10 Things I Learned at Sales 2.0 Boston

Over the last couple of days I’ve been reflecting on what I learned at Sales 2.0 Boston. I’m sure some of this has already been discussed in other posts, but I’m interested to hear which of these are most interesting to you.

1) Sales teams are demanding integrated Marketing tools to drive their business.

CRM and Web Analytics can no longer stand as separate systems. Polly Sumner described an experience where she never heard back from an unresponsive CIO, but was able to track that the email she sent was opened 17 times. This implicit interest let her know there was an opportunity at that client. Invaluable.

2) SFDC Chatter allows you to identify top performers.

Eric Johnson described the way his team was using the tool to collaborate and identify the company’s top performers. Eric and Polly both shared experiences that the real superstars of the organization shine through when they analyze their chatter follows and participation.

3) Operational Sales Reporting may not be needed in the future.

This was my most revolutionary “Ah-Ha” moment of the conference. If Chatter allows a manager to see who is taking many actions that drive results, and who is unable to interact with valuable leads and customers, then there is no need to track phone usage, leads closed, and account coverage to understand which sales reps are doing their jobs.

4) You can survive without an IT organization!

I was amazed to hear Dave Fitzgerald from Brainshark describe his systematic dismantling of Brainshark’s internal business systems. Dave sounded very proud when he described the 17 core functions that are now implemented by SaaS tools. He also discussed swapping some out that weren’t performing as expected with simple on / off service contracts. Dave is down to three FTEs supporting his whole Sales and Marketing infrastructure.

5) Siebel is not popular among Sales 2.0 folks.

My company continues to use an on-premise install of Siebel as our CRM / SFA. When I told people this, they gave me a look of sympathy mixed with dissappointment. It was like I had just told them that I had a terminal disease.

6) It takes a village of applications to enable Sales 2.0.

As I begin to think about building a SaaS based Sales and Marketing infrastructure, I realize that you need to select a series of tools that each play their role well. At a bare minimum, an enterprise would need a central CRM / SFA system, a Marketing Automation platform, an integrated lead generation engine, a Sales compensation tool, and an analytic package.

7) The table in the back corner at the Hoovers VIP dinner had more fun than my table.

This was evidenced by the fact that we took the “What will you do to fill the lead funnel?” question seriously, and they spent the same time laughing and drinking. And we still lost to Anneke Seeley’s table!

8 - The Sales 2.0 Conference will be changing it’s name to the Sales and Marketing 2.0 Conference in the future.

As Sales and Marketing Alignment panelist, I completely agree with this approach. The best conversations at the conference were about the intersection of Sales, Marketing, Technology, and Data and over time these things will converge.

9) Sales executives get very interested when you talk about advanced analytics.

That was the number one follow up after my Panel. Everyone I spoke thought they could do better than they were today at priortizing leads, and understood that they needed better analytic tools and models.

10) I need to attend more conferences like this one.

I spend most of my team navigating internal company issues rather than thinking about ways to create revolutionary change for my organization. After attending this conference, I am more qualified to help my company succeed over time. There is no better way I can justify a day out of the office.

Sales 2.0 Conference Recap Part 1

Yesterday, I spent a whole day emersed in a world of new tools and technologies at the sold out Sales 2.0 conference. Now that I’ve had a chance to reflect on the day and the conversations, I wanted to present some of the hightlights and my opinions of the various topics discussed.

What is Sales 2.0? I’ve already tried to answer that question once, but let me give it another try. Sales 2.0 is a change to people, process and technology that allows sales and marketing teams to do their jobs in a more intelligent way. It is either very customer or productivity focused (depending on who you ask), but probably not both at the same time.

The theories presented and tools demoed were mostly focused on enabling Sales reps with information that allows them to move closer to consultative selling. However, the final session of the day was defined by the use of ConnectandSell, a smarter version of a dialer that allows reps to efficiently communicate with lots of customers. To gain that efficiency, reps are trained to “just start talking” when they hear a beep in their ear. While that may sound efficient and is likely cost effective, it is the furthest thing from Consultative Selling I’ve ever heard of. How can you be consultative when have no idea who you are going to talk to a second before the connect? Maybe I’m missing the point, but this seemed to be contradictory to everything else discussed at the conference.

Some highlights from the agenda:

Polly Sumner, Salesforce.com’s chief adoption officer was a facinating person to listen to. Polly is a veteran of several of the technology giants and is now helping SFDC get into more places. She is passionate about the technology, and couldn’t wait to demo an iPhone version of the app to an eager group. Her description of “Chatter” led me to proclaim operational sales reporting’s death. I also came to the conclusion that SFDC will lead to more tech savvy and analytically focused sales management over time. I’m sure I’m not the first to come to that conclusion.

Polly spoke about SFDC using their own tools and publishing their best practices for all of their clients to grab. While not unique, this approach arms her adoption conversations with real experience rather than Marketing fluff. Polly showed us how she would follow an account, opportunity, contact or sales rep using chatter to understand an account. By doing so, she no longer had to waste an hour with an account review to prepare for a client meeting.

Perhaps the most important thing I learned from Polly was to take an individual focused approach to implementing CRM. Make it simple for an end user to use a couple of CRM / SFA applications, and they will be more likely to ask for more. Present too much at once, and they will be overwhelmed. She also talked about enabling C-Level executives with Dashboards allowing them to see directly into their CRM system, which could be a revolutionary step that disrupts boardrooms in the future. Imagine the CEO having better information than the Head of Sales? That would be exciting to say the least.

Up next in Part 2: My panel on Sales and Marketing and the end of IT!