The Wiki is Not Always the Best Solution

One of my many Google Alerts arrived this evening and a particular entry caught my eye. Despite the fact the first part of the blog post was really good, it went on to propose a resolution to a sales reporting problem that has sent me into a quiet rage.

As much as I support and promote the use of Wiki’s in organisations, suggestions like those contained in this post make me angry as it’s an example of technology being used outside its traditional scope to fix a problem that has been caused by technology being misapplied, and then reinforced by a major dose of general corporate incompetence.

Whilst Stewart’s idea has merit, in essence, he’s suggesting the customer accept a band-aid solution rather than confronting the real issues and working towards a long term, sustainable, best practice outcome. And this is before I even start on the sad fact that this type of ‘work around’ has to be proposed for a terribly archaic reporting structure.

The information presented in the post outlines (at least) two fundamental business issues – and I’m not convinced that a Wiki is an acceptable solution on its own (though I will propose that a well resourced Wiki will help engage and deliver corporate change).

Problem #1

I get the feeling they are using a CRM solution and that it clearly hasn’t be configured to suit the needs of the organisation. Call me a sceptic but I’d say they are probably using Salesforce.com and engaged Salesforce.com PS team to configure the solution – so they have a beautifully configured CRM that does nothing to help them sell more effectively. Based on our experience of sales automation projects I’d suggest the VP of Sales was rail roaded by the Salesforce.com sales reps via their typical colour, light, and movement sales presentation and probably never thought to consult the people for whom the system relies on – the field sales person.

Resolution? Stop listening to your CRM vendor and actually listen to your sales team. Look at your sales processes and start understanding your sales data. A Wiki is not going to do this for you but can become a central knowledge repository for specific sales, process, and how-to guides

Problem #2

Stewart’s proposal that a sales reporting Wiki might eventually allow the VP of Sales to analyse data ‘perhaps twice a week’ is fundamentally flawed. In fact it’s wrong.

Resolution? Get serious about your CRM use and how you report sales information. Implement a solution like Cloud9 Analytics. Cloud9 would provide this VP of Sales with the opportunity to take immediate action to improve sales performance and drive revenues.And by immediate I mean she could focus on the forecast breakers, the major customer deals and have any significant events delivered to her via a dashboard or directly to her BlackBerry.

Problem #3

Either the VP of Sales is in way over her head or she’s been given a charter to be mediocre. The role of a VP of Sales is to be a Sales Leader, not the resident reports monkey. The role of the VP of Sales is to reduce revenue risk, increase team productivity and facilitate collaboration. At a minimum the company needs to invest in a sales coaching tool like Private Sales Coach. This would allow the sales reps to take greater ownership of the progress of their opportunities and allow the VP of Sales more time to spend being a sales coach and sales leader.

A wiki will help this company but not as a sales reporting tool. If the company wants to mature into a true Sales 2.0 organisation then they need to do more than just put a wiki in place.

The power of Social Media

I’ve been a close follower of Dave Stein’s blog for a while now. In fact, one of his posts mentioned Avitage and Private Sales Coach and because of this, we’re in deep negotiations with Jim Burns to bring his products into the APAC market.

If you want to understand the power of Social Media then have a look at this post from Dave’s blog. Whilst its disappointing that these thought leaders are being ripped off and are having to invest so much time chasing this – losing productive time, it’s a very powerful example of how Social Media works. If you follow the links and have a look at how this has developed, you’ll realise that many many people are affected .

Dave also makes a really good suggestion about Google Alerts. We have on average around 13 alerts going at any one time. We follow companies we’re interested in, technologies we believe in or promote, along with our partners and competitors. Like Dave, we strongly recommend you use this free service from Google.

Another tool you should be using is the Google Toolbar. When installed, it allows you to select any text on a web page, right-click and either drop this text straight into Google Notepad or send directly to Gmail. I use the send to email option as it includes the URL you were on at the time. So basically I can collect snippets of data including the URL and store this in a Gmail account for future reference.