The b2b buyer can now be the user and decision maker: Madlibs w/ @gretchende

Gretchen Deknikker is an entrepeneur. (How is that for short but to the point) Everything you need to know about her is in this great post on Women 2.0. Here is my take on Gretchen: Funny, brilliant, caffeinated, remarkable, and about to be a pioneer in the social selling space with Social Pandas. Her Madlibs is just like I figured…witty and smart…enjoy

1. The b2b buyer can now be the user and decision maker. Bottoms up SaaS sales models are increasingly ousting the gatekeepers of yore.
2. The biggest innovation in sales is – social media (sorry, occupational hazard.)  Sales is the most social department in a company and they’ve got some really cool new toys.
3. The coolest thing happening in b2b sales is – the buyer’s ability to do a huge amount of research before ever touching the company.  Sucks to be an old school marketer who can’t control the conversation, eh?
4. My favorite Sales 2.0 technology is – David Thompson and Geoffrey Moore coined that in 2007. That’s, like, forever in internet years.  Can we get a rebrand?
5. My favorite sales book is – it’s not a traditional sales book, but Predictably Irrational by Dan Ariely is awesome.
6. My favorite social media channel is – Twitter.  Mostly because it’s the fastest source for news — In San Francisco, Me: “Was that an earthquake?”  Twitter: “Yes.”
7. Social selling is – a fun new buzzword but not a new concept.  We’re just building relationships in new and different ways.
8. I use Linkedin to – see who viewed my profile  And stalk everyone I’m going to meet with, of course.
9. Cold calling - may not be strictly via phone anymore, but it’s alive and well in many other form factors.
10. In b2b, the idea of a funnel is – over (for now).  Until we can get past first and last touch attribution and measure the impact of multiple touches via social, it’s just a dashboard in Salesforce used to beat up marketing for more leads at the top.
11. The first thing every sales person should do is – listen.  And do your homework.  And then listen.
12. Voicemail is – where phone calls go to die. My iPhone needs a flag for follow-up feature.
13. The biggest mistake sales people make is – pitching.  It’s not about you or your shiny product.  It’s about the customer and their problem (which you learned a lot about while you were listening in #11, right?).
14. The biggest myth in sales is – that product and price are the primary drivers of deals.  People buy from people.  They buy more from people they like.
15. My most forgettable sales experience was – forgettable?  By definition that means I… what were we talking about?
16. The hardest part of selling is – losing a deal.  I love customers.
17. The next “hot-thing” in sales will be – ummmm, SocialPandas?  Sorry, it’s impossible for me to give an unbiased response.
18. In 2015, sales will be – sales.  The tools change but at the end of the day, in b2b, relationships are everything.
19. My favorite sales saying is – “Yes, I’ll EchoSign that contract over to you now.”  Oh, did you mean something trite like “You see this watch…”?
20. Over the next couple years in sales, I can’t wait to see – all of the cool tools that will intertwine social and sales.
21. Madlibs with the Funnelholic is – everything with Funnelholic is fun.

 Gretchen DeKnikker is co-founder and CMO at SocialPandas, a social selling solution. She has over a decade of experience launching and growing enterprise SaaS startups and platforms. Most recently, she launched LivePerson’s (LPSN) open platform. She was an early employee at Genius.com and EchoSign (acquired by Adobe). Gretchen loves bacon, bourbon, hip hop and all things tech. Gretchen blogs at Enterprise is Sexy and holds an MBA from UC Berkeley. Follow her on Twitter at@gretchende.