Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Talking About My Generation And Yours

One of the most common ways we tend to define generational gaps today is by the way we think about B2B technology and how we let it influence our lives and our work. 

I can say that with some authority. Even though we here at Engage are advanced technology users in our daily work, at times I still find it a little mystifying how younger generations are using technology. (Can someone please explain to me the legitimate appeal of Snapchat?)

It’s okay to say no to chasing every trend that pops up in the digital zeitgeist, but you owe it to yourself and to the organization you lead to keep an open mind about how new technologies can help you improve your work as a B2B sales leader.

This past weekend, a certain sports team challenged me to be optimistic.

You guessed it: The Patriots.

While I’m not a fervent football fan by any means, I grew up in the New England area and have an avid sports fanatic of a father. After many years questioning what this or that meant, I’ve finally reached a point where I not only understand the rules of the game (well, most of them), but where I also can get worked up and over-excited by certain plays.

You know the plays I’m talking about. This Superbowl, there were plenty: interceptions on both teams, crazy catches that seem more luck than skill, and insane rushes that are simply unbelievable. This year, I wasn’t scrolling through my iPhone throughout the game (I wasn’t even tweeting), I was paying attention. And that cost me some energy.

As sales development reps, our time is precious.  It is essential that we manage our time in the most productive and efficient way possible in order to hit our goals, stay organized, and keep our clients happy.

The following are some tips I‘ve found make my day run smoother and allow me to make the most out of every day in the office. 

1. Lay out your day; have a plan.

Planning out your day as a sales development representative is a must, especially if you are working on multiple projects. I like to start off the day after my morning meeting by checking my inbox for each project and responding to any emails that I received after hours the day before. Responding first thing in the morning also gives prospects the whole day to get back to you. Creating a morning routine like this one is a great way to be productive while your cup of coffee wakes you up!

AG Salesworks is pleased to bring you a guest post from Emma Snider, staff writer for the HubSpot Sales Blog. 

Twitter is all about clarity and brevity. Want to express a thought that’s longer than 140 characters? Tough luck. The platform forces users to trim messages down to what’s absolutely essential.

You have a bit more real estate to work with for your bio, but not much. 160 characters is all the social network affords users for their profile descriptions.

For sales development reps seeking to dive into social selling, this is both a blessing and a curse. As opposed to a LinkedIn profile, a Twitter bio offers much less real estate. So while salespeople can spend hours or days trying to craft the perfect LinkedIn page, writing a Twitter profile is not nearly as time-consuming.

Getting back to the gym after the holidays is always fun. Everyone has their resolution to get back in shape after eating obscene amounts over the previous month. Of course, you end up having to deal with a sea of people taking up literally every piece of equipment that the gym has to offer. It's certainly enticing, since most gyms nowadays can offer memberships at $10 a month. Out of curiosity, I asked a friend who works at the gym what the sales numbers look like this time of year since the fees are so low. She said that they typically see a 35% growth in new membership in January, which you come to expect this time of year. 

While new sales are obviously very important for them focus on, she said that their corporate offices spend much of their time focused on what their "active membership" looks like. The definition of an active gym member would be someone that comes to workout 1 time a week. 

That’s why, before I send our clients a list, I do a separate scrub of my own to make sure all criteria has been met and there isn’t any confusion. Here are the questions I ask prior to importing a list for a new client. 

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest blog from Demian Farnworth, Chief Copywriter at Copyblogger Media. 

To close a sale, a prospect needs to commit to buy (plus a few other steps, but that commitment is crucial). What transforms someone from a cynical prospect into a customer? What factors contribute to commitment?

In short, presentations must be loaded with convincing evidence to prove your product is reliable. The principle is simple: If a company incorporates trust and credibility in its marketing, skepticism naturally fades. Read on for 10 essential principles to build belief, sweep aside distrust, and close sales.

If you’re selling something, you need to be persuasive. But you don’t need to be annoying.

Case in point: I was at the gym the other day, in the middle of a sweaty elliptical workout, when a trainer came over and asked if my name was Christine. Apparently he was asking every woman in the gym because Christine did not show up on time for her appointment. I told him that my name was Allie, and expected him to mosey along, but instead he struck up a conversation with me. While I was out of breath. And - it bears repeating - extremely sweaty. He wanted to know how often I came to the gym, when I’d be coming in next, whether I was making any fitness goals in the New Year, and then he had the audacity to ask if he could make an appointment with me for next week. Even though I made it clear that I “like to do my own thing,” he insisted, so I told him I’d be back next week and I’d find him then.

It’s that time of year again, and the “new year, new me” attitude will be in full effect for at least another few weeks or so. It doesn’t hurt to also start developing steps to improve and enhance your performance at work to make this year even better than the last. One way to improve in the New Year is to start at the foundation, and for many of us B2B sales development reps, that means cleaning up the database. After all, quality data is the key to success in inside sales. Here are 3 steps to B2B data management:

1. Become familiar with your database system and its capabilities.

A huge overhaul of your entire database is both unnecessary and unrealistic as you start off the New Year. Just because you have a new goal to improve your organization and clean up your data does not mean you suddenly have all the extra time to do so. In order to effectively clean up your data, you have to start small and ensure that the process does not become overwhelming. No matter what system you use to organize your data, it is imperative that you become familiar with just what your system is capable of and develop a consistent method to use these features.

After a long hiatus, #ProspectingChat on AG Saleswork's Twitter account is back this week! We'll be discussing how to perfect your response rate, replete with with Donato Diorio, CEO of RingLead.  

Today we'll be discussing best practices for perfecting your response rate over email, voicemail and social platforms. We'll share creative sales prospecting techniques, ways to make the "follow-up" more effective, some bad habits and good habits to follow, and more.