B2B Sales Prospecting Perspectives
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Why #SmallBusinesses Might Be Getting It Wrong about #SocialMedia [#Infographic]
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Google Glass spotted on the #NYC subway… (at MTA Subway - 34th St/Penn Station (A/C/E))
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Do you know what to look for when hiring a teleprospector? If you’re an inside sales rep, are you displaying the right qualities to drive you and your company to success?
As always, AG Salesworks wants to provide your business with the best possible advice for approaching inside sales as a rep and a manager. “50 Best Qualities of a Great Inside Sales Rep,” a new daily feature, will do just that. Every day, we will post a quality and explanation on Facebook and Twitter. This list will help inside sales reps know which elements of their personality are best for the sales arena and help managers know what to look for when hiring teleprospectors. If you have anything to add, comment below or reply to our tweets, and we’ll get back to you (and in the case of Twitter, retweet you) right away!
#1. Today’s quality is confidence. Many job applications for inside sales reps ask for a “confident” individual. But what does that word mean, and where is the line between confident and conceited? Teleprospectors who are confident feel certain they will succeed in selling their products; they are not vain, or overly proud, but merely convinced they have what it takes to pass a lead. Inside sales reps who have confidence in their persuasive abilities and in the products they are selling will succeed.
How would you define confidence for an inside sales rep? What other qualities do you think an inside sales rep needs to succeed? Comment here or reply on our Twitter, @AGSalesworks.
How often do you hear someone say, “Optimism sells.” How about, “Be more optimistic!” In sales, optimism is essential for success. But just saying the words won’t do the trick; you need to train your mind, using cognitive techniques. You need the tools to actually practice optimism.
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Michael Boyette, Chief Training Writer at the Rapid Learning Institute.
Your file of prior proposals to your existing customers may be an excellent source of new business.
Top performers make a habit of digging deeper than the first problem that surfaces when developing a needs analysis for a new sales prospect. That comes with the territory when you are doing consultative selling the right way. After all, you need to surface all the potential issues – it’s why you asked all those probing questions, right?
I love social media. I love to browse photos of my friends, family and strangers on Instagram, I love to read pointless status updates on Facebook from people I haven’t seen since 2004, I love to scroll through movie stills, silly GIFs and quotes in clever typography on Tumblr, and I love to read jokes and random thoughts consisting of less than 140 characters on Twitter.
If you are as big a fan of NBC’s Thursday night comedy lineup as I am then you know that tonight is the series finale of The Office. If you watch the show (who hasn’t watched this show?) then you know that Dwight Schrute is absolutely insane. However, he is also Dunder Mifflin’s top salesman, so he is obviously doing something right. NBC.com put together a collection of Dwight’s top sales tips, which are, like Dwight, insane. I’ve selected a few of my favorites to tone down and translate into language the everyday sales rep could grasp.
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Erica Bell, Marketing Management writer for business resource site Business.com.
Conflicts – all offices have them and all employees will encounter at least one during their working days. Economics and cultural differences between sales and marketing departments can cause conflicts in the workplace that ultimately hinder your profits and the performance of your business. Don’t let your business become a victim to the clash of the department titans. Get your sales and marketing teams working together effectively for greater success and a boost in your bottom line.
Those of us who have teleprospected in our day know that getting prospects to open up to inside sales person is no easy task. At times it can seem like pulling teeth for them to give us anything at all.
Now I’m not referring to situations where you’re following up on a warm lead from a webinar, tradeshow, website visit. Those don’t count. No, I’m referring to the calls when you finally get your target title on the line for the first time, you ask them your first probing question and they say something to the effect:
“Why the %$$# would I tell you that!?”.
Last week, I was thinking about how much time I spend making dials and speaking with prospects, talking with my team, and corresponding with clients via phone and email. As a business development representative at AG Salesworks, I work closely with my director and manager on my team to ensure that I focus my time on the most important tasks. In a normal day, I communicate with my manager, director, other business development representatives, and other key players in our organization. I also speak with my client almost daily to make sure I have the most relevant contacts at the top of my list. In order to maximize time on the phones passing qualified leads, it is essential to have meaningful conversations with the other people that are important to speak with on a daily basis.
It has long been our philosophy at AG Salesworks to create an enjoyable work environment. We have done a great job, and continue to work toward finding ways to enjoy ourselves while striving for excellence.
Yesterday was our first of what will be a monthly company event. Given the fact that we crushed our customer’s goals last month, we decided to treat the entire team to a Red Sox game. We got our work done and cut out a little early to spend what turned out to be a beautiful evening at Fenway Park.
Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Dan Vuksanovich, the Website Traffic Increaser Guy.
We all want leads. Better yet, we all want qualified leads. A sales rep’s first duty is usually to ask some probing questions of a new lead in order to determine if the prospect’s interests are aligned with whatever that sales rep has to sell. Wouldn’t it be great, though, if leads would pre-qualify themselves? With Integrated Marketing Communications, they can and will.
