Who's Integrating online and offline sales strategies?

Who is effectively integrating their online business development strategy with their offline sales strategy?

A few weeks ago Crain's Chicago Business assembled a forum and it seemed that no-one had any answers on who is.

A few days ago I was with the executives of the global market leaders of several manufacturing and distribution companies. The consensus seems to be that they are having difficulty reaching engineers, online, offline, through marketing, through sales people, and the challenge is great.

Who has the answers?

www.bdail.com

Getting specified by Engineers?

I continue to hear from clients how difficult it is to get specified at the design stage by specifiers/engineers. We have seen many changes take place in the industrial marketplace during the past 6 years. Trust in the business to business marketplace seems to have diminished. Since 2001, global outsourcing to overseas markets, downsizing causing many to be out of work, the downfall of Anderson Consulting and Enron, among others. Many firms have reduced their sales force or been forced to change the way in which they go to market dramatically because of the lack of new business generated.

What method of communication do they prefer?
How do they source new suppliers of product or services?
How do they determine a supplier they can trust?

Building a Network of Trusted Advisors

Building a network of collaborating businesses who serve the same marketplace and understand the value of networking, is much more difficult than popular belief.