Anneke Seley on Sales 2.0 (Part 3)

From Chapter 2 of ‘Sales 2.0: Improve Business Results Using Innovative Sales Practices and Technology’ by guest authors Anneke Seley and Brent Holloway.

SALES 1.0 TO SALES 2.0: CHANGING MINDSET 
The difference between Sales 1.0 and the new imperative of Sales 2.0 is more than just the definition of a sales process, the update of hiring profiles, and the implementation of some new technology. Jeff Weinberger, who oversees Cisco WebEx’s Sales 2.0 initiative, underlines the importance of mindset in moving from the old world of Sales 1.0 and embracing the new imperatives of Sales 2.0. Jeff explains, “Sales 2.0 leaders think differently about building and structuring sales organizations. Making the shift from Sales 1.0 to Sales 2.0 won’t be sustainable in your organization unless your leadership has begun to change its mindset and commits to the change.” 

SALES IS ART AND SCIENCE
Veteran senior executive and former top-selling IBM sales rep of the 1970s Mike Seashols is a prime example of a Sales 1.0 superstar. Mike is a naturally talented sales professional who exudes charisma and has a gift for connecting with customers and employees. He admits, “I never needed a sales process; for me, it was intuitive.” This is in keeping with a mindset that is prevalent in Sales 1.0: sales is an art. In many industries, executives hiring sales teams and managers place artistry and a winning personality at the top of their lists of qualifications for all of their sales candidates. 

The Sales 1.0 belief that sales is largely an art form stands in stark contrast with the Sales 2.0 premise that the selling function can be made more scientific and predictable with Sales 2.0 practices. Although Mike Seashols exemplifies the Sales 1.0 artist, he recognized early in his career that art alone would not guarantee a sales organization’s success. When he started managing other people, he recalls, “I needed to codify what I was doing at each step in the sales process, so I could ask my sales team to consistently follow my winning formula.” Some suggest that the analog of Sales 2.0 is a manufacturing conveyor belt. While this comparison is useful, it only goes so far. Sales involves communications and relationships between human beings; not interactions between machine parts. It is not merely a numbers game. Success in sales requires a combination of art and science. In Sales 2.0 terms, the art is forming strong customer relationships; the science is improving sales process and measurement. 

Art, however—though useful on an individual sales rep level—is difficult to duplicate and scale across an operation. Sales art can be very powerful in establishing strong relationships and winning key sales, but it is unpredictable and unsustainable at the corporate strategy level. In their market research reports on sales effectiveness, Barry Trailer and Jim Dickie, partners at CSO Insights, reveal that the average results across organizations show that “the more you rely on the science of selling versus the art, the more success you will achieve.” Building predictable sales processes is the first priority when implementing Sales 2.0. When you identify your star salespeople, you can figure out what makes them successful, build those practices into your process, and train everyone else on their approaches. 

In Jim Collins’s bestseller ‘Good to Great’ and his accompanying website (www.jimcollins.com), the author describes a concept called the flywheel as one of the requirements for achieving disciplined action and greatness. He writes, “We build greatness by a cumulative process—step by step, action by action, day by day, week by week, year by year—turn by turn of the flywheel.” Through consistency, this flywheel gradually builds momentum and becomes an unstoppable force. The sales process can be the driver of this flywheel in your business.

This segment is part 3 in the series : Anneke Seley on Sales 2.0
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