Sales Prospecting Perspectives

I love playoff hockey. I especially love it when the Bruins are winning. As the Bruins continue through another series against the Penguins, you can easily see their sense of urgency – and it always begins right at game one of each series.

Do you ever ask yourself the question: “What characteristics would my team use to describe me as a boss?” If you haven’t, it’s a really great question to ask yourself if you manage a team. Last week I had the privilege of attending a leadership training program where I learned a lot about being a better boss. It’s only been the first session of 7, and I can already tell it will be time well spent.

About a year ago as I was frantically running through the office looking overwhelmingly stressed from my workload, my boss said to me, “Not to be mean, but you are bringing this on yourself.” At first I was completely thrown off by his comment. I thought – the nerve! Here I was running around for the good of the company and he makes a comment like that. It wasn’t until I sat down with him to express my frustration when I realized…he was right. After talking about it, he made me realize that I had a problem delegating and I was trying to do everything on my own – partly because I felt I wanted to do it my way and also because I didn’t want to add more to anyone else’s plate. I felt like I would rather deal with the stress of it all and not impose on my reps or anyone else that could potentially help me out. Our talk really resonated with me and I haven’t been the same since. There are so many benefits to delegating to your team beyond just giving you more time to do the tasks you need to do.

There’s been a lot of talk about millennials recently. In case you aren’t familiar with this term, a millennial is used to describe a segment of the population born between 1980 and 2000 (approximately that is - different sources tend to give slightly different date ranges). The term seems to be making its way into more and more conversations that I’ve been having with my peers when discussing managing inside sales teams. So many inside sales representatives out there fall within this generation, and a hot topic of conversation more recently is how to attract this generation from a recruiting standpoint and how to manage them once they join your team.

I’m going to be honest, I never really get into March Madness. Sometimes I’ll fill out a bracket, picking teams based on which color uniform I like better of course. This year I didn’t have a big interest in it – that is until I saw an email come through my inbox about our first ever 2013 BDR March Madness Tournament. Our contest development team really outdid themselves with this contest and their creativeness led to such great adoption across the company that I felt compelled to share (thanks guys!).

In the industry, we talk a lot about how to create the best environment for teleprospecting teams, from a day to day perspective, that will increase employee productivity. We’re constantly thinking of ways to incent our teams through more lucrative compensation plans, more robust training, better tools from a technology standpoint, etc. Something I have been thinking about lately is not only about how to increase performance through these methods, but also how to create the right physical environment  that creates a high energy space for reps to come to work.

I recently came across a blog post, 5 Tips for Better B2B Branding which shared some great insight for marketing professionals on how to take B2B branding to the next level. Great ideas were shared, such as consistently producing useful and innovative content, networking digitally and in person, getting personal and being real, positioning yourself differently than others in the space, and leveraging proof points.

My husband and I have been considering purchasing a new home. Every Sunday we go to open houses and review our “must haves” before entering each house. While we are realistic that we may not get everything on our list; when we do end up buying, there are certain characteristics of a home that we just won’t budge on – one of them being a walk in closet for me, of course.

Okay, okay - before you disagree with me, hear me out. Last week I was battling with a horrible thought – I questioned whether or not my team thought of me as a micromanager. We weren’t trending in the right direction as a team to reach goal, so I honed in on some details much more than usual. Historically, micromanagement has been known as a “bad word” but sometimes there is a time and a place for it, especially when managing an inside sales team. What I’ve found is that it’s okay to point out areas of improvement for your teleprospecting team and guide their behavior in the direction you are looking for. After all, you are in a management role for a reason. The key is to lead and coach your team while reassuring them you aren’t tracking their activities and looking over their shoulder because you want to make them miserable; you are doing it to help them grow as a sales person.  

As I reflect back on client hurdles from last week, the popular challenge of how to successfully align inside and outside sales reps comes to mind. This is an obstacle that never seems to go away, and all sales and marketing VPs seem to face it again and again. The key to bridging this gap is to put some best practices in place so that a mutual trust is established and everyone is working towards the ultimate goal of bringing in more sales pipeline and revenue for the company.