Sales Prospecting Perspective Weekly Recap - Week of March 25, 2024
It's the final day of the month and the quarter; I'm sure there are a lot of elevated blood pressures today! Isn't it wonderful when these things fall on a Friday? Hopefully your sales pipeline is not the reason for the added stress and anxiety that comes with the last day of a quarter. One way to feed the pipeline is to start getting more social; integrating social selling practices in with your sales process. This week's share discusses social selling and comes from Brian Bachofner of InsideView who compared social selling vs. social prospecting and discussed some of the key activities being used by sales professionals and some of the key behaviors in determining a high performer. Brian cited multiple industry experts and discussed some of the findings from their ebooks, survey's and research to formulate is own opinion on the topic of social prospecting. Brian's view on social prospecting is "it's the measurable and trackable aspect of Social Selling that’s creating focus there. The ROI is simple to measure." He also states that social prospecting is "the easiest (activity) to deploy, but also the easiest to do WRONG." A great read from Brian, who will be assisting in managing and contributing content for Social Selling University until a new "Dean" has been found. 
Now, on to this week's recap.
Monday, March 25, 2024
Laney Pilpel began our week discussing ways to create the ideal environment for your teleprospecting team and provided 10 tips that have worked for our organization. Creating the right kind of environment that enfuses your organization with energy and increases productivity can be difficult to attain. Laney's 10 tips include: have low cubicle walls to promote increased conversation amongst your reps, use a large white board for tracking performance to inspire competition, surround your team with "fun" art and bright wall colors, and make contests results visible to everyone to motivate your team. One of the most important factors that can lead to a great environment is going to be your management team; they are your leaders and need to provide positive energy, be encouraging, and open to new ideas.
Tuesday, March 26, 2024
Our next blog came from Mike Ricciardelli, who talked about some of the desirable skills you should look for when hiring new sales talent. There are a few traits hiring managers should be looking for when determining if the applicant is a fit. Mike suggests looking for these five: high energy and enthusiasm, eagerness and inquisitive, resourcefulness, work ethic and attitude, and active listening. Ideally, each hiring manager must determine if the applicants are there because they want this job or are they there because they want any job. Identifying if your applicants possess the five traits mentioned above will help in determining if they are a match for your sales team and if they are there because they want to join your organization, not just any organization.
Wednesday, March 27, 2024
We were pleased to bring you a guest post from Nimble CEO Jon Ferrara, who discussed both the past and future of sCRM's in prospecting and selling. Jon takes a look back and talks about the vast amount of change we have seen just in the recent years; from computers and cell phones to the "neck-snapping" rate of change seen with your social networks. Five years ago businesses didn't understand or recognize the value of social channels like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn. Now "social" has become one of the buzz words in business today and "keeps CEO's awake at night." Jon also weighs in with some advice on how to utilize these new, evolving channels: listen first, weigh in and be disciplined.
Thursday, March 28, 2024
We closed out our blog week with a first time post from Business Development Representative Kyle Smith, who had recently returned from a recruiting trip at his Alma mater. Kyle participated in the interview process and was prospecting for minutemen when he realized how much the interview process resembled a cold call. He highlighted one of the interviews, one that had more negatives than positives, and discussed how the interview related to a prospecting call. One of the first rules of prospecting is to know as much about your prospect as feasible; the same is true when interviewing, you need to know about the company your interviewing with and this candidate did not know anything about our organization. The second mistake made was that this candidate didn't personalize his messaging. He went through his resume, highlighting certain aspects, none of which were applicable to this job. The final faux pas that occurred during this particular interview was when the candidate pushed for the compensation package. When prospecting, you should control the conversation and guide your prospect through your talking points so that it is the prospect asking for the next step, not the sales rep. A great first time post from Kyle!
That does it for this week's recap. Thanks again for taking the time to read and we'll do it again this time next week!