In a recent survey of midsized and large corporations in packaging, digital media and plastic molding, I discovered over 72% of the sales teams had not been trained in the past year on how to leverage social networks to grow sales. Yikes! And other research confirms this statistic. Do your own quick research of just ten companies in your world to prove it to yourself.

The next time you see a business professional sitting in a Starbucks or restaurant, picture $100 bills spewing out of his or her cell phone. That's the mindset to create for how sales teams can learn to use social networks to grow sales in all kinds of ways they haven't even considered.

Lack of current training on this topic means that every day, your sales team is floundering in how to promote, demonstrate expertise, leverage, conduct competitive intelligence and build a arsenal of facts, video, printed testimonials and public opinion to benefit your revenue stream. The old ways of marketing and advertizing have gone the way of metal golf spikes and VHS tapes. As the economy rebounds, as the new world at work communicates via digital print and the buyer makes more decisions looking at a screen of data and video--not a trade magazine--sales teams need serious re-framing of how they present, argue, persuade, and deliver competitive advantages.

If there is no money in your "budget" for such critical sales training, take the cash out of your print media budget. One full page ad in your industry magazine costs $2500-4000/Per MONTH! There's your sales training dollars. And that ad you give up runing for a month or two? Will you miss it? Can you measure the results it's generating any way? If the ad is like most, it's still in a stack of magazines under the desk or in the corner of a busy person's office waiting till she has time to weed thru the old issues.

What are you doing to educate your sales, marketing, management and customer service in the new world at work of social networks?

Let's hear what others have to say.

Thanks for your insights.

Russ Riendeau, PhD, East Wing Group, Inc.