Selling C21: Web 2.0 in action

Wednesday, 7 November 2007

Web 2.0 in action

I suffer from arthritic pain in the left great toe. Last year I had a manipulation and injection to sort it out, but the pain has returned.

So yesterday I saw the surgeon and he offered me a choice of a repeat procedure or (what I thought was) a kylectomy. He took me through the various options but I didn’t feel confident enough to make a decision, so of course I Googled it.

It very quickly became obvious that I had misspelled the word. Changing to chilectomy, Google helpfully asked me: “Did you mean: Cheilectomy “and in just two clicks I knew everything I needed to.

So What? Well until yesterday I had never heard of a cheilectomy. And now I am an expert and can make an informed choice which suits me, my plans and my pain threshold.

So what if I was selling cheilectomies? (Which I suppose in a way my surgeon is).

I believe that to sell effectively in the Web 2.0 world, you need to know how to be found on the web and secondly you need to have the skills (and the infrastructure) to convert enquiries in a single step. As soon as the customer goes away he is lost and it is very unlikely that you will be able to recover him or her.

Compare and contrast this with the conventional selling model in which you would first have to find someone with a problem to solve, get on their radar, establish the details of their situation, propose a solution and then close (handling objections along the way). This conventional model with 5 – 10 steps looks very different to the Web 2.0 model which is much simpler but still needs considerable skill.

There are almost 2,000,000 hits on the subject of cheilectomy (depending on how you spell it) but only about 20 blog entries and it is interesting that Jeffrey Oster, has cornered the market in foot pain advice in that sector. If I was in Ohio, he would certainly be my podiatrist of choice.

Message for today: start thinking about how Web 2.0 will affect (is affecting) your sales effort

Perry Burns

www.sales101.co.uk

Labels: sales, selling, web 2.0

3 Comments:

At Tuesday, January 01, 2008 , Anonymous said...

Thanks, Perry. I'm honored by your comments.

Medical care and sales are an interesting mix. We do sell products on our site but do so through a very passive manner. Our intent is to educate first, and if sales do happen, then all the better. Some would consider that to be a naive approach, but I think it's more of a Web 2.0 approach. Empower the consumer (patient) and let them make educated choices.

Remember, like all good things, being at the top of a Google search result takes a lot of hard work.

Thanks again.

Jeff
Jeff Oster, DPM
Medical Director
Myfootshop.com
At Tuesday, April 29, 2008 , Anonymous said...

Hi Perry

Web 2.0 seems to be a term that many people are using to mean many different things.

Do you think that Web 2.0 has any specific practical implications for B2B businesses?

Much of the discussion regarding Web 2.0 centres on blogs, social networking and the like. One can see how Web 2.0 techniques for client engagement can be employed in B2B contexts.

As such in B2B would it be fair to say Web 2.0 techniques might transform the client engagement model but not necessarily the overall business model?

Regards
Mike Thrower
Global Head, Sales and Marketing
Cognotec Ltd
At Wednesday, April 30, 2008 , Perry Burns said...

Hi Mike,

Thanks for your comment.

In my view, one of the biggest mistakes a business could make is to think that Web 2.0 doesn't have any practical or direct implications. It has both.

I agree absolutely, that client engagement is the most obvious implication, but the more serious consequence is that prospective customers are increasingly relying on search engines to find solutions to real or perceived solutions. Coupled with that, they are rejecting all forms of approach be it by mail, email or letter. Thus the entire first part of the traditional sales cycle has been effectively re-engineered and with it the essential sales skills of matching need to benefit. In some cases this has gone to the extent that customers don’t even bother to do the preliminary search themselves (see the Olympic Delivery Authority’s ‘Compete For ‘site). They are using bots to do it for them (some call this Web 3.0, especially if their bot talks to your bot). This makes it extremely difficult to bring the attention of a prospect to a problem he may not know about or does not realize he has.

So the first consequence of Web 2.0 is that the old selling models (e.g. Quest or SPIN or AIDA) no longer apply. The second is that the sales cycle is likely to be far more reactive than ever it was in the past. Finally and most importantly, when a prospective client does make contact, he is likely to have already done a feature / benefit analysis from published information on your web site (and that means, by the way, that you have to have really strong content on your site or you will get filtered out before you even know he is in the market). It also means that he is likely to be in price comparison mode. Sales 2.0 salespeople are going to have to be far more skilled in taking control of that conversation and turning it around. It also means that they are going to have to be trained in how to get the best from environments where technology cannot intervene, i.e. in networking and exhibition selling situations.

The implications for businesses are huge. Firstly they have to hone their client engagement models to attract customers to their site in the first place. This is not easy and requires a complete rethink of corporate business development strategy. Secondly they have to plan carefully how they will interact with customers, even those who might be interacting with their site in a social networking mode and convert them into customers. This too requires a rethinking of traditional sales roles and models. This is not going to be easy, but companies who “get it” will be long term winners and those that don’t will go the way of all those brilliant things like VHS, squarials, morse code and a million other technologies that have been swamped by the tide of progress.

Perry