image source Microsoft Dynamics Community

When social media started to take shape in the 21st Century, it represented a way for people to connect, interact and share with others more frequently and more remotely. Twitter, Facebook, and the like allowed users to share the details of their personal and professional lives for the world to see, for better or worse.

Now, social media has spawned into as a legitimate form of human communication as speaking with someone in the physical form. Society has changed accordingly, and so has the business of sales.

As sales people began to troubleshoot customer issues and engage with consumers on social media sites more and more, so did the need for software applications to integrate the external data from those social media sites with existing customer relationship managment (CRM) systems. Thus, social CRM apps were born.

Social CRM apps are now common among sales people. They help companies track customer activity and engage with them quicker and more effectively. The presence also helps sales people maintain their company brand while building trust among clients.

If a business has a social media presence, customers expect to be able to engage with it immediately. For the sales people on the other end of the social media conversation, they should expect to gain vital CRM analytics through it, too.

“Social CRM is a philosophy and a business strategy, supported by a technology platform, business rules, workflow, processes and social characteristics, designed to engage the customer in a collaborative conversation in order to provide mutually beneficial value in a trusted and transparent business environment. It’s the company’s response to the customer’s ownership of the conversation.”

- Paul Greenberg, author, CRM at the Speed of Light: Social CRM Strategies, Tools, and Techniques for Engaging Your Customers

The bottom line effect

If money is any indicator, then social CRM app is here to stay. Information technology research group Gartner predicts that the social CRM market for year-end 2012 is expected to reach beyond $1 billion in revenue, nearly double than the year prior.

Although social CRM apps are abundant, the app is only useful if it ties into a company’s bottom line, says Gartner research director Adam Sarner in Forbes.

“However, while market growth is assured during the next two years, the ultimate success of social CRM will depend on how well companies and social CRM technology providers can accelerate through the inevitable social expectation bust and make social projects more than just ‘engagement’ objectives and actually tie social activities to clear and measurable business objectives.”

Social CRM apps have been shown to help business objectives. A new Nucleus Research report showed that the productivity of sales people increased 26 percent when they had CRM apps with social features and mobile access. They were able to easier communicate with customers and track their satisfaction rate, which enabled them to more efficiently calculate their CRM systems within their own companies.

The mobile component also helped streamline CRM analytics and cut down on often time-wasting tasks, such as organizing emails into existing CRM systems, according to the report.

Social CRM could also improve a company’s marketing RIO (return on marking investment), because sales people better understand what their customers want by being engaged with social media. The more social CRM analytics sales people bring in, the better.

“Sales teams are more equipped with an integrated view of online conversations of their customers and as a result can obtain more relevant information that is crucial to sales operations. Marketing teams can connect much earlier in the buying process while meeting customers at their point of need and gain insight into the behaviour, sentiment, and effectiveness of how they conduct their marketing strategy.”

- Yoav Techelet, Memeburn

Other big players in the social CRM game are acting accordingly to the need for mobile and social CRM apps. Salesforce.com acquired Model Metrics, a mobile and social consulting company, near the end of 2011, and Microsoft recently released software that made CRM apps available on the iPad, iPhone, Droid, and Blackberry.

The need for social CRM apps and awareness has grown abundantly clear. If conversation between a sales rep and his or her client has moved to the world of social media, the sales rep must be equipped with the proper technology to best interact with and understand the customer.

“Using mobile and social channels will evolve from a ‘nice-to-have’ to a critical component of interacting with and gaining insights about customers and prospects.”

- Vinay Iver, vice president of SAP CRM Global Marketing (source: Enterprise Apps Today)

Other Helpful Links
Best social CRM apps for small businesses
Paul Greenberg’s blog on ZDNet
Paul Greenberg’s Social CRM 2012 Watchlist
An Overview of Customer Relationship Management

New Sales Leadership Reports Reveal Social Engagement and Activity Levels

InsideView today also revealed new Sales Team Activity Reports. These extensive information reports are customizable and designed to give sales leaders a visual summary of InsideView usage within their organization. Additionally, the reports detail the monthly activity and engagement with the social selling and intelligence features InsideView is famous for. With the reports, sales leaders can monitor InsideView license usage, Company and People Insights features usage across the team, connections and referrals between team members and their personal contacts, connections with reference accounts and previous employers, and the usage of features such as Company and People Alerts. With these new administrative reports, sales leaders can set and monitor social activity goals and drive overall team performance.

Here are some of the new dashboards available to sales managers that want to measure the activity of their B2B sales teams leveraging sales intelligence for social selling.

Social CRM adoption

Adoption is always a factor with any CRM system. This is the same for Social CRM initiatives that leverage B2B sales intelligence to make your sales people more productive. Having the ability to see quickly how many of your sales people are using the sales efficiency tools you give them access to can help drive more adoption and lead to more sales pipeline and more won opportunities.

Drilling into the usage of the your sales team, sales managers will be able to identify what social selling activities are having the largest impact on your business.

• Are connections being made with decision makers leveraging your social networks?
• Have your sales teams been using daily trigger events to prioritize prospecting and opportunity management?

The end result is that CRM adoption will increase as new reports are made available. Leveraging social selling dashboards within InsideView gives complete transparency to the successes of the B2B sales intelligence being delivered..

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.” – Charles Darwin

Companies that have been leveraging social intelligence for the past couple years have been reaping the benefits of their efforts in an environment that has been changing quickly. Instead of relying on pure marketing tactics, they have enabled their sales teams with tools that have been speeding up prospect research times and outbound targeting.

Measuring Social Selling Impact

ROI Dashboards transform outdated sales team management tactics into actionable, rewarding, always-present information that allows sales professionals and their managers to monitor actual business results and progress any time. InsideView ROI dashboards are designed to help sales teams identify, track and report social selling activities that make meaningful impact on their business. This information enables constant   monitoring and adjustment of tactics to achieve the greatest results. InsideView ROI dashboards deliver rich information across three key areas:  leads, accounts and contacts, and opportunities.

“With ROI Dashboards, we were immediately able to track the value of our investment in social selling,” said Melissa Cole of Egencia.  “In the first quarter, we were able to attribute millions of dollars in pipeline to social selling activities enabled by Insideview. We also used InsideView’s social media integration and people alerts to identify over 1,000 key decision makers at our premier accounts. With these dashboards, not only can we attach real business value to our social selling activities, we can also fine-tune our social selling strategies and best practices for optimal sales performance.”

Grow your sales pipeline with social selling.

Organizations are changing the way they collect information and contact prospects and customers - 98 percent say they waste their budget each year on inaccurate contact data. (DataMyth.com) With data being poured into in the Internet everyday, there is no way lists of contact information should be cutting it anymore for sales professionals.

The age of lists and phonebooks are over for sales teams. The tools you need are out there on the Internet and social intelligence can bring it to you all in one package. 

Companies have realized that a solid social media strategy is vital to the companies goals for revenue and growth. Emphasis still remains on common business goals like:

• Customer retention
• Customer acquisition
• Customer profitability

Measuring the effects of social selling is no longer a difficult process. Leveraging an ROI dashboard that measures the pipeline of your sales team can bring huge results, just ask our customers.

A new report from Gartner covers the latest advances in sales strategy and some serious stats on B2B adoption of mobile technology, social CRM, and clienteling. Here’s one of their most startling predictions: 80% iPad adoption by pharmaceutical sales forces by the end of 2012. The High Tech, Life Sciences and Insurance industries already have a jump on the game with huge levels of iPad adoption for sales productivity. Insurance is not really what you think of when it comes to being ‘adventurous’ so you know there are some serious numbers behind the move.

Budgeting for new vs. old CRM

While some companies and entire industries are leapfrogging with mobile CRM gear, Gartner found that 70% of budgets still concentrate on more mature CRM technologies like customer service, e-commerce and sales force automation. This is great news for you because adopting future-forward techniques like iPads puts cloud capabilities in the hands of your sales force while cutting out 2/3 of your competition. Sales productivity has shown immediate gains from up-to-the-second streaming video demonstrations, immersion catalogs, and targeted apps on an iPad.
To get you started, here are your 3 biggest obstacles to deploying BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) along with some suggestions on how to handle them.

iPad roadblocks and bypasses

• BYOD skepticism – VMware reported that 79% of businesses do not support BYOD due to security and compatibility problems. Apple has an app for that. Apps push the security back to network level and so device security is not such a problem. iPads are not designed for document storage but your sales force doesn’t need to store anything if the cloud is available and your bandwidth is strong. If the device is lost or stolen, it can be switched off the network. The bigger philosophical question is: do you trust your sales staff. If not, you’ve got a different category of problems.

• C-suite silence – If iPads were so great, you would hear it from your CEO-CFO-CTO, right? Wrong. This is precisely the kind of tactical decision they are counting on you to handle while they work on long-term strategies. The ball is in your court so slam-dunk it. But these guys don’t have time to do the research so you’ll have to post-it note the financials. One thing you can do right now is to do some office politics and get your plan in front of senior managers. The reality is that gatekeepers have to be in place to protect C-suite schedules, but they can’t ignore an accumulation of management support.

• Passive pushback – the modern sales force correctly feels that more is being demanded of them every day. Management priorities come and go, so the safest way to survive in sales is to ignore most of what you are ordered to do. Sales numbers speak louder than compliance. So how does a manager motivate a jaded sales force to try something new? Fight dirty: think about what’s in it for them and give it to them. Don’t underestimate the power of shiny new toys that they can call their own. Allow them to customize things like look-and-feel, even if it creates more work for you and the IT department. Sales productivity will be worth the headaches.

SaaS and the future

Your next problem is how to support the flood of new customers and where to spend all that extra loot. Gartner’s report is ready with a suggestion for you there as well. Software-as-a-service has been such a financial success (because customers now demand a customized experience of your core business) that leading companies are moving up to Platform-as-a-service.

When you’re a B2B sales rep, few things feel worse than spending weeks or months on a high-priority prospect only to find out that your biggest competitor won the business. If this happens to you frequently then you’re probably feeling stressed out and unmotivated. Fortunately, you can turn things around with a simple secret: if you master the art of qualifying your leads, you can achieve greater sales with less time and effort. Initially you’ll have to fight against some instinctive habits, but with practice you’ll become a lead-qualifying pro. Keep reading to find out how to hone this crucial skill.

Maintain Control of Yourself and the Conversation

During your first contact with a lead, you may be eager to begin your sales pitch. It’s exciting to share your brand’s message with someone new, but it’s more important to listen than to talk right now. If you immediately launch into a speech about features and benefits, you’ll hand control of the conversation to your prospect. You’ll also lose a valuable opportunity to determine if this lead can become a loyal, profitable customer.

Gather Information

IBM developed – and still uses – the BANT approach for qualifying leads:

• Budget: Can the customer afford your product or service?
• Authority: Is the person you’re talking to authorized to purchase your product or service?
• Need: Do the customer’s needs match the benefits provided by your product or service?
• Timeline: How far into the future is the customer planning to make a purchase?

The BANT framework is very effective. Use it to your advantage by asking tactful questions such as, “What’s your budget for this project?” or “Who’s on your purchasing committee?” By keeping your customer talking, you can figure out what he’s really looking for.

Rank Your Lead

Once you you’ve gathered enough information, score your lead from 1-10 on each of the BANT categories, with a score of 10 equaling a perfect match. Combine all four categories to generate a total score out of 40. This score allows you to rank this lead against your other prospects. The prospects that deserve the majority of your time are the ones who can afford your product or service, who have the authority to make a buying decision, whose needs match the benefits you offer, and who are planning to make a purchase within your normal sales cycle. You can’t afford to pursue every prospect with equal intensity. Ranking your leads ensures that you’re distributing your time appropriately.

Welcome to Your New Reality

Qualifying leads keeps you from wasting your time on dead-end prospects. Sales success isn’t about looking busy, it’s about growing business. If you can grow your business twice as much as the next rep in half the time, then you’re way ahead of the game. Qualify every lead that comes your way. Your wallet – and your sanity – will thank you for it.

Most people hate making cold calls. If you’ve got a sales staff that doesn’t, you may have a gold-mine or a band of lunatics on your hands.

But cold calls are an unfortunate necessity in business. Warm leads have a much higher conversion rate and are less likely to burn out a sales staff, but growth depends on broadening your client base. Even with no conversions, cold calls are essential to your marketing efforts because it pumps up name recognition numbers and sows the seeds for future business.

As much as a sales staff dislikes cold calls, there is one group who likes it even less: the interrupted. If sales is making the standard 100 DPD (dials per day), just multiply that by how many competitors are in your market and see how many times prospects have been interrupted by your industry alone.

To avoid raising the hackles of gatekeepers, let alone decision makers, and undermining the morale of your sales force, you need to learn a little game theory. Game theory is no game – it is advanced mathematics designed to predict behavior, developed for the U.S, military during WWII. But you don’t need to be a math whiz to use its conclusions for an edge in sales.

If you saw the movie A Beautiful Mind, you got an intro to game theory phenom John Nash. Nash’s Equilibrium, for which he won a Nobel Prize, describes how to make the optimal decision based on what your competitors are likely to do. Just like in chess, getting even one move ahead of your opponent means you win. There are some great interactive infographics to help you create your own competitor decision matrix online. While your competition is busy trying to hustle a cold call from a skeptical secretary, try one of the tactics each day to develop 10-15 warm leads. And do it before your competitors read this article or the gamification of sales.

•         Monday – Solve a problem. Even if you know nothing about a prospect, you know their industry and common problems.  Present them with a solution and you become a hero that they will talk about.

•         Tuesday – Educate them. Share some relevant news or something you’ve read recently in an industry group. Teaching something you know, even unrelated to your core business, will position you a resource and your cold calls will come to you after class.

•         Wednesday – Ask some great questions. Forums and groups are always a great place to look for answers. Send questions to specific people or ask an online group for feedback. People want to help others and this can turn into people wanting to get to know you more.

•         Thursday – Put it online. Statistics and industry trends are available from a variety of sources that aren’t available to search engines, such as database reports and .pdf white papers. Offer this exclusive information for free and follow up later with your sales script.

•         Friday – Apps and video. How nice would it be to have a robot collect emails and start conversations while you sleep. Welcome to apps and video. They only need to entertain, like the Will It Blend? series to drive prospect interaction. Deploy your sales tools after they are already interested. Try a free license of InsideView for sales or shoot a video with your iPad.

Game theory derives its name from the intense emotional drive people feel toward competition and prize-seeking, even in war or situations where the prize is not worth the effort. Your business will only survive difficult economic times if your sales staff is able to forge emotional connections with you prospects to move you out of the dead end game of “who’s got the lowest price?”

As a new sales manager, your role may be to improve sales, streamline a process and/or boost employee productivity. Under the circumstances, it may be tempting to focus on what’s not working. However, salespeople are just like all other human beings who appreciate encouragement and gratitude. To steer the sales process in a productive direction, you’re better off focusing on the positives.

Generate a Positive Rapport with Your Sales Team

Building a positive relationship with your sales team is an important first step. Your team may be set in its ways or unaccustomed to your leadership style, making it important to create an environment that is conducive to adaptation and growth. Consider establishing the following practices:

• Get to know all sales team members. You can do this through in-person meetings, phone calls and emails, and by reviewing sales performance history. The more interest you show in each person’s characteristics and accomplishments, the easier it is to convey sincerity and build trust.
• Identify several positive qualities in each salesperson. One team member may be a quick thinker who easily devises solutions for clients’ problems. Another may have the right personality for connecting with new clients and warming them up to your products or services.
• Assign tasks based on each person’s strengths. Giving presentations to hundreds of prospective clients may be one person’s strength and the cause of many sleepless nights for another. If you aren’t quite sure, ask your team members what they enjoy doing most. Some might excel in phone sales. Others may be skilled in navigating social media, and others may know how to create winning sales presentations.
• Create incentives and recognize excellent performance. A salesperson of the month award or even highlighting a job well done on weekly conference calls may motivate everyone to try harder, be more creative or to do more.

Figure Out What Is Working

If the company has been performing poorly for quite some time or experiencing a drastic drop in sales, the problem may be related to the product or service, sales strategies and/or sales team weaknesses. The natural tendency is to focus on everything that isn’t working, and while that is an essential part of the process, building on strengths is often more effective. For example, you might:

• Identify the winning product or service.  Focus on the higher selling product or service, and use it to attract more clients.
• Observe the strategies that generate the most sales. For example, two team members might make sales calls using the same sales script, yet one consistently performs better than the other. Observe the more successful salesperson to determine his or her winning strategy.
• Strengthen sales skills using positive, high-quality training sessions. Whenever possible, convey strategies that do work rather than words and behaviors to avoid. While an “avoid” list may be a necessary part of training, it’s always important to provide constructive advice about what to say and do to meet a client’s needs.

As you focus on the positive characteristics of your sales team and build on existing sales strengths, you can also do the same for yourself. Determine the positive qualities that you can bring to this new sales environment and capitalize on those. And if your job demands specific attributes or skills that you do not posses, don’t dwell too much. Give members of your team who do have the particular skills an opportunity to shine by delegating to their strengths.         

THE AGE OF THE BUYER

Now is the dawn of a completely different era I like to refer to as The Age of the Buyer. Due to the emergence of social media as a means of communication and establishing relationships, consumers have been given the power to provide real-time feedback about products and services to an extensive audience. Buyers are no longer actively seeking sales representatives to express interest and ask questions. They are now scouring social media and the Internet to ask questions and find reviews of products. Also, in a number of cases, many are sub-consciously exposed to feedback of products or services from other consumers.

According to SiriusDecisions, 60% of the buyer’s journey is complete before it gets to sales. 

Let’s take a step back and look at a story I’m sure many are familiar with about the power of today’s buyers. (Note, this is more of a case of a B2C relationship more than B2B, however still demonstrates the power of social media with today’s consumers)

Back In January 2012, Minhee Cho went to Papa John’s for an afternoon meal. Later that day Minhee Cho tweeted a photo of a receipt she received from the Papa John’s restaurant. In it, under the customer’s name section, the restaurant employee who rang up the order used the racial slur “lady chinky eyes” to describe her.

Cho posted the photo to her Twitter page, where it was quickly retweeted by hundreds of people. In a matter of a few hours, the photo had been viewed over 25,000 times. Imagine if Minhee Cho had received this receipt only a mere 6-7 years ago? She probably would have stormed back to the restaurant, threw the pizza in the managers face and that would have been the end of it (at least that’s what I would have done). Papa John’s in New York City would have probably fired the employee and experienced some embarrassment from local consumers, but again, that would have been the end of it. However, through the power of Twitter and only a few hundred followers or so, Cho’s picture flooded social media embarrassing the Papa John’s franchise. There is no doubt it turned off a number of consumers from buying Papa John’s due to the egregious mistreatment of their customer.

The Age of the Buyer is not a case of masses of people revolting or rising up against corporations. I believe social media moved at such a rapid pace that buyers like Minhee Cho stumbled upon this newfound power of influence. This is absolutely a case of Business-to-Consumer business, however B2B is in no sense any different. Buyers are out there just like Cho talking about businesses, asking questions and of course, making complaints. In many cases, these questions are touching thousands, if not millions of people through social media. What is going to happen when a prospect asks a question about YOUR market or a complaint about YOUR company on Twitter or LinkedIn?

Buyers are now in charge during the B2B sales process. Don’t worry, if you’re not sold on the power of the buyer, I’m sure your competitors are and they’re the ones actively finding these people and closing your deals. 

READ HERE FOR THE FULL ARTICLE

How do sales professionals prepare?

Today’s buyers are web and social media savvy, they are informed about your offering – and your competitors’ – and they are starting the sales process without you. In the last few years, social networks have tipped the balance of power to the customer. To compete in this new era of the social customer, sales leaders must take an offensive approach on the social media playing field.

Jim Keenan, Sales expert and author of the blog, A Sales Guy, summarizes the Social Selling interpretation of lead generation: “Leads are no longer just second and third party referrals or first party requests. A lead today can be a complaint on Twitter, a question on LinkedIn, or a discussion on a Facebook page.”

Use social media as a gigantic cocktail party or business mixer. I’m not even joking. Platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook are groups of business professionals asking questions about YOUR business. Remember, 60% of the buyer’s journey is completed before they get to you – don’t be sitting by the phone waiting for a call as prospects are out seeking answers. Through social media, you can build and foster relationships with an unlimited number of prospects, partners, and influencers at very little cost. When you add value on a daily basis, you will begin to see some of those low touch engagements grow into phone conversations and active buying cycles.

Take the offensive with sales INTELLIGENCE

In order to sell effectively to today’s buyer, you need to sell to the right person, with the right message, at the right time. Sales intelligence puts you in the driver’s seat and sell effectively during the Age of the Buyer. One of the most notable methods of selling is by using trigger events. Trigger events can be the success or failures and represent an opportunity for your organization to address a challenge or find an entry point with your prospect. This adds relevance to your sale and fits in the buyer’s buying period.

Through a sales intelligence platform, these trigger events are delivered to you in real-time using Smart Agent Technology. Check out this screenshot from InsideView and imagine a sales professional empowered with this kind of information:

Using real-time information along with social media platforms aggregated with contact data, sales professionals get to call the shots. Googling a company or prospects can only go so far and consists of a significant amount of research time. Companies like KnowledgeLake were able to increase their sales productivity and ROI by using sales intelligence and not waiting around for the phone to ring or for their prospects to move elsewhere.

Recently, I picked up an ancient and incredibly popular book: Sun Tzu’s Art of War. If you haven’t read it, I highly encourage you do as it only takes about an hour or so to read the book in its entirety.

There is no doubt B2B sales is in many cases, a battlefield (Do You Treat Your Sales Teams Like the Hunger Games?). Sales reps must become sales warriors and learn to train and strategize like that of Sun Tzu’s soldiers. Here are 5 excerpts from The Art of War that can teach us a thing or two about how to prepare and execute in B2B sales.

1. Know your prospects and know yourself

“Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.”

In this sense we are going to switch “enemy” with “potential prospect”. Knowing and understanding potential prospects is a crucial aspect of sales, however rarely executed correctly. The Aberdeen study on the Science of Sales Intelligence shows that 42% of companies have insufficient knowledge of the business needs of prospects.

One of the greatest tools a company can use in this case is sales intelligence. Sure, searching the web is a great resource, however, the Internet is simply becoming too large to find any real-time and accurate data. In one day, the Internet is filled with enough information to fill 168 million DVDs [Link]. Using tools such as connections and trigger alerts, a sales professional is delivered an incredible amount of real-time information to know and understand a potential prospect. In a word from Sun Tzu: in a hundred battles you will never be in peril.

2. Use preparation to swiftly overcome the competition

“To rely on rustics and not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of virtues.”

3. Choose Your Battles Wisely

“He who knows which battle he should engage in and which he should avoid, will win.”

You need to choose your battles wisely. There are battles you need to stay away from because they will suck up time and resources only to be shelved – just as there are buyers who you need to realize will never become your customers. It’s a simple fact of business; not everyone needs your product or service.

Part of being a salesperson is having to stay on top of your prospects and active sales opportunities. This means that you need to send emails, make phone calls and even connect with them online to stay top of mind with the decision makers.

As most experienced sales professionals know, buyers are busy and getting hit from all different angles addressing the needs of their company as well as being contacted by other sales people. If your buyer is not responding or continuing to blow you off, step back and reevaluate. Don’t be pushy. When you do enough of the right things, in time, the math will add up and the desired results will chase you.

This goes back to an earlier discussion in our blog a couple of weeks ago – Pushy or Persistent: Is There a Difference When it Comes to Salespeople?

4. sell with confidence and preparation

“The winner, after careful preparation, is confident he will win the war before he wages battle. The losers, without preparation, engage the enemy first, hoping they will win the fight.”

For a salesperson, the battlefield should not be the commission but the faith and passion he or she has for the product/service they are selling. A sales manager should lose hours of sleep if their sales reps are looking at the dollar signs for themselves rather than the value for the customer.

Sales professionals must prepare to the point where they know anything and everything about the prospect. They need to know the right person, with the right message, at the right time. Doing so will give them a point of confidence where they no longer become a sales rep but a trusted advisor.

5. Train Your Sales Reps to be sales warriors

“If officers are unaccustomed to rigorous [training] they will be worried and hesitant in battle; if generals are not thoroughly trained they will be inwardly quail when they face the enemy.”

As you can tell in his teachings, Sun Tzu often reiterates the importance of preparation – I don’t think he could stress its significance enough. Your company will not benefit if you do not hire the right people or train them properly. There are career sales people that have been trained for years that your reps will have to go up against and to compete.

Great sales leaders understand that in order to build a winning sales team you need to invest in them and teach them everything there is to know. Do not toss them into battle armed with only a week or two of training and their instincts. Even if a buyer might be interested in what you are offering, they are extremely busy and there is a good chance you don’t even know they are a prospect if you’re not actively listening. 70% of the buying process is happening online and in order to stay ahead your sales reps might need an edge over the competition.

Related to this quote from Sun Tzu:

• 2012 TOP 20 SALES TRAINING COMPANIES
• 25 Influential Leaders in Sales
• It Might Be Time for Sales Intelligence – 5 Signs That You Need It

History of the Sun Tzu’s Art of War

Military greats and business leaders alike have hailed The Art of War. Former U.S. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell said, “I’ve read the Chinese classic The Art of War written by Sun Tzu. Sun Tzu has been studied for hundreds of years. He continues to give inspiration to soldiers and politicians. So every American soldier in the army knows of his works. We require our soldiers to read it.”

Today, Sun Tzu’s appeal has extended beyond the military realm into the world of business. IBM, XEROX, 3M, and many other corporate giants use the teachings of Sun Tzu in their training of executives because business by definition deals with competition.

The 2012 Summit is packed full of innovative topics, practical ideas, and best practices you can implement immediately.