Sales 2.0 Alive and Well

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Last week I returned to where it all started for me in sales (Boston) to attend the 4th installation of the Sales 2.0 Conference. As one of the original sponsors and self professed member of the Sales 2.0 Mafia, I might be somewhat biased (if you haven’t noticed that fact while reading this blog then you are seriously tone challenged), but the conference has really grown from a choir of insiders and vendors singing to itself into a valuable networking and learning experience for Sales and Marketing VP’s. After his introduction of the dorkiest “Sales 2.0 greeting” of all time, Selling Power’s Gerhard Gschwandtner recovered by correctly pointing out the “elephant in the room” economy that is driving companies to create more revenue with less resources. From there the speakers overall did a good job of holding the attendee’s attention.  More importantly for me (A.D.D. boy), the breakout area near the main conference room  was buzzing with conversation between real executives  from an impressive array of companies. Here are some observations:

The keynote speaker was delivered by Eric Berridge, Co-founder of Bluewolf. I had only heard of those guys as one of the main consulting partners of Salesforce, so when this ex-Oracle, Gordon Gecko type (I mean this as the highest compliment) got up and started smoothly booming out the way to “Accelerate Sales in a

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Down Economy” I was ready to tune out what I figured would be an ode to the Sales Shark. Imagine my surprise when he stated that executive management  needed to focus on the culture and personalities of the actual salespeople to find the process that works for their company, and ended with a touching scene from an add pitch in the television show Mad Men.  Throw in the fact that he suggested that sales people needed to know how to write since they spend so much time emailing and writing custom proposals and I almost jumped in the line to kiss his butt at the break. Almost.

The next presentations were grouped by topic, with three 10- minute customer testimonials given by actual customers from the vendor sponsors, followed by audience Q&A with the panel. The quality varied in direct pr

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oportion to the presenter’s oratory ability, but the Q&A brought out the real meat. I thought our (Jigsaw’s) presenter, Dan Maier from PTC, did a great job and had the firmest command of the topicJ At one point Gerhard drew attention to a poll on Selling Power’s website  about what company is the best for prospecting and lead generation. To date Inside View is winning, which is preposterous, not because they are a competitor (they aren’t), but because all their valuable contact data is provided by Jigsaw. Please link out and vote right now for Jigsaw: http://www.sellingpower.com/homepage/index.asp

I personally love those guys, but homey plays to win!

The last panel was entitled “Social Networking in a Sales 2.0 World.” I know three of the four panelists personally (Nigel Edelshain, Anneke Seley and Trish Bertuzzi- love all of ya) and I knew this might be a contentious topic for skeptical sales types (like me), so I held off on my natural urge to start the cocktailing early. I was not disappointed: each of the speakers had some good points and examples of salespeople using social media, but Ken Melchin from Neocase Software was ready to take them to task about the potential for wasted productivity. Citing a walk across the sales floor of his company with a well known, fiery, bald Microsoft executive, Melchin pointedly asked the panel how it was a good thing that 75% of his sales people had Facebook open on their desktops during the workday. They fielded the questions aptly (if somewhat defensively) by stating that just like Solitaire or personal calls, these activities could be discouraged by holding reps to strict productivity metrics. We had a similar debate in our Idaho office about Instant Messenger- ultimately I think people (including me)  probably abuse it at work, but in the end we’re not babysitters and employees that don’t  hit their numbers walk out of the office with their sh^t in a cardboard box so it’s not a big deal.

All in all, I’m a huge fan of the Sales 2.0 movement and conference. The next one is slated for Chicago in September- maybe I’ll see you there?

PS- Here’s a shout out to Garth Rose (the other Garth) and all the ex-OECers that I saw back in Boston!