What is Sales Management 2.0?
“What is Sales Management 2.0?” This is a question I have been asking myself a lot lately and the answer I have come up with is that I am asking the wrong question… I should not be asking what it is; I should be asking what it should be!
Over the next few paragraphs I am going to share some thoughts with you about the sales industry, this site, what I am trying to do and how you can help me… I am hoping you will find this thought provoking and stimulating. If however you are deeply entrenched in the status quo at least you will have plenty of points to argue in your comments… And at the end of the day that’s what I really want to see is real conversation around the topic of sales and sales management in particular not a bunch of yes men who agree with everything I say.
First I will open this by saying that I am very excited about the Sales 2.0 movement. Sales 2.0 has given the average salesperson a lot of great tools to improve customer service, prospect more efficiently, and ultimately drive more sales. However, on the management side of things I think we are missing the boat! See while I think Sales 2.0 truly is a revolution when compared to simply putting out a high volume of cold calls, or doing product based selling. Sales Management 2.0 when defined in those terms is merely an evolution. We have always been trying to do what we can now do with tools like Sales Force, Genius, Jigsaw, and the like. These tools are not revolutionizing sales management they are just the next extension of the ratio analysis and wizardry we have always been doing.
I believe that the revolution is a shift in focus from management to leadership. Think back over your career about the sales managers you have worked for… Most of them are adequate at producing reports, holding people accountable, and “driving sales”; but how many of them were real leaders?
The one thing I think has been missing from sales management is a focus on the people. We need to shift our focus from a Theory X based management style to a more Theory Y based system, we need to inspire and lead. We need to focus on growing people through quality training, and we need to take steps to develop employee loyalty and reduce turnover. A sharp turn in this direction will continue to drive sales, and also provide a similar revolution in customer experience we have seen with Sales 2.0.
It is very difficult to flush out all of my thoughts on this topic in three short paragraphs, but I hope you are able to see the direction I am headed. That brings us to the question of this site and what it means to all of you… SalesManagement20.com has gone through a few evolutions since it started in January of 2008, but now it is time for it to go through a revolution. What does that revolution look like? My vision for SalesManagement20.com if for it to shift to a site for people to gather at and talk about a focused idea. Right now we have a loose community of sales professionals all yelling in a different voice about different things and what I envision is this site becoming a place for the true leaders in the sales industry to gather and share ideas about sales and sales management. In short I am looking to form a Tribe.
You see the driving force behind this post is taken from the newest book by Seth Godin: Tribes
. I’ll be writing more about Tribesin the next few weeks, but for now what you need to understand is that the tribal movement is about small groups of people leveraging technology to change the world.
One of my favorite parts of this book so far has been the one titled: Crowbars. I’ll share a brief excerpt from it:
"With a long enough crowbar, you can rip nails out of a board
With a long enough teeter-totter, you can lift a sumo wrestler off the ground
With enough leverage, you can change your company, your industry, and the world."
Fortunately, we have a tremendous amount of leverage thanks to the Web and the many technologies it offers us. What we are missing is a leader. What we need is someone to stand up and say I will carry this torch and spread this idea far and wide. I am willing to carry that torch, but to truly build a tribe the movement does not just need me it needs YOU.
Here are a few simple things you can do to get things moving:
• Share this blog post via e-mail
• Use the Share This button at the bottom of every post to spread our posts to social media sites.
• Subscribe to the sites RSS feed.
• Follow me on Twitter.
• Comment and participate in the conversation
• Invite your friends to join SalesManagement2.0.com
• Write a blog post or participate in the forums.
Participation can be as easy or involved as you would like it to be… It’s up to you. The key is we all have to participate in some way.
If you have truly bought in to this concept and are ready to go all in with me; I am also looking for a few people to collaborate on some projects ranging from e-books and audio to publishing actual books. I am also looking for a few select coaches that are looking to explode their business. If you are interested shoot me an e-mail if you have it or send me a message through this site… I’ll share some of the juicy details of what I have in mind and see if you want to play. Nothing I am planning will cost you anything other than your time and ideas.
Get ready people because in 2009 I have BIG plans for this site. All I am missing is YOU to make it all possible.
Over the next few paragraphs I am going to share some thoughts with you about the sales industry, this site, what I am trying to do and how you can help me… I am hoping you will find this thought provoking and stimulating. If however you are deeply entrenched in the status quo at least you will have plenty of points to argue in your comments… And at the end of the day that’s what I really want to see is real conversation around the topic of sales and sales management in particular not a bunch of yes men who agree with everything I say.
First I will open this by saying that I am very excited about the Sales 2.0 movement. Sales 2.0 has given the average salesperson a lot of great tools to improve customer service, prospect more efficiently, and ultimately drive more sales. However, on the management side of things I think we are missing the boat! See while I think Sales 2.0 truly is a revolution when compared to simply putting out a high volume of cold calls, or doing product based selling. Sales Management 2.0 when defined in those terms is merely an evolution. We have always been trying to do what we can now do with tools like Sales Force, Genius, Jigsaw, and the like. These tools are not revolutionizing sales management they are just the next extension of the ratio analysis and wizardry we have always been doing.
I believe that the revolution is a shift in focus from management to leadership. Think back over your career about the sales managers you have worked for… Most of them are adequate at producing reports, holding people accountable, and “driving sales”; but how many of them were real leaders?
The one thing I think has been missing from sales management is a focus on the people. We need to shift our focus from a Theory X based management style to a more Theory Y based system, we need to inspire and lead. We need to focus on growing people through quality training, and we need to take steps to develop employee loyalty and reduce turnover. A sharp turn in this direction will continue to drive sales, and also provide a similar revolution in customer experience we have seen with Sales 2.0.
It is very difficult to flush out all of my thoughts on this topic in three short paragraphs, but I hope you are able to see the direction I am headed. That brings us to the question of this site and what it means to all of you… SalesManagement20.com has gone through a few evolutions since it started in January of 2008, but now it is time for it to go through a revolution. What does that revolution look like? My vision for SalesManagement20.com if for it to shift to a site for people to gather at and talk about a focused idea. Right now we have a loose community of sales professionals all yelling in a different voice about different things and what I envision is this site becoming a place for the true leaders in the sales industry to gather and share ideas about sales and sales management. In short I am looking to form a Tribe.
You see the driving force behind this post is taken from the newest book by Seth Godin: Tribes
. I’ll be writing more about Tribesin the next few weeks, but for now what you need to understand is that the tribal movement is about small groups of people leveraging technology to change the world.One of my favorite parts of this book so far has been the one titled: Crowbars. I’ll share a brief excerpt from it:
"With a long enough crowbar, you can rip nails out of a board
With a long enough teeter-totter, you can lift a sumo wrestler off the ground
With enough leverage, you can change your company, your industry, and the world."
Fortunately, we have a tremendous amount of leverage thanks to the Web and the many technologies it offers us. What we are missing is a leader. What we need is someone to stand up and say I will carry this torch and spread this idea far and wide. I am willing to carry that torch, but to truly build a tribe the movement does not just need me it needs YOU.
Here are a few simple things you can do to get things moving:
• Share this blog post via e-mail
• Use the Share This button at the bottom of every post to spread our posts to social media sites.
• Subscribe to the sites RSS feed.
• Follow me on Twitter.
• Comment and participate in the conversation
• Invite your friends to join SalesManagement2.0.com
• Write a blog post or participate in the forums.
Participation can be as easy or involved as you would like it to be… It’s up to you. The key is we all have to participate in some way.
If you have truly bought in to this concept and are ready to go all in with me; I am also looking for a few people to collaborate on some projects ranging from e-books and audio to publishing actual books. I am also looking for a few select coaches that are looking to explode their business. If you are interested shoot me an e-mail if you have it or send me a message through this site… I’ll share some of the juicy details of what I have in mind and see if you want to play. Nothing I am planning will cost you anything other than your time and ideas.
Get ready people because in 2009 I have BIG plans for this site. All I am missing is YOU to make it all possible.
Tags: 2.0, leadership, management, site, tribes, updates, workplace
Comment
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Comment by Dowzall on January 30, 2009 at 4:16am - Good Call!!
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Comment by John W. Furst on December 16, 2008 at 8:37am - Great call! We want to be among leaders here. At least I want.
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Comment by Krisy Trnavsky on December 1, 2008 at 6:32pm - viva la revolution!!!
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Comment by Ian Brodie on December 1, 2008 at 3:01pm -
Heh - I remember when e-business first became big a number of years ago and a lot of my consulting colleagues got very excited about the availability senior managers getting access to a ton more performance information.
What struck me at the time instead was an image of Dilbert's "pointy haired boss" suddenly getting access to loads of data to allow him to screw up the performance of even more people.
Ian
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Comment by Brad Trnavsky on December 1, 2008 at 2:48pm -
Ian,
That's a great point, and really something I was hinting at though I did not draw the conclusion as obviously as I probably should have. If you look at the Wikipedia article on Theory X vs.Y I linked to I suggested a shift in paradigm towards theory Y or a philosophy based on the belief that people want to do well and will if given the proper tools. I don't want people to think I am at all against Sales 2.0 or the improved metrics those tools can provide us. But I do worry that we can sometimes get too caught up in data and forget we are managing processes but leading people.
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Comment by Ian Brodie on December 1, 2008 at 2:38pm
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Really interesting Brad. One thought struck me about the link between Sales 2.0 and Sales Management 2.0:
Perhaps the tools of Sales 2.0 will allow sales people to be more self managing - able to do for themselves some of the monitoring and measurement that sales managers do - freeing up the managers to focus more on leadership.
Ian
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Comment by Jerry Kennedy on December 1, 2008 at 1:50pm -
Brad:
You know I'm in! I'll send you an email to confirm, but I am ready to do my part. My strengths are writing and speaking, and I am a great coach in either a one-on-one or group setting. I have a few ideas I think would take this movement over the top. Let's schedule a time and date for a phone call, shall we?
You've got me excited to get going. Please let me know what I can do to help.
Jerry
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Comment by Terrance D. Jackson on December 1, 2008 at 10:50am - You see Brad, I chilling because I have the tool to drive sales directly home. I would love to share this knowledge because it was given to me as so. Visit www.inkblotmanagement.com. You see, the theory of duality explains the mind has a plain and body has a plain. When balanced with self-knowledge of mind and body, it is easy to achieve set goals. Some call it focus, but, many do not know how to gain focus of mind and body for balance to make sells. When they do it is usually luck, and they do not know how to duplicate it. Here is the formula, it's called get rich and grow wealth at www.inkblotmanagement.com.
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Comment by Steele03 on December 1, 2008 at 10:32am - Some great points, you cited 3 tools we rely on every day and one of my favorite bloggers/authors, so you've got my interest. I'm curious to see what all this community will have to offer.
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Comment by Will on December 1, 2008 at 10:04am - Let the revolution begin!!!
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