The Web 2.0 sales model

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 phone, 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.

The Black Art of Selling in the Web 2.0 world

It looks like I have kicked up a bit of a hornets nest about Web 2.0. It seems that people now know about the phenomenon but have no idea what to do about it. So I have just posted a ten minute video to explain a bit more about Web 2.0 and give you some strategies that you can implement, to help you re-engineer your business.
If you’ve been living in a soundproof box for the past few months you may not be aware of this, but Web 2 is coming faster than anyone could ever have imagined, and it is going to affect just about every business. Put simply Web 2.0 is the extension of the internet. It brings a whole range of tools and interfaces which not only make it easier to communicate but actively encourage collaboration between internet users on a scale previously only imagined by science fiction writers.
Now on its own that is interesting but there are two parallel tracks which make this an agenda item for every Board room.
Firstly there are some alarming facts coming out from the Direct Marketing Association. Under the Electronic Communications (EC Directive) (Amendment) Regulations 2004, businesses are able to register their telephone number to allow them to opt out of receiving telephone marketing calls. There are already a little over 1.2 million business lines registered and 14.6million private lines (which include partnerships and sole traders). And if you think this is toothless legislation, think again, the law allows for a fine of £5000 PER offence. That means that if you have a telesales person making calls at say 80 per day and even 25% are registered, you could amass an unbelievable £100,000 of fines in a single day. Let me make this clear, this is not proposed legislation. It is not being considered or even debated. It is the law now. Today. And it is being enforced. Now you have to be pretty unlucky to fall foul of the regulators and extremely obstinate at not following the enforcement notices if they are served on you. But that is only how things stand at the moment. If the authorities decide to use their powers, at the very least you are going to be seeing an awful lot of your lawyers; and paying their bills, never mind about fines and damage to your reputation.
Both these numbers are growing at a staggering 30% per year. Now you don’t have to be a genius to see what this means. Not only is there now a risk in using a phone to contact a customer, the available market is shrinking dramatically. It will take a couple of years but within a relatively short time it will become economically unviable to use tele marketing as a primary new business tool. Now there are some things that businesses can and should do to limit the risk and I will be talking more about this in the strategy programme that I am working up at the moment, but for the time being the question of new business development needs to be on the strategic agenda.
Now on its own, that is, or should be a cause for concern. The second parallel track is the impact of Web 2.0. Alexa is a web information site that categorizes websites by traffic volume. It has some great tools and provides really useful free information. If you take a look at their ranking site you will find EVERY one of the 21 top ranked sites is built around user generated content and includes Wikipedia, Facebook, Myspace, You Tube and Google. The first commercial site is Autotrader – and that’s ranked at no 22. Now the way the internet works, search engines rank sites by number of visits and back links.

Now lets just take a moment our here for a moment to explain why this is important.
There are basically two ways to be found on the internet. Either you pay to be found using pay per click advertising - or you persuade Search Engines to find you because they think that your site provides good content for their users. Now the algorithms that search engines use are highly secret and constantly changing. There is a massive industry out there trying to second guess the search engines and work out how they decide who is going to be at the top of any natural search. The Search Engine Optimization or SEO industry is the 21st century equivalent of necromancy. Don’t believe a word of it, you could be no 1 today and 385,000 tomorrow because the algorithms change all the time. You may hear a lot of noise about key words, back links, landing pages and meta tags but in the end, the only sustainable way of winning and maintaining a high position is by having content that is highly regarded and sought after.
Now again, this is not guaranteed, but unless you want to pay for every visit to your site, you need to be convincing search engines that you have worthwhile content; and while this can’t be guaranteed, it is logical to conclude that they use a number of indicators to see if you are worth visiting. Firstly they want to see how many real people think your site is cool; so they count how many people link to it and mention it in social media sites and blogs. Secondly they look to see how many people tag it on sites like DIGG and Delicio.us and finally they look at the quality of the content and compare it with other sites to see if the density of keywords on your site is better or worse than other sites that seem to deal with the same kind of issue. Now there are a ton of other variables and we haven’t got time to look at all of them now, but the bottom line is that if you are not working on creating content that the search engines think will be helpful to their users you will be on page 59 of any given search and you will NEVER be found.
Now here’s where the two tidal waves meet. If you can’t approach you customers directly anymore because the telemarketing restrictions make it too difficult, you are going to have to change tactics and rely on you customers finding you.
Now this presents two problems. In the old days you could call up a customer and say “hey you’ve got a problem and I can help”. But if you can’t call him he may not know that he has a problem and may not care. So the first task in this new world is to find out what he Googles when the wheels come off. In the survey we just completed, 82% of you told us that you have a browser open all the time or nearly all the time. And an astonishing 89% said that you used the internet as you primary research tool. Just think what that means. A problem occurs; the customer Googles the problem using a set of words that means something to him, he finds three relevant entries on the first page of the search engine and he sends them an email. Unless you were there; the deal is done before you took your second gulp of coffee. And that’s the way it’s going to be.
Now you can try to stem this flow by commissioning a wizard to optimize your site, but by now you should have realized that this is going to be a never ending story. Even if he gets it right today, it’s going to be wrong tomorrow. The only way you are going to be able to combat this monster is to restructure so that you are consistently producing high quality content that is highly rated by the visitors to your site and can be easily found. Now this is a really big topic and it’s the reason that I have been putting together a strategy package to help businesses reposition their ‘new business’ effort so that they come out no 1 in this brave new world. Make no mistake - this is complicated and that’s why there is going to be a very limited number of places on the programme.
I am going to look at the technologies underlying these changes, provide you route maps as to how to decide what’s important and what’s not, and how to develop a strategy that will allow you consistently generate content in a form that both your users and the search engines will find appealing. We’ll be looking at how to use blogs and social networks and some of the other Web 2.0 media sharing tools. There will also be advice on how to engage the key players in your team and how to train and develop your sales guys to take advantage of this new environment.
The issue here is getting to the top of the list and staying there.
In my next presentation I will be giving you more information on how this is done and will give you a sneak preview of some of the things we will be covering in the programme. Meantime, as a thank you for staying with me so far, just register in the box below and I will send you a free copy Web 2.0 – The Latest Internet Wave. This 37 page e-book fills out all the web 2.0 jargon and has some great links to web 2.0 resources. It’s free and there is absolutely no obligation. It is packed with useful information and insights and will really make you think about your web 2.0 strategy.
So here’s what I suggest you do. Go ahead and register for the download. It’s free, and I guarantee it will really inform your thinking about Web 2.0. And look out for an email from me next week when I’ll be letting you have the results of the survey and will be talking about how to construct a Web 2.0 new business strategy.
Please feel free to post any questions you may have and perhaps list any topics you want to be sure are covered in the Strategy Programme.
I’m off now to work on the course and as soon as I have more, I’ll let you know.
Meantime – happy surfing