Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Max Altschuler, Founder and CEO of Sales Hacker Media. 

With the Sales Hacker Conference in Boston only a few days away, let's look back on past sales hacks revealed at recent Sales Hacker Conferences. This year's Sales Hacker Conference will be on Sept. 15 at 9 a.m. in the hub of the universe, Boston. More details here. 

As the end of summer draws near, hiring season looms upon us inside sales professionals. Many recent graduates will be looking for their first job after a relaxing summer, and many seasoned sales reps will be taking stock of their current positions. At AG Salesworks, we’ve seen many potential inside sales reps walk through our door for interviews in the past few weeks. However, our hiring process isn’t for everyone. After all, new sales hires frequently fail, so we want to make sure that we’re hiring the best talent to benefit our clients and our prospects. During the initial interview, we have a keen eye for personality traits that will help the candidate thrive in an inside sales environment. Here are 3 traits we look for in an inside sales interview and 3 questions to ask when assessing if a candidate’s personality is a good fit for your company.

Beginning a career in B2B inside sales is a great way to build job experience and fine-tune your professional skills. If you are a recent graduate with a background in sales or marketing and are looking to get your foot in the door of the business world, inside sales may be the career for you.

It’s new hire season (at least over here at AG)! We’ve seen several new faces this week, and with college graduations just around the corner, we’ll be seeing even more! Jumping into a new lead generation or inside sales career can be intimidating, but everyone has to start somewhere. I really enjoy working with AG’s new hires, and I’ve come up with the following pieces of advice to help new inside sales reps start off on the right foot.

Employee retention seemed to be a taboo subject at my old sales jobs. If sales managers didn’t speak about it, the problem would simply not be a problem. Unfortunately, they seemed to be conditioned to accept that attrition was inevitable with a team of people making cold calls all day. It wasn't uncommon to see about 50% of new hires exit the organization after 6 months. Why? You've taken the time to interview, hire and train a rep, but once they're at altitude, they leave. No one should be OK with that.

On New Year’s Eve, I posted a blog on the 7 Things I Want My Inside Sales Team To Know for 2014. Now that we're already days in to the last week of February (bring on spring please!), I want to double check that list to ensure I was actually following through on the characteristics I felt separated good managers from not-so-good ones. Of course it's a continual work in progress, but I feel like I've mostly stuck to the expectations I've set for myself. 

Happy Valentine's Day, Sales Prospecting Perspectives readers! We hope you're doing something special with that someone special or treating yourself to something that makes you happy today. On Valentine's Day, some people may feel down if they don't have a Valentine, just like in inside sales when people can feel slighted if they don't have a prospect. Therefore, we've compiled some helpful content about how to better market and teleprospect to these potential clients. Check out our favorite articles we shared on Twitter this week: 

As an inside sales manager, I try to use my few minutes of downtime to read articles related to my field.  When I open the “news” section of my LinkedIn, almost all of the recommended articles revolve around professional women.  My news feed is flooded with articles about Sheryl Sandbergs Lean In, work life balance, women who don't want to work for female managers, women who do want to work for female managers, areas where women outperform men,  women being urged to “sit at the table." The list goes on and on. 

Let's start off by saying that the B in "B2B" does not stand for boring. B2B companies often have a stigma of being boring and a bit drab compared to B2C businesses. Newsflash: it doesn't have to be that way! 

There are a many, many key reasons why I believe that B2B companies can greatly benefit from having a company Facebook page. I'll highlight just a few main points.

When I meet with the newest additions to the AG family, I always make a point to let them know that we're not looking for a cookie-cutter employee. Everyone here has their own unique traits and a certain style that works for them. Using some creative license here or there is necessary when you cold call and keeps reps engaged in what many would consider the toughest part of selling.