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Putting the 'R' back in CRM. Forgive me for sounding like an old, crusty sales guy, but I’m an old, crusty sales guy. I’ve spent almost 20 years in high tech, B2B sales and I have been fortunate to sell or manage the sale of $100m's worth of software and services. The most recent 10 years of my career have been in the cloud CRM industry. I have worked with hundreds of organizations to deploy these tools. All of them set out to implement CRM in one way, shape, or form to increase sales. Some succeeded, while others have struggled to achieve the results they had hoped for. In that time I’ve seen only one thing truly increase sales—more meaningful engagement between reps and customers. 'No one ever shot the moose from the lodge'.

Of course, why wouldn't we be enamored with these new tools? When out of nowhere came my manager bounding down the hall screaming in his full Long Island accentt, 'Geddout frum behine dat daam bawx (damn box) an’ get in frun’a’ya customa!’ So go out and see our customers we did. The End of the Cold Call. The days of the cold call as we know it are over. As VP of Revenue and Operations at ReTargeter, it’s my mission to help everyone in our organization make stronger connections with prospects more quickly and efficiently.

During this process, I’ve found that cold calling is inefficient (and often ineffective) for two main reasons: 1) Poor Use of Precious Time Many sales organizations spend a staggering amount of time looking for companies to pursue, for the right prospects within those companies, and finally, for the prospects’ contact information. 2) Lack of Relevance Not only is this process time-intensive, it is often completed without significant insight into whether prospects are interested. By addressing these two flaws in your sales outreach, you can build a stronger business, faster. ReTargeter’s Approach to Warming Up the Cold Call Whenever possible, we avoid cold calling. 1) Do Your Research We want to work with people who we truly believe we can help. 4) Leverage Social Insights. The Social Selling Resource Round-up.

As the impact of social media on the sales profession increases, best-practice ideas are starting to bubble up all over the web. So we thought we’d share some of the best content out there. Social selling themes As we reviewed the material, a few themes emerged: Social selling is the opposite of a hard sellIt’s all about discovering people who may eventually be interested in what you’re selling – then making yourself useful to them.

Information is a killer advantageKnowing more about prospects and buying teams is the fast track to the sale – and social media is a rich source of insight. Each social platform has its own techniques and etiquetteIt pays to invest the time to become a ‘power user’ in the forums most important to your prospects. Cold calling is for losersWith social media, a sales call need never be cold again. Social sales resources Now for the resources. Sales 2.0 Defined – by Inside View » Social Selling by Better Closer » Another good definition of social selling: Sales 2.0 - Insideview. When we sponsored the first Sales 2.0 conference in October 2007, the definition we put together for this emerging concept was pretty straightforward.

Sales 2.0 is a new category of applications that leverage the Internet to increase sales productivity and velocity. If our original Sales 2.0 definition seems a bit technology-centric, that's because it was (after all, we are a technology company.) Then again the man who coined the term Sales 2.0, Nigel Edelshain, also focused on tools in his original definition, describing Sales 2.0 as "using Internet tools to boost sales performance". By early 2008 InsideView's definition of Sales 2.0 had evolved to include both technology and process. Sales 2.0 brings together productivity tools and processes that transform sales from an art to a science. Sales 2.0 Definitions Like any new concept, Sales 2.0 has many competing definitions that will continue to evolve and be shaped by the "media" (hey, doesn't that include all of us now?). Social Selling - Better Closer. Social Selling - Everybody’s Talking About the New Sound. There is more and more talk about social media and its impact on selling.

They’re calling it social selling. It isn’t hard to tell that I love the tools and that they have been very good for me in regard to sales—and lots of other opportunities. But I am old enough to remember the failed promises of both customer relationship management and sales force automation; both were going to revolutionize sales but neither improved sales performance–at least the performance of those salespeople who didn’t work to be great salespeople to begin with. So before we get carried away with the new tools like LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and whether or not salespeople should be writing a blog, let’s take little step backwards and answer a few questions.

Funny, But Its Still Rock-N-Roll To Me I am going to say this pretty plainly, and it isn’t going to be popular. If you are not a person worth buying from without social media, you are no better with social media. Is social selling going to be a revolution? Monumental Myth: Nice Guys Finish Last. Timeless Truth: Nice Guys Finish First. “What is uttered from the heart alonewill win the hearts of others to your own.”

–Johann Wolfgang von Goethe THE INTRODUCTORY NARRATIVE in the film Love, Actually changed the way I think about people. It went like this: “Whenever I get gloomy about the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion is starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed. But, I don’t see that. I know: so sweet, it’s practically saccharine. When I decided to engage in social media in March 2009, I went in with four beliefs: 1. These four guiding principles have served me well, personally and professionally. In social media, you don’t want to win minds.

Old-School Rules, New-School Technologies To be successful in social media, you have to say what you mean and mean what you say. When a consumer wants to know if your product is worth buying, they bypass expert reviews (could be planted, solicited, paid–or all three). Social media success story: TOMS Shoes. The Future of Selling - white paper.