Week 25 Recap of Sales Prospecting Perspectives
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…”