How Generation “Y” Killed Cold Calling and Gave Birth to Credibility

Every generation brings with it change. If you and the way your company sells doesn’t accept and go with the trends of each new generation, you will become extinct. Welcome Generation “Y”. I’m not going to spend any time describing this generation, but if you want to understand them fully visit www.jasondorsey.com or read his book “My Reality Check Bounced”. It’s on my must read list for anyone who wants to understand how this new generation thinks, how they operate and what they expect. Once you understand them you will be much more effective at selling to them.

It is because of Generation “Y” that we are now talking so much about Web 2.0 today. Web 2.0 can be characterized as facilitating communication, information sharing and social communication over the internet. This is not only how they communicate, it is also how they buy. People are looking to social-networking sites to do the majority of their homework. Take Bazaarvoice for example. Bazaarvoice is a local company here in Austin that is making headlines daily by providing UGC (user generated content) for major brands across the globe. They understand completely that people/prospects want agnostic, third-party advice and recommendations prior to engaging with any sales folks. The good news for all of us in sales is when they do come calling; they are highly qualified leads and more than happy to talk with a representative from your organization.

Nurture calling, not cold calling is the most effective way to sell these days, especially for small to mid-sized SaaS companies. It’s the old “build it and they will come” mentality. Build the community, establish credibility and watch the really qualified leads come in. These are the types of leads that you want to call in to. Picking up the phone and calling prospects is an absolute must, but you have to realize that people today don’t want the cold call, they want the nurture call. A call that offers additional information pertaining to their initial interest or information specific to their industry or role - you know, something that actually means something to them.

The key for your company is to create a community destination for all of your prospects. Engagement coupled with best-practices content, testimonials and reviews is how you stay connected with all prospects very early in the sales process. Just because you’re not calling them doesn’t mean that you’re not communicating with them. In fact, this is how they prefer to communicate. Prospects need a place to share success and failure. A community that is available for everyone, you can't be scared of open and honest feedback, in fact some times negative feedback can be looked at as valuable information when enhancing your product or services. The feedback is, after all, what YOUR market is telling you they want and need. They want to talk with peers prior to talking with you. This is where a great marketing team comes into play. Building a website that acts as a community establishes credibility, which produces results. Results for all of us inside sales teams are qualified leads, which turn into qualified opportunities, which turn into revenue.

It is imperative that you establish creditability. Your company needs to be perceived as an expert in your field either from a functional standpoint or an information standpoint. Not all products can be as viral as a Google, but Google’s success can be attributed to the fact that people bought from friends or from a network of recommendations. The success of Google is really what Web 2.0 is all about today. It’s this idea of letting users do your marketing for you. Word of mouth is king.

So focus on the community or building a website that acts as a community; provide white papers and host webinars all geared towards your industry, not your solutions. In fact, it’s better if all content comes from industry experts outside of your company. Be the epicenter of valuable information for everyone in your field. Build this credibility and the customers will come. Google didn’t worry about how they were going to make revenue at first; they wanted to be the de-facto search engine. They were the best functional search engine out there. Once they got a huge following, they then said ok time to start selling add space, applications and o yeah a platform to all their devoted fans. Don’t focus on how you are going to make money, focus on building a following.

I would love to hear from others on how they built out their communities to foster this new approach to sales…..please share.

Thanks to SaaS, Inside Sales Teams Are Now Vital to the Organization

SaaS has not only transformed the way we do business, it has also elevated the importance of a great inside sales team. Inside sales has grown from an extension of marketing to a true extension of the sales team. Inside sales once had a negative connotation both internal to the company and to the external world. Don't believe me? Ever been cold called? Yeah if you ask CEO’s and VP’s if they think their inside sales team is important they will say yes, but ask them what they do and they will inevitably say, “they bang the phones and get leads for our sales guys.”

If your inside sales team is just blindly banging the phones, then I'm here to tell you that you're wasting company money. No inside sales department should be cold calling. The true value of an inside sales team is to sell. By selling I mean one of two things: either they are nurturing potential buyers throughout the entire sales cycle in conjunction with a sales director and selling your brand/credibility or they are managing their own pipelines and closing business themselves. Selling has essentially become a nurturing process. The inside sales model you select is dependent on the goals of the company. Do you need a focus on building a pipeline or do you need a focus on closed revenue? You can look to your inside team to do one or the other or even both. All models work. It just depends on objectives and where your company's product is in its life cycle. Calling prospects is a must, so I don't want anyone to think that they don't need to pick up the phones. There is a time and a place and I will go into this in much more detail in another article, but I want to stress the importance of nuturing in this article. It's the Web 2.0 way.

Prospects are having to be nurtured for longer periods of time given the state of the economy and a fundamental change in buying behavior. Prospects need and want to be nurtured. This being said, there should be no difference between the skill sets of your inside sales team and your outside sales team. Recruit, interview, hire, train and pay folks as if they were the best outside sales director money can buy. In fact, the majority of your sales team should be inside sales.

Companies looking for SaaS solutions want to buy online and they are becoming very comfortable with an online/remote sales process as well. Gone are the days where face-to-face meetings are critical, especially for small to mid-sized SaaS companies. Yes...there will always be a need for the classic "outside" sales role in any organization, but 80% of business is now being conducted over the web. Salesforce.com is the poster child for success when it comes to creating a great inside sales team. The overwhelming majority of their sales folks are inside and never travel. They are living proof that SaaS vendors can and must be able to sell their products via an inside sales team.

What are your experiences with inside sales, now that SaaS has become so main stream? Are you noticing a shift to more of an inside sales model?