When I first heard the term ‘Sales 2.0′ my first thought was “oh dear, not another sales gimmick!”

For those who’ve been in sales a while, you probably know what I’m talking about. We tend to get inundated with hundreds of articles on new sales approaches, how to be a more efficient sales person, reduce or eliminate cold calling, present better, so on and so forth. Some articles are indeed good — don’t get me wrong — but some tend to feed the “flavor of the month” trap of excuses of why sales don’t happen.

I’m a firm believer in the tried and true sales approaches like SPIN Selling by Neil Rackham and have felt that some Web 2.0 tools (Instant Messaging, LinkedIn, Facebook, LiveHelp, etc.) actually enhance these proven approaches. In my mind, the most successful sales people are master social networkers and multi-taskers where these tools come in handy and lend to what is coming in Sales 2.0. Read the rest of this entry » »