If we all enjoyed the same things, there would not be much variety in the World. There would not be a strong need for Marketing, and one simple message would be able to reach everyone the same way. But that is not the case – thankfully, otherwise life would be pretty boring. Granted, we all strive for the same end result, but the means to getting there is always different for everyone. This same concept most certainly applies for the different roles within an organization. The communal goal within an organization is to make more money, and reach new revenue goals year after year. It’s not a simple task, and it takes the synchronization of different components to get there – marketing targets the right audience, IT increases the productivity of the staff, sales has the right messaging, and the CEO ensures the unity of the machine. With this thought in mind, you need to be aware and acknowledge that some divisions within an organization may have little concern over what another department is doing; they have their own problems and tasks to deal with. That being said, it is important as a business development representative, to ensure that the time and effort that you are investing to penetrate a company is not being deleted or thrown in the junk mail folder due to lack of relevancy.
When targeting an individual within a company, leaving voicemails and sending emails, make sure that your bullet points highlight the capabilities that are relevant to the needs of your audience. A Director of IT will have less interest in your SEO capabilities than your ability to integrate with their current investments. The VP of Sales is not going to see the value of your solution if you are highlighting your ability to be deployed within 3 months rather than your ability to increase conversion rates.
When targeting IT, focus on functionality, integration or productivity. IT folks don’t want to keep changing the solutions that they have purchased, that makes them look bad. So try to speak about how you can provide “additional value”. CEOs are often interested in everything working together and the departments having what they need to succeed. The detailed functionality of the solution is not as important as the message of increased productivity and cohesiveness between all departments.
We all play the sales game, and we all acknowledge that a lot of the success comes from reaching out to as many people as possible. Don’t shoot yourself in the foot by sending a generic email with no relevance to the role of your prospect. Taking the time to customize your messaging to the specific needs of that department demonstrates the research done on your part and your sincere interest in making their job easier.
The best email subject line I've seen in my career came through my Inbox this week. Brad G, one of our inside sales reps shared an email he had received from a prospect praising his persistence in prospecting him. We call it "polite persistence" here at AG and I was very proud that the prospect not only responded to Brad, but took the time to compliment his approach and work ethic. Love to see that. As I was closing out the email I glanced at the subject line that Brad had sent to the prospect.
It read "Attention: Jim - Final Follow up"
I'm a big believer in subject lines driving the success of your emails. Your content means NOTHING if you don't first get the prospect to open the email. One of my old school favorites was "follow up: Pete from AG Salesworks". That one always seemed to at least peak people's interest in terms of "what is this guy following up on"? or "do I know Pete"? Either way, they opened it more often than not. Hopefully my content was up the task and they became opportunities for us, but that is a blog for another day.
Brad really kicked my older subject line up a notch by adding some very subtle yet effective verbiage. First, he uses "Attention" to start the subject. I don't know about you, but when I read the word attention I typically pay attention and read the next couple of words. Brad's got the ball rolling nicely here. Next he uses Jim's name. Personalizes it a bit...he's got Jim's attention (by saying "attention") and now Jim is a little more interested because Brad knows his name. Now its time for the grand finale'...Brad closes out the subject line with "Final Follow up". Brilliant!! He's gotten Jim's "Attention", Jim is somewhat comfortable reading because Brad used his name, and he tops it all off by leveraging the greatest fear every true blooded American has...missing out on something. By stating that this is the "Final Follow up", Brad has placed immediate importance on having his email opened and addressed by Jim.
It may seem like an over analysis to you, but hey, it's what we do here. The words matter, the choice of words, their placement, and their intended effect should be well thought out prior to being used. Nowhere is this more important than in the subject line of an email.
Brad nailed it here, and to prove it I figured I'd include the actual response he received from the prospect:
Brad,
You get extra points for being persistent. I do have an interest in seeing a demo of your application and its reports, but I have been quite busy. How about scheduling something on 8/13? That day is completely open on my calendar.
Jim
Jim was later qualified and passed by Brad and the discovery call has been set for our client's sales rep on 8/13. The devil truly is in the details.
I was looking at my blogs over the last few months hoping for some inspiration for this week’s post and realized that I’ve been at this for just about a year. At least once a week I’ve “attempted” to come up with some original and compelling content to discuss, and I’m not gonna lie there certainly have been some weeks that I’ve struggled.
My first thought when I was tasked with writing my blog last year was- Isn’t this something that the Marketing team should be handling? I mean what value can a sales guy or sales ops guy add to the process? My second thought was, is it possible for me to come up with a unique topic to discuss after a few months of doing this? But as my VP of Marketing pointed out at the time - “You’d be surprised at the variety of topics you can come up with the experience you have gained helping to run this business for the past 5 years”
Well, I can honestly say that as much of a challenge as this has been on occasion, I cannot deny how valuable the process has been for me. What I’ve discovered is that blogging should not just be reserved for your marketing team. Our president, directors, sales team, sales ops, training team on down to our business development reps have all been included in the process.
What I’ve recognized, along with my fellow bloggers here at AG, is there is so much we can discuss when it comes to teleprospecting and cold calling. Hell, we talk about it in theory all day long with our management team and employees so why not use this as a collaboration tool for our organization along with all of the other sales teams out there trying to accomplish the same thing. Not only that but if you truly take the time to sit down to think of a topic, you can come up with unique content or at the very least take another spin on a topic you’ve already covered. By having to put these ideas on paper, this process has forced me to methodically think about what I do on a daily basis.
As I was looking back at all of the AG blogs over the past year, there were a few concepts discussed that are not always being put into action as regularly as I would like. This process, I’ve discovered, has also been a great way to self police myself and others I work with. Again, it’s great to talk about all of this in theory but if you are not putting it to practice then what’s the point? Practice what you preach baby!
Another fortunate benefit of this entire process is all of the great content I've been exposed to from other folks who understand what it takes to effectively cold call and to motivate inside sales teams. It has also provided me food for thought on the variety of ways I can manage my group. Here are a few blogs I would highly recommend reading - Paul Castain's Sales Playbook and Smashmouth B2B Blog: Sales & Marketing Demand Gen
If you, or your team are not active contributors to the blogosphere, consider giving it a try. At the very least it can get you thinking about best practices as it relates to your business and can expose you to other great content out there that could inspire you to become a better manager/employee/colleague/ Dance instructor…you name it.
My nephew Mike has “IT”. Even at the age of 3 you can already tell. Mike is a little rough around the edges and he’s a small, scrappy guy for his age. That being said, he will work hard for something he wants and nothing short of an act of God will stop him until he gets it. Last week, my sister had made brownies for everyone to have for desert. Mike had a couple and like any 3 year old he went back for seconds and thirds only to be told “no” by my sister as he had already had several. After some mild complaining he gave up, or so we thought. My sister woke up at about 3am to some rustling downstairs. She walked down quietly to see what it was. She flipped the light on in the kitchen to see that Mike had dragged a dining room chair in the kitchen and stacked about 10 books on top of it so that he could climb the books and reach the brownies which were in a pantry about 6 feet up. The brownie supply had been decimated by a 27 lbs ball of determination. The chair was heavy and the books were huge, it must have taken him a while. He looked at my sister and said, “Mom, I love brownies, but I love you more.” Mike didn’t get in trouble. He has “IT”.
I’ve been reading a lot of discussions on LinkedIn about what makes a great sales person. I see most of the same words time and time again to describe good sales executives, “Hard working, money motivated, honest, direct, and personable”, to name a few. While all of these are undeniable characteristics of a good sales person, I feel that the biggest factor is often left out, the “IT” factor. “IT” is what the best sales reps have in them and “IT” is hard to find. “IT” is the difference between a rep that makes quota and a rep that crushes the number quarter after quarter.
In my opinion, “IT” is the unique blend of talent and determination that drives the most successful sales executives. People that have the “IT” factor don’t want to be in the top tier of sales executives. They have to be number one. People that have “IT” don’t settle when they reach the top spot. They recreate expectations by beating their own numbers time and time again. People with “IT” do not stop until they have done everything they can do to be as good as they could possibly be. They use 100% of the tools and talents they have and when they run out of every option, they think of one more and try that. There is no half effort from a sales executive with “IT”. There are two modes, off and 100% full steam ahead.
I think everyone should look for the “IT” factor in their sales reps. They’re the ones with all the brownies.
Happy Friday Everyone! This week we offered some answers and tips for some popular questions out there: How effective is hiring inside sales reps with no past experience in inside sales? What is the importance of providing your inside sales reps with a quality list to call into? How are you insuring that your reps are on track to meet their numbers for the month? And what are your thoughts on cold calling introductions?
Before I give a detailed recap of everything, I’d like to highlight a blog by Ardath Albee B2B Marketing Strategist. Here she had a great entry asking "Is Sales Stepping on Your Marketing Dialogue?" It really touched on the importance of communication between Marketing and Sales, and the importance of having them work together as a team.
Monday July 19th
The Benefits Of Hiring An Inexperienced Sales Rep – Chris Lang offers his take on the benefits of hiring someone with a clean slate:
“Our sales process is a bit unique and more than a couple of reps have come to us thinking they were going to crush their number only to leave with their tail tucked between their legs. As these inexperienced new hires grow into their roles, I am always pleasantly surprised with how fast they pick things up.”
Tuesday July 20th
Are You Giving Your Inside Sales Reps A Good Quality List? – Craig Ferrara discusses the importance of having a quality list for your reps:
“If you are dumping a list of marketing leads on the inside sales team that is filled with incomplete contact information, or is chock full of duplicates, then you are you putting them at an automatic disadvantage before they even pick up the phone. Have you taken into consideration how much that can negatively affect the progress of your campaigns or the growth of your pipeline?”
Wednesday July 21st
Mid Month Inside Sales Diagnostic Check-up – Pete offers some great tips to make sure your team is on track to have a great month:
“We don't just look how they've done, but we all look at whether or not they have what they need to finish strong for the last 2 weeks of the month."
Thursday July 22nd
The “Introduction Debates” of Cold Calling – Laney Pilpel talks about the repeated debates of Cold Calling Introductions, and offers some great suggestions:
“Over the past several years, I have spent a lot of my time studying different selling techniques, from Sandler to the SPIN selling model. Personally, I think the best method to use is a combination of all the selling methods out there – but most importantly, making sure to add a personal touch to your communication with a prospect, especially during your introduction. In thinking about this, I was reminded of a constant debate that goes on here at AG, but also for many sales organizations out there: Is there a proper way to engage a prospect when contacting them and how personal can you get?”
Friday July 23rd
Are Your Inside Sales Reps Good Detectives? – A new guest in our blog this week, Stephen Wolff discusses the importance of getting as much information as you can out of a prospect.
“I think of my job as a detective. When I call I try to use every minute that I am on the phone with someone to get as much out of the call as possible. This can be tough with time constraints, meetings and people who just really do not want to talk to people taking up their time with sales calls."
That wraps it up! We wish everyone a happy and safe weekend!
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest entry from one of our BDRs, Stephen Wolff.
It is always difficult to answer the most common question asked of me when I meet new people. “What do you do for work?” I always tell people I work as a “Sales and Marketing Consultant.” The reason I say this is because I do more than just find “leads” for AG Salesworks clients. Part of our responsibility as a Business Development Representative (BDR) is to not only find “quality sales opportunities” but to get marketing information on what is going on in the businesses that we call into. The information we uncover is key to building our clients’ forecasts. The sales reps can tailor their pitch, due to the level detail outlined in our opportunities, making the most effective use of time spent with prospects.
When I begin calling on a prospect I have three goals in mind. First is to get the lead. Second, if the prospect is not interested, get some information on why they are not interested, and third, set up a time to reconnect in the future when they would be more interested in evaluating a new product, anticipating that in the long run this is a chance to turn this prospect into an opportunity.
I think of my job as a detective. When I call I try to use every minute that I am on the phone with someone to get as much out of the call as possible. This can be tough with time constraints, meetings and people who just really do not want to talk to people taking up their time with sales calls.
I like to use Colombo’s lines “Oh, one more thing.” I find that people are willing to share one more thing with me in order to get me off the phone. This one thing may turn into a longer conversation that could bring out more pains and needs from the prospect and in time, turning this ‘not interested’ person into an opportunity for our clients. Every little bit of information helps. It may not get me an opportunity today, but the information I gather can only help me to find that opportunity down the road. Usually, it’s this marketing information that sets AG Salesworks apart from everyone else in our field. When a prospect tells me that they are not interested, this is where we need to find out why. Is it because they are using a competitor and if so who? The information that we find in this part of our calls is extremely important as it creates the marketing intelligence that is often just as important as a lead is to our clients.
For sales, I find information such as when they plan their budgets, how they find funding, when their funding is released, and when their fiscal year begins. For marketing, it could be finding proper verticals, best collateral, and the organization size that best fits their product. Also, for both sales and marketing, other useful information can be how old their technology is, how often do they evaluate their solution, and when do they think they will be looking at vendors or upgrading/expanding on what they are using.
So all of this information can be very beneficial several ways, most notably: by a BDR to follow up at a later date knowing what to expect and set up a call accordingly, as well as by the marketing team to determine where they need focus their energy and marketing resources to build their future pipeline.
We, BDR’s, are like Detectives trying to find all the facts and get the whole story from each phone call so that we can provide the most information not only on the opportunities that we find but also on the prospects that are not opportunities…Yet.
Over the past several years, I have spent a lot of my time studying different selling techniques, from Sandler to the SPIN selling model. Personally, I think the best method to use is a combination of all the selling methods out there – but most importantly, making sure to add a personal touch to your communication with a prospect, especially during your introduction. In thinking about this, I was reminded of a constant debate that goes on here at AG, but also for many sales organizations out there: Is there a proper way to engage a prospect when contacting them and how personal can you get?
The “How are you?” Debate. I have worked in places where I was told never to say “how are you” when introducing myself when a prospect answers the phone. Many say because you are cold calling someone, it is absolutely inappropriate to ask them how they are, as you have never spoken with them to establish that rapport. However, if you look at some of the most successful reps here at AG, you will notice that most of them add a personal touch by asking how the prospect is because it comes natural to them. That being said, it is important to always read your prospect – if they seem perturbed when you ask them how they are, make sure to mirror them moving forward in the conversation, and make your tone more direct if they don’t react well initially.
The “Do you have a moment”/ “Is this a good time?” Debate. I feel that by asking this question, you are setting yourself up for failure. Think about it – you are cold calling an individual out of the blue in the middle of their work day, so odds are they are in the middle of their latest proposal, IT catastrophe, etc . Instead, introduce yourself and state (very directly) the purpose for your call and pause, then ask a follow up question about their current programs in place to manage XYZ. If it’s truly a bad time for them, they will certainly let you know. This opens the door for you to quickly ask if they are even the appropriate person to be speaking with – even better, they might be the right person, and you can ask for 5 minutes on their calendar later that week when they do have the time.
The “Product Dumping” Debate. As I stated above, you want to be as direct as possible when introducing yourself. Along with that, make sure you keep your intro to a minimum, and avoid product dumping – From my experience, if you start your introduction with a one minute “what we do summary” you will be cut off pretty quickly. Remember to be respectful of their time and state the purpose of your call immediately as they might not even be the right person you are looking to speak with.
These are some of my philosophies on the introduction debates out there – what are yours??
It's a little past mid month. Time to give each one of your inside sales reps a mid month diagnostic check up. There are many different keys that make up a successful month's prospecting and it's important that you check in with your people mid month to see how they are doing with each.
When Laney and I evaluate and review our inside sales reps mid-month, we look at their performance in three separate areas. We don't just look how they've done, but we all look at whether or not they have what they need to finish strong for the last 2 weeks of the month.
1. List: I'm not talking about the quality of the list. I assume that if you read my blog you may also read that of our resident list expert Craig Ferrara. If you are a disciple of Craig, then your list is fine from a quality standpoint. What we focus on mid month is whether or not the inside sales rep in question actually has enough people to call. How big is the list of suspects? In order for a teleprospector to be optimal and meet the metrics of his\her call plan they need a minimum of 500 companies in play at all times. If you are short of that number mid month....then you better find some more or your inside sales rep may not hit their goal.
2. Lead Quality: When you are managing people making outbound dials you've got to find a delicate balance between volume of calls and quality of the opportunities passed to sales. Take some time mid-month to review the quality (assuming you have a closed loop feedback process in place) of the leads passed by each inside sales rep and make sure they aren't playing too much of the volume game. If you see their quality score is low, have a sit down and review each lead with them. Gently reinforce that quality is just as important as quantity. You'll see immediate refocus.
3. Moral: When your occupation involves as much daily rejection as teleprospecting, you can get a little down. Don't ever forget that your guys and gals on the phones take a lot of heat over the course of a day and may need a little pep talk now and again. Run your Leads Passed List by inside sales rep and start at the bottom. The folks having the slowest month are most likely to need a little reenergizing. Take them out to lunch, review the good things they've done, sing them a song...it doesn't matter, just make sure you let them know you understand their job is tough and that you are there to help them get back to a high level of performance.
These are just a few nice and simple ways to reconnect with your team and make sure you are all on the path to a solid month. Good Luck!!
I can say without hesitation that I enjoy what I do. Running an inside sales team my days can vary from training with my employees, collaborating with my clients, motivating the team…the list goes on. But with every job we enjoy, there are few things we are tasked with doing daily/weekly/monthly that we would prefer to pass off to someone else. In my case the task I detest the most would be without a doubt anything having to do with list generation. I would rather make cold calls every day of the week (including Saturdays and Sundays) than have to spend hours scrubbing contact information on my cold call lists or inbound leads.
For those of us who can identify with this painful exercise, you know what it’s like after spending an extended period of time checking through thousands of “leads” for duplicates, incomplete contact information or existing customers. Eventually you feel as if your eyes are going to begin bleeding profusely and then fall out of your head. Meanwhile both marketing and sales are certainly willing to provide input on the list, how it should look, the profile contacts we should be targeting etc…but when push comes to shove nobody seems to want to get their hands dirty in taking the time to sift through the list or inbound leads that are worth following up on.
Understandably it’s one of those jobs that nobody wants to assume, but if you don’t who will?
I remember the first outside sales rep I was responsible for supporting back in the day. He was a great guy, but he never seemed to have an appreciation of all the work that went into finding a contact, getting them live and then converting them into an opportunity. Surprisingly enough, up until that point he had never made a cold call in his life so he had no real perspective on what it took. He would often dump a list of just company names on me and say… “Have at it!”with a wink and a thumbs up as if he was doing me a favor. Then he would cap it off by saying “Oh and by the way, I would scrub this list because there could be a few customers in there along with the a few other folks I may have proposals out to.”
Now I’m not expecting this guy to provide me a list of contacts with direct dials that pick up the phone and say “you have wonderful timing. I want to buy your product. Put me on the phone with your rep right away!” …but throw me a frikin’ bone here.
The more work you are willing to put in on the front-end will only benefit everyone in the long run. Better quality lists mean your inside sales reps are finding a larger quantity of leads AND they’re finding them at a faster pace. This larger volume of opportunities are converted to the outside team who now have a larger universe of deals they are working which means there is a higher likelihood they will close (assuming your sales team is adequate). Once the deal comes in everyone looks like a hero and the marketing team, inside sales team and the outside reps can all sit around a circle holding hands and sing Kum-Bay-Yah!
If you are dumping a list of marketing leads on the inside sales team that is filled with incomplete contact information, or is chock full of duplicates, then you are you putting them at an automatic disadvantage before they even pick up the phone. Have you taken into consideration how much that can negatively affect the progress of your campaigns or the growth of your pipeline?
Everyone should be prepared to get their hands dirty. We can use all the marketing platforms and fancy data fusion tools available to us out there to clean and de-dupe your leads, but ultimately you must face the facts that there still needs to be a degree of manual labor that should be required in order to get a truly clean list.
Point is, marketing and sales need to accept equal responsibility for providing the cleanest list possible. Sales reps should know their territory better than anyone and should be taking the time to scrub off the prospects they are already engaged with or they perceive are not necessary to pursue. Meanwhile marketing needs to come up with some kind process for doing their own pre-scrub of their inbound leads since 50% generally are junk. Hey I'm no genius, but I'm going to assume that the marketing lead from Jesse “The Body” Ventura at 123-456-7891 is probably not going to buy from you.
The success of every campaign I’ve been involved in running has always hinged on the quality of what you are calling into. I’ve said it before...guess what I’m going to say it again.. YOUR INSIDE SALES TEAM IS ONLY AS GOOD AS THE LIST THEY HAVE TO CALL ON.
Hiring a new sales rep can be an interesting exercise for us. Our services are not the easiest to sell. We offer a solution that most companies think they can do on their own and for less than they will spend on our services. To compound this issue, a lot of these companies have used other services to solve their problem and have been "burned" by companies that offer pieces of what we do. Picture your shoes being untied as you go for a walk, but you can't bend over to tie them because you have your hands full with groceries. (Yes I know you could put the groceries down, but roll with me here). Anyways, a person comes along and offers to tie your shoes for you for five dollars. Seems to be a waste, but you need the shoes tied so you give the person 5 bucks. He ties your shoes and then as soon as you start walking you fall on your face dropping your groceries all over the street. You look at your feet only to discover the guy has tied your shoe laces together. You tie your shoes the correct way, start walking and they become untied again. Here I come along and say "hey I can tie your shoes for you so that they stay tied, but it will cost 10 bucks". That's a tough sell.
As we think about who to bring onto the team we will look at what always appears to be a million resumes. Each one has the true sales spin on it, using terms such as rainmaker, self starter and my favorite, elephant hunter. Many of them look great and I would be happy to hire several of them, though the "elephant hunter" seemed to be logical choice to me. I mean hell, if a guy can bring down an elephant, he can surely sell our solution. My CEO will look at all the resumes, listen to my recommendations and then proceeded to ignore all of them. He often prefers to hire the guy with a total of 0 days experience selling solutions like ours. He explains, "He has all the tools to do this job and no one knows it yet." I would be skeptical to say the least, but fast forward 6 months, and the guy is a rainmaker. How does this happen? Not that I get upset about it, but I thought for sure that we needed to invest significantly in someone with plenty of experience to get the job done.
As it turns out the inexperienced candidates greatest weakness was can be his greatest strength. They are a blank slate. As the person responsible for training I did not yet understand this. I would have to show him who to call, when to call, what to say, what steps to follow, how to prepare a proposal, how to negotiate, hell even how to dress for different meetings. I quickly realized how much easier it was to train someone who just listened and learned, and did not have any preconceived notions or bad habits to undo. Absorbing every piece of information I could throw at them, following our processes to a T. A lot of experienced reps would have used their knowledge from past sales experience to guide them in their sales process. This could be great. Then again, this could be awful. Our sales process is a bit unique and more than a couple of reps have come to us thinking they were going to crush their number only to leave with their tail tucked between their legs. As these inexperienced new hires grow into their roles, I am always pleasantly surprised with how fast they pick things up.
When I relay my surprise with how well they are doing to my CEO, he explains: "What I look for in a sales rep is work ethic, intelligence, personality and the willingness to learn. The sales process can be taught. The personality traits cannot. I trained you and you were a lot further behind than him. Now you are training him. The goal is to have all of us sell the same way, to have the same message and the same great results. It takes a bit more work, but the end result makes it worth it." He has created a process to develop a sales team that emulates the behavior and has the passion of the first person to successfully sell our solution, himself. There is no replacing a great experienced sales rep. They bring industry knowledge, they are usually up and running quickly, they have contacts and they don't need to be closely watched over. That being said, you may want to look into bringing on some unproven sales executives into the mix at some point. They are a clean slate ready to learn and execute the sales process in the way that you would like. If you have the time, they could be well worth the investment.