Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest blog from Greg Klingshirn, Content Marketing Manager at SalesLoft. 

Cold calls are the bread and butter of successful sales development reps. But what about the times you call and don’t get an answer? Leaving a message is a hard starting point to a demo or qualified appointment.

Instead of being dejected when you don’t get an answer, use it to your advantage. When you’re confident in voicemail, prospects that don’t answer can be your silver bullet.

Leave a voicemail to remember with these five tips:

If you’re in sales, a lot of your time is spent on the phone -- outbound prospecting, inbound qualifying, cold calling, you name it. You may have a list of questions you want to ask your prospect, and you may have a roadmap for the direction you want your conversation to go. However, what happens when your prospect doesn’t answer the phone?

You’ll need to leave a voicemail that doesn’t get ignored or deleted immediately. If the average voicemail response rate is 4.8% according to InsideSales, how can you generate enough interest in prospects that they call you back?

Sales managers, how often are you evaluating your inside sales team’s messaging techniques? You may have given them the tools to get started, but are they able to craft their own templates for emails voicemails? Are you constantly training them on new social selling techniques?

Just the other day, I sat down with our sales team for a role play. After an hour-long session, they walked out of my office with a better idea of how to target our buyers with tailored messaging specific to them. You see, most sales and marketing professionals just don’t have time. “No, I don’t want to tell you the challenges in my environment and what my company does. No, I don’t want to hear about your product or service right off the bat. No, I’m not always in the mood to talk about my day with someone when I’m already late for my next meeting.”

Who's excited for this month's #ProspectingChat? Over at AG Saleswork's Twitter account, we'll be sharing inside sales messaging do's and don'ts for your team. We'll also be welcoming special guest John Golden, CSO of Pipeliner CRM, to discuss his experiences and tips Here are some details about today's Twitter Chat:

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Michaela Cheevers, Business Development Representative at AG Salesworks.

As a business development representative, it is important to make every contact attempt count in order to provide your client with the best information possible. Inside sales reps have the same imperative: maximize time by qualifying prospects creatively. That being said, it’s crucial to be prepared when communicating with anyone in your quest for information. No matter who you get live on the phone, chances are they can provide you with some information; you just need to be equipped with the right questions to ask. Here are some ideas for inside sales and business development reps to find opportunities for quality conversations, no matter where you find yourself in the prospecting trenches.

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.

It’s new hire season (at least over here at AG)! We’ve seen several new faces this week, and with college graduations just around the corner, we’ll be seeing even more! Jumping into a new lead generation or inside sales career can be intimidating, but everyone has to start somewhere. I really enjoy working with AG’s new hires, and I’ve come up with the following pieces of advice to help new inside sales reps start off on the right foot.