Sales Prospecting Perspectives

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.

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.

In leiu of recent events here in Boston, I think it makes sense to skip this week's share post and instead focus on the victims of this week's tragedy. Our CEO, Paul Alves, posted earlier this week about the struggle between good and evil and we mentioned a local organization, TUGG (Technology Underwriting Greater Good) who had begun a fundraiser supporting the local victims and families. I wanted to take this opportunity to mention again this great cause as well as invite any of our readers who want to donate to do so. There has been overwhelming support generated and a great sense of community established in this wonderful city many of us call home. Though our community has been rocked by the events that have unfolded, we have created an even stronger bond and sense of resilience that two men alone can not and will not break.

Sales 2.0 or social selling are the hottest topics at this years conferences and trade shows. Organizations of all sizes are finally realizing they need to have a social presence and some form of social strategy in place. The problem is, most organizations don't know where to start or what sort of process to have in place to best utilize the social intelligence these channels provide.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Nicki Escudero, Social Media and Content Stategist for CX. 

Don’t think of cloud storage as simply a virtual location to store your precious data. It’s also an effective tool in increasing sales and making the sales process much more effective, with collaborative features that make working together easier than ever. Below, find six ways you can use cloud storage to benefit your sales.

Recently, I was lucky enough to attend the AA-ISP Leadership Summit at the Palmer House in Chicago. It was a great event which was well attended by many great companies and thought leaders within the inside sales industry.  I came away thinking about two things: the inside sales role is truly evolving and many organizations realize they should have a social selling strategy, but most don’t realize how to do it or what to do with it.

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a guest post from Tom Knight, COO of SurgeryFlow.

Over the first quarter of the year, and in particular the last month, we have heard this question a lot.

For many, the question stems from doubt about the ability of Sales to produce replicable results, and for others it stems from a desire not to leave anything on the table. In both instances the answer is the same:

It's the final day of the month and the quarter; I'm sure there are a lot of elevated blood pressures today! Isn't it wonderful when these things fall on a Friday? Hopefully your sales pipeline is not the reason for the added stress and anxiety that comes with the last day of a quarter. One way to feed the pipeline is to start getting more social; integrating social selling practices in with your sales process. This week's share discusses social selling and comes from Brian Bachofner of InsideView who compared social selling vs. social prospecting and discussed some of the key activities being used by sales professionals and some of the key behaviors in determining a high performer. Brian cited multiple industry experts and discussed some of the findings from their ebooks, survey's and research to formulate is own opinion on the topic of social prospecting. Brian's view on social prospecting is "it's the measurable and trackable aspect of Social Selling that’s creating focus there. The ROI is simple to measure." He also states that social prospecting is "the easiest (activity) to deploy, but also the easiest to do WRONG." A great read from Brian, who will be assisting in managing and contributing content for Social Selling University until a new "Dean" has been found.  

Sales Prospecting Perspectives is pleased to bring you a post from Business Development Representative Kyle Smith.

I recently made a trip back to my Alma mater to conduct some on campus interviews of college seniors. Each person we interviewed had applied for the position of entry level Business Development Representative. We had a lot of great candidates and also a couple of really bad ones. Through the interview process, I started to recognize all of the similarities between a job interview and a cold call. I could easily go through one of the more promising interviews and say why it was good, but instead, I’d rather review one of the ones that didn't turn out so well.

Sales Prospecting Perspective is pleased to bring you a guest post from Jon Ferrara, CEO of Nimble, a social CRM solution. 

People born at the turn of the 20th century saw a lot of change over their lifetimes. They went from horse to automobile, from oil lamps to electricity...saw the transformation of medical care, science, and society. Huge changes -- but those changes seem as slow as Ice Age glacier movement compared to what happens now.