Sales Prospecting Perspectives

What does it mean to be a manager, director, SVP, VP, President, COO, CFO, or CEO, outside of the responsibilities listed in the job description?  It means upholding duties, meeting goals, and contributing to the company.  Sometimes, executives seem to forget the last portion: "contribute to the company."  Many people automatically think, “Well, I'm doing a great job fulfilling my duties, so of course I'm contributing to the company.” But that's not always the case.

Two weeks ago, I entered the Boston Exhibition and Conference Center in awe. It was my first time at HubSpot’s INBOUND Conference, and as a content marketer just starting my career in marketing, there was certainly a lot to take in. I watched Simon Sinek give an inspiring keynote on leadership and learned about how different neuro signals can affect your work. I talked to Boston businesses about how they’re using inbound methodology. I raced from session to session with my laptop and iPod to jot down notes in Google Drive and tweet my top takeaways.

It was an overwhelming experience, for sure. One factor I noticed across the board was the focus on the ever-elusive future - the future of CRM, the future of B2B marketing the future of storytelling. There was even an event called FutureM that coincided with INBOUND14. Why was everyone so preoccupied with the future of marketing?

If you’re a content marketer, you know how important it is to produce interesting and relevant content.

If you’re a content marketer for the B2B space, you know how important it is to produce content that’s also fact-driven and referral-worthy.

Many of the potentials buyers we’re writing for don’t want to read fluff; they want clear initiatives and numbers in a format that’s easy to share. This is especially true for Directors of Sales and CIOs; they see numbers every day, and they are used to these numbers telling the truth. That’s why B2B content with statistics in headlines often perform better.

The problem? Many B2B companies producing content on a regular basis simply don’t have time to produce their own facts and figures. So, with attribution in mind, they hunt down the best reports from their peers.

In the world of teleprospecting, many thought leaders are debating the efficacy of new and old techniques. With more and more sales leaders implementing new strategies, it's important for inside sales rep to keep up with the trends. However, don't feel you have to choose one technique and stick to it. Instead, learn to balance your techniques and manage your lists. Social selling is time-consuming, and it cuts out the ability to speak to prospects for a lengthy amount of time about their pains and needs, but it could lead to stronger opportunities. You may find that your team has more activity from the smile and dial method, but without some social intelligence behind these calls, those leads could be dead ends. Below are three things to consider when using commonly used prospecting techniques to find the balance that works right for you.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest blog from Sharmin Kent, Marketing Content Specialist at TinderBox. 

Now that the average B2B buyer is more than halfway through her purchase decision before engaging with a sales rep, it's critical that the content propelling a prospect through the pipeline is informative and relevant. An organization's marketing team is usually responsible for creating sales content, and communication and collaboration between the two departments can be rare.

AG Salesworks is pleased to present you with a guest blog post from Brian Serino, SVP of Sales and Business Development at NetProspex. 

We’re all familiar with the deep-rooted battle between sales and marketing. It goes something like this: sales blames marketing for their inability to produce quality leads, while marketers fault sales for their lack of lead management skills. In this battle, however, there is no winner, because when sales and marketing teams work individually, poor lead management results on both sides.

As you may already know, AG Salesworks is an active user on Twitter. We share insights and posts from many sales and marketing thought leaders and tweet sales prospecting best practices every day. Today, we’re excited to be hosting our very own Twitter chat, #ProspectingChat, at 1:30 PM EST / 10:30 AM PST!

Beginning a career in B2B inside sales is a great way to build job experience and fine-tune your professional skills. If you are a recent graduate with a background in sales or marketing and are looking to get your foot in the door of the business world, inside sales may be the career for you.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Amanda Maksymiw, Content Marketing Manager at Lattice Engines. 

Back in 2011, the Harvard Business Review educated us on exactly what timely manner meant. One hour. In fact, when companies reached out to prospects within an hour, they were seven times more like to qualify the lead. The Lead Management Study from InsideSales.com cites even more startling stats: “The odds of contacting a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 100 times. The odds of qualifying a lead if called in 5 minutes versus 30 minutes drop 21 times.”

Simply put, whether prospecting a lead from an inbound program or from your website, sales needs to be proactive and follow up in a timely manner. Here are a few ideas to help sales reps get ahead of the clock.