Most Sales 2.0 hyperbole starts off saying ‘enterprise sales is dead’ or talks about ‘rapid sales cycles’ or ‘executive buy-in’ – I mean, who are these guys kidding? The selling technique stuff they talk about is nothing new, but rather is just a repackaging of solution sales, strategic selling or smart account management (start with a small project and grow – I mean really, is this groundbreaking?). What is new is how the internet changes how you can connect with clients.

Think about it, I heard it recently said that the first phase of the internet was about getting everyone connected to it and the second phase is about getting us connected with each other. I think this nicely captures what we all see happening in a general sense. Whether it’s Facebook or LinkedIn, Skype or Go-To Meeting, we are all figuring out better ways to connect with people who we want to be in touch with. I find that it’s actually allowing me to associate with like-minded people much more readily. In this way it makes geography much less determinant of who you can sell to, which is a big advantage for a salesperson. I came of age selling when door to door cold calling of businesses was common and I had to manage my travels very thoughtfully to ensure I leveraged my location at any given time (making 10 cold calls in an area where I had a scheduled meeting, for example).

The internet also makes it much easier for customers to inform themselves about your company (or misinform, depending on their sources). This has changed buying behavior, particularly in the early phases of the pipeline where clients are informing themselves about their options versus entertaining multiple vendors for formal evaluation to determine who they should take a harder look at. It’s this aspect of prospecting and opportunity development where I think the modern B2B sales person has a real opportunity.

For the first time, you can digitally reach your territory from your desk with text, graphics, audio, video – and even do so interactively.  All your prospects and clients are connected to the internet, and are already consuming vast amounts of information from it, but wait a second – how can they find you? The biggest driver of commerce on the internet is search engines, wherein I tell Google what I need and it tries to figure it out for me – and when using a search engine, your potential client doesn’t find you, do they? In the past, the customer would have to pick up the phone or go to a trade show, so if my company were a big enough player, you could well expect to be in touch with buyers from their own inquiries. An incoming phone call would be forwarded to the appropriate salesperson and that’s how inbound leads occurred. More importantly, prospective buyers felt it was their responsibility to their employers to ensure they were in touch with the providers of products relevant to their responsibilities, so they would be more open to phone calls from you, from time to time.

That’s why phone cold calling used to be much more effective. You’ll often hear it said that people are “busier” now, that’s why phone cold calling is much less effective. I find that’s not the case. Rather, it’s that buyers see less value in voice or face to face networking with suppliers. They assume that if they want to know something, they can find it almost immediately by typing a few words into Google. In many cases they inquire, inform themselves, eliminate your company and never talk to anyone at your firm, never mind you. Btw, oftentimes  they then say in meetings that they ‘took a look a your company’, which used to mean they met with you. Now it means they downloaded a white paper or read collateral which in many cases says little or is even misleading.

So, how can you as in individual participate in this world? After all, your company has a website, which in theory is optimized to capture as many of these folks as possible, it’s not your job, is it? Well, let’s see what the reality of that is. Most companies websites are designed by web geeks and marketing people, and ask yourself, if you were a buyer and came to the website of your company, would you find what you’re looking for? In many cases, the answer isn’t pleasant. In fact, B2B websites are universally held in contempt by the rest of the ‘web’ industry, consistently rating in the bottom 5% of all websites in terms of aesthetics and usability.  So, in reality,  the front end of your sale funnel is being chopped off, and there isn’t a damn thing you can do about it. Or is there?

Sales 2.0 is all about creating your own personal brand on the internet. Whether it’s LinkedIn groups, forums, your own blog – your new job in terms of prospecting is to create a place on the internet where buyers can find you. This is the new challenge that we all face, but relax, as salespeople, we are better equipped to leverage this than our corporate marketing group or some “social media” expert. Yes, you do want to get help to figure out how to leverage Twitter or coaching on building a personal video blog, but at the end of the day, what the internet will allow you to do is personally connect with buyers. Your challenge is to get yourself ‘out there’ on the internet.

Glenn Donovan is the Founder of B2B SalesTalk. .