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David Ogilvy and the Origins of Sales 2.0
September 13, 2009
Dan Hudson and I spent a full day at the Sales 2.0 conference in Chicago (Sept 10, ’09). The event promised an opportunity for sales and revenue leaders to learn and view the new tools, best practices and innovations happening in the latest industry to enjoy a 2.0 rebranding.
A common theme across presenters was that all previous (i.e. 1.0) selling models are dead. Some even suggested the entire idea of sales died with it. Replacing the peddler from 1.0 Land and their outdated ways are these tenets of the New World of Sales:
- Targeting prospects based on research, analysis and profiling
- Consultative relationships with customers and creative approaches to solving their challenges
- Cultivating professional networks for introductions and warm hand-offs
- Value-additive conversations across social networks
- Quality leads over quantity
- Focusing resources on high probability opportunities and passing on bad deals
- Alignment between sales and marketing reinforced by shared goals and metrics
Excuse me for a moment while I go Old School on you. I heard the same presentation on the “new rules” of selling in a 1994 Miller Heiman consultative sales course. Blue Sheet anyone? A decade earlier I was taught the necessity for precise targeting and prospect profiling in my 1980’s college marketing courses. Many of the marketing basics in those textbooks originated with advertising titan David Ogilvy. His four principles for success: Research, Professional Discipline, Creativity and Results, were perfected during his Ogilvy & Mather years, from 1949 to 1973. There’s some serious Old School for you.
By the second morning break I was feeling like Sales 2.0 was really “Sales Consultants and Software Companies 2.0”. Excellent afternoon panels and discussions later, I too was now in full agreement things really have changed. Here’s what I heard that convinced me Sales 2.0 is really different.
Big change #1: The Internet has in fact dramatically re-engineered the buyer process – even though that shift was well under way more than 15 years ago. It’s been a long time since buyers were forced to wait for presentations, catalogs or RFP responses to know about the best choices out there.
Big Change #2: Web 2.0 tools, which have significantly improved how buyers and sales people interact with their networks and share information. Working your network for information, tips, recommendations, leads and referrals has been a business mainstay forever, but in the Facebook, Linkedin world it’s like comparing air travel to riding horseback over dirt trails.
Big change #3: Telling your story has never been this easy. WordPress, Twitter, SlideShare and a myriad of other publishing platforms have turned anyone who’s good at it into their own advertising and PR firm. The ease of use, efficiency and reach of these tools are vastly different from anything that ever existed previously.
Big Change #4: Global competition. Thanks to the Flat World it’s now possible to lose a bid at a prospect company in Atlanta to a competitor you’ve never heard of from a country you may not be able to pronounce. Pulled together a competition profile on your industry lately?
Big Change #5: Speed. Customers now fully set the cadence and pace of the decision process and despite what old rules say, sales has no control of that process. As Thomas Stewart said earlier this year, “we are constantly gaining speed and losing altitude.”
My conclusion on Sales 2.0 is this. It’s a reawakening to the fundamental underpinnings and interdependencies of sales and marketing. It’s turbo-charged by new technologies and 2.0 tools which are revolutionizing research and communication, key ingredients for sale success. Global competition then injects a multiplier effect to the mix, forcing all participants (buyers, advisors, sellers) to function in 7×24 precision.
Succeeding in Sales 2.0 World means competing in ways many Old Schoolers are very uncomfortable. Delay at your own risk, while this bullet train has not yet left the station the engines are revving. Not participating means living with ‘quantity over quality pipelines’ and far fewer qualified opportunities and lower win rates. Delaying another quarter or two may be too late.
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Ardath Albee wrote a very good summary on some of the most important takeaways of the day on her blog post, Sales 2.0 Conference: Creating a More Productive Sales Pipeline
Read it here:
http://marketinginteractions.typepad.com/marketing_interactions/2009/09/sales-20-conference-creating-a-more-productive-sales-pipeline.html