Some people want us to believe that sales is broken or has completely changed, or even that selling is dead. They believe that buyers spend their days on social media, happily progressing on their buyer journey all by themselves. Should we just let all our good sales reps go and advise them to start a career building Websites?

The fact is, there are new tools and technology available to help sales reps get better results:

• social media to get to know prospects,
• CRM systems to keep track of contacts,
• mobile solutions to liberate sales reps from their desks.

Paying Is Not Enough

These new tools are not solutions by themselves, however, and that never changes. These new possibilities serve to make your sales reps better at doing what they do best – which is still basically convincing people that spending their money on your product is a good idea – but technology that immediately drives results to the bottom line without a salesperson’s lifting a finger has yet to be invented.

The act of paying for new technology, in cash or in time, will not get you results. Compare it to getting in shape: no matter how good we are at wishful thinking, a monthly fee to the health club is not going to get us any slimmer – but it might trim our wallets.

The Baby and the Bathwater

Work is the magic word: it drives results. When properly introduced, a CRM system, a tablet app for salespeople, or using LinkedIn as a sales tool contributes to getting better results. The challenge is to not throw out the baby with the bathwater. So these new sales tools are not solutions by themselves, but don’t let that be your main reason for not adopting them. If your pre-pre-predecessor at your company had thought like that, you’d be sifting through a box of index cards and dipping a quill pen into an inkwell right now, instead of reading this post.

The Key to Successfully Implementing Sales 2.0 Technology

What does it take to get new technology introduced? Working for a technology company myself, I must say I have wondered, too. Why do some of our customers get up and running quickly while others seem to take a lot of time?

The keys are preparation and follow-up: those other magic words. Getting new technology widely adopted in a sales team always involves some change, and good preparation and thoughtful follow-up will get you a lot closer to the desired results.  Don’t expect sales reps to spend valuable time trying out something new just because you think it’s a good idea.