Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Gareth Goh, Content Marketing Manager of InsightSquared.

Inbound, inbound, inbound.

Inbound sales, inbound marketing - it seems like that’s the only strategy that sales leaders depend on these days to generate leads and grow pipeline. And they should be focused on inbound! After all, the concept of inbound - aligning sales and marketing with the buyer’s intent and process, attracting them to you rather than pushing yourself on them - works. HubSpot pioneered the concept of Inbound Marketing and they have now built an entire industry around it. Buyers are becoming smarter and more sophisticated - they don’t need aggressive sales reps pushing products that they don’t want on them.

But wait! What about outbound prospecting?

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 post from Taylor Lacey, a Business Development Representative at AG Salesworks.

What do you picture when you hear the word "nurture?"

Many people may think of a plant "nurtured" to full health. In inside sales, potential customers can also be nurtured. If they aren't a good fit now, does that mean they will always be unqualified for your product or service? Or can they slowly become a lead by means of a strong lead nurturing campaign? 

We’ve all seen the contact who doesn’t quite fit the qualifying criteria and is automatically added to the nurture bucket. These are three important tips to remember when nurturing prospects.

It's halfway through July! We’ve officially entered the dog days of summer. That means it’s time to start assessing Q3 goals and targets. July is the ideal time for inside sales reps to regain their focus so they can follow up the quarter with great results. But with beautiful summer weather and vacations planned for the not-so-distant future, it can be difficult for an inside sales rep to remain fully focused and motivated. Here are 3 tips inside sales reps can use to stay on task during the peak of summer.

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.

Father’s Day is coming up this Sunday, June 15th. If you haven’t already planned something for your father or bought a card yet, the stores are still open. My dad and I haven’t always seen eye to eye on everything, especially during the dreaded angst-filled teenage years. But he managed to put a roof over my head, food on the table and helped support me to get a degree.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Katie Kelly, Associate Inbound Marketing Specialist at HubSpot.

Traditionally, we think of BDRs as energetic, hungry, cold-calling machines. How can we get a prospect into taking a meeting? How can we get creative with our voicemails or sales pitches?

This worked well for decades - that was until our little friend, The Internet, arrived.

I have always been a firm believer that there are two types of people in this world: those who have children and those who don’t. The reason I differentiate between them is that those who don’t have children tend to think they are the best parents in the world, and some insist on telling you how to raise your kids.

Now, a bit about me: I am a father of three with a boy and two girls.  I have had my share of experiences with people saying things like, “I would never do that with my kids,” or, “You’re doing that?”  I have to admit, there was a time, before I had children, that I remember saying, “Oh my, I would never feed my kids french fries.”  Friends and family fall into one of these two groups. But when or if they have children, their opinions about parenting usually change, and they start to understand how difficult a task it is and stop judging others for their choices. The same can be said regarding outsourcing lead generation for sales and marketing.

Summer weather is finally starting to blossom. Spring has sprung, Memorial Day has passed, and the dog days of summer are on their way! Many of us have already begun to daydream of summer travel plans. I’ve been hearing buzz around my office lately regarding my colleagues’ upcoming vacations for the summer months. I’m sure my coworkers and I aren’t the only ones with trips in store. I was quickly reminded that a majority of my prospects will be taking time off during the summer as well. Before I know it, I’ll be running into hundreds of out-of-office messages.