Sales Prospecting Perspectives

It's time for another #ProspectingChat over at AG Saleswork's Twitter account. As well as sharing many insights from sales and marketing thought leaders throughout the day, we will also be hosting a Twitter chat at 1:30 PM EST / 10:30 AM PST.

The decision to outsource part of your sales team - whether you're revamping an insourced team or whether you don't have on insourced team - can be a very tough one to make. What are the most crucial factors to look for in an outsourced teleprospecting team? Most people's answer would be: cost. While cost of service is a very important factor when considering an inside sales teleprospecting partner, there are numerous other questions to ask to determine whether the company you're researching is well-run, successful, and most important, trustworthy. In a discovery call about that company, ask these 4 questions to get a real feel for the way they conduct their business. These questions and more are featured in our new guide, "Your Lead Generation Home Away From Home: How Outsourcing Teleprospecting and Inside Sales Functions Can Augment Your Tech Company's Revenue."

1. What kinds of clients do you serve?

Identify the specialist and generalist outsourcing companies. Generalists will take any type of client, but their processes won’t be specific to your industry. Many generalists only see a 20-30% conversion rate to next steps in the sales process. However, with a specialized teleprospecting firm, you should see a 60-70% conversion rate. Specialists will make a point to say that they specialize in the tech industry. Specialists will also have an army of advocates for their service, and are happy to provide you with client references and/or case studies specific to your industry, product or service, or perhaps even share how they solved a similar challenge to the one your company is facing. If you want a more streamlined sales process with people who have experience selling products and services similar to yours, steer clear of the generalists and only consider specialist sales providers.

Every single campaign I've run here at AG has had its inevitable challenges. We've discovered the hard way that each campaign is like a snowflake: there may be many similarities between them, but no one is exactly the same. Sorry for the lame analogy, but it's true.   

The amount of data we are presented with on a daily basis can be overwhelming. We are inundated with endless streams of data, much of which is frankly of little use and tends to obstruct our need for clarity and fair analysis.  As a starting point to cut through the clutter, I’ve listed 3 key areas that marketing and sales professionals can utilize as a way to land in the eye of the storm of big data with respect to effective B2B sales prospecting.

If there is ever a slow month where you might be struggling to hit your numbers or have quality conversations with prospects, getting a warm list consisting of trade show/conference prospects, webinar registrants and inbound prospects can help create some momentum. It is always helpful when engaging prospects in conversations to have prospects that are familiar with your organization. The three above categories mentioned can add value to a campaign, but the leads may not always be hot and there needs to be an optimized telequalification process in place to maximize your ROI and sales opportunity development on these campaigns.

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.

It’s the end of the quarter and everyone is scrambling. Whether you are sweating over sales metrics, pipeline, quotas, feedback or analytics you have two things in mind, growth and profitability. Did we use these past three months to our advantage? Is our business growing? Am I excelling as a professional? These milestones are often measured quarterly keeping us in line with what’s really important to our success.

About a year ago I competed in one of those 10-13 mile obstacle course geared towards testing the participants’ physical and mental limits. A buddy of mine had asked me to do it with him and I thought, “Hey I’m in good shape. I run, cross train, lift weights …. no problem.” I was fairly confident that I was going to finish pretty easily and then I’d probably hang out and drink beers while the out of shape slobs struggled to get through the course, crying until they eventually quit. Pansies.

In teleprospecting our strategies are ever-changing and the ways in which we gather necessary information is constantly altered and upgraded.  If there’s one area where there hasn’t been a defined path to the end goal, it’s been the ability to track and accurately monitor feedback from Qualified Leads we pass over.