Maybe today will be the day when you won’t have to adjust, adapt, reorganize, or rework. But I don’t think so.

Change is happening more quickly than ever. In the next 30 minutes;

• 700,000 apps will be downloaded from the AppStore,
• Users will spend 146 days on Facebook (yes, in the next 30 minutes), and
• 21,000 new Twitter accounts will be created.

But, wait, you’re probably saying to yourself. I’m concerned about B2B sales – should I care that Lady Gaga has 20 million followers on Twitter? (That’s about one person for every 20 people in the US, by the way – or one for every 400 in the world.)

I think we can learn something from this about the overall metamorphosis of human interaction. Why? Consumers are often first to travel the journey before businesses follow.

Consider the changes you’ve seen in business over the past 10 years – particularly when it comes to technology. Consumer behavior is always a good indicator of what will happen in the business world.

As an example: Consumers were the first players in the App Economy, downloading applications from Apple’s AppStore, only to be followed by businesses that are now both distributing and consuming applications in this self-service model.

Think about this: Not all consumers are B2B buyers, but all B2B buyers are consumers. Consumers are conditioned to new ways of thinking, and begin to expect similar capability or convenience from business connections. And it happens without anyone noticing; because changes in behavior and expectation, satisfaction, and dissatisfaction are incremental.

If we take the time to step back for a minute we can observe continuous evolution. It is evident in how people connect, communicate, and collaborate. It’s also evident in their

• quest for visible progress and feedback,
• limited attention span,
• changing personal motivations,
• unusually peripatetic career paths,
• desire for increased autonomy and self-mastery,
• shift from traditional workplace obedience to entrepreneurial attitude,
• preference for where and how they work,
• expectation or demand for an array of tools to apply,
• acceptance of disruption and interruption, and
• predilection to disrupt and interrupt.

If you’re hoping that today will be the day that doesn’t change, then I expect you are out of luck. The best you could hope for is that the rate at which change is happening will find cause for pause, and you might get a chance to catch your breath.

On the other hand, you could choose to embrace the change, and be part of it, seeking new ways to do the tasks that are perhaps mundane or not operating optimally, and then – and here is the exciting part – you might find that there are new opportunities emerging that you never thought possible.

Donal Daly is CEO of The TAS Group and the visionary behind the Dealmaker software application. On June 7, 2012, at the Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference in London, he will present “6 Factors that Are Transforming B2B Sales.”

All sales leaders – myself included – are concerned with accelerating revenue. Considering what I heard at the Sales 2.0 Conference earlier this month, revenue will go to the companies that “rev” up their sales process and technology infrastructure to take advantage of the “new” selling environment before their competitors.

Based on my personal experience working with customers to solve their price configuration challenges, delivering value faster than your competitors is definitely an area that Sales 2.0 can “rev” up. Today’s buyer has expectations of immediacy, and configuring a complex-sales quote in four days is not going to cut it. Instead, sales teams must begin using quoting automation tools that make product bundling and proposal options quick and easy. As many of our customers have seen, this kind of automation can reduce complex quoting from days to one hour—and make all the difference in winning more business by providing value before your competition.

Here are seven insights I took away from the April 2012 Sales 2.0 Conference about how companies can stop playing catch up—and quickly scale their people, process and technology to match the growth opportunities in the market and accelerate revenue.

ONE: Technology is the biggest driver of change.
Consider how much more mobile humans were after the invention of the wheel, how rapidly Gutenburg’s printing press fueled the spread of knowledge, and how quickly the internet transformed the Industrial Age into an Information Age. Today, businesses operate in entirely new ways thanks to the advent of cloud computing.
(Per speakers @Gerhard20 @DDaly)

TWO: There are fundamental shifts in the way people buy.
Buyers research and engage with their peers to discuss products and services long before they ever talk to a company representative. Social listening and engagement will transform your future sales growth.
(Per speakers @Jill_Rowley @JonFerrara)

THREE: Customization and content are king and queen.
With such access to online and social information, expectations are rising. Think of Nike’s iPod Sensor, which syncs your iPod’s music to the cadence of your footsteps. Customers don’t want to figure out what product best suits their needs—they expect you to do it for them, and send several cost scenarios to boot. Closing deals hinges on how well your company captures attention and incorporates customer buying preferences into its sales process.
(Per speakers @JWeinberger @RexiMedia)

FOUR: A brand is a promise consistently delivered.
Value is driven by much more than what you’re selling. Over 63% of buyers chose helpfulness and knowledge when selecting a vendor. To successfully manage the customer experience, companies must organize around their customer at all touch points—from initial online engagement to getting a sales quote, connecting with customer service, or even lodging a complaint. This data delivers revenue only when key metrics measure how likely customers are to purchase, renew, and refer.
(Per speakers Kirk Mosher @TMcCormick2011 @JeffreyHazlett @HeinzMarketing @CaHidalgo @ErycBranham)

FIVE: Data is useless unless it’s social, actionable, and delivered in real-time.
It’s very possible to be data rich but insight poor, especially if you’re using meaningless sales metrics. If you’re looking for a needle in the haystack, it doesn’t help to add more hay to the pile—you need more help finding the needle. But with the right tools, Big Data can help you find Big Opportunities.
(Per speakers @RVonsosen @CustomerThink @AnnekeSeley)

SIX: Sales success still boils down to relationships.
Second degree (LinkedIn) connections are 87% more likely to respond to any e-mail or phone call than a cold call. LinkedIn’s new TeamLink functionality gives your sales team access to analyze and leverage your entire company’s second degree connections.
(Per speakers @MikeDFresh @NextGenCMO)

SEVEN: Culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Your company needs to understand more than buyer motivation, but also what motivates individual sellers to sell. When you connect what motivates your sales team with incentives, for instance, you create a company culture that encourages performance and healthy competition, and accelerated revenue.
(Per speakers from @XactlyCorp @Bunchball @Badgeville, plus @SPatrizi @JimDickieCSOInsights)

In my view, the art of sales means creating and sustaining better relationships—within and without your company. The science of sales means deploying a sales process that makes selling and buying easier. Sales 2.0 encompasses both goals.

How are you helping your team accelerate revenue in today’s market?

Max Rudman is the founder of Steel Brick, a leading provider of sales quoting automation. Follow him at @SteelBrick.

What’s in store for Tuesday? Here are some highlights:

8:45 a.m. Get real talk on how to summon the vision, courage, and passion to drive positive change.
Speaker: Jeff Hayzlett, Best-Selling Author, Global Business Celebrity & Sometime Cowboy, The Hayzlett Group

10:15–10:55 a.m. Learn how today’s sales org is evolving and what you need to do to keep up
Moderator: Craig Rosenberg, Vice President, Sales & Marketing, Focus
Panelists: Judy Buchholtz, Vice President, Sales, IBM Inside Sales
Jim Cyb, Vice President, Sales, Americas, ZenDesk
Abe Smith, Vice President & GM, Americas & APAC, Mindjet

11:30 a.m.–12:15 p.m. Get tips on how to get executive buy-in to invest in new tools and technology that can help you grow sales.
Speaker: Anneke Seley, Founder & CEO, Phone Works, Coauthor, Sales 2.0

1:15–2:00 p.m. Discover which sales metrics can truly help you add value to your bottom line.
Speaker: Matt Heinz, President, Heinz Marketing Inc

2:40–3:15 p.m. Understand the right way to create a productive, cost effective sales force.
Speaker: Lars Nilsson, VP, Field Operations, ArcSight, an HP Company

3:45–4:20 p.m. Get insights on how social listening and engagement can transform your future growth.
Speaker: Jon Ferrara, Founder & CEO, Nimble

Final reminder if you’re at the event on Tuesday: introduce yourself to someone new! Many attendees report that our breaks and complimentary networking sessions are what make this investment of time so worthwhile.

Got questions or ideas about how The Sales 2.0 Events Team can make Day 2 valuable for you? Let us know via Twitter (@Sales20Conf) or email Jayne jayne@salesdottwoinc.com.

We dedicate a lot of time talking about solutions and best practices to acquire new customers. But what about the customers you already have? For many established B2B companies, sales spends its time trying to maintain and grow existing customer accounts.

We’re all familiar with the concept of customer lifetime value. In most situations, retaining a customer costs less than acquiring a new one. For B2B companies, the loss of one valuable customer can cost millions in future revenue and profit. And once they’re gone, getting that customer back can be challenging and expensive.

In response to the downturn, many B2B companies have reduced sales coverage, increasing the number of customers each salesperson is responsible for. With a large book of business, it’s difficult to see the small changes in behavior that are early indicators of defection. Has order volume changed over time in specific product categories? Is my customer’s order volume staying the same while his competitors’ order volumes are increasing? Sales teams just don’t have the time to constantly monitor and analyze every customer to look for signs of defection. After all, they’re job is to sell, not crunch numbers.

In a survey we conducted among B2B Sales VPs and directors, 87.2 percent said that their teams have poor visibility into which specific customers are starting to defect to competitors.

As a result, customer defection is often only recognized when it becomes very, very obvious — and by that time, a lot of the damage has already been done. What if you knew as soon as a customer started to defect? How would that change which accounts you focus on? How would that change your conversations with those accounts?

The data to see the early signs of defection is there. It’s your transaction data. Yet it’s not in a usable form to enable your sales team to take action. And often, there is too much data for a typical business intelligence team to process. Analyzing that data and pinpointing the accounts that are beginning to defect gives sales teams an opportunity to act early and head off customer defection.

At Zilliant, we recently launched a new product called SalesMax that reveals, quantifies and prioritizes the opportunities to retain and expand wallet share. These revenue opportunities are delivered directly to sales reps in whichever system is most convenient — even email.

One customer, a major commercial lighting manufacturing, is already seeing success using the product. SalesMax revealed opportunities worth more than $25 million and the team closed more than $2.4 million within the first 90 days. Testing with other companies consistently revealed opportunities for 8 to 12 percent organic revenue growth from existing accounts.

This “automatic” analysis of your data helps you keep the customers you already have, making it much easier to make your numbers.

What tools do you use to uncover the early signs of customer defection?

Pete Eppele is the VP of Product Management at Zilliant. Pete has 18 years of experience helping a long and growing list of Fortune 500 manufacturers, distributors, and service companies uncover valuable data and insights on their customers, enabling them to increase close rates and hit their quotas.

Gschwandtner walked attendees through four categories of the sales process that all sales leaders should automate today: marketing, researching prospects, inside sales, and proposals.

ONE: Marketing
There are about 50,000 companies that could benefit from automated marketing, said Gschwandtner. As of today, only 20% of those companies are using marketing automation.
Solutions cited: Eloqua, SilverPop, Marketo

TWO: Researching Prospects
How much time do your prospects spend on researching prospects and companies? How much time does it take? What many sales reps are currently doing in 20 – 60 minutes can now be done in two minutes, said Gschwandtner.
Solutions cited: Data.com, InsideView, OneSource iSell, ZoomInfo

THREE: Inside Sales
Today your inside sales team can connect with seven more people in a single hour using automated dialing solutions.
Solutions cited: ConnectandSell, Refractive Dialer, LivePerson, InsideSales.com

FOUR: Proposals
Automated solutions make generating proposals vastly more efficient, help reduce errors, and keep things from falling through the cracks.
Solutions cited: iQuotexpress, Steelbrick, FPX, Cameleon Software, BigMachines

Gschwandtner’s keynote included hyperlinks to more than 90 online resources to help sales leaders grow better teams. (If you registered to attend the conference, you can get complimentary access to this presentation and many more in the Sales Management 2.0 Conference Resource Library.)

Is your team currently automating any part of the sales process? Any of these areas could be a great first step in shrinking your sales cycle and boosting productivity among your reps.

This is Part II of a two-part blog post about effective nonverbal communication during online sales meetings and video chats. Read Part I here.

Leveraging Body Language

Did you know you exchange approximately 800 nonverbal messages during the average 30-minute sales call?

Every salesperson should have at least a rudimentary grasp of how to use body language to support your sale. (If not, check out these body language sales basics, such as eye contact, use of hands, posture, etc.).

The trick with online meetings is that you don’t have the entire body to use as a communications tool. Your webcam focuses on your head and perhaps your torso. That means making eye contact with your camera, relaxing your shoulders, and bringing your hands into view to emphasize certain points. Use these tips to maintain a persuasive presence during virtual sales calls.

Don’t fidget. Famous comic actor John Cleese is a recognized authority on body language. If you’re going to use your hands to express a feeling or convey meaning, he recommends doing so with intention. If you’re not sure what your intention is, it’s best to keep your hands still, and don’t fiddle.

Start with a smile. There’s nothing revolutionary about this concept, but we often forget to do what we know. By starting online meetings with a smile, you amp up your tone of voice, upgrade your appearance, and communicate confidence. A smile can also do a lot to soothe a customer who sounds worried or anxious.

Be open. Open and expressive movements invite collaborative communication. Sit up straight, and avoid leaning too far back in your chair. Hold your arms away from your body to avoid looking defensive. However, if you notice your prospect responds by pulling back, try to be more subtle with your gestures.

Maintain good eye contact. As you and your prospect communicate, focus your gaze directly on the camera. Eye contact is a key element for building trust. Even a brief look away could send the message that you’re not listening, and derail your sale.

Lean forward slightly. By simply leaning forward you show clients you want to meet their needs. Leaning forward also communicates excitement over a possible deal and confidence in your own abilities. Once you’ve made your pitch, lean back in your chair slightly. This relaxed gesture shows you’re receptive to feedback, yet still confident in your product.

Above all, remember to translate all of those body language techniques into the area from your shoulders up. I suggest practicing each one in front of the mirror. And make sure you tailor your responses to the visual cues you receive from others. Like any in-person business meeting, online meetings are an opportunity to establish trust, rapport, and a mutually beneficial relationship.

Todd McCormick is currently Vice President of Sales for PGi Worldwide. He brings more than 13 years of executive sales management and team development experience in client-focused service organization and has significant experience in forging strategic partnerships to exceed corporate sales objectives and successfully penetrate emerging markets and product lines. He is a frequent speaker at Sales 2.0 events; he will present next on March 5, 2012 at the Sales Management 2.0 Conference and again on April 2-3, 2012 in San Francisco at the Sales 2.0 Conference.

It’s highly likely that your prospects don’t have time for long, face-to-face sales pitches. That leaves sales teams with email and the telephone.

Of course, the people your team is trying to reach receive 200+ emails a day. Of those emails, perhaps a handful are relevant and wanted. According to InsideView, more than 90% of C-level execs never respond to email blasts or cold calls.

When you limit communication to email and telephone, your sales team is missing out on one of the most important aspects of closing the sale: nonverbal communication. Mirroring and matching body language, for example, is a time-honored technique to enter your prospect’s world without saying a word. When you’re able to send nonverbal messages that show you’re in tune with the prospect’s state of mind, you’re in a better position to establish rapport quickly.

Unfortunately, body language doesn’t translate over the phone or via email. But some sales leaders are correcting this problem by finding new ways to leverage nonverbal communication during online meetings and video chats.

Jeff Cristee, Area Vice President of Cisco says video is “a very compelling medium.” In an interview with Gerhard Gschwandtner, he revealed that videos attached in an email get a 20% response rate.

At least 55% of communication is nonverbal—93% if you include tone of voice, facial expressions, and body language. Imagine the competitive edge your sales team could gain if they knew how to use nonverbal cues on virtual sales calls to reinforce your company’s message.

The truth is video helps sales teams make the most of sales opportunities. At PGi, we’ve improved our lead conversion rates by 40% since we turned on a webcam. Before your next virtual sales call, review these important tips:

Look into the camera. Turn on your webcam for a minute or two, and practice looking directly into the camera. That will give the prospect the sense that you’re looking directly at him and not in some other, disconcerting direction. Know exactly where the camera’s view ends, so you know what movement will be within the viewer’s field of vision.

Study reactions. Great salespeople listen more than they speak. Use video as an opportunity to watch how your prospects physically react to questions and ideas.

Look your best. This rule applies just as it would to any face-to-face meetings. Do a last-minute visual inspection to put your best face forward online. Your prospect will have a clear view of your face, so be meticulous with details.

Control your volume. Speak loudly enough so that the listener can hear clearly, but not so loud as to be distracting. Your control of volume in an online meeting is somewhat limited by the technology the listener is using; do what you can on your end to make sure you’re speaking distinctly and clearly.

Vary your pace. A silent pause is one of the most effective tools in your vocal toolbox. It allows the listener’s brain to process what’s been said, increasing its impact. Learn to omit “uh” and “um” from your speech.

Vary your pitch. Record your presentation and play it back. A monotone pitch has less of an impact than a pitch with varied, up-and-down intonations.

Train your sales team to be cognizant of these elements with each online interaction with a prospect, and you’ll automatically increase their effectiveness during presentations.

Next week: Leveraging body language.

Todd McCormick is currently Vice President of Sales for PGi Worldwide. He brings more than 13 years of executive sales management and team development experience in client-focused service organization and has significant experience in forging strategic partnerships to exceed corporate sales objectives and successfully penetrate emerging markets and product lines. He is a frequent speaker at Sales 2.0 events; he will present next at the Sales Management 2.0 Conference on March 5, 2012, and again on April 2-3, 2012 in San Francisco at the Sales 2.0 Conference.

As I write this blog, I’m in a hotel room preparing to deliver a keynote for a company whose executives attended my breakout session “Getting the Customer to Do Something Different,” at the Sales & Marketing 2.0 Conference in San Francisco last year. These executives felt that “breaking the status quo barrier” and finding ways to overcome prospect indecision were topics worthy of being featured at their sales kick-off meeting.

They’re right. Beating the status quo is a real challenge for companies today. This isn’t too surprising: salespeople are being given growth objectives by their companies that are greater than the actual growth in the markets in which they compete.

That means just getting your fair share of organic market growth isn’t going to help you achieve your company’s goals. Salespeople now realize that they’re going to have to increase urgency levels among prospects – even before prospects themselves admit they’re ready for change.

What does it takes to get customers to do something different? Today, customers are clearly expecting:

• More value from their conversations with sellers (going beyond them knowing just what the features and benefits of their products are);
• Help identifying potential problems or missed opportunities they may not even be aware of; and
• Insight into how those problems may have a potential impact on their business.

Your customers are so busy trying to keep their businesses going that they don’t have the time to explore these issues themselves. The challenge for you as sellers, then, is to be able to understand the story that the customer is living in, the changes that will impact their story, and how you can help the customer deal most effectively with those changes.

Positioning yourself in this way means most companies will have to reconsider their marketing and sales messages, tools, and training. More than likely, you will need new stories and new skills to succeed at loosening the status quo.

Customers know that your companies are seeing and solving these problems for other companies that look just like them. So they expect salespeople to act that way when they get a meeting. Instead of treating it as an opportunity to tell the company story or introduce new products, customers want you to share insights based on your experiences in the market. After all, you see more people who look like them than they do. So, act that way.

With more than 20 years of sales and marketing experience, Tim Riesterer, Chief Strategy and Marketing Officer at Corporate Visions, is a recognized thought leader, practitioner, and author regarding marketing and sales messaging. Tim’s books, “Customer Message Management” and “Conversations That Win the Complex Sale,” focus on improving sales-ready messages and tools that salespeople can use to create a compelling story that wins more deals.

Jake Wengroff (Global Director of Social Media Strategy and Research for Frost & Sullivan) was one of our popular speakers in November at our Sales Strategies in a Social & Mobile World conference in Santa Monica. So we’re pleased that he’ll be joining us again at our upcoming Sales Management 2.0 Conference in Philadelphia on March 5.

In addition to his enthusiasm and refreshing candor onstage (no surprise to us that he’s been a guest lecturer in the department of communication at the University of Texas at San Antonio), he’s also got an impressive background managing communications and marketing programs for Chase Manhattan Bank, Bear Stearns, Pitney Bowes, and PricewaterhouseCoopers. At Frost & Sullivan, he helps guide the firm’s market engineering studies, market insights, best practices research, white papers, and other research by evaluating technologies, vendors, influencers, vertical markets, and end users in the social-media ecosystem.

Most important, Jake always does a terrific job of conveying the perspective of marketing to an audience of B2B sales leaders. He’s got lots of tips and best practices to share about how to establish meaningful collaboration between sales and marketing that drives revenue. We look forward to hearing him present on March 5 — check out the full agenda or register now before our early-bird rates expire on February 6.

just getting started on Twitter?
thinking about getting on Twitter?
trying to be more active on Twitter?
wondering why anyone would use Twitter for business?

If so, The Atlantic has some pretty interesting news for you about how to be better at Twitter based on the findings of a new report (“Who Gives a Tweet? Evaluating Microblog Content Value“). One takeaway? Self-promotional tweets are actually well-liked. “The Twitter ecosystem values learning about new content,” said the authors of the study, whose goal was to find what people like and dislike in a tweet.

The worst offense you can commit on Twitter? Being boring. People liked best the tweets they found informative or funny. Other tips from the researchers at Carnegie Mellon, MIT, and Georgia Tech:

• provide context (don’t just tweet a link without giving some idea of what’s behind it),
• keep it short (the better for retweeting),
• don’t whine (self-explanatory), and
• “contribute to the story” (add your opinion or fact when you retweet something).

One of our past Sales 2.0 Conference speakers, Jon Ferrara (founder and CEO of Nimble), says social media and “social business” are a natural extension of how sellers have been selling throughout their careers. Share information, listen, and engage in conversation, and you’ll find your voice. (Check out more of his insights in the webinar clip below about using Twitter for effective social business.)

If you’ll be joining us at the Sales Management 2.0 Conference on March 5 in Philadelphia, Barton Goldenberg of ISM will be explore the pros and cons of organizations incorporating social networking into their sales and marketing strategies. His presentation, “Analyzing the Business Value of a ‘Social’ Strategy” kicks off at 9:15 a.m. Get registration info for the Sales Management 2.0 Conference here — check it out before early-bird rates expire on February 6.

And if you’re still doubtful that tweeting has any relevance for B2B sales, you might want to read Anneke Seley’s blog and learn how a 37-character tweet led to multi-thousand dollar opportunity, according to heavyweight sources at IBM and Microsoft. (Anneke is also a past Sales 2.0 Conference speaker who presented on “The Impact of Social Media on Sales: Lessons – and Metrics – from Large & Small Companies” this past November).

Using Twitter For Effective Social Business