Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Organized Tasking for High Outbound Inside Sales Activity

I’m sure you are all familiar with Salesforce.  If you are not, reps using this tool have this great homepage everyday that has all the tasks for the day pulled up.  After completing them, you can go ahead and create a new task for the following days.  This is a refreshing way for inside sales reps to keep their day organized.  That being said, with the number of outbound activity and quality conversations we have, it is important for our BDRs to further organize their day and keep it as efficient as possible. 

When setting up a new task that will appear on your homepage, we have found that there are 3 important labels to help streamline your teleprospecting campaign.  It is important to label the prospect status, next task, and time zone.  Meaning, before opening a new task you should be able to identify it with these labels.  The prospect status will identify the urgency of the task and help the rep to prioritize.  A prospect can still be in prospect (P), contact identified (CI), or even interested (I) mode.  The next task will prepare you for your next activity with the prospect and this might be a voicemail 2 (VM 2) or no contact (NC).  Labeling the time zone (ET, CT, MT PT) will help to map your day out and will ensure you won’t waste unnecessary time opening west coast contacts at 9:30am in Boston! 

Labeling tasks also helps from a management perspective.  I would much prefer to have “contact identified” on my home page rather than a majority of tasks still in “prospecting” mode.  By glancing at your homepage, it is easy to identify if more work needs to be done to uncover the best person to speak with in your rep’s accounts.  The same holds true for labeling the next task.  If I see a magnitude of tasks in voicemail 4, 5, or 6 it is clear that there needs to be attention focused around the messaging for that particular campaign. If majority of prospects are not responding at the beginning of the call plan, some additional work around scripting and emailing is most likely necessary. 

This is just a small sample of how we help keep our days organized and efficient with such high outbound activity. Do you have any ways to keep your day busy days more structured? 

Why I Love Company Outings

The annual AG Salesworks summer outing took place this past Friday, and as expected it didn't disappoint. We didn't do anything complicated this year, we just rented a campsite with a volleyball court, a few grills and a beach about a minute walk away. After a full day I drove home exhausted thinking back on all the days’ events. What I recognized is that it only reaffirms to me the importance of events like this. 

I can remember back 6-7 years ago when AG was in its infancy. Our version of the summer outing would involve the 10 of us taking an afternoon off, driving down to our president's house and kicking back for barbeque and some bonding. At that time we got to know each other very well being cooped up all day in our 800 square foot office space with no A/C. The bond that existed back then was reminiscent of my days as youngster in Winthrop living in a triple decker with 17 Italian Aunts/Uncles and cousins. You loved your family members, but there were also times where we were overwhelmed by the urge to strangle each other trying to co-exist in close quarters.

As the business has grown over the years and with the addition of a little one to the Ferrara clan, it has become increasingly more difficult for me to dedicate time to getting to know every individual within the organization. Granted I spend 45-50 hrs a week with them so I have a pretty good understanding of the standard stuff - where they live/do they have kids/ where they went to college etc.. But I find events like these to be the best opportunity to really focus my effort in getting to know my organization. For example... the person in marketing who you may regularly cross paths with but exchange nothing more than a "how was the weekend?" before you have to quickly head off to the next meeting. What you may not already know is that you have a good amount of common interests..skiing, underwater basket weaving, ancient Chinese culture.. the list could go on.

I'm also realist. I understand that as we've grown I'm not necessarily going to have the bond that existed back in the early years of AG as we sweated our days out (literally & figuratively) in a small office with no A/C. What has become evident to me as a manager - especially in the teleprospecting world - is that you can't allow yourself, or your employees, to just trudge into work, bang away at the phones and just go home. We all need to bring our personality to work with us...as long as it's for the most part work appropriate.

Now maybe not all of us love the summer outing. I can distinctly recall dreading the thought of having to go when working at a couple of my previous employers. When I did go, it generally gave me a refreshed perspective on the organization and a better understanding of what made my colleagues tick. Having that one-on-one time outside of the stiff corporate setting allowed me to let the guard down a bit and as a result made the idea of going back to work on Monday somewhat pleasant because I was more comfortable being myself.

So for your summer outing this year let your hair down a bit (not too much). Think of it as a time to hit the reset button - get yourself refreshed and use it as a chance to REALLY get to know the people you end up spending more time with than your family.

Are You Reapplying Sunscreen To Your Inside Sales Reps?

I’ve just come back from a few days off with my Kids.  We spent a nice long weekend at our favorite beaches on Cape Cod.  On Monday of this week I learned a very valuable lesson regarding how often you need to reapply sunscreen to your children when at the beach.  If you’ve seen my picture on our website, you’ll note that I am about as tanned as a glass of milk.  My children have been blessed\cursed with the same pigment.  Because of that, we are always very careful to lather them up with enough sunscreen to actually repel UV rays all the way back to the sun.  However, I was a bit negligent in my fatherly duties on Monday only reapplying once over the course of the day.  This resulted in two very crispy, red, and agitated kids at bedtime Monday night.  Had I reapplied even one more time during the day, my kids would have slept like angels; instead we had several nice long chats over the course of a very sleepless night….and now for the gigantically desperate attempt to tie the reapplication of sunscreen to the training of teleprospectors!!

You see, training is like sunscreen for your inside sales reps.  If you reapply training regularly to your inside sales reps, they stay sharp on the phone.  They are reminded of best practices and how to use them.  The reapplication of training strengthens core skills and maintains top performance.  It gives you and your managers the forum to address any issues and concerns you have indirectly and to gain valuable insight into who your “A” players really are. 

Overall, like reapplying sunscreen, reapplying your training continuously builds better and more productive inside sales reps.  And, most importantly, it keeps them from getting burned on the phones.  Stay tuned next week for more inventive attempts to tie real life situations back into teleprospecting.

Tips for Conquering Maintenance Mode While Cold Calling.

Teleprospecting Debate Continued: To Leave A Voicemail Or Not To Leave A Voicemail

After writing my last blog entry on the introduction debates of cold calling, it got me thinking about other debates in the world of teleprospecting. Something that inside sales teams struggle with is deciding whether or not their call plan should include leaving voicemails for prospects. Some companies believe that they should call through lists and “no contact” prospects until they reach someone live. My question is, what if the people you are “no contacting” are in fact interested, but maybe they left their desks for a moment to get a cup of coffee? If this is the case for some prospects out there, isn’t leaving a voicemail necessary? I think it’s pretty clear what my argument is and I am interested in hearing what others have to say.

The key to leaving an effective voicemail comes down to the content of the voicemail. If you call someone and product dump, that will never catch their attention – at least that is what I have found in my experience. So what does work? Here are some of my tips for leaving an effective voicemail that will get you a call back:

Make it personal. Think about how many calls your prospect receives a day. Do you really think they want to hear you sound scripted when they listen to you? Sounding like a robot will result in your prospect immediately deleting your voicemail before they hear it in its entirety. Be your personable self while clearly stating the purpose of your call at the same time.

Avoid product dumping. This goes back to my robot theory – make your voicemail about your product without telling them every detail. Try another method like mentioning a pain or challenge that many other companies are experiencing within their industry that your product alleviates. Let them know that you don’t want to waste their time, but you would like to help them if this is a challenge they are experiencing as well.

Clearly state your contact information. Have you ever received a voicemail where someone left their phone number once, and you had to keep repeating the message until you were able to jot down the entire number? I know I have, and not only is it frustrating, but it takes time. With this idea in mind, a C-level contact certainly does not have the time or patience for this, and will be that much more inclined to delete the message instead of listening to it. As a result, I always make sure to leave my name and number once at the beginning of my message and then again at the end even if it sounds repetitive.

Call to action. This is the key to make sure you hear back from a prospect. Let the prospect know what you are going to do on your end if they don’t get back to you. For instance, a lot of us here at AG end our messages with, “I will follow up this voicemail with an email. If I should not hear back, I will follow up in two days.” This way the prospect knows that if they don’t want to hear from you again, they really need to reach out and give you a valid reason as to why.

So what is more effective: only reaching prospects live by “no contacting” or leaving voicemails in hopes of sparking some interest if they’ve stepped away from their desks?

Only 4 Months Left – Are You Going To Hit Your Sales Number?

It’s August. Soon the summer will be winding down, the leaves will begin to turn, Thanksgiving decorations will come out and Marketing and Sales VPs will begin the annual ritual of panicking if they don’t have enough pipeline. There are some very creative ideas that people come up with to create forecast in a pinch. 

“Let’s take our prospects out to expensive dinners!” – Good that way they will be full when they don’t buy.

“Here is the plan…..We’re going to drive to the prospect’s building, jump out and whip footballs at them as they leave for lunch. Here is the catch, the football has OUR LOGO ON IT!!!”  - The logo will show them who to sue for blasting them with a projectile.

On a more serious note, rather than run programs that take a long time to develop and can have a very unpredictable deliverable, I would suggest using a highly targeted teleprospecting campaign. It is proactive. a predictable and low risk method to build forecast towards the end of the year.

Your teleprospecting campaign should focus on reaching out to companies that you have identified as the “most likely to purchase”. The last 3^rd of the year may not be the best time to test new markets if you need closed business. Take a look at the first 8 months of the year and identify the key characteristics of the deals that closed. Usually there are trends that can be spotted. Sometimes it is a simple as choosing a vertical that you have a strong hold in, other times you have to be a bit investigative to identify particular buying motivations that lead to shorter sales cycles. An obvious example of this would be compliance deadlines that companies need to hit to avoid federal/state penalties. Feel free to give me a dial if you are having trouble finding and calling a target group. I know a pretty good teleprospecting firm that could help!

Your target group should not be a universe of thousands of prospects. There should be enough prospects on your list to keep your inside team busy putting in a full calling effort into each prospect. Your list is too broad if the inside team can only put a couple of dials into each prospect.  Keep it to a couple hundred prospects and focus on making “intelligent” dials.

Be sure to keep your pitch very value focused. People aren’t going to buy right now because your solution is “nice to have”. I live in a condo in city with a very thin and steep staircase. My lack of coordination has me falling down the steps once a month and it’s hard to move anything wider than a freeze pop into my house past the winding part of the stairs. An elevator would be nice to have, but my stairs will have to do until I have an “elevator budget”. (Which my wife ranks just above my request for “buy a monkey budget”) However, if someone were to make a case that having an elevator would increase the value of the house upon resale and save me money in medical bills, maybe we would consider it. My point is focus on how your solution will save money, make money or mitigate risk – pitching a “nice to have” is not going to get you to your number.

Good luck closing out the year!

6 Warning Signs To Look For When Interviewing Inside Sales Candidates

Over the last 5 years or so I’ve interviewed a wide range of candidates for our business development role here at AG. They all have a variety of backgrounds from 10+ years of inside sales experience on down to a recent college graduates anxious to get their feet wet in the sales world.  What I’ve discovered is that nothing surprises me anymore.

Now I wouldn't consider myself to be the toughest person to interview for. I usually try to play the role of good cop and allow the other folks I work with make the candidate squirm with the extra tough questions. My goal is to get a true understanding of whether or not the person is interested in working on my team. And are they someone that I can see myself spending 40-50 hrs a week working with. I recognize that I can't expect every solid candidate I interview to be someone that I want to head out and grab a beer with, but at the very least will they add value to AG? Could they challenge me to be better at my job? My president made a good point recently ..."If I'm thinking at any point during an interview that I want to "help" this person, then I probably shouldn't hire them. We’re not offering charity here; we're trying to bring in people that will help to grow the business."

Usually I try to set the scene by being relatively laid back in an attempt to draw out the interviewee's personality. Our culture is extremely important so I want to bring in people that I know can add to our work-place and co-exist peacefully with others. After a little small talk like ... any trouble finding the office? where are you from? ..I'll start with my first softball question to get them comfortable... So what interested in you the Business Development Representative role here at AG? Well apparently that isn't the easiest question for some candidates. A couple of my favorite responses include.. "Well if you worked at my current company then you would probably be looking for a new job too" or another beauty "The summer was over and I figured it was time to look for a job. Your company just happened to be the first company to call me back." Both true stories.

C'mon people since this is a sales job you need do a better job on selling ME on why YOU want to work at my organization.

Here are 6 warning signs to look for when a candidate comes in to interview for your company. Yes they may seem like interviewing 101 to some of us...but I've been unpleasantly surprised. 

1)  They trash their current or previous employer:

My first thought when people get into this is “ hmmm well golly, what will they say about me if they don’t agree with a decision I make?”

2) No research has been done on the company or the role they’re applying for:

If I’m going to spend a half hour of my time with you …then come PREPARED! I’ve fielded some interesting responses to my question asking them to explain to me what they understand that the job will entail. My favorite was “I’ll be selling office furniture here, right?” Nope sorry buddy…you might be confusing us with your last interview. Another true story.

3) They have little to no questions regarding the role they are applying for or on the company itself:

As with #2 above come prepared, surely there are a few things you would like to know about the role and the company.

4) They make their first or second question about the sales compensation plan or better yet vacation time:

I can respect that people are interested in what their compensation will look like, especially since they are applying for a sales job and all….but at least butter me up with questions about the job and AG Salesworks. And the vacation time question speaks for itself.

5) They never look you in eye:

At this point I’m thinking..”You got something to hide partner?” I understand they may be applying for a teleprospecting job that doesn’t require eye contact, but quite simply I’m not going to hire someone that I feel I can’t trust off the bat.

6) No follow-up email is sent after the interview thanking the company for their time:

Seems to me that this is common courtesy these days, if they want the job badly enough, they should go through the effort of typing up a simple thank you email.

From my experience as a hiring manager this has been a great way to identify a legitimate candidate from the rest of the field. It can at least be a better way of weeding out the folks that you are on the fence with. If they exhibit any of the warning signs above it may be time to remove them from the pool.

Weekly Recap Sales Prospecting Perspectives week of July 26th

Happy Friday Everyone!

Hope you all had a great week. We had some great blogs this week from Chris Lang, Craig Ferrara, Peter Gracey and Ilona Jazdowska.  Find out whether your Sales Executives have the “IT” factor, how blogging has made Craig a better Inside Sales Manager, interesting points on good subject lines, and the importance of making sure your prospecting efforts are geared toward your target audience!

Before I get started, as always I’d like to note a great article I found this week:

Ron Karr’s Business Development Blog talks about voicemail messaging and how to leave Voice Mail Messages that Generate Call Backs. It’s a great piece as it discusses the importance of being aggressive, to the point, and mixing it up when leaving those messages. Each voicemail is different so make sure you are letting them know that you truly WANT them to call you back.

Monday, July 26th

Do Your Sales Executives Have The "IT" Factor?– Chris Lang as always, manages to relate his sales experience to that of his personal life.  He offers a great analogy on how even at the age of three his nephew exhibits the “IT” factor, and how that character trait is important in a Sales Executive.

“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.”

Tuesday June 27th

Blogging Has Made Me A Better Inside Sales Team Manager! – Craig Ferrara discusses how despite his original thought of blogging being more for the Marketing team, it’s helped him grow as a Sales Team Manager.

“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!”

Thursday July 28th

The Best Email Subject Line For Teleprospecting I've Seen Yet. - Pete Gracey came across a great email subject line this week which triggered his inspiration in this week’s blog on how critical something as simple as a subject line can really be…

“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.”  

Friday July 29th

Are Your Teleprospecting Efforts Targeted To Your Audience? – Ilona Jazdowska discusses the importance of making sure you’re not sending out the same kind of messaging for every prospect.

“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.” 

That about covers it! I hope you all have a great weekend! See you Monday!

Are Your Teleprospecting Efforts Targeted To Your Audience?

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 For Teleprospecting I've Seen Yet.

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.