Sales Prospecting Perspectives

As sales development reps, our time is precious.  It is essential that we manage our time in the most productive and efficient way possible in order to hit our goals, stay organized, and keep our clients happy.

The following are some tips I‘ve found make my day run smoother and allow me to make the most out of every day in the office. 

1. Lay out your day; have a plan.

Planning out your day as a sales development representative is a must, especially if you are working on multiple projects. I like to start off the day after my morning meeting by checking my inbox for each project and responding to any emails that I received after hours the day before. Responding first thing in the morning also gives prospects the whole day to get back to you. Creating a morning routine like this one is a great way to be productive while your cup of coffee wakes you up!

Getting back to the gym after the holidays is always fun. Everyone has their resolution to get back in shape after eating obscene amounts over the previous month. Of course, you end up having to deal with a sea of people taking up literally every piece of equipment that the gym has to offer. It's certainly enticing, since most gyms nowadays can offer memberships at $10 a month. Out of curiosity, I asked a friend who works at the gym what the sales numbers look like this time of year since the fees are so low. She said that they typically see a 35% growth in new membership in January, which you come to expect this time of year. 

While new sales are obviously very important for them focus on, she said that their corporate offices spend much of their time focused on what their "active membership" looks like. The definition of an active gym member would be someone that comes to workout 1 time a week. 

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest blog from Demian Farnworth, Chief Copywriter at Copyblogger Media. 

To close a sale, a prospect needs to commit to buy (plus a few other steps, but that commitment is crucial). What transforms someone from a cynical prospect into a customer? What factors contribute to commitment?

In short, presentations must be loaded with convincing evidence to prove your product is reliable. The principle is simple: If a company incorporates trust and credibility in its marketing, skepticism naturally fades. Read on for 10 essential principles to build belief, sweep aside distrust, and close sales.

After a long hiatus, #ProspectingChat on AG Saleswork's Twitter account is back this week! We'll be discussing how to perfect your response rate, replete with with Donato Diorio, CEO of RingLead.  

Today we'll be discussing best practices for perfecting your response rate over email, voicemail and social platforms. We'll share creative sales prospecting techniques, ways to make the "follow-up" more effective, some bad habits and good habits to follow, and more. 

Happy New Year!  Like many, I spent most of my holiday back home with family.  Also like many others, wanting to stay on top of my tasks I chose to work most of the break from home.  I am never usually one to elect working from home, as I prefer the atmosphere of an office.  Understanding New England winters (and the snow that accompanies it), I know this will not be the first time this season I will have to work from home, so I made sure over the holiday break to develop some strategies and tips to make it easier.  If you have the right strategies in place, you can be even more productive at home than in the office. In fact, a recent Stanford study revealed that working from home can increase total productivity by 20 to 30 percent! I hope these tips will help you to set up a home environment conducive to working as a B2B inside sales manager!

Continue Following Your Daily Routine

The temptation to sleep in until it’s time to click on your computer is strong, but I found that waking up at my usual time and using the extra minutes to make myself breakfast and get settled at a workspace made it feel more like a regular day.

It’s January 6. Do you know what that means? It’s the second day of the first full week of 2015. Yesterday, you were most likely scrambling to answer all those emails you missed over vacation, rushing to meetings about your sales pipeline, and scrambling to write down your new sales goals.

It's hard to believe that we're already at the end of December. A few weeks back I talked about the importance of continuing to prospect during this critical month and I'm hoping you listened to me.  

In the event that you don't have much scheduled for January, I think it's fair to say that what you do have going on next month carries that much more importance. 

Here are three trends I see in the sales world, paired with predictions on where those trends will take us. I welcome any feedback in the comments, or via Twitter at @davemacboston.

TREND #1: Content Fatigue / Focus

We’ve learned our lesson that so-called snackable content does not create any value, and all those empty content calories are killing the platforms that previously served as places to identify compelling new ideas. Twitter used to be rich with rewarding content, but now I have to scroll for several minutes before I find anything worth dipping into. And LinkedIn blogging went from sharp and provocative to “look at me” noisy in less than a year.

B2B sales and marketing leaders will need to decide whether they’re going to invest in content creation as a way to make noise or as a way to add value for customers.

In terms of the social activity of sales reps, it’s worth noting that being good and thoughtful curators of content allows individual reps to help advance their organization’s content marketing goals.

December is not only the “happiest time of the year;” it also be the most hectic, stressful time of the year for those at work. It is not uncommon to hear salespeople complain about the month of December. Common gripes are that everyone is too busy to add anything new to their plate, or all decision-makers are away for the holidays. With this kind of attitude, they may as well not even try, right?! What if you were armed with some strategies for connecting with your prospects and opening up new relationships and opportunities for the New Year? We already have the statistics from Craig in his blog post, Why is December a Great Month for Sales Prospecting? Here are my five tactics to leverage holiday cheer in the month of December and have better quality conversations when B2B teleprospecting or cold calling.

1. Ask the question, “How are you positioned to improve in the New Year?”

A great way to start a teleprospecting conversation at the end of the year is to encourage your prospect to start thinking about how they can improve their operations in the New Year. As the year winds down, most likely your prospect will begin to think about how they can improve their processes and perform their job responsibilities more efficiently and effectively. The end of the year can also include many process improvement board meetings. Start filling your prospect’s mind with great ideas to start the New Year off strong and help them look like a genius in their meetings!

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

Who is responsible for qualifying inbound marketing leads and identifying new, short-term sales opportunties for senior sales executives in your company? Whether they're Sales Development Representatives (SDRs), Market Development Representatives (MDRs), or simply inside sales, their role is a critical and strategic part of an efficient, scalable sales process.

Whether you’re launching a new SDR effort for your company, or seeking to improve its effectiveness and success in the New Year, here are five steps to get you off on the right track.