The adoption is still very small because most of us in business feel uneasy about putting our “next quarter projections on the Internet”. But if you asked the opinion of a neutral 3rd party software specialist, you will realize Google has built a fair amount of security around the docs. And like is most cases, those of us with the biggest need and smallest budget will get onto this before others who have more disposable capital and effort. But give it a try- we found it good!

This video was selected by WeShow

My reading of the situation: it’s not bad at all compared to the difficult times we have seen before over the last 2 decades; so let’s not get jittery for every pothole on the road. And as far as I know, businesses that are using online channels today to reach customers worldwide are really growing at an attractive pace. So if you are deriving over 90% of your revenues from offline methods – BDMs, Sales Staff, Channel Partners, etc- you are at risk. I have absolutely no doubt in that because your cost structures are just too high compared to your competition which may be using online methods to get up to 50% of their revenues. I can say this because we recently helped a business in increasing the online sales component while reducing the sales force effort. It’s possible and it’s happening.

Stay Tuned!
Shankar AVSB, CEO, MyOrbit.tv

This video is about software solution sales and marketing, but equally applicable to other technology sales. There is a great pressure to achieve results fast by trying to qualify a buyer and trying to move ahead. And to make things more difficult, a Booz Allan Hamilton study found that 85% of a company’s brand value is projected through the interaction between the buyer and seller (so all the previous branding can fall flat easily)- that makes it very challenging to differentiate yourself when you have just about 20% of the buyer’s time.

So one of the biggest challenges facing today’s software sales forces is their ability to have “perfect conversations” with executive buyers. Too many conversations are centered around value propositions that are not aligned and not tailored to an executive buyer’s key business issues and personal motivations.

Chris Deren, CEO of SellMasters, was a keynote speaker at the SLAM (Sales, Licensing, Alliances & Marketing for Software Companies) 2006. He defines “the perfect conversation” and its essential ingredients — and how software companies can align and optimize their sales, marketing and product teams for them. In this video, Deren discusses how to:

• See the world through the eyes of executive buyers – Avoid being delegated to—and filtered out by—procurement. 90% of all IT vendors are considered non-strategic by buyers. So how do you move into the elite 10% club? Become executive centric to understanding their motivations and their cherished initiatives. Its difficult but that’s the differentiator
• Turn complex product portfolios into simple value-driven stories
• Create “last mile” marketing content that salespeople crave
• Achieve and maintain “trusted advisor” status critical to success

About the Presenter: Chris Deren is the CEO of SellMasters, which offers sales performance optimization (SPO) services. He is a high-tech industry veteran with over 25 years of experience in building entrepreneurial teams, leading world-class sales organizations, and identifying and executing against winning go-to-market strategies for companies such as IBM, Xerox and Dun & Bradstreet.

Over 75% executives who responded to the survey intend to maintain or increase their investments in Web 2.0 technology trends that encourage user collaboration, such as peer-to-peer networking, social networks, and Web services.

The report also talks about some executives wanting to these technologies for a sustained competitive edge.

Now, in our view, while ‘sustained competitive edge’ is unlikely by any people driven Web 2.0 technology, it is already bringing benefits and profits for those early adopters who are able to understand what to do.

For example, are you able to use your websites to pre-sell your services? Or are you collecting enough information from your online clients and prospects? Or do your teams collaborate enough, and also keep client in the loop?

All these things can earn more revenues while reducing costs = more profitability. And this isn’t not some textbook equation…it’s happening already!

So if you haven’t got a clue where to start in your business, contact us, and we will show you at least 2 ways to rapidly benefit.

If you are into any forms of customer interaction or sales, you will benefit from this interesting sales training video by Dan Lappin of Caskey Training, where he shares “why sales deals stall”. It’s just 6 minutes long and worth watching full. You’ll learn three sales strategies that can improve your ability to control the sales process, improve your credibility, and will have your customers pursuing you. This video has been popular with audience at Myorbit from the time we started last year in 2006. So thanks very much to Dan Lappin.

While a variety of topics were covered, two categories really dominated:

1. Internet Marketing – I think half the stalls were about it – showing ways to reach audience through post, emails, mobile text messages and specially designed websites – and also how to collect user information in a legitimate way. A couple of vendors said they could do a marketing blast for MyOrbit.tv - pushing it to 5 million people worldwide. Obviously we are not in that business, and I put a reverse question to them: “How can I best reach 500 people and engage them on a topic they follow?” They had no good solution for it, and in fact most firms in the event talked at 10,000 and above – “we can paint London with your message” kind of pitch – which may have a suitable role while releasing a mass market product – but in general the role of such ‘whole world marketing’ is reducing especially where we want to engage with the other person. That took us to the other main section of the event.

2. Web 2.0 section where one could learn about how to engage with the ‘You’. Various things were explained – Blogs, Forums, Better Layouts, etc. There were multiple seminars – most of which talked about how to make a website more interesting, how to enagage the audience and have them sign-up for different information feeds etc – these are real challenges of any business operating on the Internet, so the event made some contribution.

And, it was good meeting the managers of of Lulu.com and LinkedIn (one of their directors flew in from Palo Alto) – both of them have a strong value prop for an individual professional. There was a good interest in MyOrbit.tv from different companies, and a couple of them also played our videos on their giants screens to show other people what’s possible with new media.