May 2012
35 posts
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AGSalesworks Employee Spotlight: Steve
Steve North (aka Norte or Naughty Norte) is a graduate of Bridgewater State with a degree in Psychology and was referred by a friend almost 5 years ago. When asked about AG, Steve mentions the autonomy each employee has to do their job while still receiving the support of the organization. AG Central (his work neighborhood) considers him the glue that keeps them together and a teleprospecting...
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5 Things Sales Reps Need To Know About Their... →
Over the last month I’ve had the pleasure of leading a team of AG employees focused on figuring out better ways to motivate the folks who we have making dials. Although we feel that we’re in a good place as an organization, we recognize that we can never be complacent. Ultimately, being a services company, our most precious asset is our people and at the end of the day we need to take care of...
What Teleprospecting Means To Me →
Every year on Memorial Day weekend it’s tradition for my family to go to the town parade and every year it concludes with the top three elementary school winners reading their “What Memorial Day Means to Me” essays. Most of them reveal that it’s not just the candy and cookouts that make Memorial Day special to them. With this event fast approaching, I’ve figured out what Memorial Day...
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3 Reasons Your Outside Sales Reps Are Driving... →
One of the KPIs I look at when analyzing inside sales effectiveness is the percentage of leads that don’t show up for the initial sales call. Common theory places the blame on the inside rep for not doing their job properly and, while I have written blogs about how inside reps can negatively effect your no show rate, I feel that the inside reps sometimes take too much of the heat. In fact, I...
My Top 10 Quotes From Bad Sales Reps →
I’ve been involved in sales since I first started canvassing door to door for a home improvement company when I was in high school. At times, the things I have heard colleagues say make me wonder why they are involved with sales.
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Cold Calling Confessions Of A Shopaholic →
I am a certified, professional SHOPAHOLIC and my time is coming soon enough, as the malls in our area prepare for their Memorial Day Sales. For most, this can be a bit overwhelming, as you determine which sales fit your needs and priorities first. With the right amount of prep and planning, I am able to tackle the stores without breaking a sweat.
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Teleprospecting versus Telemarketing →
AG’s own Peter Gracey explains the difference between teleprospecting and telemarketing in MassHighTech
3 Reasons To Outsource While You Build Your Inside... →
I decided to write this week’s blog about organizations that are looking to build inside sales teams. Building a team can’t be done overnight. You need to take a lot into consideration; the type of people you are looking to hire, how you will align your sales territories, the training needed for best practice messaging, and the CRM system your team will be leveraging – and that’s just to name a...
4 Professional Tips From A Graduate: A Year In... →
Every year when the month of May hits I start humming the melody to pomp and circumstance in my head. Having been a part of three commencement ceremonies in my life, I have taken away a few facts: 1. They are very long, 2. They are very boring, and 3. The only mildly entertaining or engaging part (for me at least) is the commencement address. Whether it is given by a celebrity, fellow classmate...
What Are The Golden Questions In Recruiting Sales... →
When I walk into an interview, a lot of things are running through my head. I’m thinking about how the candidate presented on paper and now in person, wondering what their level of interest is for the position, and whether or not they have done their homework on our company.
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Get Your Yoga On While Cold Calling →
I was working out to my Baron Baptiste yoga video this weekend, getting my sweat on (save the sarcastic remarks please). Like most yoga gurus, Baron provides his words of wisdom throughout the video regarding the movements he’s putting our body through. Combined with the movements, he also stresses that our minds should be focused on a certain point and not scattered during each pose. He...
Top 5 Picks for Your Company Summer Outing →
It’s about that time again. Trees and flowers are in bloom, the temperature is reaching the mid 70s, and I’ve officially introduced open-toed shoes back into my wardrobe rotation. Summer is just around the corner, and you know what that means – it’s time to start gearing up for your company’s summer outing event! Company outings are a great way for your company as a whole to relax and unwind a...
Growing Revenue: Not Always As Simple As It Seems →
One of my areas of responsibility is revenue growth and while this is not new to me as I have been in sales my entire career, striving for double digit growth quarter over quarter in a services business can be a pretty tall order. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining. We have done quite well and have emerged from the 2009 downturn with double digit growth in 2010 and 2011. But what fun would it...
11 HUGE Reasons Inside Sales Teams Are Not As Good... →
One of our company mantras is that, if done correctly, calling campaigns are a great way to bring in predictable amounts of forecast quarter after quarter. Unfortunately, a lot of teams out there just haven’t mastered the whole “done correctly” part. We try to be delicate when asked to critique our client’s internal efforts. “Well, telling the prospect to buy from you or else they’re stupid may...
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AG Salesworks Employee Spotlight: Kevin
When you walk through the doors of AG the first thing you will see is Kevin’s smiling face waiting to welcome you. He came to AG 3 years ago after graduating from UMass Amherst with a degree in Marketing and a minor in IT. Kevin is a huge Boston sports fan and loves going to the Celtics and Sox games. Anyone who knows Kevin understands that his favorite thing in the world is his Bengal cat...
“B2B customers are vastly more sophisticated than consumers, because their...”
– http://onforb.es/r7lkAH on closing a B2B deal (via b2binwords)
How to increase profits in Complex B2B Sales →
visualoop:
Via
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Don’t Let Your Inside Sales Team become “Almost...
“It’s all happening!” Almost Famous is one of my all-time favorite movies. I decided to watch it again over the weekend, and was surprised to realize that some of the issues that come up in the film are actually very relevant to inside sales. If you’ve never seen Almost Famous before, go watch it right now. Come on, you’re sitting here reading a blog; you can’t be doing anything that important....
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AG Salesworks Employee Spotlight: Laney
Laney began working at AG almost 6 years ago after graduating from Bryant University with a degree in Marketing. She now works as a Director of Client Operations. Laney took a one year hiatus from AG, but as one employee put it “she realized the horrible mistake she made and came crawling back – even better than before.”
In her free time she enjoys cooking, skiing (her father invented the...
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3 Teleprospecting Tactics From A Tough Mudder
This past weekend I completed my first ever Tough Mudder event, “Probably the Toughest Event on the Planet.” It is described as a 10-12 mile mud run straight up the face of Mount Snow in Vermont, complete with 26 obstacles designed by British Special Forces, and meant to test each Mudder on strength, stamina, mental grit, and camaraderie. For me, it was more like 10 miles of vertical Hell flavored...
How Does Your Inside Sales Team Deliver A Message?
A lot has been written lately on the AG Salesworks Blog about different approaches to inside sales/teleprospecting and specifically about having “business conversations” with the right people within our target audiences. Recently, I was reading a number of articles from various sources on the web, and I stumbled upon an article posted on Inc. by Tom Searcy titled, “What a 9-Year-Old Can Teach you...
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Be Prepared And Make The Most Out Of Your 30...
There are several factors that go into a successful weekly client call. The objective is to make the most out of the 30 minutes you have. You need to remember to talk strategy,discuss opportunities passed, active pipeline, how the list sources are and what the audience is saying. You need to deliver on “take away’s” and action items from the previous week and always be punctual with dead lines....
2 Management Mistakes That Led To Business Lessons
I’ve had my fair share of management mistakes over the last 15 years. Some are far to epic to openly admit via this blog. Mistakes, while horrendous in the near term, can serve you well later on. Looking back on some of my doozies, I remembered some more substantial ones from my days as an entry level manager in the hotel industry.
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AG Salesworks Employee Spotlight: Ricca
Ricca (aka The Vulture) took a while to find AG Salesworks after graduating from Bryant University with a Business Management degree. He had trolled around the Insurance, Restaurant, and Real Estate industry before being referred to AG by a childhood friend. Ricca has moved from a Business Development role into a Manager of Client Operations. When asked about a favorite AG moment, Ricca...
Don't Let Negative Energy Affect Your Day: A... →
Most of us have been in that situation in life where we wish we had a great response to a snarky comment thrown our way. Instead of saying something witty in return, we sit there dumfounded, unable to say anything at all. Of course, we allow it to eat away at us for weeks wishing we had a sharp response in return, but what does that solve? You’ve just wasted two weeks dedicating negative energy...
