Sales Prospecting Perspectives

Last week during a family dinner, I tried to explain to my parents what Linkedin was and how, as an inside sales rep, I utilize it for prospecting. Despite the fact that every time my father wants to text a member of our family he replies to a mass text I sent him months ago, resulting in the entire family receiving it, and the fact that my mother asks questions like, “Did you hear about what that celebrity wrote on their Tweeter-bird page?”, they seemed understand what I was saying.  

This is a sales blog, so if you are reading this, you’re most likely already a Linkedin pro. If not, you should check out our guide to resourcefulness, which includes basic information about how to get started on LinkedIn. This post is for a more intermediate audience, so after reading that, come right back!

Before I entered the world of sales, I worked as a preschool teacher for a few years.  I truly enjoyed being a teacher and loved spending my days reading stories and singing songs.  Sometimes I miss it, but I do like to go home at the end of each day without someone else’s boogers on me.  

Teaching preschoolers and working in sales may seem like very different worlds, but there are many things I learned during my time as Miss Colleen that I can apply to my current job as an inside sales rep. Here are some sales tips from a former preschool teacher.

As a Business Development Representative for tech companies, I understand that organizations can be hesitant to implement new technologies.  I have heard many different reasons as to why companies don’t want to change what they are already using or put new software or systems into place: the cost is too high, it doesn’t fit their needs, or it just isn’t a priority at the time.  One reason I often hear is that the company won’t be able to persuade their employees to start using the new technology.

Today is an exciting d­­ay in our office.  As I write this blog, there are people walking by wearing Uncle Sam costumes and American flag tattoos, donning enormous gold chains and carrying bedazzled chalices, and sporting red lucha libre masks.

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.

Today, you can learn a lot about a person without ever meeting them, simply by checking out their various social media accounts. You can find out what someone’s favorite bands or films are from their Facebook, see pictures of what they had for lunch on their Instagram, and learn where they work and what they do from their Linkedin profile. 

This post is a continuation of Monday’s post, in which I looked at Linkedin and Facebook and discussed their benefits as B2B marketing platforms.  If you missed Monday’s post, check it out here and then come back to read the remainder of my thoughts on this subject.

Social media is becoming more and more prevalent in marketing today.  With so many different social media platforms out there, it can be hard to know which to use, which to ignore, and how to go about leveraging all these different media outlets. Personally, I think it is important to make use of all the social sites and their specific features. You want to be sure that any potential customer or client will be able to find you and your name where ever they look, otherwise they will find a competitor. Social media is an easy and free way to get your business’ name and message out there, so there is no excuse to not be taking advantage of these simple marketing instruments.