Allyforce: the power of partnership

photo credit: victoriapeckham

Have you heard of the Wisdom of crowds?

It’s the idea (roughly) that getting multiple people to help solve a problem — from guessing the number of jelly beans in a jar to coming up with a good logo to solving a complex chemical problem — leverages people’s collective wisdom.

What if you could do that with prospecting and sales?

For example, suppose you are a rep selling…(let’s pick something not technology related first)…HR Outsourcing.

You want to find as many companies and people to talk to about this.

You could just rely on the phone book, hoovers, or your own network to get out and go make cold calls.

But what if you put together a “crowdsource” — we call them “allies” — of other sales reps in your territory selling into the same types of companies and the same types of people.  Here are some companies which would have reps selling such services:

• SaaS accounting services
• Recruiters
• 401k management providers
• SaaS Performance Review Software
• Org chart software
• Compensation consulting firms

Each of them are making cold-calls, leveraging their network, and meeting people.  And if you picked the right folks, all in your territory.

If they were all together at the water-cooler for an hour, do you think you may uncover at least one new deal?

And wouldn’t you have insights into a company or person that the others didn’t but would find valuable?

Now imagine you could do this on an ongoing, automated, and secure fashion?  Do you think you could start to get a ‘crowdsourced’ picture of your territory, your accounts, and your prospects?