Sales 2.0 Conference, Day 1- The Good Bad and Ugly

I’m not going to write up a detailed review of each event- that’s Geoffrey James’ from BNET’s job which he does very well. Instead, I will share my honest opinion about my first day experience at this sold out conference.

The good- Forget preparing an elevator pitch when you can be filmed in living color with a video flip camera. Yes, that was the gadget du jour at today’s Sales 2.0 conference. And what usually followed were questions such as ”what does Sales 2.0 mean to you?” or “tell me about your book” or “do you think salespeople are ready to adopt some new tools?” This fun tool brings a new element to communicating. “

The bad- Attention speakers, presenters and event planners. It’s time to get with the program and design your content and presentations to be more Sales 2.0 centric. That means more dynamic visuals on stage, more live feeds and updates from the rest of the world, more bling bling.  This event has the brightest minds gathered in one room and they are not coming back unless they are highly entertained, enlightened and educated.

The ugly- Just because I’m from Northern California where there are group hugs and people go to Esalen and soak in communcal baths doesn’t mean I’m the only one who believes in kindness, goodness and consiousness. Which brings me to my point is- Sales 2.0 is all about collaboration, partnering and working for the good of sales and marketing organizations. I’m amazed at how some vendors  have drawn stakes in the ground against their competitors. They think nothing of asking that you not engage with their competition and make a point of letting you know they are far superior.  It’s a bloodbath with some out there against each other and being vendor agnostic, I’m very surprised to see this behavior.

Tomorrow is another day- lights, camera, action. Stay tuned.