Birth of a Sales Tool - a farce from Fast Company's Chris Dannen

The problem with this piece is that while he touts that Sohn is "reinventing" sales, he is really only paying for qualified leads - which is as old as Rome's 7 Hills. Dannen hasn't done his homework - or is overly enamoured by Sohn.

BUT - the interesting thing to note in this piece is the way it is written. You could actually write such an article and float it into existence under a nom-de-plume and get it rolling around the blogosphere as a buzz in and of itself. The style isn't that much different from a press release married with an interview. The questions are short, the answers long.

Consider this "interview" I did with the "Midwest Journal".

It's just not that hard to do.

But don't buy this guy's claim. He's just re-marketing an old saw for new woodcutters. And the first person he sold was this writer...

The product of his observations -- called Salesconx -- is an online marketplace for sales contacts, where salespeople sell each other contact information about the folks in their Rolodex. Let's say you're a seasoned salesperson; other Salesconx users can pay you a small fee (usually about $100) for an online "introduction" in which you introduce them to one of your contacts. The idea is that every introduction be mutually beneficial; a snowplow salesman, for example, might connect a tire salesman and a truck salesman. Sohn hopes the marketplace will be trustworthy enough that it will allow top salespeople to leave inefficient practices like cold-calling or mass-emailing behind. Think of it as LinkedIn meets eBay.

Birth of a Sales Tool: LinkedIn Meets eBay - CRM - Salesconx - Evan Sohn | Fast Company

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