I thought it was about time to dust down my keyboard and put finger to keys, or two fingers in my case, and write a post. It seems like it has been weeks and that is because it has! Although not posting on my site I have written a couple of pieces for the Sales Bloggers Union - Add Value by Asking Great Questions, Sales Process often stifles sales and Motivating the Buyer. I have also written a paper on Sales 2.0 which will be part of an eBook that Brad Trnavsky will be publishing on his Sales Management 2.0 site. My paper is… Sales 2.0 Should You be Afraid or Excited?… and here are my conclusions…

Web 2.0 has the possibility to radically change the way sales systems help sales professionals. The focus will be on providing support to the individual, not the organisation. Over time organisations will begin to understand that if they help the individual sales professional this in turn is helping the organisation. No longer will organisations dictate that the sales system must be used and opportunities must be logged to be included in commission payments. If the focus is on helping the sales professional and the right tools supplied then the information will flow from the bottom up to the top. Management philosophy will also have to change from demanding everything has to be in the pipeline to making sure everyone shows how they are making their number.

Companies will no longer run their systems in their own silos but will open them up to collaborate across the full sales team. Collaboration may even evolve to include trusted people outside the immediate sales team to sales professionals in other organisations that share common customers. Social networking will make this possible.

However, large organisations will find it difficult to adapt full Sales 2.0 because of their investment in their CRM systems. They will instead bolt on applications in the hope that they will get the benefit; they won’t. Unless there is a large forward looking organisation out there that has the vision to be different then it is going to be left to the small organisations to lead the way. Small organisations can become big organisations that can threaten the traditional dominant company… just look at Google versus Microsoft. Who is a threat to whom? Who is using Web 2.0 and Sales 2.0 technology? I rest my case! Large organisations need to be afraid, very afraid. Sales professionals should be excited as there is a whole new world of possibility just waiting to happen.

To find out how I arrived at my conclusion you will need to read the paper in the eBook when it is published and read the whole 10 pages!

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