Sales Prospecting Perspectives

I believe one of the most challenging aspects of sales teleprospecting is the first conversation.

You have less than a minute to prove yourself as a trustworthy sales rep. You only have your phone, your research, and your CRM to back you up. You can get bogged down by administrators or frustrated by curt replies. I’ve seen firsthand how extremely difficult it can be to build trust with a prospect on a first meeting.

It's halfway through July! We’ve officially entered the dog days of summer. That means it’s time to start assessing Q3 goals and targets. July is the ideal time for inside sales reps to regain their focus so they can follow up the quarter with great results. But with beautiful summer weather and vacations planned for the not-so-distant future, it can be difficult for an inside sales rep to remain fully focused and motivated. Here are 3 tips inside sales reps can use to stay on task during the peak of summer.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Matt Heinz, President of Heinz Marketing.

It starts with a hesitation.

It becomes an objection.

It festers into a doubt.

And it costs your company leads.

What I’m talking about is sales call reluctance. It doesn’t come from the prospects; it comes from the sales reps themselves. Whether you’re a new teleprospector or a seasoned inside sales rep, everyone experiences varying levels of call reluctance when B2B prospecting.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Cari Zoch, Marketing Manager at Avention, a company that offers real-time, actionable B2B data to deliver 21st century business info, solutions for sales, marketing and research. 

Salespeople are always looking for the holy grail when it comes to making cold calls. They can sort their lists, segment criteria but what’s most important?  Timing.

I’m here today to argue that timing is more than finding the best day of the week or the time of the day to pick up the phone. In fact, it varies by industry and type of prospect anyway.

Summer weather is finally starting to blossom. Spring has sprung, Memorial Day has passed, and the dog days of summer are on their way! Many of us have already begun to daydream of summer travel plans. I’ve been hearing buzz around my office lately regarding my colleagues’ upcoming vacations for the summer months. I’m sure my coworkers and I aren’t the only ones with trips in store. I was quickly reminded that a majority of my prospects will be taking time off during the summer as well. Before I know it, I’ll be running into hundreds of out-of-office messages.

According to The Bureau of Labor Statistics, there will be an 8.9 percent employment growth for sales representatives between 2012 and 2022. They project that an additional 132,000 jobs will need to be filled within that time period.

At AG Salesworks, we hire new teleprospectors with varying experience levels every month. On-the-job training is offered, as well as mentoring from other reps and managers. While many inside sales teams such as our own do have a training process in place, inside sales reps also hear many nuggets of advice along the way that may not be explicitly written in their training documents.

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