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!
Busy week for us at AG!
We discussed how feedback and collaboration are important for success in inside sales, and learn some tips on how to be Proactive as opposed to Reactive in order to have a successful Teleprospecting Campaign. We also released our 3rd Viral Video that shows a bit of the unusual yet interesting “pre call” rituals we’ve discovered in our BDR’s.
I’d like to thank Mike Damphousse from Green Leads for highlighting our post from last month in his blog this week, B2B Lead Generation Can Take The Heat Of Summer. In his entry he raises some great points on having a different mindset for lead generation in the summer, and that it’s not as slow as you may think!
Monday, July 12th
Feedback is the Key To Inside Sales Success! – Chris Lang offers great advice on the importance of feedback survey’s to measure the success of the meetings/appointments that your inside sales team is setting you up with.
“After a sales rep has a discovery call or introductory meeting that was set up by your inside sales team, send them a quick email. The email is going to gauge the quality of the opportunity sent. I list 3 questions that the sales rep has to reply to:…”
Tuesday June 13th
Collaboration Is Key With Your Inside Sales Team – Craig Ferrara discusses the usefulness of getting your team to work together and offer their thoughts and opinions on the work they do every day.
“The beauty of an exercise like this is you are encouraging individuality and creativity with your inside sales team AND their ideas are being exposed to both their team members and management.”
Thursday July 15th
Avoid Being “Reactive” For A Successful Teleprospecting Campaign – Nicole Puddester addresses the importance of being proactive as opposed to reactive in order for you to have a successful teleprospecting campaign.
“To ensure the success of a project, everyone has an important job to do. Communication can be so important to get this job done. If you are picking up on one of these “red flags,” it is important to address this immediately.”
So there you have it! Please be sure to check out our latest Viral Video: "AG’s Got Talent…” and enjoy a laugh get a taste of some of the culture we have here at AG. Have a great weekend!
Before we recap this week’s Sales Prospecting Perspectives, we wanted to share another great article we liked this week:
In his blog on Tuesday, Umberto Milletti explains the importance of changing with your customers. Social Networking is booming and it’s important for the Sales world to stay abreast on what their potential customers are doing. He offers 5 steps on how to do just that in his blog titled: 5 Steps to selling to B2B Customer 2.0
Now onto the quick recap! With blogs this week by Chris Lang, Laney Pilpel, Pete Gracey and Nicole Puddester, they addressed some important questions about your inside sales team: Are your inside and outside sales reps working as a team? How do your reps manage their time effectively? How can you tell whether you’ve hired the right inside sales rep? And lastly do you make the most out of EVERY conversation you have?
Monday, June 21st
Getting your Inside Sales and Field Sales to Work as a Team? – Chris Lang provides a great comparison on how he and his inside sales team mate are much like Rigg’s and Murtough from Lethal Weapon, and why it’s important to work as team.
“Much like Riggs and Murtough, Steve and I didn't always work well together. It's not that he was ever a bad rep or I was a bad sales executive. We just weren't on the same page. Over the past couple of years we have worked on and refined our process to the point where Steve knows exactly what I am looking for in a lead and I know what he needs to find great opportunities. There a lot of different things that we do to keep in sync with each other. Listed below are the first steps that we took to make sure that we are getting things done as well as team…”
Tuesday, June 22nd
Can You Train Your Inside Sales Reps on Effective Time Management? – AG’s Manager of Client of Operations Laney Pilpel is growing to be one of the most informative bloggers here at AG. In this post she discusses the importance of teaching your inside sales reps effective time management.
“Some will argue that certain people have the intrinsic ability to manage their time well. Though some might be "better" at balancing their day, I think time management techniques are trainable, and we teach best practices here at AG as a result. Effective time management techniques can be taught immediately after a new hire begins, and also after an inside sales rep has been at the company for months - years even. We like to hold periodic training workshops and effective time management is a perfect example of a one hour training workshops that we would hold for all inside sales reps, new and old.
So what are the top three techniques we find most effective?...”
Thursday June 24th
Did You Hire the Right Inside Sales Rep? – Pete Gracey shares some helpful signs to look out for to determine whether you hired the right kind of inside sales rep for your company.
“We’ve all got great hiring processes in place I’m sure. We ask the right questions, run personality profiles, put potential hires through role plays, and do our best to select the best person for the job. However, there is only so much you can do on the interviewing side of the equation. Inevitably you are going to have a bad one slip into the ranks. I have some things you can look for during the first few days of a new rep being on the phone that should give you a good indication as whether or not you’ve hired a keeper.”
Friday, June 25th
Inside Sales Reps: Are You Making the Most of Every Conversation? – AG’s Manager of Client Operations Nicole Puddester offers great follow up questions for the top objections we are all hearing.
“The goal is always to qualify an account, extract pains, and create interest. Your objective is always to get to the end result, which is to qualify in or out. Just because someone expresses no immediate pain or interest, your job is not done. To make the most of every conversation you need to understand why there is no immediate need. Thus it is important to have the appropriate follow up questions ready for the various reasons that could be presented…”
Great blogs this week from Chris Lang, Craig Ferrara, Pete Gracey and Ilona Jazdowska! They discussed several interesting topics: Have you tried utilizing Social Media to help boost your Sales pipeline? Do you find that your top performers are leaving? How and when are you utilizing the "Call Blitz" method? And last (but not least...) how is the communication between your inside and outside sales teams?
Before we do a quick recap we want to highlight a great article we found this week from Howard Sewell, President, Spear Marketing Group where he discusses the importance and value of an inside sales team, and the questions you should ask yourself before launching a lead nurturing program. 5 Questions To Ask Before You Launch A Lead Nurturing Program.
Tuesday June 15th
Sales Success and Social Media - AG's Chris Lang as always gives his witty take on the importance of social media and how it has helped him in his sales pipeline.
"...when my Marketing VP approached me and asked me to write a blog once a week, I sarcastically told him I would try to squeeze it in after my samurai practice but before my mime lessons. He then told me that in addition to a blog he wanted me to follow AG's foray into social media and establish a presence on LinkedIn, start Tweeting, and use Facebook for work (rather my usual purpose of using it to see people I graduated with and determine who has aged better)."
Tuesday June 15th
Keys to Retaining Your Top Inside Sales Reps - AG's Director of Client of Operations Craig Ferrara shares his insight on how we've been able retain a lot of our top performers.
"While I didn't have the opportunity to do an exit interview with each and every person that left the organization, the general consensus from my colleagues was there was not enough focus on the culture and making the reps feel as if their opinion mattered.
We've been pretty fortunate that AG has seen a much higher retention rate than my previous employers. While I have my own thoughts as to why we've managed to retain our people I was curious to get my teams thoughts as well. I asked a couple of tenured top producers on my team this question..."
Tuesday June 16th
End of Q2..Time to Utter the Words Inside Sales Dread! CALL BLITZ - AG's Peter Gracey discusses the benefits of the dreaded "Call Blitz" -particularly for this time of the year:
"The best time to run blitzes is the last two weeks of June. You are nearing the halfway point of your calendar year as well as entering what we have found to be the slowest two weeks of the year (July 1st - July 15th). Running one or several call blitzes during the last half of June accomplishes some very strategic objectives for your organization."
Thursday June 17th
Tips for Inside Sales Success: Closing the Loop with Quality Feedback - AG's Quality Assurance Manager - Ilona Jazdowska explains not only is it important to close the gap between Marketing and Sales (Sales Prospecting and Closing the Loop) but it's just as important to close that gap between your inside and outside sales teams.
"It is equally critical to close the loop between your inside and outside teams! There can often be a disconnect between an inside sales team and the field reps. Once the lead has been passed over there is no further communication between the two parties as to how the call went. The value of having a feedback process in place is that you can make sure everyone is on the same page and that the inside sales team is aware of what makes for a good opportunity."
Great blogs this week! Chris discussed the similarities of unused utensils in your kitchen pantry to unused tools right at your fingertips for sales opportunities. (He really did bring up a good point!) Craig says don't take no for an answer, and Jill offers four tips on helping the sales reps get better results from the inside sales rep!
But first we wanted to highlight a great blog we found this week that really mirrors our way of life here at AG. Ardath Albee shares in her blog: Is Your B2B Marketing Content a Filter or a Vortex?
".....be careful of the feedback you follow. Using your content as a prospect filter can be a good thing. Instead of worrying about the volume number for lead generation, start focusing on showing pipeline transitions, sales accepted leads and closed deals. That's what leads to marketing accountability."
Monday June 7th
Sales and Marketing: Use The Big Fork - AG's Sales Director Chris Lang explains how important it is to utilize every tool at your disposal. Chris mentioned:
"The point is that there is likely a tremendous amount of untapped potential within your current sales and marketing investments. Look into all the available features within your CRM. Nurture the 70% of the leads you produce that would normally go to waste. Act on the market intelligence reports you get from the inside sales teams. Use that big fork!"
Tuesday June 8th
Why Teleprospectors Should Not Take the First NO When Cold Calling? - AG's Craig Ferrara explains why you should never take No (on the first try) for an answer. In his blog Craig shared
"A positive by-product of calling into multiple contacts, outside of getting a legitimate reason behind a no interest, is you may uncover an active project after all. I can't tell you how many times we've been blown off by a VP only to find someone working in their group that actually does have an active initiative. Let's face it, most high level execs probably tune out during your pitch or you could have just caught them on a bad day where they'll say no to everything. You owe it to yourself to dig around a bit more in these organizations...you might be surprised at what you uncover!"
Thursday June 10th
4 Tips for Sale Reps to Get Better Results from Inside Sales Teams - AG's Jill Ryan expresses the importance of communication between the Sales Reps and Inside Sales team. How exchanging contact information, allowing calendar invites, listening in on calls and keeping them in the loop is key to getting the best out of your inside sales team.
"By being an email or a phone call away we can minimize missed appointments and help reduce long drawn out sales cycles. If every Sales rep was more open to direct contact, I am convinced you would see the value. Also by having a good relationship with the Sales reps, I care even more about passing great opportunities along. So Sales reps, the Inside Sales team is there to help you - give us a call. By working more closely together, I am confident more calls will happen which will have a positive impact on your pipeline. "
We had some interesting blog topics this week, to say the least. I mean, who would have ever thought someone could equate The Wonder Pets with Teleprospecting!? Somehow, Craig Ferrara found a way. Anyway, on with the recap:
Tuesday April 27th
Cold Calling Requires TEAMWORK! - Director of Client Operations, Craig Ferrara, had a small epiphany while watching TV with his 3 year old. Craig noticed the theme of teamwork while watching The Wonder Pets and related it to a teleprospecting team. Craig wrote, "It could have been lack of sleep but while I was driving to work this morning, trying to get the damn song out of my head, it struck me that there were many similarities between the collective effort required for those little creatures to accomplish their goals and how we run our teleprospecing efforts here at AG."
Wednesday April 28th
Is it Easier for Your Customers to Buy? - AG's CEO, Paul Alves, shared his thoughts on sales processes, and ponders the question of ease of purchase from a buyer's perspective. Paul wrote, "All too often I think we make it difficult for our clients to buy from us. We try to fit prospects into our selling process, pricing is not flexible, contracts are onerous, terms difficult to meet. It seems like common sense, but when I sat with my business partner and looked at our process and pricing structure we realized we were not making it easy enough for our prospects to become customers."
Thursday April 29th
Increase Teleprospecting Connect Rates Through Revisions - Another guest post from BDR Jill Ryan, this time highlighting the importance of going back to the drawing board when your messaging doesn't resonate with your audience. Jill shared, "Often times when we're crunching the phone trying to reach our quota, we forget that there is someone on the other end who has the choice to either read that email or listen to that voicemail. We've all been on the receiving end of a sales call and had preconceived notions of how that call would result. People are not robots so they are not going to call robots back. Having said that, my connect rate increases through tailoring my emails and avoiding scripted voicemails."
Well, that's the recap! Which blog article resonated most with you this week, and why?
These weeks just fly by, don't they!? Well, we're two full weeks into Q2 of 2010 - where are you against your goals? Hopefully ahead of them, right where you want to be!
We had three great blogs this week, and here are the recaps and links:
Monday April 12th
Sales Prospecting: Who's Helping Your Sales Team? - Our Director of Sales, Chris Lang, wrote an entry for us about why it's important that your sales team have support from a teleprospecting perspective. Chris shared, "Your outside sales executives are trained to close deals. They identify pain, propose solutions, move a prospect along the sales process and bring a client to a yes or no answer. The sales executive role is a full time position. The teleprospecting role is a full time position. The effectiveness of both is in major jeopardy if you try to pay one person to do both."
Tuesday April 13th
The Laser Focused Teleprospector - Director of Client Operations, Craig Ferrara, wrote about how teleprospectors can be successful at cold calling, but they're going to need to be focused in order to do so. Craig shared, "So how do we force ourselves to do something that we traditionally gravitate away from? I've discovered the hard way that a half-hearted effort with sporadic calls throughout the day generally did not get me my desired result. What seems to work is taking the time to carve out at least two hours during your day to make dials, otherwise the sporadic and unfocused effort will yield marginal results."
Thursday April 15th
Keep Your Teleprospecting Intro Simple and Effective - Nicole Puddester, a member of our Training and Implementation Team, blogged about four guidelines to help keep your intro simple. Nicole wrote, "After we prepare our reps (until they are blue in the face!) with scripting and product information, they are beyond eager to get started on the phones. When they finally get someone live on the phone, all the scripting is thrown out the window. Let's be honest, using a script isn't the best way to sound unscripted."
Which entry resonated with you the most? Which one did you disagree with?
Busy week this week - how about you? The AG bowling league wrapped up this week. Congrats to Matt Fitts and Ed O'Neil, who bested the top ranked team of Mark Czarnowski and Steve Giordano! It was a close match, with both teams having the same score by the end of the first string, but Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (as they were aptly called) won the next two strings. You can check out pics of the bowling league on our Facebook page, here. While you're there, become a fan!
We had three great blog entries this week, and here are the links and recaps:
Tuesday April 6th
Is a Top-Down Approach Necessary? - Director of Client Operations, Craig Ferrara, shared his thoughts about teleprospecting calls starting at the executive suite. Craig wrote, "From my experience a majority your introductory sales calls are with managers and directors anyway, so why not focus your effort into calling them as well?
Wednesday April 7th
Cold Calling 101: The Monthly Campaign - Pete Gracey, AG's President, wrote about tactics for monthly cold calling campaigns. Pete shared, "While qualifying inbound activity is also essential to hitting your goals, it is the cold calling activity that maintains the deep qualifying skills and habits of highly effective reps. For this reason, you should be running unique monthly cold calling campaigns with your reps."
Thursday April 8th
List Building: A Pillar of Effective Teleprospecting - Implementation Manager, Ilona Jazdowska, shared her thoughts on building lists for your teleprospecting efforts, and why good ones are so important. Ilona wrote, "Even though list building can be time consuming, it is very important to provide your teleprospecting team with the foundation /contacts that they need to do well at their job. You want to avoid your team from spending too much navigating throughout an organization and to focus their time and efforts having quality conversations."
Well there you have it, our weekly recap! Which blog post resonated with you this week? Which one didn't?
Well, this week brought us the close of Q1 2010; it's over. Done. Caput. Finito. We'll never have it back to do differently. Maybe that's good for some of us, and maybe for some a repeat performance would be killer. Either way, the only thing we can do with it now is learn from it's successes or shortcomings. So, what are YOU going to do with it?
We had four great blog entries this week, and here's the rundown on all four:
Monday March 29th
Four Principles that Apply to Teleprospecting, Too - Matt Fitts, Director of Client Operations, read an article by Craig Lindberg of MLT Creative, in which Craig presented four principles of B2B sales. Matt found that the principles run parallel with teleprospecting, too. Matt wrote, "How could you expect to begin the sales process with not only being prepared with what you are calling about but also what is going on in your target prospect's world? I am not saying that you need to do a large amount of research on your prospect (favorite color, etc) but you better know what the typical pains that prospect may be experiencing and just how you can help them."
Tuesday March 30th
Size Matters. . .When it Comes to Your Teleprospecting List - Craig Ferrara, Director of Client Operations, shared his thoughts on the importance of list size at the start of any teleprospecting campaign. Of a poor performing sales prospecting effort, Craig wrote, "Other reasons for failure can range from the wrong industry focus, or off target messaging, or calling on the wrong title; the list goes on. The unfortunate thing is we tend to overlook what generally seems to be the most obvious problem, THE COLD CALL LIST."
Wednesday March 31st
A Sales Job Is Like Running Your Own Business - AG's CEO, Paul Alves, wrote about accountability for sales reps, and likens the position to owning your own business. Paul shared, "When you are self employed you can not rely on anyone. Successful salespeople don't rely on anyone to close business for them. They may anticipate marketing and a lead gen team to supply them with marketing qualified and sales qualified leads, but they are on their own beyond that."
Thursday April 1st
A Careful Approach to Prospect Personalities - This was a guest post by one of our Business Development Reps, Jill Ryan. Jill shared her thoughts on four types of personalities that teleprospectors come into contact with during their day and how best to relate to each one. Jill wrote, "If we look at the four types of personalities: the amiable, the driver, the expressive and the analytic, its easy to compare these to the people you are getting on the phone. According to well known business coach, mentor, author Jonathan Farrington, the very best sales professionals have become adept at recognizing which personality they are dealing with and adapt their approach and communication style accordingly."
And with that, the weekly recap is complete. Which entry got you thinking this week? Which one did you disagree with most?
Well, it's Friday, so that means it's time for the weekly recap! We were at a couple of events this week, which were both very beneficial to attend. On Tuesday night, we went to a networking event for Paul Castain and his LinkedIn group, The Sales Playbook. Paul, who is the VP of Sales Development for Consolidated Graphics, is also a sales trainer and an accomplished speaker. Let me tell you, I can see why people want him to speak and train their sales teams. He's a great guy and we were able to meet some great folks at the event; the guy is a sales rock star.
On Wednesday morning, we had the opportunity to attend website strategy, development, and design company ten24's Content Marketing Summit. This was a great seminar and a lot was learned from great speakers like expert content marketer Stephanie Tilton, of Ten Ton Marketing, SEO expert Derek Edmond from KoMarketing Associates, and marketing and online event management expert Patrick Cahill from Rally Point Webinars. The place was packed and we were very glad to have attended.
Alright, four blogs this week, and here's the rundown:
Monday March 22nd
Why Cold Calling is both an Art and Science - Director of Client Operations, Lindsay Roberts, shared her views on the arts and sciences of cold calling. Lindsay wrote, "Anybody can make hundreds of dials a day. Instead, I want reps to understand the art of prospecting and how to uncover qualified sales opportunities - instead of focusing on blindly dialing so they can hit a call number."
Tuesday March 23rd
How Do You Define a Quality Sales Opportunity? - Craig Ferrara, Director of Client Operations, wrote about how he defines a quality sales lead. Craig shared, "We know it can be difficult to satisfy the various sales personalities on your team. But realistically, what should your sales teams expect from the leads you are passing their way? Should you pass them anyone who wants to talk? Or should you just give them those rare to find A+ leads?"
Wednesday March 24th
Getting Back in the Trenches - Pete Gracey, AG's President, recorded a video blog about getting back into the client operations side of things here at AG. Pete said, "I was raised and believe strongly, that in order to really understand what's going on, in this case with an employee of yours, you've got to do their job, to a degree. So, over the last couple of months I've started taking clients on as a Director of Client Operations again."
Thursday March 25th
Benefits of Peer to Peer Training - Training and Implementation Manager Nicole Puddester wrote about how helpful the peer to peer training process can be for teleprospectors. Nicole shared, "It is a good idea to use the knowledge of fellow BDRs and engage them in the process. There is a whole team of individual skill sets that are important to share with the whole company."
There you go folks! Which entry struck a chord with you this week? Was there one that was just totally off the mark? Let us know!