The title of this post is a quote from William Gibson. Whoda’ thunk a science fiction writer would have such a compelling insight into the power of the E-Rep?
(You remember E-Rep, right? Your electronic alter-ego? You’re working diligently right now transferring all that unique knowledge and insight currently trapped inside your brain to your blog, video and audio, right? How else can your customers derive value from you on a 24 X 7 basis?)
Consider the following two sets of facts that support Gibson’s insight. The first set relates to The YPS Group’s E-Rep and sales made by it:
- Closed Deal #1: Sales Excellence Council
- Normal sell cycle, 13-17 months
- This sell cycle, 37 days
- Closed Deal #2: Sales Education
- Delivery via E-Rep (i.e., my E-Rep sold a deal to implement an E-Rep. Cool!)
- For 1,500 reps for a major, new, national alliance
- Customer CEO is hands-on, directly and regularly involved (You think maybe this will increase my chances for future business with this account?)
- Closed Deal #3: Marketing Plan Development
- Delivery via E-Rep (i.e., my E-Rep sold another deal to implement an E-Rep. Cool!)
- Customer CEO is hands-on, directly and regularly involved (You think maybe this will increase my chances for future business with this account?)
- Unique Visitors to The YPS Group Web Site:
- Up 59% year-to-date
- Time on site up 68% year-to-date
- Alexa.com Web Site Ranking:
- October, 2009 – 10.2 million
- April, 2010 – 1.2 million
- i.e., We passed 9.1 million other web sites since E-Rep implementation
Now the second set of facts; quotes from a few of my other customers and prospects:
- “I’d rather chew glass than blog.”
- “Twitter? Are you serious? I don’t care what you had for breakfast.”
- “Nobody in B2B buys anything based on what’s in a damn blog.” (This from a 20-something!)
- “I don’t have time to read that stuff and neither do my customers.” (So nobody reads or researches anything on the web?)
- “I’m so sick of all the hype. Please move on to a new fad.”
Pretty dramatic contrast, huh? The future really is here, just not evenly spread yet. How much of the future is spread around your office? Are you in it, looking and thinking about it, oblivious to it or aggressively denying it?
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