There have been questions about Google’s desire and willingness to ramp up face to face sales in local markets. Their attempted acquistion of Groupon seemed be to focused on a quick development of an on-the-ground, locally focused sales team. Discussions about their early efforts and ability to succeed in selling local revolve around this question. Last week’s job postings indicated that they were looking for new hires in Seattle for “Commerce Sales team [members which will] play a critical role in growing Google’s new Commerce related businesses, such as Google Offers, through large-scale SMB acquisition programs.”
Today while searching the Google Jobs posting for similar positions (Field Rep, Field Sales Manager, First Sales Team Lead & Head of Field Sales for Commerce Sales) I found at least 64 Offers postings for the following cities:
- Commerce Sales – San Francisco
- Commerce Sales – Atlanta
- Commerce Sales – New York
- Commerce Sales – Austin
- Commerce Sales – Boston
- Commerce Sales – Washington, D.C.
- Commerce Sales – Denver
- Commerce Sales – Seattle
- Commerce Sales – Los Angeles
- Commerce Sales – Oklahoma City
- Commerce Sales – Minneapolis
- Commerce Sales – St. Paul
- Commerce Sales – Pittsburgh
- Commerce Sales – Chicago
- Commerce Sales – Houston
- Commerce Sales – Philadelphia
- Commerce Sales – Baltimore
- Commerce Sales – Dallas
I guess that puts to rest the question of whether Google is developing a local sales presence.
I agree Mike. Google is taking its Local penetration efforts to the next level of getting a higher friction with the field & SMBs (which are the essence of what is Local all about).
Seems like a new-old approach, after all- where there are (on line) profits, there will always be some Google intentions towards it.
Does the days of lack of Google’s customer care in the Local arena are coming to their end?
Comment by PureSheer (134 comments) — June 15, 2011 @ 1:25 pm
As of right now the Seattle, Dallas, and DC ads have been withdrawn. Can’t imagine they’ve already been filled….as would assume those jobs were for a lot of salespeople…
I see it as a logical and appropriate step for Google……and for those that have had problems in other fields I wonder if the old adage holds
“if all else fails try sales”
Comment by earlpearl (784 comments) — June 15, 2011 @ 1:30 pm
So San Jose/South Bay gets the shaft again. *sigh*
Comment by Chris Pantages (1 comments) — June 15, 2011 @ 3:22 pm
Maybe these jobs means that there are more “Google Local Portals” coming?
Comment by Plamen (68 comments) — June 16, 2011 @ 1:48 am
@Plamen
I would absolutely guess so on the Portals! And community managers. And additional local products.
@Earl
There were at least 4 job descriptions in each city… I grabbed the first of the links I could find so it is likely that if one is filled one or more of the others might be available. We don’t know when these were posted either… and in a city where there are already lots of Groupon sales people it might be easy to find an already trained sales staff.
@Puresheer
Certainly Google has been upping their service game across the board as they increasingly engage the local smb. First with an actual number to call with Tags/Boost and then with across the board phone support on Adwords and now this product. That doesn’t resolve the contradiction that they face with their “free” products like Places. There may be more “touch” points but it is not clear to me that they have yet figured out how to reconcile to the two sides of the house.
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — June 16, 2011 @ 3:52 am
Evolution in front of our eyes!! Hope it’ll be a bit faster than the human evolution. As for now it seems to be on the same pace
Yam Regev
Comment by PureSheer (134 comments) — June 16, 2011 @ 5:43 am
@earl I love that adage “if all else fails, try sales.”
Right now, only very small agencies, on a fairly small scale, have been able to be the humans between Google algorithms and Small, 10 people or less, businesses.
One interesting thought I had, and I pose it as a question, will Google start actually helping local businesses rank on the map?
It seems to me that if Google did that, it wouldn’t be very long before everyone migrated over to get help from them, but then again, Google will see just how frustrating it can be helping people rank organically and turn everything right back over to Agencies. It would also put Google back in a position to just offer paid placement like back in the beginning of web time.
Thinking out loud here….
Comment by Stu (2 comments) — June 16, 2011 @ 11:16 am
…sigh….Toronto is like bigger ‘n half of those US cities…but didn’t make the list….which means to me, that google.ca will be behind the curve again….
handy, in that we get to “go to school” on google.com items….but still makes us canuck SEO types “antsy” to get going….
Jim
PS nice catch here too, Mike!
Comment by Jim Rudnick (164 comments) — June 17, 2011 @ 9:51 am
@Jim while you are not high on Google’s radar you should be counting your blessings that you are NOT the 51st state in the Union.
Comment by Mike (2500 comments) — June 17, 2011 @ 10:22 am
[...] Google’s investment in feet-on-the-street–initially as part of Offers, but going forward, for a whole suite of SMB digital marketing [...]
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