reps and managers can easily experiment with social networking and figure out whether they help or hurt their individual productivity and ability to deliver revenue.

Social media also can be very effective in sales lead generation marketing(depending on whether your target audience engages in those media), as I found in another example. When Tealeaf became a client of my consulting company, Phone Works, we quickly learned of the company’s impressive results using Twitter to attract executive-level attendees to their Customer Experience Management seminars.    Tealeaf’s director of online marketing, Dave Ewart, has generated 10% of event registrants using Twitter and over 50% of them are in the company’s target audience – almost twice the percentage than registrants coming from traditional media marketing campaigns. Over $200,000 in potential sales has already been generated via social media marketing campaigns, which launched only a few months ago. Dave designed the event registration campaign to be viral by including an “invite an executive colleague” link in the confirmation e-mail as well as a “tell followers you’ll be attending” link for Twitter users.  Here’s what this looks like:

annekeseleyI just registered for Tealeaf’s executive Customer Experience Summit in D.C. on May 19, Join me. http://cli.gs/vy24LT (via @tealeaf) #wa

It is too soon to tell how many of these opportunities will close, given the length of Tealeaf’s sales cycle and the short amount of time that the company has been piloting these new programs.  Dave maintains, “Twitter helps us find prospective customers that we’re not reaching through other media, especially because new prospects are referring other prospects. ”

These are just two examples of how forward-thinking sales and marketing managers are generating quantifiable business results leveraging existing relationships as well as reaching new prospects using social networking.

What are your experiences with social networking in sales and marketing? Can you attribute measurable results such as sales or qualified leads to new media?

Tags: Facebook, LinkedIn, Phone Works, ROI, Sales 2.0, Sales 2.0 Conference, social media, social networking, twitter

The Emergence of the Hybrid (Telesales/Field) Sales Rep

In Sales 2.0, the lines are blurring between traditional telesales and field sales jobs.  Inflexible rules about what constitutes a telesales or field sales opportunity are no longer working for companies or their customers. Some companies are experimenting with their sales models, allowing sales reps that are primarily inside reps the flexibility to leave their phones and computers when customers require and warrant a face-to-face visit.
I talked to veteran sales executive, Bill Lohr, to learn about his recent successful implementation of a hybrid inside/field sales model in his last position heading sales for the global leader in on demand Web Content Management (WCM). Bill refers to the new model as the “tweener” model: in between an inside sales model and a field sales model.
AS: What do you call this new kind of inside sales rep?
BL: Given my background in professional services, I gave them the title “Client Executive”.  I think of Software-as-a-Service companies as services businesses, not software businesses. Software is the tool by which to deliver services to customers. Yes there is software involved, but the things that really matter are creating value and trusted relationships.
AS: What made you decide to employ an inside/field sales hybrid model and how do you implement it?
BL: The majority – if not all –of the sales cycle at my last company was conducted over the phone.  However, some customers needed a face-to-face visit if the first year revenue amount was very large, the customer was strategic, or the deal was complex. In general, inside sales reps could make field visits if an annual order size exceeded $500,000. One example is a major newspaper for which we went onsite twice in order to close the deal.  For our first visit, they had 25 people in the room. We were able to establish relationships with key decision makers, who championed our solution internally and allowed us to sell into other departments.
AS: What percentage of your customers required face-to-face visits?
BL: For Enterprise Accounts, probably 50%.  But other than the final closing steps, the rest of the sales cycle could still be done by phone and online.  The fact that the company has no field offices encouraged us to minimize travel.    We even closed accounts in Australia and Holland without ever meeting the client.  You can do a lot with the phone and online tools such as web collaboration products.
AS: How is your sales team structured and what are the responsibilities of each team member?
BL: Given the monthly recurring revenue model, the customer’s need for a consultative sales approach, and the company’s many different kinds of buyers, I needed flexibility. Inside sales reps in most companies don’t have the ability to leave their desks and that didn’t make sense to me. I think of the Client Executives as expert “set up” people while my role as SVP of sales was to help close sales and play a first line mentor and coach role.  I would go to all face-to-face customer meetings with my reps and provide support and education.
AS: Contrast your sales productivity before and after you implemented the new sales model.
BL: When I started, it took only 18 days to qualify an opportunity and 56 days to close. By designing a more sophisticated sales process and implementing the hybrid model, it now takes 26 days to qualify but only 42 days to close.  I lengthened the lead qualification process but ultimately shortened the sales cycle.  The monthly revenues increased exponentially as well because we were doing a better job qualifying prospects out of the funnel early in the sales cycle.
AS: What is the profile for your new hybrid sales rep?
BL: Someone who has experience in telesales (on quota sales) positions, is confident on the phone, and is able to engage customers in phone and web meetings and conduct web demos and presentations.  Our reps also need to be able to navigate an organization by phone, have meaningful conversations with all levels of buyers, and coordinate these buyers– often up to 15 or 20 –within a company.  Ideally, candidates have been in the top echelon of inside sales at a company like salesforce.com and their next step is a field sales position.
AS: What is their quota and target compensation?
BL: Quota is based on one month of the monthly recurring revenue (MRR) for a one-year deal and goes up for a two-year agreement, e.g. a deal that is $20,000/month for one year would get quota credit and the rep would be paid on $20,000.  The MRR can justify this model. Target comp is over $150,000/year at quota.

(Note: For more information on best practices in inside sales quota assignment and compensation, have a look at the annual inside sales compensation survey report conducted by Phone Works.)
AS: Would you hire someone who came from field sales?
BL: I’m not sure I would.  I don’t think they’d fit the mold I need.
AS: How did you organize sales territories? Do the reps close new business as well as work with existing customers?
BL: Sales territories are structured by industry, not geography, since we target named accounts in specific vertical markets.  The client executives just close new business. I have a separate team – Customer Success – that is responsible for customer adoption, upselling, and renewals. The reps on this team are called client managers.  Their job is to do the right thing for the customer; they are not on quota (although thy get paid on the deals they find). Once a sale is made, the customer is immediately handed off from the client executive to the client manager.
AS: Did you have technical sales engineers supporting the reps?
BL: No, but we used technical resources on the client services team to assist the sales team.
AS: What metrics did you track?
BL: My sales organizations are very metrics-driven. I tracked call volumes, activities, sales stages, time in stages, pipeline flow, weekly changes and more.
AS: What sales tools and technologies did you use?
BL: Among others, we used salesforce.com, Jigsaw, Hoovers, GoToMeeting, LinkedIn, Eloqua, and EchoSign.
AS: How did you choose those particular products?
BL: I had two reps that came from salesforce.com, who were familiar with a number of products that integrate with salesforce’s product.  I also attended the Sales 2.0 Conference last fall, which showcased new technologies.
AS: How did the Sales 2.0 technologies help you sell?
BL: Lots of ways.  Jigsaw and Hoovers helped alert us to who the players are in a given account.  LinkedIn got us to the right people faster and increases their response rate because an individual reaching out to another individual makes the outreach more personal. EchoSign accelerated the contracts cycle.
AS: How much cold calling did your team do?
BL: I didn’t want my sales team spending any more than 20% of its time cold calling.  It is too costly to use these resources for that purpose.  Instead, Marketing generated leads for us by running email marketing and other campaigns.  Also, we had sales development reps chartered with cold calling.  Telesales reps are responsible for targeted account selling into vertical industries including high tech, financial services, and media. Their calls are warmer because they are based on research and knowledge.
AS: What have your sales results been?
BL: When I started, we were producing $20,000/MRR.  Two and a half years later, with the same sales team, the productivity increased to $700,000/MRR.

What are your experiences with hybrid sales reps? How do you detemine what telesales sells and what the field sells?

Tags: Bill Lohr, EchoSign, Eloqua, field sales, GoToMeeting, Hoovers, hybrid sales model, inside sales, Jigsaw, LinkedIn, SaaS, Sales 2.0, Sales 2.0 Conference, sales metrics, sales tools, telesales

Twitter: Friend or Foe of Sales?

Last week I attended the oversold (500 people plus) Sales 2.0 Conference in San Francisco and was invited to participate on the panel discussion, “Accelerating Productivity: New Sales 2.0 Tools”.  A week earlier, I was the guest speaker at the inaugural Social Media Breakfast San Francisco meeting (see online video), during which I was interviewed, Fresh Air style, by social media guru, Chris Kenton. There was a common theme between these two events: the most engaging (or should I say heated?) discussion topic was the use of twitter in the sales process.

People are passionate about twitter, whether they love it or hate it.  To the majority of sales executives I know, twitter is seen as perhaps only second to Facebook as a major distraction for the sales force and drain on its productivity.  Garth Moulton, cofounder and VP of Community at Jigsaw,  sums it up in his recent blog post, “Not Digging on Twitter” that “for a working professional Twitter is totally stupid.”

He might be right.  But I’m not willing to accept that until I give it a chance.

Like my dermatologist who tries out every new procedure on herself before subjecting her patients to it, I  have immersed myself in the twitter community and am experimenting with it. A few weeks ago, I didn’t know what a hashtag, retweet, or @reply meant, but I’m enjoying learning about a new communications medium that so may people (some sources say 2,000 new user accounts are created on average per day)  are flocking to. During the opening session of the Sales 2.0 conference, I tried my hand at “live tweeting” the content: broadcasting it out to an audience of twitter users who were following the conference online in real time. You can read some of these “tweets” in several blogs written by members of the Sales 2.0 community: Michael Damphousse’s Smashmouth Marketing, Parker Trewin’s B2B Marketing for Faster Sales, and Andrew Lennon’s The Daily Anchor, among others.

My theory is that when new technologies are adopted enthusiastically by the mainstream, they may just have a place in the buying cycle.  In B2B sales, that might not be the end of that cycle – it’s hard to imagine someone placing a million dollar deal via twitter – but never say never. Twenty-four years ago, I was told I was crazy to expect the sophisticated customers of Oracle Corporation to buy its complex products by phone.

How are YOU using twitter in the sales process? Is it improving or decreasing sales productivity in your company? And most importantly, what revenue has resulted from a twitter interaction with a prospect?

Tags: Andrew Lennon, B2B Sales, Chris Kenton, Garth Moulton, Jigsaw, Michael Damphousse, Oracle, Parker Trewin, revenue, Sales 2.0, Sales 2.0 Conference, Social Media Breakfast, twitter