Most sales organizations pipelines are blocked right at the beginning. Sales people simply cannot get into the buyer's office. We show you how to prospect effectively using social media and Sales 2.0 tools.

Sales teams need help. CSO Insights latest study on sales performance shows the percentage of reps making quota in 2009 dropped to 51.8% from 58.8% a year earlier. Our observations show prospecting is the biggest bottleneck in quota attainment.

The Internet has Changed How People Buy!

• 78% of all prospects start there buying process with a internet search.
• Today we know that Web visitors are >100 times more likely enter into a sales dialogue if they are contacted within the hour after they registered as a lead.
• Cold calling to generate leads and the days of sales and marketing silos are over.
• The New Rules of Sales and Marketing aligns sales and marketing teams around the common purpose of revenue generation.

You need to prospect effectively. Getting front of a qualified buyer is the now hardest part of the sales process.

• Getting in the buyer's office is the hardest part of selling for the vast majority of sales organizations.
• The cold call is dead, if it means "smiling and dialling" with little-to-no-preparation on behalf of the sales person. But smart prospecting is very much alive.
• We say cold calling is "dead" because it now takes 100-200 calls just to set up a meeting, and advance your sale, if you use typical volume cold calling approaches.
• There are tools now available (social networks, social media and "Sales 2.0" tools) that help you get in front of qualified buyers easier.
• Using these tools in your prospecting can increase your ability to "get in" dramatically causing an eight-time improvement (conservatively) over "cold calling".

1. Start with Clear, Aligned Messaging
   Selling in the Internet Age starts with creating clarity in your value creation capabilities on your Internet site; in the minds of your sales and support people, partner teams and in all of your internal and external communication.
2. Generate Leads using an Inbound Marketing Strategy
   When actively used with appropriate skill, an inbound marketing strategy has the ability to generate between 6-7 times as many leads in less time than cold calling.
3. Effective Diagnosis and Qualification Sales Training
   The window of opportunity for engaging clients has narrowed. Buyers have less need to directly engage sales people. When a buyer does engage a sales person; communication, language, interpersonal skill and an understanding of human psychology are soft skills that are critical for successful communication. Generating more leads will be wasted on a sales team lacking skills to engage Internet era buyers. Today when only 51% of salespeople make quota and only 1:4 sales execs gets a second meeting, sales people need new skills and tools to engage and win.
4. Alignment with the Buyers Risk-profile and Buying Process
   We know that early adopters have very different buying behaviour than early majority buyers. The challenge for companies is to adjust their sales and marketing and value chain to match buying behaviour which is governed by your product maturity. 
5. Evolving the Sales Process and Getting it Adopted
   Whether your sales process is tribal, random or structured, the challenge is to reduce complexity through unnecessary steps and to create pipeline milestones that create transparency and accuracy in sales forecasting. Getting everyone using sales productivity tools and standard process is part of becoming a sales machine.