Sales intelligence or social CRM? Call it what you will, it's all just relationships

One of my favourite scenes of cinema has to be the moment in Airplane II, when a worked up William Shatner completely loses the plot over hundreds of flashing warning lights and 'mystery' control units beeping away around him. It's a moment of utter brilliance where Shatner pokes fun at his own sci-fi past and suggests that everything running his control tower is far more complicated than it really needs to be.


I feel there is a sense of this when it comes to using online sales intelligence. There is a feeling that understanding all the ins and outs of the software, not to mention the social sites the tools can now track, as more trouble than it's worth. But sales intelligence, social crm, Face Tweeting, social tweet-like sales crm; it's all really the same thing. It's improving a relationship with a prospect or customer in order to make that relationship more productive for both participants.

It's about staying in touch in a way previously unscalable and unactionable and most importantly it's a way of improving a solution and adapting a sale at the crucial moment in order to ensure the deal remains positive. Yes, there are hundreds of buzz words crowding the air waves, and yes there are many different ways of describing just exactly what online intelligence is supposed to be. But remember the key point; it's not about the software, it's about the people, and ultimately the relationship building a regular online insight can naturally provide.