Write-it-Right Weekly Tips

5 key sales trends in the social business—Takeaways from #s20c (Part 1 of 3)

I just attended the “Sales Strategies for a Social & Mobile World” conference—and if the pulse of the room was any indication of how fast social media is changing, all of Santa Monica had Red Bull for breakfast. Check out the convo on Twitter (hashtag #s20c).

Below are some of my key takeaways from the invigorating day:

Change is the new constant:

• Companies are suffering from adaptation apathy. @Gerhard20 said business is changing at a speed of 10x, but even the fastest companies lag behind at 3x. Keep doing business the way you’ve always done it, and you’ll be out of business in 3 years.
• Email is dying, and cold calls are dead. An average of 200 emails flood your prospect’s inbox every day—as many as 97% of them are unwanted. How are you adapting your sales strategies to get personal with customers online?
• Geo territories will become extinct. There’s no such thing as a target profile anymore. The social CRM data available today necessitates personal selling, and traditional sales territories must move online. Great tips to put your best face forward online here.

Customers expect customization—for everything

• Alignment is yesterday’s buzzword. Sales must = Marketing. Marketing owns more of the sales funnel now that buyers self-guide up to 80% of buying cycles online. To earn their place at the revenue table, marketers must be numbers-driven. Companies need to establish formal definitions of a qualified sales lead across their organization. Conversations and collaboration must lead to measurable ROI metrics if they have any hope of fueling future success. @JeffreyHayzlett said he addressed this need by viewing Sales and Marketing as the same department when at Kodak.
• The corporate voice = the personal voice. The social business operates in a 1:1 world. @MarkRoberge says every Hubspot sales rep has a blog, and IBM’s joining the social crusade across multiple channels.

Thanks to @Sales20Conf for a fantastic conference—and everyone else quoted here. What else would you add?

In my next post, I’ll explore 3 principles for social media success that I learned from the conference. See here for Part II—3 social media strategies for sales success.