Essence of Sales 2.0

1. Sales people require a
specific set of management
skills to keep them on track
and performing

2. T H E E S S E N C E O F S A L E S 2 . 0
D R I V I N G T O P L I N E A N D M A R K E T S H A R E – W h i t e P a p e r
THE ESSENCE OF SALES 2.0
Driving Top Line and Market Share
_______
White Paper
Provided by Holden International
Copyright © 2009 by Holden International
March, 2009. All rights reserved.
www.holdenintl.com
Telephone: (847) 852-2400

3. T H E E S S E N C E O F
S A L E S 2 . 0
D R I V I N G T O P L I N E A N D M A R K E T S H A R E – W h i t e P a p e r
Copyright © 2009 Holden LLC. All rights reserved. Duplication is not permitted. Page 2 of 7
What is the linkage between Sales 2.0 and driving
top line and market share in what is probably the
most challenging market environment ever - one
that is affecting virtually all geographies and
market segments?
Having said that, we are not going to dwell on
doom and gloom. Suffice to say that projects are
being cancelled, others are being pushed out.
Customer buying requirements are becoming
much more stringent; requiring significantly more
for less, all with the result of creating an intensely
competitive environment.
At the same time, this is an opportunity for high
performers to excel, to differentiate them from
the competition. Consider the Tour de France.
As the race begins and proceeds on flat roads, all
riders are closely grouped, working the
aerodynamics and drafting. But, when they reach
the challenging environment of hilly terrain, the
high performers distance themselves from the
others and take the lead.
Therein lies the opportunity in today’s market
environment and the potential of Sales 2.0. Yet,
this opportunity will not be realized by selling as
we have in the past. The play today is to move
from traditional selling to more of business
development orientation. That is, using
unconventional thinking to drive unexpected
customer value, moving up the value chain and
distancing yourself from the competition while at
the same time, identifying, creating, and exploiting
competitor vulnerability.
For many, business development represents a
transformation in how they sell. It is in this
transformation that Sales 2.0 begins to shine, but
before we examine the role of 2.0, let’s look at
what we mean by business development.
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT
Three dimensions characterize business
development:
• Timing
• Unconventional Thinking
• Mindset
How is a business development campaign
different from that of a traditional sales campaign
from a timing perspective?
Have you ever launched a sales campaign after
receiving an RFP? How did you feel about that?
Not so good, right? You feel that you are behind
the power curve before you have even begun. In
the illustration below, note the relative cost of a
post-RFP sales campaign.
Timing
SALES CAMPAIGN
BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CAMPAIGN
RFP
COST WRWR COST
Business Development
It eclipses that of a business development
campaign where we are focusing on the formation
and advancement of early stage opportunities in a
manner that shapes the trajectory of the
competitive effort to follow – winning the battle
before it is fought, producing much higher Win
Rates.
What we are talking about here are large deals that
have the potential to lead to additional large
opportunities, as it is they that will most

4. T H E E S S E N C E O F S A L E S 2 . 0
D R I V I N G T O P L I N E A N D M A R K E T S H A R E – W h i t e P a p e r
Copyright © 2009 Holden LLC. All rights reserved. Duplication is not permitted. Page 3 of 7
significantly impact top line while taking market
share away from the competition.
There is simply no substitute for an ability to
identify the potential to provide a customer with
unexpected value, where the business developer is
the catalyst in the formation of that value. To
accomplish this, however, is much easier said than
done in that it is largely counter intuitive for most
people – that which makes it powerful can also
make it difficult to grasp. It is this counter
intuitive quality that makes the shift from
traditional selling to business development a
transformation, and not a simple transition. Sales
2.0 can drive this transformation and help make it
sustainable!
First of all, to transform sellers into business
developers requires that both a training construct
and a customer construct exist.
The Training Construct - This is training, but
not old school training. Today, we conduct
blended training over the Internet with live,
interactive web conferencing to reduce time out of
the field and travel costs, along with in-person
workshops. Business developers and their
managers attend. This is coupled with an Internet
based sales management coaching series, such as
FOX IN A BOX. Each video web module is only
15 minutes long, netting out the critical coaching
activities necessary to ensure daily use of the
business development methodology. This is
achieved through a quick video content review, a
coaching checklist and guide to drive
implementation and, lastly, rules to set field
expectations based upon best practices. The
results are uniformity and consistency of use in
the field, which drives adoption and business
impact.
A third component forms a transformational triad;
the use of efox software, which provides an AI
driven web application focused only on forming
and winning new opportunities – an intelligent
guide for business developers and a coaching tool
set for sales managers.
This training construct provides:
• Business developers with the skills and
knowledge to support the business
development methodology, along with
• An enabling environment with
operational guidance and sales
management support.
Still, the transformation story does not end here,
as the business development methodology may
not be sustainable. This brings us to a second
type of transformational triad.
The Customer Construct - For Sales 2.0 to do
its work, it must reside within two collaborative
constructs:
• The training – coaching – tool set
structure, which we discussed, and a
• Customer-to-supplier and customer-to-
customer networks that also drive
thoughtful collaboration. It is here that
forums provide a safe and relevant
means for sharing ideas, problems,
solutions, and methods with the help and
thought leadership of the supplier.
While Sales 2.0 is technology centric, its power
comes from guided collaboration with a purpose.
It is that collaboration within the context of the
two triads that drives the transformation from

5. T H E E S S E N C E O F S A L E S 2 . 0
D R I V I N G T O P L I N E A N D M A R K E T S H A R E – W h i t e P a p e r
Copyright © 2009 Holden LLC. All rights reserved. Duplication is not permitted. Page 4 of 7
traditional selling to business development. This
creates two types of communities; one between
the training supplier and a specific customer,
serving as the vanguard to the transformation
effort, and the other between many customers and
the supplier. These two communities provide a
very strong enabling environment to drive
behavioral change based upon unconventional
thinking.
We have touched upon the formation and
advancement of early stage opportunities, which is
very much dependent on business development
methodology, driven by unconventional thinking.
There are many aspects to unconventional
thinking, two of which focus on customer politics
and competitive strategy. The conventional view
of an account is characterized by authority and
responsibility. Unconventionally, we look at
influence which, unlike authority, is not visible.
Only the exertion of influence is visible, requiring
that you know what to look for, when to look for
it, and what to do when you see it.
If you were to take all the people you know within
an account or need to know within an account,
you could characterize all of them in one of four
ways.
Fox Alignment
Unconventional Thinking
HighInfluence
NI-A
NI-NA
AuthorityHigh
Low
Low
I-A
I-NA
Power BasePower Base
There will be high level people who have
influence and authority (I-A), while others will
only have authority (NI-A) -- perhaps they are
riding out to retirement. And then there will be
lower level individuals or people new to the
company (NI-NA). Other lower level people will
have significant influence by association with
powerful executives (I-NA).
Where influence is the common denominator, a
Power Base®1 exists; an influential body of closely
networked people. At the center of the Power
Base is a Fox; a very powerful individual, not
necessarily at the top of an organization, but who
can work in exception to policy and who is rarely
surprised by events.
No one recognizes the potential to form an early
stage opportunity before a Fox. No one has the
power to drive its advancement like a Fox. As a
result, Fox Hunting is an essential requirement in
business development, requiring the same
transformational triad treatment as we discussed
earlier.
That brings us to strategy.
Four Classes of Strategy
Unconventional Thinking
Direct INDIRECT ContainmentDivisional
• The Direct Class of Strategy is deployed
when the business developer wants to
shape the RFP around strengths that the
competition cannot match.
• The Indirect approach is much more
unconventional in that it seeks to change
the groundrules from expected customer
value to unexpected value. The stage is
set for this early in the business
development campaign.
• The Divisional Strategy is used to penetrate
competitively held accounts, and the
Containment Strategy approach is deployed
when you are late in the opportunity and
need to buy time.
1
Power Base is a registered trademark of Holden
International

6. T H E E S S E N C E O F S A L E S 2 . 0
D R I V I N G T O P L I N E A N D M A R K E T S H A R E – W h i t e P a p e r
Copyright © 2009 Holden LLC. All rights reserved. Duplication is not permitted. Page 5 of 7
Unconventional Perspective
Business Development
Customer
Supplier Competitor
The formation and advancement of early stage
opportunities requires unconventional thinking,
but that thinking will only exist with the right
mindset.
Mindset
Business Development
OFFENSIVE VS. DEFENSIVE
Offensive = Driving Ambition Tempered
by Humility
We all know that an offensive mindset is required
to be successful in any competitive endeavor.
What is less understood is that a person can
possess a defensive mindset and not know it.
These are people who are responsive to
customers, but not respectfully assertive with
them. For example, they will not tell the customer
what he needs to hear when he does not want to
hear it. To do so, means taking on relationship
risk. But, if the seller is risk averse, what mindset
is he or she demonstrating? And, if that defensive
mindset is carried over to the competition, what
mindset will he or she be demonstrating?
This defensive mindset is the death of business
development and is often evident when the
following customer perspective exists.
Traditional Customer Perspective
Business Development
Supplier
Competition
Customer
Here, the seller’s focus is on the customer, which
is where he or she believes the competition is also
focused. If, however, the seller is competing with
a business developer, that person will possess a
very different mindset.
In this case, the business developer is centered on
the competition, within the context of the
customer environment, as they are the people
whose purpose in life is to take him or her out.
Reorienting the customer’s perspective and
shaping a professionally offensive mindset in a
sales manager’s business developers requires
constant collaboration and support. It is not an
intellectual issue, but an emotional one that
involves both transformational triads.
As with the entire transformation to business
development, this brings us to the nexus of
collaboration and technology – Sales 2.0.
MARKET IMPACT
Every industry sector consists of a hierarchy of
companies by market share. When times are
good, it is virtually impossible to organically alter
this structural order. But in today’s marketplace,
that all changes. The shift to business
development, if deployed across a sales
organization with Sales 2.0, could literally alter the
balance of power within industries. Not based
upon what people sell, but how they sell. Therein
lies the power and promise of Sales 2.0, as an
empowering enabler to business development.

7. T H E E S S E N C E O F S A L E S 2 . 0
D R I V I N G T O P L I N E A N D M A R K E T S H A R E – W h i t e P a p e r
Copyright © 2009 Holden LLC. All rights reserved. Duplication is not permitted. Page 6 of 7
Pictorially, the concept of transformational triads
can be seen below where one community exists
within the center triad between a training
company and its customer and, specifically, the
field sales organization.
In this regard, Sales 2.0 becomes a collaborative
and technology enabler to the installation of a
business development methodology, along with
the necessary sales management coaching
guidance, and a highly graphic and easy to use tool
set to support implementation of the
methodology and sales management coaching
activities.
The outer triad represents a community “above”
that of the supplier and a specific customer, to
include all customers who are focused on the
transformation from traditional selling to more of
a business development orientation. Here, non-
confidential information is shared between
companies. For example, one company may be
interested in how other firms tie at-risk sales
compensation to implementation of the business
development methodology. Often, this level of
community is more executive focused, mapping
well into customer executive sponsorship
initiatives. The result is a very strong enabling
environment to drive top line and market share in
today’s economy.
SUMMARY
• The play in today’s challenging market is
to transform from traditional selling to
more of a business development
orientation, in order to drive top line and
market share
• Business development centers on the
formation and advancement of early stage
opportunities
• The force behind business development is
unconventional thinking supported by the
right mindset
• Unconventional thinking drives
unexpected customer value, while at the
same time identifying, creating and
exploiting unexpected competitor
vulnerability
• The transformation from traditional
selling to business development is counter
intuitive, requiring guided collaboration
with a purpose
• Guided collaboration is fueled by the Sales
2.0 engine in the form of the training and
customer triads
“Sales 2.0 enables the guided and purposeful collaboration necessary to
transform sales organizations from that of traditional selling to business
development, aligning them with an already transformed marketplace”
– Ryan Kubacki
Multipoint Collaboration to Drive Change Fueled
by Unconventional Thinking and Technology to
Increase Top Line and Market Share

8. T H E E S S E N C E O F S A L E S 2 . 0
D R I V I N G T O P L I N E A N D M A R K E T S H A R E – W h i t e P a p e r
Copyright © 2009 Holden LLC. All rights reserved. Duplication is not permitted. Page 7 of 7
About Holden International
Founded in 1979 and recognized as the pioneer and innovator of the sales methodology industry
with the introduction of Power Base® Selling, Holden International is a leading sales effectiveness
consulting firm that has helped over 600 enterprise and mid-market companies and 400,000 sales
professionals in twenty-five countries outsell their B2B sales competition in order to win customer
loyalty, increase revenue and profit margins, and build pipeline. Holden brings its innovation to
clients of all sizes and industries through an integrated platform of sales strategy and training, e-
learning software, and sales management coaching. Together, these powerful programs combine to
make how you sell—rather than what you sell—a primary competitive advantage. To get started on
outselling your competition, please visit www.holdenintl.com or call (847) 852-2400.

9. Thank You
Numind Consulting Pvt Ltd.
Plot No-174, Udyog Vihar, Phase-4, Gurgaon
+91-124-4732100, +91-8285127181
www.numind.in