Sales Prospecting Perspectives

If you are as big a fan of NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup as I am then you know that tonight is the series finale of The Office. If you watch the show (who hasn’t watched this show?) then you know that Dwight Schrute is absolutely insane. However, he is also Dunder Mifflin’s top salesman, so he is obviously doing something right. NBC.com put together a collection of Dwight’s top sales tips, which are, like Dwight, insane. I’ve selected a few of my favorites to tone down and translate into language the everyday sales rep could grasp.

It has been almost one year since I started as a Business Development Representative at AG Salesworks and I have learned so much about the software and technology industry, sales, and communicating with people at all the various levels of an organization. My next endeavor has been in the works without me even realizing it: I’m becoming somewhat of a mentor. It’s not in my title, or written on my business card, and it’s not something I think about; but as someone who has been in this role for eleven months, I have become someone that new BDRs can come to with questions.

Today, you can learn a lot about a person without ever meeting them, simply by checking out their various social media accounts. You can find out what someone’s favorite bands or films are from their Facebook, see pictures of what they had for lunch on their Instagram, and learn where they work and what they do from their Linkedin profile. 

Last week, I was thinking about how much time I spend making dials and speaking with prospects, talking with my team, and corresponding with clients via phone and email. As a business development representative at AG Salesworks, I work closely with my director and manager on my team to ensure that I focus my time on the most important tasks. In a normal day, I communicate with my manager, director, other business development representatives, and other key players in our organization. I also speak with my client almost daily to make sure I have the most relevant contacts at the top of my list. In order to maximize time on the phones passing qualified leads, it is essential to have meaningful conversations with the other people that are important to speak with on a daily basis.

It's the final day of the month and the quarter; I'm sure there are a lot of elevated blood pressures today! Isn't it wonderful when these things fall on a Friday? Hopefully your sales pipeline is not the reason for the added stress and anxiety that comes with the last day of a quarter. One way to feed the pipeline is to start getting more social; integrating social selling practices in with your sales process. This week's share discusses social selling and comes from Brian Bachofner of InsideView who compared social selling vs. social prospecting and discussed some of the key activities being used by sales professionals and some of the key behaviors in determining a high performer. Brian cited multiple industry experts and discussed some of the findings from their ebooks, survey's and research to formulate is own opinion on the topic of social prospecting. Brian's view on social prospecting is "it's the measurable and trackable aspect of Social Selling that’s creating focus there. The ROI is simple to measure." He also states that social prospecting is "the easiest (activity) to deploy, but also the easiest to do WRONG." A great read from Brian, who will be assisting in managing and contributing content for Social Selling University until a new "Dean" has been found.  

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Business Development Representative Kyle Smith.

I recently made a trip back to my Alma mater to conduct some on campus interviews of college seniors. Each person we interviewed had applied for the position of entry level Business Development Representative. We had a lot of great candidates and also a couple of really bad ones. Through the interview process, I started to recognize all of the similarities between a job interview and a cold call. I could easily go through one of the more promising interviews and say why it was good, but instead, I’d rather review one of the ones that didn't turn out so well.

In a perfect world of teleprospecting, every call would result in success, every assistant would be helpful, and every list would contain nothing but accurate, relevant information. Sadly, we don’t live in that world, but with a little work and the right tools, we have the ability to start building it. Resourcefulness while prospecting and making smarter dials and emails is crucial to inside sales success.

Every day as a teleprospecting representative we make outbound calls to engage in conversations with prospects.  The goal is always the same, find out more information about the environment and any pains or needs the prospects may be experiencing. We want to know who the proper decision maker is and determine if there is enough synergy between their organization and my clients to move to the next step in the buying process.

Oh lists…lists are great! Lists keep teleprospectors and inside sales reps busy and within those lists hold the potential for qualified opportunities and sales pipeline. Getting a fresh new list can feel like Christmas to a teleprospector. On the other hand, sometimes the size of a new list (3000-5000+) can seem like a daunting amount of data to deal with, like finding a needle in a haystack.  All the preparation, training and role playing won’t do a teleprospector any good if they are not equipped with the knowledge of how to properly manage and refine the data to get to decision makers faster. One of the mistakes I see teleprospectors make is what I refer to as “thoughtless dialing.” This is when a list is imported and the rep just goes down the list one after the other, voicemail/email, voicemail email…and so on. Knowing how to properly manage/refine that data and research contacts helps to provide purpose to those dials.

As a teleprospecting representative, one of the most important tools you have is our list. Getting warm leads is exciting; people are familiar with your company and you can take a different approach with your outbound calling efforts. But even before you can make the decision as to how you want to approach your prospects, you need to take a look at the list as a whole.