The Upside: Killer Sales Tips from the folks at Glance Networks

Sales pros are realizing the traditional way they sell to their customers isn't working anymore. Golf matches and expensive dinners have given way to online knowledge building, real-time prospecting and brief, pragmatic conversations. If you stay stuck in the old-school methods of relationship-building, you face extinction.   

The good news is that a slew of “Sales 2.0” tools have emerged to help you improve and accelerate the sales process. “Sales 2.0” encompasses a range of web and social technologies that offer new ways to interact, collaborate and share information between sales pros and their customers. It’s all about accelerating sales cycles, gathering more business intelligence, and engaging prospects more effectively.

The bad news is that the flood of new Sales 2.0 tools hitting the market is perhaps too much of a good thing. Despite the all the new innovations, the effectiveness of sales pros is on the decline nationwide, according to the CSO Insights 2009 Sales Performance Optimization Report.

A key reason: Sales 2.0 tools are not a replacement for good old-fashion selling skills and talent. Their technological wizardry doesn’t magically fill sales funnels. Instead, you need both the right skill set and the right tools to excel. But which tools make sense? Sales 2.0 technologies permeate all layers of sales management today, including tools for:

• CRM
• Email