Time to Think Sales 2.0
The founder of Hubspot, Dharmesh Shah, recently wrote a blog post about hiring a startup sales team. Dharmesh is a really smart guy, and Hubspot’s success is well chronicled. His contributions to the local internet technology and startup culture through activities like his blog are invaluable.
But, as I read his top tips for building startup sales teams, I saw descriptions of marketing folks, project managers, consultants, and tech-type folks – but no sales people in there. At least, not the type of sales people that you and I know. You remember those guys – they have big titles and big smiles. They don’t work very well as a team. They don’t really understand your product very well. All they care about is . . themselves. Up until recently, a company’s sales team was comprised almost exclusively with these alpha-male-hunters. The bad ones used pressure tactics and fast talking to trick customers in buying stuff they didn’t want, and promised them things your product couldn’t do. The good ones were characterized by such descriptors as “Well, he’s an arrogant jerk that couldn’t care less about anyone but himself, but he at least he’s selling a lot of the right product.”
Let’s face it – selling is something you do to someone else. You sell a person in the same way you invade a country or drive to the hoop. Your success in these endeavors is almost 100% predicated on how bad you want it. And what do the recipients of all these actions do in return? They put up their best defenses to keep you out. Only the fastest, strongest, and smartest are successful.
But these days, buyers are in control. They weren’t found by the sales team in a phone list. They found your company through a web search. They didn’t listen to your sales team’s pitch about how great your product is. They watched your webinars and read your whitepapers and educated themselves. Your sales team didn’t sell them. They purchased you. These are all hallmarks of what is now being referred to as Sales 2.0.
Still out playing the Sales 1.0 game with a core cadre of sales heroes? You’ll probably find that it’s getting harder and harder to be successful, even if you have an All-Star lineup. It just may be that you’re playing the wrong game now.
Thanks for pointing out the Sales 2.0 trend. The changeover to Sales 2.0 is really picking up steam now.
Interesting that you chose Darmesh from Hubspot as your example. Hubspot has been championing the Inbound Marketing movement for a while and we’ve been championing the Sales 2.0 movement. We now all realize that sales and marketing departments are coming together in a “Sales 2.0 world”. So I believe you will see a lot of commonality between the Inbound Marketing and Sales 2.0 movements going forward – maybe even a joint conference one day.
Times are certainly a-changin’ in sales (good thing too “Sales 1.0″ was invented in the 1890′s – by John Patterson of NCR).
Nigel
Wow….talk about throwing a noble profession under the bus! I can assure you that there are many sales organizations out there that are comprised of people who care and are willing and able to execute a consultative process that provides value.
Don’t get sucked into the Sales 2.0 hype OR inbound marketing mania. Not all buyers are out there looking for a solution. If that were the case we wouldn’t need sales at all. What about innovators and early adopters – what about situations where your competitors have set the agenda and the buyer doesn’t even know you exist – what about good old fashioned taking latent pain to recognized pain? Not all markets or solutions are created equally so to assume a one size sales model fits all is a recipe for disaster.
There is a middle ground that we are all racing over to get from Sales 1.0 to 2.0. It combines knowledge of the market with intelligent approaches to inbound and outbound selling. Before you throw the baby out with the bathwater look at what you can fix now…read our “Have You Mastered Sales 1.5?” article to see what I am talking about http://blog.bridgegroupinc.com/blog/tabid/47760/bid/9747/Have-You-Mastered-Sales-1-5.aspx.
Thanks for listening – now I have to go sell something.
trish bertuzzi´s last blog ..The Flaw In Calculating Inbound v. Outbound Marketing
Thanks for defending us all Trish! This article is so far off base. What is being talked about has been changing slowly over the past 15 years. Like any “profession” there are the good and the bad. But good selling has never been about “hoodwinking” prospects. Those who do, eventually wind up losing big time. Sales has always been about helping buyers get what they need and want. Yes, the game is changing (has changed) in that buyers have more information at their disposal than they’ve had in the past but that still doesn’t mean they know what to do with it, how to evaluate it or even buy it if they want to.
Selling is far more complicated than that and the real pros know and respect this. They also know how to help a buyer make the decision that is most appropriate for them. If it happens to be the product that person is offering, great! If not, that’s OK too because a good sales person will run as fast as they can from a bad fit. Their job is to find the right fit, the right time and the process to make it happen. In order to do that, they are likely working on 3-4 times their overall sales reponsibility to narrow opportunities down to those that are best suited to the products / services they are representing. Furthermore, the sales / buying process is a team effort that is comprised of experts from both the buyer and the vendor. A good sales person is the “quarterback” in that effort.
For those of you who actually believe products “sell themselves”, good luck. The ditch is full of excellent products and technologies that never found their markets, were discarded because real business value was never uncovered, or generally poor business execution.
But, I’m so tired of hearing everybody blame the sales person. If you want to know where all of those pressure tactics, psycological manouvers and games came from, look to your business leaders who force companies to do whatever is necessary at any cost to make the numbers. Even with this, a good sales person will still figure out how to it the right way for them, their company and most importantly their customers. And, just for the record, there are many Sales / Web 2.0 vendors out there using these same old tactics online, without “Sales People”.
Sales 2.0 is nothing new in process and methodolgy. It’s only a new set of tools that when used correctly leverages new capabilities to deliver value. The fundamentals have not changed. Why, because human nature has not, nor ever will change. And, people, not processes or corporations, are still the ultimate decision factor.
steve dodd´s last blog ..steve_dodd: RT @martastrickland: Teens dont tweet!! Stats confirm wht many alrdy thought… more ppl ovr 55 tweet than UNDER 25 http://bit.ly/9qvnS
Snap out of it! How could we possibly negate the positive impact a well functioning sales organization has to the bottom line. This just seems ridiculous to me. As a marketing professional with many years in high tech under my belt, I know from experience that we need tactics that include inbound marketing to help drive inquiries, but the well designed Sales organization has a purpose to drive revenue into the organization. And, great sales people hold “authority” within their profession because they understand and are disciplined in this process as I am in marketing. True sales professionals hold “authority” with their client because they understand how to be a great quarterback for their client throughout the sales lifecycle. I agree with Trish, you can’t take a one size fits all approach, but there are some basic best practices in building a successful sales model that have been established and that can be followed for optimum success.)I’ll let you talk to Trish about that). I believe your clients will appreciate your organization building a top notch sales team and your marketing team will be pleased as well.