The Future of Sales is Social (the rise of social CRM)

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Last week I did the keynote presentation in a webinar run by ITNews and Oracle on How to spark sales using social media apps.

My presentation was titled The Future of Sales is Social. The slides are below, and you can listen to the on demand webinar here (registration required).

Keynote: The Future of Sales is Social

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Taken in the context of many people being unsure about the value of social media for business, it is worth looking at the many ways that social media are directly applicable to the B2B sales process. Just some of those are in this slide from my presentation.

SocialMediaforSales.jpg

I absolutely believe that the future of sales is social, and that social media in their various forms will quickly become central to the way salespeople and sales teams work.

Given my background in high-value client relationships as well as social media I expect to be spending a lot of time over the next while exploring precisely how sales teams can best use social media in successfully engaging with their clients and prospects. I’ll keep you posted.

Mark Pesce will keynote on Using the Network for Business Success

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Among our awesome cast of speakers at SME Technology Summit, our opening keynote speakers Mark Pesce and Tim Pethick are two of the those whose insights I most look forward to hearing. Both have fantastic experience and insights into where technology is today and where it’s going.

Mark’s topic is below. Be sure to get along to see it!

Using the Network for Business Success

The past five years have seen an explosion in the ways we can connect with one another. Just five years ago email was a bit risqué – now people use Facebook and Twitter and Google Wave and don’t even give it a second thought. All of this ‘hyperconnectivity’ means we can be reached anywhere, everywhere, all the time. This has enormous implications for SMEs. More than just supercharging your rolodex, these network connections can become the channels to increased sales and productivity.

The network represents a new force, pressing down from the outside, as your hyperconnected customers (both satisfied and not-so-satisfied) use new channels to spread the word about your products. You need to be there, wherever those conversations are happening, whenever they happen. You really do need to have eyes and ears everywhere across the net. How can a small business afford to do this? New tools make it easier, but to make best use of these tools, you have to empower your employees to use them. Social media in the office is powerful – and a little bit dangerous. But with some simple ground rules, it can change your business.

Keynote: Network to win! ..for global professional services network Kreston

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On Tuesday I gave the opening keynote at the 38th annual global conference of international accounting network Kreston International.

Kreston are a very interesting organization. With revenues across the network of over $2 billion, they are the 13th largest accounting network in the world. The day of the conference they made the final step in becoming a network according to the IFAC (International Federation of Accountants) definition of a network. One of the critical issues in determining whether a group of firms is deemed a network is whether they have common quality controls. The appointment of a Global Quality and Professional Standards Director is a key step Kreston has taken.

I have long been fascinated by professional services networks. I wrote about them in my first book Developing Knowledge-Based Client Relationships, and in detail in Chapter 9 of Living Networks.

I am actively continuing to explore the nature of networks in professional services. How well they network very simply determines their success.

As such I was delighted to be invited to do the opening keynote on the conference’s theme of Network to Win. It took the format of a participatory workshop run over two 45 minute sessions, getting the attendees to reflect on and discuss how they can best enhance the cross-firm networks that drive results.

Below are my slides for my presentation, provided primarily for event attendees. Note that they are intended to accompany my speech, not to be meaningful in themselves.

Network to Win! Keynote presentation at Kreston International Global Conference

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Sky Business Tech Report: Interview on social media, online outsourcing, and how small companies are using technology to leapfrog big business

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I was interviewed this morning on Sky Business Tech Report. Some of the things we discussed in the interview are:

* How social media such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and many others change how companies engage with customers, become more efficient, and being competitive.

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SmartCompany webinar next Monday to feature SME Tech Summit speakers

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SmartCompany magazine is running a webinar on Monday 16 November at 2pm: How Small and Mid-Sized Companies are Using Technology to Drive Business Success.

The webinar will provide a preview to some of the outstanding content at SME Technology Summit.

Amanda Gome, Publisher of SmartCompany, will moderate the discussion and share some of her insights in running a young and rapidly growing company, as well in covering the best of what’s happening in small and mid-sized business in Australia.

Matt Barrie, CEO of Freelancer.com, will discuss how companies can best take advantage of online outsourcing to build efficiencies, scale operations, and grow companies rapidly.

Suzi Dafnis, Community Director of Australian Businesswomen’s Network, will draw on her extensive experience in building online communities using blogs, forums and other tools.

David James, CEO of Brasserie Bread, will share how he has rapidly grown a real-world business using Twitter and other social media tools.

See the full SME Technology Summit agenda for details of what they will be speaking about and where they fit into the array of valuable content available on the day.

And be sure to register for the webinar to get these speakers great insights! There will be three complimentary passes to the Summit drawn at the end of the webinar.

Free webinar on Implementing Enterprise 2.0 (and win a copy of the book!)

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My book Implementing Enterprise 2.0 has been selling at a very healthy and consistent pace since its launch earlier this year. The front page of the book’s website features links to reviews of the book, including some very useful ones from ReadWriteWeb, CMSWire, and Inside Knowledge.

I thought it would be good to share some of the book’s insights in a different format, so I have teamed up with Newsgator – who have been key proponents of the book – to do a free webinar on Implementing Enterprise 2.0: Practical Steps to Creating Business Value. The webinar will be held on November 18 at 2pm US ET.

We will draw six complimentary copies of Implementing Enterprise 2.0 for webinar attendees.

Sign up for the webinar here.

Below is the webinar overview. Hope to connect with you then!

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Practical insights and advice on Everyday Enterprise 2.0

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Newsgator’s Director of Enterprise 2.0 Consulting Christy Schoon has launched a new blog Everyday Enterprise 2.0 at the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco. Christy says “I’m going to write in plain English about everyday Enterprise 2.0 from my own on-the-ground perspective working with living, breathing social computing champions at Fortune 500 companies.”

One reason I love the blog is Christy’s four standard recommendations to businesspeople on where to start with Enterprise 2.0 (particularly the first one :-) ):

1) read Ross Dawson’s sensible, plainspoken book “Implementing Enterprise 2.0“

2) read the Nielsen Norman Group’s report “Enterprise 2.0: Social Software on Intranets“; and

3) if your company has at least 10,000 employees, join the 2.0 Adoption Council

4. Get professional help.

However I also like the rich content tone. It’s very refreshing to see a post titledPimp My Site that happens to be a detailed discussion about the practical issues involved in Enterprise 2.0 adoption but begins:

My second blog post and I’ve already used the word Pimp. My Mom would be so proud.

Social Media Strategy Framework in Korean – 소셜미디어 전략 프레임워크

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And one more! …continuing our series of translations of Social Media Strategy Framework, today we are launching the Korean edition.

See the original post for the full overview of the Social Media Strategy Framework in English and compilation of the framework in 11 different languages.

SMSframework in Korean

Click on image to download pdf

Please share this with any Korean speakers who would be interested.

Also be sure to let me know if you can suggest any improvements to the translation.

The top 10 blogs for small to mid-sized businesses

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Blog search engine Technorati recently revised its blog ranking algorithms and created categories for the rankings.

The list of the top 10 blogs for small business provides an excellent resource for attendees of our SME Technology Summit in Sydney on 1 December, where there will be deep insights into all of the topics covered by these blogs.

Many of these blogs are for businesses of all sizes, but all of them provide valuable insights for small to mid-sized businesses. Check them out!

1. Online Marketing Blog

https://www.toprankblog.com

sbtech1

Covers digital marketing topics, focusing on social media, online PR and search engine marketing. A broad team of writers brings diverse perspectives to bear.

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Speaking at Future Forum – creating the future of the enterprise

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I first met Mark McCrindle when we were both part of a small team of futures thinkers engaged by a major bank for its innovation program. His company McCrindle Research provides a variety of research services focused on generational change. They also organize the Future Forum, an annual event run in several Australia cities which pulls together insights on key trends across all domains into a compact one-day session.

I will be speaking at the Sydney event on November 6, talking about Enterprise 2.0 and how to create the future of the enterprise, including how organizations can leverage social media for competitive advantage. A video overview of the event is below, full information and agenda here, and you can register here.

Future Forum Australia 2009 from David Birley on Vimeo.