Paul Greenberg
Author: CRM at the Speed of Light, 4th Edition
Executive Vice President CRM Association

Customer expectations have changed
Customers are no longer expecting to be sold to
They are expecting to be partnered with
They are not expecting just a product
They are expecting products, tools, services,
experiences
They are not just looking for utility
They are looking for style & a bond with the
company, not just the salesperson

Consumer thinking penetrates the company –
including B2B
New Blackberries, iPhone as enterprise device
Interest in experience as much as utility
CRM strategies move from management to
engagement
Permeates sales strategies – customers want to be
involved in the process not just sold to
No to “objects of a sale”
Yes to “subjects of an experience”

The state of mind of the customer/prospect not
under your control
Your knowledge of the targeted organization is
often not complete enough – who are the
decision makers, who the influencers?
Costs need to be controlled more in a recession
so chances of success need to be carefully
optimized – because each $$ spent counts –
against you

Competition is no longer limited to companies
of like size – smaller companies can compete
Web information can level the competitive
intelligence playing field
Caveat: Web information is unstructured
The thinking of salespeople has to change
“Lone wolf” no longer works as well

Recession caveats
Recession means that price becomes more
important than it was prior – though always
important
Customer’s inclination to buy is reduced
But so is their inclination to bolt
Inertia, wait and see rules the day
But nerves are still on edge & engaged personalized
relationships win the day

New approaches to lead generation
Better handling of opportunity
Need for competitive differentiation of a new
kind but through organizational knowledge &
sales intelligence
Reputation, influence, persuasion
Based on customer insight

Lead generation
Use of social media to generate leads “non-
traditionally” – rich source
Community discussions
Threaded discussions in forums – show expertise
Caveat: If you look too “salesy” you are going to be
flamed.
Transparency & subtlety get you a long way
Blogs/Podcasts to drive comments leading to leads
Tools for scoping unstructured data across the web

Opportunity management/deal closure
Capture customer attention
Engage other employees – sales, marketing, etc. to
support the effort through community knowledge –
and opinions (rating, comments)
Forecast accuracy should provide some
predictability & direction

Organizational knowledge/sales intelligence
Improvement of communication among sales (&
other) staff
Using collaboration tools & UGC, can make more
accurate assessments of appropriate presentations
& documents for success in deals
Rich information beyond standard fare

Sales intelligence for customer insight
Capturing unstructured data from web in real time
Incorporating it with internal CRM data to get rich
customer profiles – e.g. individuals or accounts
Can expand influence on clients – the more you know…
Aberdeen study on Sales Intelligence (2009) found that
the best-in-class companies had clearly defined and well
informed customer insights
Understand prospect’s business challenges
(79%)(+13%)
Understood how to map offerings to those business
challenges (73%)(+14%)
Intelligent knowledge of competitive differences
(73%)(+18%)

Social CRM sales tools
A.k.a Enterprise 2.0 sales tools
Social media
Integration between social media & CRM apps
become mission-critical to contemporary sales
process
Communities
Traditional sales tools – these are still part of
the package

Social CRM sales tools
Collaboration tools/services
Mobile applications
Direct engagement of customer
Predictability
Forecasting accuracy
Use UGC & external sources for sales intelligence to
improve chances of closing

Social CRM sales tools
Features, functions, characteristics
Sales collaboration, access
“The information sales people really need is often not
accessible” – Jim Dickie, CSO Insights
Tools like wikis, webinars, WebEx-like sites
Outcome based collaboration
Customer analytics/community interactions
Shared content
Knowledgebase/libraries
User generated content (comments, rankings)

Social Media
Blogs
Sale people write blogs “of interest”, not sales pitch
Subscribers can “sell themselves”
Prospecting
Prospects can write guest posts
Link to prospect blogs
Get prospects to participate in discussion
Managing the accounts
Substitute “contacts” for “prospects” here

Social Media
Podcasts
Informative, fun, humanizing
Twitter
Never underestimate the value of 140 characters
Other user generated content
YouTube videos

Integrated CRM & social tools
Accessing resources across the web & tying it to
internally acquired customer data
External data
Blogs
Traditional sources (Hoovers, Reuters, D&B)
Social networks (Facebook, LinkedIn, Zoominfo)
Open Data Initiative (Jigsaw)
Business news
Internal data
Account info
Contact info

Social Networks/Communities
Create support within prospect companies &
accounts
A community comes pre-sold
Threadless, Karmaloop
Create a “personal sales support team” via
advocates from a community
Lead generation based on conversations going on
Caveat: must be careful due to possibly trust &
reputation issues

Social CRM sales
Increase potential for success
Increased customer insight
Mitigate risk
Provide collaborative environment
Improve engagement with customers
Portability increased
Ease of use increased
Competitive differentiation

Paul Greenberg
Author: CRM at the Speed of Light, 4th Edition
President, The 56 Group, LLC
EVP, CRM Association
Co-Chair, Rutgers CRM Research Center
Pgreenblog: http://the56group.typepad.com
ZDNET CRM 2.0 Blog: http://blogs.zdnet.com/crm
Named “Most Influential CRM 2008” by InsideCRM & CRM Magazine
Email: paul-greenberg3@comcast.net
Phone: 703-551-2337